Snow Bond

by Ross Richdale

  Overall, her investigations had produced far more than she had expected, especially after all those years. Ian would be pleased.

  She smiled to herself when she thought about Ian, chastised herself for still being interested in him and went to bed.

  THE INSPECTOR AT THE RCMP BC headquarters in Vancouver glanced up and turned his computer monitor so Vernon Willis could see it.

  "Our latest tests of the DNA appear to support your theory that this Professor Joseph Hardy Mr Willis was involved. Can you tell me in your own words what you think happened on the day the late Ethan Yang died?

  Vernon gulped. Even though he had retired and the inspector had no influence over him, he was still nervous.

  "Just relax and tell me in your own words, Vernon," the inspector said.

  Once Vernon started talking he forgot about being nervous and told what he thought happened on that fateful day.

  ONE OF ETHAN YANG'S favourite ways to relax away from the intense pressures of academic life was to go skiing. He loved the solitude of the long downhill slopes and after almost two decades of skiing since beginning as a six year old, was now quite an expert though he could not spend as much time as he would have liked participating in this activity.

  The previous month had been stressful for two completely unrelated reasons. On the family front, his parents had objected to his quite serious relationship with a young Caucasian woman rather than their traditional choice of a Chinese girl from one of the prosperous fourth generation Chinese families in Vancouver.

  The woman of their choice was a pleasant enough person that he had dated a few times at high school but university life had broadened his outlook and he had no wish to return to the autocratic life where his grandparents still ruled his parents and his own generation. Nor did he wish to return to marriage for the sake of the family hierarchy. His mother was quite liberal but was afraid to go against his father's family. In contrast, Arianne was a completely liberated young woman only two years younger than himself who rarely mentioned her parents who came from Calgary in Alberta. He had known her since under graduate days but their relationship had only become serious over the previous few months.

  The argument he had had with his father was almost brutal and ended when he told him he had no interest in continuing the family business and if power and money was his only interest, he was the sorry for him. At that point, he walked out, left the family home and had no contact with them since. He grinned to himself as he took the Skyline Double chairlift up to the top from where he would ski down the Outrigger slopes. In some ways, it had been helpful for Arianne invited him to share an old house with him. There were three other women there but the arrangement worked out well for everyone.

  Arianne was on the ski field with him but was less experienced than he was and preferred to stay on the beginner slopes though she had graduated to the intermediate slopes with him earlier that day. She persuaded him to have one last ski on the long steep slope recommended for experts while she'd go back to the ski lodge where they were staying and prepare a home meal. After an extended weekend at the ski field they would be returning to Vancouver the following day, Arianna to her MA studies and himself to his research.

  He frowned. That was the second problem in his life. The confrontation with his father was bad enough but the one with Doctor Joseph Hardy was worse. The man was arrogant and knew less about genetic research than he did. Hardy would not admit that of course. Further to this was the discovery was that a paper he had submitted as part of his thesis had been reproduced almost word for word by the doctor with no acknowledgement at all that he was the person who researched the project and had written his results up.

  "You will acknowledge that the research and paper was my own with little or no input by yourself, Doctor Hardy," Ethan said in a stormy meeting, "Otherwise I shall take the matter to the University Complaints and Ethics Tribunal."

  "It will be your word against mine," Hardy hissed. "If you go back through all of this year's research you will find no proof that the research was your own. Having your family pull strings for you won't work this time. I know that much of our funding for genetic research comes from your family but it doesn't mean that they can control it to benefit their son. The results written up in the paper could have come from several post-graduate students or my fellow researchers. This was set out in the acknowledgement appendix."

  "But it didn't and I can prove it," Ethan retorted.

  "How?"

  Ethan actually grinned. "That will be disclosed in my report to the Complaints and Ethics Tribunal. You have one week to acknowledge that I was the author of that latest paper, Doctor Hardy or I shall go to them."

  "I will not be blackmailed!" Hardy stormed.

  "It's not blackmail," Ethan whispered. "It is claiming what is rightfully mine."

  That week was almost up and when he returned he would proceed and show Hardy he wasn't bluffing.

  Ethan glanced ahead at the afternoon shadows cut across the snow. The world looked so beautiful with the solitude, the hiss of his skis cutting through the snow. He heard a something different! There was a sort of swishing snow; something hit him in the chest... He felt excruciating pain and saw something vibrating in his jacket as he fought to main balance.

  He failed!

  A flurry of snow covered him as he plunged down beside the trail. His last thoughts were of a smiling Arianne looking down at him... but it wasn't Arianne but Joseph Hardy who stood in the snow with a smirk across his face. The man reached forward, grabbed the thing that had hit him and, without a word, yanked it out.

  Ethan felt strangely warm; his jacket was sticky as blood gushed out. What a mess! Arianne gave him the new jacket. What would she think?

  He attempted to sit up but was pushed back and a snow boot held him down as everything turned into a blur followed by... nothing!

  VERNON LOOKED ACROSS at the RCMP inspector when he finished his view of the scenario that ended in Ethan Yang's death and made a closing statement.

  "The official coroner's report stated that Yang became impaled in the branches of a hemlock tree that killed him after he left the marked course and plunged down over a steep cliff. The ski-field owners were deemed responsible. However, I believe Ethan Yang was hit by a high-powered arrow fired from a crossbow as he was skiing down one of the steep remote slopes at Hemlock Valley Resort. He was seriously injured and plunged down beside the designated course.

  The person who shot the arrow that I believe was Hardy, skied down to Yang and pulled out the arrow. At that point the victim bled to death. In doing so Hardy left his DNA on Yang's clothing. He dragged the body to a nearby ravine and pushed him over. He was probably dead or close to it before that happened."

  "But it would have taken an expert to hit a fast moving skier with a crossbow," the inspector pointed out.

  Vernon nodded. "I realised that this was a major flaw in my argument after it was rejected by the coroner in his report. Later I followed this up and found that Joseph Hardy was an expert in archery, having practised the sport since he was a teenager. He actually won several national awards in his native New Zealand and almost gained a place in their 1988 Seoul Olympics team."

  The inspector nodded before he switched off the computer monitor before him.

  "It will be up to our judiciary system to make a final decision on whether to overturn the coroner's report and ask for a new ruling in light of your findings or reopen the entire case. I shall, though, recommend to my own superiors that the later be done. If there has been a miscarriage of justice, Mr Willis, I assure you that it will be thoroughly investigated."

  The inspector stood and reached for Vernon's hand.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was late summer when Renee walked off the aeroplane and into the terminal at Auckland Domestic Terminal. She was there as a witness in the case against her ex-husband to testify that he had been violent against her during their marriage.

  She had accepted Aza and S
ofia's offer to stay with them during her stay in the city and had been told that she would be met in the lounge near the Air New Zealand counter. She found her bag and arrived at the meeting place where passengers were walking through or just waiting around in a typical airport scene. There was, though nobody that looked remotely like either Aza or Sofia.

  One heavily pregnant woman who stood nearby turned and Renee gasped.

  "Aza!" she exclaimed when she recognised the face. "You never told me you were pregnant. How..."

  Aza moved across and hugged her.

  "Surprise, Renee. Even when we were having video chats on the iPhone, I made a point of not showing my somewhat enlarged tummy."

  "Who?" Renee stuttered and corrected herself. "Sorry, I guess it is none of my business."

  "Of course it is," Aza replied. "After all, it happened at East Ridge."

  "Ian?"

  "Yes, I proved to be particularly fertile those eight months back. We did it on a few more occasions while I was there but without Sofia's knowledge; back here in Auckland, too."

  "But you're still living with Sofia. Didn't you say you planned to buy a little house or apartment together?"

  Aza laughed. "We did."

  Renee frowned, "And Ian? I'll be meeting him before the trial but he spoke of nothing personal. How does this pregnancy affect everything?"

  Aza sighed. "I took your advice."

  "What advice?"

  "The one about pretending to be bisexual for Sofia's sake. We sleep in a double bed now and I find... oh hell Renee, do I have to spell it out for you?"

  "And Ian?"

  "Oh he moved on. I believe he picked up with an old partner he's now living with but she doesn't know he fathered my child."

  "Couldn't you have got an abortion?"

  "Actually, I was going to but Sofia dissuaded me. She said that if we were going to be a family we needed children. " Aza grinned. "It wasn't planned but I got the job."

  "And males?"

  "We have a liberal arrangement. Ian visited me on occasions until he moved in with this Paige, his old partner. She's a lawyer too, I think. After the baby is born, who knows?

  "Oh hell."

  Aza grinned. "I know. If my parents were alive they'd disown me, not only for becoming pregnant out of wedlock but also for living with Sofia. They were quite religious in one of those narrow-minded faiths that I rejected as soon as I turned eighteen. Never been back, since."

  "So how's Sofia?"

  "Just the same. She's waiting in the car at one of those five-minute parks. She thought we'd better not leave the car in case she had to move on." Aza ran a hand over her tummy. "I thought I'd come in to spring you the news."

  "My God, you did but what about your job at the university?"

  "On maternity leave. They're pretty generous in allocating it." Aza laughed as they headed out of the terminal.

  IT WAS AFTER THE LUNCH break on the third day of the trial when Renee was called into the courtroom as a witness against her formal husband, Larry Brooks who was being charged for the murder of his infant child and also to the charge of attempted murder of Jocelyn O'Sullivan, the child's mother and his partner at that time.

  The Crown Prosecutor's briefing just repeated what Ian had told her. In her case she was being called as a witness to help build up a case about Brooks' personality. This would help quash the defence lawyer's statement that he was a successful businessman highly regarded in the community. He warned that she could be subjected to somewhat personal cross examination by the defence who would try to show that she was prejudiced against her former husband and the jury should therefore disregard her testimony.

  She walked in and glanced across at Larry Brooks. What she saw was a middle-aged man who had aged over the last decade. His greying hair had receded and he was noticeably heavier by twenty or more kilograms than her memory of him. Even in a well-fitted suit his pot stomach indicated that a life of too much alcohol and lack of exercise had caught up with him. His eyes appeared different too for instead of being piercing and demanding, even across the courtroom they appeared downcast and almost hesitant, something she had not expected.

  Just before arriving at the witness box she heard challenge from a defence attorney so she stopped and just stood there.

  The judge, a middle aged man glanced up.

  "Your reason, Justice Shuker?"

  "Ms Steven's testimony is irrelevant in this case, Your Honour. It is over a decade since she was associated with our client."

  The judge turned to the Crown Prosecutor. "And your reason for calling her, Madam Tate?"

  "She was once Larry Brooks' wife and had a similar experience to Jocelyn O'Sullivan..." Diane Tate continued on with a quite long explanation only to be interrupted by Defence Attorney Hardy.

  "This was dealt with in a previous trial, Your Honour. Also in my opinion, using Ms Stevens as a witness falls foul of the double jeopardy laws of our country."

  "May we approach the bench, Your Honour?" Diane Tate asked.

  "If you must," mumbled the judge.

  The two barristers as well as Ian approached the bench and spoke in a whisper that Renee nor anyone else in the court could hear. She had, though been warned by Ian who was the supporting solicitor for the Crown Prosecutor that this may happen. In this private conversation Ian would tell the judge that five other women had been approached to testify at this trial but were all too frightened to come forward. This could be interpreted as heresy by a more conservative judge but the views of this judge were unknown. The conversation continued for several moments and by the participants' body languages, Renee realised it had become heated.

  Afterwards, the stony-faced lawyers returned to their benches while the judge spent a moment studying a computer before him. Finally he glanced up and waited for any faint whispers throughout the room to stop

  "I have overruled the challenge." He turned to Renee who was still standing a couple of metres away from the witness stand. "You may take the stand as a witness, Ms Stevens."

  Renee had of course, no idea about what previous witnesses had said but had been told to just answer the questions to the best of her ability and to maintain a neutral stance. For over an hour Diane Tate as well as Ian asked her questions about her life with Larry Brooks. Her explanations about the physical and psychological violence did affect her. Dark memories flooded back and at one point when her unborn child was mentioned she couldn't control tears that slid down her cheeks. She was handed a tissue by a court clerk and was asked by the judge if she required a break.

  "No Your Honour," she replied. "I can continue."

  "Very well."

  "I have no more questions," the Crown Prosecutor added.

  The cross-examination by Justice Shuker was blunt. He stood and peered directly into her eyes in a manner that made Renee again think back. The expression with that almost faint sarcastic look reminded her of the sadistic Larry Brooks who looked that way before he'd started tormenting or thrashing her. It did, though affect her in the opposite way to what the defence attorney probably wished. Instead of becoming intimidated she felt adrenalin arise inside her. Damn the man, she was not about to let him undermine her account of the terrifying life she had had with her formal husband.

  Shuker began softly, almost sympathetically but suddenly his attitude changed.

  "I put it to you, Ms Stevens that your whole testimony is a vindictive account of your marriage to Mr Brooks, a perverted exaggeration aimed at ruining your former husband's reputation." He stopped and again glowered at her with that gloating grin.

  He was attempting to rile her into perhaps screaming back. Even if disallowed by the judge his cross-examination would achieve the aim of showing her as an unstable, emotional ex-wife whose whole account was unreliable. Renee turned her eyes onto him and said not one word.

  "Well!" Shuker was the one who raised his voice several seconds later.

  "You did not ask a question Justice Shuker so I have nothing to s
ay."

  She glanced across at the jury and saw several give slight grins.

  "The witness is correct, Justice Shuker," the judge said. "If you rephrase your statement as a question, I am sure Ms Stevens will reply."

  "I withdraw the statement, Your Honour."

  Renee knew the attack had failed and probably most of the jury realised that too. After a few more almost condescending questions Shuker completed his cross-examination and Renee was told she could step down. On the way out she glanced across at Ian who grinned and gave her a tiny thumbs up signal. So he thought she had done okay? That gesture more than made up for the gruelling two hours she had spent in the witness stand.

  ALTHOUGH RENEE WAS discharged as a witness, she continued to follow the trial from the spectator gallery. It dragged on for two more days with numerous witnesses giving technical evidence about the car crash showing that it had been sabotaged. The defence readily acknowledged this but they insisted that it could have been anybody who did the act and that there was no proof that Brooks was responsible.

  The final witness for The Crown was Jocelyn O'Sullivan who gave a heart rendering account of her life with Brooks. This included threats he made to kill her when she attempted to leave the relationship. The defence did, though, manage to twist her words and made it appear that none of her accusations could be backed up by independent witnesses so it was really just her words against Brooks. There was also a brutal character assassination attempt in the cross examination that was partly blocked when Diane Tate successfully challenged Shuker's questioning by stating that it was not Jocelyn O'Sullivan on trial and her personal life was of not relevant in this trial.