Street Legal

by William Deverell

  Chuck came back through the house, leading a man and a woman in uniform. Leon observed they seemed more than a little rattled.

  The policewoman froze in her tracks when she recognized Edwin Moodie. Her gun was quickly on him.

  “Honest, I didn’t do it,” Moodie said.

  ***

  Jock Strachan, deciding he had seen enough blood for the night, worked his way through the melee of investigators in the house, and went outside for a breath of the hot, clammy air that had descended on Toronto after the storm.

  The back yard was only slightly less busy than the house — Strachan had brought in two entire crime-scene units. A crew from the morgue was standing by with stretchers, waiting for ident to finish with the corpses.

  Four bodies in this house, two in the G & C Building. Strachan was a little in awe of the efficient killing machine that was Michel Lachance.

  Harold Mitchell had played Dr. Frankenstein to the hilt, he had created a monster.

  The inspector was standing over there leaning against a tree, his hands in his pockets, looking too smug for a man who had jeopardized his police career with all his hanky-panky. But though the best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley, Operation Sweet Revenge had somehow succeeded. Strachan assumed there’d be a hush-up of some kind.

  Lachance had long ago been taken away in a wagon, cuffed, shackled, silent, his face locked into an expressionless mask. But Strachan had seen the burning hatred in his eyes as they settled one last time on Carrington Barr.

  And she had stared right back, with a puzzled look — as if she had not recognized him. Carrie had been taken beyond the gates of hell tonight. War trauma — Strachan had seen it before, in the faces of the men he had served with in the battle for Brittany. Some had never completely recovered.

  A doctor had now joined the nurse attending Carrie, who sat swaddled in a blanket, shivering despite the heat of the night. She was studying some papers at the wooden patio table. Her two partners were standing by.

  “Fogerty, Wilcox.”

  The two young officers jumped simultaneously. They’d been standing about uselessly, whispering nervously to each other, their debriefing finished. Strachan had left that task to his partner — he’d needed time to get his temper under control.

  “Get your rear ends over here.”

  They came forward, neither able to make eye contact.

  “Taking a coop in the car were you? You dinna want to get wet? A wee too much effort to check on the house once in a while?” Strachan fished from his back pocket the paperback found on the front seat of their car. “But maybe you just couldn’t tear yourself away from Invasion of the Ant People. In my book, there’ll nae be a happy ending. Bugger off now, the both of you, and be in my office at eight o’clock sharp. Now get out of my sight!”

  His bellow chased them away and for a few moments silenced the buzz of conversation in the yard. Strachan looked at his watch. Three o’clock. He would try to catch a couple of hours of coop himself. More important, it was time for Carrie to get some rest.

  He walked over to Leon and Chuck. “How is she now?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” Leon said. “She keeps reading those poems Moodie gave her. Over and over. She doesn’t seem to want to talk.”

  “I asked her if she wanted me to call Ted,” Chuck said, “but it only seemed to make her more upset.”

  “The doctor’s taking her to Women’s College Hospital,” Chuck said.

  Strachan bent to her. “Carrie?”

  She looked up, her eyes slightly glazed. “Yes, Jock?”

  Good, she recognized him. “You’re a brave bonnie girl, Carrington. I want you to go with the doctor. We’ll nae need you for a day or so. Just rest.”

  “Where’s Mr. Moodie?” Her words were barely a whisper.

  “He’s over there talking to some policemen.”

  “He’s not the Midnight Strangler.”

  “No. He’s a hero.”

  “I think I know who it is.” She frowned, looked puzzled. “I thought I did. I forget.”

  Strachan turned to the doctor, who nodded. “I’ll be giving her something,” she said.

  Strachan patted Carrie’s arm and walked down to the alley. Time to feed the ravenous press, a large number of whom were standing outside the ribbon barricade.

  But he detoured to join Moodie and the officers attending him. “We’re going to put you in a hotel for a few nights, Edwin. I don’t want reporters bothering you, okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  Strachan turned to go, then paused. He couldn’t help smiling a little, remembering the time he’d been cuffed to Moodie in the courtroom — when the witness fingered Strachan as the Midnight Strangler.

  “You ever read Robbie Burns, Edwin? He said an honest man’s the noblest work of God.”

  Moodie smiled broadly. “My love is like a red, red rose, That’s newly sprung in June. I know that one.”

  “Good lad.”

  Strachan adjusted his bow tie, then went off to deal with the press.

  30

  September 10, 1980. Temperature outside plus nineteen Celsius. A perfect day, though hinting at the bite of coming autumn. A day for walking. Carrington Barr had made it from her new apartment to the new Queen Street offices in seventeen minutes, twenty-five seconds. Not exactly a world record, but not bad for a smoker trying to quit. Again.

  She had spotted Leon down the street at Barney’s, enjoying breakfast with a few dignitaries from the Queen West Merchants’ Association. Good old Leon — companion, care-giver, full-time mensch. Two tickets to the symphony tonight. Picnics, bike rides, dinners out, dinners in. A lovely Labour Day weekend with him and his feisty, gregarious mother at his parents’ cottage. If only Leon had more of her genes, less of his solemn father’s.

  She saw the new awning had finally been put up. Sort of classy. BARR, ROBINOVITCH, TCHOBANIAN. Leon had insisted Carrie get first billing for the new offices.

  Carrie gave a cheery wave to Pauline. The waiting room was full: a new whiplash, an impaired, and . . . Oh-oh, the computer traffickers had tracked them to their new lair, three suits, three sets of pleading eyes.

  “Mrs. Barr, might we show you the new units today? Desktops and portables.”

  “We’ll take a look. This afternoon at three? I have to rush off to court.”

  As the suits filed out, there came from upstairs, from the Hogtown Actors’ Workshop, a shrill female voice: “Henry, your behaviour is utterly vile.” Then: “Well, you can stuff it up your bleeding arse, Ingrid.”

  The interior designer had recommended sound-absorption tiles. No, Chuck said, we stick with the tall, high ceiling.

  Pauline Chong said, “What are they rehearsing now?”

  “I think it’s a comedy of manners.”

  Carrie piled into the mail. A postcard from her dentist: her pain-free year was over, time for a checkup. Letter from her real-estate agent — the market was a little soft right now, and would she be interested in lowering her asking price? And here, rerouted from the old offices on Bloor, was a letter from some poor sod in the Don Jail. Mail-delayed a month. Some kind of embattled plea for mercy from “our system of injustice.” Blair Johnstone. She knew she should remember that name, but for the moment nothing clicked for her. She would put him on her list of things to do.

  Here, a scrawled note from Edwin Moodie. I’m pleased to tell you I am now working full time at Kelver Cartage. Clipped to the note: a newspaper photo, the mayor giving him a medal for bravery. For your memorybilia, he wrote. What a guy. Street poet laureate.

  “With vigour, Lawrence.” A voice from above, the director’s. “You can stuff it up your bleeding arse! Sing it out.”

  Carrie marched into Chuck’s office.

  “Chuck, install some goddamn soundproofing.”

  �
�Okay, okay, I’ll look after it. Carrie, you sure you want to go to court today?”

  “I don’t want to. I have to.” She was not looking forward to seeing Lachance again, but she had to prove to herself she could. Her psychiatrist had said, “Do it if you feel strongly about it.”

  “So you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay.” She pulled out her pack of Player’s Lights and broke a cigarette in half and lit the part with the filter.

  “I thought you were quitting on Labour Day.”

  “Moved it back a weekend. How is everything on the home front?”

  “Lisa’s gone off the deep end, predictably. Gonna divorce me if I don’t stop acting for Harry Squire. The Wappers claim they have proof positive now: over-consumption of beaver does lead to rape, murder, and pillage.”

  Carrie shrugged. “I gather the Midnight Strangler’s room was piled to the ceiling with those magazines.”

  “Yeah. Turned out he was Squire’s best customer. Harry says the publicity is killing what’s left of his business.”

  “Such a shame.”

  “Saw Ted the other day. He’s been concerned about you, ever since —”

  “I know. We’ve talked on the phone. What’s he up to?”

  “Still picking up the pieces. He has an offer to join Justice, do some drug prosecuting.”

  “Oh, good. It’ll be interesting going up against him.”

  “He thinks you’ve got something happening with Leon. What do I tell him, just old friends?”

  “I don’t know, Leon can’t seem to make a proper pass at me.”

  Chuck laughed.

  Carrie returned to the waiting room to greet Leon, just back from Barney’s.

  “I’m ready,” she said. “I’m tough. I can do it.”

  He smiled. “That’s the old Carrie.”

  She bussed him on the cheek. So supportive. She wished she could light more of a fire for him.

  ***

  As the morning sittings got under way, Old City Hall was full of bustle and clamour — witnesses rushing into courtrooms, lawyers haranguing each other in the corridors. Carrie had missed this, the nervous excitement, the pain and joy of working the courts.

  Judge Vandover had the September shift in One-Eleven Court. A silent, staring mannequin: one hardly even knew he was there. What a relief after I-Don’t-Like-Late. Lots of media here, two mass murderers appearing on the same docket.

  Oliver McAnthony was at the counsel table, playing with his fob and chain, lounging, making a hard chair seem comfortable. All the other chairs were occupied, so Carrie crouched down on one knee beside him.

  “Carrington,” he said in a hearty, welcoming voice. “Excellent. Good to see you back in harness.” He started to rise, offering her the chair, but she gently pulled him back into it.

  “I can’t sign that statement. Really, Oliver, it makes it sound as if I frequent that place. I can hardly say he was a habitué of Digger’s Dell if I only saw him there once.”

  “I shall alter the wording to suit your regard for your reputation. I’m being facetious. We owe you a debt of gratitude. Several, I suppose. But your suggestion that we should check out a man called Horse — why, Carrington? Where did that brilliant deduction come from?”

  “I don’t know. I saw Kronos slavering at those strippers at Digger’s Dell. Then Chuck told me he turned up at work with a black eye — just after Trixi was murdered. You don’t get a black eye from reading girlie magazines at a desk in the city lockup. Do you have him, Oliver?”

  “The teeth marks hadn’t faded. The blood and serum matches. We have bruising on her knuckles. And the manager of the club saw him following Trixi outside just before her murder. No statements — but then Kronos is an officer of the law. He knows his rights.”

  “Well, I hope you collared the correct gentleman this time.”

  “I would hazard that we have. Practice makes perfect, Carrington.”

  “Good luck.”

  She found a seat close to the prisoners’ dock, not far from the stairwell that led to the holding tanks. Where Staff Sergeant Horse Kronos once held court.

  “Call the case of Kronos.”

  He lumbered up the stairwell, eyes downcast. Carrie remembered the last time he was in court — sitting innocently in the gallery during Mr. Moodie’s trial — and she remembered that spunky young witness studying him, studying him, then rejecting him.

  Horse Kronos’s appearance took twenty seconds. He was remanded for psychiatric observation.

  “Would you call the case of Regina versus Michel Lachance?” McAnthony asked the clerk.

  Carrie steeled herself.

  Up he came, up the stairs. Dapper in his grey pinstripe. The smile.

  He looked around as he reached the top step. His eyes met her eyes.

  “You will recall, your honour, that the information charges a number of counts of murder,” said McAnthony. “The accused is being remanded week to week until he obtains counsel.”

  “Are you still unrepresented, Mr. Lachance?” said the judge.

  “I t’ink I am well represented. Better, if my lawyer would answer my calls. But I see she is here.”

  The court officers didn’t restrain him, and he stepped closer to her. In a low voice, he said, “I guess I went temporary insane.”

  She just stared in astonishment at him. One of the charges was the attempted murder of herself.

  “But I ’ave a better defence, Carrington. I was trying to save your life. Justifiable homicide. It’s perfect.”

  She drew away from him, feeling all the horror upon her again.

  “I believe my friend has an application,” McAnthony said.

  Carrie willed herself to stand, to break the black grip of Lachance’s eyes. She made her way toward the judge.

  “Apply to remove my name from the record, your honour.”

  “Granted. I regret we had to bring you here for this, Ms. Barr.”

  She nodded, then turned and walked toward the door. Past the dock, past Lachance, beyond the range of his angry electric charges. And as she went by him, he turned and shot knives at her. But he couldn’t touch her anymore, she felt free of him, free of all her pain and terror.

  She went out into the streets of Toronto and walked for miles.

  Copyright © William Deverell, 2004

  Published by ECW Press

  2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ecw press.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Deverell, William, 1937–

  Street legal : the betrayal / William Deverell.

  First published: Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, c1995.

  ISBN 978-1-77090-554-2

  I. Title.

  PS8557.E8775S8 2004 C813’.54 C2004-902601-1

  Cover and Text Design: Tania Craan

  The publication of Street Legal has been generously supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.