by Jason Mason
“What do you do for work that you need to drive?” Baker asked.
“Well a lot of things. I do some delivery work during the day and at night I drive people for Uber,” Mac responded.
“Okay,” Baker studied the man who still refused to make eye contact. “Did they tell you what you were under arrest for?”
“Yeah, they said that it was on account of all those women that went missing. I told them I had no idea what they were talking about and they arrested me,” he said.
“Did they tell you about your right to talk to a lawyer?” Baker asked instinctively.
“Yeah they did,” making eye contact again. “But I told them I didn’t need to. Because I didn’t do anything, Mr. Desjardins.”
“I don’t need to know what you did, Mac,” Baker replied honestly. “To be frank, whether you are guilty or not, I don’t want to know because as an officer of the court it may prevent me from making certain defences for you at the trial.”
This was true, Mac made it a policy of his not to ever find out if his clients were guilty or not, though he knew the vast majority of them were. Most innocent people don’t need to lawyer up and the police would drop an investigation into them long before they needed to talk to one. And it was true, if he knew his client was guilty it prevented him from making certain legal defences, such as suggesting to the court that someone else might have been the person to have committed the crime since he knew that couldn’t possibly be true. But if he was ignorant of whether his client actually committed the crime or not, he could rely on whatever defences he imagined.
“Ok,” Mac replied shifting eye contact.
“So why did they think you did it?” Baker asked as he scribbled some notes on a piece of paper.
“I don’t know, they’ve always been after me ever since I got let out of jail,” he replied.
“When did you get out of jail?”
“About a year ago.”
“And what were you in jail for?”
“I assaulted my ex-girlfriend,” Mac replied.
Baker underlined this twice on his yellow legal paper. He was scribbling some more notes in silence, writing down his comments and impressions about how credible a witness this guy would be if they went to court. Not very, was his estimation. After watching him take notes in silence Mac spoke up again.
“I feel so bad about it now, she won’t talk to me and I don’t blame her. I went through a lot of counselling in jail, and did all these programs so now I don’t do drugs or anything like that anymore. I swear, Mr. Desjardins, I’m trying to sort my life out.”
Baker looked up from his paper.
“I thought you had to have a clean criminal record in order to drive an Uber?” he asked.
“You do…” Mac replied hesitantly. “So I’m driving under my grandfather’s name right now. Nobody would hire me anywhere and I needed to do something. Where I come from, my grandfather has always told me that a man’s got to work.”
“Okay,” was all Baker replied. He was still assessing this guy as a prospective client, partially, but what he was really doing was assessing if he was the person who kidnapped Mary. If he was, and Baker was starting to believe that he was, then he would need to get Mac to trust him in order to have any chance of getting Mary out alive.
“So can you help me?” Mac pleaded.
Every year lawyers in Alberta have to do some training, either self-directed or in a classroom setting on ethics and ethical dilemmas. After all those years of taking the training this was Baker’s first ever big real life test on the subject. Everything that the law society’s training tells him to do and all the mentors he’s ever had in the law would tell him that in this situation do not take on this client. Under any circumstances. Recommend him to another lawyer but as an attorney he was under an obligation to provide his clients the absolute best advice he can and he would obviously be unable to do that if this man kidnapped Connie’s sister. This was as clear a conflict of interest as any because in all his years as a lawyer Baker worked with thousands of guilty men, he could pick them out better than any judge in the province.
“Of course I will,” Baker said looking down at his yellow paper. Through all the notes, and all the scribbled cursive writing, one word was written in block letters, circled and underlined. It said guilty.
Baker just failed the first true ethical test of his legal career.
◆◆◆
The man sat in his reclining chair with his feet up in the air, smoking a cigarette and laughing hysterically at the television. One of his favourite programs was on, and this was a perfect time to test if Sophie was right or not. To see if she would enjoy the show too as she should.
He glanced over at the girl, still chained by the neck but looking more at ease than ever before while sitting a few feet away from him on the couch, intensely watching the program as well. She didn’t laugh as much as he did, but he saw her smile a few times and when she smiled she looked right. It may take her some time to get used to it, but for the first time he was starting to convince himself she might be right. This felt right.
Hell, it was only due to the fact that he was starting to be convinced that he stayed home tonight instead of going out to try and find another one. That was probably for the best, he thought, though he wouldn’t let Sophie watch the news he heard on the radio that the police were starting to connect the dots with the murders.
“The father is so cranky,” he said to Mary. “He’s my favourite.”
“Yeah, I kind of like him too,” she replied meekly.
That’s good, she’s doing good. She may be right.
“Maybe she is,” he replied to himself.
In silence they watched the rest of the episode with Sophie even laughing a few times at some of the antics. The man could get used to this.
“I have to use the bathroom,” the man told Mary. “You stay where you are and let me know if I miss anything on the next episode.”
“Will do,” Mary responded politely.
As soon as the man left the room Mary took her chance. She wasn’t watching the old nineties sitcom like she was pretending to do for her captor, the entire time she was looking at the phone on the wall in the kitchen. This house had such an old feel to it, as if nothing was updated and nothing has changed since the nineties that the phone fit in perfectly with the faded blue wallpaper, the box style television and the flower patterned furniture.
As soon as she heard the door shut to the washroom Mary made her move. The man had attached her chain to a rope which attached to the wall by a large brass anchor. The anchor would be impossible to pull out, however, the knot could be untied though it would be extremely difficult to do. Using all of her concentration Mary was able to pull the rope loose and slip the loose ends off of the anchor. She still hadn’t heard a flush so she figured she still had some time.
Escaping outdoors without a vehicle would be impossible. She looked out the window as soon as she went upstairs and in the snow and cold this night she would freeze to death within minutes in her skimpy bar clothing. To make matters worse, she had no idea where she was, and it looked like the middle of nowhere with no other houses in sight from the window. She also had no idea where her coat was and didn’t see the man’s coat hanging up anywhere. Her only hope was to get to that phone and call 911.
Still no noise from the washroom, so Mary tiptoed as quietly as she could to the kitchen holding the excess chain in her left hand. On her way there she accidentally tripped slightly on the strip of metal separating the linoleum kitchen flooring from the hardwood living room. Her chain bounced off the wall making a slight knocking noise.
She froze, wondering if she should dive back to the couch or keep going. Still there was no flush and no sound of the door opening so she decided that she still had a chance. Tiptoeing the last couple of feet, Mary grabbed the receiver off of the base attached to the wall and put the phone to her ear.
Nothing.
There was no
ring tone, and no sound at all. Frantically she hit the hang-up button on the receiver over and over to get a dial tone but there was no noise at all.
“The phone is dead.”
The man’s voice right behind her made her jump in the air and scream. She tried to run but he immediately grabbed the chain dangling on the floor causing her to fall by her neck. The action cut off her breathing and she had to tuck both hands beneath the collar to relieve the pressure and the man dragged her back towards her by the neck.
“You shouldn’t have tried to do that, Mary,” the man said, using her real name for the first time.
“That really wasn’t right.”
The man then hit Mary over the back of the head with the chain, knocking her unconscious. Everything went black.
Chapter 11
Hell for a Basement
When she came too, Mary was again chained in the basement to the same support beam she was chained to before. Her head hurt and she could see stars, but otherwise she was alright. As her eyes adjusted she could slowly make out a figure in front of her, glaring down at her. The man was sitting on one of the temporary kitchen chairs that he used for meals and his unblinking deep set eyes were focused on her.
“I thought you were right,” he fumed. “But you weren’t. I wasted my time on you.”
“What do you want from me?” she cried out.
The man stood up, grabbed the chair and tossed it across the room, narrowly avoiding hitting Mary. She was unable to do anything more than flinch, and had just avoided having her nose broken or worse.
“I told you!” he hollered. “I want you to be right! I want you to be Sophie! Sophie is right! Mary is not!”
“What does that mean?” she sobbed. “I don’t know what you mean… I’ll do anything you want.”
Still furious the man turned around and threw a punch straight into the wall, breaking a hole in the gyprock. Instead of responding to Mary’s concerns he cradled the hand he used to punch the wall with his other and walked out of the room, turning the light off and leaving Mary in darkness again.
“Wait!” she pleaded. “Wait! What do you want me to do?”
She slid down to the floor and started to cry.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked meekly.
At that moment the light turned back on and the man walked in with a plastic grocery bag and headed straight for Mary.
“No!” she screamed. “Stop, get back!”
The man continued towards her, lifting the bag high and over her head and was about to bring it down over Mary’s face when his eyes met hers. His eyes were full of rage and hatred but they softened immediately when they met the terror in Sophie’s eyes.
Those eyes. Those are Sophie’s eyes.
“They’re right,” he said still holding the bag in the air.
For what seemed like eternity they stared at each other, Mary too terrified to blink and the man looking right back with an intense look on his face. Only now, it wasn’t as much a look of rage as a puzzled look. Like he was trying to figure out something very important.
“They’re right,” he repeated letting the bag drop to the ground.
Instead of suffocating her he walked around to the support beam and unlocked the chain with the key he kept in his pocket. Guiding her again like a dog, he brought her to the staircase and forced her to follow him up to the main floor.
“I need to show you something Sophie,” he said.
“W-What do you need to show me?” she replied like a mouse.
He didn’t answer, instead he took her up the stairs and through the kitchen to a small laundry room with an outside back door. There were some old worn coats and old muddy boots, all of which looked like they were too big for her. The man grabbed a red plaid jacket that was much too small for him and probably used to belong to a woman.
“Put this on,” he directed her.
She put the jacket on.
“These too,” he said sliding a pair of his boots towards her. He then put on his own jacket and boots and opened the door where the wind and cold immediately blew in, forcing Mary to tuck her gloveless hands into her sleeves. She shivered from the wind but the fresh air felt too good to her. It woke up a part of her she feared she’d never get back.
They walked outside to a wood pile where there was a chopping block and an axe sticking out of it. That’s when the horror struck Mary again. He was taking her outside to kill her, only far more brutally than he would have with the plastic bag.
“No!” she scream again and tried to run. His firm grip on the chain wouldn’t allow it and he locked the end of her leash to a large rusted pipe sticking out of his wall. She was now helpless to escape.
“Don’t be afraid, Sophie,” he said in a creepy voice which he intended to be reassuring. “I’m not going to hurt you. That wouldn’t be right. But if you scream again I will.”
As he smiled at her he grabbed a wheelbarrow and walked it over to the doorway easily within her reach. What was he doing?
“It’s a cold night, Sophie, and it’s going to be a cold week,” he informed her. “I need to cut some firewood to burn.”
Without responding she watched as he grabbed a log from the pile, picked up the axe and split the log into two pieces. He left the pieces on the ground around the chopping block. He then grabbed another log and continued the action. Over the next ten minutes he cut enough blocks of wood to carpet the ground all around the block.
“Sophie, remember how I told you not to scream,” he said as he waved the axe around her face. She nodded, terrified. He picked up an arm-full of firewood and gave it to her.
“Put this in the wheelbarrow,” he directed. She did as she was told. He gave her a few more handfuls until the wheelbarrow was half filled up after which he stopped giving her cut wood, even though there were plenty of pieces left.
“That’s enough,” he said.
The man then walked over to a blue tarp behind the firewood and pulled it away from Mary, revealing what was underneath. At first all she could see were the white boots with the fur around the top, then the jeans, then the black jacket. It took everything inside her not to scream when the woman’s face appeared, blue from the cold. The frozen corpse still had her eyes closed as if she fell asleep out in that firewood pile.
“Sophie, this one wasn’t right,” the man told her as he gestured to the body. “I shouldn’t have picked her, but I wasn’t sure that you were right when I did so I got her.”
This one still might not be right.
“The eyes! The eyes were right,” he responded. Mary was too terrified to speak.
The man grabbed the body by the ankles and dragged it around the wood pile and towards his chopping block. Mary was mesmerized by the fact the body didn’t bend or move at all. It was frozen stiff. The arms stayed the same, the head never moved, the eyelids never opened. It was like he was dragging a mannequin. Mary was even starting to second guess whether it was a real body until he put her on the chopping block and took the first swing, severing the leg at the knee in one hard chop.
“Sophie I want you to watch,” he said as he chucked the limb into the wheelbarrow. “I want you to watch what happens to those who aren’t right.”
Mary watched in horror as the man dismembered the entire body with quick, surgically-accurate blows from the axe, spilling what little blood came out (frozen) onto the wood below. After severing the head from the rest of the body he tossed it into the wheelbarrow along with any wood on the ground that got any blood on it. In his mind, he was planning on using a chainsaw to take off the top layer from his chopping block tomorrow, in case there was any blood left on that too.
“She wasn’t right, and now she’s gone,” he said matter-of-factly, rolling the wheelbarrow into around the front to the garage where he unloaded the firewood. Mary was too numb to try and use that time to escape. She was alone for about three minutes with her thoughts, and as frozen with fear as the body was with ice. As he returned a
nd rolled the empty wheelbarrow back beside his house he looked at Mary and unlocked her chain.
“Will you be good?” he asked her. Mary’s eyes, still gripped in fear, stared off into the distance. The words he spoke registered in her brain but sounded like a recording to her, or like a memory that was replaying in her head in front of that woman’s body.
“Yes,” she quietly responded eventually.
“Good.”
He took Mary back down to the basement and chained her up in the dark again, where she slid down alone with her thoughts. Her exhaustion normally helped her sleep, but this time all she could see was that body and the dismemberment that took place in front of her eyes. Every time she tried to close her eyes and shut it out she saw the head standing by itself in the wheelbarrow on top of the firewood.
From upstairs she could then hear the fireplace door being opened and materials tossed inside. Later she felt the basement heat up as it always did when the fireplace was burning which felt usually better than the cold, and wrapped up under the jacket she was still wearing, Mary rolled onto her side and attempted to get some sleep. She was still in a state of shock, but all the adrenaline was leaving her body which caused her to be incredibly tired.
The whole night she felt like she was smelling burning flesh and she knew she was smelling the flesh of that woman and the evidence of her murder being burnt away. Mary did not have any sleep that night. At a certain point she heard his car start up and then drive out into the evening. Though she didn’t sleep the whole night, she never heard him return.
He’s trying to find someone to replace me, she thought terrified.
◆◆◆
Through his career, Baker did a lot of things that skirted ethical boundaries. At times he looked back at what he’s done and realized he would get – at minimum – a hearing with the law society for what he did, if not disbarred. He realized how funny it was that he could win awards for keeping criminals out of jail, but for this he could lose his licence.
Not this time, he thought to himself as he hung up the phone. If anyone ever found out there is no question I could never be a lawyer again. Hell, I might even go to jail.
