For my mother, who taught me to love stories.
ACT
ONE
CHAPTER 1
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN your client goes to jail?
You do what you can, then forget.
I look down the long corridor of the detention center and wonder how it will be this time.
The guard, a burly man in uniform, spies me at the end of the hallway. A shadow crosses his hardened features. He doesn’t like lawyers, particularly women lawyers with saucy haircuts and eyes that refuse to look down or away. The steel door behind him opens, a grating sound of metal on metal, and my client appears. Vincent Trussardi. Scion of the business world, patron of the arts. And as of yesterday, widower charged with the murder of his wife.
Trussardi walks toward me, steps measured, shackled wrists crossed in dignified mien. Did he kill his elegant wife? Probably, I think to myself—I can hope, at least at the beginning, that I’m wrong, but a decade in criminal law has made me jaded. Not that it matters. My job is to get him out and get him off.
The guard’s right hand moves to his holster as the flat of his left nudges the prisoner forward. My client stops, half turns to resist, then resumes his calculated stride. For some perverse reason, they’ve put Vincent Trussardi—upstanding citizen, no criminal record—in cuffs. Whether he killed his wife, he’s hardly likely to take the guards down and make an unscheduled run for the door. Prisons run on the dignity game—we take it; you keep it if you can. Most people can’t.
Maybe this man is an exception. Even in prison reds, he commands. The guard backs off a little, averts his eyes as he bends to unlock the cuffs. A uniformed woman appears from nowhere—a slight creature with brush cut hair—and scrabbles a key at the door of an interview room. Trussardi moves into the room; the guard waves me in. The door clanks behind us. We are alone, unless you count the shadow of the guard’s face behind the window high on the wall.
There’s not much in the room—a table, two plastic chairs. They dehumanize these places. I motion to my client to sit down; he complies with a graceful shift of the torso. He’s caught on quick; cuffs change the way you move. I scrape back the chair opposite and slide into it.
“Thank you for coming, Miss Truitt,” Vincent Trussardi says, his voice low and gravelly. His eyes—green, gold-rimmed, heavy like an ancient icon—assess me. I’m not used to my clients studying me. “Just get me out of here,” they tend to say. I decide to stare back.
Despite the onset of middle age, toned muscle shows beneath Trussardi’s prison reds. His face is even featured, conventionally handsome. A mane of white-streaked black hair flows from forehead to chin; a black-russet mustache and beard frame full lips, the square of his jaw. His bearing is proud, his gaze lamenting. Why not, I think. If the papers are right, he has much to grieve for.
I break eye contact and flip open the briefcase at my side.
“Joseph Quentin called me,” I say, signing in to my MacBook Air. “He says you want me to act for you.” I open a document and type “Vincent Trussardi.”
“Yes, they tell me I must fight this charge and that to fight it, I must have a lawyer. I understand you are competent, Miss Truitt.” His voice sinks to a whisper. “You will do as well as any. Who knows, perhaps better.”
I glance up from my screen. Is he guilty? Does he just want to get this over with?
“I look forward to getting to know you,” he says, as if we’re agreeing to a merger.
I launch into my spiel. “Mr. Trussardi. The law presumes you innocent, but a murder charge is serious. I’m here to help you.” First lesson in client management: calm them down. “Relax, you’re in good hands.”
He nods.
“I understand you’ve been questioned by the police.”
“I told them the truth. I came home and found my wife dead.”
If Joseph Quentin, renowned counsel to Vancouver’s elite, had had the sense to call me at the outset, Vincent Trussardi would have sat tight on his right to silence. No point in telling him that now. What’s happened has happened. I just hope he hasn’t sunk his case by revealing something he thought didn’t matter.
As if sensing my disquiet, he leans forward. “You shouldn’t worry, Miss Truitt. I am not a fool—I know that innocent people go down. Not infrequently, despite your vaunted justice system. I appreciate your help, hope for the best—but you should know, I am prepared for the worst. If it comes to that.”
“And you should know, Mr. Trussardi, I distinctly dislike losing. If I take your case, I will win, or exhaust myself trying.”
He sits back. “Good, Miss Jilly Truitt. I approve. In fact, I think I am beginning to like you.”
I ignore the sortie. Don’t patronize me. “The first thing we need to do is to secure your release—get you out of here. Then we can talk about the case and whether you want us to take it. If we work that out, we’ll discuss what the Crown has against you and how we should handle your defense. We’ll look after everything. All in due course.”
My little speech, honed to perfection, washes over him like water. He gives me an empty smile.
I remind myself of the second lesson in client management: insulate yourself against failure. “I would be less than frank, Mr. Trussardi, if I did not tell you that on charges as grave as this one, the judges do not favor release on bail. However, we will do our best.”
“So what precisely do you need, Miss Truitt? To secure my release. Or try.”
“We need personal information—residence, income, someone who will act as surety, passport, that sort of thing. And we may need cash to make the bail.”
“Hildegard,” he intones. “Hildegard Bremner, TEC Tower.” He recites a phone number, and I write it down. “My personal secretary in the ancient sense of the word—keeper of the family vaults.”
“I see.” But I’m not seeing at all. “The judge may want a tidy sum for bail.” I think again of what I’ve read in the papers about the death of his wife. “Given the circumstances.”
He regards me levelly. “A matter of no consequence.”
“And I’ll need a retainer. Ten thousand to start. More later.” The third rule of criminal defense work: get the money up front.
“Only ten?” He allows himself a soft laugh. “I’m sure you’re worth much more than that, Miss Truitt. Hildegard can arrange the payment.”
“Very well.” I slip my laptop back into its case. “Unless you have further questions, I’ll get started. My associate, Jeff Solosky, will contact Hildegard and look after the details. With luck, we’ll have you out of here today.”
“That would be much appreciated.” His voice catches. “My wife’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon. I wish to attend.”
“The press will be there. Paparazzi, photos all over the papers, wall-to-wall coverage on the six o’clock news. Are you sure you want to go, Mr. Trussardi?”
“The funeral is for her—for Laura. For those who loved her.” Once more, he fixes his eyes on mine. “For me.”
I consider the optics. Grieving husband at wife’s funeral. Not bad.
“Fine,” I say. “Just wear black and keep your head down.”
CHAPTER 2
I EMERGE FROM THE POLICE station to shafts of sun streaking through the morning mist. I push a button and the top of my Mercedes glides back. I like how it moves, smooth and certain of its destination—a comfort in the world of chance I inhabit.
My mind fills with Trussardi. I’m too busy to spend hours each day reading the newspapers. Still, I scan my iPad daily for the recent crimes—business that might be coming my way. The murder of Laura St. John Trussardi has all but obliterated the week’s usual assortment of knifings, rapes, and pornography charges. Gruesome details of her death (as much as
they’re allowed to tell) vie for attention with glamour shots from the social pages. It’s not every day that a prominent socialite is murdered.
Nasty stuff, but I feel only elation. It’s the crime of the month—maybe the year—and I’m on it. Sure, chances of an acquittal don’t seem good. The victim was shot in the matrimonial bed with her husband’s gun, after all. But it’s early days. Much is unknown and much lies ahead; in the end, all we need is a reasonable doubt. The offices of my little firm—grandly titled Truitt and Company—lie to the west of the jail, but the one-way street takes me east, into the narrow lanes north of Hastings: street pubs below, broken glass above, where the detritus of the previous night’s hooking, drinking, and snorting lies scattered on the sidewalk. I make a right toward the genteel Georgian brick of Gastown.
I park and take the elevator up to my office. Three years ago, in a leap of doubt, I signed the lease on a walk-up in a former warehouse. Faded brick on the walls, skylights in the ceiling. Not fashionable like the towers uptown, but close to what’s important in my life—the courthouses, the criminals, and a clutch of trendy restaurants. Build it and they will come, and so they had—Jeff Solosky and Alicia Leung, my erstwhile associates. And, of course, Debbie, to let in the people we want and keep out the others.
Debbie’s pasty face peers up from behind the plastic panel that shields her from the random interference that floats through the door. She carries her age bravely—lined eyes, bright lips, chin-length bob too blond to be true. I try to breeze straight to my office, but Debbie’s blue eyes hook me in and bring me to a standstill.
“Did you get the case?” she asks, the lilt of her accent belying her tough-girl manner. Debbie followed a man to Vancouver from Liverpool two decades ago. He disappeared, but she stayed, claimed she liked the rain and the clean air.
“Think so.”
“What about the retainer?” she asks, getting to the point.
“Ten grand, enough for the moment.”
“Jilly, Jilly,” she clucks.
I know what she’s thinking: I should have asked for more, but what can you expect of a child who never had a proper mother to teach her about money?
“Jeff here?”
“Yeah, just got back from the sentencing on Dragoni.”
“Great. Ask him to come in.”
Except for the paper that clutters every surface and the document boxes in the corner, my office is just the way I like it—arched window facing onto the street; glass table; black chair; and a couch in the corner, upholstery perennially pristine. Only one painting on the high brick wall, but a good one—a big Gordon Smith that lets me hear the waves in the Strait of Georgia in the rare moments I allow my mind to wander from more pressing matters of guilt and innocence and how to get my clients out from under the law.
I shove a stack of documents to the side of my table to make way for my laptop, plug in the printer cord. A few keystrokes, and the Trussardi file—what there is of it—rolls off. I sweep the pages from the machine. Jeff enters through the open door, and I hand them off to him.
“Your job is to get him out on bail,” I say. “Preferably today.”
Jeff and I have been working together four years and don’t need many words. He nods and sinks to the chair. He is slender and favors skinny charcoal suits worn with dark shirts and matching dark ties—today’s choice is navy on navy. His long neck cranes and his glasses—round and black and thick—fall forward to the tip of his nose as he tries to make sense of my notes.
“So I get to meet Hildegard, ‘keeper of the family vaults.’ ” He gives me a mock grin. “Not a bad turn of phrase.” Jeff has his PhD in English (majored in Tennyson) and an IQ north of 150.
“Not my phrase,” I reply. “The client’s.”
“That rarity—a client who uses metaphors. This guy may yet prove interesting.”
“Mmm,” I muse. “He’s very cool, controlled. But unreadable.”
“In denial.”
“Or maybe innocent. We’re defense lawyers, Jeff. At least entertain the possibility.”
“I’ll try.”
“Spring him if you can, as quickly as you can—he wants to go to his wife’s funeral Friday afternoon.” I glance at my calendar. “If you can get him in here Friday morning, we’ll draft a retainer, give him an idea of how things may or may not go, find out what he wants to tell us.”
“The victim’s funeral? Macabre touch.”
I shrug. “Well, there you have it. Maybe he actually loved her—I hear there is such a thing.”
“Bail won’t be easy,” he grumbles. “This murder’s brutal, from what the papers say.”
“I know; I tried to curb his expectations. Still, he has no criminal record, a good reputation, and can put up any amount of security. Do your best.”
“Once more into the breach,” Jeff says, sighing. “How’d he pick us, anyway?”
“Joseph Quentin.”
“Who?”
“Senior partner at Shaw, Quentin, and Furlow—patrician clientele, all the old families and some not so old. Traditional finders and fixers. They get their clients whatever they need—in this case, a criminal lawyer.” I grimace. “Although sadly he didn’t look after his client quite as well as he should have. Instead of calling us right away, he sent a junior litigation lawyer down to hold Trussardi’s hand during the police questioning.”
There’s no need to say what we know—that most murder cases are won or lost right up front, in the initial interrogation.
“No confession, I hope,” says Jeff.
“Quentin assures me Trussardi kept denying he did it. But it’s the details that worry me. We’ll see how much damage he did when we get the transcripts.”
“Still don’t understand. How come Quentin called us?”
“Apparently Trussardi asked for us. They’ll find some other firm if we don’t keep them happy. You know the judges, Jeff. Don’t let me down.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Where are you this afternoon?”
“Eight hundred Smithe—pretrial on Cheskey. Maybe I’ll talk to Cy about a plea.”
Cy Kenge. Number one Crown prosecutor. Tough as nails and no holds barred in his passion to keep the city streets safe. But I like to think he has a soft spot for me.
“Cheskey,” Jeff mutters, “another disaster in the making.”
“What’s your problem with Cheskey?” I know, but I want to hear Jeff say it.
He leans forward. “ ‘It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.’ To use the vernacular, Jilly, we’re going to take the fall. We should plead Cheskey out to manslaughter.”
“Yeah, sure.” I glance at the clock and start packing papers. Got to get to the courthouse. Another day without lunch.
Jeff places his hands on the chrome edges of the chair and pushes himself up. “It’s just a case, Jilly—just a job. Don’t kill yourself trying to prove the kid’s innocence.”
“Gotcha, Jeff.” I head past him and out the door. “Just keep me in the loop on Trussardi.”
* * *
IT KILLS ME TO SEE the innocent go down. And that’s what Damon Cheskey is: an innocent. Twenty-one months and three days over the age of consent. Damon Cheskey stands charged with first-degree murder of Jinks Lippert, street pusher and chief enforcer for the drug kingpin known as Kellen. Everybody knows that Damon fired five shots from a single-shot .22 pistol into Lippert, three of them potentially lethal. Guilty, the law calls Cheskey. But I call him innocent. Innocent of life. Innocent of mind.
“I’m going down,” Damon whispered when I met with him yesterday. He’s back from rehab, looking better. Still, three shots into a prone figure are three shots into a prone figure. No way to change the facts. “Thanks for trying, Ms. Truitt,” he said as I left.
The Cheskey pretrial—no Damon, just lawyers arguing about evidence—goes as expected: a roster of witnesses for the Crown, nada from me. Our plan is to see what the Crown can prove and then decide what witnesses to call. Cy sent h
is junior—Emily McFee, she of Titian hair and blushing skin. So much for my hope of a plea bargain.
The pretrial winds to its weary end. I exit and take the stairs to the library at double stride. The Arthur Erickson building that houses the Supreme Court of British Columbia is light and airy, and there’s a portrait of the chief justice of Canada on the wall (when she was young and looked good) to remind me that sometimes, occasionally, women actually do rule.
Halfway through a draft of my opening statement, I take stock. My finger hits the delete button. I’m getting nowhere; Trussardi has laid claim to the entire frontal lobe of my brain. The trajectory of his trial stretches out before me. Disclosure, when the Crown tells us what they have. Investigations, timelines, alibis, weaknesses in the Crown’s case, alternative suspects—whatever we can dredge up. The preliminary inquiry, and, finally, the trial. Could take years, could take months. Either way, it’s sure to consume a big chunk of my future.
My cell phone, silenced but omnipresent, vibrates with an incoming text. It’s Cy.
Meet me at the Wedgewood for a drink at six. Need to talk about Trussardi.
I look at my watch—five forty-five—text back, See you there.
I’m happy to talk about my new case. If he has something to say about Cheskey, all the better.
I shut my laptop, push my papers together, and head for the street.
CHAPTER 3
LAWYERS LOVE THE WEDGEWOOD’S DARK corners, its secret alcoves. A place to meet, greet, and, should the need arise, whisper propositions in private. Story has it that a beautiful lady from central Europe got the building as a parting gift from an entrepreneur she had briefly enchanted. It wasn’t much at the start, but the lady, with a keen sense of what makes the world go round, transformed it—old rugs, antique couches, heavy velvet swags—bordello without the you-know-what.
Mitchell, the maître d’, greets me at the door and flashes me a Colgate smile. “Ms. Truitt, such a pleasure.”
“Is Mr. Kenge here?”
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