“Then why are you here?” Hildegard asks resignedly.
“I came here to talk about Laura Trussardi and her murderer.” I turn to Raquella. “You loved Laura, didn’t you?”
I catch the alarm in Hildegard’s face, but Raquella ignores her.
“Of course I loved her,” she says. “I loved her like a sister.”
“No, not like a sister,” I press. “More. Like a lover.”
Hildegard seizes the back of Raquella’s chair. “Enough of this nonsense.”
I’m not leaving without the answers I need. “It started slowly, didn’t it, Raquella? Laura would come to have tea with you. She loved Vincent, but she was lonely. He was away on business so much, and afternoon visits with you turned into long evenings together. You became friends, and then more. It was only natural that when she built her new house, she would include an apartment for you, separate but connected.”
“You know nothing of how it was,” Raquella hisses.
“Raquella, we need to go,” Hildegard says, her voice rising.
Raquella laughs, eyes flashing. “I have never run from anything in my life, and I will not run from this little bitch.”
“But Laura started to withdraw,” I say. “Maybe she didn’t like it that you wanted more than friendship, maybe she didn’t like all the drugs you were doing, maybe she didn’t like procuring them for you. She had an affair with the architect, but she ended it, maybe for you? Then she got involved with the boy who brought the drugs, nothing serious, but still, he wasn’t you. Finally, she returned to Vincent, and they decided to have a child.” I drill down. “That final betrayal—returning to your despised brother and carrying his child—you couldn’t handle it. You had a fight two days before the murder. You attacked her. People assume that because you’re in a wheelchair you’re weak. But you’re strong. You can run a person down in your chair, and you can strike fast. Laura fled to the street, where the police officer saw her. She never told him she was running from you, though, and so his report damned your brother.”
“You’re mad, Miss Truitt. Utterly mad.”
“We’re going,” says Hildegard. She tries to yank the wheelchair around, but my hands are on the arms. I lean over Raquella, watch her eyes widen.
“For two days you festered in your fury, waiting for your moment of revenge. And then it came. It was Sunday—Angela was off, Carmelina was out, and Vincent was sailing. Laura was alone at last. You took the elevator up, removed the gun from the safe, and you murdered her.”
“No,” she whispers. “No.”
“Yes, you had it all planned. First, a lovely meal. Laura’s Last Supper.”
She looks up sharply.
“One of the police reports noted two glasses, two plates, two sets of cutlery in the sink.”
“Nonsense!” Hildegard barks.
“Is it?” I ask.
She elbows me aside to regain control of the chair. “You’ve troubled Raquella long enough.”
I step forward, blocking their path to the door.
“Something’s been puzzling me, Raquella. How did you do it? How did you overcome her? You’re strong, but so was she. But I think I understand. It was the lunch. You prepared the plates downstairs, brought them up on the little cart you keep in the kitchen. You ground up some of your pills and put them in her food—the coroner found traces of a sleeping drug in her blood. She became groggy and went to bed. After that it was easy.” I think of the photos. “Easy to tie her up, easy to shoot her. I hope she did not feel too much.”
Raquella is immobile, knuckles clenched on the arms of her chair.
Hildegard steps back, surveying Raquella. She finally sees it. “No,” she says, with shock.
We stare at each other, three women in a frozen tableau.
Raquella’s cry breaks the silence. “Laura,” she moans. “I didn’t want to do it. But I couldn’t bear to see her back with him. Not after everything we had.”
Hildegard bends to Raquella, silences her with a “Shh,” then sends me a withering stare. “You’ve done enough damage, Miss Truitt, now go.”
“Just a couple more details,” I say. “You decided to make sure Vincent took the rap for the murder by having other suspects killed. Like Trevor Shore.”
Raquella rouses herself. “That’s—” She shakes off Hildegard’s attempt to quiet her. “It doesn’t matter anymore—Vincent’s in prison. Trevor Shore was aware of how it was between Laura and me. He was distraught.”
I take a leap. “He knew where the gun was. Is.”
“You’re brighter than I thought, Miss Truitt. When Shore designed the house, I asked him to put a concealed safe under the Botero. It was something my family had always had in their houses, an old-fashioned whimsy. He knew how the mechanism worked, how to make the sculpture swing to reveal the cavity below.”
“So he checked the Botero? He found the gun and confronted you.”
Raquella stares at me in silence. “Let’s go, Hildegard.”
“He came to see me,” I say. “He told me to look at the family, look at the house. If I had figured out then what he meant, he’d still be alive. You wouldn’t have had him killed.”
Her chair whirls toward me. I step back, but it hits me in the shins. She reaches out and grabs my hand. “It’s all your fault. You and your detective kept poking around.” She twists my wrists in a crippling vise grip, and I buckle. “His death was your fault, Miss Truitt, all your fault.”
I wrench my hand from hers, pick myself up, and straighten my skirt. “You were following me.”
“Raquella?” Hildegard looks at her with surprise.
“It gave me great pleasure to frighten you, Miss Truitt, to cause you a little of the pain you caused me. I enjoyed it.”
“Quiet!” Hildegard’s pale hands grasp Raquella’s wheelchair. “You’ve destroyed yourself,” she whispers to Raquella, wheeling her away. “You’ve destroyed the family.”
“It’s all your fault, Miss Truitt, all your fault,” Raquella cries as Hildegard pushes her around the door. “He should never have had you. You should never have been born!”
“Well, I was. I exist, whether you like it or not.” I pause. “You will be hearing from the police, Raquella.”
I’ve done it, I think. I’ve found the truth.
I click the recorder in my pocket to off and leave.
CHAPTER 58
HOURS LATER, I SIT ALONE in a narrow room lined with black-paned windows at L’Abbatoir, an industrial-chic restaurant around the corner from my office. The waiter, young and trendy with a silver ring in his ear, pours me a glass of Chablis.
“Tough day, Ms. Truitt?” he asks. I’m a regular here. Tonight, though, I’m not hungry.
“You could say that.” If he only knew.
“Jilly, I thought I might find you here.”
I look up. “Hey, Jeff.”
He sits down and the waiter brings him a glass. “I got your message, downloaded the audio file with Raquella’s confession. Unbelievable. What happens now?”
“First I tell Edith she can stop worrying. I just sent her a text letting her know she’s safe, that she can come back.”
“I mean about the case.”
“Ah, the case. Tomorrow I take the confession to the police. Cy will have no choice but to ask Justice Moulton to set the verdict aside and release Trussardi. Raquella will plead guilty to first degree and go to prison for the rest of her life. End of story.”
“You’re not going straight to Cy with the confession?”
“No way. He broke all the rules. And then he pushed Lois under the bus. It’s over between us.”
“He didn’t push Lois under the bus—she fell. And word is that she’s expected to pull through.”
“If you say so.” I sit, considering. “I’m glad that Lois is okay.”
Jeff leans forward. “There was something else on that recording, Jilly. Something about you.”
I tell him, not everything but enough. A mothe
r found and lost. A father found and discarded. My only aunt, and I’m sending her to prison.
As Jeff listens, his eyes widen. “I concede,” he says when I finally wind down. “This time it wasn’t just another case.” He brightens. “But life goes on. Debbie’s been trying to reach you. Some politician charged with strangling his daughter, big case, big money. Desperate to see you, only you.”
“I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
Jeff starts to protest, then stops himself. “Okay, I’m off. Jessica awaits.” He bends for a quick hug.
“Goodbye, Jeff. It’s been great working with you.”
“What are you talking about? See you Monday, boss.”
Relief mingles with deep joy. So he’s staying.
He shoots me a smile. “Look after yourself, Jilly Truitt Trussardi.”
I’m alone again. The wine in my glass has grown tepid. Rain streaks the windows outside. I need to move on, but there’s nowhere to go.
I nose my Mercedes aimlessly westward toward Georgia and Stanley Park, then double back onto West Hastings, past the stately Vancouver Club, where women couldn’t enter the front door a few years ago, past the shops and swank hotels of Coal Harbour. I bear ever eastward and downward into narrowing strips of street, where windows are broken, lights are garish, and people in alleys hook and snort and do whatever they have to do to get through the next hour or two.
My eye catches the tall figure of a man on the sidewalk—jeans, suede jacket, long black hair swinging loose like a girl’s. He’s got his eye on me or maybe he likes the car. I should pass by, but I slow, pull to the curb. My finger touches a button, and the window rolls down. He leans in, and my breath catches at his beauty—skin of creamy copper, eyes of liquid black. He moves closer. He says nothing for a long moment.
“Need some help, sister?” he asks.
My throat thickens. He has taken it all in—my diamond studs, my Armani jacket, the Prada bag on the seat—and has seen me for what I am: a sister and in need. I shake my head. In the rearview mirror I see the red and blue lights of a police cruiser; a siren shrieks. I reach into my pocket and pull out my walk-around money—two hundreds—move my arm toward the man. His hand closes over mine.
“Be kind to yourself,” I say.
He looks at the money in his hand, looks up, eyes wide. “You too, sister.”
The police car is on my tail now. I pull forward slowly, ready to stop. I know what they’re thinking: a drug deal. But the cruiser moves on to a more compelling incident up the street. I round the corner, head south into Chinatown and onto Union Street, gentrified condos springing up where Sammy Davis Jr. used to sing, only the shabby green tribute to Jimi Hendrix left to bear witness to the people who lived, loved, and made music here. I swing up the viaduct and exit into the shining-glass jungles of Yaletown, my town.
But I’m not ready to go home. I pull into a taxi zone in front of Le Provence. On my left, the glistening pleasure boats rock gently in the marinas of False Creek; on my right, happy couples exit restaurants, chatting and laughing. Jilly Truitt, you have to be at the jail at nine to see a desperate man charged with killing his child. Go home and get an hour’s sleep before you start again.
My hand reaches for my bag; my fingers rifle the contents—I find my iPhone. I scroll through my contacts, find Michael St. John. My finger sits poised above the screen for a long moment. Then I throw the phone back in my bag. Someday, maybe. Mike’s moved on from his dark place, but I still have a ways to go.
CHAPTER 59
I’M ABOUT TO MOVE FORWARD when I hear a thud on the roof. The passenger door opens and a figure slides into the seat.
“What the hell, Damon? Are you following me?” I eye his trench coat, the set of his jaw in profile. He looks older.
“We need to talk.”
“What’s this about?”
“About you, Jilly. About me.”
A taxi honks behind me, and I pull out of the space.
“We need someplace private.” He motions. “Try Pacific Boulevard.”
I do a U-turn, swing up and east. The glowing globe of Science World looms to our right. This will do. I pull into the deserted parking lot.
Damon gets out and opens my door. “Let’s go.”
He steers me toward the seawall. A storm is rising. The wind tears at us; black waves crash on the concrete wall. Damon’s face is strangely white in the neon of the great dome. I feel a twinge of fear.
“Why are we here, Damon?”
“I’m in trouble.”
“Damon, whatever it is, I can help. You’re a good kid.”
His laugh cuts the air like a scythe. “I was good, Jilly. After my trial, you told me I could start over, and I thought I could. But I was scared. I knew there was no escaping. I would answer. Law of the street.”
“Kellen.”
Damon nods. “One day it hit me—a life of fear is no life at all. Kellen had won. Without even laying a hand on me.”
“You let the undertow suck you back in.”
“No, Jilly, I made my choice. On my own. No drugs, no clouded judgment. No bleak look down the barrel of a gun this time.”
“Stop. Damon, I can’t know this.”
“I stalked Kellen, memorized his moves. Found his condo, learned when his boys dropped him off after the night’s business. Checked the security cameras, found the blind spot.” He sucks in his breath. “And then I did it. I killed him.” He glances down. “You told me I was an innocent kid led astray by the temptations of the street, and for a while I almost believed you. But now I know better. I’m a criminal. I know it. And it’s only a matter of time before the world will know it.”
“Lots of people hated Kellen. Cy can’t prove it was you.”
“Unless I tell him, Jilly.”
I seize his arm. “No—”
“Only way to make things right. Tomorrow I’m going down to Cy’s office to turn myself in. Don’t worry. I won’t need a lawyer. I intend to plead guilty.”
Good, I should say. I’m an officer of the court, after all, sworn to uphold the law. Confess, Damon, end the cycle. Let justice be done. But my words, when they finally emerge, startle me.
“What a waste, Damon. You rot in jail for the rest of your life at the public’s expense. You’ve made choices in the past, some of them bad. Now you face another decision.” I pause. “You still have a life. You can do good things with it, help people, make the world a better place.”
“There you go again, Jilly—”
“No, listen to me. These labels we put on ourselves, like criminal or orphan or deviant, they mean nothing. The only way we know who we are is by confronting the waves that crash over us and beating our way on, until we can go no further. You did something criminal, Damon. Maybe that’s who you were. But it’s not who you are.”
“Easy for you to say, Jilly—successful lawyer, everybody’s golden girl.”
“No,” I cry. “I have my own dark places. I’m still a work in progress.” I grab Damon’s shoulders, feel them shudder beneath my hands. “But I’m not giving up, I’m not going down.”
“It’s the law,” he shouts over the wind. “You kill; you pay.”
Words from a distant shore come back to me. “Sometimes, Damon, the law doesn’t matter a damn.”
I hook my arm through his and steer him toward the car. Faces set against the rain, we press on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my editors, Brendan May and Sarah St. Pierre, who helped me discover the novel within my sprawling manuscript.
Thank you to fellow author Simon Gervais, who read an early draft and helped me believe in this book, and to my staunch agent and ally, Eric Myers.
Enormous and abiding gratitude to my husband, Frank McArdle, whose love and unfailing support made this book possible; and to my son, Angus McLachlin, and sister, Judi Dalling, for making me believe I could write it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR PHOTO BY JEAN-MARC CARISSE
/> BEVERLEY McLACHLIN is the former Chief Justice of Canada, the first woman to hold that position. Full Disclosure is her first novel.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
McLachlin, Beverley M., author Full disclosure / by Beverley McLachlin.
Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-5011-7278-6 (softcover)—ISBN 978-1-5011-7280-9 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8625.L33F85 2018 C813'.6 C2017-906236-0 C2017-906237-9
ISBN 978-1-5011-7278-6
Full Disclosure Page 23
