False Witness

by Scott Cook

  “The explosives were a fail-safe,” Palliser testified. “It’s a lot easier to cook more meth than it is to serve a prison sentence. So when Hodge realized that Mr. Ferbey was on to what was being stored in the unit, he killed him. When he realized that Mr. Dunn had witnessed the event, he blew the warehouse. The only reason Hodge didn’t kill him, too, is that Mr. Dunn was smart enough to call 911, and there happened to be police close by. If it weren’t for that, I have no doubt that Mr. Dunn would not be here today.”

  Hodge was acquitted on charges of possession and use of illegal materials dangerous to the public. Justice Larocque said the prosecution failed to prove Hodge had actually planted or detonated the explosives himself. That conviction could have added another 10 years to Hodge’s sentence.

  Hodge’s defense case was dealt a serious blow when the man who had provided his alibi for Oct. 10 suddenly recanted his testimony in a deal with Crown prosecutor Leslie Singer. Richard “Dum Dum” Duff had originally told the court that Hodge had been at his home in the Bowness neighborhood on the night of the murder, discussing whether to make Duff a full member of the Wild Roses. Duff reportedly had a change of heart, however, and changed his testimony on the condition that he not be charged with perjury for lying on the stand. In his second testimony, Duff said Hodge had offered him five thousand dollars and full member status in the Wild Roses to lie in court, and that Hodge had never been to his home.

  The prosecution also entered evidence in the form of a photograph from Dunn’s camera that, according to Singer, showed Hodge standing behind Ferbey after the murder weapon was fired.

  Singer, who was seconded out of semi-retirement to act as prosecutor for the trial, said she was “ecstatic” over the judge’s ruling and believes the sentence will send a strong message to organized criminals in Alberta.

  “This verdict will echo through the halls of justice in this province,” Singer told the Chronicle in an exclusive interview. “Criminals have been told in no uncertain terms that frontier justice is alive and well in Alberta, and that they should beware.”

  Diane Manning, Hodge’s defense lawyer, said her client would appeal the conviction immediately.

  “We believe the prosecution’s case was built on pillars of sand,” Manning said yesterday. “A shaky eye-witness account, a grainy photograph, and the testimony of a small-time criminal who switched sides when it suited his own purposes, are hardly the basis for a murder conviction. There isn’t a shred of hard evidence linking Mr. Hodge to the crime scene.”

  Asked whether Duff should fear reprisal from the Wild Roses, Manning said the group is simply a “social group of motorcycle enthusiasts,” and that Duff would have “to live with his decision to misrepresent a man who has shown him nothing but kindness.”

  Hodge was transported to the maximum-security Badlands Institute for Men outside Drumheller immediately after the verdict, and will be remanded there until any appeals are exhausted.

  Dunn said he looks forward to returning to his work with the Chronicle, and that he is considering writing a book about Ferbey’s murder, the trial, and organized crime in Western Canada.

  “I think the Canadian public will be very interested in what I have to say.”

  See Verdict applauded, Page 3, and Justice system finally gets one right, Opinion, Page 16.

  #

  Leslie Singer’s office was in direct contrast to the rest of Calgary’s downtown courthouse. While the building itself was the epitome of functional modernism, all glass and concrete, Singer’s corner was a study in Old World charm, which wasn’t surprising. She’d been born and raised in Montreal and was as much of a liberal as Justice Gregory Larocque, at least on election day. Her desk was burnished mahogany with a gleaming top surface and ornately carved claw legs. The desk lamps were old school, with flat bases and wide fluorescents under simple shades, the thick carpet hunter green.

  The old lady motioned for Alex and Palliser to sit as she pulled a crystal decanter from the matching mahogany wardrobe on the wall next to the desk. She poured two fingers of amber liquid into each of three crystal tumblers, handed one to each of her guests, then raised her own glass.

  “Gentlemen, I can think of no more eloquent toast than this: To justice.”

  The three clinked their tumblers together and downed part of their drinks. Alex marveled at how smooth the cognac was – far better than he could afford on his salary, even with a “bestselling author” credit to his name. His knew this because his father had a cellar full of it.

  “Hear-fucking-hear,” said Chuck with a wide grin. “God, I love taking bad guys off the street. If I had a choice between nailing Hodge and fucking Jennifer Aniston, I’d have to think long and hard about it, believe me.

  Singer managed to look offended and amused at the same time. “Decorum, Charles,” she said mildly. “I know this is the wild west, but people like us are supposed to be held to a higher standard.”

  “Us?” Chuck asked, jerking a thumb at Alex. “I know you’re not talking about Jimmy Olson over here. These media folks spend so much of their day in other people’s shit they could tell you what you had for supper the night before.”

  Alex grinned and raised his glass. “Fuck you very much. And for your information, detective, Jimmy Olson was a photographer, not a reporter. You sure you didn’t catch a little clap from all those biker chicks you were banging undercover? I hear it fogs your brain.”

  “I can see I’m fighting a losing battle against testosterone here,” Singer sighed. “So let me take this opportunity to call you a pair of cocksuckers and get it over with.”

  Alex was in mid-sip and choked slightly on his cognac. Chuck’s eyebrows lifted for a moment before he let out a startled chuckle. Then he was off, bellowing laughter and bending forward in his chair to slap his knee. Alex finished gasping and joined in. Singer looked at the two in exasperation for a moment before she finally smiled and shook her head. Her massive old body began to shake, and soon she was leaning on her elbows on the mahogany desk and vibrating with laughter.

  Alex ran a hand over his face and tried to catch his breath. God, it felt good to laugh like that again, even if it was as much hysteria as it was humor. He’d been a coiled spring for over eight months now – Tom Ferbey’s ghost seemed to be in bed with him every night, silently asking over and over why Alex had let him die. In his rational mind he knew there was nothing he could have done, but in those lonely hours before dawn, another voice would whisper constantly in his ear like white noise, robbing him of sleep. And on the rare occasions when he was able to silence Ferbey, Rufus Hodge’s gargoyle face was more than willing to take over his nightmares.

  He wished he were more like Chuck. Throughout the investigation and trial, Palliser had moved like a mountain lion on the hunt, sure-footed, calculating, and above all, convinced that the kill was a foregone conclusion. It was just a matter of time. Of course, he had spent years living among bikers as one of them, mostly in Quebec, where the gangs had a chokehold on organized crime just about everywhere outside Montreal, which was still ruled by old school goombahs. Here in Alberta, the motorheads were fighting with Asian gangs for market share.

  Chuck and Singer had finally settled down, too. Chuck let out a satisfied “hoo-boy!” and downed the rest of his drink. He looked at Alex. “Bet that felt good, eh?”

  “Shut up, cocksucker,” Alex deadpanned, setting off another round of guffaws. When it subsided, Alex said: “It feels like I’ve had a gun pointed at my head for eight months, and now I find out it was never loaded. I suppose that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  Chuck nodded thoughtfully. “Sure it does. And now that I think about it, I owe you an apology.”

  “Say what, now?” Alex raised an eyebrow. Chuck Palliser was not one to say sorry.

  “Really, I do. I kept telling you to stop worrying about Hodge, like you were some kid who was scared of monsters under the bed. I should have looked at it from your perspective; Larocque doe
s have a reputation as a liberal. . . ”

  “Watch it, Sergeant,” Singer muttered, her eyes narrowing.

  “ . . . and as much as I walked around with my dick swinging like we’d hit a home run, we didn’t have an iron-clad case. I mean, Richie Duff defecting to our side gave Hodge’s defense a black eye, but if we didn’t have Hodge’s face in the photo you managed to snap from the Highland compound entry, we’d have had nothing tangible at all.”

  Singer leaned back in her chair and tented her fingers in front of her face. She was on her third cognac, Alex noted, and her nose was beginning to turn the ruddy color that signaled fresh blood flowing into the burst capillaries.

  “Much as it pains me to agree with the good sergeant, he is correct,” she said. “Taking nothing but circumstantial evidence to trial is a mug’s game. Johnny Cochrane, odious little cretin that he was, proved that point better than anyone. And we need look no further than the poor RCMP constable down in Pincher Creek, who shot his prisoner in a holding cell with no eye witnesses or video surveillance. He was tried three times and managed to get three different outcomes: not guilty, guilty and a hung jury.

  “In our case, Ms. Manning was our greatest ally. She convinced Hodge to opt for trial by judge, following the theory that a judge is less likely than a jury to convict on testimony alone. She likely piddled in her tight little skirt when Justice Larocque was drawn – a judge known for taking pity on misguided citizens such as her client.”

  Alex, like all crime reporters in the province, had known of Diane Manning for years. She had a reputation for taking on, pro bono, long-shot clients throughout Alberta who promised massive media attention. She’d garnered a name for herself that way, as the mouthpiece for a teen who cut his parents’ throats because they enforced a curfew, and a woman who shot her politician husband for sticking it to his intern. But Alex had learned from Manning’s colleagues that the counselor was discovering she couldn’t make her Jaguar payments with sound bites on the evening news.

  Rufus Hodge’s case must have seemed like manna from heaven – high-profile enough to satisfy Manning’s massive ego, and enough money to put paid to the Jag, not to mention a condo in Los Cabos and an apartment on Electric Avenue for her lover (depending on which reporter you were drinking with, she was keeping either a Guatemalan girl with a huge rack, or a bearded Russian bodybuilder, on the side). As absolute ruler of the Wild Roses, Hodge controlled a methamphetamine production and distribution system that ran from the Rockies all the way to Winnipeg. The Roses also dabbled in pornography, extortion, gambling, and the occasional paid hit. Even after blowing up a huge stash of meth on Tom Ferbey’s last night on earth, money was probably no object.

  Chuck tossed back the last of his drink. Alex could see the hardass creeping back into his eyes. “Too bad for Diane Manning that Rufus Hodge is such a stupid fuck,” he said. “He might have had us if he hadn’t listened to her.”

  Singer sat up quickly and fixed Chuck with her red-rimmed gaze. She didn’t actually point her finger at the cop, but Alex sensed the warning in Singer’s voice nonetheless.

  “You’re rambling, Sergeant,” the old woman said. “Let’s just be grateful that justice prevailed today.”

  “I don’t ramble,” Chuck said evenly. “I tell the truth.”

  “You of all people should understand the concept of privileged information, Charles. Now let’s – ”

  “Fuck that. He has a right to know.”

  The cognac had dulled Alex’s senses a bit, but not enough to keep him from catching Palliser’s hint. “I have a right to know what?”

  “Nothing, my boy,” Singer said hastily. “The good sergeant is a bit inebriated.”

  Chuck snorted. “I just finished my first, Leslie. You’re already on your fourth.”

  “That’s irrelevant and you know it. If this were to go beyond these walls – ”

  Chuck’s face darkened, and he leveled a finger at Singer, the same one he’d pointed at Alex in the courthouse hallway. “Don’t tell me about possible consequences,” he said. “I lived with these animals for years. I know what happens when the wrong information gets out.”

  The celebratory mood had dissipated like smoke in a sudden wind. Just as Chuck had defaulted to cop mode, Alex found himself operating on his reporter’s instinct. He trusted both of these people, but there was something in the room with them now hiding behind a big curtain.

  “Look,” he said to Singer, “you can’t talk like that right in front of me and think I’m just going to forget anything was said, especially if it involves me personally. I’m a journalist; I’ll figure out what you’re hiding. Wouldn’t it be easier just to tell me?”

  Singer sighed and rubbed her crimson eyes. Chuck leaned over and put a hand on Alex’s shoulder.

  “You’re giving yourself a little too much credit, kid,” he said with a ghost of a smile. “Even you couldn’t dig this up – only a few people know what we’re talking about, and two of them are in this room. We all have something very big and personal to lose if it got into the open.”

  “If what got into the open, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Look, Alex, I need you to swear this is off the record. I mean as far off the record as you can get. You’re a good guy and everything, and I think we can consider ourselves friends after all this shit, right?”

  “Of course, but –”

  “But at the end of the day, you’re a reporter, just like I’m a cop and Leslie here is a prosecutor. So right now I’m talking to you as one professional to another. You need to swear this goes no further than this office.”

  “All right. I swear.”

  Chuck crossed the room and drew the curtains on the narrow window that faced the courthouse’s back parking lot below, then locked the door and sat back down. What was with the cloak and dagger? Singer leaned farther forward on her desk, letting out a low moan that made Alex wonder whether it was the booze or the information that was the problem.

  “Should we invoke the cone of silence while we’re at it?” Alex chuckled.

  Without warning, Chuck leapt from his seat and slammed his hands down on the arms of Alex’s chair, effectively pinning him in place. The cop glared at him with those mountain lion eyes and, for a moment, Alex wondered what Palliser was capable of when crossed. He hoped he wasn’t about to find out.

  Chuck leaned in close until his lips were next to Alex’s ears. “This is serious shit, Alex. I’m about to let one motherfucker of a cat out of the bag here, and if I think you’re taking this too lightly, I’ll make sure you keep your mouth closed, even if it means you end up with your jaw wired shut and your fingers in splints. Capiche?”

  “Oh, dear lord,” Singer moaned.

  Alex’s heart was pounding. “Capiche,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry.”

  Chuck stood up and positioned himself, arms folded, on the edge of Singer’s desk.

  “All right, then,” he said. “You wanted to know why I was so sure Larocque was going to convict. Simple: he told me he would.”

  Alex gaped. The past two minutes had set his sense of reality seriously on edge. “He what?”

  “He told me. I think his exact words were ‘that savage bastard is going to die in prison. If this country still had the death penalty, I’d send him to the electric chair and pull the switch myself.’”

  “Greg Larocque. Let-Em-Walk Larocque. Said that.” Alex shook his head as if to clear it of dead flies.

  “He did,” said Chuck. “Granted, he was in shock at the time. It’s a natural response; no matter how bleeding heart they may be in their political views, every parent wants revenge when one of their children gets hurt. Most of them aren’t really in a position to do anything about it, although I do know of some cops who managed to pull it off. The old code of silence is still as strong as ever when it comes to that sort of thing. It wasn’t much of a stretch to extend it to a judge. We’re all looking for justice, after all.”

  “Wait,” said Ale
x, trying to process it all. “You’re saying one of the Roses went after someone in Larocque’s family? That’s insane, even for Hodge. He had to know it would blow up in his face! And how did it get past the media? I never heard anything about it.”

  “Rufus Hodge is many things,” Singer said quietly. “But insane is not one of them.”

  “She’s right,” said Chuck. “It was actually a fucking brilliant plan, even if it didn’t work the way Hodge expected. He has one of his men attack Larocque’s daughter to let the judge know that he’s touchable, but does it in a way that no one who knows about it can go public.”

  Alex held up a hand. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Larocque doesn’t have a daughter. He has two grown sons. One’s a lawyer in Edmonton and the other’s a social worker on the Blackfoot reserve.”

  “Therein lies the beauty of the plan,” Singer slurred. She knocked back the last dregs of her cognac. “Justice Larocque’s daughter is, in the vernacular, a bastard.”

  “Jesus.” Alex felt a headache coming on.

  Chuck shifted on the desk. He took off his suit coat and unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt, rolling them up and exposing the mosaic of biker tattoos that covered his ropy forearms. “Larocque used to play house with a paralegal named Christine Payne, who worked for his law firm back in the eighties. This was long before he was appointed to the bench. In ’84, Christine gave birth to a girl, Sarah. The judge’s wife and family never knew about the affair or the girl – he bought them a little house down in Medicine Hat, got Christine a job and paid for Sarah’s upbringing. Sarah moved to Calgary to go to school a few years ago, but never had much contact with the judge.”

  “How did you find this out? I’ve never heard a sniff about any of it, and you know how journalists talk.”