Lost Girls

by Andrew Pyper

  He sighs sharply, the sound of airbrakes released by an idling tractor trailer. Something about it makes me want to pull a clump of his curling, nose hairs out with my bare fingers.

  “Mr. Goodwin,” I say instead. “I’ll share with you what my mentor, Graham Lyle, often told me whenever I’d try to see more in the facts than was actually there. He’d tell me, ‘Bartholomew, it’s a fatal mistake for counsel to allow wishful thinking to stand in the way of logic.’”

  The folds of Goodwin’s shirt dive beneath the desk and his head 3-Ds forward, the redness in the cheeks now raised to the level of his hairline.

  “Don’t patronize me, Mr. Crane. Alright? That’s all I ask. You can play the cocky bastard as much as you like. I don’t care. But don’t tell me how to do my job.”

  I’ll say this: these words are delivered convincingly.

  “Fair enough,” I flutter my eyes closed. “I agree to refrain from any further impositions of professional advice. You have my word.”

  “Thank you. Now perhaps we could return to any outstanding matters regarding the supplementary disclosure. Do you have any questions I can help you with?”

  The flash of anger is already gone, the color fading from hanging jowls. No question about it: this guy has some impressive skills in the emotional self-control department. Not surprising really, considering the man’s endured a lifetime of being too quickly dismissed. Maybe he’s trained himself to use this to his own advantage—wait for his opponents to stop taking him seriously, and then roll over them. More likely he’s just developed a couple of tricks in order to preserve his dignity. And who could blame him for that?

  “I’d like to know about your witness list, as a matter of fact,” I say. “Who’s going when?”

  “Well, I expect to begin with Bill Butcher, the O.P.P.’s Chief Investigating Officer on the case. He’ll do a review of the essential Crown evidence.”

  “Right. Who’s next?”

  “My psychological expert, who’ll provide background on the current leading theories on the motivations behind child abduction, that kind of thing.”

  “But nobody’s even done a psych evaluation on Tripp yet.”

  “That’s true. We’re interested only in mapping out certain general background factors—”

  “But he can’t say anything directly about him, right?”

  “No. Not directly, no.”

  “Sure, sure. And then?”

  “The teachers. They’ll talk about Tripp’s apparent breakdown following losing custody of his daughter, giving the girls rides, his relationship with them in the Literary Club.”

  “Whatever.”

  “O.K. Next it’s Mr. McConnell—”

  “McConnell? Why? What could he possibly say?”

  “Nothing as to the facts, I admit. But I think he deserves an opportunity to address the court. He wants that opportunity.”

  “I’m sure he does. But I might as well tell you now that I will object like hell to his being permitted that opportunity.”

  “Fine. Whatever the outcome of that, I’ve next planned for some of Butcher’s assisting officers, then our DNA expert to interpret the results, and that’s about it. I’ll of course give you notice of any further additions.”

  Goodwin’s secretary steps in behind me with a bound copy of the DNA report held out before her.

  “Thanks, Corinne. That one’s for Mr. Crane.”

  She extends the document out in front of her the full length of her arm as though it’s a vicious animal that’s been temporarily tranquilized, drops it into my lap and clicks out of the room.

  “Murders make her nervous,” Goodwin explains.

  I stick the report into my case and rise to leave, my damp suit clinging to ribs and thighs in gravity-defying wrinkles.

  “Barth, can I tell you something? And I don’t mean anything by it beyond professional courtesy.”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “No? Well, I’ll make a point of being more attractive for our next meeting.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Truth is, I haven’t been sleeping all that much lately. Burning the midnight oil.”

  “Of course. It’s a pretty stressful time, I know.”

  “Maybe for you, pal. You should be stressed. But believe me, I’m fine.”

  I turn then, my clothing making an audible squishing sound with every step. Try to keep my back straight as I go but I can’t really feel it anymore, and it would make no difference now anyway. It’s too late. And the worst of it is that of all the fellow sufferers in this world it was the fat man who’d felt sympathy for me.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jury selection is a tricky business under the best of circumstances, but up here the process poses a special challenge. The field of candidates clucking and tooth-picking in the hallway outside Courtroom 109 compose an unsightly logjam of humanity, their faces set by experiences and gene pools I’d prefer not even to consider. Uniformly hirsute, vinyl hockey jackets stained by a sticky, mysterious goo, noses and lips threatening to fall off from the abuses of grain alcohol and tobacco. Their loose-skinned expressions communicating less impatience than a pained confusion.

  “No need to bring in the local intelligentsia, Pete,” I say to Goodwin as I settle at the counsel table next to him.

  “You’re the one who wanted people from the surrounding area and not from town. I’ve only accommodated your request.”

  “And for that you have my appreciation. I just had no idea so many distinguished members of society would have selected the woods north of Murdoch as the place to work on their memoirs.”

  It’s true that the field for jury selection was partly my own doing. We’d considered a change-of-venue motion early on to bring the trial down to be heard in Toronto, but Bert argued persuasively against it on the basis that in highly publicized trials of this kind, no town in the whole province could put forward a dozen people who weren’t familiar with the reported facts. In fact, it was decided that requesting the Crown to gather a jury to be selected from the northern half of the district would render people with the greatest chance of not having a clue about anything in the outside world. In any other place, Tripp would have already been unanimously villainized as the demonic child snatcher. But up here, where creepiness of all but the most severe kind is largely put up with, the defense stands a reasonably good chance of pulling twelve blank slates from out of the trees.

  “Well, what say we bring them on, Mr. Goodwin?”

  Goodwin waves his forefinger at the court clerk who sits in front of the bench with eyes already half closed. Having been interrupted from his clerkish dreams, he shuffles off to bring in the man designated to oversee the proceedings.

  But it’s not a man. It’s Justice Naomi Goldfarb. This is very good news. Well known to be patient with the defense and strict with the Crown and, perhaps best of all, famously antagonistic toward all in the constabulary. Consistently overlooked for appointment to the Court of Appeal due, it is said, to her outspoken criticism of the Old Boys’ Club which still runs the show in Upper Canadian halls of justice. I feel for her. The poor woman’s been assigned this nasty business, necessitating a long stay away from her comfy Forest Hill digs where I’ve drunk deep from the wine cellar at her annual garden party held for invited members of the criminal bar, my own invitation issued solely by virtue of my place of employ. I’ve appeared before her on a couple of minor matters in the past though, so she’d likely be aware that this is my first murder. Another blessing. Now I can play the defense naif who needs his hand occasionally held in order to get him through the complicated unpleasantries.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” Goldfarb sighs as she mounts the steps to the judge’s chair, arranging the layers of her robes over the armrests. She has a rib-rattling voice and a sarcastic look permanently draped over her face which, when seated, can barely be seen over the edge of the desk from where Goodwin and I sit in our places b
elow.

  “Good morning, Your Honor,” I chirp in before Goodwin has a chance.

  “Good morning. Ah, the joys of jury selection! Mr. Crane, do you expect to exercise your right to twenty peremptory challenges of the jurors to be arrayed before you this morning? I ask only because it would be really nice if we could select our twelve before the end of the day, don’t you think?”

  I stand and give her what I hope to be my most accommodating Crane smile.

  “While I reserve the right to challenge some of those I will make inquiries of today Your Honor, having viewed the candidates in the hall outside on my way in this morning, I have every expectation that the defense won’t be holding up the proceedings, at any rate.”

  “Very good, Mr. Crane. I applaud your optimism. Mr. Goodwin, please have the sheriff usher in the first of our lucky contestants.”

  And so it begins. By lunch we’ve got eight suitably unbiased neanderthals under our belt, and by mid-afternoon the full twelve plus four on reserve have been duly questioned and given full approval by yours truly. Four retired mine workers, a marina owner, two self-described “lumberjacks,” a manager of a Christmas tree farm and four bearded mumblers who, reading between the lines, are American draft dodgers who’ve been in selfimposed exile so long they haven’t yet been made aware of the twenty-year-old pardon allowing them the full freedoms of the civilized world. All of them but the marina owner are men, and all, when asked if they had any knowledge of the accused, answered either “No” or “Who?”

  They’d do just fine.

  “We’re ready for opening submissions a week from today, gentlemen?” Goldfarb winks as she gathers herself up from where she sits, visibly anxious to get in another few hours of city time before the coming Mondays-to-Fridays she’ll be required to be stationed in the boonies. Again, playing Goodwin’s physical disabilities to full advantage, I leap to my feet to offer my response first.

  “Absolutely, Your Honor. And looking forward to it too.”

  “Well, that makes one of us, Mr. Crane.”

  I haven’t called on Tripp yet to inform him of the hair and blood DNA results. The problem is that it’s so easy to forget about him. Or, more to the point, it’s easy to pretend to have forgotten about him. But it can be delayed no longer.

  After Tripp is deposited with me in Interview Room No. 1 we manage to exchange some niceties—hellos, a bloody shame about all this rain, even a joke about prison food—and I wonder if today, now that it’s coming down to the wire, he’s prepared to offer me some help.

  “I’ll come right to it, Thomas,” I start, then tell him about the DNA findings and outline their potentially grim connotations. For a time he appears to consider my words with an appropriate sobriety, places his hands together on the table. Then a mournful downturn hooks itself to his lips once more. Eyes straying away to the dream-inprogress projected onto the enameled wall.

  “They had such nice hair,” he inhales delicately, as though savoring the memory of its smell. “But they’d laugh when I told them they should tie it up with a bow maybe, that they’d look even prettier that way. Just laugh at me when I told them that’s how all the girls used to wear it, years ago.”

  “That’s amusing, Thom. But let’s stick with the program a minute here, O.K.? First of all, is there anything we can say to explain how that blood got there? I mean, if you think the truth will sound bad, is there anything else?”

  “If the truth sounds bad?”

  Turns his head. Says this to his own fingers splayed out before him.

  “Don’t you see how this looks? It’s pretty obvious to me, and it’ll be pretty obvious to the jury as well if we can’t provide some way of answering the Crown’s spin on it.”

  Tripp winces, reshapes his mouth into a polite smile.

  “Not sure I—”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? The longer you play dumb, the bigger the shit we’re both going to find ourselves in. And your pile will be far bigger than mine, I promise.”

  I’m shouting now, louder than I intended, but Tripp only sits back in his chair and watches me with detached interest.

  “How did you cut Krystal, Thomas?”

  “I didn’t do that.”

  “No? Then how did it happen?”

  “By accident.”

  “Whose accident?”

  “Krystal’s!” he shouts now himself. “Horsing around with some of the boys out by smokers’ corner after school and got in the middle of some wrestling match or other and scraped her knee. One of the other teachers brought her in and was going to call her father but I said I’d take care of it. Because I knew the trouble she’d be in if Lloyd found out that she’d been smoking with a bunch of boys instead of being inside at choir practice where she was supposed to be. She just hated going to choir practice! ‘Only Christians go to choir,’ she’d say, and stick out her tongue—like this!”

  Tripp now sticks his own tongue out and laughs from the back of his throat. I can’t help but notice that its surface is coated in a glistening layer of lime-green film, and that he displays it for an unnecessarily long time before pulling it back in.

  “So I took her in the car to the clinic,” he continues, “and they put four stitches in her knee. When they were done I dropped her off near her house. I noticed the blood on my shirt the next morning. And in the car, little dots in the backseat. I didn’t mind, though. They were just stains. And they were Krystal’s.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “April Fool’s Day. Isn’t that amusing?”

  I study Tripp’s face for evidence of a lie but it’s an impossible task. Even in my few years of practice I’ve had to deal with some remarkably accomplished liars, some you know are so good you will have made yourself promise to never believe a single word that comes out of their mouths. The next thing you know you find yourself thinking that maybe on this point, this one issue, they’re speaking the truth. But they’re not. And this is the art of all great liars: making you believe the single fiction that among all the others is most important for them to have you believe. Tripp may well be a great liar himself, or he may only be the fucked-up dullard that he appears. All I know is that I’ve never met anyone—client, witness or otherwise—who provided so few clues.

  “Thanks, Thom. I’ll come by again next week to see you before the big day,” I say, but he looks at me as though he doesn’t know what day I’m talking about or why it would be big.

  “Bartholomew, this is Houston. Come in, Bartholomew.”

  Graham’s voice on the speakerphone.

  “Roger, Houston. This is Bartholomew.”

  “So good to hear your voice, old man! Just wondering how our star is doing up there in the land of the midnight sun. Oh, and I heard who was assigned to your case. Dear Naomi. Lyle, Gederov and the entire Toronto underworld owe her so much. Three cheers for Justice Goldfarb! Hip-hiphooray! Hip-hip—”

  “Graham, I was sleeping,” I lie. “Can we do this another time?”

  “Of course we can. You need your beauty rest, I know. Only wondering when you were planning on getting back down to the city for a little strategic pow-wow with us old guys. The festivities start tomorrow for you and I think before things move too far along in the Crown’s case it might be nice to have a three-way brainstorm. Make everybody feel better. What say thee?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it, actually.”

  “No?” He smacks his lips as though working on a hard candy at the back of his mouth. “You think that’s wise?”

  “I think it’s better that I stay put up here, that’s all.”

  “I applaud your commitment, but perhaps a meeting of the minds would only make things a little clearer for us and for you before things really get rolling. And you could eat some real food. My God, you must be dying! Do they even have a Thai take-out up there? Or a steak house for the love of—”

  “I’m fine. I’m not hungry.” Easy now, Barth. He’s listening for cracks. “And you know what? Th
ere’s really no need for me to come back down to the city. I’m ready to rock up here. Everything’s cool.”

  For a moment I can almost hear Graham’s thoughts gaging whether I’m bullshitting or not, if he was prepared to insist at this point, how all this would pass with Bert. But when he speaks next it’s warm and teasing.

  “Cool and ready to rock, eh? Well, can I at least make a request that you let us know how you’re doing every once in a while? The last thing we want is the wheels falling off our boy’s little wagon.”

  “I’ll stay in touch. I just need to get some sleep now, that’s all.”

  “Well, you do that, my good man,” Graham says rather doubtfully. “You get some sleep. And you stay in touch too, or I’ll have to come up there myself and give you a good thrashing. Understood?”

  “Yes, Pa.”

  Then Graham’s gone and there’s nothing but the room again. And me. Me and the room.

  It’s the eve of trial and I’m walking the streets of town wishing for morning, for a cigarette, for a little company. Three things I normally have no interest in. Surely this is an initial sign of middle age, the sudden desire to dispose of old habits and take on some healthier new ones. Because it’s all going, isn’t it, little by little? Not only am I not getting any younger (easy enough to accept given its impossibility), but I’m getting older. My body calcifying, mysterious pains flashing through internal organs, muscles aching without just cause. Basic mechanics sliding out of my control and nothing but the brain left to count as my own. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it too hadn’t become doddery, endlessly gabbing away to itself but always failing to arrive at conclusions. It’s not even interested in conclusions anymore. All it wants is to avoid the big questions and gnaw at a harmless puzzle every once in a while. Still, overall I must consider myself among the lucky. At least I’m not worried about my weight.

  In fact, now that I think of it, if anything I’m aware of how light I feel. The weight of a forgotten name. A party balloon blown full of nothing. If I couldn’t look down and know that my feet were still tied into my shoes I wouldn’t be surprised if I just lifted off the ground once and for all, drifted up past the buzzing streetlights and slumped hydro wires into the supposedly infinite night sky. And the thing is I wouldn’t really mind, not too much, although I’m not crazy about the dark and have every reason to believe it would be cold up there.