by Andrew Pyper
That night I turn on the TV and it fizzes and cracks to life. A bad picture tube that flattens heads and loses its vertical hold any time a voice is raised. I get through a real-life cop show featuring a German shepherd separating a fleeing crack dealer from his left arm, the last half of Jerry Springer (the topic: “You’re My Sister and You’re Sleeping with My Son!”), shots of expensive beachfront homes turned to sparkly piles of chrome and glass by a hurricane in Florida. All of it reduced to a comic routine, even the violence and domestic tragedy and the power of Nature all going for the laughs. The flat heads weep, resist arrest, slap each other across the face without consequence.
I turn it off to waggle a plastic spoon into the thermos, only to have it slip out of my fingers when the phone rings.
“Barth Crane here.”
“Oh my. You’re in! I hate to sound like your mother but I must say it: Why don’t you ever call?”
“Nothing to report, Graham.”
“Surely there’s something.”
“Just been doing some research.” I turn to The Lady’s photo on the wall behind me. “Pulling things together.”
“Very good. No problems, then? The locals stop their little shows? Les danseuses exotiques curtail their prank calls? No more old women falling through ice or attempts to freak you out?”
“This is my case, Graham. Do I call you up just to be a sarcastic bitch when you’re working on a trial?”
“I wasn’t talking about the trial, old man.”
What if Graham could see me now? The walls plastered in curling newsprint. Most of Tripp’s file still unopened on the desk. A written account of Mrs. Arthurs’s story of The Lady glowing out from the laptop’s screen.
“Really, Graham. When I called that time I think I was drunk, for Christ’s sake. Everything’s peachy now, if you’d just stop smothering me.”
I turn on the TV again, mute the volume on the remote. It’s the funny home video show, a family winning $10,000 for footage of its father being swarmed by bees and falling off a stepladder while trying to screw a basketball net over the garage.
“Smothering? I’m so sorry. We don’t want to smother our boy, do we? Back to it then. And you just ring if anything develops. We’re following things in the papers down here, and you look good. Although, may I suggest a haircut?”
“Haircut. Right.”
“Night-night.”
I pick up the spoon again, dip deep. Tape the curling corners of newspaper down with another round of Scotch tape. Hold in my hand, and instead of dreams stay with the hair transplant specialists, cellulite creams and psychic hot lines until dawn.
THIRTY-SIX
Another walk through the drizzle up Ontario Street, another five minutes spent promising that today, finally, I’ll take my lunch break to buy a goddamn umbrella. I’m tired of spending my daytime hours sitting in the high-ceilinged space of the largest courtroom in Murdoch with drips of water finding their way down the back of my neck, over the nubby length of my spine. And why does it have to rain so much at this time of year anyway? It’s not like anything’s growing up here. Take a look around: everything’s dying, the streets littered in brown and yellow layers of wet death—
“Mr. Crane!”
It’s one of the TV reporters, the woman. Attractive on-air (sharp mouth and self-consciously hard-boiled voice) but up close the professional requirement of excessive makeup becomes gruesomely apparent.
“I understand that Krystal’s father, Lloyd McConnell, plans to take the stand today,” she says, pulling a cameraman along behind her on a microphone cable. “What will be your strategy on cross-examination?”
“Did you actually think I’d answer that question?”
“Well, do you have any comment? About anything?”
“I think not.”
I continue on, feeling a greater dampening through the shoulders of my suit than usual due to this delay on the courthouse steps. But before I make it all the way up she tries again.
“Mr. Crane! How do you respond to Mr. McConnell’s claim that anyone who would defend a man like Thomas Tripp is a hell-bound degenerate himself?”
Turn to face her and wipe a line of half-formed icicles from my chin.
“Hell-bound degenerate,” I say aloud to myself. Consider the term for a moment and resist a smile before heading inside.
The morning begins with Goodwin rising to call Lloyd McConnell to the stand. The next second I’m up myself to object.
“Yes, Mr. Crane? And why would that be?”
“Perhaps the court would be best served if the substance of my objections were not heard with the jury present.”
“Perhaps that’s so. Better safe than sorry, right? O.K., members of the jury. I know you’ve only just sat down, but would you mind filing back to the jury room for a time while we sort this matter out? I advise taking the opportunity for a second round of coffee and doughnuts. And Mr. McConnell, could you step out into the hall as well for a moment? Maybe you’d like some additional refreshments yourself. It may be a long morning.”
When the jury has shuffled out and the bailiff closed the door behind them, Justice Goldfarb looks down at me with her more or less permanent expression of wry suspicion.
“I think I know, but let me ask anyway: What’s your problem, Barth?”
“It’s the matter of relevance, Your Honor. I have no problem with Mr. McConnell venting whatever frustrations he’s understandably dealing with at the moment. But this courtroom is not the right venue for such therapy. I would respectfully remind the court that what we’re up to here is Mr. Tripp’s trial, and unless Mr. McConnell can offer any evidence to assist in its determination, I submit that he has no place in this procedure.”
I turn to check on Tripp, but his head is turned away at an odd angle as though his ears are picking up some faint radio signal he’s attempting to fine-tune.
“Mr. Goodwin?”
“Your Honor, Mr. McConnell’s testimony serves a very particular purpose, and that is to meet the suggestions made by defense counsel in his opening submissions that Krystal and Ashley may be nothing more than runaways. I submit that what Lloyd McConnell has to say about Krystal will address the credibility of such a suggestion.”
Justice Goldfarb stabs a finger into her mouth, pulls something out from her rear molars, flicks it to the floor, and replaces her hands in front of her in a single motion.
“Mr. Crane?”
“First, I made it clear in my opening submissions that the defense was not basing its case on the runaway theory, but merely asking the jury to keep it in mind as a possibility. Mr. McConnell’s testimony is therefore not necessary. There is tremendous potential for injury to be done to proper procedure here, Your Honor. I’d ask you to consider that.”
This last bit clearly a threat that if she allows McConnell to go up there’s automatic grounds for appeal, and we both know it. But Naomi Goldfarb, I’d forgotten, doesn’t respond well to threats.
“Thank you, Mr. Crane. Any suggestions, Mr. Goodwin?”
“Well, I would remind my friend that he is free to object to any particular piece of evidence that advances from the testimony. And perhaps he can take some comfort from the fact that the prosecution seeks only to show that Krystal McConnell was not the sort of young woman to run away from home without leaving a sign. The defense raised the question of the victim’s character, not me, and I’m only trying to meet that question by the only means available.”
Goodwin sits, pleased as punch, and for a second the entire room is held in breathless suspense, wondering if the moment has come for the legs under his chair to finally collapse.
“How’s that sound to you, Mr. Crane?”
“Not so great, Your Honor. But I see where all this is going and I would simply ask the court that if it decides to permit Mr. McConnell to testify despite my objections, I be permitted a broad scope for my cross-examination.”
“Broad scope?”
“He means ‘go for
the jugular,’ Your Honor.”
“I resent that remark—”
“Easy now, boys. I understand what you’re asking for, Mr. Crane, and I’ll keep it in mind. Because it’s my ruling that if Mr. McConnell wishes to testify, he can, as I’m sure that Crown counsel has advised the witness of the rough ride cross-examination can often be. So, let’s bring the jury and Mr. McConnell back in and get on with the show.”
When the jury’s back in their box McConnell is called once more, and up he comes, the floor creaking under the awkward bulk of his weight which this morning has been wrapped within a navy blue suit cut a little too short in the arms. From the waist up he’s managed to affect the body language of obligation—rounded shoulders, chin raised, eyes pulled wide. But as he takes the steps up into the stand his lower half gives him away. An aggression betrayed by A-frame thighs, inflexible knees, his shoes grinding into the carpet as though extinguishing someone else’s dropped cigarette. When the Bible is produced he lays his hand on its cover and raises the other with a rehearsed solemnity, and I imagine him standing before his mirror in the master bedroom at home, training for this moment while his wife wipes her eyes raw and pops her pills in the en suite bathroom next to him. Having stated his “I do” that echoes off the plaster walls longer than one would think possible he takes his seat, chest heaving inside his shirt like a wild animal smuggled in and now demanding release.
“Mr. McConnell, I’m aware that this is tremendously difficult for you—” Goodwin shakes his head, realigns the puffy necklace of flesh above his collar “—but could you help us here today by describing for the court what kind of girl your daughter Krystal was?”
And it begins. Home, hearth, family, church. The blueprint of the perfect nuclear family unrolled and explained in excruciating detail. He’s got it all figured out, the plodding narration to a rec room slide show committed to memory. Goodwin stands aside and lets him go. Why not? If I were him I’d do the same. And although not a word of it has any probative value whatsoever, I let it pass without a peep. On and on it goes, bravely, without tears, the words occasionally trembling with emotion before being gathered up to a proud baritone once more: “I remember on one picnic up at Killarney Provincial Park, Krystal got this bee sting and didn’t her cheeks swell up like two grapefruits.” “Quite an author she was, always sticking her beautiful poems up on the fridge door. Would you like to hear one?” “She was always honest with us. We built our house on honesty.”
My turn comes after lunch. Start with some meandering niceties, let the jury’s cafeteria sandwiches and brownies settle in their guts, then get to where I want to go.
“Mr. McConnell, you’ve made a special point of telling the court about the honesty in your house, particularly as between yourself and your daughter, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What I mean is that it was very important to you, to your family. Not telling lies.”
“It was important. But isn’t it important in every—”
“You’re the breadwinner of your house, right?”
“My wife doesn’t work, if that’s what you mean.”
“And you’re a religious man?”
“I attend church. I believe in God.”
“In rules?”
“God’s rules.”
“You’re the father, the breadwinner, a believer in rules, the head of your household?” At this McConnell looks over at Goodwin, hoping for a signal. But Goodwin is buried in his notes, trying to guess where I’m going, and McConnell is left alone to fold the skin of his forehead into ruddy pink waves.
“I suppose you could say that.”
“And as head of the household, liars are something you would have trouble tolerating, right?”
“I’d have some trouble. But with Krystal, there was never—”
“With Krystal there was never need to punish her, was there? You’ve told us how, with your other children, you’d sometimes have to lay down the law; but not with Krystal, isn’t that so?”
“That’s correct.”
“But if you did, you would have, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t have treated Krystal any different.”
“You’d punish her then?”
“I’d do something, but—”
“You’d do something. I see. Well, what if I told you that I have a witness who will testify that Krystal was in fact lying to you. Would you have done something if you had known that?”
“It would depend.”
“How about if she was smoking cigarettes with boys outside the school yard. Do you allow your children to smoke, Mr. McConnell?”
“How do you know she smoked?”
“I’ll prove it later. But let’s just hypothesize for the moment. Would you do something to your daughter if she was lying to you, if the lie involved her smoking and flirting with older boys she knew you didn’t approve of when she should have been attending choir practice?”
“If it’s true.”
“Let’s assume it is.”
The pink in McConnell’s forehead drains away, the skin there now left rippled in white dunes.
“I think sometimes a father has to do certain things. For discipline.”
“Discipline. Punish. You’d do something, correct?”
“If I had—”
“Would you say that you have a temper, Mr. McConnell?”
“I’m a businessman. Sometimes you’ve got to show people that they can’t get away with trying—that you don’t appreciate being taken for granted.”
“Is that why you pushed me around and threatened my bodily safety in the men’s lavatory of this very courthouse two days ago?”
“What? All I—”
“Objection!”
“Mr. Crane!”
Everybody’s up. Goldfarb shaking her head and Goodwin throwing his arms about him as though the words he wants to use are dancing in the air around him.
“Are you initiating new proceedings against the Crown’s witness here, Mr. Crane?” Goldfarb scowls. But there’s a brightness in her eyes that shows she’s enjoying this just a little.
“I’m not trying to make criminal accusations here, Your Honor. I’m merely trying to advance to the jury a particular quality of the witness’s relationship with his daughter. I mention events of the other day for that purpose alone.”
“What does it matter?” Goodwin finally splutters.
“If it’s not true, your witness can deny it,” I say, turning to him with an innocent shrug.
Goldfarb looks at us both, then pushes her chair back with a metallic pop.
“Ask the question again, Mr. Crane. But cautiously.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
I place my fingertips on the table in front of me and turn back to face McConnell in the stand.
“Did you or did you not, sir, lay your hands forcefully upon my person in the bathroom down the hall of this courthouse two days ago?”
McConnell opens his mouth with a crack of his jaw, looks up into the ceiling lights before answering.
“Yes. But we were discussing—”
“Yes you pushed me, and yes you threatened me?”
“I was upset.”
“And how much do you weigh, sir?”
“What?”
“Just curious. How much, give or take a few pounds?”
“Two-thirty.”
“A big man. And strong I bet, too. You try to stay in shape?”
“I’m fairly active. For my age. What does—”
“And what would you say my client’s weight is?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Guess.”
“One-fifty. One-sixty.”
“Little guy.”
“Not big.”
“No, but you are.”
“What the hell are you getting at? I mean, it sounds—”
“Let me tell you precisely
what I’m getting at.” I hold an open palm above my head. “I’m telling you that you, sir—a self-described disciplinarian with admitted tendencies toward violence—had the same if not greater opportunity and motive to murder your own daughter and Ashley Flynn as the prosecution has so far shown against Thom Tripp.”
“You filthy bastard! How dare—”
“In good shape, got eighty pounds on my guy—”
“Objection!”
“—more than enough power to carry those two girls under those big arms—”
“—how dare—”
“—felt you had to do something—”
“Objection! Your Honor, please, this transgresses—”
“God damn you!”
“ORDER! ORDER PLEASE, IF YOU DON’T MIND!”
Goldfarb is banging her gavel. A welcome sound. As Graham is so fond of saying, “It’s not a real trial until the court has used its little hammer. Bang, bang!”
“Mr. Crane, could you let me in on where these questions are going?” Goldfarb asks once McConnell and Goodwin have exhausted themselves.
“Your Honor, Mr. McConnell has taken the stand with the understanding that he would be vigorously cross-examined. And that this cross-examination would be permitted broad scope.”
“Fine. But broad scope doesn’t involve bald accusation.”
“And I’m not accusing anyone. I’m merely trying to illustrate the absurdity of the accusations against my client by demonstrating the ease with which a case—slim, but no slimmer than the one faced by Thom Tripp—could be made against Mr. McConnell. I’m showing that it’s crazy to support the charge that this 150-pound teacher—” I place a hand on Tripp’s shoulder “—murdered two of his students because he was found to have worn muddy pants. I apologize if my questions did anything more than achieve this aim, Your Honor.”
“Fair enough, Mr. Crane. Now, do you—”
Goodwin’s up, waving a finger in the air as though tracing the flight pattern of a fly.
“Your Honor! You’re going to accept that explanation? I think counsel for the defense deserves to be reprimanded and limited in any further—”
“Sit down, Mr. Goodwin. I think Mr. Crane’s explanation was perfectly satisfactory. I advise members of the jury to keep these remarks in mind, as a matter of fact. And as for you, Mr. McConnell, I sincerely hope you will accept the defense’s apology.”
