Denial

by Beverley McLachlin

  “Lots of irrational worrying. Vera would telephone her mother, Maria, me, and Nicholas sometimes ten times a day about this or that. Sometimes she would drive over and burst into Olivia’s house with her list of concerns. It was difficult for Maria, difficult for Olivia.”

  The flat façade of objectivity he has assumed up to now breaks, and he gazes at Vera with compassion. “You have to understand, Mr. Kenge, my wife loved her mother very much. She lived in fear that something terrible would happen to her: Maria would forget to give her the right medicine. Or she wasn’t eating enough. Or there wasn’t enough food in the house. In her mind, there was an endless litany of things that could go wrong.”

  “All the time?”

  “She would seem fine, and then an event would trigger her anxiety, like Olivia’s call did the evening of the death. Vera would exhaust herself, and then suddenly collapse into depression, saying I can’t take this anymore. I can’t handle this. This has to end.” Joseph bows his head. “You never knew what was going to happen, never knew what was coming next.”

  The jury sits in rapt attention. Some steal quick glances at Vera. A few physically lean toward the witness—a decent man trying to live with a crazy wife—but I know all too well how Joseph can put on an act.

  “One final thing I’d like to ask you about, Mr. Quentin. Did Olivia ever talk about wanting to end her life?”

  “Not in my presence. But Vera told me that Olivia had talked to her doctor about assisted dying and that he couldn’t help her because the requirement of imminent death wasn’t met—despite her pain, Olivia was strong and with the chemo treatment might have lived a long time. So, Olivia asked Vera to—to help her to die. But Vera didn’t mean—”

  Cy cuts Joseph off. I stand to object, then sit. I’ll get the complete answer in cross-examination.

  “Did Vera say anything about Olivia’s wish to die the evening of the night Olivia Stanton was killed?”

  Joseph looks up wearily. “Not that I recall.”

  “She might have?”

  I am on my feet. “The witness has answered—”

  But Joseph’s voice cuts over mine. “So many things were said, on so many different occasions—I just don’t know.”

  Cy has enough. “Thank you, sir,” he says as he takes his seat. “Your witness, Ms. Truitt.”

  “The bastard,” Jeff whispers. Joseph could have left his first answer alone—he doesn’t recall. Cy’s pieces are sliding into place; with Joseph’s help, Vera’s uncontrollable anxiety, Olivia’s request to Vera to end her life, and Vera’s last-minute decision to pack her bag and stay over have been spun into a sinister story.

  Vera’s great round eyes are fixed on her husband in shocked disbelief; she knows what he has done and can’t believe it. Neither can I. I treat him to a long, black stare.

  CHAPTER 30

  AS ALWAYS WHEN I’M ON a murder case, I don’t sleep well. The demons—the really bad ones—leave me alone as I drift into exhausted slumber after I’ve mumbled goodnight to Mike into my phone. It’s the urchins that disturb me—the mischievous minor devils that creep into happy dreams and turn them on their heads, pulling up the phantoms that leave me sweating and clammy and praying for dawn.

  I curse as I rise from a night of distress and lurch toward my coffee machine. I have learned from long experience that, rested or not, I will function. Under the pressure of the moment, my adrenalin will kick in and I will kick ass. Or the nearest available equivalent.

  My thoughts untangle and my mood lifts. I’m in my zen spot, on my stool at the kitchen island. I pick up my cell phone and scan the news. The press has delivered its verdict on the first day of trial, and it doesn’t lift my spirits. Compressed extracts of the picture Cy painted in his opening fill the front page of the Sun. The theory of the Crown is front, centre, and endlessly repeated. Depressed and unstable, Vera Quentin finally lost it and did the unthinkable—killed her mother. Vera’s face, crudely sketched, peers out between the lines of the stories—great eyes lonely and searching, brown hair falling over one eye.

  I toss the phone aside. It’s just the press, I tell myself, and only day one.

  But I think of Vera and reach again for the phone. Job number one: keep the client intact. I hit the call button. I’m still in my PJs and my ugly Ugg slippers swing in the air as my leg dances the nervous tune of what’s to come.

  Vera answers on the second ring.

  “How are you doing, Mrs. Quentin?” I ask. There’s a long silence. “Mrs. Quentin?”

  “Hello,” she whispers.

  “Mrs. Quentin, are you alright?”

  “Yes, I believe I am. I have just risen. My mind is beginning to work. I believe I will be able to dress and come to court.” Her words are slow and metronomic.

  “How are you feeling? I mean, after Joseph’s testimony yesterday.”

  Again, I wait. Her shocked gaze as Joseph refused to deny she might have been talking about Olivia’s demand she kill her as they left the house is burned in my memory. I expect bitterness.

  “I didn’t expect him to testify against me; I didn’t expect him to imply that—” she breaks off. “But as I thought about it, I realized how difficult this has been for him.”

  I decide to spare her my view of her husband’s duplicity. “Difficult for you.”

  “No, not for me.” She sounds annoyed. “All I ever wanted was to be good. A good daughter. A good mother. Above all, a good and loyal wife. Ms. Truitt, I committed my entire adult existence to my family. And as Joseph spoke yesterday, I realized that I had failed. I have not been a good wife. I have let my husband down.”

  My slipper has stopped wagging. Vera Quentin has thrown me for a loop—again. Her next decade is up for grabs and she’s fixating on whether she has been a good wife.

  “Mrs. Quentin, this is not the time to right all the wrongs of the past, real or perceived. This is the time to hold your head up and maintain your innocence. You are a good person. You are innocent of the crime of which you have been accused.”

  And then, the question no client has ever asked me, delivered softly, deliberately, as if the world depended on it: “Ms. Truitt, do you believe I am innocent?”

  I should tell her that what I believe doesn’t matter—I’m just her lawyer, believing or disbelieving is not my job. I could tell her, if I were an unethical fool, that my reasoned conclusion is that she is deluding herself into thinking she is innocent when she’s not. But then it comes to me. I would never have taken her case if I had not believed she was innocent. In my gut, I know. I believe.

  “Yes,” I say. “I believe you are innocent. Now get the hell dressed and get down to court so we can prove it.”

  CHAPTER 31

  COURT IS IN SESSION AND I’m on. Jeff is in the chair beside me, Cy and Jonathan are across the aisle, and in the prisoner’s box, a new person sits this morning, day two of the trial. Vera is groomed and composed, a hint of pink in her cheeks and a slick of colour on her lips. She catches my eye and gives me a small smile.

  With judge and jury in place, Joseph resumes his place in the witness box. He looks old today, deep half circles beneath his eyes. He is careful not to look at his wife or me. He cajoled me into taking this case, promised to do whatever he could to help. So far it’s not working out that way. Today I call in my chit.

  I push aside the notes I so carefully prepared last night. I have ground to regain, work to do. Minor repairs here and there, and then the big challenge—to dislodge, as best I can, the image of a weak, irrational woman whose head was thrumming with the conviction that her mother wanted to die that fateful night.

  “Mr. Quentin,” I say. “Has your wife been a good wife?”

  He’s visibly stunned. “Why yes, she has been a good wife.”

  “A loyal wife?”

  His eyes reach across the courtroom to find Vera’s. I sense his yearning for a moment of bonding, of love maybe, but she studiously avoids his gaze. He sighs. “Yes, a loving, loyal wi
fe.”

  “Great,” I say. Now we can move on.

  Cy shoots me a quizzical look, but I don’t care. I’ve given Vera what she needs to survive the day. I move on to character rehabilitation.

  “Vera was close to her mother?” I ask.

  “Yes, she was constantly phoning and going over to check on her. The doctors will tell you about her anxiety.”

  “Right now, we need your evidence, Mr. Quentin.”

  He pulls his shoulders back; he doesn’t like being schooled in what he considers his own domain. “Yes, Ms. Truitt,” he says, a hint of sarcasm.

  “So, tell me if I have the right picture. Your family was close, and Olivia was an intimate part of that family. Vera saw her almost daily, but Olivia was having more and more difficulty, more and more pain, as her illness progressed?”

  “Yes, that’s fair to say.”

  “You helped her arrange for a caretaker?”

  “Yes, Vera was trying to do what was necessary, but it was wearing her out. I suggested we pay Maria Rodriguez to come in Monday to Friday, rather than the two days a week she had been doing. Vera protested at first but finally agreed. Maria would come around ten in the morning and stay with Olivia until six thirty or seven, when Maria put her to bed. That left gaps. Vera would go over on the weekend to get Olivia dressed in the morning and put her to bed at night. Make sure she had everything she needed.”

  “And weekdays?”

  “Weekdays she would often go, too. To check on how Maria was making out, do the shopping, help out any way she could.”

  “The picture you’re painting of your wife, Mr. Quentin, is of a woman who was competent and organized when it came to the care of her mother.”

  I feel Joseph bending my way, moving back into the groove of the loving husband. He knows he’s let me down, knows I’m upset. Knows that twenty feet away Vera’s glance—when she deigns to look at him—is cold. I still don’t understand what side he’s on. One day, he goes as far as he can to get his wife convicted; the next, he’s trying to support her. Maybe it’s his idea of appearing objective. Or maybe he loves his wife and regrets his performance yesterday.

  “Yes, she was sometimes overanxious, but she did what was necessary, what she could,” Joseph admits.

  “Vera Quentin was a person you could rely on?” I prompt.

  “Yes, her mother relied on her. And so did I. I personally looked after paying for the caretaker and upkeep of Olivia’s house. But Vera did everything else. It wasn’t always easy.”

  “Explain, Mr. Quentin.”

  “Olivia could be—difficult. She was a strong woman, frustrated at her dependence on Vera. Dependence often begets resentment and repressed anger in my experience. Olivia loved Vera and appreciated Vera’s concern, but sometimes—especially when Vera was irrationally anxious—Olivia was harsh with her, would say things she didn’t mean.”

  “How did that affect Vera?”

  “It hurt Vera, of course. In Vera’s mind she was doing everything she could for her mother, and to be criticized instead of thanked—it wasn’t easy.”

  I lean forward. “But despite the difficulties, Vera was always there for her mother?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “She wanted Olivia to live?”

  Cy is on his feet. “The witness cannot testify to the accused’s state of mind.”

  “Very well, I will restate the question,” I say. “Mr. Quentin, was it your impression that your wife was doing everything she could to ensure that her mother would live?”

  “Absolutely,” Joseph says. “In fact, it seemed to me she was obsessed with keeping her alive.”

  “Mr. Quentin, you told the jury yesterday that before her mother died, Vera said something to the effect that she couldn’t take it anymore. You were cut off before you could complete your answer. I have the transcript, you said, But she didn’t mean—, and then Mr. Kenge cut you off. Would you complete your answer?”

  Cy interjects. “Objection, goes to the accused’s state of mind.”

  “Let’s hear the answer,” says Justice Buller. “But the witness should confine himself to his interpretation of the remark.”

  “I didn’t take her comment literally,” Joseph says. “It was the sort of thing people say when they’re feeling overwhelmed—I can’t take this anymore.”

  “So, a complaint, not a statement of fact?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Mr. Quentin, you’ve also testified that some weeks before her death, Vera told you that her mother had asked her for assistance in dying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once again, you were cut off before you could give your complete answer. Would you care to complete it now?” I stare at him. I remember his words in the Granville restaurant, before he took them back: We know who killed her. I’m asking him to come through for his wife, for us. And he does.

  “Vera said she told her mother she wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it. I remember her words with crystal clarity. I could never bring myself to kill my mother. There are some things one can’t do, even if one wants to. Things that cross a line that’s so deep, one could never go there.” He turns to the jury. “My wife is very good with words; she’s a poet. And that is what she said.”

  “Precisely?”

  “Yes, precisely. I can’t believe she could ever have—killed her mother.” His voice is gravelly; he wipes the corner of his eye with his embossed linen handkerchief.

  A fine performance. Just what we needed. He turns and gazes on Vera—this little speech, his gift to her. She gives the slightest of nods. Court rises for the morning break.

  CHAPTER 32

  SO FAR, MY PLAN IS working. Step number one was to refurbish Vera’s image and get Joseph to admit he didn’t think she could kill her mother, hoping that residual guilt about his performance on day one would incline him in our favour.

  Two tasks remain. The first is to deal with Joseph’s evidence that no one else could have entered the house that night. The last will be to take him back to his conversation with Olivia the day she died. With luck, I tell Jeff, we will wrap up before one.

  We go through the issue of security quickly. It was his task, Joseph agrees, to look after the upkeep of Olivia’s house. He kept everything shipshape, as best one can with an older house. I leave the Medeco keys alone—the evidence is what it is, and I have no hope of establishing that someone else had a key without some new revelation. But I zero in on the windows.

  “The windows, you checked them?” I ask.

  “Well, I went to the house every few weeks. I would have noticed if there was something wrong with the windows.”

  “But you didn’t actually check them? Physically, I mean, to make sure an intruder couldn’t shift them in their frames, get in that way.”

  “No, I can’t say I did.”

  “Even though it was an old house.”

  “I did the usual checks,” he says.

  “Oh, one more thing, Mr. Quentin. Were any repairs or changes made to the house between the time Olivia died and the present?”

  He gives me a curious look. “No. The house was sold as a teardown, no point in making repairs. In fact, it was demolished last week.”

  I have what I need and move to my final inquiry. “Mr. Quentin, when did you last see Olivia Stanton alive?”

  His head cocks to the side. I’ve caught him off guard. The jury has picked up the vibe, and even Justice Buller leans forward to hear what he has to say.

  “I’m not sure I recall,” Joseph says. “Not that night—the evening of the murder I just dropped Vera off without going in.”

  “I put it to you, Mr. Quentin, that you visited Mrs. Stanton just before noon on the day of her death?”

  “I’m not sure I recall,” he repeats, playing for time. “Possibly. I went over quite frequently for one thing or another.”

  “Well, that is what Maria Rodriguez will say. That you came to see Olivia shortly before noon the day she died. Do you have re
ason to disagree?”

  He takes out his handkerchief, wipes his brow. “Ah, now it’s coming back to me. Olivia had called the afternoon before and said she had something to discuss with me. I told her I would come over the next morning.”

  “And what did Olivia Stanton want to discuss with you, Mr. Quentin?”

  “When I got there, she told me she couldn’t find her will. So I found it in the drawer and gave it to her.”

  “Did she raise anything else?”

  “Not that I recall. She was considering changing her will. She said she was thinking about making a bequest to the Society for Dying with Dignity. Substantial, she said.”

  “In the six figures?” I press.

  “She didn’t say how much.”

  “What did you advise her?”

  “I told her she shouldn’t do it.”

  “Did Mrs. Stanton become upset when you said this?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Upset enough that she raised her voice?”

  “I don’t recall that.”

  Just what every witness says when he’s cornered—I don’t recall.

  “If Mrs. Rodriguez were to testify that she heard Mrs. Stanton’s raised voice, and as a result knocked and opened the door, would you disagree?”

  “I don’t recall that, but I may have forgotten.”

  “Well, we will hear from Mrs. Rodriguez in due course.”

  My instinct is kicking in; I decide to go out on a limb. “I put it to you, Mr. Quentin. There was something else—something other than the will that Olivia was upset about.”

  He shakes his head. “No, no. Maybe Olivia was upset with herself that she hadn’t remembered where her will was—that’s what I think I told Maria when she opened the door—but no, Olivia had no reason to be upset with me.”

  He’s lying, I think, it’s in the momentary shift of eye, the twitch of lip. There was more. Something I don’t know about yet. But I’ve chased this bird as far as I can without more ammunition.

  I circle back to the will. “As executor, you knew the terms of the existing will, Mr. Quentin?”