Law and Disorder

by Mary Jane Maffini

“Oh, right,” I said with feigned enthusiasm. “Ashley and Brittany.”

  “Yes,” he said. Did I detect a little tone there?

  They were the second reason I liked talking on the phone with him, rather than living with him. We each had our baggage. My dead husband, Paul, and Ray’s memories of his late wife. In time we’d be able to have a great relationship. The presence of two teenage girls who viewed me as taking over their mother’s place currently presented a bit of a hurdle. Even if they were both attending university in Halifax, a five-hour drive from dear old Dad.

  “What about them?”

  “You know they’ve been keen on Dragon Boat races since we had those events here in Sydney the last couple of summers.”

  “Right, and that’s terrific. Happy to contribute,” I said. This was going to be easy. Sponsoring the little beasts while they rowed for a good cause. Why not?

  “You sound enthusiastic,” he said, that teasing note creeping into his voice. I loved that voice, made my knees weak.

  “I am,” I said, “in a weak-kneed way, I am.”

  “Well, that’s great. They’ll be arriving in Ottawa this week.”

  “Did you say Ottawa?”

  “I’m glad you’re not too weak-kneed to be listening.”

  “They’re coming to Ottawa?”

  “Quit teasing. You know how much I appreciate this.”

  “Remind me why again?”

  “The Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival is next week. I thought it had all been arranged, Camilla. We discussed it, and I talked to Alvin about it too the other day, and he said it was great. Don’t you remember?”

  In fact, I didn’t. “It’s just late, like you said, and I’m groggy. That’s terrific. The Dragon Boat Races are a lot of fun. Are you coming with the girls? Because that would be really excellent.”

  “I have a work commitment that I can’t get out of. Believe me, I’ve tried, but it’s a course, and I’m locked into it. No choice.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll be sorry to miss out on the race and, now that I think about it, I wouldn’t mind seeing you either.”

  I said, “It’s wonderful. They’re coming with a team, right?”

  Ray was quiet for a second. Words like wonderful do not come naturally to me, especially in connection to visitors, aside from Ray, himself. Maybe I had overdone it again.

  “Right,” he said at last. “But there’ll only be the two of them and they’ll be busy. They’re a real pair of water rats. They love this racing thing. And they don’t mind sharing a room. Think how much worse it could be.”

  Despite the time of night and my state of mind, I managed not to say that I couldn’t think of how it could be any worse.

  FOUR

  What is a lawyer’s ideal weight?

  -Five pounds, including the urn.

  Morning comes early in the middle of June. When the first light of dawn scratched at my eyeballs somewhere around four thirty, I sat up in bed and started making notes.

  48 By the time I climbed out of my bed, I had a plan. A long shower and my favourite green apple shampoo helped me to feel alive at least. I shook my hair dry and slipped into a pair of light cotton capris and a sleeveless top to set out with Gussie through the sleeping neighbourhood. I banged on Alvin’s closed bedroom door as we stumbled by. Spare him the sympathy. He had it coming.

  Twenty minutes later, Alvin gazed blearily at me across the kitchen. He squinted and turned back to sip his Cape Breton-style morning tea. “It’s too early for you to be so grouchy, Camilla. And it’s not fair of you to wake me up.”

  “Time to come clean, Alvin.”

  He glanced at me warily.

  I pulled up the second stainless steel and leather chair. “I had a long talk with Ray last night. By any chance is there some small detail you might have forgotten to mention?”

  Alvin had taken on the look of a mouse in his mousehole while the cat sat outside tapping its claws on the floor. In this relationship, I so rarely get to be the cat.

  “Like what?” he said, sipping the bracing black tea.

  We both knew perfectly well that there were many many things Alvin could have forgotten to mention out of self-preservation, playfulness, or other Alvinesque reasons.

  “Oh say, like Ashley and Brittany? Ray’s daughters.”

  “What about them?” he said.

  “Well, apparently they’re arriving this week for the Dragon Boat Races. And they are staying here, in this house. Sleeping arrangements have been all worked out. Isn’t that great? Everyone knows about it. Except me, of course.”

  Alvin swallowed. “Didn’t I talk to you about all that?”

  “I don’t think you did, Alvin.”

  “I meant to. I had a chat with Ray one night when he was looking for you. I don’t know where you could have been at the time.”

  “Walking the Ferguson family dog, I imagine. That is the extent of my social life lately.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And what all did you work out with Ray? Be precise.”

  “That they’d stay here, of course. What else would you plan to do with them? They’re practically family. That’s what I said to Ray. And he told me when they were coming and all that.”

  “That must have been when you filled me in on the details.”

  “Okay, okay. So I forgot. Lord thundering Jesus, Camilla, you always go on about everything. I have a whole lot on my mind lately. Now that you’ve shut down Justice for Victims, I have to find another job, and if you sell this house, I have to get another place to live. I’m working really hard to build my cooking skills and that’s taking a lot of time and psychic energy.”

  “Spare me, Alvin.”

  “Everything is not about you, Camilla,” he sniffed.

  I have learned not to be distracted into losing my temper.

  “But this is about me. Don’t you think I might want to know when they’re arriving, for instance?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So did you write down the arrangements?”

  “I knew I’d remember them.”

  “Fair enough. And do you remember them?”

  I tapped my fingers on the table during the longish pause.

  Eventually, Alvin said, “Not exactly.”

  “Oh, great. Well, they’re going to be here sometime, so you’d better figure out what needs to be done and how you’re going to do it. Consider it a matter of life and death. I’d like a plan after I get back from my first meeting.”

  Alvin said, “But you don’t have meetings any more.”

  I met P. J. Lynch for breakfast at the Second Cup near the Courthouse. I was already waiting with an iced latte and a blueberry muffin when he blew in the open door. His carroty hair was a bit rumpled, as were his yellow T-shirt and his cargo shorts. Maybe he’d slept in that shirt. Or maybe not, as he cultivates a wrinkled style. Particularly on a Saturday.

  He stood in line until he snagged a double espresso and three chocolate biscotti.

  “Any word?” I asked when he sat down.

  “About what?” he said when he had inhaled his breakfast, setting some kind of chocolate biscotti eating record.

  P. J. was a reporter who put his nose for news above all else, including confidences from his friends. I definitely didn’t want to tell him about the lawyer joke that had preceded Rollie Thorsten’s demise or the note with Thorsten’s name on it.

  I said, “I don’t know. Anything.”

  “Could you be a bit more vague, please?”

  “Hey, you’re the reporter, P. J. You tell me.”

  “I gather you didn’t read my piece in the Citizen this morning.”

  “It’s early, P. J. And I didn’t get much sleep. Oh, come on, don’t get sulky. Do you want me to run to Mags and Fags and buy a Citizen? I’ll do it if that means I don’t have to look at your protruding lower lip.”

  “Funny. It was just about the weirdness of Rollie Thorsten dying right when Brugel’s trial is c
oming to an end.”

  I feigned a total lack of interest. “Oh yeah?” I yawned to further the point.

  “Am I boring you? I thought it was great human interest.”

  “Hmm. Did you hear anything about how Rollie managed to drown himself?”

  “No reports available yet, but there’s something funny going down. The cops aren’t saying diddly.”

  “Really? Didn’t you get anything out of Officer Wentzell?”

  P. J. shot me a dirty look. “Don’t mock me.”

  I said, “She just seems like such a nice girl. I don’t know why they wouldn’t release the cause of death. He was supposed to have drowned, but I heard a rumour that he was shot.” I didn’t let on that a joke was the source of the rumour and that Mombourquette had confirmed it.

  “I heard that too.” P. J. actually quivered. And he was lying. I can always tell.

  “Maybe the cops are being cautious about information so the relatives don’t get upset.”

  P. J. snorted. “Be serious. The path lab and the coroner might be discreet, but all the cops I know hated Rollie. They probably have a flock of plastic flamingos outside the station today.”

  I thought of Mombourquette and his visceral reaction to Brugel and his lawyer. “I suppose they all did hate him.”

  “Sure. He used to shred them on the witness stand. I know one guy had to take stress leave afterwards.”

  I shrugged. “They’re trained to cope with that kind of treatment on the stand. They just say what they observed. They’re not being accused of anything.”

  Unlike Laurie Roulay. She’d been accused of lying and of being in part responsible for the death of her daughter and that of the child’s father. Specious for sure, and the judge rapped Rollie’s knuckles for it, but the damage was done.

  P. J. said, “Rollie had special talent.”

  “So they all hated him.”

  He narrowed his eyes, watched me with more suspicion than usual. “Do you know something about his death?”

  “Me? What could I know?”

  “My spider senses are tingling.”

  “Really? Have you thought about getting a job in a comic book?”

  “Funny. But if you did know something, you’d tell me.

  Right?”

  “Sure. And you’d tell me too, right? You want another espresso?”

  “Nope. I’m heading out to dig up dirt. You better not be holding back, Tiger.”

  “Me? Dirt? I never touch the stuff. But I’d appreciate you keeping me in the loop.”

  He tilted his head. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I hated Rollie at least as much as any cop, and I’d salivate over the details.”

  The second item on my plan was a trip to Rollie Thorsten’s office. The space was pretty much what you might expect: a straightforward legal office in a nicely converted old house on Somerset just west of O’Connor. It was a Saturday, but I figured the day after his death, someone might be there trying to figure what to do next. It was still before ten in the morning when I pushed the unlocked door open. The receptionist’s desk was empty. No big surprise.

  The furnishings were fairly new and typical, heavy on the sand and taupe. Good quality. The sense of dinginess and sleaze was all in my mind, I knew.

  I heard a small sound from around the corner, and I stepped further into the office. I knocked on a wall and said, “Hello.”

  Jamie Kilpatrick, the fresh-faced junior lawyer who had been in court when Rollie failed to show up, jumped. He followed that by dropping the sheaf of papers in his hand.

  “Let me help you with that,” I said pleasantly.

  I guess he wasn’t reassured by my presence because he was practically trembling. “No, just leave them. Who are you? How did you get in?”

  As this was not the time for sarcasm, I resisted. “The door was open. I was expecting a receptionist, actually.”

  “It’s Saturday.” What was that in his voice? Irritation? Or just plain fear?

  He couldn’t have been more than twenty-six, and if I read his body language correctly, he was a man who would leap backwards through the double-glazed window at the sound of a nearby hiccup.

  “My name is Camilla MacPhee,” I said, soothingly. “And I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

  He said, “I’m not taking any new cases just now. And as you can see, I’m really quite busy.”

  “Won’t be more than a minute. First of all, my condolences on Rollie’s death.”

  “What? Oh. Yeah. Thanks. But really, I hardly knew him. I’d just joined the office last year and…”

  I smiled understandingly. “I understand. Not to trash the recently diseased, but I imagine you’d just discovered that Rollie was sleazy, difficult and inclined to take advantage of the staff.”

  He loosened his collar. “I wouldn’t exactly…”

  I added, “And now he’s dead.”

  He sat down and nodded. For a moment he seemed like a little boy, lost and most likely in big trouble over it.

  I said, “Murdered too, which just makes it even worse.”

  He glanced over at me. “What do you want?”

  “Just to talk. I’m trying to understand what’s going on. Did you see the lawyer joke that Rollie received before his death?”

  “What do you mean? A joke? Rollie’s death was horrible. Why are you talking about jokes?”

  “I heard a rumour that he got one in the mail and then got a piece of paper with his name on it on the day he died.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you want from me, but I don’t have time for this kind of sick nonsense.”

  “Fine, but then, of course, I’m also interested in why you backed out of the Brugel case.”

  He stared at me, took his time. “It was really in fairness to the client.”

  “It sure was. I’d say it was Christmas in June, with a hint of Easter Bunny for Brugel.”

  He flushed. I think they call that shade puce. He sputtered. “I don’t have enough experience to conduct this case. Rollie had all the background.”

  “Give me credit for a brain. First of all, Rollie was so lazy, he probably didn’t wipe his own butt. You were the one required to do all the digging. You did the work, and probably knew the case cold. So let’s not bullshit about that.”

  He straightened up and tried to save his dignity, although his lingering blush undercut that somewhat. “This is a private office. I believe I asked you to leave.”

  “Sure thing. But I imagine the court will find it interesting to learn that you’ve been threatened by Brugel and that’s why you’re backing out.”

  Amazingly, he went from puce to the colour of his dropped papers. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him crumple onto the floor on top of them. But I had to give him credit for trying to brazen it out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one’s threatened me, unless that’s what you’re trying to do.”

  “Nice save,” I said, with admiration.

  “As I said, no one’s threatened me.”

  “No one suggested that it might be better for your girlfriend if you backed out?”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend. There’s the door.”

  “Did your car have slashed tires?”

  “I bike to work. No money for a car yet.”

  “Fair enough. Getting strange phone calls? Breathing on the line, nothing else? Finding your door open when you left it locked? Things mixed up on your desk?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

  Liar liar pants on fire. “Really?”

  “I’m going to call the police now.”

  There are guys who can utter a threat and your life flashes before your eyes. Jamie Kilpatrick wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t have scared a toddler if he was dressed as the devil on Hallowe’en. I wondered how he’d ever make a go of it in criminal law. Not a good job for a guy who can’t bluff.

  “Go right ahead. I have lots of contacts there. They’l
l be interested to know why the Brugel trial is delayed yet again. Some of those cops have a real hate on for Brugel. If they thought you had dropped the case in order to help him get a delay, they could start hassling you. Big time.”

  He shrugged. “Let them.”

  That told me something. Jamie Kilpatrick was not afraid of the cops hassling him about withdrawing. He wasn’t afraid of me, although lots of other people seemed to be. But he was afraid of something. What? Lloyd Brugel was on the top of my list of possibilities.

  “Okay,” I said, “did he kidnap your cat?”

  “What? Are you crazy? What cat?”

  “That’s probably a good thing with Brugel’s people threatening you. Your dog then?”

  “No dog. No pets. No threats.”

  “You need some new lines, Jamie. I understand the part where you’re afraid of something. And there’s some reason for it. You should really tell me, for your own good.”

  He leaned over and picked up the phone. He pressed nine. Then one.

  I raised my hands in submission. “Fine. Sorry I got you all steamed up.”

  He lowered the receiver, slowly, but didn’t hang up. I glanced at his shelf as I backed from the room. A framed photo of a graduation day. A solemn Jamie with a beaming couple who looked to be in their eighties. The photo had been taken in front of a small post-war bungalow. A vast spreading maple shadowed the tiny house. Parents? Not likely. Grandparents then. I stared at the photo, then met his eyes.

  I knew, and he knew I knew.

  “Elderly,” I said. “Vulnerable. Sitting ducks.”

  He whispered, “Get out.”

  I said, “I am not your enemy. Keep that in mind.”

  I left him alone.

  I knew that if his grandparents had been threatened, he would never reveal that. Knowing Brugel as I did, I would have kept my mouth shut too.

  My day was evaporating between pouncing on people, checking out my sisters’ houses and watering their finicky houseplants, and phoning home to make sure Alvin was busy getting the boxes of office files out of the third bedroom to prepare it for Ashley and Brittany.

  But there was one thing that I really needed to do. I pulled up into the parking lot of the Rideau Perley Veteran’s Health Centre and walked across the lot to the building, past a group of residents in wheelchairs parked by the entrance, and through the automatic doors.