Dropped Threads 3 (25 page)

The most eligible of the lawyers, Jack, had arrived from Dauphin, known as the perogy capital of Manitoba. There was also Gordon, a big man with a big heart, who introduced me to the margarita. I swear he carried a blender and frozen
limeade in his briefcase. Then Rick, who worked evenings and weekends and always wore a grey tweed jacket and a red knitted vest over his white shirt. And Clive, the oldest, who had been an RCMP officer before he hung up his red serge and donned a black robe. A tough old bear, he thought my thirteen-year-old daughter had beautiful blue eyes and once sang to her Bobby Vinton’s
Blue Velvet
in an aisle of our local grocery store.

The secretaries or “support staff” (this politically correct term from Headquarters always made me think of hosiery) included Jessica, who could rattle off the Young Offenders Act while running in steel-tipped stilettos to a ringing telephone. Sandra, who had fire-engine-red hair and pumped out subpoenas when she wasn’t trying to pump water from the well at her rustic home. And then at the front desk there was Jana. It didn’t matter if you were a first-time offender or a career criminal with a record as tall as I am, Jana took no crap from anyone. Granted, she made an extra effort for those who said “please” and “thank you,” but she did not tolerate raised voices or swearing.

The office expanded and we grew to include a Victim Services Branch. Three great women came on board, who, for a number of years, made the scary adversarial court system more bearable for five-year-old victims or seventy-year-old witnesses. Those women, Pam, Lois and Susan, gave hope not only to our victims but also to the rest of us. When we felt frustrated, unable to stop the repeated violence, they reminded us that we were cogs in the wheel of justice and we all needed to do our part. They were our cream-puff-baking, spiritual angels. Then the government laid them off.

When our prosecutors needed a document in court, one of us would run it up the street to them—snow, rain or sleet. If they needed a rush release order sworn, we’d swear. Or, if
they needed help lugging three large briefcases from our office to the courthouse, one of us would lug one while they struggled with two.

The prosecutors in their black robes gave us all a sense of pride in our role in the fundamental struggle between good and evil—we worked for the good guys, fought the good fight. There were no heroes, only victims, and every day we uncovered another tragedy. With the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we often felt our hands were tied, and the fight then became downright nasty—sometimes unfair.

The obtaining of physical evidence was fundamental to a strong case. But
how
that evidence was obtained was critical—sometimes even more critical than the allegation. “You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say may be given in evidence”—this was true only if the arresting officer had given the Official Warning before the accused started confessing to the crime committed. The last thing we needed was a judge ruling a confession inadmissible. Try explaining that to a victim.

Some horrors detailed in the police reports that passed over our desks were simply filed away because there was “no substantial likelihood of a conviction.” That was the test; the policy directive practised throughout the ministry. We could not charge what we could not prove. Again, try explaining that to a victim. Weak or strong, a case could swing sideways if a police officer didn’t show up or a witness changed his or her story. Either way, the prosecutor took the responsibility and the blame.

The Crown tried to shield us from the brutalities of our work. Most of the time binders of autopsy photos were labelled and secured with elastic bands. Yet sometimes, usually five minutes before court, an unsuspecting secretary frantically searching for a file would find herself looking at
photographs of an old man stabbed twenty-five times in his own living room, or of children: babies beaten and bruised, some murdered. Those were the pictures that kept me awake at night, wishing that just once we could have saved instead of prosecuted.

Before each trial we gave our prosecutors a Superman’s send-off. I remember telling Gordon, “Go fight for truth, justice and the Canadian way!” Sometimes Gordon returned from court victorious, other times slaughtered, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

One time, near the end of the day, Gordon had returned triumphant after slogging it out in a ten-week murder trial. With a slight smile on his face, he hummed as he strolled past my desk and casually asked, “Margarita, Jo?”

But within a few months the Court of Appeal had overturned that murder conviction. A new trial was ordered. Gordon won a second time but again the Court of Appeal overruled him. The third time, he won; by then he could have done that trial in his sleep.

We numbed our losses with shots of tequila, but we couldn’t chase away the nightmares. Then there were the media to contend with, and the
suits
from Criminal Justice Headquarters, who demanded to know what went wrong.

Our victories were bittersweet and congratulations to the prosecutor awkward. Although a son had been found guilty of killing his father, a murder conviction would not bring his father back. After the thirty-day appeal period, I would close my file and put another life on the shelf. Tomorrow, next week or next month, I would come across yet another gruesome police report, open a file, categorize another horrendous act. And once again the Crown would prepare for a trial.

Despite the violence we waded through, we found time to laugh and tell jokes. At one point three women in our office
had become pregnant at the same time. The joke was that they had all ridden the elevator with bachelor Jack and later returned with child. None of us would ride in the elevator with Jack after that! We also developed lasting friendships. We shared stories about our children. We knew each other’s spouses by their first names. We partied at each other’s homes. Our camaraderie and fun attracted attention: lawyers and secretaries from bigger cities tried to break into our circle. Shamefully, I’ll admit, we weren’t too inviting. We wanted to keep what we had.

Then, gradually, things started to change for me. I regarded every person on the street as a potential criminal. In one week I warned my daughter three times about sexual predators. My tolerance was wearing thin. I trusted no one. I had to escape.

There had to be life without crime.

My husband had also outgrown Nanaimo. He wanted to expand his career in the grocery retail business. On my advice, he threw his resume out there and got an interview for an assistant produce manager’s position in Victoria. He landed the job. Our lives were about to change.

By the time I left, Rick had been lured into private practice, defending criminals instead of prosecuting them. Gordon—well, he stayed in Nanaimo and became a Headquarters man. Bachelor Jack moved to Victoria. The only one still around was Clive. He retired three months after I moved on. Nothing was left of our original crew but scribbles on Post-it notes attached to dead files that would eventually be shredded or archived.

The final change came three years later when Rick was killed in a car accident. He was one of the good guys—one of us. E-mail messages about his death blurred from our tears. Bound by our grief, we reached out to each other.
Some of us car-pooled to his service while others stole away on their lunch hours to light candles and say goodbye in a local church.

No more red knitted vest or tweed jacket. Rick’s robe is draped on a hanger now and not on his shoulders. Things will never be the same. There will be no Beatles reunion.

For years I had earned a good paycheque. I hadn’t stayed at that Crown office because of the money though; I stayed because of the people. I was a female in the traditional female job—secretary. Growing up after the women’s liberation movement, I was conditioned by our society to believe that my chosen profession was not an important one. Little girls do not skip down the street singing they’re going to be secretaries when they grow up. But to the men and women prosecutors of the Nanaimo Crown Office, I was important. I was regarded as an equal. A Crown loss was our loss, a Crown victory our victory. Our respect for each other transcended gender, job titles and job descriptions.

No one was better than anyone else.

We were a motley crew but one hell of a team. We did our jobs to the best of our abilities. Lives were at stake—the police had passed the baton and the courtroom was our finish line. To say the work didn’t get to us would be a lie, although we’d never openly admit it. I’ve finally stopped triple-checking the locks on my doors at home. Twice is enough now.

Our office did not land the biggest contracts; we never achieved record sales. With what we were given, we tried to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt to a judge and a jury of twelve—and what a pain if it was a hung jury.

Trials are expensive, and when it comes to the administering of justice there are no bargain days at Sears. When we were successful the celebration was short-lived; another trial
loomed around the corner. We didn’t want accolades because we knew they came at a price—a human life. Our rewards were sporadic and came in the form of a wood-carving or a child’s drawing. For the men, women and children whose lives had been robbed of innocence and trust, we couldn’t remove the scar, but we could help it heal.

Our crew has moved on but we still stay in touch. We’re coping with new jobs—all except Clive, who’s enjoying retirement on his boat. We all cling to one common thread—our time at the Crown Counsel Office.

At one of my recent jobs, I tried to replicate that experience. It didn’t work. Different time; different place; different people. Our Nanaimo Crown experience was unique and we knew it. We also knew that it was too good to last. That’s what made it special.

July 1995 Edmonton, Alberta

After my neighbour lost her beautiful newborn, who was missing half his heart, I knew I wanted a child. I had almost witnessed the child’s birth. It mattered not that as birth attendant, I missed the actual event when a trip to the hospital concluded a long labour. Five days later, in an afternoon crushed by grief, the infant corpse, yellowed by jaundice and too little time, lay in a small cradle at the foot of the family bed. As part of the memorial service, I called out “Finlay” once, and then “Finlay” and “Finlay” again, sounding out his small being in a sombre naming ceremony.

This cry, suspended in the hollow listening of mourning, was the moment of conception when my plot to become a mother was hatched. I knew I wanted to adopt. Even as I write this I hear thin brittle walls of fear crack open after decades of resignation to my infertility. That the Alberta provincial child welfare authorities deemed me too single
and too old (at forty-eight) for domestic adoption would prove only a minor setback.

In one child’s going, mine would be born in south China, oceans away.

AUGUST 6, 1997

THE BLANK PAGE

I want to write in detail about that room in a city, town or village where my daughter was born, but her origins are mysterious, shrouded in secrecy and hidden in bureaucracy. A wide river flows beneath the bridge where my daughter was found not far from the orphanage. A woman writhed in an apartment or house nearby or in a far-off place, under a clay-tiled roof or beside a concrete wall, on a farm, in a hospital or clinic. Her story exists somewhere in a place that won’t be known. The map can’t lie flat enough on this table to tell me how I might navigate to a place that only exists as an adoptive mother’s dream.