Kennicott willed him to nod in agreement, but Fernandez’s head didn’t budge. He seemed to grow even calmer.
“Mr. Fernandez!” Summers shouted from the bench. He was turning red with anger. “Mr. Kennicott, stand forward.”
“Your Honor, please,” Parish called out.
“Look, Fernandez,” Kennicott hissed. “You just heard Parish say she’s resigning from the case. Brace wants to address the court. He’s going to plead guilty to something he didn’t do to protect his first wife, Sarah McGill. She was there, hiding behind the door. And their son. The autistic one. He lives down the hall. You’ve got to stop this now.”
“I will have a court officer lead Mr. Kennicott out,” Summers shouted from the bench. “And have him cited for contempt. Mr. Fernandez, what do you say?”
Fernandez broke his eye contact with Kennicott. He turned and looked to where Cutter, Gild, and Charlton were sitting. Fernandez nodded, and Kennicott felt a chill go down his spine.
Oh no, Kennicott thought. His heart sank. What have I done? I’ve just shown Fernandez how to win his first homicide case. All he has to do is let Brace plead guilty right now and he’ll be a hero. Then he’ll go after Sarah McGill.
This is it, Kennicott thought, expecting Fernandez to turn back to the front of the court. Instead, he shifted his gaze to the factory worker sitting in the audience. Kennicott took a second look at the olive-skinned man and then studied Fernandez. The resemblance was obvious.
Fernandez’s stone face broke out in the smallest of grins. He reached into his lapel pocket and pulled out a large pen, and he seemed to tip it to the man, who could only be his father, before he turned back to face Judge Summers on the bench.
“Your Honor,” Fernandez said. He placed the pen carefully on the desk. “The Crown has many concerns about the continuation of this prosecution. Unfortunately, certain members of my office have taken
actions that compromise the integrity of not just this case, but their higher duty to this court. Moreover, Mr. Kennicott has just confirmed information that would provide Mr. Brace with a complete defense. I thank him for that. There can no longer be said to be a reasonable prospect of conviction in this matter. Nor is it in the interest of the administration of justice to continue with this prosecution. I wish to remind this court, and everyone in this courtroom, that the role of the Crown Attorney is not to win or lose a case, but to ensure that the integrity of the system is upheld. Therefore, Your Honor, the Crown withdraws the charge of first-degree murder against Mr. Kevin Brace.”
For a moment there was total silence in the court. Like the pause between the flash of lightning and the crack of thunder when a storm is overhead.
Summers’s jaw dropped. Parish turned to Fernandez and let out a loud sigh.
Kennicott could hear the reporters scrambling to their feet.
Suddenly a voice came booming in from the audience. It was Phil Cutter up on his feet. “Wait a minute, Your Honor!” he shouted, his words blasting through the silence.
“That’s against Crown policy.” It was Barb Gild, on her feet now too.
The clerk rose, tugging his robes forward, and said, “Silence in the court.”
“Thank you,” Summers said, recovering his cool.
Kennicott looked over at Fernandez.
Fernandez sat down and calmly straightened the edges of his papers. He put the pen carefully back in his pocket. Kennicott wheeled around and looked at the prisoners’ box.
Brace was on his feet, his eyes a whirl of confusion. He lifted his head. Kennicott could see that he was straining to speak. “No . . . I’m . . . I’m . . .” he said, trying to squeeze the words out.
“Silence!” It was Summers. “Officer,” he said, addressing a young court officer who stood beside Brace just outside the prisoners’ box, “is Mr. Brace being held on any further warrants?”
The officer fiddled in his breast pocket, pulled out a narrow piece of paper, and read it for a moment. “No, Your Honor.”
“Any outstanding charges?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Any other detention orders pending trial?”
“No, Your Honor.”
“Officer, do you have any cause to continue the detention of this man?”
The officer scanned his piece of paper one last time. “No, Your Honor.”
“Release the prisoner. Mr. Brace, you’re free to go. This court stands adjourned. God save the Queen.”
Brace seemed utterly baffled. The police officer opened the door to the prisoners’ dock, but Brace didn’t seem to know what to do. Instead of walking out, he turned his back to the officer, his hands still behind him, waiting for the handcuffs to come on.
Out of the corner of his eye Kennicott saw the reporters scrambling to get out of their seats.
He turned to Fernandez, who was calmly packing up his briefcase. For a moment he glanced over at Kennicott and nodded. Kennicott looked at Nancy Parish. She was sitting at her desk, her head in her hands, her shoulders heaving. He looked back at the judge’s bench. Summers gave him a slight smile before he bolted out of his chair.
Then Kennicott felt it. The cleansing wave of it all washing over him. The coursing of clean blood rushing through his veins. The feeling that he so wanted to savor for just one moment of one day for his lost brother. The thing Michael deserved more than everything else. Justice.
I
made you some tea,” Jennifer Raglan said as she opened the door to Ari Greene’s room and slipped into bed beside him.
Greene took a pillow and propped himself up.
“Didn’t boil the oxygen out of the water,” she said, laughing a bit as she put a tray between them. There was a teapot, one mug, and a plate of sliced oranges, neatly arranged.
“Thanks,” he said, reaching over for the teapot.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Greene waited. She filled the mug and passed it over to him.
“Nothing for you?” he asked.
Raglan shook her head. She was wearing one of his black T-shirts. The sleeves were halfway down her forearms.
“I gave notice at the Crown’s office yesterday,” she said, looking straight ahead. “Taking the summer off. When I come back, I’m stepping down as head Crown. I want to go back to prosecuting cases one at a time.”
The mug Greene was holding was very thick. He held it tight, but there was no warmth in it yet.
“The kids are a mess,” she said, shaking her head. “Simon’s talking about quitting hockey, and William left his science project at my house when it was his dad’s week and I was up north on a conference and Dana can’t stand . . .”
Greene reached down and took her hand.
She finally turned her head to him. Her bottom lip was quivering.
“It’s okay,” he said.
“It’s just—just—” She started to cry. The way someone who doesn’t cry very often cries. “The kids just hate this. And I’m afraid they’re going to start to hate me.” She shook her head again. “He’s not a bad man.”
“It’s fine,” Greene said.
“I need to give it one more try. I’m so sorry.” She buried her head in his shoulder.
He lifted her back up. “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said.
She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “Don’t worry,” she said, laughing. “I’m not Ingrid Bergman about to get on a plane.”
He laughed back. “And I’m not Humphrey Bogart walking away into the mist.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Greene shrugged. The answer was obvious. But he was afraid he’d hurt her if he said it. “There’s always another murder,” he said instead.
“And always another woman,” she said, jabbing him playfully in the ribs.
“Now, now,” he said. “You can’t have it both ways.”
She touched his cheek and let out a long sigh. “I don’t have to pick up the kids for another hour and a half.”
He took her hand away from him and held it. “I’m going back up to the Hardscrabble Café for breakfast,” he said. “It’s a long drive.”
She squeezed his hand and nodded. “Never give up, do you?”
“There’s always something I missed,” he said.
She leaned over and kissed him and snuggled into him. “I lied,” she said. “I am Ingrid Bergman. Just hold me, Ari.”
A
ri Greene is always the detective, Daniel Kennicott thought as he looked out the front windows of his flat and saw the big Oldsmobile drift past his front door. Even though there was plenty of space right in front of the house, Greene parked farther up the street and walked back.
It was a real cop move, probably so instinctive that it was second nature—drive past the scene and take a look at it before you make your entry. And he was ten minutes early. Another cop move.
Kennicott zipped his carry-on suitcase. It took him a few minutes to close up everything in the apartment. He had a note for Mr. Federico about watering his plants for the two weeks he’d be gone.
By the time he got down to the front lawn, Greene was engrossed in conversation with Kennicott’s landlord. The topic, of course, was Mr. Federico’s tomatoes, which were already in full bloom thanks to the unusually hot spring.
“Is full moon today,” Mr. Federico said, pointing to the horizon, where a round early-morning moon hovered over the housetops. “Best day for planting.”
Greene nodded solemnly as he caught Kennicott’s eye.
“My landlord is very proud of his plants,” Kennicott said as he slid into the passenger seat of Greene’s car. “My flight leaves at seven thirty tonight.”
“Plenty of time. It’s just a few hours’ drive,” Greene said as he put the big vehicle in gear.
The traffic was light. They drove in silence through the city and onto the highway north, and soon they were on scenic two-lane highways that were dotted with farms and freshly planted crops of corn.
Greene had phoned him late last night and offered to take him to the airport by way of this six-hour detour. Kennicott had readily agreed. Like Greene, he was curious about what they’d find at the end of their drive. Besides, his flight didn’t leave until tonight.
They both knew his upcoming trip to Italy was the best lead they had in his brother’s case. The ride would give Kennicott uninterrupted time with the detective to talk it over. But instead of talking, Kennicott found himself simply staring out the window. Thinking.
Thinking was somewhat of a lost art, Lloyd Granwell, Kennicott’s mentor at his old Bay Street law firm, used to say. Granwell, the senior partner who’d personally recruited him, had a system for lawyers before they went to court. He’d ask them to come to his office with all of their trial notes, greet them in his usual courtly manner, and then gently take everything out of the hands of the nervous young advocates. Next he’d take away their laptop computers and their ubiquitous BlackBerrys.
“Now,” he’d say, leading each lawyer to a door off to the side, “please have a seat in this room.” He’d open the door to a small, comfortable room furnished with one chair and nothing else. The only thing on the walls was an old IBM sign from the 1950s, with just one word on it:
THINK
.
“Spend the next hour with no cell phone, no laptop, no binders, no pads of paper, no sticky notes,” he’d say. “Just the brain that God gave you. Do something most people have forgotten how to do: think.”
The lawyers always went into the Granwell Box with a look of terror on their faces. Inevitably they came out relaxed and confident. Thankful.
The countryside grew wilder and rougher as they traveled north, the deciduous trees and lush farms slowly giving way to the coniferous forest and rock of the Canadian Shield.
“It’s nine o’clock,” Greene said as they passed an abandoned farmhouse. “Listen to this.” He reached down and turned on his old car radio.
“Good morning,”
a familiar-sounding voice said.
“I’m Howard Peel. The owner of Parallel Broadcasting. Today I’m very pleased to announce that we have a new morning show and a new morning-show host.”
Kennicott looked. Greene nodded, a sardonic smile on his face.
“Hi. This is Donald Dundas, and I’m thrilled to join the Parallel Broadcasting team. Welcome to our new show
—Sunny Side Up.”
Greene and Kennicott both laughed.
“It gets better,” Greene said. “Listen to who his first guest is.”
“This morning we’ll be talking to Toronto’s chief of police, Hap Charlton. He’s going to tell us all about the new domestic policing unit the force has just set up to—”
Greene reached over and clicked the radio off.
“Plus ça change,”
he said.
“Charlton has nine lives,” Kennicott said.
“At least. When Fernandez met Cutter, Gild, and the chief at the Vesta Lunch, he brought a special pen his dad had given him. It’s got a micro-recorder in it. His father’s the leader of a union local, and he uses it whenever he meets with management. I listened to it a dozen times. Cutter and Gild put their feet right in it, but Charlton, he’s a sly fox.”
“Nothing incriminating?”
“He brags a bit about the owner of the Vesta Lunch covering for him as a beat cop decades ago. But the meat and potatoes, he stays right out of it.”
After almost two hours the road dipped downward and the brilliant blue of a big lake jumped into view. It was fronted by an old-fashioned wood-framed building with a wide sand beach and a big square dock stretching out into the water. Groups of children played in the sand, swam in the water, and jumped off a tall diving tower. It was as if someone flashed a postcard of a perfect summer scene before Kennicott’s eyes.
The road turned and rose quickly through a big rock cut. Straight
slabs of sheared granite sandwiched the two-lane highway on both sides, instantly replacing the bucolic summer scene.
Kennicott had tried to find out more about the elusive detective, but could only get the bare bones. Greene had grown up in Toronto, joined the force when he was close to thirty years old, and rose quickly in the ranks. A number of years ago, something happened—Kennicott couldn’t discover what it was—and Greene took an extended leave of absence. His parents were Holocaust survivors. Greene’s father, who once ran a shoe repair shop downtown, was helping out with the investigation of Michael’s murder, which was Greene’s only unsolved case. Was Greene single, married, divorced? Did he have kids? Siblings? All a mystery.