“Fine. Who have you slept with?”
“What the fuck? Nobody.”
I lost it. “If you fucking lie to me, Burke, life as you know it ends tonight. I won’t be able to defend you. I happen to know you’re not exactly a virgin. So let’s not hear —”
“Not a requirement of the job,” he snapped. “You have to keep it in your pants afterwards, not before.”
“We’re not talking about before, are we? We’re talking about the time after you got burned with that crucifix. When you decided to become a priest. From that time on —”
“Who have I shagged?” He looked as if he wanted to clock me. Then he sighed. “My girlfriend. Old flame. Way back. Would she fly to Halifax, find two strangers, murder them and carve them up in the hopes that someone would connect them with me? Is that what you’re wondering? If she was going to carve anyone up, it would be me. Or would have been, thirty years ago. But she wouldn’t. She’s not the type. She didn’t even shed a tear when we split up. She just said: ‘If you’re going, go. Don’t waste any more of my time.’ And gave me a withering look till I finally backed myself out the door. She wasn’t one to put her feelings on show, especially in front of some cad who had just told her he didn’t love her anymore.”
“You didn’t love her?”
“I told her I didn’t. But it was bullshit.” The expression on his face softened. “Of course I loved her. But I reasoned that she’d find it easier to write me off if she thought I was a complete arsehole who didn’t care about her. Or some religious nut who didn’t have normal feelings for a woman. She hadn’t lost anything then. It was better than
having her think of us as two star-crossed lovers separated only by the seminary walls.”
“Which was in fact the truth.”
“Which was the truth, yes.”
“What women have there been since then?”
“None.”
I didn’t buy it but I’d have to let it go. For now. “All right. Men. Shagged any of those?”
“Oh, fuck off, Collins.”
“Don’t get prim with me, Brennan. I don’t care how you get your tail —”
“What is it about ‘fuck off’ you don’t understand?”
“Well, you must have crossed paths with some gay men —”
“I’ve crossed paths with Scotsmen. That hasn’t given me any desire to blow the bagpipes.”
I went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “If there’s anything like that, I have to know. The police aren’t going to be looking for a woman. After all, they’re looking at you. So help me here.”
“There have been no men in my life, Montague,” he said in a voice laden with sarcasm, then continued more calmly: “Like you, I don’t care how people get their tail. I suspect God doesn’t either. If I were banging all the Daughters of Mary Immaculate, God probably wouldn’t give a shit as long as I was performing the sacraments and otherwise being a good priest. But I’ve signed up for the life, made my promises and tried to stick to them. I’ve done just about everything else in my time, but boys? No.”
I made a note of that “tried to” for future reference, but I had heard enough on the subject for one night. I wondered whether Burke appreciated the fact that his inability or unwillingness to name anyone who had a grudge against him, and intimate knowledge of his body, only served to tighten the noose around his neck.
II
The first thing I had to do was head off an egregious show of police power at St. Bernadette’s in the morning. Brennan sat straddling a chair
and gazing out the window, and I looked past him, imagining police cars roaring up to the door of the rectory at the break of dawn. I had no intention of seeing my client and his church humiliated by the drama of Father Burke being led out of the rectory in handcuffs and shoved into a police cruiser. I got on the phone to Rowan, who was already working the system so Brennan could turn himself in at the station. I could not imagine the police objecting; a surrender puts the accused on the cops’ turf right from the beginning, which is to their advantage. It was just a matter of working out the details. My client retreated into his thoughts as the hours ground on. Rowan finally called to say the surrender had been worked out, at which point Brennan turned and asked through clenched teeth how long I thought he’d be away from home.
I was destined to be the bearer of bad tidings for as long as I could see into the future. I took a deep breath and began to outline just how little control he now had over his place in the world. “I’ll probably be able to get you out, more likely than not, but...” His eyes were locked on my face; he wasn’t moving a muscle. “But it’s not a sure thing, and it won’t happen right away. It could be a few days. Or longer. Because the charge is murder, the onus is on us to convince the judge there will be no harm in releasing you until your trials.” I could almost see the animation leaching out of him as he listened to my words. “And that’s another obstacle, it goes without saying. Two murder charges. If they consider you a serial killer —”
“What!”
he yelped.
“Two murders, unrelated victims, three months apart. From their point of view —”
“I’m not a killer at all, for Jesus’ sake, let alone a serial killer. I can’t believe I heard that phrase coming out of your mouth.”
“It’s not me, Brennan. This is the situation you’re facing. A serial — a person like that is obviously considered much more dangerous to the public than the guy who kills his drinking buddy. Now, as I said, there is a possibility you will be released.”
“You said ‘probably’!”
“Only if we can convince the judge you’re not a flight risk or a danger to the public. You’re facing the most severe penalty in the Criminal Code, life in prison with no chance of parole for twenty-five years.” He looked ready to expire in front of my eyes. “This of
course makes it more likely a person will flee rather than face a trial. And the likelihood of conviction has a bearing on whether you, or whoever, will make a run for it. So I assume the Crown — the prosecutor, that is — will lay out the case against you. We’ll counter with your stellar character, the fact that you don’t have a criminal record or a psychiatric history, if in fact those two statements are correct.”
“Fuck you, Collins. I can’t believe this. What do you mean ‘if’? You think I’ve got a record, and a history as a psycho? How are you going to be able to represent me if you —”
“The only way I can represent you effectively is if I know you, and your life history, warts and all, so I don’t walk in there like a little woolly lamb to the slaughterhouse. I intend to establish from day one our line of attack, that this is a miscarriage of justice, that an innocent man must not be made to sit in jail for months on end while the process drags on, the implication being there will be hell to pay for this later on.”
“And my chances?”
“It’s not a sure thing but I’d say you have a good chance if —”
“How long before I go to trial?”
“That will be months down the road. First there will be a preliminary inquiry, unless we waive —”
“Months! What’s this preliminary? We can waive it? Skip whatever you can skip, if they bang me up in there for the duration. The sooner this is over...” He wound down, and sat there massaging his greying temples.
I did not have the heart to point out the obvious: that it might never be over.
“We’ll request a ban on publication of all evidence adduced at the bail hearing, and the ban will be granted. If you’re released, you’ll need a surety, someone to put up some money to guarantee that you will not flee the country.”
“God Almighty. This is where the old lady always signs over her house, isn’t it?”
“There will be conditions, such as reporting once a week and surrendering your passport.”
“Give up my passport? You mean I’ll be spared one of Mike O’Flaherty’s Blarney and Blather tours of the Emerald Isle? And here
I was thinking this was the worst day of my life.”
You’d better hope and pray this is the worst day of your life, I thought, knowing all too well how much worse it could get. All I said was: “Wear a suit and tie, and for God’s sake, if the media get wind of this, do not try to hide your face on the way into the station. Or on your way out of court if...
after
I get you sprung. Look dignified. Don’t utter a word.”
He did not utter another word to me but rooted around for his clothes, then headed into the bathroom for a shower. He was in there for twenty minutes, obviously prolonging the bliss of soap and hot water as if he thought he was going up the river for good. When he finally emerged in a cloud of steam, I was engrossed in writing notes on the many, many things I would have to keep in mind as the day went on. By the time I looked up, he was dressed in a white shirt and grey dress pants and was reaching for a belt. The pants looked too big. He had lost weight during the past few stressful weeks.
“Have you got anything smaller?”
“Smaller? What are you talking about?”
“Pants that fit more snugly around the waist?”
He regarded me with a touch of amusement. “You only represent nattily dressed clients?”
“When the sheriff escorts you from the courtroom down to your cell, he’s going to take your belt and shoelaces. If your clothes don’t fit, you’ll be one of those guys who has to walk around all day holding his pants up.”
He sank down in his chair, all questions of apparel forgotten. I prodded him, and he returned to his closet. He found a navy suit that promised to stay on when the indignities began.
“Now, you’re going to eat.”
“Eat?” He looked at me as if I had offered him hemlock.
“Breakfast. You’ll need something in your stomach.”
I drove him to the north end of the city, to Kempt Road where Jimmy’s Homestead Restaurant sat amid a growing number of automobile showrooms. The place had a regular clientele ranging from judges to truckers. Jimmy had come to Canada from Sparta; the head waitress, Pat, was from Athens. But there were no lingering animosities. I ordered two large breakfasts of eggs, sausages, toast and home fries, coffee and
orange juice. Brennan sat, squeamish and pale. I wolfed down my meal as if I were the one going on a jailhouse diet.
“Eat, Brennan.”
“You sound like my mother, God bless her and keep her. Wait till she hears what’s befallen her darling boy now. And Declan, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Rowan and I will handle your family. Your mother will know you’re innocent. She’ll know you’ve got clean underwear and socks on, and that you had a good, healthy breakfast. And Brennan? Listen to me as if your life depends on it. You are
not
giving a statement to the police. By a statement I mean anything at all. Keep your mouth shut. Even if you’re innocent, it’s never —”
“Even
though
I’m innocent.”
“And I want to make something else clear: do not put yourself in the way of any needless aggravation from the police. Don’t provoke them, don’t needle them, don’t argue with them, don’t be a smartass. Be polite and cooperative, except where it comes to talking. Then be firm: you have nothing to say. Period.”
He finally ate something. We pulled up to the police station just before eight o’clock. I got him in the door without seeing any reporters. Sergeant Ron Davidson met us inside and placed Brennan under arrest, then read him his rights. As soon as Davidson stopped speaking, Burke started: “You’ve got the wrong man “ I overrode him: “My client will not be giving a statement, Sergeant. He has nothing to say. Nothing,” I repeated, with a warning glance at Burke. I had to leave him in their hands because I needed to prepare for court. I departed with misgivings.
It was a good thing Rowan accompanied me to the gargoyle-bedecked provincial courthouse for Burke’s arraignment. The media were out in force, and I left them to my smooth-talking, silver-haired partner while I went downstairs to see Brennan. Despite twenty years of seeing my clients in jail cells, I found the sight incongruous and unnerving: a man from whom I had received Holy Communion was behind bars with the ragtag and bobtail of Halifax’s underclass. I could hear a man babbling psychotically until he gagged and vomited; someone else reacted with a string of slurred obscenities. How had the priest’s housekeeper described his work with prisoners? “The least of
these my brethren.” Well, he was amongst them now. He sat in the cell, arms folded across his chest, making a passable show of looking nonchalant. But I had come to know him well enough to see the intense hostility crackling beneath the surface. The sheriff gave us a meeting room, but there wasn’t much to discuss. I assured Brennan that the arraignment would be brief. That was small comfort because, from the time he left the courtroom, he would be locked up, first at the courthouse and then at the Halifax County Correctional Centre. I left him and went upstairs to court.
The gallery was packed with reporters and gawkers when the priest was brought in to be arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder. To give him credit, Brennan managed to convey an impression of serenity. I jumped up to waive reading of the charges. There was no plea at this stage, and the proceeding was over in minutes. My client was returned to his cell in the basement.
Before he was taken to the Correctional Centre, I went down and gave him a warning: “Brennan, the place you’re going will not give you any joy. Everyone is shoved in together. Remand is considered hard time. Please keep your cool, don’t let anyone provoke you. We just have to get you through these next few days.”
“It had better be just a few days, or —” But he was a quick study; he realized before he finished his thought that there was no “or else.” From now on he had absolutely no say in the direction his life would take.
III
Brennan was in the Correctional Centre for a week and a half before we could be heard in the Supreme Court on the question of his release. I visited as often as I could. Maura made a couple of trips and came back exceedingly concerned. One minute he would talk about working with the other inmates as a priest; the next minute he would not plan beyond the end of the visit. When our court date finally came up, the hearing took two days. There was a great deal of case law against us and the Crown prosecutors hammered home the evidence the police had amassed against Burke: hairs matching his on
both victims’ bodies, the cruciform scar on both victims, his connection with Leeza Rae, her suggestions to friends that a priest was interested in her sexually, his connection with Janeece Tuck and his grief over her death. The Crown said it was likely Burke would be convicted. Because he faced life in prison, there was a high risk that he would flee the country rather than chance a trial. With two women dead — “so far” was the implication — the public was in danger if he was let out. I countered that he had lived for nearly half a century without hurting anyone or getting in trouble with the law; his life had been stable and exemplary all along; his actions after the murders, including talking to the police and giving hair samples, were those of an innocent man. My argument was peppered with the phrases “innocent man,” “wrongful arrest,” and “miscarriage of justice.” Unspoken but audible nonetheless was “damages suit.” Justice Angus Ross, a veteran nearing retirement, showed no reaction to the Crown’s efforts or to mine, and reserved his decision. That was a Thursday; we would reconvene on Monday, June 4, to learn our fate. Brennan was led, dejected, to his cell.