The Guilty (38 page)

Had his cynical attitude rubbed off so easily on Kouri, though? And why did Kouri still cling so tightly to the illusion that Small was innocent?

Bratt knew that there had to be more than just his own influence at play on his assistant. If anyone could have convinced Kouri that Small was innocent it was Jennifer Campbell. Bratt was sure that she had drawn Kouri into this cockamamie plan, what with her religious fervor and soul-deep sincerity. From the beginning she had wanted a lawyer who would do anything to get her son out of jail, and this twisted, illegal scheme seemed to be just what she was looking for.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed out loud, as the realization dawned on him. “She knew he was guilty from the beginning!”

It was suddenly very clear to him: she hadn’t come to him hoping he could save her falsely accused child, although that was what she may have led Kouri to believe. Nor had she just recently realized that Marlon was guilty of the murders. She had known the truth all along.

His mind raced back to their talk at the office, the day of Leblanc’s funeral, when she had wondered out loud if it might not be God’s wish that Marlon be acquitted. She had gone so far as to say that in the greater scheme of things the court verdict didn’t really matter, only God’s did.

At the time he thought she had been preparing herself for the possibility of Marlon being found guilty despite what she believed to be his innocence. Now he saw that she was trying to justify getting her son out of jail even if he had committed the murders. She had all but said that if God’s final judgment against him was going to be the same anyway, then Marlon should at least enjoy the brief time he had to spend here on Earth, and not waste most of it locked away in a jail cell.

Christ, I thought Kouri’s logic was twisted,
he told himself.
Those two characters could plead anything, and better than a lot of lawyers I know. Her only problem is that her conscience is stronger than her love for that son of hers. No wonder she’s been unable to face me the last two weeks. She was probably afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep her secret in, but all along it was eating her up on the inside. If there’s anything I know about these days, it’s how guilty feelings can gnaw away at you.

Bratt wondered why she had come to him during that day’s lunch break, why she had pushed him to get the truth from Kouri. Did she just want him to share in her complicity and her misery? Or had she been looking to him for some sort of help?

He thought wearily,
Help her? I gotta help myself first.

Shaking his head he turned the shower off just in time to hear his phone ringing. He briefly
considered making a wet, mad dash to answer it, but decided to let his machine get the message and reached for a towel instead.

Stepping out of the shower as he dried himself he wiped the fog off the bathroom mirror with one hand and leaned in to look at his vague reflection. He tried to find in it some shred of honesty or self-respect, but the steam quickly covered up his image again.

You’re not much to look at right now anyway,
he told himself as he stepped back, feeling disappointed.
Not half as smart as you thought you were.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and padded into his bedroom. Once there he pressed the “play” button on his answering machine. The tape rewound quickly, then it was Jeannie’s voice that he heard.

“Excuse me, is this the residence of the soon to be Judge Bratt? If you haven’t gotten too big for your britches perhaps you would condescend to a lunch appointment tomorrow with a couple of lovely young ladies, namely Claire and myself. She says
she’d
like to see you again, although for the life of me I don’t know why. Call us soon, Daddy-o.”

Bratt felt no joy at the sound of his daughter’s voice. He stood staring at the machine like it was a snake about to bite him. It had hurt to hear her refer to him as a judge, knowing the things he was having to do to get there. So many of his actions in this trial seemed to have been intended to prove her accusations right.

And the thought of facing Claire still scared him. Maybe she didn’t hold what had happened to her against him, but he realized that in his heart he still felt responsible. He would have to do something to set things right before he could ever face her again. There would have to be some act of atonement to make up in a small way for some of the things he had done in his past…and in this trial.

He asked himself if he was really going to throw everything he had worked for away so easily. He saw his answer in the
image of Jennifer Campbell, standing on the icy sidewalk outside the courthouse, struggling with her guilty conscience.

Maybe she does need my help,
he thought.
It looks like we’re in the same sinking boat and I’m going to have to save us both from drowning.

On Saturday morning he woke up early, feeling refreshed from a surprisingly good night’s sleep. He felt strangely at peace with himself. The previous day’s events, capped off by Jeannie’s phone message, had shown him the path that he would have to take. Whatever self-doubts had haunted him earlier had disappeared in the face of his resolve to take charge of matters and undo some of the wrongs he had committed. He would have to beg off his daughter’s lunch date, but that would be made up for soon enough.

He jumped out of bed and strode to the bathroom to relieve himself. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to go about it, but he knew he couldn’t let Small get away with the perjured witnesses. Defending his client’s best interests was the last thing on his mind now. Small had broken the rules of Bratt’s game, rules that were so flexible Bratt had thought that actually breaking them would be impossible to do.

He couldn’t let that stand. He had once told Kouri that he didn’t know how far he would go to defend a client, but it looked like he had finally found his answer. He was relieved to learn that he did have some limits, after all.

Bratt turned to the sink and began brushing his teeth, his mind racing through the different options that lay ahead of him.

Of course, Small hadn’t been alone in his little plot, and Bratt would have to take that into account in whatever he decided to do. Bratt knew he wasn’t above reproach in this whole scenario, despite his brave words to Kouri the day before. Once everything was out in the open he might be lucky enough to avoid any criminal accusations, but the Bar Ethics Committee would have its own way of looking at things.

When all was said and done, he realized that he could kiss the Superior Court goodbye. Exposing Small might even spell the end of his career as a
defense attorney, but somehow he felt little regret over that. It was a high price to pay, but it seemed to be the going rate for self-respect these days.

As for Kouri, obstructing justice in a murder case was a definite invitation to a long jail term, and Bratt couldn’t let that happen to his
favorite new sidekick.

Then there was Jennifer Campbell. Even though she had lied to him from the beginning, now he believed that she sincerely regretted what she had done. He also wasn’t so secure in his own self-righteousness that he could let her drown in the quagmire she had helped create. As she would probably say, “Let he among you who is without sin
…”

So, he’d have to find a way to cover
up for all three of them, no matter what he decided to do. There was no turning back for him now. Tomorrow was Sunday, and for the first time in a long time he planned to go to church.

It was a small Episcopalian church in Cote des Neiges, where Jennifer Campbell was a parishioner. As far as saving souls went, he was a raw amateur, so he was going to let her show him the way, whether she wanted to or not.

Bratt sat outside a small, nondescript brick building that he thought looked as much like a church as Montreal’s Olympic Stadium looked like a baseball field. It might have housed a corner store once, but now it was Jennifer Campbell’s spiritual home, and that was all that mattered. 

He had arrived shortly after the services had begun, snuck in the back for a few seconds, just long enough to make sure that she was there, and then returned to his car. The faded printing in the old glass door said the service let out at eleven and he hoped she had no plans to stick around for any coffee hours afterward.

He had nothing to worry about. At a few minutes after eleven the door opened and the few parishioners who could fit into the storefront prayer center began filing out. Campbell was one of the last among them. She spoke to nobody, but walked quickly down the sidewalk, her headscarf wrapped around her face against the damp morning air.

Bratt put his car into gear and crossed the intersection. He quickly pulled up alongside her, leaning across to roll the passenger window down as he did so.

“Mrs. Campbell, over here,” he called out.

She turned her head and her look of surprise at being accosted this way was quickly replaced by fear as she recognized him. She didn’t answer, but stepped up her pace.

“Mrs. Campbell, I just want to talk. Please, stop.”

She finally stopped walking, but refused to look in his direction. He parked his car and got out.

“I hope I didn’t frighten you. I just want to talk for a minute.”

“It’s Sunday,” she replied, as if this forbade conversation.

“Please come in the car,” he said, ignoring her response.

She hesitated several seconds, then looked behind her, afraid of anyone seeing her enter this stranger’s car. Finally, bowing her head in defeat, she opened the passenger door and got in. Bratt took his place behind the wheel.

He had no particular place he wanted to take her, but felt a need to keep the car in motion until they had cleared the air between them.

Bratt had spent much of the previous day coming up with an argument that might convince her to turn against her own son. He would have to speak to the only thing that may have mattered to her more than her love for Marlon. He only hoped that he hadn’t read her wrong.

They drove in silence for several minutes until Bratt reached the highway. It was only once they were away from the safety of the residential streets where she lived that she looked at him.

“Why are you here?”

“You know that as well as I do,” he answered coldly, feeling this was no time to let her
play the innocent. “The scales have fallen from my eyes. Peter saw to that.”

“What did he tell you?”

“The truth about what you and he did, just like you knew he would. Why are you pretending to be so ignorant of everything?”

“You’re not the only one who’s been lying to himself, Mr. Bratt,” she whispered.

He felt a brief pang of shame at her words. He knew that that was exactly what he had been doing. It seemed that he had managed to fool nobody but himself with his charade.

“We have to do something,” he told her, hoping that she would already have something in
mind. “The time for self-deception is over.”

“Do something? The trial’s over. There’s nothing to do.”

“It isn’t over yet. We can’t let him get away with this.”

“You’re talking about my son, who also happens to be your client, and you’re supposed to be defending him.”

“Well, I’m not defending him anymore. I don’t care if he is your son. He lied to us and used us both, so cut out the offended-mother routine.”

Her eyes opened wide, but with pain, not with anger, as she answered.

“He didn’t lie to me,” she said in a voice so low that Bratt barely heard her.

He said nothing, still finding it hard to believe she had fooled him so well for so long. He wondered if he could ever be certain what she was really thinking.

“I’m sorry I was dishonest with you, Mr. Bratt.”

“You know, Mrs. Campbell, I’m used to my clients being dishonest. But, with you, it never occurred to me that you were anything but what you seemed.”

“And what did you think I was? I was just a mother, wanting desperately to save her son from jail.”

“Your son killed two people.”

“Should I hate him then? There are enough people out there who hate him right now. He needs me to keep on loving him. And to forgive him.”

“You could have done both without concocting this elaborate lie of yours.”   

“I’m not so foolish to believe my love would have been much comfort for him in jail, Mr. Bratt. I spoke to him a great deal about what he had done, to try to understand it. I can’t rightly say that I do understand, even today. But, I prayed for him. He prayed with me, and I think he’s on the right road.”

“The right road to where, for Christ’s sake?”

“Sir, do not take the Lord’s-”

“Cut the crap,” he yelled, furious now. “I’ve listened to that sanctimonious routine of yours long enough and, since you can’t even live by your own rules, quit shoving them down my throat.”

She turned toward the window without answering and didn’t move for a long time. He could tell she was crying and he was glad. He didn’t like being used, even if he had gone along willingly, and if he couldn’t take out his frustrations on Marlon Small, then his client’s mother was a good substitute.