Hangman (24 page)

He gripped the inspector’s arm. “Let the courts handle it, Zinc.”

Zinc pulled away. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Chief.”

The Best Defense

Vancouver

Tonight

Courtroom 102 was the usual zoo. Be it murder or stealing candy from a baby, every criminal case in Vancouver begins either there or next door in 101. Since 102 gets last names from
I
to
Z
, Ethan Shaw—two days ago—was to make his debut in that prisoner’s dock.

The zookeeper that morning was a judge we called the Quip. The Quip thought he was funny. The Quip was in his element. The flotsam and jetsam of Vancouver came into his court like a tide, providing the Quip with fodder for his razor-sharp wit. At that moment, he was dealing with the black hooker who had propositioned me several days ago in front of the strip joint across the street from the courts. She wriggled provocatively in a chair facing the bench, as if trying to line the Quip up for a quickie over lunch.

“Madam,” said the judge, “I know you’re not used to hearing this from the men of your acquaintance, but would you please
stand up
for me.”

The packed gallery groaned.

I groaned silently.

The Quip made the face of a stand-up comedian facing a rough crowd.

The watchers who police the courts for anything they perceive as politically incorrect scribbled sour notes.

The crowd in the gallery was rough indeed. Junkies by the dozen, as you’d expect to find in
the
major gateway for Asian heroin, as well as Native court workers propping up mumbling drunks and street loonies with MPAs (mental patient advocates) trying to keep them from decomposing into nuts. Buzzing in and out of court like flies on shit were harried runners bringing files and taking files away, and lawyers for the Crown and for the defense, and duty counsel representing the lawyerless ones. A woman in the gallery clutched a pair of infants crying for feeding, while she cried for her husband locked in the cells.

The doors guarding the dock from the cells were run by two sheriffs; they were known affectionately as Laurel and Hardy. Laurel was the skinny one who manned a built-in desk, and Hardy was the fat one hunkered in a chair on wheels. The dock, a half-and-half cage of Plexiglas and wood, was on the left side of the court if you faced the bench. Feeding the dock with riffraff were two steel doors, one for males and the other for females and PCs.

To call an in-custody case, the procedure was this. A lawyer wrote the name of his client on the sheriffs’ calling board. Laurel would phone the jail to have the prisoner sent to the dock. Hardy would get off his fat ass and enter the pen through a swing gate with the latch on the outside. Then he would unlock one of the steel doors, releasing the client from either the male cells or the cells for women and those in protective custody. The sheriff would stand with the prisoner while the case was heard, then send him or her back to jail. A square in one corner of the calling board advised the court how many jailed were still unprocessed. Comedians that they were, Laurel and Hardy had written, over the number in the square, “Now serving …”

An hour had passed since I put Ethan’s name up on the board.

He still had not been called.

Why? I wondered.

“Vertical prosecution” was the answer I was given by the black team. The provincial Crown counsel office, run by Nellie Barker, was forever trying to impose order on the chaotic zoo, and the latest attempt, also doomed to failure, was the team system. The black team was the bail team in remand court. Anyone arrested made a first appearance here to resolve the issue of release or detention, then the case was sent, according to the first letter of the accused’s last name, to a court staffed by one of four prosecution teams. The white team took
A
to
E
, the green team
F
to
L
, the red team
M
to
R
, the blue team
S
to
Z
.

If you think that sounds like high school, so do I.

Boom-a-licka, boom-a-licka, bow-wow-wow,

Chick-a-licka, chick-a-licka, chow-chow-chow,

Boom-a-licka, chick-a-licka, who are we?

The team that wants your ass in custody.

YEEAAY TEEAAM!

 

It could be worse.

At first, they were “pods.”

Pods made the prosecutors a laughing-stock in the courts. The members of a team were the “peas” in the pod. A prosecutor who switched pods was a “pod-hopper.” There was a horror movie from 1956 called
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, and what snatched your body was a pod. The term “pod” was scrapped in favor of “team,” but it was fondly remembered by the Quip.

The Quip was dealing with yet another theft charge against the Time Traveler, a skid-row drunk reeking of rubbing alcohol who, for some reason known only to him, had stolen his sixty-third wall clock. So jelly-legged was the TT with the DTs that Sheriff Hardy had to hold him up in the dock.

To everyone’s surprise, the Quip was off the bench and down to the dock in a flash.

“Didn’t I tell you to cut this crap?” he yelled at the drunk.

Through crusty, red-rimmed eyelids, the TT blinked at him.

“Ish ’at you, Larry?”

“You were a bum when you were my client, Moe, and you’re a bum now. I ought to lock you up and throw away the key. Instead, I’m going to lock you up and dry you out. What have you got to say?”

“Thanksh, Larry.”

“You’re welcome, Moe.”

The Quip turned to Hardy. “Take him away,” he said.

Win one for the Quipper, I thought.

With puns like that, I definitely had the makings of a judge.

Like I said, a zoo.

The Quip was returning to the bench when he spied Nellie Barker coming into court through the barrister’s door.

“The pod god arrives,” he said.

Nellie walked to the black team’s podium, near the door, and usurped the position of the remand-court team head.

“Calling the case of Ethan Shaw,” she said.

You could feel a shudder of anticipation grip the gallery. Everyone knew the Hangman was about to appear in court. The reporters, including Justin Whitfield up from Seattle, poised their pens and pads. Sheriff Hardy fetched Ethan from the male cells while I rose from my seat and approached the bench.

“Jeffrey Kline for Ethan Shaw,” I announced. “The spelling, Madam Recorder, is K-L-I-N-E.”

That, of course, was for the media.

The Quip was about to say something off the cuff, but he must have decided to be judicious for once in his career.

Now Ethan was in the dock.

A hush came over the court.

My law associate looked like forty miles of bad road.

“Yes, Ms. Barker?” said the judge.

I thought Nellie was going to tell the court that Ethan’s case was a “special assignment.” That meant it would be a vertical prosecution up through the courts, with the same Crown counsel at both the preliminary hearing and the Supreme Court trial. What usually happened was that one of the color teams did the prelim, and if the case met the standard for committal (is there a substantial likelihood of conviction and is the prosecution in the public interest), it was sent to senior counsel uptown to try.

Instead, Nellie stunned me with …

“The Crown withdraws the charge of murder against Ethan Shaw.”

Someone in the gallery gasped.

Ethan exhaled a sigh.

“You’re quite the advocate, Mr. Kline,” responded the Quip. “Without a single word, it seems you got your client off.”

“May he step out of the dock?”

“Sheriff,” said the judge.

Laurel undid the latch on the outside of the gate to the counsel area, then Ethan stepped out to join me in front of the bench. As we moved toward the barrister’s door, a rush of reporters scrambled for the gallery exit to intercept us outside. No photos can be taken inside the building, so milling beyond the doors to the street were camera crews and anchors by the dozen.

“Smile,” I cautioned Ethan. “We’re on uncandid camera.”

Andy Warhol got it wrong. It isn’t fifteen minutes of fame, it’s fifteen
seconds.
No sooner were we out on the street and in the public eye than I caught sight of the player on the other side. Parting the sea of camera crews like Moses did the Red Sea in the Bible, Zinc Chandler closed on us with his badge in hand and said, to send poor Ethan back to infamy, “Ethan Shaw, I have a warrant for your arrest. The state of Washington seeks to extradite you on a charge of aggravated first-degree murder. Come with me.”

*    *    *

Another rubby had marked his territory at the door to Kline & Shaw. This time, I didn’t stop to mop it up. Win Ethan’s case, I thought, and I will never clean up piss again. No one pisses on the door of a law firm in fancy digs uptown.

Word spreads fast in the legal profession. If you chase ambulances, you listen for sirens. The phone had been ringing nonstop since Ethan’s arrest on the extradition warrant that morning. Silver spoons in the fat-cat firms towering over the law courts kept calling to offer their uptown services to my client. A few were subtle, but most weren’t. One spoon had the balls to warn me that I was skating on thin ice and might be reported to the Law Society for a conflict of interest by acting on behalf of my law partner. I told him we were associates, not law partners, and if I did decide to farm out Ethan’s case, he would be the
last
shyster I would call.

Have Gun, Will Travel
was the game Seattle attorneys played. Several, including my good buddies the Learned Hand and the Rustler, offered to be the American half of my “defense team.” They said they’d come up to help block the extradition request, and if we lost that battle, I was to let them defend the trial of the decade in the States. I told them Canadian lawyers don’t need a “defense team.” We’re trained to win murder cases by ourselves.

Leeches, I thought.

At half past one, I left Suzy to defend the fort and, stepping over the puddle of piss outside, turned toward the harbor at the foot of Main to walk the same route to the law courts I had the other day. The black hooker was back on the stroll at the corner of Powell, trying to earn money to hire a lawyer to defend her on the charge I had seen her face in remand court a few hours earlier. On one breast of her scoop-necked blouse she wore a red poppy.

“A day late,” I said.

“Soldier, it’s never too late to hide in my warm trenches.”

“Later,” I lied.

“I be here,” she cooed.

Strolling up Granville, I passed the Birks clock. As lovers have done for the past century, an embracing couple rendezvoused on the corner for a late lunch and come what may. I wondered if the Mountie and Alex Hunt had met here too.

As always, I paused for a moment at the Rattenbury courthouse to gaze up at the stone lions and soaring pillars. I recalled the last day of the Hanging Judge, and how, as I was thrown out of Kinky’s court, I swore to myself I’d return one day to argue a headline murder case.

Well, that day had come.

But gone was the tradition.

When the law was centered here, practicing was fun. The assize court was a masterpiece of past British rule, a cavern of ornately carved hardwood complemented with brass fittings and rich red drapes. The accused in the dock and the jurors in the jury box were guarded by Stetsoned Mounties in full red serge. Once the jurors had been sequestered to consider their verdict, counsel would join the judge in chambers for a drink or two, at which time the trial would be rehashed witness by witness to laugh at the funny moments, determine the turning points, or place a friendly wager on the result.

The lawyers would then retire to the Crown counsel cubbyhole, which was squirreled away in the attic over the pillars supporting the roof. While the jury pondered, the court jesters partied, and if the Scotch ran out before there was a verdict, the cops were asked to make a booze run. Shortly after, they would show up with a brown evidence bag.

The night I remember most clearly from my days as a court watcher was the one when a troubled jury posed a question to the judge at midnight. The young defense lawyer was so full of Scotch that he had to be dragged into court with both arms around two seasoned prosecutors who could hold their booze. They propped him up at the counsel table as best they could and waited to see if the cranky judge would end his budding legal career for being drunk on the job.

In came the jury as the lawyer teetered from side to side. Then in came the judge, who was known as the Bounder for his habit of bounding up onto the bench. He caught his toe on the top step and sprawled across his chair, which rolled on casters to the jury side of the bench. There, he lay across its arms like Superman in flight, grinning at the jurors as he slurred: “Laddies an shenlemen of the shury. Ishh there a pro’lem? Ishh it becau ya think the shun of a bitshhh nex ta ya doeshn’t have a brain in hishh head? Shorry, laddies,
her
head tooooo.”

Whereupon he shwung his arm in a wide shweep that encompasshed the twelve shtunned faces.

“Tha bashtard won’ look like ashh mush of an ash-hole in the morning, sho I’m gonna ashk the shhhheriff to put ya up fer the night.”

Whereupon he fell on the floor, shtruggled to his unshteady feet, and shtaggered off the bench back to the bottle in chambers, unable to perform that feat as shober as the proverbial judge.

No sooner had the Bounder stumbled from court than the Crown attorney closest to the sloshed young lawyer leaned across and laughed. “Come tomorrow morning, you won’t be the only one praying for an acquittal to keep this record out of the court of appeal.”

That’s what it was like in the free-wheeling days before the West Side silver spoons built their new law courts two blocks down the street. For some reason the main door is situated in the corner farthest away from the center of town, so it’s rarely used—except for media shoots. This being my big case, I walked the extra block to make my grand entrance and played the earnest defense counsel rushing to meet the enemy for a mass of camera lenses.