The Endless Knot (12 page)

“Not terrific enough,” Linda said glumly. “But tomorrow is another day – speaking of which, I have a ton of reading to do.”

Zack’s tone was matey. “If you’d accept our invitation to join Falconer Shreve, eager associates would simplify your life.”

Linda blew her nose loudly and turned to me. “This man can’t get it through his head that I actually like my work. He believes that when Falconer Shreve calls, I should just put on my lipstick and hightail it over to the dark side.” She coughed. “Zack, for the record, I don’t get my thrills from pulling the hair out of other people’s drains. I’m happy where I am. Je ne regrette rien.”

“The offer’s always open,” Zack said. He took my hand. “Gotta go. I’m going to meet my guy back at the office. I’ll call you tonight.” He pulled me towards him and kissed me. “I love you,” he said.

Linda Fritz pounded her ear the way a swimmer does to get the water out. “Did I hear what I thought I heard?”

Zack frowned. “I told you Joanne and I were seeing each other.”

Linda blew her nose. “I thought it was like all your other relationships. Slam bam, thank you, ma’am. You’re always a pal afterwards, but love … hey, who knew?”

Zack grinned. “I wasn’t counting on it either, Linda, but I got lucky. Take care of that cough.”

My first report on the Sam Parker trial was complicated by a wind that was either keening into my lapel mike or lashing my hair in front of my eyes. But I stuck with it, and my report live to the East Coast was on time and on target. We all agreed the spot had gone well and as I removed my microphone, I felt a wash of relief. One show down, probably twenty more to go.

On the way to my car, I spotted Ethan Thorpe. He was walking through the parking lot behind the courthouse. He was wearing a full-length black coat with the collar pulled up against the weather – a figure of Gothic romance. I called to him. “Hey, Ethan.”

He whirled around and recognized me. “Ms. Kilbourn – hi!” Turtle style, he pulled his head even farther down inside his collar.

“What are you doing down here?” I said.

“A project,” he mumbled. “For social studies.”

“Well, court’s over for the day.” I said, “Can I give you a lift home?”

“No!” His voice cracked with adolescence and emotion. Clearly, he didn’t want me invading his private space. He tried to smooth the rough edge of his response. “Thanks, but it’s okay. I like walking in storms.” Then he turned on his heel and, in an exit worthy of Soul-fire, vanished in the swirl of snow.

Taylor and I watched my debut on
Canada Tonight
together in the family room. When the host gave a rundown of the stories the show would be covering that night, an image of me flashed on the screen. Taylor’s new fashion radar was on full alert. “Hey, that scarf you’re wearing would look really great with my orange boots.”

“You’ll have to talk to Zack. The scarf belongs to him.”

Taylor’s smile started small and grew. “Zack would give you anything you asked for.”

“Of course, he would,” I said. “He’s passion’s slave.”

Taylor’s eyes widened.

“I picked up the phrase
passion’s slave
from Soul-fire,” I said. “Which reminds me, I saw Ethan downtown today. He was in the parking lot behind the courthouse.”

“What was he doing there?”

“He said something about a social studies project. Anyway, I offered him a ride home, but he wanted to walk in the blizzard.”

“He doesn’t like being around other people much,” Taylor said.

“How come?”

“Because he thinks other people don’t like him.”

“Is he right?”

By a stratagem I had come to recognize well from my years as a mother, Taylor deflected the question by changing the subject. Luckily for her, she had help. Just as the silence between us was growing awkward, my segment on
Canada Tonight
began. Taylor’s relief was palpable. “Hey, your show’s starting,” she said.

We both watched critically. When it was over, Taylor flopped back on the couch. “Too bad about your hair weirding out in the wind like that, but what you said sounded good.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stood up. “And since I get to perform again tomorrow, I’d better do my homework.”

Taylor ran her fingers through her choppy bob. “Maybe get some hairspray too,” she said thoughtfully. “Gracie says Curlz Extra will keep your hair glued down in a monsoon.”

Like many best-laid plans, my plan to make a quick run to Shoppers Drug Mart for industrial-strength hairspray and curl up with the background information Rapti had sent went awry. As I was rinsing our dishes, the phone rang.

It was Angus telling me he and Leah had a blast in New York, and that he was available 24/7 if I needed help with any legal points. I thanked him, told him I loved him, and went back to the dishes. I’d just put the last plate in the dishwasher when Howard Dowhanuik called.

His voice was thick. “I fucked up,” he said.

“Stop the presses,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “I deserved that.” His voice was muffled and barely comprehensible.

“Howard, hang up and call me again. There’s something the matter with this line.”

“It isn’t the line. It’s the towel I’m holding up to my goddamn face. I fell and cut myself.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad enough. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig. I need to see a doctor.”

“Keep the pressure on the wound,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”

Like a gracious host, Howard was at the door waiting. A bloody bath towel was pressed to the left side of his face. Behind him on the tiled entrance floor was a liquor store bag that appeared to be leaking booze and blood. Recreating the sequence of events didn’t require much imagination.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You tripped coming in the door and fell face forward on your bottle of rye. It broke and cut your cheek.”

Howard eyed me malevolently. “You always were a smart broad. Now take me to the emergency ward.”

Two of my four children were risk-takers, and I knew from experience that the waiting time in emergency could be hours. I drove Howard to a walk-in clinic near the hospital. Whether it was the basset droop of Howard’s good eye or the blood that was dripping from his towel to the clinic floor, we were attended to quickly. Howard had just finished answering the admitting clerk’s questions when a nurse appeared and directed him to examining room F. I went with him.

“Are you going to hold my hand?” he asked.

“No, but you might have trouble remembering the doctor’s instructions. I’m here for backup.” I had just memorized the symptoms of West Nile Fever from a poster on the wall when the doctor came in. He was middle-aged and courtly. He glanced at the admission sheet on his clipboard. “Good evening, Mr. Dowhanuik,” he said. “My name is Winston Govender.” He removed Howard’s bloody towel and peered at the wound. “A nasty one,” he said. “What made the cut?”

“Glass,” Howard said.

“Was the glass sterile?”

“Bathed in alcohol. As was I,” Howard said gloomily.

Dr. Govender’s smile was perfunctory. He went to the sink and scrubbed his hands. “I’ll stitch you up now. You were fortunate, Mr. Dowhanuik. Just a few millimetres higher and you could have damaged your eye.”

“My lucky day.”

“It was indeed,” Dr. Govender said, and he set to work.

Howard’s cut required nine stitches. When the procedure was completed, Dr. Govender washed his hands again and then pulled up a stool next to Howard and scrutinized his handiwork. The flesh around the black line of stitches was already puffing up and blooming purple. Howard was going to look like hell in the morning and for a lot of mornings after.

“You’re going to experience some pain tonight,” Dr. Govender said. “I can give you something to ease it, but you must answer a question for me first. How much do you drink, Mr. Dowhanuik?”

Howard sighed heavily. “Not enough, Dr. Govender. Not nearly enough.”

We left without a prescription, but with written instructions about how to care for the wound. When I pulled up in front of Howard’s, he thanked me and beat a path to his door. I wasn’t about to let him escape that easily. I followed him in, found the phone book, opened it to the number for Alcoholics Anonymous, and handed it to Howard.

Howard glanced at the page. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You’re supposed to call the number,” I said.

Howard glared and thrust the phone book back at me. “Ian always said that you were a goddamn Sunday-school teacher.”

I felt the sting. “What else did my husband say?”

“That you were a moralist – a pain in the ass who never got over being twenty-two and idealistic. That everything was black or white for you. That you never grew up enough to understand that life is lived in shades of grey.”

A lump of sadness formed at the back of my throat.

Howard peered at me. “Jesus, now you’re crying. I’m sorry, Jo. What can I do?”

I handed him back the phone book. “Call the number,” I said. “Call Alcoholics Anonymous.”

When I got home, Zack’s car was in my driveway, and he was in my living room staring at his BlackBerry. I came into the room and he held out his arms. “At last,” he said.

I went to him. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Nope. Just got here.” He looked at me closely. “Have you been crying?”

“Yes.”

“You want to talk about it?”

I took a tissue from my coat pocket and blew my nose. “Am I a moralist?”

“No,” he said, “you’re moral. There’s a distinction.” He leaned back and gave me an appraising glance. “I take it your question didn’t just come out of the blue.”

“Howard fell and cut his cheek open on a bottle of booze. I spent the last couple of hours at the Medicentre getting him stitched up.”

“And after Howard was stitched up he called you a moralist?”

“According to Howard, he was just quoting Ian, who apparently also called me a Sunday-school teacher and a pain in the ass.”

“Well, Ian’s not here to defend himself,” Zack said. “So why don’t we find ourselves a place where we can sit down and talk this out?”

As soon as we got into the family room, Zack pushed himself out of his chair onto the couch. I moved close to him, ran my hands over his chest, and breathed in his aftershave.

“Better?” Zack said.

“Yes,” I said. “You are always exactly what I need.”

“And you’re always exactly what I need.” Zack squeezed my shoulder. “Try not to let what Howard said get to you. He made an ass of himself tonight. He was probably just lashing out.”

“Maybe. But what he said had the ring of truth. At the end, Ian and I had a lot of flash points.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

Zack leaned towards me in his arms. “I love you very much.”

“I love you too,” I said.

“In my opinion, that means we should be together.”

“Unfair,” I said. “I’m tired and vulnerable.”

“I’m tired and vulnerable too,” he said. “But you don’t hear me whining.”

“That’s because you’re tough.”

“Says who?”

“Brette Sinclair.”

“The pretty girl with the silky hair that you were sitting next to in court.”

“We had lunch together too,” I said. “I’m learning a lot from her.”

“For example …?”

“For example, she predicted you’d do that LifeSaver trick with Sam – very clever.”

Zack laughed softly. “Just a variation on a theme,” he said. “If a female lawyer has a male client who’s accused of a violent crime, she touches his arm, gives him a little pat on the shoulder just to show that her client’s not all that scary.”

“Maybe I should give you a few more touches and pats in public – humanize you.”

“Bad idea,” Zack said. “It’s my job to be scary. As long as I don’t scare you …”

I didn’t respond.

Zack pulled away. “I don’t scare you, do I?”

I touched the furrow that ran down his cheek. “You did today,” I said. “You’ve always been so careful not to refer to Glenda as Sam’s son. I thought it was a matter of principle.”

“The first time was a slip,” Zack said. “But the moment it happened, I knew I’d connected with the jury. I’d hit the sweet spot – I could feel the ball fly off the bat and soar over the outfield fence. I was in the game, and I needed that.”

“For you or for Sam?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is it felt really good.” He ran his finger over my lips, then kissed me. “That wasn’t the answer you wanted, but I’m not a hero, Jo. I’m just a guy who needs to win. And when I win, my clients win. Can you live with that?”

“I guess I’m going to have to,” I said.

Shades of grey. Shades of grey.

CHAPTER

7

Every night during the trial, Rapti Lustig e-mailed me more background information. Early that first week she forwarded an article about criminal lawyer Eddie Greenspan in which the writer riffed on the idea that in a jury trial, everything but the basic script is choreography and improvisation.

During its first week, it seemed the Sam Parker trial was desperately in need of a script doctor. The job of the Crown was to establish the evidence, and for Linda Fritz that apparently meant taking police officers through every line of every note they had made on the case. Her dogged precision exasperated Zack, but since his job was to make sure the police and the Crown had done their jobs, she gave him a good base from which to work. And so we listened as the Crown called witness after witness to buttress its case and the defence picked away endlessly at the testimony of officers who were accustomed to testifying and were unlikely to risk their careers to falsify a detail like the angle of the sun on a late afternoon in May.

Throughout the period Brette Sinclair referred to as “the parade of the essential but boring as hell witnesses,” I found my attention drawn to the jurors. Like the members of any ensemble cast, they were beginning to declare themselves as individuals. The angry man with the aggressive combover turned out to have an odd mannerism. He responded to everything the lawyers or the witnesses said with a vigorous negative shake of the head. Until Zack figured out the shake was a tic not a comment, he was distinctly uneasy. The foreperson with the shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair had arranged her features in a mask of serenity that suggested she had withdrawn from the courtroom’s swirl of bad karma and negative thoughts. The young people made no attempt to disguise their boredom at the lacklustre performance they were forced to endure. Their faces were blank, as if they had detached themselves and were listening to invisible iPods. The Modigliani woman and the meaty man had become Zack’s partisans, smiling encouragement when he did well with a line of questioning and dropping their gaze when the judge (as he frequently did) chastised Zack for pushing too hard (as he frequently did). The notetaker grew more notetakey, barely glanced up at the proceedings, so intent was he on recording everything. The Lucille Ball wannabe seemed pathetically eager to lighten it up. On the trial’s third morning, an earnest young constable described in precise detail the size of a bullet hole; when he was through, she rewarded him with a rubbery grin. The men in the three-piece suits were clearly impatient, like senior managers forced to listen to the concerns of underlings. The ladies with the gentle perms drifted off from time to time as ladies with gentle perms will when the topic of conversation turns to the trajectory of a bullet.

The one real source of drama that week was Linda Fritz, who, it became increasingly clear, was suffering from the mother of all colds. On the first day it had attacked her voice, roughening it and reducing it to a painful croak. By the second day, Linda could barely whisper, and the judge gave her permission to use a lapel mike to question her witnesses. The cough that was plaguing Linda when we met had grown noticeably worse. To my ears, it sounded like bronchitis.

The ladies with the seasonal sweaters watched Linda with anxious eyes. From the outset, they had been sympathetic to her; now they looked as if they’d like to take her home and get her under a croup tent. The beefy guy was clearly pissed off that he was in the room with a walking petri dish of viral stew, and he and the Modigliani woman ostentatiously flattened themselves against the back of their chairs whenever Linda approached the jury box. The three-piece-suiters contented themselves with raising a handkerchief to cover their nose and mouth as if they were walking through the city of the plague. The
I Love Lucy
juror produced a bottle of hand sanitizer and passed it around. Interest in the testimony of “the essential but boring as hell witnesses” waned.

Zack was uneasy too, but his concern wasn’t hygiene. He was genuinely fond of Linda and he respected her as an adversary. When she failed to pick up on inconsistencies or points that she normally would have hammered home, he was at first baffled then concerned. She seemed to be having trouble hearing, and on the morning of the fourth day, she didn’t even bother trying to put on her game face. She soldiered on until the luncheon recess, but when court reconvened, she was not in her place and when the clerk announced that the Crown had asked for a continuance, and that court was adjourned until Monday morning, the relief in the courtroom was palpable.

I did my standup for Nation
TV
and headed home to a long nap and some prophylactic echinacea and vitamin C. Zack was giving a speech at a dinner in Saskatoon on Monday night. We were planning to stay over and savour the pleasures of a first-class hotel, and I didn’t want to miss the pampering.

Saturday morning Zack came over for pancakes before he went back to the office. He had news of Linda Fritz, and it wasn’t promising. The virus that had begun as laryngitis moved to bronchitis and then an ear infection had turned her right ear deaf. Her eardrum was bulging due to the pressure of fluid behind it. She was on massive doses of antibiotics, but it would take up to three weeks for the fluid behind her eardrum to be absorbed. She was off the case.

“She must be disappointed,” I said.

“She’s furious,” Zack said. “I went over to her apartment this morning. She still feels like shit, but not being able to prosecute this case is making it a hundred times worse. She put in a lot of hours on this one, and she thought she could win.” He picked up the maple syrup and flooded his plate. “Can you think of anything we can send to cheer her up?”

“What does she like?”

Zack furrowed his brow in concentration. “Practising law. Beating me.”

“How about a dartboard and a picture of you.”

“Perfect,” he said. “So what are you up to this morning?”

“It’s moving day. Pete’s moving in with Charlie.”

“Big job?”

“No. Pete’s got his truck and he travels light. Charlie’s coming over to help. If you stick around, you can see him.”

Zack checked his watch. “I have a few minutes. Hey, I got our reservations for the Bessborough – the lieutenant-governor’s suite.”

“I’m impressed.”

“I was hoping you would be.”

“It’ll be fun to get away to Saskatoon for a night.”

“Even if it means spending the evening with a bunch of lawyers.”

“As long as I end up with the lawyer of my choice.” I kissed him on the head. “Now, I’d better find Taylor and get her to her art lesson. If you’re not here when I get back, give me a call.”

Zack
was
there when I got back, so was Charlie Dowhanuik. When I walked into the kitchen, they fell silent.

I joined them at the kitchen table. “So what were you guys talking about?”

Charlie’s eyes met mine. “My father.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t remember,” Charlie said tightly. “And, Jo, I don’t want to talk about him with you.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “So how’s the big move progressing?”

“Haven’t done a thing, but I figure it should take us twenty minutes to load the truck. You know Pete – fourteen boxes of books, some sports equipment, and two garbage bags of clothes.”

“Don’t forget his collection of baseball cards. I’ve been trying to get them out of here since he went to vet school.”

Zack leaned forward in his chair. “I’ve got a foul ball from the sixth game of the Toronto/Atlanta World Series in 1993. I caught it myself.”

Pete came in. “The game where Joe Carter hit the series-winning home run. I watched that on
TV –
it was great.”

“It was a lot of fun. Anyway, if you want the ball, say the word.”

“I want the ball.”

“My pleasure,” Zack said.

Charlie stood up. “Now that everybody’s happy, let’s get this move underway. The faster we get this over, the faster I can get back to bed.” He walked over to Zack. “I’ll be in touch.”

They left and I turned to Zack. “So what’s Charlie going to be in touch about?”

Zack’s green eyes were thoughtful. “Things you don’t want to know about. Can we leave it at that?”

“Do I have an option?”

His cell rang, and Zack flashed me a mischievous smile. “Saved by the bell,” he said. As he talked, I put some eggs on to boil for lunch. After Zack ended the call, he came over and grabbed me from behind. “My lucky day,” he said. “Garth Severight is replacing Linda.”

“Garth Severight isn’t formidable?”

“He has his strengths,” Zack said. “He’s quite the orator, and he looks like Mr. Big, from
Sex and the City.”

“However …?”

“However … he’s got this monster ego. He doesn’t listen, and he always knows best. Linda’s ten times the lawyer he’ll ever be, but he’ll torch her case and go in with his guns blazing.”

“He sounds like an idiot.”

“Pretty close,” Zack said equitably. “And best of all, I know how to push Garth’s buttons. Nothing I do ever fazes Linda, but Garth reacts to me. I had a professor who said that if the only tool you use is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.”

“And Garth Severight’s only tool is a hammer?”

“Yep, and he uses it indiscriminately. No finesse, no reflection, just bang, bang, bang, bang. It makes juries edgy and it drives judges nuts. A couple of years ago, we were in front of a judge with a notoriously short fuse. I honestly thought she was going to spontaneously combust. Garth saw it too, but every time I hove into view, Garth would start in. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. He couldn’t seem to stop himself.” Zack shook his head, remembering. “Even I felt sorry for the poor fuck.”

“So you stayed out of his way?”

Zack was incredulous. “Are you kidding? I made sure I was in his face every single second.”

“You’re licking your chops,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. “But with this case, it’s been a while. Anyway, I gotta go. Tell Pete I’ll drop the ball by. Hey, maybe you and I could go over later on today and check out his new digs.”

“And you and Charlie could get together and talk about the things I don’t want to know about.”

Zack nodded his head approvingly. “No flies on you, Ms. Kilbourn. No flies on you.”

On Monday morning, when Howard Dowhanuik took his place in the witness box, it was clear there were no flies on my beloved either. All weekend, I had fought the urge to get in touch with Howard. I had hoped that, left to his own devices, he might pick up the phone and call
AA
. On Sunday night, he had phoned me. He sounded sober, but he was good at that.

“Meet me for breakfast tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll buy.”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I need to be distracted.”

“Hard to turn down such a gracious invitation,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Humpty’s. They make a great Meatlovers Pan-Scrambler: eggs, hash browns, ground beef, bacon, and ham. The whole thing is covered in cheese sauce.”

“Does it come with a fibrillator?”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes. I’ll meet you there.”

I continued packing for the trip to Saskatoon. Zack and I were flying there as soon as court was over that day. As I zipped my best dress into a garment bag and added strappy pumps, an evening bag, and the long black slip appliquéd in lilies that Zack liked, I tried to focus on the romance of staying in the lieutenant-governor’s suite with the man I loved. But all I could think of was Howard and the ordeal ahead.

Taylor was sleeping over at the Wainbergs Monday night, so I dropped her bag off at their place on the way to the restaurant. Delia Wainberg, already dressed for the office, met me at the door. She was full of questions about how I thought the trial was going, so I was late getting to Humpty’s.

Howard was sitting at a booth in the corner. He had done what he could about shaving, but the railroad track of stitches on his cheekbone had clearly defeated him. His bruise had mutated to a purplish green and it bristled with a three-day growth of hair. He looked like hell, and as he picked up his mug, it was clear he was suffering from a killer hangover. His hands were shaking so badly that the coffee slopped onto the Formica tabletop.

I pulled some napkins from the dispenser and mopped up. “You’ve got a tough morning ahead,” I said. “Herbal tea might be a better choice.”

“Strychnine would be a better choice,” he said. “But this is what I ordered. You’re not my mother.”

“And I thank God for that every day of my life,” I said. “But you’ve been a good friend, Howard. You stayed with me the night Ian died, and you were there all those months when I crawled into a hole and didn’t want to crawl back out. You drove me to the hospital the time Pete got that concussion playing football –”

Howard raised his hand in a halt gesture. “I don’t need the Life and Times crap, Jo.”

The server came to take my order and to deliver Howard’s Meatlovers’ Pan-Scrambler. After she left, Howard rested his jaw in his palm and stared at his plate.

“Come on,” I said briskly. “You’re hungover. You need to eat. Shovel in some of that health-food special in front of you.”

Howard picked up his fork obediently and took a bite. He could barely swallow.

“Okay,” I said. “Save the manly meal for another time. Just try to get a piece of toast down.”

It was a silent and miserable breakfast. When I was finished eating, I left some bills on the table. Howard, who was normally the most generous of men, didn’t fight me for the cheque. “I’ll see you at the courthouse,” I said. “Do me a favour. Don’t have anything to drink before you take the stand.”

As I was going up the courthouse stairs, Zack was coming up the ramp. There had been a warming trend over the weekend. The snow had melted; the sidewalks were dry; the sun was bright and the air was mellow. Zack was wearing a lightweight mochaccino suit and a red tie.

“I like your tie,” I said.

“I like everything about you,” he said.

We stopped in the lobby under the mural celebrating our majestic legal heritage.