The Guilty Page 3

  “Fuck off, malaka! Get your own bed,” he mumbled.

  Bratt threw his mail onto the pile of sweaty hair that was stuck to the back of his friend’s head, but got no reaction. Exasperated, he dropped into the chair behind his desk. Kalouderis’s vulgarity, as well as his indifference to Bratt’s arrival, irked him.

  “I mean it, John. It’s well after nine and I’ve got work to do.”

  “Go right ahead,” replied Kalouderis, “you won’t bother me.”

  “Look, John, I’m damn tired myself and I don’t find this the least bit amusing, so MOVE IT!”

  That last exhortation finally led to some movement on Kalouderis’s part. He began getting up slowly, gingerly putting his stockinged feet onto the floor as if he expected to find shards of broken glass there.

  Bratt asked, “Did you spend the night here or did you crawl in drunk this morning?”

  Kalouderis scratched his head at the question and tried to keep his gaze level at Bratt while answering. “Both, I guess. I got in about five o’clock, and I’ve been stretched-out here ever since.”

  Bratt rested his head on the back of his chair and sighed. Every now and then Kalouderis and a group of his favorite cousins would hit the town and attempt to commit collective suicide by alcohol. This time he looked like he had almost succeeded. Bratt was concerned that his friend was going to embarrass himself publicly one day, which would, of course, embarrass the firm. Still, there was a part of Bratt that felt envy, wishing he could be as irresponsible with his own health and career. But he had too much to lose, in his personal and professional lives, to risk it for a night of uncontrolled drinking.

  Kalouderis began awkwardly fishing around with his hands under the sofa, looking for his shoes. Finally retrieving them, he burped and struggled to his feet, a loafer in each hand. Bratt watched the proceedings with a sense of irritation, tapping his fingers on his desk in barely repressed impatience.

  Kalouderis swayed slightly where he stood and breathed in deeply through his nose. “Geez, I reek. Mind if I use your shower?”

  “As a matter of fact, I insist on it,” Bratt replied, thinking of the staff and clientele who would come into contact with Kalouderis during the day.

  Once his friend had shuffled off to the partners’ private shower area, Bratt turned his attention to his day’s work. He had a number of phone calls to make before drafting his final arguments for the Hall trial. Brenton would probably spend all of tomorrow pleading, so Bratt wouldn’t have to plead until Thursday morning.

  He remembered that Nate Morris was testifying in his rape trial that morning. The jury would probably start deliberating some time tomorrow, and Bratt’s experience told him they probably wouldn’t have to deliberate very long. If, or when, they acquitted Morris, Bratt suspected that he would be having another heated discussion with Jeannie. He would get as much work as he could done now while his mind was still free from the aggravation that awaited him.

  Bratt was less than an hour into reviewing his trial notes when J.P. Leblanc opened his office door without knocking. He walked in and, with an audible grunt, sat down heavily on the sofa that had so recently served as Kalouderis’s bed. Leblanc was more than eighty pounds overweight and a heavy smoker. Whenever he sat, it was always heavily. Grunting was optional.

  “Who the hell made a mess in the shower?”

  “Probably John,” Bratt answered, without looking up from his papers. “I found him asleep and drooling all over that sofa when I came in this morning.”

  “Aw, crap,” Leblanc said, trying to jump up from any wet spot he may have sat on, but only managing to shift his position to the middle of the sofa before the exertion made him give up. “That pig,” he said, red-faced. “I should fire him, you know.”

  “Yes, you should. If you go do it now maybe I can get some work done.”

  Bratt looked up to see if his partner had gotten his point, but Leblanc hadn’t moved. Watching him slowly ruminate over whatever it was he wanted to talk about, Bratt wondered, and not for the first time, how such an eclectic group of people had ended up working, and working so well, together. About the only thing the eleven lawyers in the firm had in common was a highly competitive nature and a willingness to do whatever was necessary to win. Over the years this had kept a harmony of sorts in place between them.

  Leblanc sat without speaking, although he clearly had something on his mind.

  “So, how’d the interviews go?” Bratt asked. “Find any diamonds in the rough?”

  “Hm. Oh, yes. I did, actually,” Leblanc answered, sounding distracted.

  Bratt put down his note pad, folded his arms across his chest, and cleared his throat impatiently.

  “Anything else?”

  “Oh, yeah. You hear about Lynn Sévigny?”

  Bratt was surprised at the topic his partner had chosen to broach. Sévigny was a struggling, but fiercely independent, sole practitioner who rented a small office down the hall from them. Bratt had always admired her fighting spirit and, on occasion, had discreetly sent some business her way. He had been among the first people she had confided in when a cancerous lump had been found in her left breast.

  “I heard they operated on her,” Bratt said.

  “Yeah. She…you know-”

  “Don’t say it,” Bratt interrupted. “I know what they did.”

  “Yeah, anyway, she’s not going back to work for a while, you know, what with the chemo she’ll probably have to get and stuff. You know it makes them go bald.”

  “I’m aware that can happen,” Bratt said, uncomfortable about discussing Sévigny’s medical problems with his less than sensitive partner.

  Leblanc scratched his head, trying to look concerned and thoughtful. “This is gonna be tough on her, financially-speaking. You know if she’s off work for a long time she’s gonna lose a lot of clients.”

  “I know. I think she has some insurance.”

  “Yeah, I guess so, although she probably couldn’t afford enough.” There was another thoughtful pause from Leblanc. “Thing is, maybe we can help her out a bit.”

  Bratt had never expected altruism from Leblanc. He had been partners with the man long enough to know that he didn’t spend too much of his time worrying about lawyers outside the firm.

  “Help her how?”

  “She was scheduled to do a murder trial this term. You know, that Small kid who’s been in the papers. It’s supposed to start in three weeks or so, and now that her guy’s going to need a new lawyer I thought we should look into taking over the case from her.”

  Bratt knew he should have seen this coming. “The woman’s just been operated on and the vultures are already circling! Some help you’re offering.”

  “Come on, Bobby. I’m really thinking of her. At least we can take care of her a bit from whatever we get, which a lot of other guys wouldn’t do, you know. Besides, this kid’s been inside for I don’t know how many months. We can’t let him wait until she’s back on her feet to have his trial. That would be unconscionable. She knows that, I’m sure. Anyway, I’m going to see her in a couple of days in the hospital, so I thought I’d speak to her about the case then.”

  “Don’t forget to bring her flowers while you’re at it,” Bratt snapped.

  Leblanc waved Bratt’s remark away. He slid his bulk back over to the side of the sofa, pushed with all his strength on its padded arm, and slowly levered himself up to his feet with another grunt.

  “Look, why should the file end up with Chartrand or Gold? At least we’ve always been friendly, and I’m sure she’d prefer that it was us who took over for her than one of those other guys.”

  Bratt didn’t answer, so Leblanc just shrugged and walked back out, his message delivered. He closed the door softly behind him, leaving Bratt to try to get his thoughts back on his trial notes.

  He didn’t relish being one of the sharks getting ready to pounce on the remains of Lynn Sévigny’s practice, but maybe Leblanc was right. She probably would prefer t
he Small murder file going to their office rather than to certain other lawyers.

  Either way, it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t about to jump into a murder trial that was due to start in less than a month. Once he had won over the jury in Cooper Hall’s trial he was going to take some well-deserved time off to recharge his batteries, and maybe mend some fences with Jeannie.

  The next day was Wednesday, and Bratt was back in court for the reprise of the fraud trial. As Brenton’s final arguments dragged into the afternoon Bratt received a note telling him that the jury in Nate Morris’s trial was still deliberating. He slipped the note into his pocket and tried to concentrate on his own case.

  Brenton gave a detailed recitation of the facts that had been alleged against Hall, delivered in the prosecutor’s inimitably slow and phlegmatic style. Most of Bratt’s mental energy was used up trying to look like he was paying attention while his esteemed adversary droned on and on, reminding Bratt of how painfully dull much of the trial had been.

  Bratt let his eyes roam around the courtroom, and they stopped at the long legs of Sergeant-Detective Nancy Morin sitting in the first row of the gallery. She wore a blue suit jacket over a skirt with a fashionably high hemline which revealed that she did some serious running when she wasn’t sitting in court.

  Her light brown hair was cut just above her ears, revealing a strong, but graceful neck. Once upon a time Bratt might have found her athletic build a bit too muscular for his taste, but in the two months of this trial she had managed to radically change his tastes. Now their mutual attraction was evident to anyone who watched them interact in the courthouse hallways.

  His gaze lingered on her legs and a small smile formed on his lips as he recalled the sparks that had flown when he had cross-examined her over a month earlier. He had tried attacking Morin on everything from her personal honesty to her professional competence, but she hadn’t backed down an inch. Her pale, greyish-green eyes had flashed angrily at him as she stood her ground against his onslaught. Her defiance had actually excited him, to the point where he lost track of his questions more than once.

  His grin widened at that memory, and then he realized that she was looking straight back at him, also smiling. He felt unexpectedly embarrassed and snapped his gaze back to Brenton.

  That was really smooth, he chided himself. She’s really gotten to you, Bobby.

  Bratt tried to keep his attention on Brenton’s monologue on the off-chance that he might miss something of interest. He had no reason to fear, though. The details and minutiae of the Crown’s evidence that was being dumped on the jury seemed to have lost all meaning to anyone other than Brenton himself.

  What passed for Brenton’s style was anything but dramatic or exciting. His calm, ploddingly analytical arguments betrayed his conservative, English schooling, and Bratt was glad to notice that they did nothing to keep the jury’s interest or attention. Among the twelve sworn citizens, some eyes wandered, while others slowly shut, only to blink rapidly open again, as Brenton reviewed the countless graphs and charts that had been prepared by the Crown’s best forensic accountants. Yawns were barely stifled as Brenton carefully listed offshore bank accounts and dummy numbered companies, in the hope that the jury would understand how they all linked together like a chain that should come together to imprison Hall.

  Bratt had no doubt that this chain of transactions could fatally encircle his client. His arguments tomorrow would aim at the chain’s weakest links, those officers of Hall’s companies who had testified for the prosecution. For much of the trial’s two months he had poked and prodded and questioned them until he was certain they had lost all credibility in the jury’s eyes. When it was his turn to plead he would remind the jury, in a much more dramatic and entertaining style than Brenton, of how unworthy of its trust these men were.

  Once the testimony of these witnesses was set aside, the Crown’s case against Hall became purely circumstantial. Bratt loved that term, “purely circumstantial.” He was sure some American TV writer must have coined it. Any lawyer knew that circumstantial evidence could often be more accurate and more damaging than a dozen eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses were notorious for forgetting or misconstruing the most basic facts. They regularly bent the truth to make themselves look more important or their testimony more relevant.

  Despite that, most jurors felt only a roomful of eyewitnesses could assure them that an accused was guilty. Show them a solid case made up entirely of circumstantial evidence, and chances were they’d still have lingering doubts.

  And Bratt knew that those little doubts were what acquittals were made of.

  The following morning a clean layer of snow that had fallen overnight covered the trees on the hillside adjacent to Bratt’s apartment building. The previous day’s bright sunshine had been replaced by a heavily overcast sky. According to the incomprehensible rules of Montreal winters, that meant that this day would be warmer than the day before. With the rise in temperature all that glistening snow would soon melt into piles of mud-like slush. Municipal snow-clearing crews were in the midst of their seemingly annual work slowdown, and the streets and sidewalks would be an adventure to negotiate.

  The taxi carrying Bratt straight to court from his apartment made its way slowly through the clogged and sloppy streets. Despite the depressing weather, his mood remained upbeat. Two months of deathly boredom had been replaced by a feeling of near-giddiness in anticipation of finally addressing the jury. Instead of the countless hours he spent slumped in his chair yesterday, praying that Brenton would pack it in before one of the jurors became suicidal, today Bratt was to be the center of attention.

  He saw himself standing, with just the lightest touch of cockiness, in front of the jury and making his brief, but brilliant, final arguments. His well-chosen words would seem to fly by, compared to the previous day’s marathon. He would display the casual, self-effacing charm for which he was well-known, seemingly almost embarrassed at his own hard-to-conceal cleverness and wit.

  He would guide the jury easily to the conclusion that the Crown witnesses should be ignored and the circumstantial evidence rejected, so that everyone could happily return to their regular lives, feeling good about themselves and a job well done.

  Bratt looked out of the taxi window as he approached the tall, featureless building that was the Palais de Justice. Its flat, slate-grey exterior matched the dull winter clouds overhead. The taxi pulled out of the early-morning traffic and stopped at the curb in front of the Notre Dame Street entrance. On the sidewalk, pedestrians balanced themselves like tightrope walkers as they stepped across the melting ice and over unplowed snow banks. Their faces expressed frustration and worry at the precariousness of their footing.

  Bratt opened the car door, stretched one long leg out and smoothly stepped over the slush-filled roadway. Then he gingerly stepped across the still-frozen sidewalk and headed in the direction of the courthouse. A city worker was busy salting the cement steps to prevent any potential accidents. Bratt saw several fellow lawyers, over-stuffed briefcases in hand, inching carefully up the stairs ahead of him. He smiled cynically as he imagined all the lawsuits they would gladly file if they ever took a spill on government property.

  He gripped the handrails tightly, tucked his chin into his upturned collar against a sudden draft of cold wind and followed the trail of salt up the stairs and through the automatic revolving door.

  Once he was inside the cavernous, but dimly-lit, atrium his glasses immediately fogged up from the warm air. The large lobby area hummed softly with the sounds of the usual collection of lawyers and policemen, litigants and witnesses, and unemployed courthouse regulars who depended on the daily drama of the law for some free entertainment on these cold winter days.

  He moved forward, resigned to the fact that everyone around him would be nothing but a blur for the next minute or so. He passed the information desk and the Espresso counter, squinting over his now useless glasses, nodding and smiling at the half-seen faces that floate
d by. He may not have been able to recognize them but he assumed that they all recognized him.

  When he reached the escalator a large, blurry figure brushed up against his left arm.

  “Better wipe those glasses clean before you get to the TV cameras, Bobby-boy,” Leblanc said, breathing heavily from the effort of catching up with Bratt. “They’ll ruin your carefully-groomed image of sophistication.”

  Bratt turned toward the familiar voice, accepting a tissue that the latter was holding out. “J.P. Coming up to enjoy some of my brilliant oratory?”

  Leblanc laughed. “Please, haven’t you got enough groupies and hangers-on filling up the courtroom? No, I’ll just worship your greatness from afar.”

  Bratt wiped his glasses with the tissue as he stepped off the escalator. “Well, you’ll miss a great show, if I do say so myself.”

  “Yeah, but Brenton isn’t exactly a hard act to follow,” Leblanc said, turning to walk away. “I might make it up to see you if I don’t get stuck behind the Legal Aid guy at the bail hearings. Kick ass.”

  “You know I will.”

  Bratt navigated his way down the crowded hallway. Spotting the TV cameras posted outside the doors of the courtroom about thirty feet ahead he quickened his steps in anticipation.

  As he approached the courtroom the cameras turned their bright lights toward him. Microphone-toting journalists stepped up and smiled at him. Bratt smiled back, his warmest, most sincere smile and came to them like a favorite son, home after a long absence. He would gladly pause long enough to answer all their questions, no matter how long it took. Twice during the trial Judge Smythe had needed to send the constable out to drag him away from the cameras.

  Once past the media scrum and inside the courtroom he paused, like a warrior looking over the field before a battle. He saw that Brenton was engaged in an all-too-friendly chat with Nancy Morin. As Bratt approached, Brenton smiled stiffly and returned to the prosecution’s table, grudgingly conceding defeat on at least this point.