From the Chrysalis (44 page)

But perhaps the lady juror didn’t need to look at photos of burned books and furniture floating in brackish water or at black and white eight by tens of the men who had been bound and tortured. How much did she really need to know? What was there to decide? She had already read the papers and even if the accused men weren’t guilty of the murder of two pedophiles, they were no doubt guilty of other undisclosed and equally heinous crimes.

The Crown was
convincing. For two days they talked about the jungle atmosphere inside the penitentiary and how it had led to the deaths of the two unfortunate men. In the end everybody in the prisoner box looked guilty of something. Even Liza started to believe that everybody must be guilty, at least everybody except Dace, and that was because she knew his side. But the rest of the courtroom had no such inside information. What if he hadn’t written to her so soon after the riot? Would the Crown have convinced her of his guilt too?
 

The Crown focused on Dace almost exclusively. Surely they didn’t think he was solely responsible for both the riot and the outcome? Christ, it was unbelievable.

The
Maitland Spectator
had another field day with the Devereux name. Life was so much more interesting when a home boy got in trouble.
Why … I remember when he was a boy and he had a slingshot. He called that teacher bad names.
What was it that made a boy bad? It hardly seemed possible that such a miscreant had come from a decent little place like Maitland. Although … the Devereux weren’t really from Maitland, come to think of it. They were from Toronto, big T.O. That figured. A lot of bad stuff happened there.

Liza didn’t believe it for one moment, but D’Arcy “Dace” Devereux was alleged to have said,
Let’s smash some pumpkins
while he was on a leisurely stroll from his guard post on the fourth floor to locate potential victims. Under the circumstances, it sounded like any suckers might have been fine, but the pre-existence of the segregated pedophiles was definitely a plus. The jurors looked at D’Arcy Devereux when they heard this: the strong, handsome man, third from the left, with the murderous rage in his dark eyes. Well, maybe he’d had a couple of buddies with him, thugs just like himself, but the witness swore Dace had led the hunt for the sexual offenders, those they called The Unwanted.

Liza had barely dragged herself into the courtroom that day. By now everybody recognized her as a permanent fixture. She was occasionally accompanied by an older man who looked a little like D’Arcy Devereux, but who always rushed out, visibly distraught.
 

She never saw the pictures the lawyers passed around the jury, but a newsreel of the riot played continually in her mind, a backdrop to her everyday life. She might be climbing stairs in one of the faculty buildings, but wild-eyed rioters raced at her side and surprised her out of closets with machetes in their hands. Sometimes they found her asleep in her residence bed. She wanted to shut her eyes like the dozy lady juror when the Crown went after Dace, but she was on show, too. She didn’t dare risk the headline:
Devereux Cousin Doesn’t Care.

She raised her hand to her lips and bit her knuckles when Hubert Gold finally began his cross-examination; she hoped nobody noticed. She had to control herself, but it was an effort. Gold ignored the first witness for the Crown. He was a soft-spoken man called Belissimo who used a lot of malapropisms, difficult for even the most discerning ear. The little man said Dace had broken his arm and the jurors looked as if they believed him. Why would he lie when he was still doing time? Belissimo would have to go back to the Joint and face both the well-muscled Dace and his almost equally muscular friends. The fact that the little man had been segregated from the rest of the prison population was lost on the jurors.

Gold focused on the second witness instead, a man who had served time on fraud charges and was now living in Texas under an assumed name. Judge Silverton was plainly unhappy when this got out in court. He glared at Gold as if
he
were the adversary. He stopped Gold and instructed the courtroom reporters to ignore what they had just heard.

As if the witness’ tan wouldn’t have given him away. Obviously he had been somewhere warm; even his nose was peeling. His right hand twitched as he pocketed his sunglasses at the judge’s request. He could hardly look Hubert Gold in the eyes and never once looked at any of the defendants.

As for Gold, he was obviously pleased to finally have the floor. He paced in front of the witness for a moment, smoothing his hair back and straightening his tie. Watching his preparations, everybody in the courtroom sat up a little straighter.
 

“Mr. X,” he said, “you were telling us you witnessed certain events that took place in the dome in the early hours of Sunday, isn’t that right?”

The witness paused a moment, perhaps trying to figure out what Dace’s defence lawyer meant. “Yes, sir,” he finally said.

“Now when you were watching these events, you were standing on a tier? A sort of balcony that encircled the whole dome? And this was the second of four tiers?”

The witness’ brows creased. “Uh, yes,” he replied.

“And it was between three and four in the morning?”

“Yes, sir,” the man reported, sounding more confident this time.

Gold faced the courtroom then spoke over his shoulder at the witness, as if he really didn’t care about the answer. “So it would be dark outside. And there were two or three lights broken in the dome, weren’t there?”

“Yes, sir, there were,” the witness agreed. “Well, it was never well lit anyway,” he elaborated, ignoring Judge Silverton’s frown.

“And the army was outside?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the floodlights were on and German Shepherds were patrolling?”

The witness nodded, smiling. “You got the picture. I mean, yeah. Yes, sir.”

Gold pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and checked it, as if he had forgotten some vital item necessary to set the scene. “And there was talk about gas?”

“There was talk about everything,” the witness said with a shrug, appearing perplexed.
 

“Were you a bit nervous when you knew the army was outside?”

For the first time, the witness looked straight at Gold.
You got it
, his eyes said. “Yes, sir, I was scared,” he admitted. “We were all scared.”

“So when you were hauled out of bed and told to watch the events in the dome, you disapproved of them?”

“I guess. I mean yes, sir.” He lowered his eyes until he stared at the floor.

Gold rubbed his chin and he also looked down. “Yet you heard screams and you saw twelve or thirteen men blindfolded and tied to the radiator in the dome. And you didn’t do anything to stop the beatings,” he observed.

“No, sir, I …” the witness squirmed in his seat, his eyes appealing to everyone in the courtroom.
What could I have done?

Gold softened a little. “You were afraid of the army coming in and shooting gas?”

The witness looked relieved. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“And weren’t you also afraid to join those unfortunate men? Afraid you might be put in the circle and tied to the radiator along with them?”

“Yes, sir.” The witness grew even more confident at this point, sitting bolt upright in his leather chair as he caressed the lapels of his new brown suit.

There was another longish pause as Gold checked the paper in his hand again. “Did anyone give you orders during the riot?”
 

“No, sir.”

“Who told you to come and watch?” he asked.

The witness narrowed his eyes. “I don’t remember right offhand.”

“So how did you know it was time to come out?” Gold asked, sounding pleasant enough.
 

“Somebody had a bullhorn,” the witness said sullenly.

“How long did you watch?”

The witness shrugged. “Maybe an hour.”

“So you thought it would be best to keep watching the beatings,” Gold speculated.

The witness got a little excited. “Yeah, until they started busting heads! And cutting. I could see them smacking somebody around, but not like that. Brutal, they were, brutal. That’s why people got killed.”
 

“Objection!” shouted the Crown, as the witness looked meaningfully in the direction of the jury. Several members unintentionally nodded back.
We understand.

“I think you told my learned friend, Mr. X, that you saw one of the beating victims being brought out? One of the child abusers? Let’s call him Mr. Smith?”

“Okay. I mean, yes, sir.”

“And you said it was Mr. Devereux, for whom I act, who brought him out?”

“What …” He frowned. “Mr. Devereux? Do you mean what did Dace do? I don’t understand the question,” the witness stammered.

“I was asking,” Gold repeated slowly, “if my client, Mr. Dace Devereux, brought one of the beating victims out to the circle.”

“No, sir. He’s the one who started smashing heads,” the witness replied.

“But didn’t you say during the Preliminary trial that Dace Devereux was on the fourth range?”

“He
was
on the fourth range most of the time, but he came down to the first range to smash some heads,” the witness insisted, his head pushed forward, his eyes searching the jury box.

“All right. I have a letter addressed to my firm which I would like to present to the court.”

There was a sudden rustle from the Judge’s chair. “Probably better have the jury step out,” Judge Silverton advised
with an audible sigh. Almost before he had finished his sentence, the jury members had left.

Hubert Gold approached the bench. “Your Worship, when I attempted to see the Crown witnesses in the penitentiary, I was denied the privilege of talking to them for reasons unknown to me. So I wrote everybody, put forth my client’s defence and asked, ‘Do you know anything?’ Mr. Smith himself wrote me back and said, ‘Devereux never harmed me in any way. He was up on the fourth range all the time.’”

The two Crown attorneys had followed Gold to the bench. “Well, surely my learned colleague is not suggesting this kind of letter is
evidence
,” the female Crown attorney interjected. “Surely the evidence must come from Mr. Smith himself.”

“At the time when this witness says Devereux was in the dome beating up Smith, Smith says he wasn’t there at all. The jury is entitled to know the witness is a fraud. By the time Smith testifies, the damage of this witness will be done,” Gold insisted, although from the way Silverton was shaking his head, he could tell the Judge didn’t see it that way.

“Well, it’s a dilemma,” Judge Silverton said, although from the look on his face the whole matter seemed straightforward to him. “But I don’t think I can allow you to introduce a letter this way.”

“I have several letters, Your Worship,” Gold said eagerly.

The Judge closed his eyes. “No doubt you do.”

“Just wait, Your Worship. I haven’t finished my cross-examination.”

“No letters,” Judge Silverton repeated. “May I bring the jury back now?” he asked with exaggerated politeness.

Once the Jury was back in the courtroom, Hugh Gold had evidently decided to try a different tack. “Tell me,” he said. “You say my client, Mr. Devereux, broke Mr. Smith’s head.”

“Yes. Then he killed the other one.”
 

The Judge could have admonished the witness at this moment but he didn’t, so Gold rapped the edge of the witness box. “Just answer the question, please. Mr. Smith himself advises me he did no such thing. He says Mr. Devereux stayed on the fourth range.”

“I will have to contradict that,” the witness said smugly, perhaps having surmised that at least one person in the courtroom was on his side.