Old City Hall (12 page)

The concierge stared at his file, appalled. As if he were looking at a corpse that had just come back to life.

“Please, Detective. Put it away.”

Instead, Greene began to slowly close the zipper, leaving the file out. The only sound in the lobby was the
click-click-click
of the teeth touching as he moved the zipper forward.

“Stop,” Rasheed said when it was almost closed.

Greene tightened it one more notch before he stopped and met Rasheed’s eyes.

“Trust me,” Greene said. “Nothing would make me happier than to bury this file where no one will ever, ever find it.”

D
aniel Kennicott loved walking up the wide granite steps to the Gothic building that years ago was converted from Toronto’s city hall into the city’s main criminal courthouse, now known as Old City Hall. Known affectionately as just “the Hall” by everyone who used it—cops, criminals, Crown Attorneys, defense lawyers, court reporters, judges, interpreters, clerks, and journalists—it was the only building in the downtown core that was elevated above the street, making it stand out above the surrounding sidewalks like a judge’s dais looking down on a courtroom.

The Hall covered a whole city block. Five stories high, it was a massive stone structure, asymmetrical in design, filled with curling cornices, rounded pillars, marble walls, smiling cherubs, overhanging gargoyles, and the big clock tower to the left side of the main entrance, which topped it off like a gigantic misplaced birthday candle. Above the arched front entryway, the words
MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS
hidden among a swirling band of curlicues and bows, denoted its initial use.

The entryway was guarded by a tall gray stone cenotaph, a monument to the city’s
GLORIOUS DEAD WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR
. The names of the battlefields in France and Belgium—Ypres, Somme, Mount Sorrel, Vimy, Zeebrugge, Passchendaele, Amiens, Arras, Cambrai—were chiseled into its four sides. Cold and permanent as death.

A few nervous-looking defense lawyers and their clients huddled on the front steps, finishing their cigarettes, the whiff of tobacco hanging in the air. Kennicott strode past them and yanked open one of the wide oak front doors. Inside, a long, scraggly line of people waited to pass through the security check. All the usual suspects were there: twitchy drug addicts, burned-out prostitutes, jewelry-laden young men in running shoes and baggy jeans, and the odd fellow in a business suit, in shock that suddenly, in the midst of downtown Toronto, he’d been plunked right into the middle of this third-world ghetto.

Kennicott lifted his badge high above his head, saying, “Excuse me, police, excuse me, police,” and squeezed his way to the front of the line. When he finally got to the security desk, the court cop insisted on examining his badge.

“Sorry, pal,” the young man said. “New regulations. Even need to check our own people.”

“No problem,” Kennicott said as he walked up into the big open rotunda. Facing him was a two-story-high stained-glass window, a workmanlike tableau of the founding of the city—complete with kneeling Indians bearing food offerings, muscled laborers forging steel, and stern-looking bankers doing business. In front of it was a large landing, with two broad staircases leading to the second-floor courtrooms. Two five-foot wrought-iron “grotesques”—sculptures fashioned in the shape of huge griffins—guarded the base of the staircase, like remnants from a Harry Potter movie set.

The main floor, with its tall Corinthian columns and mosaic tile floor, had the feel of a Turkish bazaar. In the early-morning pre-court rush, the air was abuzz with urgent conversations, made all the more pressing by the coming holiday. Families frantic to get their loved ones out on bail, defense lawyers trying to cut a deal and get the hell out of court, cops sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups, waiting to get their court cards stamped so they could get paid double time, and Crown Attorneys hustling into courtrooms, their arms laden with overstuffed files.

Kennicott made his way down the west corridor past a row of
columns topped with cherubic figurines. The architect, Edward James Lennox, who’d supervised building the Hall in the late nineteenth century, had filled it inside and out with these strange and eerie stone faces. Near the end of his commission, Lennox got into a fight with the city aldermen. As a parting shot, he had the lead mason sculpt caricatures of each of his enemies. Kennicott loved to pick them out—fat-faced men, men with overhanging mustaches, men wearing round spectacles or chomping on cigars, each face contorted in some strange way. These were discovered only years later, and by then it was too late to change them. And the only sculpture that wasn’t humorous was the one Lennox had done of himself. He also had his name carved on the stone corbels beneath the eaves. Kennicott admired a man who could make a mark in such a subtle, and lasting, fashion.

“I’m here to see the Crown doing bails in 101,” he said as he entered the Crown’s office at the end of the west hall and waved his badge at the secretary who sat behind the flimsy protective glass.

“Come in,” the woman said, without even looking up.

Kennicott worked his way through a narrow hallway of makeshift rooms to a tiny office where a hand-scrawled sign with “101” was taped up at an angle. A woman with a pile of blond hair tied up over her head was working her way through a stack of beige folders while curling a renegade strand of hair with an expensive-looking metal pencil.

“Excuse me,” Kennicott said.

“What’s up?” she said, not lifting her head.

“I’m here on the Brace murder,” he said. The woman had an unusual dark wooden clip in her hair.

“Brace. Captain Canada and the pretty, younger second wife stabbed in the bath,” she said, still not looking up. “The courtroom will be packed. It’s ‘cry me a river day’ in 101 bail court. Everyone wants out for the holidays. Just seven more shoplifting days until Christmas.”

Kennicott laughed at her joke.

She looked over at him, flashing a pair of stunning hazel eyes, still curling her hair with the pencil. Kennicott recognized the hair and the
hair clip from his law school days. And those eyes. She looked at him for a long moment before her face warmed. “Daniel,” she said. There was a slight gap between her two front teeth, and her tongue slid over it.

At law school she’d worn that same hair clip every day. One night he was working late in the library and happened upon her slouched in a deep leather chair, books stacked high on both sides, and her hair unleashed from the clip, which she clutched between her teeth.

“Oh, hi,” Kennicott had said. Unlike most first-year students, who clustered together in study groups, she rarely interacted with fellow classmates.

“Hi, Daniel,” she’d said, elbowing herself up to a sitting position and pulling the clip out of her mouth. “Surprised to see me with my hair not tied up?”

Kennicott had laughed a bit nervously. He was surprised she knew his name. “Surprised to see you in the library,” he said.

“I got this in Tulum, Mexico,” she’d said, rubbing the clip in her hands. “It’s Mayan.”

Back then, Kennicott and his girlfriend Andrea had just entered one of their “off-again” phases. He hovered a moment, smiled. “Good luck with your studying,” he said before he walked on.

Seeing her again now, he remembered the hair clip and he remembered the hair, but he couldn’t remember her name. On her desk he spotted her copy of the
Criminal Code of Canada
. The letters
S-U-M-M-E-R-S
were printed in black Magic Marker ink across the exposed white pages, something all Crown Attorneys did to try to keep from losing the book that was their lifeline in court.

She caught his eye, smiling. “It’s Jo—Jo Summers.”

Kennicott smiled back. “It’s been a while, Jo, and I haven’t slept for a few days. What’re you doing as a Crown? I thought you were going the big-firm route?”

“Got bored saving rich people’s money. Besides, it’s family destiny.”

Kennicott nodded, making the connection. Summers. She was the daughter of Justice Johnathan Summers, the most difficult judge in
the Hall. Despised equally by defense, Crown, and cops. A navy veteran, he ran his courtroom with everything on time, in order, shipshape.

“I’m the fourth Summers generation practicing criminal law. My poor little brother, Jake, he has the wife and two kids and has made zillions with his Internet company. But he’ll come up to the cottage and tell my dad about some multimillion-dollar deal he’s just made in Shanghai, and my father’s eyes glaze over. Then Dad will ask me about some stupid shoplifting trial I prosecuted, and he’ll be enthralled for an hour.”

“He must be proud of you,” Kennicott said.

Her face turned serious. “Daniel, I was very sorry to hear about your brother.”

Kennicott inhaled. “Thanks,” he said. His eyes drifted to the window behind her and the new City Hall Square across Bay Street. People were skating in the big open rink, the early-morning sun casting long shadows.

“I meant to call you,” Summers said.

“It really isn’t a problem,” Kennicott said. “Look, I’ll see you in court.”

Twenty minutes later, tiny courtroom 101, in the bowels of Old City Hall, was packed with harried young legal-aid lawyers, tense-looking families, and the so-called Gang of Four journalists who covered the courts for the city’s four major newspapers: Kirt Bishop, a tall, handsome reporter from
The Globe
; Kristen Thatcher, a tough female reporter from the
National Post
; Zachary Stone, a pudgy, happy-go-lucky reporter from the
Sun
; and Awotwe Amankwah, a top reporter from the
Toronto Star
who everyone knew had fallen on hard times a few years ago when his gorgeous TV anchor wife took off with her cohost.

The door to the right of the judge’s dais yanked open. The court clerk, a middle-aged man wearing a loose-fitting black robe, strode in. From up close Kennicott could see the man was wearing jeans and sneakers underneath.

“Oyez, oyez, oyez,” the clerk called out in a perfunctory voice.
“This honorable court, Her Worship Madame Radden presiding, is now in session. Please be seated.”

As the court clerk spoke, a well-groomed woman, easily in her fifties, strode purposefully in from a door to his left. She wore a finely pressed black robe. The click of her high heels resonated as she rushed up to her place on the bench, overlooking the riffraff.

The clerk took his seat below. “No talking in the courtroom. Turn off all cell phones and pagers, take off all hats and head coverings except those worn for legitimate religious purposes.” His voice was angry. “No waving, winking, or mouthing words to the prisoners. And no talking in the body of the court.”

With a loud clang, the door from the cells opened. Three scruffy-looking men in prison-issue orange jumpsuits were led into the glassed-in prisoners’ dock.

“Name of the first accused?” the clerk demanded.

The man leaned down to get his mouth into the small, round opening in the glass. “Williams. Delroy Williams,” he said.

“Williams. He’s mine,” one of the young duty counsel called out, grabbing an interview sheet from her pile. She was a tall black woman with impossibly thin legs. “Mother’s here as a surety. Perhaps my friend will agree to his release?”

Jo Summers riffled through her stack of files. “Williams . . . Williams,” she said, straightening her back. “He’s a crack addict who stole some pizza slices from a shop on Gerrard Street. Gave the cops a wrong name. Can he live with his mother?”

The duty counsel looked back into the courtroom. A large woman stood up, clutching a cheap-looking purse. “Yes. No problem,” she said.

“How bad’s his record?” the justice of the peace, Radden, asked from the bench, bored already.

Summers dove back into the file. She shrugged. “Two pages, typical addict stuff. Theft, mischief, possession. A few fail to appears. No violence.” She spoke directly to the mother. “You’ll bring him to court.”

“Yes. No problem.”

“And I don’t want him downtown.” Summers turned back to the bench. “Boundary restriction of Bloor to the north, Spadina to the west, Sherbourne to the east, and the lake to the south.”

“Fine,” Radden said. “One thousand dollars, no deposit, I’ll name the mother as the surety, no nonprescription drugs. Next case.”

It went on like this for an hour. Summers was good. She ran the court with authority, quickly dealing with small cases. Only once, when she was looking behind her, did she catch Kennicott’s eye. Her mouth crinkled just a bit, and she gave him a quick wink.

At eleven o’clock Brace’s lawyer, Nancy Parish, walked in. She wore a nicely tailored conservative suit that made her stand out among the young lawyers. The officer in the prisoners’ dock swung open the door behind him. “Brace,” he shouted, like a bingo caller in an echo chamber. The journalists on the benches sat straight up, straining for a better look. Three sketch artists sitting in the front row took out their charcoals and began to draw.

There was a collective intake of breath as Brace was led into the narrow prisoners’ dock. He wore the oversize orange jumpsuit that made it seem as though he had no neck.

“Quiet in the court,” the clerk hollered.

Brace had on his trademark metal glasses. His beard was disheveled, and his gray hair was greasy—like the hair of most new prisoners, who don’t get access to shampoo for at least a week and have to wash their hair with prison-issue soap and hard prison water. His shoulders were slumped, and his brown eyes seemed glazed, unfocused.

Parish approached the prisoners’ box and spoke to him through the hole in the glass. Kennicott watched, hoping to catch a nod or a headshake. But Brace’s head didn’t even move.

“Your Worship, if it please the court, Ms. Nancy Parish, P-A-R-I-S-H, for Mr. Brace,” Parish said, turning to the bench. “We’ll apply for bail tomorrow. The trial coordinator has set up a special court with a sitting judge.”

“Done. Adjourned until December 19, upstairs in courtroom 121,” Radden said. “Next prisoner.”

There was a rumble in the seats behind Kennicott. He looked back just as an attractive young woman in the second row lumbered to her feet. Off balance. She held an overcoat in one hand, and the other hand was on her belly. The woman was very pregnant.