Old City Hall (25 page)

“You have eighteen new messages,”
her voice mail told her. She’d received thirty-two new e-mails.

“Would you all just fucking leave me alone,” she muttered as she unhitched her cell phone and put it in its charger on the desk. There’s a cartoon, she thought as she kicked her salt-stained boots under the desk. A woman in a business suit, all dressed up—string of pearls, leather briefcase, the works—is sitting in hell. Fires burn all around; a bunch of little red devils prod her with pitchforks. She’s checking the voice mail on her phone. The caption reads, “You have two thousand four hundred and sixty-six messages . . . Beep.”

It was ten to six, and she’d finally made it back to the office. After her pretrial with Summers, she’d had to run off to court. Yesterday the daughter of a top family lawyer, a woman who sent Parish about twenty percent of her business, had been busted selling dope at her private school. It took Parish all afternoon to get the kid bail. Meanwhile, one of her oldest clients, who’d gone AWOL while on parole a few weeks before, had been picked up by the “rope squad,” and
wanted to trade some information on a “murder beef” to keep from going back to “the joint.” She’d dealt with that on her cell phone during the breaks at the bail hearing.

From the edge of her vision she saw something move at the entrance to her office. It was her partner, Ted DiPaulo, holding on to the doorframe and curling his head inside.

“Hi, Nancy.” DiPaulo wore his usual unflappable smile. “How’d the JPT go?”

Before she could answer, the voice-mail lady, with her sickeningly sweet voice, chimed in:
“Your first unheard message.”
It started to play.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Nancy Gail. Your father and I are—”
She winced at DiPaulo and hit the Skip button.

“Just the usual JPT nonsense,” she said to DiPaulo. “Summers tried throwing his weight around. Fernandez is going for a first, no matter what anyone says.” She waved in the direction of four storage boxes piled up in the corner of her office, the letters
B-R-A-C-E
handwritten in black Magic Marker. “I’ve just got to keep working it.”

“That’s the problem with high-profile cases,” DiPaulo said. “All reason goes out the window in the Crown’s office.”

“Summers really leaned on him. Said without motive, how does he get to first?”

“Summers is an arrogant prick,” DiPaulo said, “but he’s right.”

The second voice mail kicked in.

“It’s me. Costa Rica. You wouldn’t believe this deal. And they have nude beaches with these young—”

Parish hit the Off button and killed the phone. She smiled up at DiPaulo.

“Zelda?” he said, smiling back.

“My own personal social planner,” she said.

DiPaulo nodded.

Neither of them said anything for a very long moment. “You all right, Nancy?” he said at last.

Parish nodded. Ever since she got this case, there’d been an unspoken pact between them. They’d discussed everything about their law
practices—other cases, details about running the office, the usual gossip about Crown Attorneys and judges—everything under the sun except the one thing they were both thinking about all the time: Kevin Brace. Parish knew that DiPaulo yearned to ask her about it, to be there as her silent partner, bounce ideas around, talk strategy.

She desperately wanted to confide in him. To say, “Ted, I’ve never seen anything like this. My client refuses to talk to me. Completely refuses to say a word. Once a week he writes me a cryptic note with the most basic information. He’s never asked for anything—except that I not tell a soul, not even you, about his silence.”

“I’m fine, Ted,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Listen,” DiPaulo said. “Tell me to shut up whenever you want. But this case cries out for a plea to second. Ten years, Brace will be seventy-three when he gets out, for God’s sake. A first would be a death sentence. Have I missed something?”

“That’s what Summers said. He tried to ram a plea to second down our throats. But Fernandez wasn’t biting. It’s clear he’s got a lot of pressure from the higher-ups.”

DiPaulo nodded. “Even if Fernandez wants to make a deal, Phil Cutter and that crowd at the Crown’s office won’t let him. Still, how does he justify first degree without evidence of motive?”

Parish balled her hand into a fist and put it in the air. She put up one finger. “Katherine Torn was found stabbed to death in the bathtub.” She put up a second finger. “The knife is found hidden in Brace’s kitchen.” She put up a third finger. “He confesses to the newspaper guy, Mr. Singh.” She put up a fourth finger. “And we’re not going to talk about it.” She put up a fifth finger. “Go home and have fun cooking dinner for your kids.”

DiPaulo, a former Crown, had become a defense lawyer four years earlier, when his wife got sick. They had two kids, ages fifteen and thirteen. He thought it would give him more flexibility, which it did at first. His wife died a year later. Parish had noticed recently, as the kids got older, that he was burying himself more in work.

“The Crown wants to point to Kevin Brace and say, ‘See, any man at any time can snap,’” DiPaulo said.

“Ted, go cook,” she said.

“Watch Summers. He’s an old fart, but don’t underestimate him. If he’s pissed off at the Crown, he’ll try to do you a favor. Did he give you any hints?”

“Not that I heard,” Parish said. “What’s for dinner?”

DiPaulo took a deep breath. “It’s lasagna tonight, with Caesar salad, spring rolls, and hot and sour soup. Got all the cultural bases covered.”

“See you tomorrow, Superdad,” Parish said. DiPaulo’s wife was Chinese. His kids were fashion-model gorgeous. “I’ve got sixteen more stupid voice messages to check.”

“Don’t stay too late, Nance,” DiPaulo said, and gave her a final smile. “And by the way, happy Valentine’s Day.” He pulled his arm from behind his back and tossed her a box of very expensive chocolates.

A few seconds later there was a slam as the outer door closed. Parish stared at the phone. Then she looked at the computer screen. Finally her eyes settled on Ted’s box. Suddenly she was starving.

She ripped the box open. There were a dozen handmade chocolates, each one a different shape. She popped the first one into her mouth. It was delicious. She thought to herself, Did Summers give me a hint? She ate the second one. It tasted wonderful. Something clicked in her brain. The third one. Mmmm. What was it? The fourth one. Yummy. Think, Nancy, think.

It wasn’t until she got to the ninth chocolate. “Oh my God,” she said as she swallowed. Each one tasted better than the last one. “How could I have missed that!” She counted off her fingers again and started to laugh. Did Ted catch it? she wondered.

I’ve got to call Awotwe, she thought, looking for the phone number of her friend, who was a reporter for the
Star.
Parish grabbed the last three chocolates, and as she flew out of her chair and rushed toward her wall of boxes marked
B-R-A-C-E
, she jammed them into her mouth.

W
hen you spend two months with a guy 24/7, sharing his cell, working with him in the hospital wing, sitting beside him at meals, and playing as his bridge partner, after a while you get used to the fact that he doesn’t say a word. You even begin to like it, Fraser Dent thought as he rubbed his hands over his face before dealing out a new hand to the other three players around the metal table. Besides, Dent himself was a quiet guy. He didn’t mind sitting with someone and just saying nothing.

The four men were the oldest prisoners in the Don, the “four-eye” set, as a black kid had nicknamed the bespectacled quartet. Because they were quiet and old, none of the young punks really bothered them. And now that they were up on the hospital range, everything was nice and quiet. The way veteran cons liked it.

The conversation tonight was, as usual, about the Toronto Maple Leafs. Up here on the fifth floor, the four-eye gang got special privileges, one of which was getting to watch the whole game, even if it went into overtime.

“I used to blame the coach, but now I blame the general manager,” Dent said as he picked up the cards to deal out the last hand of the night. “The trading deadline is past, and we’re stuck with this old goalie no one’s ever heard of. They say he even went to law school. We’re fucked.”

The previous night had been another typical disaster for the home
team. Playing out on the West Coast, winning 2 to 1 late in the third period, the hated Los Angeles Kings scored a tying goal, and in overtime they scored the winner. Even worse, the goaltender, the only player on the team even worth watching, broke his hand on the final play. A thirty-eight-year-old journeyman goalie, who’d spent almost his whole career in the minor leagues, was going to have to take over in tomorrow night’s game in Anaheim.

Dent finished dealing and picked up his cards. Three aces and a bunch of high spades. Looks good, he thought as he sorted his hand. “I’ll start the bidding at one spade,” he said.

He looked Brace straight in the eye. If his partner had the fourth ace and a few high cards in some other suits, they were in great shape. As always, Brace was impossible to read.

The bidding moved quickly. Brace was a quick study at cards. When it was his turn to bid, he’d hold up his fingers and make a signal for the suit. For spades he’d point to his hair, even though it was now more gray than black. For hearts and diamonds, he’d point to his own heart or his pinky, where, as he told them in a note a long time ago, he usually wore a diamond ring. For clubs he pointed to his right foot. In that same note he told them that as a child, he’d had a clubfoot and had worn a cast for two years.

“Three spades,” Dent said when the bidding came around to him a second time, eyeing Brace hopefully. Still no reaction from the former radio host.

The guy was a closed book, Dent told himself yet again. It had been his assignment to try to pry him open. Good luck.

Dent had followed Detective Greene’s instructions to a T. “You’re being charged with fraud over. Just let it be known that you got caught kiting some checks at Zellers and Office Depot,” Greene told him. “If Brace ever asks, tell him you needed the money for some payments, and if he pushes, then tell him it was support payments. A kid you had out of wedlock.”

Greene had instructed Dent to take things slowly. “He likes smart people, but not braggarts. When the newspaper arrives, everyone will
grab the sports section. He’s a hockey nut. You take the business section and study the stock pages. Let your story out slowly. How you were a top money trader, started drinking, wife left, ended up on the street. That part, just tell him the truth. And when you play bridge, play smart.”

The bidding came around to Brace. He passed.

He was a good player, Dent had learned. Never overbid his cards. This time his message to Dent was clear: “You may have good cards, partner, but I’ve got squat.”

Just like what I have on you, Dent thought to himself. Squat. Nada. Nothing. In almost two months Brace hadn’t said a word. And most of the notes he’d written to Dent had been totally perfunctory. “Can I borrow a pen?” “Would you like to read this book?”

The guy to his right, who was east, bid four diamonds.

We’ve got ya, Dent thought. “Double,” he said when the bidding returned to him. Bidding went around the board one more time. Pass, pass, pass, pass.

Should be fail, fail, fail, fail, he thought as he pondered the meeting he’d had with Detective Greene this morning.

“Last game, professors,” a heavily accented eastern European voice called out from over Dent’s shoulder. It was Mr. Buzz. He paused at the edge of their game. “What’re they in?” he asked Dent.

“Four diamonds doubled,” Dent said.

“A girl’s best friend,” Mr. Buzz said, tapping Dent quietly on the arm as if to say, “Nice bidding.” “Happy Valentine’s Day, boys. I’ll round up all the riffraff, and you gents pack up once you’re done.”

Dent and Brace easily won the final round and soon were making their way back to their shared cell.

“Sleep tight, my children,” Mr. Buzz said as he sauntered by, fiddled with his oversize key chain, and locked them inside. “Tomorrow night the Leafs start that old guy in goal. Should be a slaughter.”

Mr. Buzz was a Montreal Canadiens fan, and he loved to rub the Leafs’ continuing failure in their faces.

“Mr. Buzz,” Dent said, “one day the Leafs will have a good team.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Buzz said, “and one day every criminal will be reformed and I’ll be out of a job.”

He walked away from the cell laughing wildly at his own joke.

As he did every night, Dent turned to his cell partner: “Good night, Mr. Brace.”

Dent moved over to his bunk, expecting, as always, only silence from Brace in return.

As his head hit the meager feather pillow, he heard a voice.

“My father died in this place,” Brace said in a voice so hoarse Dent could hardly hear him.

Dent sat up in his bed. “Kevin?”

“That young goalie lets in too many goals late in the period,” Brace said. “This older guy will be better.”

“You think so?” Dent said, keeping his voice soft, echoing Brace.

There was a long silence. Dent waited. At last he heard his cell mate start to snore. He lay back on his bunk and chuckled to himself. The Leafs drive everyone in this town crazy, he thought. Everybody.

I
n the early 1950s, a group of young politicians at city hall, determined to drag their drab, functional metropolis into the modern era, held an international design competition for a new city hall. The surprise winner, an unknown Finnish architect, created a postmodern building of two facing concave towers with a bubblelike council chamber in the middle. He put it on the north end of a large open square, right across the street from the former, now the “old,” city hall.

City Hall Square took up a whole block. The only open space in the increasingly crowded downtown core, it quickly became the home to civic celebrations, outdoor concerts, protest rallies, open-air markets, and the like. Its most prominent feature was a large skating rink—a perceptive addition by the designer, who understood the northern climate—on the southwest corner of the square. In winter the rink was a magnet for all kinds of skaters: couples on first dates, immigrant families eager to indoctrinate their children into Canadian rituals, rowdy teenagers, even office workers—whose skates had been tucked under their desks—on lunch break.