Sign of the Cross Page 6

  She sighed. It never ended. “Six-thirty. The kids will be hungry.”

  Maura lived downtown on Dresden Row, in the place we had shared as a family. The house was a typical Halifax variation of the Georgian style, grey with double-hung windows trimmed in white, and distinctive five-sided Scottish dormers. I was there on time, with a bottle of Australian wine and all the fixings for ice cream sundaes for my children. They, at least, were happy to see me. My wife and I were able to agree on one thing, our kids.

  Tommy Douglas was shorter and thinner than I was, but he had my dark blonde hair and blue eyes. A fine-looking lad of sixteen. We had named him after T. C. (Tommy) Douglas, the eloquent and witty Baptist minister who, as premier of Saskatchewan, had faced down the doctors to become the father of universal free health care in Canada. Normie was a little girl who made her way through the world by crashing against it at full speed. She had big, near-sighted hazel eyes, and I cannot count the pairs of eyeglasses we bought and she lost. Her nose was spangled with freckles and she had fat curls in a rich shade of auburn. Her hair was a big part of our mornings because she tended to twirl it in bed; you could tell whose week it was to have the children by the size and complexity of the tangles still in place on Normie’s head. My wife, out of the mainstream in many ways, was an old-fashioned mother who believed a child’s hair and nails spoke volumes about the quality of the home. “You look like a motherless child” meant face, hands, and hair were not suitable for public viewing. If it weren’t for Tommy Douglas and Normie, Maura MacNeil and I would have been rid of each other a long, long time ago.

  We were civil in the presence of the children and sometimes it was easy to forget for a few minutes that we were not a family anymore. When the young ones went off by themselves after dinner, I got down to business. “I’m hoping you know somebody at the morgue.”

  “I won’t say who I’d like to see in the morgue, because I wouldn’t really mean it, but don’t tempt me like that again, Collins.” She smiled and sipped her wine. I waited. “I could probably drop in and see how things are going for some of the people I know over there. If I just happened to be visiting a sick friend at the hospital, angel of mercy that I am, what could be more natural than to pop over to the morgue and say hello? What is it you want to know?”

  “You heard about the body found under the bridge a few weeks ago.”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “Apparently, the body was desecrated in some way, and the police suspect a religious angle to the murder.”

  “Really!” She put down her glass. I had her full attention.

  “Moody Walker — you know who I mean — he’s retired now, but he thinks the girl was killed by a priest.”

  “Whoa!”

  “I think the police are looking further afield than Walker is. They may be more open to thinking it was an impostor, or someone pretending to be a priest. But Walker has his sights set on —” I nodded in her direction “— our client.”

  “Our client is who?”

  “A Catholic priest by the name of Burke. He’s from New York. Ever hear of him?”

  Maura shook her head. She was brought up Catholic, although, like her Trotskyite father in Cape Breton, she had numberless grievances against the church, and enjoyed nothing more than airing them when offered the slightest encouragement. She did, however, find much to like in the social gospel. I could see the pros and cons of Holy Mother Church warring within her as we spoke, but she knew how to stick to the matter at hand.

  “Why Burke?”

  “The victim, Leeza Rae, was a part-time staffer at St. Bernadette’s Youth Centre. She knew Burke casually as a result. She also would have known the other priest there, Father O’Flaherty. She was last seen alive at a dance at the centre. Valentine’s Day. She may or may not have danced with Burke —”

  “Wouldn’t that be a hot time? Hubba hubba,” Maura put in.

  “You may want to reserve judgment on that. Anyway, he gave a statement to the police.”

  “Wasn’t that good of him.”

  “Oh yeah. If you knew Burke, you’d think he would be the last person on the planet to give anything up. Very acerbic and difficult to talk to. I can barely get a civil word out of him. But there he was, offering himself up to the police.”

  “The layman might take that as a sign he is innocent.” We shared a laugh, and I poured us both another glass of the Shiraz.

  “And yet, this priest works with children at the choir school several days a week. He’s fairly brusque with them, but not brutal. The only time I ever saw him lighten up was when the children were singing. And they were singing beautifully. You really ought to hear them. He obviously knows what he’s doing. The beatific smile on his face, he looked like a different man.”

  “That’s what the cops did then. Softened him up with Mozart. I’m told they carry small cassette tapes in their night sticks, for the hardened choirmasters among us, and he rolled over for them. So why isn’t Father O’Flaherty a suspect?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s older, for one thing. Not ancient, but seventy anyway. He’s short and slight, and I think a young girl could easily fend him off.”

  “Which is not the case with Burke, I take it.”

  I shook my head. “Burke is in his late forties, maybe fifty. Tall, muscular, in good shape. I’m not sure I could fend him off myself.” I paused. “I got the impression Moody Walker was predisposed to suspecting Burke. Maybe he knows something we don’t know. He was quite prepared to regard the priest as a sicko. Which brings us to your mission. Something was done to the girl, or to the body. Perhaps the killer left a signature. I’m hoping you’ll be able to ferret out exactly what this was. The people at the morgue, and at the funeral home, would have seen it. We have to know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “Time to get chatty with the body snatchers. I’ll try to bury my inquiries in a string of other bullshit, so they won’t know what I’m after.” She was thinking ahead.

  “And Maura, I don’t have to tell you —”

  “No, you don’t. I shall maintain my silence even in the face of the most exquisite... music in the world.” She drained her glass. “Grab a cab. I’m going to bed. Pick your car up in the morning.”

  III

  The next morning was Friday and I was in the Spring Garden Road courthouse for the sentencing of a client named Ricky Wellner. Our articled clerk, Robin Reid, came along with me. Wellner had been convicted of assault causing bodily harm to his common-law wife, Crystal Green; she had two fractured ribs and needed stitches in her lip. This was far from Wellner’s first violent offence. The case had been adjourned so a pre-sentence report could be prepared. I had set up a meeting with the Crown prosecutor, Blaine Melvin. He was looking for five years; I suggested nine months. He wasn’t buying that.

  “Keep Ms. Green off the stand,” I urged him, “and we’ll take two years. Wellner is better off with federal time anyway. He’ll be able to tap in to some programs and get the help he needs.”

  “I’m not surprised you want her kept from the stand, considering the picture she’ll paint of your client,” the Crown replied, “but Crystal is going to get up there and read her statement.”

  “I’ll have no choice but to go after her on cross-examination, and it won’t go well for her.” I rarely cross-examine someone on a victim impact statement but I couldn’t let this testimony pass unchallenged. “Save her, and her family, the grief. Take the two years.”

  “Oh, I don’t think we have anything to fear from your cross, Montague.”

  Another sentencing was wrapping up as we entered the courtroom. The upper part of the room was painted a light cream, with dark wainscoting below and wooden beams criss-crossing the ceiling. The bench, and the tables used by the clerks a
nd counsel, were in the same sombre shade. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II gazed coolly at all who entered, an incentive perhaps to the males to doff their caps before the judge bellowed at them to do so. His Honour Judge Ivan Thomas was slumped on the bench, his white head barely visible; he glowered at the stunned-looking young man whose fate was in his hands. The judge’s voice boomed from the bench: “Break, enter, and leave, Mr. Willis, break, enter, and leave. Don’t dally at the liquor cabinet and pass out in the victim’s house. We’ll have to amend the Criminal Code so you’ll know what to do next time. Do you have anything to say? No? Six months. Next!”

  Crystal Green was a heavy, tired-looking woman with long, dun-coloured hair scraped back tightly from her round face. I made a motion for exclusion of the public. I wanted the courtroom cleared of the media and all spectators, including the victim’s supporters. Melvin objected, and the judge denied my motion. Crystal read her statement, describing in detail the effect the assault had, and continued to have, on her life. She said she feared men, was afraid of emotional attachment, and was destined to be alone as a result. She broke down several times, and Melvin was solicitous with a newly opened box of tissues.

  I rose and asked whether the victim would like a short break before cross-examination. She gave me a tentative smile and shook her head.

  “Ms. Green, you have stated that you’ve been unable to form a new relationship in the year or so since you were assaulted by your common-law husband, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know a man by the name of Darnell Johnson?”

  Crystal’s eyes darted towards the Crown attorney. She didn’t speak.

  “Ms. Green? I asked you if you know Darnell Johnson.”

  “I know him.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “He... he lives in the neighbourhood.”

  “Does he live with you?”

  “He has his own place.”

  “His own place. Is that also your place?”

  Silence again. “Ms. Green, do you have a relationship with Mr. Johnson?”

  “What do you mean, a relationship?”

  “What did you mean when you testified that you have been unable to form a relationship?” I brought out a story involving her and a group of friends in a bar; Johnson showed up and physically dragged her from the building.

  “Did you ask for assistance? Call out for help?”

  “No. I knew he’d settle down once we got home. He don’t like me out with my friends.”

  “I see. So you went home with him. Home being where?”

  Silence. Then: “My place.” I waited. “Our place,” she conceded, in a small voice.

  I paused for a drink of water. “Ms. Green, do you know a man named Clifford Trites?”

  The woman gave a little cry and put a hand up to her mouth.

  “Clifford Trites. Did you have a relationship with him in the past?”

  Blaine Melvin was on his feet. “Not relevant, Your Honour.”

  The judge roused himself and asked: “Relevance, Mr. Collins?”

  “Your Honour, Ms. Green has testified about the impact this attack has had on her life. I am trying to explore her life a bit, in order to help the court assess the true magnitude of that impact.”

  “Very good of you, Mr. Collins. But try to get to the point.”

  “Yes, Your Honour. Ms. Green, you lived with Clifford Trites some years ago, correct?”

  Her answer was barely audible. “Yes.”

  “Did you have children living at home at the time?”

  She looked at her supporters in the gallery, then lowered her head.

  “My girl. Tiffany.”

  “Was Tiffany living with you the whole time you and Mr. Trites were together?”

  Crystal Green’s chin was trembling and she looked down at her clenched hands. I waited.

  “No, she went to live with relatives for a couple of years.”

  “How old was Tiffany when you sent her to live with relatives?”

  Crystal turned to face the judge, but he could barely be seen behind the slab of oak. “Why is he askin’ me all this? What’s this got to do with anything?”

  The judge’s voice came gently from somewhere on the bench. “Just answer the questions, Miss Green.”

  When she looked at me I could see the pleading in her eyes, but I continued to stare at her, waiting for her answer. “She was nine. She came back when she was eleven.”

  “And you stayed with Mr. Trites during this whole time?”

  I saw a blaze of hatred and, possibly, shame in her eyes. “Yes! I stayed with him. You don’t understand.”

  “Mr. Trites sexually assaulted your little girl, didn’t he, Ms. Green? Repeatedly, over a period of nearly two years.” The courtroom erupted: howls from the witness, shouts of disbelief from her stricken family, outraged objections from Crown counsel. The judge was sitting bolt upright, trying to control the court. I overrode the noise: “The man molested your child. You got rid of her, and stayed with him. This latest assault is not responsible for destroying your life, as you would have us believe. My client assaulted you, and he’ll do time. I’m hopeful that he’ll get the help he needs while he’s in prison, and I hope you get the help you need. But he is not responsible for all the other pain you’ve endured in your life. That started long ago. I ask the court for the minimum federal time, two years. Thank you, Your Honour.”

  Over the ruckus, the Crown was asking for a publication ban on all the evidence, on the grounds that it would identify a victim of sexual assault, a child victim at that.

  “I have no objection to a ban, Your Honour. It was never my intention that this should be public.”

  My client got two and a half years. When I turned away from the bench, I noticed that Robin Reid had fled the scene. Disillusioned no doubt, but with whom?

  My clerk was gone. But Father Burke was there. Sitting at the edge of the public gallery, in civilian clothes, his face as pale as the envelope he gripped in his hand. He rose and came towards me with the envelope. His write-up of the Leeza Rae affair. I took it. His black eyes looked into mine and I was unable to turn away. His face was without expression but I knew he was spooked. Whether by me, or by something he saw in his own future, I could not have said. I was jostled by someone behind me and twisted to let the person pass. When I turned back, Burke had vanished.

  Chapter 4

  So taunt me and hurt me, Deceive me,

  desert me. I’m yours till I die, So in love with you am I.

  — Cole Porter, “So in Love”

  I

  The following Monday I reached Tyler MacDonald on the phone, and we agreed to meet that afternoon in the St. Bernadette’s gymnasium. I arrived soaked from a cold, wind-driven rain. Eileen Darragh caught sight of me and handed me a paper towel. She was dusting her photos.

  “Cleaning house in your spare time, Eileen?” I asked her. She struck me as a woman whose spare time was limited. But it might well be filled with fits of tidying up.

  “You should see the dust on the tops of these old frames. Would you watch the phone for me for two seconds, Monty? I’m going to run down the hall to find a proper cleaning rag.”

  “Go ahead.” She smiled and bustled away. I studied the photos, dated between 1953 and 1979. It was hard to picture all these children — many of them my contemporaries — living in an orphanage while I was growing up a short distance away, rolling my eyes at the absurdities of my parents and never giving a thought to what my life would have been without them. Some children smiled, some looked solemn, some forlorn. One boy was
giving the photographer a particularly dark scowl. Eileen returned, short of breath, brandishing a rag and a jar filled with water.

  “This will do the job,” she promised. “Oh, will you look at that? Georgie, making such a face. He was lucky to be alive; he should have been smiling from one little pointy ear to the other.” She clucked over the photo as she wiped its frame.

  “Had he been ill?”

  “No, he nearly drowned one summer. Our annual trip to Queensland Beach. And it was nearly our last, thanks to him.”

  “There’s always one like that, isn’t there?” I remarked.

  “Oh yes. I remember that day so clearly. I was eight. It was early August. We all had our bathing suits on under our clothes, we had our towels and sun hats, and we piled onto the bus they hired for us. The sisters had prepared a picnic lunch, and the priests hefted these huge picnic baskets onto the bus. I don’t know what caused greater anticipation, the swimming or the food! There were thirteen or fourteen of us I think, and the two priests. Father Burke was one of them. He was here for a couple of years, back in the late sixties, to set up the original choir school. It wasn’t at St. Bernie’s then, but he used to come to the orphanage to help out sometimes. And dear old Father Chisholm. I remember he had on this funny tie. The priests have these summer-weight short-sleeved shirts, black of course, and he wore a tie with a picture of a mermaid on it. A mermaid with cat-eye sunglasses and a cocktail in her hand. Sweet man, Father Chisholm. He died a few years ago.

  “So we all headed out to Queensland. Oh, it was hot! Hard to imagine, looking out the window today. We paddled in the waves and made sandcastles, and drank orange pop. And peed in the water! The surf was quite heavy. Then, wouldn’t you know, we heard Georgie hollering from way out in the water. How he got out that far without anyone seeing him, I don’t know. He had everyone’s attention now, though. We’d see his head, then he’d go under. It was really frightening. Father Burke swam out to get him. You know how you hear about drowning people dragging down their rescuers? I can believe it. Georgie was only around twelve, and not all that big, but Father Burke had quite a time getting hold of him and hauling him in. Georgie choked up a lot of water but he was all right. Naturally, the times being what they were, the priests lit into him and gave him h-e-double-hockey-sticks.