the new headquarters. The offices actually had windows, in addition to the obnoxious fluorescent lighting always found in government buildings. If you were in the right office, you even had a view of False Creek’s harbour, with its funky, upscale condominiums and townhouses, marinas and markets, and beyond to the Concorde Pacific residential towers at the foot of gentrified Yaletown. I suppose an argument could be made that the police station isn’t really supposed to be a pleasant place: we certainly don’t want to encourage people to be there, after all. On the flip side, for the hundreds of police officers and civilian personnel who had to make their living there, I could understand the desire to increase productivity by not making the place a hell hole to work in. What did taxpayer groups know anyway? Of course, the planners could have been a bit smarter and not had the state of the art gym easily visible through the floor to ceiling windows overlooking busy Second Avenue below. Experience tells me taxpayers hate to see their employees working out.
When Carl told me where he was, I was relieved. Being taken to the new police headquarters likely meant he had not, in fact, been formally charged with anything just yet. In that case, he would likely be booked and headed for pre-trial detention, a nice, comfortable way of describing the jails where prisoners are held until the system figures out what should happen to them next. Indeed, if charges had been formally sworn against Carl, we would likely have already been preparing for arraignment proceedings. Since I had not heard from Crown Counsel and likely wouldn’t at this time of night, it was more likely the police had picked him up for further questioning. That they had done so without first notifying me irritated me immensely. The detectives of record on the case knew full well that Carl had retained me as his counsel, and as such they ought to have made efforts to contact me. At least Carl had it together enough to call me before they could launch into further interrogations.
It was clear to me that the altercation earlier in the day had made a lasting impact on Detective Furlo. Generally, legal counsel has little difficulty accessing the building. In fact, I had been there so many times, I was on a first name basis with the desk officer who hovered at the entrance to the building to keep out the unauthorized riff-raff. Police preferred to have only authorized riff-raff in the building.
When I arrived at headquarters, there somehow was no longer any record of me as regular defence counsel. True, I had not been in the building in that capacity for over a year. I had, however, been in the building a month before meeting my cop friend Andrea Pearson for lunch. No doubt Detective Furlo wanted to make sure I knew I was on his turf, and he would be calling the shots. Oooh. Big man keeps lawyer waiting, filling out forms at the front counter.
Finally, my identity and legal credentials verified and visitor’s pass securely affixed to the lapel of my Adidas jacket, I headed towards the elevator, assuring the nighttime desk clerk that, yes, I knew my way. I entered the detective division on the fourth floor and immediately spotted Detective Smythe working away at her laptop at her work station. It was still amazing to me how little workspace was allotted to individual officers. I had spent most of my legal days doing Legal Aid work, and I’d had a bigger office. She looked up when I came in as though she had been waiting for me. Judging by the late hour, I guessed she couldn’t really do much more until I arrived.
“No rest for the underpaid,” I offered by way of greeting.
“Not that you would know. I thought taxpayer money flowed directly into the pockets of defence lawyers,” she replied. I could grow to like her.
“There must be a hole in mine. Somehow whatever gets there still seems to get spent by my ex-wife.”
“Ouch. Residual bitterness, thy name is Winston Patrick.” Smythe paused to smile at me.
An obnoxious voice interrupted our peaceful moment. “Mr. Patrick. So glad you could make it. I hope you didn’t having difficulty getting in to see us.” I could hear Furlo’s smug smile without even having to turn to see it. To her credit, his much more mature partner gave me the same roll of the eyeballs performance she had demonstrated at our last meeting. Clearly, she was a detective of a different calibre.
“Let me guess,” she said to me. “Clerk had no idea who you were and insisted on checking all the credentials before he let you in. This despite the fact he was informed we would be waiting for you. Christ, Mike,” she complained to her partner, “I have kids at home I wouldn’t mind seeing eventually.”
“So should we cut him loose now,” I said, “and avoid all the needless wrangling, at the end of which I will end up taking my client home anyway, or do you have a masochistic notion of dragging this out all night? I do have classes in the morning that I would rather be preparing for.”
“Absolutely,” Smythe assured me. She had a smooth quality in her voice that made me think she could probably sing jazz. I’d bet she sang a lot to her kids when they were little. She maybe even still did.
“Oh?” Furlo feigned surprise. “Was your client under the impression that he was being held? We just wanted to ask him a few more questions is all.”
“This despite the fact you were fully aware he had retained counsel. Did you read him his rights, or did you not bother with the police academy at all?” My insomnia was catching up to me, and I was getting testy.
“And in case you’ve forgotten, your client was given the chance to call you, which brought you here. I don’t think that we’ve done anything wrong here, counsellor, so can the sanctimonious bullshit.” Furlo may also be an insomniac.
“Sanctimonious? Someone got a thesaurus for his birthday?”
“God,” Smythe complained. “Why couldn’t he have had a woman lawyer? Like I don’t have to wade through enough testosterone during the day around here? Can you two little boys behave, and let’s get through what we have to do so we can all go home?” Her exasperation was completely unfeigned, and I thought we might really be in trouble.
Furlo and I looked at each other like two sons caught quarrelling in church. For the moment, I thought it was best to behave. “Okay,” I conceded. “Do you have something new that we didn’t cover earlier today, or is this exploratory drilling?”
“We have something new, Counsellor,” Furlo explained calmly, apparently also agreeing to a temporary cease fire.
“Winston,” Smythe faced me, “how well do you know your client?”
“You know I can’t go into the specifics of our relationship. He’s my client and colleague.”
“I know you’re focusing more on a teaching career than a legal one now,” she continued. “I just thought you might want to reconsider working with Mr. Turbot, since you’re planning to spend more time in schools.”
“What are you telling me, Detective Smythe? What did you find?”
“Fingerprints,” Furlo announced with no small amount of pleasure, “on the body.”
“Take me to my client,” I said calmly, masking the emotions that were tugging beneath the surface.
Detective Smythe rose from her desk and headed down a hallway at the end of the room. Furlo gestured grandly, even bowing slightly at the waist, for me to follow Smythe down the hall. He was enjoying his perceived advantage. It wasn’t unusual for the police to pick up a suspect for further questioning with evidence as strong as fingerprints. That at least placed Carl in close contact with Tricia. It certainly wouldn’t be enough to lay criminal charges, but it did call into question the veracity of Carl’s insistence that no physical relationship had taken place between him and Tricia Bellamy. If he was physically involved with
