room, indicating to the guard outside we were done and Carl could be returned to his cell.
Leaving the pre-trial centre, I turned left on Hastings Street and walked the two blocks to my parked car. It was late afternoon, but I wasn’t yet headed for home.
I had plenty of work to do.
Seventeen
When you try to explain Canada to Americans who haven’t been here, the comparison is often made between Seattle and Vancouver. Most Americans know that Seattle is legendary for its rain, a reputation Vancouver shares. Many Americans—particularly those who view Canada as a snow-covered, dog-mushing wilderness—are surprised to find out that Vancouver gets even less snow than Seattle.
The South Granville area, running the roughly seven or eight blocks from Broadway to 16th Avenue, is an upscale shopping area paling in price and variety to the trendier Robson Street downtown, but still pricey enough to be beyond the reach of average Vancouverites. The area includes designer clothing stores, salons and recently a garish big box bookstore chain, which, despite its monumental size and rather tacky appearance, has done much to bring needed foot traffic into the area.
Of course, one of the other key characteristics shared between Seattle and Vancouver is their passion and near obsession for coffee. Both cities are overrun with Starbucks and myriad other coffee houses, from the chain stores to the mom and pop operations. Despite the wealth of choices, one of my perennial favourites was none other than Seattle’s Best Coffee, a brand name sold in many private coffee houses, but also with its own café on Granville at 11th.
After meeting—or waking me—for breakfast that morning, Andrea and I had arranged to meet at Seattle’s Best at four thirty to figure out what we each had learned about Tricia’s death. Andrea was likely to have the most information, since her plan for the day included going to the office to find out surreptitiously as much as she could about the murder investigation from the perspective of the detectives assigned to the case. Of course, she also took the greatest risk, professionally anyway. Though police files were not officially locked away and kept secret from other detectives, it is considered bad form to poke around someone else’s investigation. Detectives are notoriously territorial, and the thought that another cop might take an unhealthy interest in one of their cases is enough to start a departmental feud. Furthermore, Andrea’s friendship with me was well known in her department; snooping through Furlo and Smythe’s notes would not win her any friends. The last thing I wanted on my conscience was my contribution to the destruction of my best friend’s career. I hoped she would be very careful. I also wasn’t expecting she would have found out much.
I sat alone in the front corner of the café. The booth was recessed and provided at least some semblance of privacy. Andrea walked in as I nursed my latte, a decaf, in hopeful anticipation of repeating my successful previous night’s slumber. As usual, a few heads turned as she walked up to the counter to place her order for what I knew would not include any low fat or decaf product. Andy’s metabolism burned at a rate that required no special restrictions on her intake of calories.
As she waited for her order to be filled, Andy opted to stand and gaze around the room, checking out products on the shelf and potential partners in the store. She was disappointed by both. Though she attracted the attention of a few patrons, none would live up to her exacting standards. No one in the room looked like they could consistently run a seven-minute mile in a ten-kilometre race.
When her order arrived, she ambled over to my table as though spotting me for the first time.
“Nothing too promising?” I asked her as she sat down.
“The whole world isn’t a smorgasbord,” she replied. “That would be too easy.”
“And so would you be.”
“Sleep has not made you any less a smartass,” she observed. Nothing short of surgery was likely to do that. It was how I kept myself at a distance from anyone I didn’t want too near. Of course, it also kept at a distance some of those I might want to have near. “How has your day been?” she added.
“Well, I spent a chunk of it at the local jail.”
“You used to spend half your life at the local jail. One afternoon there is a step up.”
“True.”
“How’s your client?” she asked with real concern.
“About as good as he can be, I suppose. A first taste of incarceration usually convinces people they do not want to be there. If we get him out of there, I’m not worried that he’s ever going to do anything to put himself back again.”
She nodded thoughtfully as she took a sip of her latte. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like their drinks absolutely piping, smoking hot and the rest of us. Andrea always orders her drinks extra hot, what she describes as “lawsuit temperature.” She has lips of steel. My bland, sensitive British stomach pretty much required the cooling of my caffeine to somewhere between lukewarm and kind of hot.
“Derek on board?” she asked nonchalantly. I knew Andy was not at all happy at my choice of co-counsel, at least from a personal perspective. Anyone who might in some way reconnect me with my ex-wife was essentially persona non grata in her eyes. Andy also suspected, as did I, that Derek carried if not an Olympic-size torch, at least a camping-size one for her. Most would consider Derek an ideal catch. Andy couldn’t get past his connection to Sandi. Her disdain for my choice of first marriage knew no bounds.
“Yep. He’s going to handle Carl’s first appearance on Monday.” I filled her in on the details of our conversation and laid out my initial plans for how Derek might handle some of the work my teaching might prevent me from getting to. She nodded her consent, though I wasn’t particularly looking for it.
“That’s good,” she sighed, sitting back and taking another sip of her latte. “That’s good,” she repeated, nodding as though deep in thought. “I think you’re going to need the help on this one.”
“Thank you,” I countered. I knew full well Andrea did not mean her comment as disparaging in any way. Still, it’s sometimes useful to make her feel guilty.
“Don’t be a shit,” she scolded. This was obviously not one of those times. “You already knew this case was bigger than what you’re used to. I’m telling you, it’s got big and complicated written all over it.” This was her way of segueing into telling me she had found out something important during her afternoon of snooping.
“What have we learned?” I asked, not wanting to beat around the bush any longer.
She reached into her backpack and pulled out her notebook. She is a meticulous note keeper, writing down things that everyday people take for granted. I knew she would not have been able to take notes while she was hunting for information on Tricia’s case; she would have had to sneak out her data quickly, then find a quiet place to quickly record all of the information she had learned. This she did in a typical, spiral bound police notebook that every cop on television and in real life carried.
“For starters,” she began, “this is big.”
“You said that already,” I intoned.
She looked up from her notes to scowl at me. “I thought it was big enough to merit repeating the cautionary note.” I loved it when she talked official.
“My
