room without a parting shot. Sure enough, she got as far as having her hand on the doorknob when she turned around to face me. “You are a little, little man,” she proclaimed, staring obviously below my waist as she pronounced the second “little.” It was almost disappointing. I’d heard that one before, but it still left a new scar each time.
“Thanks for stopping by,” I threw in the last word as she headed out the door. “I’m sure you’ll let me know where you’re registered for shower gifts.” Not bad, considering how little time for prep I’d had.
“Prick,” she hissed, sticking her head back in the doorway. With that, she turned and left. Always the last insult.
With Sandi out of my life—at least for the evening—I took to the task that I spent most of my evenings on: marking and preparing for class. After last night’s failed attempt to complete my marking, I knew I had some catching up to do. If there’s one thing I had learned in my long teaching career, it was the necessity of keeping up to date with marking student work. If you turn your back on it for a moment, it multiplies and grows at an alarming rate. As a rule of thumb, I believed it was good practice not to collect any new work from students until I had returned the previous assignment. However, in my nearly three months of teaching, it was one of the first rules of thumb that had fallen by the wayside. Besides, I had other issues clouding my mind. As if Carl’s situation wasn’t enough, I could not yet quite digest the load Sandi had just dumped on me. I didn’t think I was upset per se; I had harboured no real desire for children before, during or since our marriage, but her obvious entrance to the next chapter of her life was discomfiting to say the least.
But one of the biggest obstacles to productive marking was the fact that it was November. For those who aren’t couch potatoes, November is sweeps month on American network television, which means that is when all of the best TV shows have on all of their best episodes. It really got in the way of my marking: I didn’t care how much I needed this job to pay the mortgage—and my alimony to Sandi—nothing stood in the way of watching CSI.
Around ten fifteen, I was well into a strong episode of Without a Trace, and partially into ninth grade discussions of the French Revolution’s impact on the development of democratic systems when the phone rang. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even answer the phone on a Thursday night. All of my friends know better than to interrupt the most important night of TV viewing. So far though, nothing about the week had been normal, so I felt like I’d better answer. I found Carl on the other end of the line.
“Hey,” I answered his greeting. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” he answered, “not really.” Carl sounded not only down but also afraid.
“Carl,” I implored him, “what’s wrong? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt,” Carl returned uncomfortably. “It’s just that . . . I didn’t know who else to call. I’m really sorry to call you so late, Win.”
“It’s okay. I’m here for you. Do you want to get together and talk? We could meet someplace.”
“Umm, no,” he countered. “I don’t think they’ll let me.”
Suddenly I realized what he was trying to tell me. “You don’t think who will let you?” I demanded sternly.
“The police,” Carl finally admitted. “They’ve picked me up.”
Ten
In recent years, the Vancouver Police Department had moved the bulk of its operations to a swanky new building just below the Cambie Street Bridge that leads into the downtown core of the city and the business sector. As the city’s population and volume of crime had grown, the police force had grown with it, making their previous digs on Main Street, at the entrance to the city’s renowned Chinatown district, too small to house the accoutrements of modern crime fighting. Parts of the police department still operated out of the old Main Street offices, which were conveniently located adjacent to one of the two downtown criminal courts.
The detective division of the VPD was in the new glass and brick building on 3rd Avenue. Even police officers had marvelled at their new headquarters when they’d first moved in. The new building had also received the requisite howls of protest from citizens and taxpayer watchdog groups, convinced that Vancouver’s finest were not in need of such luxury facilities.
Personally, I liked 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