Gail Bowen - The Endless Knot

I took a place on the bench beneath the mural and waited. I knew that, as he always had, Howard would come. The lobby emptied of press, interested parties, and spectators, and I was suddenly alone with that hollow-pit-in-the-stomach feeling I’d had as a child when I was late coming over from the dorms and I’d arrived to find the school halls empty and silent.

I had just about given up hope when Howard appeared. He no longer looked defeated or hungover. He just looked drunk. He was fumbling with a small metal tin of breath-mints, and he’d obviously given himself a fresh shellacking of Crown Royal. I took the tin from him, popped the corner, and handed it back to him. He threw a handful of mints into his mouth.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Like the bottom of a latrine,” he said. “But I’ll get through.”

I sniffed his breath. “You do realize that those things aren’t working,” I said.

Howard studied the label on the tin with a drunk’s care. “Freshens the breath,” he read. His eyes were sorrowful. “Seems like you can’t believe in anything any more, doesn’t it?”

His words were prescient. The first witness that morning was not Howard Dowhanuik, but his son, Charlie. When the court clerk called Charlie’s name, my heart lurched, but I wasn’t surprised. As promised, Zack had dropped by Charlie’s house with the baseball on Saturday afternoon. When I’d gone upstairs to help Pete unpack, Charlie had stayed behind with Zack. Now Charlie was in the witness box.

I stared at Zack, but he didn’t return my gaze. As Garth Severight took Charlie through his testimony, Zack never once looked my way. Charlie’s story was simple. He had approached Garth over the weekend and offered to substantiate Howard’s story. Garth had jumped at the offer.

Severight’s eagerness made sense. Howard was not an ideal witness. According to Zack, Linda Fritz knew Howard had a drinking problem and that he was hostile. She would willingly have left him off the Crown’s witness list except for one fact. Howard was prepared to testify that he had heard Sam Parker threaten Kathryn Morrissey and that he had seen Sam raise and aim the gun. Without Howard’s testimony, there would be a gaping hole in the Crown’s case. Howard might have been a compromised witness, but the Crown needed him. Charlie’s testimony could plug up the holes.

When Charlie took the stand, Brette Sinclair put her mouth to my ear. “Finally – something interesting.”

Hair neatly brushed back, shoes shined, suit pressed, Charlie was the epitome of the responsible citizen. He was also a very effective witness who told his story well. According to Charlie, his father had called him the evening of the shooting and asked him to come to the condominium. Although he and his father were estranged, Charlie had agreed. His father had been agitated on the telephone, and Charlie had been concerned that something had happened to a family member. As soon as Charlie arrived, his father described an incident that had happened twenty minutes earlier. According to Howard, he had been out in his yard when he heard a man shouting. In May, the trees between Howard’s condo and Kathryn’s were leafing, but he had a clear view of what had happened. The man, whom Howard recognized as Sam Parker, raised a gun, pointed it at Kathryn Morrissey, and pulled the trigger.

Howard told his son he had dialed 911 and reported the shooting. He had not left his name. Charlie suggested that 911 probably logged all incoming phone calls, and that Howard should prepare to be interviewed. He then made a pot of coffee for his father and stayed with him until a police constable arrived.

Zack’s eyes were hooded as Charlie testified. There were no interruptions to mar the silken flow of Charlie’s performance. When Garth Severight returned to his place at the Crown’s table, he was purring with satisfaction.

As Zack approached the witness box, Garth was still preening. Zack’s voice was warm. “Hello, Charlie. It was good of you to come forward the way you did.”

Charlie shrugged. “I try to do the right thing.”

“Still, a lot of people – especially young, successful people – might not have bothered.” I gazed at the jury box. For the first time since the trial started, the young jurors had dropped their masks of ironic detachment. Charlie D was famous. Suddenly, they were into the trial big time.

“Your testimony was very helpful in giving us a picture of exactly what happened that afternoon,” Zack said. “For example, you said that after you explained to your father that his call to 911 would have been logged and the police would be coming to his house, you made him a pot of coffee. Considering that you and your father were estranged, that was a friendly thing to do.”

“It was a necessary thing to do,” Charlie said firmly. “My father was drunk. He was in no condition …”

Severight was on his feet. “This is hardly relevant.”

Mr. Justice Harney overruled him. “It speaks to the competency of the case’s only eyewitness. I’ll allow it.” He turned to Charlie. “You may continue.”

“As I said, my father was drunk. I thought the coffee might sober him up so he could give a coherent explanation of what he’d seen.”

Zack was cool. “So your father wasn’t in a state where his words could be trusted?”

Severight was on his feet again. “The witness is not an expert on degrees of drunkenness, m’Lord.”

Zack smiled at Severight. “I’ll rephrase that. Charlie, could you describe your father’s state when you arrived at his condominium that evening.”

“He was slurring his words. His gait was unsteady. At one point, he tried to pour himself a drink and he missed the glass. He was very emotional – maudlin even.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“As I said, my father and I were estranged, and he was crying about that.”

“Anything in particular trigger this show of remorse?”

“He said that what Sam Parker did made him ashamed of himself.”

Zack narrowed his eyes. “Why would your father be ashamed of himself?”

Charlie turned towards the jury. “Because when Sam Parker’s child was betrayed, Sam did everything in his power to protect her.”

“And your father didn’t protect you?”

“How could he?” Charlie said. “He was the one who betrayed me.”

CHAPTER

8

After Charlie left the stand, there was silence in the courtroom. His revelation about Howard’s state on the night of the shooting was the stuff of prime-time drama, but it was Charlie’s anguish that stilled our tongues. A glance at the jury box was enough to see that the jurors had been deeply affected by Charlie’s pain. The notetaking man with the angry combover had capped his pen. Apparently, Charlie’s testimony had convinced him that human beings were a waste of ink.

I didn’t know whether it was a blessing or a curse that someone from the office of the Crown had decided to sequester Howard until it was time for him to testify, but as he climbed into the witness box, the question was irrelevant. Sam Parker’s freedom depended on what happened next.

Garth Severight greeted his star witness with the gush of a high school debater meeting a political idol. His game plan was built around Howard’s status as a former premier and a man of integrity; come hell or high water, he was going to stick with it. At first, it seemed Garth had made a good call. The hostility in the courtroom was palpable, but drunk or sober, Howard was a pro who had spent a lifetime gauging audiences. Our ex-premier delivered his testimony with enough self-deprecating references to his own bad judgment, pride, and stupidity to disarm all but the meanest of his foes.

It was a credible performance and, again, one that was not interrupted by the defence. Throughout Howard’s testimony, Zack peered over his glasses, faintly amused at Howard’s rueful admissions of fallibility, stone-faced as Howard acknowledged that he had been disloyal to his son. If Garth Severight sensed a storm brewing, he didn’t show it. When he finished his examination, the Chief prosecutor strode back to the Crown’s table and resumed his seat with the satisfied air of a man who once again could feel the wind beneath his wings.