The Guilty (24 page)

“I gather you have nothing more to say. I couldn’t agree with you more.”

Green turned to Bratt, who had been looking on with a sense of empathy for his embattled rival, if not sympathy.

“I’m going to grant your motion, Mr. Bratt, with one proviso. I will review the tape again, in order to see if we may not excise the most obviously prejudicial parts and show the jury the rest. Considering the detective’s every sentence was either an inadmissible allegation or outright hearsay, I don’t hold out too much hope that there would be anything of value left for the jurors to see. But, I’d rather err on the side of caution and thoroughness. Tomorrow morning at nine-thirty, gentlemen. Have a good afternoon.”

After he had gone Bratt turned to Kouri, who looked back with a big grin.

“Thanks for showing me up, kid,” Bratt joked. “Now I can’t even take credit for winning this thing.”

“I’m just trying to justify my high salary.”

“Well, you’ve more than earned it today. Just how much are we paying you, anyway?”

They laughed together as they headed out, Bratt allowing the younger lawyer to feel a sense of belonging. He was more than happy to let Kouri get his share of the credit. The most important thing was that things hadn’t all blown up in his face after all. His fears had all been for naught.

He couldn’t wait to get back to the office and he speeded up their pace. Once arrived, they burst through the office door like conquerors coming home to receive the love and admiration of their countrymen. They both stopped cold at the sight of Sylvie, sitting on a sofa in the waiting area with her head on Ralston’s shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. Ralston’s eyes were also red. He looked up at the two lawyers and shook his head slowly.

“J.P,” Bratt whispered, instantly understanding the meaning of what he saw.

This time Ralston nodded, and squeezed Sylvie tighter.

Bratt’s knees suddenly went weak.

“DAMMIT! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE STABLE!” he yelled, hating the feeling of powerlessness.

The first forty-eight hours had passed uneventfully, although Leblanc had remained sedated, and according to the doctors the prognosis was supposed to be good. Bratt had allowed himself to believe that his partner had turned the corner and was out of danger. That had been the only way he could keep his mind on the motion he had presented today, but things had turned to crap after-all.

J.P. Leblanc had died early that afternoon. He had another massive coronary, which killed him almost instantly. The doctors all were quite sorry of course, but there was nothing they could have done to prevent it, they said. Ralston was the first one to get the news, when he swung by the hospital after lunch, and he returned to the office to tell the others. Had there been less congestion on the downtown streets, he would have arrived before Bratt and Kouri returned to court for the afternoon session. As things turned out, the only person in the office upon his arrival had been Sylvie, and she had not taken the news well.

As the other lawyers returned from court, Ralston
gave them each the sad news. Bratt and Kouri were the last ones to hear it.

Ralston had taken care of arrangements for the body and for Leblanc’s personal property at the hospital. Until that point,
Bratt had been unaware that Leblanc had set out detailed instructions in case of his untimely death, and that Ralston was the executor of his final wishes. Bratt felt, unreasonably, he knew, that his longtime partner had somehow snubbed him by not putting matters into his hands, but he had enough sensitivity to hold his tongue.

He stayed late at the office that night, ostensibly to go through Leblanc’s files and figure out what was to be done with them. Mostly, though, he just sat in Leblanc’s chair and gazed at his late partner’s personal possessions, somewhat surprised by how calm he had been since that afternoon, yet feeling a touch guilty that his tears had not yet come.

Maybe I’ve known he was dead since I saw him in the hospital,
he thought.
Maybe they’ll come later. Who knows?

His eyes scanned the walls of Leblanc’s office where he saw the mementos that a man uses to define his life. There were his degrees from Laval and U. of M., gotten ages ago it seemed. A group picture of Leblanc’s graduating class showed that he had neither gained nor lost a pound since Bratt had met him. A large black and white photo of the Brooklyn Bridge dominated the wall next to the door. On his desk there was a picture of his estranged son, Luc, when he was just a boy of six, wearing a soccer uniform and posing with one foot resting on a ball. 

Leblanc had rarely spoken about his son in the past few years. Bratt surmised that he had preferred remembering him as he was as a child. When it came to Jeannie, Bratt knew that he would also always think of her that way. That was a parent’s privilege, and sometimes his misfortune.

John
Kalouderis popped his head in unexpectedly, surprising Bratt in the midst of his reverie.

“I thought I might find you here.”

“Were you looking for me?”

“Yeah, I was heading toward Brandy’s and I didn’t feel like going out alone. All my usual drinking buddies are busy tonight, watching Monday Night Football, or something.”

Yeah, in late February,
Bratt told himself, aware that his friend was lying.

“I’m not as much of a drinker as I used to be,” he said.

“You will be tonight. We’re both gonna get piss-drunk.”

“That’s the best damn idea I’ve heard yet,” Bratt said, getting out of the chair and heading for the door.

Close to midnight on a Monday, the bar was
barely half full. Bratt and Kalouderis sat at a small table in the corner, mixing their drinks indiscriminately. After all, they had reasoned, what’s a little mourning for an old colleague if there were no consequences to suffer later? They were both well on their way to their stated goal of getting piss-drunk, and that was fine with them.

“What a fucking world,” Kalouderis intoned, as if he had just understood the meaning to all existence. “Am I right? What a fucking world!”

Bratt nodded wordlessly. Each time he tried to speak he found that his tongue, thick with alcohol, kept tripping him up. He finally gave up, concentrated on the glass of he didn’t remember what in front of him, and let Kalouderis have the floor.

“He won such a beauty of a case last week,” Kalouderis said of their late friend. “In front of that prick, Xenopolos too. That’s probably what killed him in the end. Poor J.P., having to listen to that Greek prima donna pontificate all damn day. Like he was on the Supreme Court, instead of the pathetic Provincial Court.”

“You’re Greek,” Bratt noted with some difficulty.

“Damn right I am! That’s why I can say what I want about him. But you can’t. I don’t wanna hear any ethnic slurs out of your mouth, young man.”

Bratt ignored him and waved to the waitress, who sat on a barstool watching them with a bemused look on her face. He held up his empty glass and pointed at it, asking for the same of whatever it was he was having, hoping that she would remember the potent potion that was going down anything but smoothly.

“Hermes Xenopolos,” Kalouderis stated with finality.

“Who? Oh, the judge. What about him?”

“He’s a prick.”

“So you said.”

Kalouderis pushed himself up from his slouched position. Sitting ramrod straight and clearing his throat, it was obvious to Bratt that he was about to do a little pontificating himself. Fortunately, Bratt’s drink arrived just in time to help drown out his friend’s voice.

“He thinks nobody knows he’s off the boat,” Kalouderis said, loudly. “He thinks the boat’s way gone, it’s history. But I know the village where he was born, the peasant.

“He married a rich Jewish widow from Cote St. Luc, so he acts like he’s hot shit. But you get close up to him you can still smell the sheep farm.”

“That can’t smell too good.”

“Don’t
interrupt me.”

Bratt silently waved his rambling friend on and Kalouderis continued as if he had never stopped speaking.

“Who’s he think he’s fooling? He can’t even hide his damn accent. You can still hear the
kha
this and the
kha
that. What a snob! As off the boat as the last group of Chinese refugees and he avoids the rest of the community like we’ve got the plague. He never even would have gotten where he is, which is no big deal anyway, if he wasn’t balling that rich princess with all her daddy’s connections to help him”

“That’s the one he married?”

“Shit, Bobby. Weren’t you listening?”

“Not more than I had to.”

They looked at each other and then burst out laughing, drawing curious looks from the few other patrons in the bar. Kalouderis put his arm around Bratt and leaned his head on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Bratt tried to push him off. “Is this some sort of Greek thing?”

“Shut up, you racist! I just need a shoulder to cry on for a while.”

Bratt thought back to when Kouri had unexpectedly hugged him in the ICU. The timing then had been just right, although he never would have admitted it. He let Kalouderis keep his head on his shoulder and patted him on the back as he glared around the bar, daring any of the other patrons to make a remark or give him a funny look. Nobody looked his way, though. They all had their own concerns.

It was nearly twelve-thirty when two men in their mid-fifties entered the bar. Bratt recognized the pot-belly and white hair instantly. It was St. Jean. He groaned inwardly, hoping they wouldn’t be noticed, and gently removed Kalouderis’s head from his shoulder, letting his half-asleep friend rest it on the table in front of them. 

St. Jean did spot them, though, and he and his companion slowly made their way toward them. Bratt cursed his bad luck. Talking to the detective, especially about the Small case, was definitely last on the list of things he wanted to do that night.

“Well, well, Robert Bratt. Imagine finding you here.”

“If you found me, that must mean you were looking for me.”

“You always were pretty quick, Robert. I thought you wouldn’t mind having a little talk with me.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I got other things on my mind just now.”

“Yeah, I heard. Too bad about Leblanc. He wasn’t a half-bad guy.”

“I hear that’s what they’re putting on his headstone,” Bratt snorted, pulling down most of his drink.

“Hey. I’m just trying to say something nice about the guy.”

“Keep trying. You’ll get it right eventually.”

“All right. Be like that if you want. But there’s still something I’d like to ask you about.”

“It’s kind of late. Call me during office hours.”

“This is office hours for me. I’m doing a little overtime.”

“Didn’t you retire or something?”

“This is my last week, actually.”

“So why aren’t you, you know, doing something safe, like riding a desk or something?” Bratt pointed the index finger of one shaky hand at St. Jean and made a shooting motion with it. “In the movies cops always get shot three days before retirement.”

“Didn’t think you had time to catch many films, Bratt.”

Bratt gave him a dirty but bleary look, swilled down
some of his drink, then burped none too discreetly.

“Sorry,” he said, covering his mouth with one hand. “I couldn’t think of anything more clever to say.”

“I didn’t really notice the difference.”

“Oh, touché, Phil.
You did get your revenge there.”

“OK, can we cut the crap?” St. Jean moved closer, leaning his face in next to Bratt’s, his elbow planted on the table, inches from Kalouderis’ head.

“I’ve spent an interesting evening chatting with your supposed witnesses, Sims and Jordan. I hope that doesn’t surprise you.”

“Considering that was the whole point of my giving Parent their names, no, I guess I’m not surprised.”

“Where’d you get those two guys?”

“Through an Eaton’s catalogue.”

“Eaton went belly-up.”

“Bankruptcy sale, all witnesses were half-off.”

St. Jean straightened up and looked at his partner in disbelief.

“What is this, comedy night? I’m trying to be straight with you, Bratt, so quit the sarcasm for a while. Your witnesses are crooked, and if you know about it you’re in deep trouble. I’m giving you a chance to help yourself.”

Bratt’s brain was just lucid enough that the threat managed to register. He had difficulty keeping the panic off his face as he asked himself,
How the hell did St. Jean know they were crooked? Shit, I wasn’t really sure they were, myself.

He downed
the rest of his drink to calm himself, and noticed that St. Jean’s partner’s face showed surprise.

He was just as surprised at hearing that as I was,
Bratt realized.
St. Jean, you old bullshitter, you almost bluffed me. But I’m still faster than you are, even with a bucketful of poison in me.