removed a notebook and a pen from her tiny fabric handbag, settled in, and waited for the curtain to rise.
On the school tour, I had learned that the judge, the jurors, the lawyers, and the defendants all came into the courtroom through separate entrances. It was an arrangement that made for good theatre, and as the lawyers entered, the buzz of anticipation subsided.
The Crown prosecutor was a tall, slim redhead named Linda Fritz. Zack said she was a formidable opponent: smart, quick, and fearless. She took her place at the counsel table, opened her briefcase, and began arranging her files without fuss. Within seconds, Zack and Sam Parker entered and went to the defence table, but before Sam took his chair he gazed around the courtroom. He wasn’t looking for his wife. Beverly Parker had decided against attending her husband’s trial. Officially, she was overwrought; in truth, she had refused to be in the same room as Glenda. But if Beverly had chosen to shun her child, Sam was drawing strength from her. When Sam’s eyes found Glenda, the connection between them was electric. Clearly, they were counting on each other to get through the ordeal ahead. Finally, Glenda gave her dad the thumbs-up sign, and he smiled and sat down. It was all very low- key. He and Zack chatted until court was called to order with Mr. Justice Arthur Harney presiding.
Like many other facets of the trial, the selection of a jury was a grindingly mundane process. The jury panel was brought into the courtroom. There were perhaps fifty people on the panel and they were asked two questions: were they related in any way to the accused or the witnesses? Had they read the transcript of the preliminary hearing? When no one responded in the affirmative, each member of the jury panel came forward and was either accepted or rejected. The Crown had four peremptory challenges, plus forty-eight “stand asides”; the defence had twelve peremptory challenges.
From my perspective, Linda Fritz and Zack seemed to accept or challenge the jury candidates pretty much on the basis of instinct. I didn’t know how much digging the Crown had done into the background of the members of the jury panel, but I knew Falconer Shreve’s investigations had been casual. Zack’s firm had possessed the panel list since Labour Day. It included the ages and occupations of each potential juror. The obvious bad fits had been culled, but Zack believed in common sense and gut reaction, and it seemed Linda Fritz did too. In a little under three hours, the jurors who would try Samuel Parker on the charge of attempted murder were selected.
Zack had rolled his eyes about the impossibility of finding a jury of peers for a right-wing fundamentalist millionaire who made no bones about the fact that he would do anything to protect his transgendering child. As I watched the jury members take their places in the box, I wondered how Sam Parker would fare with the six men and six women who were solemnly assuming their new and unfamiliar roles as “judges of the facts” of his case. They were as typical as any random group you might find searching for videos at Blockbuster on Friday at 5:00 p.m. There was a dapper little man with a scowl and an aggressive combover; two pleasant-faced women with gently permed white hair and seasonally patterned cardigans; a tall, imposing woman with a pale oval face Modigliani would have lusted to paint; two men in three-piece suits; a woman with a Lucille Ball explosion of red curls and a smile that looked slightly demented; two young people, one male, one female – both of whom squirmed and looked distinctly unhappy; a silver-haired gent who turned out to be a serious notetaker; a cocky, meaty man who sprawled in his chair, seemingly defying all comers to explain why they weren’t wasting his time; and a woman about my age, wearing a vintage granny gown, lace-up shoes, and the last rose of summer in her glorious salt- and-pepper mane.
Despite Zack’s somewhat lackadaisical approach to jury selection, once he had a jury, they were his focus. From the moment they were sworn in, the members of the jury became players in the legal drama, joining the judge, the defendant, the lawyers, and the witnesses on the other side of the fourth wall, that invisible curtain that, in theatre, divides actors from their audience. On that first day, Zack’s eyes wandered towards me, but he never established eye contact. Later he told me that only inexperienced, showboating lawyers play to the back of the room. Experienced lawyers remember who makes the decisions, and they keep their focus on the judge and the jury.
When the jurors were seated, Arthur Harney read the jury some elementary points of law and announced that we would recess so the jury could select a foreperson and we could all have lunch.
Brette Sinclair slid her notebook and pen into her vintage bag. Kevin Powers, obviously over his snit, leaned across me again and addressed her. “Do you think there’s a decent place to eat around here?”
“I’m sure there is,” Brette said. She gave my media identification tag a sidelong glance.
Kevin glared at her. “You do that,” he said, and he got up and stomped off.
When he was out of earshot, Brette picked up her bag. “Sorry,” she said. “Super-stud and I have some history I’m not anxious to repeat.”
I knew Zack would be eating with his client. “I don’t have any plans for lunch if you’d like to join me.”
She squinted. “Seriously?”
“Why not? What do you like?”
Her eyes sparked mischief. “Cake.”
I slipped the strap of my purse over my shoulder. “I know just the restaurant for you,” I said. “Follow me.”
In its previous incarnation, Danbry’s had been the Assiniboine Club, a gents-only place where men with deep pockets could sit in leather chairs, sip Scotch, read their papers, and escape women. Sense and shifting sensibilities had been the death knell for clubs like the Assiniboine, but an enterprising developer had seen the potential in the graceful old downtown building, and that wintry day, Brette and I walked into a restaurant of real charm. We arrived without reservations, but we were in luck – not only were places available, they were prime – in front of the fireplace in the high-vaulted dining room. Brette shrugged out of her trench coat. She was wearing nicely fitted blue jeans, a white shirt, a black cardigan, and a long string of pearls. Her outfit was a theme that would appear with variations throughout the trial.
The server came, took our drink orders, and handed us menus. “What’s good?” Brette asked.
“Everything,” I said. “But the lamb burgers with gorgonzola are amazing.”
She snapped her menu shut. “I accept your recommendation,” she said. We ordered and she leaned forward. “So what’s your take on this case?”
“Too soon to have a take,” I said.
“You’re right,” she said. “We’ll know after the opening statements.”
“That soon?” I asked.
