“Can you state your full name and place of residence for the court?” asks Ms. Konikova, the birdlike Crown prosecutor.
“Dana Bainbridge. I live in Vancouver, BC, in Canada.”
The jurors shift in their seats. Some sit up straighter. In my peripheral vision I see the same happen in the court gallery. Everyone is prepped for a climax. All are fully vested in the battle of these narratives. They’re ready for an end.
“Ms. Bainbridge,” says Konikova, “Do you recall receiving a phone call around eleven a.m. Vancouver time on November nineteen just over a year ago?”
Dana leaned toward the mike. “I do.”
“That’s a long time ago—why do you remember that phone call specifically?”
I feel Dana’s attention being pulled to me in the dock. Like the others, she’s probably been advised not to look. And she doesn’t. She keeps her eyes firmly on the prosecutor, clears her throat, and says, “Because it was from her—from Ellie. And it stuck in my mind because it would have been close to four a.m. her time the next day. I thought she might be in trouble, and it jolted me.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked if I remembered a photograph of us that the barman at the Mallard Lounge had taken on her father’s birthday.”
“The Mallard Lounge is where?”
“In the Hartley Plaza Hotel on the Vancouver waterfront. The hotel is named for her father—it was one of his development projects.”
“And what was happening at the Hartley Plaza when you were there?”
“The AGORA convention. It’s an event hosted annually by the Hartley Group, which is Ellie’s father’s company.”
I’m going to throw up. I watch Lorrington’s profile intently. His jaw is tight. He knows what’s coming now.
“What is the AGORA convention?”
Dana is nervous. She reaches for her glass of water with a trembling hand, sips, and says, “Ellie referred to it as a sort of ‘pitch-fest’ or speed-dating event designed to introduce investors to people who need equity financing for various projects, mostly development projects, real estate, that kind of thing.”
The prosecutor consults her notes. “And the patrons in the Mallard Lounge that night, were they part of the AGORA convention, too?”
“A lot of them looked like they were. Business attire, conference name tags, that sort of thing.”
“So all people hungry for money?”
“Objection.” Lorrington rises. “Leading the witness.”
“I’ll rephrase,” says Konikova. “What was the primary goal of most of the hotel occupants that night?”
“Well, people seeking money. Or to loan or invest it and make a profit from it.”
“And why were you and Ellie there?”
She clears her throat. “Ellie had come off a bad dinner with her father when I happened to call her. She suggested I come over, and I was keen to join her for a night on the town. I met her in the Mallard, where she’d had dinner, and we drank a lot more. Then we asked the barman to take some photos of the two of us together.”
“Is this one of the photos, Ms. Bainbridge?”
A photograph comes up on a screen for everyone to see. It’s been enlarged tenfold and sharpened. My breathing begins to deepen. I feel my chest rise and fall, but I’m not getting air.
“Yes,” says Dana.
I feel the moment build. It swells. I glance around the court. I need to get out.
“Can you please tell Your Honor who is in that photo, Ms. Bainbridge?”
“That’s me. And that’s Ellie.”
“And in the background, among the other patrons of the Mallard Lounge, do you see anyone else you recognize?”
“Yes. I recognize the person seated directly behind Ellie at the bar.”
My scalp is shrinking. The more I try to control my breathing, the faster my chest rises and falls. I’m going to hyperventilate.
“Is this person in the courtroom now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ms. Bainbridge, can you point to this person?”
Dana points.
THEN
LOZZA
Lozza roared down Bonny River Road and screeched to a halt outside the Cresswell-Smith home. Lights blazed inside. The front door was wide open.
The woman from next door came running into the road in her nightgown, a mobile clutched in her hand. “Thank God you’re here—I called triple zero. He took her! I saw it happen! He took her in his car.”
“Who took her? What happened?” Lozza heard the wail of sirens in the distance. Emergency response was on its way. More sirens sounded from an opposite direction, growing louder.
“I . . . I . . . didn’t know what to do,” the woman sobbed.
Lozza steadied the old woman by the shoulders. She looked her dead in the eyes, spoke calmly, clearly. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”
“There . . . was a scream. A terrible scream. It woke me—I was sleeping with the windows open because of the heat. The most awful sound I’ve ever heard. I . . . I looked out the window. There . . . there was a car in their driveway, over there.” She pointed to the driveway. “Both the driver’s door and the passenger doors were open, engine running. Headlights on. Then I heard crashing and banging, and he came out struggling to drag something very heavy. He came out the front door and tugged it across the lawn to the car and—” She shuddered and wrapped her arms tightly around herself, her cell phone still gripped tightly in her hand. “It looked like a body. I think it could have been a body wrapped up in a blanket or sheets or something and tied up with rope. I think it was her—the wife—inside. He really struggled to get his load into the back seat of the car. When I realized what might be happening, I hurried downstairs to find my phone. I couldn’t find—” She swiped away tears. “Oh, God, I couldn’t find it at first. Then I did. It had gone down between the cushions on the couch. I called triple zero. But when I went to the window again, the car was already backing out
