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| There will be order in the court. |
Chapter Thirty-One
“The court will come to order…”
“The court will come to order.”
The flat, authoritative voice of Judge J.K. Jack Slymingham rapped out as loud and insistent as the gavel he struck.
“This hearing is to determine bail for the defendant Jean Gagnon on charges of rape, sodomy, abduction, causing grave indignities to a corpse and murder in the first degree.”
Gagnon was led in, unshaven, his hair unkempt, wearing the orange coveralls and blue elastic-sided slippers affected by the provincial prison system in order to prejudice jurists against defendants. His feet were shackled, and his wrists bound in gleaming stainless-steel handcuffs. After days held in a cell in the hospital wing of the nearby provincial jail, with its twenty-watt light bulb, steel beds one-point-six metres long, thin wool blankets and freezing temperatures at night, bad food and numerous shouted death threats from other prisoners, he looked ready to die of his own accord. Shame, fear and desperation were written large on his haggard features. The man looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
Jean was struck by a barrage of flash photos, squinting and turning his face away, disorienting him and making him look furtive in front-page photos due later that day. The man was being carefully presented to look mentally ill, and therefore guilty.
The Crown stood to speak, glancing down at her notes and papers from time to time. Angela Maginn was a recent graduate of law school and a new face in town. The people in the courtroom stirred, disturbed by the notion that this little lady, all of twenty-five years old, was responsible for finding justice for Caitlynn. She had only been on the job for two months, and this was her biggest case so far. Drunks and high-school pot-heads were inadequate preparation for a case of this magnitude, and one in which the entire community had a stake. Gagnon wasn’t a shoplifter, one of their own sons and daughters.
“If it please the court, the Crown is asking bail be set at one million dollars. This is due to the particularly brutal and heinous nature of the crime, and the risk of flight posed by the defendant, Mister Jean Gagnon. Also, your Honor, the Crown is concerned that since the body of tiny, defenseless, four and a half year-old Caitlynn Isaacs has not yet been recovered, the defendant may attempt to hide or destroy evidence, and obstruct the efforts of police to investigate this case.” She went on. “Due to the previous criminal history of the defendant, and his well-known shopping list of mental illnesses, the Crown believes that Mister Gagnon poses a danger to the community as well as to himself. The Crown also believes that he is a substance abuser and a suicide risk. It is only by incarceration that he may receive the help he so desperately needs.”
“Objection, your Honor.” Mister Paul Watts was standing up for his client. “Is the Crown admitting that the police have not investigated this matter? And when did he become a drug addict?”
“Over-ruled. Miss Maginn?”
The Crown was asking for a million dollars bail, as was already common enough knowledge from the local weekly, a six-page newspaper stuffed with inserts and typos.
“One additional reason for the stated bail request is for Mister Gagnon’s own personal safety. To release Mister Gagnon into the community is to place him at risk, and if he were to be beaten to death by an angry mob, then an injustice to Caitlynn would occur, as the defendant would not be available for trial and punishment. Also, if Mister Gagnon were assaulted and beaten to a pulp with sticks and stones, it might engender sympathy for the defendant among potential jurors, and engage the attention of the media, which the Crown hopes to avoid for the sakes of the family and this community.”
Judge Slymingham’s eyebrows didn’t even raise a micro-millimetre at this egregious statement.
“Counselor?”
“No comment.” This was Watts in a confident tone, giving his head a shake.
“It is the ruling of this court that bail be set at one million dollars.”
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| Watts: I'll sign that. |
“I’ll sign that. I’m good for it.”
Gagnon had signed a mortgage for it.
“What? Pardon me?” Maginn was dumbfounded. “Did I hear you right?”
“Mister Gagnon owns considerable property in the town of Scudmore. He is a man of substance, has no history of mental illness that isn’t a construct of the police system, and is not a substance abuser. It is my opinion that his one previous conviction was a miscarriage of justice and that he is innocent of all charges past and present.”
The low murmur of voices in the courtroom now escalated to a dull roar, as Jack Slymingham pounded and pounded his gavel to no effect.
Nine people had picked him out of a line-up, and yet no one had seen him do anything.
“We will have order.” The ever-dignified Slymingham, red-faced and hoarse with the effort.
As the judge banged away with his wooden hammer, one voice rose above the rest.
“You’re going to die, Gagnon.” A woman’s voice shouting from the back row of the pews.
“You too, you fuckin’ slimy bastard.” Another person, referring to Paul Watts.
Gagnon looked deathly frightened of the crowd, but Watts just stood there with a sardonic grin, unruffled by all the angst and furor.
“You better nail this guy, you smarmy little bitch.” Another voice, and Maginn’s face reddened in shock and embarrassment.
“Order, order.” Poor old Slymingham had spittle flying from his mouth as he attempted to gain control of the room.
***
The Shiloh Church was the scene of a massive outpouring of love and respect for Caitlynn Isaacs, who much to everyone’s surprise, turned out to be Jewish. Just a small detail, overlooked in all the recent furor.
Kiera Isaacs stood on the porch of the small, white-painted frame building on a quiet residential street of the town while mourners filed past. Many of them took a moment to speak to Kiera, mindful that a photographer from the Scudmore Weekly Post was snapping hundreds of pictures, looking for that award-winning shot. Journalists gave each other awards all the time, everyone knew that.
The steps were a shrine to the little girl, much-beloved by all who knew her.
Virtually everyone in the town of thirteen thousand had enjoyed some personal interaction with Caitlynn. Bunches of flowers, teddy bears, heart-rending cards and letters were prominently arrayed, angled and displayed to catch the eye and to announce to the world what the writer felt upon reading of her horrific death in the paper.
“Thank you, Father.” Kiera spoke in a low voice to the Pastor, who didn’t bother to correct her, in spite of the fact the title and misnomer made him somewhat uncomfortable.
The Catholics’ claim that Jesus had founded their church always made him mad. Jesus was the first Protestant. How many times would he have to explain it?
“It was the least we could do.” He murmured in unctuous fashion, noting that his daughters’ collection bowls were heaped to the overflowing point.
The ends of multi-colored bills flapped in the light breeze, the handfuls of glittering coins the only thing holding them in place. He had better get control of the basket before his wife, who suffered from a powerful shopping addiction, got a hold of it.
He gripped both Kiera’s hands, as the news photographer was focusing on them, and he told her, if there’s anything I can do, while she wept theatrically.
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| Kiera Isaacs. |
Thank God, she was fulfilling her role to perfection. One thing that he didn’t get, was all the balloons.
What possessed people to bring helium balloons to a holy shrine like this? Bears and clowns and UFOs and such. Caitlynn herself might approve, but he just didn’t get it.
***
The constable watched as the vehicle was winched up out of the water. A thick film of sediment coated the machine, obscuring the glass and license plates. From where he and his supervisor stood, the car appeared to be a huge black Mercedes of late nineties vintage. The one with the six-something litre engine, as he sort of recalled.
“That was a nice car.” The fact was noted for posterity. “We’ll check the records, but yeah, it was, ah, probably stolen.”
Cars like that didn’t go missing without some kind of report being filed.
The tow-truck operator kept a close eye on the back end of it. If it snagged or hung up on something, he might tear the back axle out of her, and that would mean re-rigging.
The whine of the electric motor and the sounds of water draining out of the car seemed unusually loud in the early morning stillness, as the brilliant Quebec sunshine foretold another cold but cheerful day. A freakishly long warm spell had caused a rapid melt-off of snow in the hills. The sudden influx of water into the Riviere de Sainte Marie had broken down the earthen dam that formed and held back the reservoir, source of hydroelectric power and fresh water for the town of Sainte-Marie. On high ground, the town was safe enough. Dropping water levels had revealed many things, including old refrigerators, bicycles with bent wheels, and the mysterious vehicle.
“Sergeant.” The tow operator called, interrupting their casual talk about the weather and a local minor league hockey tournament, which both their boys were participating in.
The vehicle was now on the edge of the road, and the tow-truck driver was able to drag it around in a semi-circle in order to align it with the bed. Before he pulled it up onto the sloping bed of the rig, the constable and the sergeant scuttled forward on stiff legs and had a closer look. The constable went to his car and pulled out a handful of paper towels, his breath steaming in jets as he jogged the thirty metres. It took but a moment.
He rubbed the driver’s door window until a glimmer of light entered the vehicle, illuminating the interior with a dim glow. The sergeant took the rest of the towels.
“Holy. Sergeant, there, ah…may be somebody in here.”
“What? Shit. This just keeps on getting better and better.”
They couldn’t send it to the impound yard now. The sergeant gave the driver instructions to take it to the forensic investigations unit in Quebec City. The constable pulled and pulled at the door, and finally it popped open. The eerie sight almost stopped his heart.
“Yikes.” A wave of dirty brown sludge splashed out towards his shoes. “Tabernac. There is someone in there. Maybe even more than one.”
The sergeant used some wipes and smeared around the mud on the license plate. He stood there, writing the numbers down. Then he had a quick look inside, taking in the two muddy blobs.
“All right, we’ll see if we can get an identification. There must be a report, eh? Somebody somewhere must have reported this thing missing. Then we can get a time-frame as to when the thing happened, er, whatever happened.”
As far as he knew, there had been no accidents. With no guard rail on this stretch of road, a vehicle could have gone down the embankment, leaving no other trace than some ruts in the ever-changing snow pack. Any hole in the ice would quickly freeze over, certainly at this time of year. The road along here was straight, level, and with wide but unpaved shoulders. In the absence of facts, it was pointless to speculate, but they had full confidence that they would get to the bottom of this.
“Look on the bright side.” The sergeant, cheerfully enough. “Maybe we can clear off a missing-person report or two.”
But it was oh, so much more than that, when they looked into it.
What they had found would upset so very many apple-carts. And sometimes that is a good thing. Some would even say that there is a God, and that there is some kind of justice in the universe. It turned out there were two bodies in the car, among other things.
***
“So what’s it all about then?” The coyote asked in despair.
It seemed he would never get it, never understand the world he saw around him. The owl was seated on a branch of a big old oak tree, carefully cleaning and grooming each individual feather, one by one, with loving care and attention. Those feathers kept him warm and dry in the most inclement weather and also the extreme conditions he had lived in for most of his life.
“Priests, scholars, and philosophers have speculated as to the meaning of life all across the ages.” His canine companion was trying, at least.
“And what have they come up with?” The four-legged trickster had found himself in an analytical, introspective mood when he woke up this morning, with a full belly, but no mate, no real hold on the world.
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| A drab, empty life. |
He was overcome by a deep sense of sadness at what he found to be a drab, empty and meaningless life.
“Religion?” The coyote snorted in derision.
The owl nodded in acknowledgement, understanding that his friend was in need, and in some inner pain. The coyote, for all his tricks, was an emotional being as well as an intellectual one.
“Religion is all about power, control, money and influence.” The owl was a little surprised at himself for being so cynical.
You would think one noted for his knowledge and wisdom would have been able to come up with something better. Something a little more positive. But winter was dragging on, and it tended to get him down at times. It wasn’t easy being a male, he suddenly realized. He never got to see his children grow up, never got to see them take their first faltering flight, make their first kill. For all he knew he was in competition with his own offspring, and perhaps he had even killed or driven off his own sons and daughters.
“The accusations that people make reveal a lot about themselves. They reveal their innermost fears, and I suppose their desires as well.” He went on. “The people of this little town live in fear of something, they fear for their children. Change, or life, or the passage of time itself. And they want to see some blood. Perhaps to convince themselves of their own power, their own worth.”
“People always attack and drive off their own weakest members.” That was the coyote’s experience, anyways.
Or maybe they just didn’t like him—
“People are animals too. Jean Gagnon is anything but weak. Ah, but, he’s a stranger.”
“That’s very true.” The owl agreed. “Humans are a group. They couldn’t be individuals, in the sense that you and I are. Maybe it is a kind of natural selection at work.”
“The meek shall inherit the Earth?” But why, wondered the coyote.
“Something like that.”
The coyote was silent, sitting on his haunches, dull eyes revealing his state of depression. Sometimes it just didn’t seem worth it, for all the fun he enjoyed.
“I have always believed that we begin as spiritual beings, in a non-physical form. Then we live, and in the end we go back to the spiritual.”
“You’re saying that men have a human experience, in order to learn God’s purpose?” The coyote was out of his depth, but then his companion probably was too. “But they never do, do they?”
Humans never learn.
“The idea that the society of men is a rational one, is irrational. Their whole society is a con-job, based on a false premise, and confounded by a tissue of lies.” It took an awful lot of cooperation to make it work, everyone seeking their own selfish ends first and foremost and yet at the same time they needed each other.
The coyote looked pretty despondent at this.
“Only animals and very small children are innocent of any guilt or sin.” The owl made this statement with finality. “I’m sorry, this isn’t helping you much.”
“So why are we here? If nothing is ever learned?”
“Perhaps so that someday we can get back to the garden. The real problem is that people are ignorant, in spite of all those brains.”
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| Back to the garden. |
END
Images. Louis.
Louis has books and stories here at Smashwords.
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