Denial Page 3

  I’m a lawyer now, but the pull is the same. Back to the lost souls who struggle with mental health and addiction, back to the victims fleeing greed and violence. Can I help them? I’m a realist: probably not a lot. Should I try? Absolutely.

  The women who come here for help line the shabby walls, hunched on tiny chairs. Some softly chatter, others sit alone and silent, lost in memory and misery. A few, lucky enough to have cadged a charged-up cellphone, gaze at pictures of absent children and long-gone lovers. None of them have money; most don’t have homes; few understand the system that has grabbed them and is relentlessly pushing them through its machinery. That’s where Alicia and I come in.

  A large woman with a short shock of orange-fringed black hair spies us at the entrance. She strides toward us—Magda the Munificent, who believes there is no problem that cannot be fixed and devotes her life to proving it. She leads us to the cubicles at the back of the room and halts outside one of the doors.

  “There’s a girl here. Not great English. Maybe you can figure her story out.” She nods at Alicia, who comes from five generations of English-speaking Chinese Canadians and knows about as much Cantonese as I do. Before we have time to explain or ask for an interpreter, Magda bangs on the flimsy door and pushes Alicia and me in.

  Inside, a young girl waits on a chair behind a small table. She wears no makeup and her hair is dirty, but her beauty takes my breath away. Brown eyes, full lips, delicate features in perfect symmetry. It’s hard to read her expression as we enter. A slight widening of the eyes that could be hope but is more likely terror. Sixteen at the most, I’m guessing.

  Alicia and I scrape our chairs back and sit. I smile in a way that I hope reads as reassuring. “Jilly Truitt, Alicia Leung, lawyers. We’re here to help you,” I say, motioning. “What’s your name?”

  “May. May Chan,” the girl says, her voice barely audible.

  “Tell us how you came to be here,” I ask, parsing my words to make them distinct.

  She looks confused until Alicia kicks in, speaking a language I don’t understand. Maybe she knows more Cantonese than she’s let on. As Alicia explains why we’re here, May relaxes and begins to talk, at first in her language, then in halting English.

  Slowly, between Alicia’s efforts and May’s limping English, her story emerges. She lived in southwestern China. Her parents, fallen on hard times, exchanged her for an undisclosed sum of money to a man who came to their village looking for girls to work in the east. It’s unclear whether they thought she would work in a factory in Guangzhou or be trafficked for sex. She was taken to a train which brought her to a large city—Kowloon in Hong Kong, she later learned. There she was housed in a decrepit apartment building under the care of an older woman.

  After some time—weeks, she didn’t know how many—men came to get her. They waved papers at her and promised her a better life in a strange land. She didn’t believe them. They laughed too loudly and poked her rudely, but she had no choice. She was taken to an airport and told to show her documents to whomever she encountered. Just to be sure, a young man accompanied her—Your brother, he said in English, pointing to his tattooed chest.

  She landed in Vancouver, where the man took her to another house, run by another woman. At first it was alright. She was told to watch TV all day and learn English. She didn’t mind—she was smart—she had always liked school in China and even studied a little English back home. But then, after a few months, another man came. He tested her English, deemed her ready. That night more men arrived and took her to a tiny room in an old house. They brought her expensive dresses and high-heeled shoes, and told her that she must always smile and say yes.

  Here, May breaks off, unable to continue. “Men come,” she whispers, tears filling her eyes. “I have to—I have to—”

  Alicia reaches to cover May’s hand and I notice the plastic nails they gave her. One is chipped. I’ve done a few human trafficking cases, always for the defence. It’s the details that stay with me—a sculpted lip smeared by a slap, a nail broken in a gesture of futile defence. Alicia says something in Cantonese, then reverts to English, “It’s all right. We understand. We know. Just tell us how you got away.”

  May swallows hard but begins again. “The boss lady, she has the key. I am nice to her. I do little jobs for her. Get milk. Bread. Just a few blocks. Always, I come back. Always, I say I am happy. One day I don’t come back. I run away; I hide. I sleep in doors of apartments and shops at night; I walk the streets in the day. Yesterday night, I am sleeping in the door of a shop on Union. A lady comes with keys to open and tells me to move. I am scared, so scared she tells police and takes me to jail, but she just smiles. Then she reaches in her pocket and gives me the card to this clinic. Maybe they can help, she says. So I come here.” A tear slides down her cheek. “I can’t go back to the boss lady. Don’t send me back.”

  “We won’t send you back,” I say. “We will find you a safe place to stay. Then we’ll talk to the police.”

  “No police,” May cries, rising from her seat.

  I know what she’s thinking. This is a trap. We are going to call the police and turn her over to them. She’ll be locked up until they decide whether to send her back to China or throw her back on the street.

  “The police will help you, May. What was done to you is against the law. They will find the bad men and put them in jail. You will be safe. You can stay in Canada. Refugee.”

  Alicia translates for me, but May is not convinced. “The men find me. Take me back. Make me—”

  “The men can’t come in here,” I say. “After a little while, someone will come and take you to a safe place. Wait here. We’ll go now and make the arrangements. We will come back.”

  But May isn’t listening to me. She makes to leave, but Alicia bends over her, comforting her with words I don’t understand. May takes a tissue from the box on the table, dries her eyes.

  “What did you say to her?” I ask Alicia after we close the door of the cubicle behind us.

  “Something in a Cantonese dialect I heard somewhere. It seemed to calm her.” She looks at me. “I promised that we’d take care of her.”

  Alicia’s optimistic, but I’ve sat across from enough women in legal clinics like this to know that chances are May’s right and the men she fears will find her. They’re invested in her and will spare no effort to track her down. Even if the police had the money and will, they couldn’t penetrate those organizations. Still, we can try to safeguard her as best we can.

  I scan the room for Magda, then glance at my big watch. We signed on for two hours. Now it looks like five.

  “Go back to the office, Jilly,” Alicia says. “You have a case tomorrow. I don’t. I’ll wait, make sure she doesn’t bolt and that they find her a safe place.”

  “Thanks, Alicia.” I give her arm a gentle squeeze.

  May’s face twines with fragments of my own past as I walk through the dim streets back to my office and ponder my luck. Jilly Truitt could’ve been just another name on a missing woman file. Except here and there someone pulled me out or took me in. I think of Martha and Brock. For the second time today, I think of Mike.

  Let it go, Jilly, I tell myself, sitting behind my desk, you have work to do. I pick up Sergeant Mitchell’s transcript and start to read.

  CHAPTER 5

  I WAKE EARLY, PULL ON my Lycra in the dark, and head out for my morning run. Three times a week, whether I need it or not, I run. This morning, I need it. As the sky begins to grey and I reach First Beach, I feel my step lift. The burdens that have weighed me down temporarily lift—Vera’s beseeching eyes, May’s silent tears, my father, the trust, and Mike. They will return, but for this moment, my heart beats, my lungs fill, my mind floats, and I am one with the cool air and lapping waves.

  An hour later I stand under a hot stream of water in the shower and allow reality to edge back into my consciousness. The day’s tasks roll out before me.

  Number one: phone Joseph Quentin to tell
him I’ll take his wife’s case—correction—tell Vera first, don’t forget she’s the client, not him.

  Number two: give Cy Kenge a courtesy call to let him know I’m on the case. Never again will I take a case where Cy’s the prosecutor, I had vowed after Trussardi. I remind myself to never say never.

  Number three: have Debbie call our private eye, Richard Beauvais—we’ve only got three weeks, but I need all the help I can get—then set up a meeting to drill into the defence plan, assuming we find one.

  Number four: get myself to court for today’s case, forgotten in yesterday’s heady wake, and destroy Sergeant Mitchell in cross-examination so Danny Mah can once again see sunlight unimpeded by prison bars.

  Number five, an afterthought, like my personal life always is: email Martha to tell her that sadly I won’t make it to the family vineyard in Naramata for the long weekend. Again. I brace myself for my adoptive mother’s gentle reprimand, You’re working too hard, Jilly.

  Ten o’clock, and I’m in courtroom forty-four, gowned and in place. My opposite number across the aisle is a broad-shouldered young Crown prosecutor named Craig Olson. Craig is pleasant enough but could benefit from a refresher in the law of evidence. Which, with luck, I will administer in the next hour or so.

  The steel door across the room opens and the sheriff ushers my client, Danny Mah, into the prisoner’s box. Danny is short and round, attributes accentuated by the shiny suit he has squeezed into for his day in court. Danny is known in the underworld as a small-time operator of drug deals and illicit goods. He works behind the scenes, making the arrangements the kingpins direct. The occasional rumour ties Danny to something big, but it always fizzles out. He’s never been caught for anything big. Until now. The police think they’ve connected him to a shipment of drugs hidden in a coffin that arrived from China. After a lengthy and costly investigation, the drug squad discovered a tapped phone call they say reveals that the shipment was arranged by Danny Mah.

  Danny’s been in jail for nine months—high risk of absconding, the bail judge concluded—but one would never know it to look at him. He settles into his padded seat, his hands folded over his ample midriff, and beams benignly around the room. I follow his glance to the back of the courtroom, where a pair of men in leather jackets regard the proceedings with an air of boredom—Danny’s associates, no doubt. Satisfied, Danny swivels in my direction and confers his blessing on what I am about to do in his name. If he is afraid, he does not show it. If he is guilty, no one would guess.

  Introductory rites completed, Justice Dickson, a taciturn veteran of more battles than he cares to recall, calls for the jury. Craig stands. “I recall Sergeant Raymond Mitchell.”

  The judge looks up, brows beetling. “I thought you’d finished with this witness, Mr. Olson.”

  Craig visibly stiffens, then reconsiders. “I call him only for purposes of cross-examination, my Lord,” he says smoothly. “Ms. Truitt’s witness.”

  Justice Dickson knows it’s a lie—Olson would have gone on for an hour if he could have—but deems the result satisfactory. “Very well, Mr. Olson.”

  The turn of events catches me off guard. I had counted on at least fifteen minutes of prevarication before getting to my part in the show. But Sergeant Mitchell, a thin man in an oversized suit, is walking to the witness box. I pull out the court transcript I dissected late last night. Then I begin.

  “Sergeant Mitchell, let me recap your evidence, as I understand it. Just to remind the jury of the gist of your testimony before we get into the details.” I look at the jury, swing back to the witness. “You testified that the police seized a considerable quantity of cocaine at the Wing On Funeral Parlour in Richmond, British Columbia, last November, did you not?”

  Mitchell strokes his tiny goatee with a satisfied air. “Yes.”

  “And you further testified that those drugs were found in the silk lining of a coffin that arrived at the Vancouver International Airport from Hong Kong the day before, on November seventh, bearing the body of the deceased, Anthony Chong?”

  “Yes.”

  “To make a long and complicated story short, you testified, supported by other witnesses, that the coffin was shipped by a funeral company named Winston and Co. in Hong Kong to the Wing On Funeral Parlour in Richmond, and that two elderly brothers of the deceased, Michael and David Chong, travelled with the casket on the same flight.”

  “Yes, Ms. Truitt.”

  “And the shipment arrangements in Hong Kong were directed from Vancouver by the eldest son of the deceased, Sonny Chong?”

  “So it seems.”

  I flip through the papers as I follow up. “The jury has seen the whole email trail, the invoices, everything. There’s no mention of the accused, Mr. Mah, in any of the paperwork in Hong Kong or Vancouver?”

  “No, bu—”

  “So all we really know is that one funeral parlour shipped a coffin containing the remains of Anthony Chong, together with a quantity of cocaine, to another funeral parlour, and that the only people who were involved had the last name Chong.”

  “The Chongs didn’t know about the cocaine. We were able to verify that to our entire satisfaction. And you heard them testify—”

  “Yes, we heard that,” I say quickly. Widow Ming-Wo and her sons had been forthright; their outrage that their revered family member’s death had been caught up in a drug deal had rung true. “So, Sergeant Mitchell, you have no idea how the cocaine came to be placed inside the silk lining of the coffin?”

  “As a result of investigation, we concluded that, on Mr. Mah’s instructions, someone gained access to the funeral parlour in Hong Kong where Mr. Chong’s coffin was awaiting shipment and placed the drugs in the coffin. The phone call we intercepted—”

  “Ah, yes. The phone call. How does that call connect the drugs shipped in the coffin to the accused, Mr. Danny Mah?”

  Sergeant Mitchell gives me a withering look. “I went through that, Ms. Truitt. In essence, because of what Mr. Mah said on the phone call we intercepted between himself and a person in Vancouver on November sixth.”

  The evidence is undeniable—Danny placed the call. However, I can poke holes in the rest. “A person whose identity you have not been able to verify, isn’t that correct?”

  He nods reluctantly. “The telephone line was in a corporate name, and we have not been able to find any persons associated with that corporation.”

  “Let’s review what Mr. Mah said to this unknown person in Vancouver on November sixth, Sergeant.”

  “The words are clear, Ms. Truitt. He said, You will receive a shipment on AC 839 at ten forty-three a.m. tomorrow. The body will be accompanied by two brothers.”

  I tilt my head at him curiously. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all. Mr. Mah then hung up.”

  “But how do those words allow you to infer that he was talking about shipping cocaine—the cocaine that is the subject of this trial?”

  Mitchell shifts in annoyance. “We’ve been through all that. It is self-evident, Ms. Truitt. Only one body was shipped on Air Canada Flight 839 on November seventh—Anthony Chong’s. And his body was accompanied by two brothers, just as Mr. Mah stated on the intercepted call, and it was in his coffin where the cocaine was found.”

  “Are you sure there were no other bodies on that flight?” I ask.

  “I just told you—”

  “Sergeant Mitchell, I put it to you. The roster shows there were two hundred and sixty-three people on Flight 839 on November seventh, plus crew. Each of those people was a body, a live body, but still a body. So there were more than two hundred and sixty-three bodies on that flight. Mr. Mah could have been talking about any of those bodies, could he not?”

  “Body means a dead person.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “If that’s the case, why would Mr. Mah not just say person?”

  A pang of self-doubt stabs me. Maybe this whole cross-examination is far-fetched, maybe the jury will never buy it.
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  “We don’t know. We do know, however, that sometimes people are smuggled out of one country into another to escape discrimination, violence, and hardship.” Or for more nefarious activities, I think as the image of May’s pale face flashes unexpectedly in my mind. I plow on. “It’s quite possible that someone talking about such a person might refer to him or her as a body, is it not?”

  Mitchell crosses his arms. “I don’t think so.”

  “Humour me, Sergeant. Assume that the word body can mean a live person. On that assumption, Mr. Mah could have been talking about any person who was accompanied by two brothers. Would you agree?”

  “Well, yes, but I don’t agree with the assumption.”

  I shuffle through my papers, pull out the flight roster, and round my table toward Sergeant Mitchell. Across the aisle, Craig Olson raises his eyebrows. “For the record, I am showing you a document, the roster of Flight 839 on November seventh. Did you look at this in the course of your investigation?”

  Mitchell scans the paper. “I did. This is the document I reviewed.”

  “Would you agree that there are several men with the same last name on this roster? I’ve highlighted them to help you.”

  He looks up at me. “Yes, I see that.”

  “In fact, three sets of last names are duplicated. The men in any of these sets could be brothers, could they not?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And any one of the women on the roster—of the same name or not, depending on marital status—could be a relative of those men? A sister?”

  Sergeant Mitchell is shaking his head like I’m crazy, but Justice Dickson has picked up his pen and is looking at me with renewed interest. “Let me look at the roster,” he says. “Do you have copies for the jury, Ms. Truitt?”

  “Yes. I ask that the exhibit be marked and distributed to the jury.” I turn back to Mitchell. “So when Mr. Mah said the body would be arriving on Flight 839 accompanied by two brothers, it’s quite possible that he was not alluding to the shipment of cocaine in Sonny Chong’s coffin, but a live person, perhaps a woman, entering the country illegally?”