eyes. Throw out my hands for balance and almost touch the walls, the hallway constricting around me like a swallowing throat. A clicking sound that is my tongue wrestling for words that have dried away.
In the middle of the nineteenth tolling it stops. Echoes in the perfect quiet until it’s replaced by the whisper of dust balls scuttled across the floor by the sour air blown out from under every door.
I remain there for a time, pretend that I’m ready to slide down the banister and throw the fucking thing out onto the street if it starts up again. But it doesn’t, and eventually the cold forces me back to my room. Pull up the covers and wish for sleep. Eyes held shut, listening to the imagined footfalls of the old hotel.
F IVE
I t is an unfortunate fact that the largest and most handsome building in Murdoch is its jail, the whimsically named Murdoch Prison for Men. The original building, set in a green cleft next to the courthouse, is a modest but dignified red brick block with oak doors and a marble cornerstone marking its inauguration by some Lieutenant-Governor or other, as well as the date, July 16, 1897. Since then several additions had been made to the rear, and the structure moved within its high walls down a long slope to the edge of the creek that runs through town.
Its history was obvious enough. Over the decades, with each quarry closing, and the ongoing confirmation that a tourist market was never to be, a sympathetic provincial government would construct another cellblock and expand the region which the jail was designated to serve. These days one of Murdoch’s greatest boasts was that it had criminals bused in from far and wide to serve their summary terms or await trial. And while other small town jails across the country were being shut down in favor of new, computer-managed institutions with state-of-the-art metal shops and swimming pools to assist in “rehabilitation programs,” Murdoch’s would go on with the job assigned to it at the end of the nineteenth century so long as thepeople who lived in the woods up here continued to do bad things.
This will be Thomas Tripp’s home for the course of the trial no matter what I have to say, as those accused of first-degree murder are statutorily denied the right to a bail hearing. And it’s just as well as far as I’m concerned. I like my clients in jail as a rule. I do what I can to obtain bail, of course, but if I fail I’m always a little relieved, for this way I know where to find them, and can thus avoid one of the primary challenges of conducting a criminal trial: locating your client.
Inside, the Murdoch Prison for Men looks like every other jail—waxed hallways, pale green paint over floor, walls and ceiling, barred gates where doors would otherwise stand—except older. Including the guard with blushing nose and alcoholic cheeks set upon a comically Irish face who takes me to the interview room and asks en route, “Up from Toronto, are ya?”
“I am.”
“Where ya stayin’?”
“The Empire Hotel.”
“The Empire, eh? Nobody but drunks stay there.”
“That’s fine. I’m something of a drunk myself.”
He swings around to shoot me a quick look. But he’s a man whose career has been built upon the efficient dispatch of wiseasses, and he doesn’t miss a beat.
“Think yer man did it?”
“It would be inappropriate for me to comment on that. Besides, with all due respect, it’s none of your fucking business.”
“Quite so, quite so.”
Before he opens the door to Interview Room No. 1 he pauses to smile in a way that is either an expression of friendliness or a practiced mask meant to hide something far more uncongenial.
“Well, I can tell you this,” he says. “Everyone around here thinks yer man quite a strange one.”
“The last time I consulted the books, being a strange one wasn’t illegal.”
“That may be. But taking little girls away sure as hell is.”
“Thank you so much. Now that you’ve
In the middle of the nineteenth tolling it stops. Echoes in the perfect quiet until it’s replaced by the whisper of dust balls scuttled across the floor by the sour air blown out from under every door.
I remain there for a time, pretend that I’m ready to slide down the banister and throw the fucking thing out onto the street if it starts up again. But it doesn’t, and eventually the cold forces me back to my room. Pull up the covers and wish for sleep. Eyes held shut, listening to the imagined footfalls of the old hotel.
F IVE
I t is an unfortunate fact that the largest and most handsome building in Murdoch is its jail, the whimsically named Murdoch Prison for Men. The original building, set in a green cleft next to the courthouse, is a modest but dignified red brick block with oak doors and a marble cornerstone marking its inauguration by some Lieutenant-Governor or other, as well as the date, July 16, 1897. Since then several additions had been made to the rear, and the structure moved within its high walls down a long slope to the edge of the creek that runs through town.
Its history was obvious enough. Over the decades, with each quarry closing, and the ongoing confirmation that a tourist market was never to be, a sympathetic provincial government would construct another cellblock and expand the region which the jail was designated to serve. These days one of Murdoch’s greatest boasts was that it had criminals bused in from far and wide to serve their summary terms or await trial. And while other small town jails across the country were being shut down in favor of new, computer-managed institutions with state-of-the-art metal shops and swimming pools to assist in “rehabilitation programs,” Murdoch’s would go on with the job assigned to it at the end of the nineteenth century so long as thepeople who lived in the woods up here continued to do bad things.
This will be Thomas Tripp’s home for the course of the trial no matter what I have to say, as those accused of first-degree murder are statutorily denied the right to a bail hearing. And it’s just as well as far as I’m concerned. I like my clients in jail as a rule. I do what I can to obtain bail, of course, but if I fail I’m always a little relieved, for this way I know where to find them, and can thus avoid one of the primary challenges of conducting a criminal trial: locating your client.
Inside, the Murdoch Prison for Men looks like every other jail—waxed hallways, pale green paint over floor, walls and ceiling, barred gates where doors would otherwise stand—except older. Including the guard with blushing nose and alcoholic cheeks set upon a comically Irish face who takes me to the interview room and asks en route, “Up from Toronto, are ya?”
“I am.”
“Where ya stayin’?”
“The Empire Hotel.”
“The Empire, eh? Nobody but drunks stay there.”
“That’s fine. I’m something of a drunk myself.”
He swings around to shoot me a quick look. But he’s a man whose career has been built upon the efficient dispatch of wiseasses, and he doesn’t miss a beat.
“Think yer man did it?”
“It would be inappropriate for me to comment on that. Besides, with all due respect, it’s none of your fucking business.”
“Quite so, quite so.”
Before he opens the door to Interview Room No. 1 he pauses to smile in a way that is either an expression of friendliness or a practiced mask meant to hide something far more uncongenial.
“Well, I can tell you this,” he says. “Everyone around here thinks yer man quite a strange one.”
“The last time I consulted the books, being a strange one wasn’t illegal.”
“That may be. But taking little girls away sure as hell is.”
“Thank you so much. Now that you’ve
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