Hangman (23 page)

Turf War

Vancouver

Tuesday, November 14 (Two days ago)

“Something’s up,” said Nellie.

“What?” asked Zinc.

“I don’t know. The Feds are acting cagey. It must be the consent.”

The
Criminal Code of Canada
lay open on her desk, beside a file labeled with Ethan Shaw’s name. Nellie turned the book around so Zinc and Chief Superintendent DeClercq could read:

477.2 (1) No proceedings in respect of an offense committed in or on the territorial sea of Canada shall be continued unless the consent of the Attorney General of Canada is obtained not later than eight days after the proceedings are commenced, if the accused is not a Canadian citizen and the offense is alleged to have been committed on board any ship registered outside Canada.

 

Nervous Nellie was as fidgety as the Mounties had ever seen her. Nellie Barker was the deputy regional Crown counsel in charge of the provincial prosecutors at 222 Main. Her office was on the second floor of the Vancouver provincial courthouse in the heart of skid row, kitty-corner to the piss-stained door of Kline & Shaw. The fact that the Shaw of that struggling firm was in the cells downstairs charged with first-degree murder, and that the Kline of that street-legal storefront was sitting in Courtroom 102 waiting to defend him, did little to calm her nerves. Not when the case was shot through with this many holes, most of which were big enough to make Nellie bite her nails.

“Where exactly did this murder occur?”

“We don’t know,” Zinc said. “We’re still investigating.”

“Is there a problem?”

“A turf war, Nellie. The ship sailed from Seattle up Puget Sound, then out through the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the open sea. That means the
North Star
passed through American waters, then Canadian internal waters when it was in the strait, and finally Canada’s territorial sea as it sailed up the west coast of Vancouver Island.”

The jumpy prosecutor was bouncing around in her chair, burning off more calories than meals could replace. Barker, a bag of bones in her baggy blue suit, was so gaunt she looked anorexic. What made her a sharp prosecutor was her trepidation. Nervous Nellie could see trouble coming a mile away.

“Where
might
this murder have occurred? South of the border in the States?”

“Unlikely,” Zinc said.

“But possibly?”

“At the moment. Until we have a witness.”

“Inspector, I beg you, be more specific. Yesterday was the Monday holiday after Remembrance Day, so I took the long weekend off to be with my dad. He was at D-Day. It’s a rough time for him. So I wasn’t around when this case came in, and now I find myself caught in a Rubik’s Cube. To make it easy for me, spell it out.”

“It’s a turf war, Nellie, over who gets to try the Hangman. The Americans want Ethan Shaw for two hangings in Seattle. We want him for one in North Vancouver. The death on the ship is the only crime for which there is a suspect and evidence, so both jurisdictions are after this accused.”

“Where was the victim last seen alive?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a turf war. The body was found when the ship was on Canada’s territorial sea. The American cops asked the captain to sail back to Seattle. Because we were then in Canadian waters, I countermanded their request and ordered the captain to sail the
North Star
to Vancouver.”

“How’d the Americans react to that?”

“We reached a compromise.”

“I’m listening.”

“A joint Hangman investigation was already under way. We agreed to investigate the crime scene together, and to divide up the interviews of those aboard. There were a lot of people on the ship. Even now, days later, some statements have yet to be taken.”

“What happened when you docked?”

“I arrested Ethan Shaw for first-degree murder on Canada’s territorial sea. I drove him to the jail next door and booked him in. He was seen by a justice of the peace. Since Monday was a statutory holiday, the JP remanded him to appear in court this morning.”

“And the Americans?”

“They left in a huff.”

“With
their
witness statements?”

“Yes,” said Zinc. “They were south of the border before we knew they were gone.”

“So we have half the evidence and they have the other half?”

“For the moment.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’re meeting this afternoon to discuss exchanging witness statements.”

“You haven’t seen theirs?”

“And they haven’t seen ours.”

“This isn’t a poker game.”

“They’re Americans, Nellie. Americans are used to getting their own way. The Hangman killed two people in the States and two in Canada. He was caught here, so we try him first. Holding back the statements is a strong-arm tactic. I’ll be damned if I’ll give them the Hangman on a silver platter.”

“The last victim was your lover?”

“Yes,” said Zinc.

“You’re too close to the case.”

“That’s why I’m here,” said DeClercq. “The reason the inspector is still involved is that no one knows better than him what happened on the ship.”

“Where was the boat when you last saw Alexis Hunt alive?”

“In American waters,” said Zinc.

“Have you any reason to believe she was killed in the States?”

“No,” he replied.

“Do we have a statement from anyone who saw Alexis alive in Canadian waters?”

“No,” he said.

“Do the Americans?”

“I don’t know.”

Nellie had nibbled a finger down to the quick. One day, she would come unstrung from stress.

“A court is waiting downstairs for us to appear. I sense trouble,” said the prosecutor.

“Why?” asked Zinc.

“The caginess of the Feds. If this crime did occur in Canada, it might have taken place on the Canadian side of the border that runs along the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled those are
internal
waters, so”—she tapped the consent section of the
Criminal Code—
“no federal okay is required to prosecute a foreign citizen on a foreign ship.”

“I know,” said Zinc. “But I don’t trust lawyers.”

“How wise of you,” Nellie said.

“Unlike you, I
do
think this is a poker game, and I think the smartest player usually wins. If it does turn out that Alex was hanged on our territorial sea, I want to make damn sure the necessary federal consent is in place. That’s why the charge alleges the crime occurred there and not on internal waters.”

“The
Criminal Code
says the consent of the attorney general must be filed within eight days.”

“We have lots of time.”

“That’s what worries me.”

“I don’t follow, Nellie.”

“Did you take it upon yourself to ask the Feds for consent?”

“No,” said Zinc.

“Nor have we. So why did counsel for the attorney general of Canada phone this morning to ask us not to call the Shaw case until he arrived?”

“I have no idea.”

“Something’s up,” said Nellie.

*    *    *

To understand what was up, you have to understand this: Canada, like America, has a federal system. That means power is divided between the federal government—known as the Feds—and the provinces or states. Canada has the benefit of being the younger sibling of America, so Canada gets to correct what it rightly or wrongly perceives as mistakes south of the border.

Mistakes like jurisdiction over criminal law.

If law and order is the goal of criminal statutes, you want your citizens to
know
what the law is. That means you want the law to be consistent from coast to coast. To that end, America made a mistake in giving power to enact crime statutes to the individual states, instead of to the Feds in Washington. Nowhere is the result more evident today than in capital punishment, where, depending upon the state beneath your feet when you commit murder, they hang you, gas you, shock you, shoot you, or stick you with a needle.

Or if you’re lucky, the state spares life.

When Canada came together in 1867, the fathers of Confederation “corrected that mistake” by giving the power to enact criminal law and procedure to the Feds in Ottawa, and the power to administer justice in accordance with that law to the provinces. Go anywhere in Canada and the criminal law is the same, which may explain why Canadians, at three o’clock in the morning, stand on deserted street corners and wait for the Do Not Walk sign to change.

At least that’s the theory.

The Feds being Feds, however, they kept certain administrative powers from the provinces. If provincial prosecutors wish to try a foreign citizen for a crime committed on a foreign-registered ship in Canada’s coastal waters—the territorial sea—they must seek the blessing of Ottawa. No federal consent, for whatever reason, and there can be no trial.

An even bigger power grab was extradition. Ottawa kept that power entirely for itself. Commit a murder in the States and it will be the Feds who decide whether or not to send you south to stand trial.

This the Americans knew.

The
rules
of the game.

And who plays poker better than Americans?

No sooner had the
North Star
docked in Vancouver than Zinc arrested Ethan Shaw for Alex’s murder, effectively snatching him from the long arm of American law. That arm, however, was longer than the inspector suspected, for when the Seattle cops were back on their own turf, Ethan was charged with aggravated first-degree murder in Washington State and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Under state law, no decision had to be made on whether to seek the death penalty until thirty days after arraignment, but this was the Hangman they were going after, and it was an election year, so the hope of the state attorney was that a rope would please the people. That’s why he opted immediately for death instead of life without parole.

Upping the ante.

Fed to Fed, the state’s request to extradite Ethan was made to Ottawa by Washington, D.C. A little federal wheeling and dealing went on, most of it centered on a cop killer Canada wished extradited from North Dakota, and this culminated in a meeting of under-the-table minds. A copy of the arrest warrant from Washington State and a request by America under the Extradition Act for a provisional arrest warrant in Canada were faxed to the federal Department of Justice in Vancouver, where they were passed to Lyndon Wilde, QC, for action.

Because Monday was a holiday in both countries, for Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans’ Day in the States, today was the first opportunity for the Feds to go to court. Bright and early this morning, Wilde had placed a call to the office of Nervous Nellie Barker down in skid row, but the overstressed and underpaid provincial prosecutor had yet to come in to work. Having left a message for her to stand down the Shaw case until he arrived, Wilde walked to the law courts in the better part of town, and there he asked for an
ex parte
hearing before a Supreme Court judge.

A
secret
hearing in chambers.

A card up his sleeve.

A cab was waiting at the curb when Wilde came out. He didn’t like parking his Saab in the grungy environs of provincial court, so he rode the hack east to skid row, climbing out in front of the squat concrete building at 222 Main, where he passed through security and took the stairs up one floor.

All eyes turned toward the federal prosecutor as Wilde knocked once and opened the door to Nellie’s cluttered corner office.

“Am I barging in?”

“Of course not, Lyndon.”

Nellie was as tense as a stretched elastic band.

“Officers,” said the Fed, throwing a visual dagger at DeClercq.

“What brings
you
here?” asked the chief superintendent.

They had a history, the lawyer and the Mountie. It was a toss-up as to who loathed whom the most.

The roly-poly Fed approached Nellie’s desk to lord his bulk over the provincial Crown. With a bow, he tipped an imaginary hat on his head.

“In my capacity as counsel for the attorney general of Canada, and acting on behalf of the United States of America, I have a provisional warrant for the arrest of Ethan Shaw, at the request of the state of Washington. That state wants him extradited to stand trial on a charge of aggravated first-degree murder, punishable by death, for hanging Alexis Hunt.”

“What?” snapped Zinc.

“Are you deaf, Inspector?”

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“Shall I repeat it?”

“What about the murder charge I laid
here?
”

Wilde tossed his imaginary hat across the office, then replaced it with another one.

“In my capacity as counsel for the attorney general of Canada, and acting under Section 477.2 of the
Criminal Code
, I regret to inform you that the AG will
not
grant the consent necessary to try Shaw for murder on our territorial sea.”

Zinc balled his hands into fists as he rose from his chair.

“Traitor!” he said.

It came out as a snarl.

Wilde spoke to him, but he locked eyes with DeClercq. “Do your duty, Inspector. Execute the warrant. I want Ethan Shaw in Supreme Court chambers at two this afternoon.”

*    *    *

DeClercq, the commanding officer of Special X, had himself lost loved ones to this cruel job, so he knew only too well the emotional maelstrom that had sucked Zinc in. Even more concerning, Alexis Hunt wasn’t the first lover Zinc had sacrificed to his hunt for a psycho, and the last time—chasing Cutthroat in Hong Kong—had cost him a bullet to the brain. It had been doubtful whether Zinc would ever get through that grinder, and now the angry inspector was going through it again.

For the past week, DeClercq had been flat on his back with flu. A wiry man, tall, lean, and somewhere in his fifties, with wavy hair, alert eyes, and an aquiline nose, DeClercq had watched the bug turn him into a ghost of himself. This, however, was too volatile a situation not to keep in control, so, flu or not, DeClercq was here.