Free Barrington Street Blues by Anne Emery

they didn’t find any blow, or illegal games, or corrupted minors, or anything else. They left with a warning to keep the noise down. But hell, when you’re on the tenth floor of a downtown building, who’s worried about noise? Stuffy pricks, the two of them.”
    â€œWho were the cops? Did you know them?”
    â€œNo. One was named Tulk. I remember that because my brother had just got married to a girl named Tulk. No relation; she’s an American. But we never saw the plods again.”
    â€œHow were you left financially after your husband’s death?”
    â€œDo you mean, did I just take out a great big fat insurance policy the day before he got splattered all over the pavement?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œNo, neither of us ever bought insurance. We had no kids, we were fairly young. We didn’t want to waste any money on insurance. I was fine afterwards. My salary was good. I sold the big house in Clayton Park and bought a fixer-upper downtown.”
    Mavis was still at her table when I left the hotel.
    I wasn’t a ballistics expert, though I could certainly find one. But lawyerly caution told me that any evidence, whether it was related to my case or any other matter, had better be collected and logged by the police. If it was significant and somebody like me or my expert tampered with it, the evidence would be useless. So I made a call to Constable Phil Riley and told him there might be a bullet lodged in the wall of Dice Campbell’s old office. A bullet that might or might not prove to be of interest in the Leaman-Scott double shooting.
    â€ 
    Ross Trevelyan appeared flustered when I stopped by to discuss the case with him Friday morning.
    â€œRough day at the office, Ross?”
    â€œOh, hi, Monty. No, I . . .” He glanced at his watch.
    â€œI’ll come back another time. It’s nothing urgent.”
    â€œNo, no, come in. I’m just reading this article in
Canadian Lawyer
. It’s about the superior court judges across the country, which ones have been most influential in taking the law in new directions. I’ve been trying to get to it all morning. I was hoping to have it finished before I —” He looked at his watch again. “Shit. My father is coming by and we’re going to the Halifax Club for lunch. Well, you know how it is.”
    I wasn’t sure I did. The Halifax Club had been catering to the business elite since 1862; I rarely entered the elegant Italianate building. And lunches with my father had not been occasions I felt I had to prepare for. I decided to let him cram for his noontime encounter and turned away, nearly bumping into John Trevelyan as I did.
    â€œGood morning, Justice Trevelyan.”
    He was tall and broad, dressed in an immaculately tailored suit. His head was large and crowned with wavy hair that was going from auburn to grey. The judge peered down at me. “Do I know you?”
    He should. I had spent three days trying a narcotics case before him two months before. Well, if he didn’t know me now, he’d know me later. I had filed a sixty-eight-page factum with the Court of Appeal, citing fourteen grounds for overturning his decision. He was a very good judge in the civil courts, but he was inexperienced in the world of criminal law.
    Either he read my mind or he suddenly decided to acknowledge my existence. “Oh, yes, Mr. Collins. Excuse me. Ross! Aren’t you ready? So this is where they’ve put you. Is there a shortage of office space on this floor? I’ll speak to Stratton.”
    His face reddening, Ross answered: “They offered me an office with a harbour view but it was on the south side. Sun streaming in all day. I’d bake in there, so I took this —”
    â€œIs that a piece of jewellery I see on you?”
    Ross looked at his right wrist. “It’s a Medic-Alert bracelet, Dad. You know, for my peanut allergy. Elspeth wants me to wear