Chapter 24 The Blue Notebook #2
“No – and even if she accepted, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
“Are you sure she wants to be surprised?”
“Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming desire to make love to her. I’m sure that’s happened to you as well. But I’m not exactly going to call her at three in the morning to tell her that.”
“I meant a less… surprising surprise,” Mitch suggested. “Has it occurred to you that it wasn’t the police raid she found so romantic and thrilling, but being hidden away with you in that back room? The sudden intimacy?”
Verner gaped at him, stunned. Then: “Well, don’t leave me hanging. I can tell you have something in mind, and I certainly don’t, so what do you suggest?” He watched Mitch expectantly.
“An intimate dinner.”
“She’ll never agree to that. She’d be too afraid of what people might say.”
“What her son would say, you mean.”
“She talked to you about him?”
Mindful of bookseller confidentiality, Mitch didn’t answer.
“Verner,” he advised solemnly, “trust yourself. Break the law – well, her law, at least. Make a reservation somewhere quiet. Go and pick her up without warning. Surprise her.”
“As in, a sort of kidnapping?” Verner asked, eyes sparkling.
“Something like that, yeah.”
The music teacher straightened on his stool and clapped his hands, delighted.
“You’re quite right – doing nothing would lead nowhere, and your idea is highly original!”
“Er… I wouldn’t go that far, but it does have the advantage of—”
Mitch didn’t have time to finish. Verner was already halfway out the door.
“So, no book, then?”
“Oh – yes, yes, of course. It’s the least I can do. Pick one out for me, would you? No – make it two! Put them on my tab. I’ll come by another time and tell you everything.”
“You don’t have a tab!” Mitch called after him.
But Verner was already walking off down the street, with a newfound spring in his step.
* * *
Mitch got a brief call from Anna, asking him to meet her at the bottom of the courthouse steps at one o’clock sharp – and making it clear he’d better be on time. She was already there when he arrived.
“On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your acting skills?” she asked, without context.
It wasn’t the question that threw him, but the way she greeted him: a distant kiss on the cheek, quick and impersonal.
“Don’t give me that look. We have to stay professional, right to the end.
You’ll understand once we’re inside. For once, we’re flipping the script on this patriarchal society.
You’ll be my assistant, okay? Let me do the talking.
” She handed him the small camera she’d brought back from exile in the Great White North.
She took his hand reflexively, then caught herself and dropped it. The last thing they needed was to be seen together holding hands on the courthouse steps.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Mitch hissed, hurrying to keep up as she strode down the corridor.
“What do you think? Take a picture when the time comes.”
She paused to ask an attorney, reading a newspaper on a bench, where the clerks’ office was.
“I have some news,” Mitch began, while she all but dragged him toward the main staircase.
“Later. I left the repair guy mid-job on the walk-in fridge to come here. He swore he’d be done by the time I got back. Not that he had a choice – I locked him in.”
“I saw Verner. He’s innocent,” Mitch said, panting, as they reached the first-floor landing.
“Did he tell you his entire life story?”
“No, but—”
“Then you have no idea.”
Anna stopped in front of a door bearing a small sign: Public entry prohibited. Open mornings only or by appointment.
She opened it without knocking and strode in.
“Hi,” she said loudly.
Startled, the court clerk slid shut the drawer of a file cabinet that had been hiding his face. His features were long and thin, his deeply lined forehead like a topographical map, his prominent nose rising from the centre like a mountain range.
His smock was spotless. His office was the opposite – a mess of teetering stacks of files.
“Can’t you read?” the clerk grumbled.
“Nice to meet you too,” Anna replied with a bright smile.
“You have no right to be in here.”
“No rights in a courthouse – write that down,” she said to Mitch. “It’ll make a great headline.”
“Headline?” the clerk echoed, suddenly nervous.
“You know – those short phrases in big bold letters that appear above newspaper articles? We call those headlines in the business.”
“You’re journalists?”
“I’d have preferred to make an appointment, but by the time we got in to see you none of this would be news anymore,” Anna went on.
“What news?”
“The late, lamented Prosecutor Salinas. A tragic case – and unusual enough to be of real public interest. People barely know anything about him.”
“And neither do you, apparently, or you wouldn’t be using the term lamented,” the clerk snapped. “Please don’t put that in your article,” he added quickly.
“You can count on me – if I can count on you to fill in the gaps in my knowledge,” Anna coaxed.
“What do you want to know, exactly?”
“Exactly? Well, rumour had it he was a ruthless man.”
“His job was to obtain convictions,” the clerk said smoothly.
“Even when the defendant was innocent?”
“I’m a clerk, not a judge.”
“Did his colleagues like him?” Anna asked. The clerk looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“Salinas was intelligent. Cultured. Demanding. A brilliant speaker and a perfectionist. Meticulous, tireless. He prepared his cases down to the last detail, leaving nothing to chance. So yes, he was fearsome – and feared – and not only by his opponents.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question.” Anna let the silence between them draw out.
“He was always polite to me,” the clerk said at last.
“Did he have enemies?”
“Name a prosecutor who doesn’t? What exactly are you trying to find out?”
“Who might have wanted him dead. From what I hear, the investigation isn’t moving.”
“He’s only been dead a few days,” the clerk countered. “A man of his status… whoever did it is bound to be caught soon.”
“If you were the one murdered, would the killer have a better chance of getting away with it?”
The clerk leaned back in his chair and gestured for them to sit.
“He must have had some redeeming qualities,” Anna pressed.
The clerk shrugged, the vague air of a student bluffing an exam he hadn’t studied for.
“Our sources are always kept anonymous,” Mitch offered, speaking for the first time.
The clerk rubbed his mountain of a nose, weighing his options.
“Most of his colleagues stuck close to him for the favours he could pull,” he said at last. “But nothing came free. If he wanted something in return, he never had to ask twice.”
“Can you be a bit more specific?” Mitch asked, his expression tightening.
“The more important the cases he won the higher he climbed – and the more powerful he got. He used that power to help certain attorneys who, in exchange, threw in the towel before they even entered the ring.”
“You’re saying the trials were rigged?” Mitch asked, his eyes fixed on a file jutting from a nearby stack.
“No – the verdicts were always up to the jury. But if you’ve got Salinas delivering a crushing indictment and no one pushing back… well, the verdict’s a done deal.”
“Were the judges aware of these little arrangements?” Anna asked.
“Let’s just say they weren’t unaware. My job’s to record every word in the courtroom, and I’ve been doing it a long time. Gruelling work – but it gives you one hell of a memory.”
He looked straight at Mitch. “Now let’s drop the act and stop treating me like an idiot.
The second you walked in, I recognized your face.
When you turned white looking at that file”— he gestured toward the stacks – “I remembered exactly who you were. Not a journalist – you’re a bookseller.
I remember your case well. I’m a big reader, and that trial got under my skin.
Fortunately, times have changed, and I’m glad you’re out.
If you ask me, Salinas didn’t need anyone’s help to end up the way he did. The poison was in his blood.”
He leaned forward slightly. “Now – if you promise absolute discretion, I might have something you’ll want to see.”
The clerk glanced toward the door, making sure the corridor was empty.
“His notebook,” he whispered, pushing back his chair. “Funny how fate works. The day before his death, Salinas left it here by mistake. He was always giving me useless errands – asking me to read transcripts out loud so he could jot down whatever caught his attention.”
“The police didn’t confiscate it?” Anna asked, shocked.
“They don’t know it exists. Otherwise, believe me, you wouldn’t be getting your hands on it.”
He opened a drawer, took out a dark blue leather notebook and placed it on the desk.
“Odd fellow, that inspector,” he commented. “Much more interested in the killer than the victim. Didn’t seem to care who Salinas was, or the life he led. If I were in his shoes, I’d have started there. But then again, I’m no policeman.”
During his trial, Mitch hadn’t given much thought to the clerk scribbling in the corner, recording it all. Now, as he took the prosecutor’s notebook, he shook the man’s hand with genuine gratitude.
“As you can imagine, Salinas had more than one of these books. Your case is too old to appear in this one. But who knows – you might find what you’re looking for.” He paused, eyes narrowing. “By the way – can I ask whose name was on the file behind me, the one that made you turn so pale?”
“Old acquaintance,” Mitch said simply.
“Would you like to see your file? It’s against protocol, but the court owes you that much. Drop by tomorrow – I’ll pull it from the archives.”
* * *
“Who was the old acquaintance?” Anna asked as they left the courthouse.
“Mathilde.”
“Your Mathilde?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“What do we do now?” Mitch asked.