Justice Finckler leaned back in his chair with sublime, rotund disinterest, swatting the paper dust away with his left hand, which fell like snow from his copy of the book of clinical records. He pressed his right hand hard into his fat right cheek, force closing his right eye, while force opening the left side of his mouth to expose four dull yellow teeth, framed by his unwholesome pink lips.
There was a buzz from the public gallery, overhead, designed in the old vertigo-inducing style, pressing the observer into ever closer concentric rows of seats, falling in upon the proceedings. To take a seat in the closest and lowest row above the lawyers and witnesses, maximized the dizzying effect, and was not a seat chosen by the faint of heart, or one with even a slightest fear of heights. From the witness box, this antique architectural style of facing and semi-encircling public seating was most oppressive, and suffocating to the witness, so much more so if the witness were also the accused in a criminal matter, and in bygone days, worse of all for one accused of a capital offence, facing the prospect of a public hanging; the concentric rows when full, represented judgment by the people looking down upon him, sitting as furies, more vengeance than justice-seeking; and to the accused, the guilty kind, nervously loosening his collar or tie, those rows, and those blank faces were the last he would see of this life, before the light was shut out by the hood and the noose firmly tightened.
All the railings and seats were of oak, radiated in burning light through the stained glass, depicting scenes of New France’s former glory, gentlemen in feathered tricorn caps, engaged in grand gestures, with fixed noble bearing; the priests and religious, close at hand and of equal if not superior status, shepherding, with silent words, holding invisible staffs, gestures, the sacred text in one hand, the cross in the other or in pendant form, dangling around the neck, without being prime movers; contemplation versus action. Next in the hierarchy were the peasant farmers, the simple soldiers, the traders and woodsmen, or ‘coureur de bois’, lacking authority and elevated manners, but happy and always engaged in productive activity; then completing the ethos of “Frenchmen, a tribe-among-tribes”, came kneeling in parley, in extravagantly agile poses, “Indians”, possibly Hurons, coming to pay their annual visit to Champlain, Chief of the Frenchmen, in his vast fur coat and celestial headgear. The lynx-like visitors were evidently amused with the sketches of birds and flowers on the tapestries, on the walls of the Chief’s quarters, while a sister and priest three doves overhead, seemed to be engaged is an imaginary process of painting or drawing, symbolically, inculcating the arts of creation and enterprise, to the noble savages, in this case perhaps showing them how to prepare the red and yellow colours with which to paint their ornaments. Other savages, standing more aloof, played at heroes of antiquity, no allegory more beautiful; the craftsman of this glass work had embodied the metaphor of an artist instructed by nature, who could scarcely imagine anything more picturesque than Indians in awe at the wonders of the West.
Three successive courthouses were built on this site in 1651, 1804 and the current or Palais de Justice de Quebec in 1887, fully redesigned with the symbols of the new regime in 2025. The Fleur de Lys, the perennial symbol both of the French monarchy and post revolution of his people in New France, who had survived the conquest of 1759, which symbol was draped now by the omni-present rainbow, the chiseled words of stone,“fierte” or “Pride” and “je me souviens”. The clock tower, which had somehow survived the new order, was the most impressive element of the old Second Empire design by Eugène-Étienne Taché.
“Your pronouns counsel,” belted Finckler, like an angry bear. Counsel for the Plaintiff was Kevin Montemuro, a former Olympic wrestler, turned pro-wrestler, turned lawyer, who after 20 years still knew more about wrestling than of the law. In the Pantheon of lawyers, those who could consistently be relied on to know the least, were the Plaintiff-side personal injury bar, of which Montemuro was a stunning example, one who could still always count on the judge to save his client from his beaming incompetence, cavernous ego, careless or indifferent use of language or general pattern of neglect.
“I rise to stand,” sang Montemuro. “My pronouns are He and Him, Justice”, rising and indeed standing dramatically, extending both arms outwards to give his gown wings, then floating down as if arriving by parachute, then turning to smile at the jury.
“And you Caron,” growled Finckler, with familiarity. JP rose slowly, pulling his glasses down to his nose, to allow him to peak over them as he purred, “I am a he, as you know, Justice.”
“You know the form, use it.”
“Certainly… old habits die hard, Justice,” JP smiled as he sat down, next to his second seat this day, Harpreet, a sharply cut east Asian female, straight black haired, eagle eyed, no beauty but a good thinker, which JP liked. Finckler took the opportunity to pick some wax from his right ear and flick it to his side, as if he were alone in his chamber, which to his way of relating to the world, he was. “Did you see that?” Harpreet whispered, with a look of disgust.” JP leaned his head in slightly, “Yes, ignore it.”
JP was covering the first day of this personal injury trial for his senior partner, Derek Spieker, KC, twice former president of the Bar Association, owner of a converted trawler, now the biggest yacht at the Lower Canada Yacht club, lover of fine wine, and marrying his paralegals (3 times) and calling endless meetings to discuss, once again, the same topic he had failed entirely to grasp at the previous meeting. As with many successful lawyers, a C grade in law school, combined with a good business sense, and utter shamelessness, were the keys to success. Spieker would show up at hospitals and rehab centres with boxes of Thai food, and ask to see the fresh quads and paraplegics. Such transparency had the opposite effect a decent person would have expected: it was entirely successful in generating innumerable friends among the doctors, nurses and therapists of these institutions, countless referrals from the “fresh meat”; millions in catastrophic injury settlement revenue, and a quite undeserved reputation as a man who “cared.” Making money is of course easy, if that is all you want to do. His latest trophy bride, 20 years his junior, worked as a paralegal, but mostly contributed to a high staff turnover rate; she invariably arrived late, left early, but never too early to fail to show off to the underpaid staff her latest prize, most recently a new $5,000 neckless, from the proceeds of the last settlement. Her spring trip to Palm Springs with Derek and their one son, Connor, had been disappointing as they has forgotten to bring Connor’s meds. He was quite evidently spectrum autistic.
Spieker was delayed by bad weather, and his yacht-monstrosity would be docking anytime, but too late to catch Montemuro’s opening address. JP would brief Derek on what he had missed, and then bid Finckler and this wretched case adieu.
Plaintiff counsel rose to address the eight members of the jury, of mixed races and genders, which from the blank looks on their faces suggested perfect fodder for Montemuro’s brand of stinking rhetorical chum:
Persons of the Jury. Imagine that you are 22 years of age. You are non-binary. My client’s pronouns are she/her. You’ve put in four hard years working as a junior manager in a shoe store. You plan to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree part time, and eventually become manager and rise in the company. You are about to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing: being successful entrepreneur. School starts in about 10 days. It’s a beautiful August day. You’re in your car, driving to go pick up some supplies at a shopping centre. As you drive forward on that day you think everything is going perfectly well, I’m in control of my life, I’m ready to tackle the world.
And yet in the next instant that all changes. You are stopped at a red light, minding your own business. But the driver behind you, who is not paying attention, doing who knows what but certainly not paying attention to the road ahead, crashes into you. You hear the screech of rubber, you feel and hear an explosion; your car is struck, sending you rocketing forward into the car ahead of you. The driver who hit you clearly had a choice to make: pay attention to the road and do what you should do when you’re driving or do other things that end up causing who knows what degree of damage to people like Stella Pierce. That choice was made by the defendant, Mr. Carson sitting over there.
JP looked over at their client in the row of seats behind him. Paul Carson was a middle aged man, an auto mechanic by trade; he was perhaps 45, in a brown tweed jacket, teal shirt with an open collar. He was clean shaven, but his dark completion and an almost complete lack of sleep, left him looking like he had a 5 o’clock shadow by 10 am. Worse still was the look of white terror in his blood shot eyes, and the bead of sweat rolling down his left cheek that made him look as guilty as sin. He was not accused of a capital offence, but still, in the hands of Montemuro, he did face huge personal and financial loses if the Plaintiff’s lawyer got his way, including the loss of his house, his job, his family, and worse – but not the noose, unless he chose to put his head in one.
Montemuro went on:
The actions of the Defendant have cost Stella Pierce dearly, and that’s why we’re here. Although you’re not aware of it at that moment that your life has changed forever, because that driver that crashed into you was doing something more important than keeping his eye on the road. ...we are here today to ask for your help. We are in this together... Stella would much rather have had the defendant accept responsibility and allow her to have her life as it was before the accident.
A funny thing happens in these lawsuits. Stella will tell you her story and then the defence lawyer will suddenly start asking questions about her past. You may be asking yourself why do you need to know about Stella’s past anyway? She isn’t on trial here. You may be asking yourself and thinking to yourself: Why is this past important? If Stella was happy and healthy before the Accident, why do we have to hear about what she did in school, look into her private medical records, into her personal life, the private intimate times she spent with her caring partner? Why?
She also needs to be compensated for her moral damages as a non-binary person. You may be asking, why moral damages? Stella will tell you that after the Accident, when she was writhing in pain, the defendant approached her car and used angry homophobic language! This was another choice he made. And Stella is entitled to be compensated for that in according with the Hate Speech laws of this province.
I have to warn you about the way these cases are sometimes defended. Perhaps this case will be different and the defendant’s lawyer, Mr. Spieker … sorry I mean Mr. Caron sitting there, it doesn’t matter … defence lawyers are defence lawyer…. Maybe this time they will take the high road. But sometimes lawyers for defendants try to distract juries from the real issues. Sometimes defence lawyers hope that by bringing up past injuries or by asking hundreds of questions on side issues, about their lifestyles, about their personal relationships, and their genders, they can uncover some inconsistency, lack of memory or forgetfulness to make a plaintiff look like they are perhaps unreliable, thus fooling a jury into thinking that she is not deserving or to be trusted. I hope that won’t happen here because Stella does not deserve that. She is entitled to be believed.
Montemuro’s personal reference to Caron and whether he would take the “high road” was clearly objectionable, but Caron let it go. Finckler would never let him interrupt an opening statement.
... I should also be fair and warn you that the defence hired investigators to spy on Stella. When you understand the nature and seriousness of her injuries you may ask yourself: what was the point? These investigators videotaped Stella going about her normal life. Sometimes the defence will try to persuade a jury that the plaintiff is someone who cannot be trusted or believed and will argue that since there are no signs of disability on this small snippet of tape that the plaintiff shouldn’t be trusted.
Finckler growled loudly, looking over at the jury, “I hate surveillance.”
“Justice!” Caron shot up to make an objection, not able to hold himself back. “Sit down!” yelled Finckler. “You are interrupting your friend’s opening statement, which is highly irregular. HIGHLY irregular. You will get your chance.”
Plaintiff’s counsel continued:
... you will soon realize that it is misguided, that Stella has endured years -- four now and going on five -- of constant limitation, of pain, of restricted activity and moral damages. The pain has driven her to hard drug use and addiction. You will see and hear her and realize that Stella would not be before you letting you know about her life and what it has been like for the last four years, exposing every medical record of her life for eight strangers to review, if her problems were not legitimate and serious... I sincerely hope that I will have kept my promise to you to present the evidence in a complete, fair, and courteous way. I also promise you that at the end of the trial I will only ask you to do one thing for Stella and that is to be fair. I am confident that in being fair you will give her the justice that she deserves.
“Counsel,” chirped Finckler, “very good, very good. We’ll break for lunch. We’re adjourned till two. Who is your first witness?”
“The Plaintiff, and then we will have to interrupt her evidence with her psychiatrist, Dr. Woo.”
“Very well, till 2 pm”, said Finckler.
Spieker burst into JP’s office at 4:20, having taken over his case at 2 pm. “I need you back JP, it’s bad, really bad.”
“Why so? Just more nonsense from Montemuro. He delivered the identical opening last trial, he only changes the names. Tell him to meet you out back and that you’ll punch the glasses off his face."
"Stop kidding around, I’m serious. A bit early to be drinking!”
“Why so?” JP repeated, pouring himself another glass of Alberta Premium, which bottle had been planted uneasily on his copy of the Quebec Civil Code. Tilting the open bottle, the whiskey poured over what was left of the ice in his glass. “It is required therapy after listening to that pompous ass, and watching Finckler perform another indecent act on the legal system.”
“You heard him, Caron, he is claiming “moral” damages personally against poor Mr. Carson. I had to explain to him, if we don’t get the claim dismissed, he will be deemed a hate criminal, lose his job, lose his home, probably his wife and kids, the Act is clear. She testified she is non-binary and he basically attacked her.”
“Get the case dismissed, Derek, it’s a jury, tell them she isn’t credible. How did Carson even know she was non-binary? Is he a psychic? You can establish her story makes no sense I’m sure. I mean what a story!” JP downed the full water glass of whiskey and filled it again. He reclined, still wearing his barrister’s vest, his shirt collar half unbuttoned to expose his chest hair. Spieker, seeming unconcerned by the disrobing, rubbed his back up against the frame of the door in JP’s office. “Can I offer you some, Derek.” Spieker continued to rub his itchy back. “Oh, Caron, no time for that now. My reputation is at stake here. Hate is a filthy taint and I want none of it. I need your help.”
“Well, we know it’s Montemuro. He doesn’t prep his own cases. Was that Newfie Brassard in court today?”
“What are you talking about? Who is Brassard?”
“Brassard, my friend, is the answer to all your problems, if there is an answer. He is terrified of the courtroom, but can prep a case like no one. He is the wrestler’s ghost fighter. He is the master’s kayfabe. If there is a way to defeat this claim, Brassard would know. And with a name like Brassard, there will be some dirty trick, something unethical, something they are hiding. And Brassard will be involved in it; he will know and with a little persuasion, will tell me all about it.”
“Why would he do that? Why would he tell you?” asked Spieker perplexedly, leaning off his cat scratching post at last. “Because I know where he drinks, and that is just about all you have going for you Derek, and the fact the Plaintiff is a fentanyl and meth addict, and the fact this terrible collision produced barely a scratch to either vehicle.”
“But the addiction started after the Accident! That was her evidence and the evidence of her mother.”
“Well of course that was her evidence, her mother’s evidence, but was it true? Her boyfriend was a heroin addict and drug dealer, was he not? That is not a trajectory for success. Why isn’t he on the witness list? And do non-binary people even have boyfriends?”
“I suppose you’re right,” sighed Spieker. “Stop being go gullible,” encouraged JP. “This case stinks. Can’t you smell it?” Emptying his glass again. “I’ll be in court tomorrow at 10ish to cross examine the Plaintiff and her psychiatrist. If I’m late make up some excuse, say you are getting dizzy spells, that you are a yachtsman who secretly suffers from severe bouts of sea sickness that you have been hiding from the Yacht club for fear of being expelled.”
“Ridiculous. Poor Mr. Carson …. Hell with Carson! I have mooring fees to pay! $100,000 a year.”
It was 6.30pm and Ye Olde Mitre was heaving. The interior is tiny, but JP made his way upstairs to the Bishops’ Room, atmospheric with its dark panelling, heavy oak furniture and Elizabethan memorabilia. And there was his man, at the bar as usual, downing another pint. JP stopped by the pull tab machine and put in a $20, “This has better returns than a mutual fund,” laughing hard to catch Brassard’s attention. “Better even,” smiled Brassard.”
“This seat taken?” pointing to the seat next to his man. Brassard nodded in the negative without interrupting his drinking.
“A pint of the house lager, thanks.” JP looked over at Brassard, who remained silent. “Time to celebrate!”
“Celebrate what?”
“I’ll tell you fine gentlemen”. Brassard was no gentleman, round, short, dark balding and unwashed. He was wearing grey track pants and a matching grey hoodie, with the hood down revealing his short, greasy black hair.
“I settled a case for $500,000 that should have been dismissed, dismissed outright! How’s that for legal services?”
“No kidding? You a lawyer … so am I.”
“Really,” smiled JP, feigning ignorance and delighted Brassard did not remember that they had met, once. But JP now had on his street clothes, and not the vest and gown he wore at their last and only meeting outside of the pre-trial hearing.
“You won’t believe this. And I bet you’ve never pulled anything off like this. My client is found at the foot of some stairs in an illegal apartment. He is rendered a complete invalid, massive brain injury. In a wheelchair, spastic, can’t even talk. His girlfriend, more of a bag lady, but still, she tells the police and swears he tripped on the stairs in the apartment… Not only is the suite illegal, because it’s zoned commercial, but the stairs are completely substandard, not to Code. So we sue the occupier, the landlord for $5,000,000. It would be more but his life expectancy is so low.”
“Oh ya, so what’s so great about $500,000?”
“I’ll tell you, another round, for me and my friend, and four shots of Jack Daniels!”
“Well, the defence is f’d as we say, but the trial was still about a year off. Then what drops on my desk but the 911 call audio tapes, that the defence has been requesting. You know what the girlfriend tells the operator? She says on the tape that her boyfriend has been ‘acting funny all weekend? He has stopped moving?’ She wonders what she should do. No mention of a fall at all!”
“Uh Oh?” says Brassard. “You’re the one who is f’d.”
“If the defence hears this tape, no money, case dismissed. Frankly, she probably hit him with a frying pan and made the whole story about the fall up. But anyway, you know what I do, I call the defence counsel, you know, Edith Chen, you’ve heard of her?”
“Oh ya, she’d good.”
“Not that good. I call her, I tell her, you know, just heard from the hospital, my client had taken a turn for the worse. Luckily, he has been stabilized. But realistically, we agree there is an impact on life expectance. And my client wants to do something for his family now. In the interests of decency, we have instructions to wrap this up for $500,000.”
“Well, she is still going to want to see the tapes?”
“Nope, she completely forgets we have them. She buys my sob story. She gets instructions, we do the deal that same day! And we get our cut, 33% And the poor bastard dies anyway a week after the settlement and the bag lady who probably hit him with a frying pan gets the money. Top that!”
Brassard perks up and downs both his shots with a smile. “I’ll do one better. I’ve got a client, heroin and meth addict, she and her boyfriend are already knocking off other dealers to steal their drugs. Nice upstanding couple. She comes to us after a rear ender. She has a nothing whiplash. Probably not even hurt. Wonders what we can get her. She tells us she is turning tricks for her boyfriend. Well, my senior partner wants to turn the case down…. Ok, what do you think that case is worth?”
Nothing!” laughs JP.
“You’d think so,” smirks Brassard. “You have nothing on me.”
“I say, wait, let me see the clinicals. She is clean. Nothing. No mention of drugs in the family doctor’s records. She got the flu once. I say, ‘Let’s take it’. The boyfriend OD’d or is already in jail, I can’t remember -- but he is out of the picture. Next thing you know, she non-binary, I think that was her idea. We say she turned the corner on a bad relationship and then the accident knocked her wagon over. We have everyone believing her addiction started post accident.”
“My compliments, nicely done. What about the prostitution?”
“I fixed that with the psychiatrist. Personal and confidential.”
“He bought that?”
“He suggested it.”
“What was your fee?”
“Case is still at trial. But my client accused the defendant of homophobic slurs, that was a nice touch, so who knows, we will definitely bust the policy limits of $1,000,000 and then we get the Defendant’s house. Nice?”
“Well done brother, another round on me!”
“No, I’m buying. Give me some of those pull tabs. We’ll split.”
Dr. Woo unlike Brassard was in every bit the gentlemen, in his perfect tiny suit. “Yes, Justice. No question, one of the worse cases of PTSD, somatic symptom disorder and persistent major depression I have seen. The pain drove her to drug and alcohol abuse and now she clearly meets the criteria under the DSM-VI for a substance abuse disorder chronic, prognosis poor. She will never work again.”
“Those are my questions,” said Montemuro.
“Cross-examination Mr. Spieker?”
“Um uh,” fumbling with his papers.
“Well?” growled Finckler.
“If I could have a moment….”.
“No need, no need,” interjected JP, touching Spieker’s left elbow. “My colleague merely meant to say that I would be taking the cross-examination.”
“Very well,” nodded Finckler.
“Dr. Woo, you conducted a lengthy interview of the Plaintiff, concerning her history. That would be your normal practice?”
“Of course, very thorough.”
“And you’d agree, any indication of pre-accident drug use, hard drug use I mean, would bear on your opinion?”
“But there was none, none at all.”
“But relevant nonetheless.”
“Well, yes. Generally speaking.”
“And criminal activity? Relevant to her original position? Yes?”
“I don’t know what you are referring to…” Woo’s voice broke noticeably as he began to fidget in his chair.
“I am referring to the fact the Plaintiff was living with a heroin addicted drug dealer at the time of the accident? That was not a trajectory for success in your experience? Agree?”
“Well, yes, but she was drug free. She was maintaining employment at the shoe store. That is wholly inconsistent with a substance abuse disorder.”
“But you’d agree criminal activity would be consistent with a pre-accident substance use disorder, that it wasn’t caused by the accident?”
“Well yes but…”.
“Why don’t you tell the court what the Plaintiff told you, about the work she was doing with, or should I say for, her boyfriend, and I am not talking about selling shoes?”
“But, I don’t see the relevance of that…”.
“She was selling drugs wasn’t she!”
“No, no, that’s not correct,” Woo took the bait. “Her boyfriend put her up to it! He was a negative influence, I mentioned that in my report. She was NOT selling drugs, I assure you Justice, glancing furtively at Finckler. “There was some prostitution, but absolutely no selling of drug.”
“Wait…. Wait right there! Where is that in your report, that she worked as a prostitute?”
“It’s not in my report.”
“Why not?”
“She asked me to leave it out. It was embarrassing.”
“And you did what the Plaintiff asked you to do, didn’t you? You left it out, without any regard to your duty to this court…. To your duty to this jury?”
Finckler’s eyes were locked on the doctor, his face reddening like a heated frying pan.
“But I checked with her lawyer first! He said that was fine, privileged and confidential.”
“It wasn’t me!” yelled Montemuro leaping out of his chair.
“Shut up, sit down,” said Finckler.
“No it wasn’t him, it was him,” said Woo, pointing to the back of the courtroom.”
There sat Brassard, white as a sheet, in the lower back row of the visitor’s gallery. Catching sight of Caron, the white turned a distinct pallor of death. He shot up and ran from the courtroom, to a cascade of laughter from the gallery.
“Dr. Woo, do you know anything about your duty to this court not to be an advocate for either side,” shot Finckler.
“I do.”
“Well, if leaving out critical facts from your report to assist the Plaintiff is your idea of fulfilling that duty, I assure you your time as an expert in these courts is very limited.”
Dr. Woo rose up, slowly, methodically, collected his file and began walking like an honour guard towards the exit, pausing only as he did to stop in front of JP, turning to face him square on. JP, sitting at this point, looked up at him without expression. “It was a pleasure,” said Dr. Woo, extending his hand, which JP was happy to shake.
The Plaintiff was really a delicate flower, dark in complexion, not more than five feet tall, clearly not an agent in her own destruction. Part Lebanese, part Scottish, her father was a heroin addict, had OD’d when she was eight, and her mother had been on disability for 30 years, maintained on relatively high doses of methadone and internet conspiracy theories.
“Ms. Pierce,” asked JP, “there is a reference to you being hit by a truck, about two weeks after the accident involving Mr. Carson. This is in your family doctor’s clinical records. Were you driving?”
“I guess so. I can’t remember.”
“Well, you have told the ladies and gentlemen of the jury you haven’t been able to work since the accident.”
“Ya…”.
“Are you familiar with the term ‘jacking’?”
“Ya, that’s when you steal from another drug dealer. My boyfriend told me about it.”
“He made you drive during these jackings didn’t he, you’d block off the alley while he got out of the car, and robbed the other drug dealers, at gun point?”
“It was a Smith & Wesson he had, I believe.”
“Ya, I don’t like guns though.”
“But that’s all true isn’t it?”
“Ya…,” whimsically smiling back at JP, who smiled back realizing that poor Stella had also had enough of this nonsense.
“The truck that hit you, a few weeks after the accident. That was a jacking wasn’t it?”
Stella smiled back, almost flirtatiously, “Ya.”
“And you’d agree when you were arrested two months later, after the jacking and after the accident involving Mr. Carson, for drug possession and illegal possession of that firearm, that was working too wasn’t it?”
“I guess you could say that,” slumping in her chair and smiling. She then looked over and Finckler and chuckled.
By this point Montemuro had sunk so low in his seat, only his face was visible.
Caron looked over at the jury, who smiled back at him profusely, the foreman starting to giggle contagiously, which caused a resonance through the court room like a wave at a football game.”
“I’ve had enough,” said Finckler, “Adjourned till two. I want your submissions on the charge and the directed verdict,” glaring at Plaintiff’s counsel.
JP looked back at Carson and winked. Carson smiled back and nodded and made out the word, “okay?”
Beside him was a women, evidently his daughter, sandy blond, gripping her father’s arm tightly, her eyes starting to water up. JP nodded back and her. She smiled with tenderness, as a midafternoon ray, caught the stained glass and the room exploded in multitudinous light.
This is a work of fiction. Although its form, content and narrative may at times suggest real people, real documents and records, autobiography or that the work is historical non-fiction, it is a product of the imagination. Space and time have been rearranged to suit the convenience of the book, and with the exception of public figures, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s.
to be continued …