Blood in the Water Read online

  As Gerard tells it, James then said, “Well, it’s his last night on the water. He won’t be playing on the water tomorrow night.” Gerard and Linda shrugged it off; people often threatened Phillip, but nothing much ever came of it. James, however, describes the call very differently. He says that he was returning an earlier call from Gerard, and that once he confirmed that it was probably Phillip who’d been cutting the traps, he asked Gerard, “What am I gonna do?”

  “There’s only one thing you can do,” Gerard replied. “Get rid of him.”

  At that moment, Phillip was at the Corner Bridge store, next to the bridge that crosses Petit de Grat Harbour. He was selling stolen lobsters.

  Craig Landry’s wife worked at the store, and Craig often saw Phillip there. A few days earlier, Phillip had told Craig quite candidly that he had indeed been cutting the Twin Maggies’ traps. He didn’t like Carla Samson, he said. Carla had called the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on him, and the local DFO officers had in turn told Phillip that Carla wanted his theft and vandalism stopped. The episode had simply goaded Phillip. Whenever someone called Fisheries on him, said Phillip, “I go out and cut their traps. I cut Carla’s traps three times this year, and I’m not finished.” This was no surprise to Craig, who had fished the previous year with another fisherman, John Martell. Martell had also called Fisheries about Phillip, and had lost twenty-five traps as a result.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” Craig said to Phillip now. “It doesn’t change anything for me.” As a deckhand, a waged employee rather than an owner, he got paid no matter how much lobster the Twin Maggies caught or didn’t catch.

  Late that evening, Phillip went home to his parents’ small, single-storey home. He had no bedroom; he slept on a mattress on the kitchen floor. He woke early, talked briefly with his sister Maggie, and left the house around 5:45 a.m. Wearing new green rubber boots, jeans, a sweater, and a black baseball cap, he was heading for the floating wharf behind the Corner Bridge store. On his way he also saw his brother Kenneth, who was going to work at the Premium Seafoods crab processing plant nearby. Kenneth asked where he was off to so early in the morning, and Phillip said he was heading to his boat.

  Fifteen kilometres away, on the north side of Isle Madame, Dwayne Samson was up and on the road just after 4:00. He drove his grey four-door Chev pickup truck from D’Escousse to Petit de Grat and picked up Craig Landry. Talking about sports—the Toronto Blue Jays had lost the previous night—the two drove on to the nearby hamlet of Little Anse to collect James, who didn’t own a vehicle and had never held a driver’s licence.

  Petit de Grat and Little Anse constitute the least assimilated corner of Isle Madame, and the usual language of daily life there is Acadian French. Speaking French, the trio drove back through Petit de Grat to nearby Arichat, where the Twin Maggies was tied to the wharf at Premium Seafoods’ main plant. They loaded their gear aboard and motored off. By 5:00, just before daybreak, they were hauling their first traps on the eastern side of Arichat Harbour. Arriving at each trap, they flipped the buoy lines over powered sheaves—grooved pulleys attached to small steel-pipe cranes—and then reeled in line until the traps rose dripping from the water.

  Traps are laid out in groups, or “strings,” with the buoy on each one identifying the owner. At the height of the season the inshore waters of Nova Scotia are heavily speckled with these colourful buoys; the boats pick their way among them like birds foraging for grain in a recently harvested field.

  In Petit de Grat, meanwhile, Phillip had called Gerard on his cell phone at 6:25 to ask whether he should go to Mackerel Cove and pick up two of Gerard’s traps that had been driven by a storm into water too shallow for Gerard’s big boat to reach. Yes, said Gerard, who took the call on his deck overlooking the harbour. Five or six minutes after the call he saw Midnight Slider heading for Mackerel Cove.

  By now the Twin Maggies’ crew had finished hauling their first string of 125 traps in Arichat Harbour and were motoring around Cape Hogan, the headland that separates the harbours of Arichat and Petit de Grat. As they rounded the cape Alderney Point came into view and they could see a boat fishing near the green navigational buoy nearby. They knew the boat; it was Pete and Julie, owned by Venard “Pigou” Samson. Farther on, they could see Mackerel Cove and the adjoining indentation in the rocks known as L’Anse à Richard, Richard’s Cove.

  “There’s a boat in by the shore,” Craig said in French.

  “It’s probably Phillip,” said Dwayne, also in French. “Just keep an eye on him, see what he’s doing.”

  They kept watching Phillip as they hauled their traps. They saw Midnight Slider head for Mackerel Point, where their traps had previously been cut.

  “He must be playing with our traps again,” said Dwayne. “We’re going over there. James, tie a knot on this trap so we can find it again.”

  Phillip watched the bigger boat’s approach without apparent alarm. Midnight Slider was far faster than the Twin Maggies or any of the other fishing boats. In fact he’d often race across their bows, swerving right in front of them, sometimes waving a knife or holding up a lobster to let them know he’d been robbing or vandalizing their traps. Taunting them, reminding them that he was invulnerable.

  At the wheel of the fishing boat, Dwayne gave an order.

  “Charger le fusil.” Load the rifle.

  Nobody moved.

  “Craig, met trois shells en fusil,” said Dwayne. Put three shells in the gun.

  Craig went below, took the Winchester .30-30 out from under the bunk, and loaded it with three rounds. He came back up and told Dwayne that he’d put in the three rounds but hadn’t chambered any and hadn’t cocked the rifle, so it wasn’t ready to fire.

  “He’s going to get a scare this time,” said Dwayne.

  Craig returned to his position behind the wheelhouse. Then, as Twin Maggies approached Midnight Slider, Dwayne turned to his father-in-law.

  “James, are you going to shoot?”

  James ducked below and came back with the gun. At this point Phillip started his Evinrude outboard and headed for shore. When the two boats were perhaps forty yards apart, James dropped to one knee and fired. The bullet hit the water alongside the speedboat. Frightened, Phillip turned towards Twin Maggies, shouting “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t cut any traps! Don’t shoot!” But James was taking aim again and Phillip steered away, speeding up the harbour towards Petit de Grat.

  James shot again. Phillip’s outboard stalled. James shot a third time, and Phillip fell, shouting “Tu m’as cassé la jambe!” You’ve broken my leg! Craig turned away. “It scared the shit out of me,” he said later. He meant it literally: much later, he testified in court that he had soiled himself.

  “Shoot again,” said Dwayne.

  “I got no more shells,” said James. “Get me a shell.”

  Craig, still looking away, heard someone fetch another shell and load it into the rifle. Then he heard the crack of another shot. Phillip was shouting, “Stop, James, stop!”

  Dwayne said, “Fire again.”

  “I got no more shells,” James repeated.

  “That’s enough!” cried Craig. “Don’t shoot anymore! No more shooting!”

  Everyone fell silent for a moment or two. Then James grabbed the gaff—a long fiberglass rod with a hook at the end—and told Dwayne to steer around the bow of Phillip’s boat so that he could snag its bow line. Once he hooked it he passed the line to Craig while Dwayne gunned the engine and headed out to sea with Midnight Slider in tow. Phillip was slumped now beside the engine. Craig let the line slip through his hands, which angered James.

  Twin Maggies circled and picked up the bow line again, and this time James tied it to the spar on the stern. Dwayne gunned the engine once more. Looking astern, Craig saw why Midnight Slider’s engine had stalled: the propeller had wrapped up the lines from a couple of lobster traps; the traps we
re skidding along the surface behind Midnight Slider. Now Phillip crawled forward with a small knife, like a steak knife, and cut the bow line, further enraging James.

  “Turn around and run over him!” James cried. “Sink the boat!”

  Dwayne rammed the speedboat. Then he circled and rammed it again. Midnight Slider had filled with water and Phillip was clinging to it. Dwayne circled again, and Twin Maggies ran right over the speedboat. Now Phillip was in the water, clinging to the red plastic gas can, shouting, “Stop, James!”

  “You won’t cut any more of our traps,” said James grimly.

  “You’re done with cutting traps,” said Dwayne. Now James hooked Phillip with the gaff and told Dwayne to drive. But Dwayne drove a little too fast, and Phillip slipped off the gaff. Dwayne circled around and James hooked the gaff in Phillip’s sweater. As they drove seaward, Phillip wriggled out of his sweater.

  “Go round again,” said James. This time when James caught Phillip he held him close to the boat—and this time, Craig thought, Phillip drowned. When Dwayne stopped, Craig saw white foam coming from Phillip’s mouth, and when James released him, Phillip rolled face down in the water.

  “Get the anchor,” said Dwayne. Nobody moved. “Craig, get the anchor.” Craig tried to lift the small cockpit anchor off its bracket, but he couldn’t. Dwayne strode into the wheelhouse and brought out a big four-pronged grapnel made of stainless steel. He and James ran a line under Phillip’s arms and a couple of times around his neck, and tied it off. Dwayne went back to the controls.

  “Is this far enough?” he asked.

  “How deep are you?” James asked.

  “Twelve point two fathom.”

  “Yes, you’re deep enough,” said James. He let the grapnel go. Phillip Boudreau’s body drifted down out of sight.

  Dwayne spun the wheel. The Twin Maggies headed towards shore, and the crew continued hauling their traps as though nothing had happened.

  2

  COURTROOM 3: APPLICATION FOR BAIL

  JULY 22, 2013

  THAT’S HER MAJESTY’S STORY, as delivered by Crown prosecutors Dan MacRury and Diane McGrath. It relies heavily on the testimony of Craig Landry. The Crown has chosen to charge the four accused separately. Evidently, the prosecution sees James Landry, Dwayne Samson’s father-in-law, as the driving force in the attack on Phillip Boudreau, and the easiest of the four to convict. They will try James first, and then—having convicted him, they hope—they will easily be able to convict his son-in-law. So it will be many months until Dwayne’s trial, and he is in court today to ask to be let out on bail while he waits.

  Nash Brogan has been listening intently to Her Majesty’s Story. It is now his task to undermine it, blow it up, destroy it.

  Before anyone was even arrested, Carla Samson and the three crewmen from the Twin Maggies conferred with Brogan, a noted criminal lawyer practising in Sydney, 130 kilometres from Petit de Grat. Brogan agreed to act for all four. Nash Brogan is described within the legal profession as bright, imaginative, voluble, and volatile. A native of the port city of North Sydney, he belongs to a large and affluent Irish family whose interests have included coal mining, real estate, and fishing, specifically buying and selling lobsters. Brogan himself earned his way through university and law school by working summers as a seaman on the Great Lakes.

  He loves being in court, loves appearing before a jury, and, at the age of sixty-three, he accepts mainly what he calls “profile” cases—cases that interest him and that satisfy his taste for the dramatic. His first advice to his new clients was to say absolutely nothing to the police. He warned them that it would not be easy.

  “The RCMP are very, very good at what they do,” he said. “When the police arrest you, they probably won’t question you until they let you sit for fourteen or fifteen hours. While you wait, they may or may not have the heat turned way up. If it’s not going to be hot, it’s going to be cold. They may or may not feed you; they usually don’t. When they start questioning you, they will tell you that one of the other parties—or both parties—gave statements and incriminated you, and so you might as well give a statement too.”

  Then, he said, they’ll appeal to your emotions: you come from a good family; don’t prolong the misery you’ve brought upon them. You’re a good person, but you had a bad moment. Tell us about it. Think about your little girl. You don’t want to be in prison while she’s growing up, do you? Tell me what happened and let me see what I can do for you.

  In criminal cases, Brogan explained later, “We don’t look at moral guilt. We look at legal guilt, okay? We look at, what can they prove?” With no body, and with no statement from any of the four accused, it would be extremely difficult for the Crown to prove anything at all.

  But James made a statement, and then Craig made the statement that became Her Majesty’s Story, so both of them had to find other lawyers. Brogan was still acting for Dwayne and Carla Samson, however, and although Carla was free on bail, Dwayne was still behind bars.

  So now Nash Brogan, draped in black robes, is shuffling papers at a table in Courtroom 3 of the Justice Centre in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, fifty kilometres from Petit de Grat, preparing to argue that Dwayne should also be released on bail for the months he will be awaiting his trial. The visitors’ gallery is full of rural working people wearing windbreakers, jeans, plaid shirts, down vests, heavy sneakers—the same garb that Phillip Boudreau wore. The media are here in force, crowding the front row of the gallery: the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Press, CTV Television, The Globe and Mail, The Chronicle Herald, The Cape Breton Post, the local Port Hawkesbury paper The Reporter, and the local radio station, 101.5 The Hawk. Two freelance writers are also present. One is novelist Linden MacIntyre, until recently the host of CBC-TV’s The Fifth Estate, who grew up here. The other freelancer is me; I’ve lived on Isle Madame since 1971.

  Standing around in the courtroom before the bail hearing begins, I find myself chatting with Joel Pink of Halifax, who now represents Craig Landry. Bald, wry, and genial, Pink is a legendary criminal lawyer. In the most celebrated of his sixty-odd murder trials, he defended John Alexander MacKenzie of Antigonish, the killer of three people who had been tormenting him for years. The Crown’s evidence was overwhelming, and MacKenzie had even confessed. Pink took the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, where he won MacKenzie an acquittal.

  Pink is the co-author of From Crime to Punishment, currently in its eighth edition, “the most comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to criminal law and criminal procedure now available in Canada.” He is the son of a noted lawyer, a father of lawyers, the brother of the executive director of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, of which Joel himself has been the president. In all, there are nine lawyers in his immediate family. Joel Pink is probably the only criminal lawyer whom many Nova Scotians would instantly recognize on TV.

  It was Joel Pink who advised Craig Landry to give his vivid account of Phillip Boudreau’s murder, and Joel now tells me that Phillip’s body has still not been found. As we speak, a flotilla of search boats is out looking for it with underwater cameras, divers, sonar—everything in the floating forensic toolbox. But so far, no body.

  Dwayne Samson seats himself in the front bench of the gallery. He is no gnarled, pipe-smoking, horny-handed old salt. He’s forty-three years old and perhaps six feet tall with steely grey hair. He looks composed, respectful, attentive. Carla, thirty-seven, is seated a few rows behind him. They’ve been together for fourteen years, since 1999. At that time they both worked for an Isle Madame oil company, Greg’s Fuels, Carla as a clerk and Dwayne as a truck driver delivering the fuel. When Greg’s Fuels was sold and its operations moved to the Halifax area, they moved as well. The two bought a house in the suburbs in 2001, got married in 2003, and became the parents of twin daughters in 2005. The next year, Carla’s father, James Landry, approached them about taking ov
er his lobster licence. Dwayne and Carla took the necessary training, put in the sea time, and moved home to Isle Madame. They built a spacious new house in 2009. Trim and youthful, they are an attractive, successful couple.

  Mr. Justice Simon MacDonald enters. Everyone rises, and the hearing begins.

  * * *

  —

  A bail hearing differs from a trial in several ways. The rules of evidence are more relaxed, and some degree of hearsay is admissible. But the big difference is that the burden of proof falls on the applicant. The Crown doesn’t have to prove anything today. Instead, Nash Brogan must convince the judge that Dwayne Samson should be released.

  Brogan has filed two briefs with the court, arguing that granting bail is totally in harmony with case law and the Criminal Code. The other documents already filed with the court include Craig Landry’s statement and an affidavit from Corporal Denzil Firth, the lead investigator for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Their affidavits outline Her Majesty’s Story, and both men will be appearing as witnesses at this hearing, so both are excluded from the courtroom. Right now, Nash Brogan is arguing for the admission of another document, namely the late Phillip Boudreau’s criminal record.

  Phillip’s record runs to twenty-eight pages, the first eleven of which list his convictions. The remaining pages set forth additional charges that were withdrawn or dismissed. The actual convictions date back to 1987, when Phillip was seventeen. He presumably had a juvenile record as well, but that remains sealed. His adult record shows multiple convictions on numerous offences. Mischief. Possession of narcotics. Theft under $5000. Theft over $5000. Motor vehicle theft. Breach of probation. Break and enter. Break and enter with intent to commit an indictable offence. Possession of stolen property. Escaping lawful custody. Resisting arrest. Harassment. Assault. Uttering threats to cause death or bodily harm.