Blood in the Water Read online

  So Tony is left alone aboard No Pain No Gain, a $750,000 vessel—meaning that if he wants to go anywhere, he needs a watchman. His favourite watchman was Phillip Boudreau. As it happened, on the morning of Phillip’s death Tony was coming in to unload his catch and looking forward to seeing him.

  “We were actually really good friends,” he says, “and every time I come in from snow crabbin’, he would come aboard the boat. We hung around all the time. He’d give me the shirt off his back. His parents were great to me. His family was super to me. Like, they took me in and they would wash my clothes and cook meals for me and treat me like gold.”

  Tony admired the simplicity of Phillip’s life and his lack of concern for possessions. “Some people don’t necessarily like to have a regular 8:00 to 5:00 job,” he reflects. “Phillip never had any wants for any money. He didn’t need a nice vehicle or a nice house or a nice boat or anything, and he was pretty happy, right? He was just one of those guys that never really wanted much in life.”

  Was Tony troubled by Phillip’s reputation?

  “I never judge people by what other people say about them.” He shrugs. “I judge people about how I interpret them. Phillip had a hard upbringing, but overall he had a heart of gold. Two months before he got killed, I seen him with half a crate of lobsters—I don’t know where he got them—and he gave them to old people. It was almost like he would rob from the rich and give to the poor, you know what I mean? At his funeral there was lots of old people that loved Phillip.

  “I actually took the wreath out and laid it for him in the harbour. There was two boats went out, No Pain No Gain and Irish Mist. I took a bunch of his friends and people from the community, and we laid the wreath off the mouth of the harbour roughly where he got murdered, and they sang and stuff.

  “It’s a shame it happened. I try and feel for the other family, too. I don’t know the other people—I just know what I heard—but I’m just a normal person, I work hard, I’ve got a wife and two young kids. And if somebody threatens me or my family, I might do something too. You know what I mean?

  “His mouth always got him in more trouble than anything else, just saying stupid stuff. Like, if the fishermen were fighting out there, cutting each other’s gear, and somebody’s gear went missing, Phillip wouldn’t even have done it, but he’d still take the blame for it—like, ‘Oh I did that.’ Why would you even say something like that? He used to piss me off sometimes with the stupid stuff he’d say.

  “I know he’s done some bad stuff. But there’s definitely two sides to Phillip.”

  * * *

  —

  One neighbour told me that Phillip even stole from his brother Gerard, and that at the time of Phillip’s death, he and Gerard hadn’t been on speaking terms for more than a year. A former police officer confirmed that the two never got along personally, but that “they cooperated on business matters.”

  However that may be, the two of them were speaking on the morning of June 1, 2013—or so Gerard says. Gerard talks about Phillip fairly warmly. He doesn’t think Phillip was any worse than a number of other young men with no skills and no job, who support themselves with a little poaching, some petty theft, and a dab of drug dealing. People often wonder why Gerard didn’t hire Phillip to work with him as a lobsterman. Gerard says you couldn’t count on him. He’d work for a few days, and then he’d get paid—and once he was paid, he was gone.

  Gerard, too, sees Phillip as a Robin Hood figure, poaching or stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Once, when a neighbour needed meat, Phillip borrowed a gun from Thilmond Landry, another neighbour, and went off to Gros Nez, at the opposite end of Petit de Grat Island. There he shot a deer and cleaned it. He brought it home, gave it to the neighbour, and returned the gun to Thilmond. Gerard shrugs. Everybody was happy, aside from the deer and the game warden.

  If Phillip was Robin Hood, then the Mounties played the hapless Sheriff of Nottingham in this long-running farce. (Actually, if Phillip was Robin Hood, we might want to reconsider our view of the original Robin Hood.) On one occasion, Phillip was running away from the police. His favourite escape route was the water, and he swam like an eel. He jumped off the wharf and swam down the harbour. Gerard, who was nearby in a boat, picked him up and put him ashore at a distant wharf. The Mounties berated him for letting Phillip go. “Look,” Gerard told them, “I’m not going to do your work for you. You could borrow a boat and go after him yourself. But he’s my brother, and I’m not going to sit there and watch him drown.”

  Phillip’s escapes are the stuff of folklore and legend. The Mounties come after him, and Phillip plunges into the water and swims across the narrow harbour. The police have to drive up to the bridge and back down the opposite shore. When they get there, Phillip dives into the water and swims back.

  One time he swam out to what was once Mouse Island before it eroded; it supported an important navigational light, so it was preserved as a massive vertical steel tube just offshore. It looks like a huge bucket filled with rocks and topped by the rusty skeleton of the now-disused light. Phillip climbed up on the rock pile and taunted the cops, yelling and capering and laughing. The cops ranged around the shore, commandeered a small boat, and rowed out to the island. No Phillip. The whole rock pile is only about ten metres in diameter, but they couldn’t find him. They gave up and rowed ashore—at which point Phillip reappeared on the rock pile, laughing and jeering at them.

  Robin Hood 1, Sheriff of Nottingham 0.

  Jessica Boudreau—no near relation—is a dental hygienist. Slender and fit, she likes to run, do yoga, work out, and paddle the waters around Petit de Grat in her sea kayak. She was out at sea one afternoon when Phillip roared up beside her in Midnight Slider.

  “Jessica, what are you doing out here?” he said. “This is way too far out for kayaking. Get in closer to shore.” And he hovered protectively till he was satisfied that she was safe.

  Another time he told her, “I was at your place last night.” Why didn’t he come in?

  “You were asleep,” he said. It turned out he was being chased by the police. So he’d driven a little four-wheel ATV down through their yard to the shore, where she and her husband have a wooden deck with some Adirondack chairs. Settling himself comfortably, Phillip watched the cops flying back and forth across the bridge looking for him. Eventually they gave up and he went home.

  One day Phillip hurried into his brother Gerard’s house saying, “The cops are after me. Keep a lookout, I need a shower.” He had a very quick shower and then vanished into the woods again. He would sleep anywhere, in any weather—in a shed, under a boat, in Betty David’s trailer, under the trees, on the open moor. The stories seemed to say that he would sleep rough even when he wasn’t being pursued. No, said Gerard, only when the cops were after him.

  * * *

  —

  Thilmond Landry’s house stands atop a steep little drumlin in the centre of Alderney Point. The view commands all the territory from the Bowser family home to Gerard’s establishment: home, wharf, breakwater, lobster pound. Thilmond knew Phillip well. He would often hear Phillip out on the water just below his home, singing while he hauled up lobster pots—and not only at night. On one occasion, Thilmond walked down the hill and found Phillip sleeping in his truck.

  “I woke him up—I’m tellin’ you, he had a bag of weed, I could buy your car it was that big,” Thilmond remembered. “I mean it was half the size of a pillow. I said, ‘Phillip, get away from here with that.’ Not that I cared about the weed. I said ‘Go hide that somewheres else. Cops happen along here, you’re fucked.’ He didn’t even know where he was at. I’m sure it was for somebody else. You know it’s not his, not a bag of weed that size.”

  Thilmond often found Phillip in strange places. One time, when he knew Phillip was on the run, he was out on the moor training a young dog to hunt birds when the dog slipped away and then returned with a packet of eg
g sandwiches wrapped in foil.

  “Right away it hit me: Phillip’s got a camp here somewheres. So I grabbed my gun and I walked—hey, I almost stepped on him. He was sleeping in the fog, Phillip. He had a brown leather jacket and hip rubber boots. It was that foggy he was fuzzy on his face. I really thought he was dead. He had a .22 right alongside of him. I touched the barrel of my shotgun to his face. And right away he reached for his gun. I said, ‘You’re too late.’ He had smoked a bunch of dope and fell asleep there. And he said, ‘I had some sandwiches here.’ I said, ‘Yeah, my dog took them, they’re down there. They’re all fuckin’ squish.’

  “He was one of the toughest fellows—I’ve seen him jump off the breakwater here. Four cops were after him. He jumped off the breakwater in the water. Well, I was sure they had him. They looked, they searched. They searched Gerard’s boat. And Phillip was on the backside of the breakwater, and it was just as cold as today. And he waited them out.”

  Robin Hood 2, Sheriff of Nottingham 0.

  “Another time I saw four cop cars over there at his mom’s and I had seen Phillip outside not too long before that,” Thilmond said. “I said to Norma, ‘Phillip’s fucked. Look at that. Four cop cars.’ ”

  But Phillip had seen the police before they saw him. He slipped down to the shore below the low bluff behind Thilmond’s house. Thilmond watched while a couple of Mounties set off in that direction.

  “There’s a cross there now, across from Bowser’s house.” Thilmond pointed. “I don’t know if you’ve seen it, a cross with Phillip’s name on it. Anyway, two cops went down the shore there. Well, I said to Norma, ‘They got him, he’s fucked.’ And after a while the two cops come up by the ball field down there, and they were alone. I said to Norma, ‘Phillip’s gotta have a hole dug in the bank somewhere.’ And the two cops walked the ball field till they come to the cape here. One of them had binoculars. And then they walked the road back to Bowser’s, and the four cop cars left.

  “ ‘Well,’ I said to Norma, ‘I can’t fucking believe this. There’s no way the cops—I mean, how could they miss him?’ So I walked around there, it was low tide, and Phillip was walking the shore this way, towards me. We met there. I said ‘Holy fuck, Phillip, I thought you were going to be on your way to Dorchester Penitentiary.’ He said, ‘They walked by me half a dozen times.’ He said, ‘Thilmond, I buried myself in the seaweed, in the kelp. They walked by me back and forth talking away on the radio, saying, ‘There’s no sign of him’—and they never seen me.’ ”

  The Sheriff of Nottingham, hoodwinked again.

  * * *

  —

  In all these stories, Phillip never seems to get rattled or frightened. He doesn’t come off as a grown man jousting with the law. He’s more like a child playing mischievous games, and most people don’t seem unduly alarmed by his hijinks. They regard him as a fact of life, and rather an amusing one.

  ISLAND VOICES

  “There was another time the cops were after Phillip, and he rolled himself up in the seaweed on the beach—and the Mountie was talking on the phone sayin’ he couldn’t find Phillip and takin’ a leak at the same time. And he was pissin’ on Phillip. Phillip was right at his feet.”

  “And my GPS was gone. And I said, ‘Jesus Christ, if I get ahold of that little bastard I’m going to take a hammer and break all his fucking fingers.’ ”

  “I put Phillip in the back of my truck with a long plank. I backed up the truck till the plank could just reach from the tailgate to the loft of the barn. He’d go up the plank and I’d drive away. No footprints, see? If anyone would come, they’d say, ‘Well, he can’t be there. No tracks in the snow, and the door was never opened.’ ”

  * * *

  —

  Phillip repeatedly eluded custody. One time the RCMP came after him in force, using dogs and a helicopter, among other things—and they still couldn’t find him. The moorland in Alderney Point is dotted with ponds and small lakes, so as Phillip saw his pursuers approaching, he plunged into a pond and sank to the bottom. He lay there while his breath lasted, then put his head out and took a quick breath as he looked around. After a bit he could see that the search had moved on, but he stayed underwater till he was absolutely confident they were gone.

  Take that, Sheriff.

  On June 1, 2013, a lot of people in Isle Madame didn’t really believe Phillip was dead. They thought he had swum ashore. They expected him to show up after a while, just as he’d done so many times before. They thought he was probably hiding in the woods. But this time he never came back.

  4

  COURTROOM 3: BAIL GRANTED

  AUGUST 13, 2013

  SAME THEATRE, SAME CAST OF CHARACTERS. Mr. Justice Simon MacDonald opens the proceedings.

  Prosecutor Dan MacRury rises, bulking large in his black robes. He reminds the court that on the previous occasion it had ruled that Dwayne Samson could in principle be released on bail—but only under more precise and stringent supervisory conditions than the defence was proposing at that time.

  The defence has now proposed new release conditions, says MacRury. The Crown agrees that these would meet the court’s requirements, “and therefore we consent.” One of the crucial things is that the accused, except for coming to court, will not be in Richmond County, which includes Isle Madame, but in the Halifax area, and he’ll be under house arrest unless he’s at work or is in the company of Ramona or Weldon Boudreau.

  The judge has a question. The proposed conditions stipulate that Dwayne is to have no contact with a list of individuals connected with the case. These include witnesses, members of Phillip Boudreau’s family, and his co-accused, including Carla Samson. Carla, however, is not only his co-accused but also his wife, with whom his children are living. Justice MacDonald is concerned about whether there is some provision whereby an intermediary can be involved for the sake of the children—“or is that out completely?”

  It’s out completely, says MacRury, and a flurry of discussion ensues. It turns out that the conditions do forbid Dwayne and Carla from talking together about anything at all—but that Dwayne can certainly talk directly to the children.

  With that settled, MacRury sets out the conditions of Dwayne’s release. First, Ramona Boudreau will put up $60,000 bail—$50,000 from a mortgage and $10,000 in cash. Dwayne will live with her twenty-four hours a day except between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., when he’s working on Chet Boudreau’s construction projects. If he leaves the house at any other time, he’s to be accompanied by either Weldon or Ramona. He will remain in the Halifax Regional Municipality at all times, unless he’s attending court—and in that case he has to notify the RCMP twenty-four hours in advance. In addition, he’s to report to the nearest RCMP detachment every Friday between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.

  Dwayne may not under any circumstances be in the County of Richmond, nor may he possess any firearms, ammunition, or explosive substances. He’s not to possess any cell phone or mobile device. He is to surrender his passport, if any, to the RCMP, and he may not apply for another. He must present himself at the door of Ramona Boudreau’s house within two minutes of a request to determine compliance with the terms of the release—and if he fails to do so, it will be deemed that he’s not home.

  Nash Brogan is concerned that Dwayne should specifically be allowed to leave Halifax in order to attend court or meet with his legal counsel. Justice MacDonald says that’s understood—but he thinks that if Dwayne is leaving Halifax, he should not only have to notify the RCMP but also to state where he’s going—“because if they go knock on his door and he doesn’t answer in two minutes, he’s in trouble.”

  Justice MacDonald pauses. “Okay, Mr. Brogan, have you got the cash?” Yes, says Brogan, he has a certified cheque. The judge asks Dwayne to stand.

  “Mr. Samson,” he says, “I have a judicial interim release application on your behalf from Mr. Brogan.
Mr. MacRury has looked it over and is satisfied that it has sufficient restrictions and containment to ensure that the provisions of Section 515 of the Criminal Code are covered.”

  He reads out the restrictions so that the record will show that Dwayne has heard them and accepted them. He notes that if Dwayne wished to communicate in any way with any of the listed individuals, he would need a court order. He’s allowed to go to work, but “when I say you’re released to go to work, that means directly to work and directly home, and not to be hanging around Tim Hortons or restaurants like that.

  “Finally, I want to say to you, Mr. Samson, that if you breach any of these terms of release you could end up back in jail until the matter is over with. Do you understand?”

  Dwayne does understand, and he also accepts the terms of the release.

  “Okay,” says MacDonald. “I’m going to adjourn this matter to your court appearance on November 25, 2013, at 9:30 a.m. in Courtroom Number One.”

  And after the necessary papers are signed, Dwayne Samson walks out into the sunny warmth of an August afternoon.

  5

  THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

  WITH DWAYNE SAMSON SAFELY stored away in Halifax, three of the four accused are out on bail. The fourth is James Landry, and the Crown is not letting him out of custody at all. The next move will be a full-scale murder trial starring James. Apparently the prosecution hopes to convict him so conclusively that Dwayne will perceive his own position as hopeless and will plead guilty without going to trial.