At four-thirty Sunday afternoon, Chris placed another call to Jack Adams. The broker sounded clear-headed and crisp as he answered.
"I know your phone will be ringing off the hook tomorrow," said Chris, "but I need to know what happens to Madison when the market opens."
"You need to know, Chris? Are you a shareholder? Or"—he paused—"is this Chris Crane the police officer?"
"I am not a shareholder. If I had decided to pick up some Madison shares, I would have done it through you. You're the expert on that company."
"Don't rub it in," Jack groaned.
"Sorry. What do you expect to happen tomorrow?"
"The Exchange will call a halt to trading in the stock to give people time to absorb the news and decide what they're going to do."
"How long do you figure the halt will last?"
"Not more than half an hour, I expect. The news will have been pretty well disseminated over the weekend in any case."
"Then what happens?"
"Well, the market opens at seven-thirty. If we assume the trading halt lasts for thirty minutes, the bloodletting will begin at eight. It will be a slaughter. It's not as if Madison had any other significant assets to fall back on. Their other producing interests are strictly nickel and dime. Plus a mountain of debt."
"How do I get through to you on the phone?"
Jack paused before replying. "Place your call at eight-fifteen. I'll be on the phone, but Lorna, my assistant, knows your voice and she'll put you through.
"It's terrible, Mr. Crane. Just terrible." Lorna's voice was subdued, almost awestruck. "Jack is expecting your call. Hang on."
"Madison is now a penny stock, Chris. The last trade was at ninety-eight cents. Not even the vultures are buying."
"You don't sound surprised."
"I'm not. Take away Lost Horse and that's what Madison is—a penny stock."
"What about the Peace River Arch play they were hyping?"
"Forget it. There's no way they could finance it. Not after this. It's a disaster. Plain and simple."
"Yeah. I'll let you go now, Jack. Thanks."
Chris was thoughtful as the phone conversation ended. Jack had sounded awfully down. That was understandable in the circumstances. But he was a professional, and Madison was just one stock, one of the many he traded on behalf of his clients. What had befallen the Madison shares should have been all in a day's work to him. Regrettable, of course, but the sort of thing that happened from time to time. Unless. Unless he had become a believer in his own sales pitch.
The trading in Madison shares for Thursday and Friday of last week had been in the normal course. But what about Tuesday, when the hold period had expired? The main branch of the Calgary public library was just a couple of blocks away. It would just take a moment to walk over there and check out the Toronto Stock Exchange listings in the Wednesday and Thursday papers. The quotations in Wednesday's Herald for the previous day's trades showed an opening price of $17.80, a high of $18.01, and a close of $17.93. Essentially unchanged. But the volume! 102,000 shares had changed hands. More than ten times the normal volume, with a dollar value in excess of 1.8 million. Wednesday's volume of 12,700 shares was higher than usual, but not by that much. It could be completely innocent, of course—nothing more than shareholders who had used the tax credit taking advantage of their first opportunity to sell and free up some capital.
Back at his desk, Chris placed another call to Jack, using Lorna's good offices to get through to him. There was a perceptible pause on the other end of the line when Chris requested the identity of the sellers in Tuesday's trades.
"That information is confidential, Chris. You know that."
"No big deal, Jack. I just thought it was something you would know." No use in pressing the matter. Not now. Jack had a valid point and knew it. Still, it was interesting that the normally accommodating broker had clammed up. And he was the one who would know. He had been the principal marketer of the flow-throughs, so normally the shares would be lodged in client accounts held in trust by his brokerage house. Anyone wanting to sell the shares would have to do it through him or his firm. Unless the seller held the share certificate in his or her own name. But that was unlikely.
chapter six
There was no coffin. The printed program, with the same photograph of Adrienne as in the obituary on the cover, made it clear that this was a memorial service, not a funeral. The remains were to be returned to Halifax for burial in the family plot. Chris knew the medical examiner was due to release them tomorrow. He and Gwen seated themselves toward the rear of the hall, half filled with mourners. Chris judged them to be almost entirely members of the legal profession. In the front row a woman wearing a dark wool dress that looked too warm for the late spring weather sobbed quietly into a handkerchief. Chris recognized her as Adrienne's legal assistant, whom he had met while having his unsatisfactory interviews with Jeff Ingram. Jeff was seated across the aisle from her, beside Morris Pettigrew on the aisle. The McKinley firm was out in force. There had been an ad in the paper that the firm was closed for the day out of respect for their late esteemed partner.
Tom Forsyth was looking back over his shoulder to catch Chris's eye. They exchanged nods and subdued waves. There was no sign of Scott Millard. The Harris jury was still out and the defence lawyer must have felt compelled to stay within reach of the courthouse. Chris thought that if it were him, he would have come to a different decision. This train of thought led him to remark on how few purely social friends were there. Contemporaries she might have known and socialized with. The price of her fierce dedication to her career.
The organist finished playing the last notes of a Bach fugue, and Morris Pettigrew rose from his seat and proceeded to the lectern. "Adrienne was not a religious person," he began, speaking into the microphone, "but I know it would be a comfort for all of us to join in singing that beloved old hymn, ‘Unto the Hills.'"
When the congregation was once more seated, he delivered a short and moving eulogy, dwelling on Adrienne's love for the law and her devotion to it. He concluded by saying that he could only speak about the Adrienne they knew since she had arrived in Calgary a few years ago, and now he would call on Ian Carmichael, a childhood and college friend of hers from Halifax, who had flown out to be with them today.
A tall, strikingly handsome man in his thirties took Pettigrew's place at the lectern. "Adrienne and I grew up together," he began. "I first saw those blond pigtails in grade three, and we were classmates from then on. She was always the class sweetheart, and it wasn't just because of her looks. She was friendly and outgoing, and excelled at sports, particularly track and field. In her last year of high school she was the class president and was voted the most popular student. It was in law school that she really came into her own." Carmichael paused as if to collect himself.
"He's still in love with her," Gwen whispered to Chris.
"Adrienne loved the law," Carmichael continued. "From the very first she was at home in it, intellectually and philosophically. So much so that she was the gold medallist in her graduating year. I know that you, her Calgary friends and associates, are fully aware of her love for the law and