Children in the Morning by Anne Emery

His father was a surgeon; his mother was trained as a teacher, but stayed home to raise Beau. The only child. He had excelled in school, had gone on to St. Thomas University and Dalhousie Law School, where he won the much-coveted Smith Shield for the moot court competition. After graduation near the top of his class, he was hired by one of the big Halifax firms, then went out on his own doing criminal law. He was made a Queen’s Counsel and received various other honours. The focus switched to his large blended family of biological, adopted, and foster children. The family was shown in their customized minibus, on the way to the Commons for one of the sports and picnic days, to which all and sundry were invited. Some of his children spoke on camera; others just performed various hijinks in the grass. Then it was the cottage overlooking Lawrencetown beach; we saw a surfer catch a big wave, and heard squeals of appreciation from the Delaney kids. The next segment dealt with Delaney’s efforts to balance his life and work. Beau and Peggy answered reporter Charlene Fay’s questions about the stress and even danger that are part of life for a big-time defence lawyer.
    “Beau, it’s well known that you received death threats following your defence of Adam Gower, the man who committed the Gary’s General Store robbery, in which one young clerk, Scott Hubley, was shot to death and the other, Cathy Tompkins, left permanently disabled.”
    “Yes, I did receive threats. Feelings were running very high in the 59

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    Blockhouse area. And I can understand that. Everyone has the right to a legal defence, and I did my job to the best of my ability in that case as in others. That doesn’t mean I am insensitive to the pain of the victims or their families. Or their community. It takes its toll even on those of us who work on ‘the other side.’”
    “You must have been especially concerned in that case, because the perpetrator, your client, was eventually tracked down and killed.
    Beaten to death.”
    “Yes, that happened the year after the trial, when Mr. Gower returned from a stint out west and came back to live in Blockhouse.”
    “He was murdered within days of his return. Pretty scary for you!”
    “Yes, I was watching my back for a while there.”
    The documentary then showed clips of movie star Jack Hartt playing the role of Delaney in Righteous Defender , as he stepped in and solved the murder of Adam Gower, thereby exonerating Cathy Tompkins’s brother, who had been wrongfully convicted of killing his sister’s attacker.
    “That wasn’t the only time a client met a violent death,” the reporter stated.
    The scene switched to a Mountie speaking to reporters outside an rcmp detachment. One reporter asked: “Was there a Hells Angels link to the killing?”
    The officer didn’t answer that, but said: “The victim, Travis Bullard, was shot to death. The weapon was a high-calibre handgun.”
    “Was he shot more than once?”
    “We’ll release more details at a future time. Thank you.”
    Then we were back with Charlene Fay in the Delaneys’ living room. “But they never did release more details, did they? Just that the man was shot to death. That happened several months ago. Sources have told us that this case is still unsolved, but that the Mounties have a suspect in mind, someone who has since gone to prison for an unrelated offence. They wouldn’t want to jeopardize their case by revealing details about the crime in a situation like that . . .”
    “Makes sense,” Beau agreed.
    “This man, Travis Bullard, had some unsavoury connections . . .
    links to the Hells Angels, people say.”
    “He travelled in some rough circles, yes.”
    “And so he ended up being shot to death one night in Truro.”
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    “That was the longest night of my life!” Peggy Delaney exclaimed.
    “My God, I thought,