Chapter Three – Lessons from the Bench

 The city lights of Toronto glittered below the balcony, a thousand windows stacked against the November sky. Janet stepped out into the cold, cigarette flaring as she drew deeply, holding the smoke in her lungs until it burned. She flicked the ash over the railing, watching it fall like a spark into darkness.

Behind her, in the warmth of their apartment, her father sat in his armchair, tie loosened, a glass of scotch resting in his hand. He was eighty-one but looked sharper than most men twenty years younger. He had listened quietly while Janet replayed the night’s exchange with the scammer, her voice hard, her disgust sharper with every detail.

“Awful,” Janet muttered, pacing the living room after her third whiskey. “The way he—” she stopped herself, lips tightening, “—or she—talks about that woman, like she was a mark on a ledger. She lost five grand — money she probably saved for her funeral. And they brag about it.”

Edward swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching the ripples settle. “You don’t even know who’s on the other end.”

Janet gave a small shrug. “I keep picturing a woman. Probably because most of the bank clerks I’ve met were women. But honestly? Voice like that, it could be anyone.”

“You’re letting them under your skin,” Edward said.

“How can I not?” she shot back, her voice tightening. “They took someone’s weakness, their loneliness, and twisted it. She probably hasn’t told a soul. Sitting in silence with the shame.” Janet stubbed her cigarette in the tray, poured herself another shot, and drank it neat.

Edward raised an eyebrow. “If you show them that disgust, even for a second, you’ll lose them. They’ll stop talking.”

Janet sank into the sofa, her hands restless. “So I’m supposed to nod along like it’s nothing? Pretend I don’t care?”

“You care,” her father said. “That’s what makes you good at this. But don’t let them hear it. I spent forty years behind the bench, Janet. Murderers, rapists, men who beat their wives bloody — I kept the same tone for all of them. Objective. Detached. Because the moment you let disgust leak through, you stop listening. And listening was my job.”

She lit another cigarette and went back out onto the balcony, smoke curling in the wind. His words gnawed at her.

Edward’s voice carried from inside. “Remember this. Your job is to hear their story, not to stop them from telling it. Don’t ask why they do it. Not yet. Save that for the end, when you’ve earned it. People reveal more when they believe you’re on their side. Trust first. Judgment later.”

Janet leaned against the railing, whiskey warming her chest, cigarette smoke cooling her throat. She stared at the skyline, wondering how long she could mask her revulsion.

Her father’s words echoed: Objective. Detached. Trust first.

She exhaled and whispered into the night, “Trust the devil long enough to write him down.”

Janet’s voice shook as she paced the living room. “She lost eight thousand, Dad. Eight thousand dollars — probably her savings for the year. First the bail money, then the follow-up when they tricked her again. They knew she was already humiliated, and they squeezed more out of her.”

Her father’s eyes narrowed above his glass. “Yes. And if you show how much that sickens you, you’ll never hear the rest. They’ll sense it in your voice.”

Janet dropped into the sofa, staring at the empty glass in her hand. “How can someone do that and sleep at night?”

Edward’s reply was calm, measured, the same tone he had used to deliver sentences from the bench. “You’ll have time to ask why. But not now. Not until they trust you enough to answer honestly. Until then, you listen. Objectivity is your armour.”

Later, when her father had gone to bed and the apartment grew quiet, Janet poured one last drink and stumbled toward her own room. The whiskey dulled her edges but could not silence the echo of the scammer’s words: a mistake turned into a payday.

She slipped under the covers, smoke still clinging to her hair, and drifted into a restless sleep.

The dream came quickly.

Her phone rang on the nightstand. She answered, half-asleep. A solemn voice announced itself: “This is Saint Peter at the gates of heaven. Your father is here, but we cannot let him in without payment.”

Janet sat up in bed inside the dream, clutching the phone. “Payment? What do you mean?”

“Thirty thousand dollars,” the voice said, firm but kind. “An e-transfer, sent immediately. If not, your father will be turned away.”

She could hear her father’s voice faintly in the background, pleading. “Janet, don’t let me down.”

Her heart thundered. She fumbled for her banking app, fingers shaking, desperate to move the money before the gates closed. Logic, reason — all of it drowned beneath urgency and fear. She was about to hit send when the screen dissolved into static.

She bolted upright in her bed, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. The room was dark, silent except for the hum of the city below. Her phone sat on the nightstand, dark and still.

She pressed her palms against her face. Even in sleep she had taken the bait.

For the first time, she understood not just the mechanics, but the panic — the terrible hook that pulled a person past reason.

And she knew, more than ever, her father had been right: if she wanted the scammer’s story, she would have to bury her disgust and listen, even as their poison seeped into her own mind.