THE SNAKE PIT
Arthur left Wentworth to park the Chrysler in a lot near the Pomeroy, Macarthur offices, and as he entered, April Wu was at the copy machine. She removed a bundle of papers, handed them to him. “Mr. Pomeroy’s collected works. It’s five o’clock, so if you don’t mind, I’ll end my work day.”
“Yes, of course. I hope we haven’t overburdened you.”
“There’s no greater burden than having nothing to do.” She left with some homework in a file folder, nearly bumping into Wentworth on his way in.
“Intriguing young lady,” Arthur said.
In Pomeroy’s office, he eased himself into the big swivel chair, put on his bifocals. He needed a new prescription, his eyes were aging. All his systems were aging. Why had he been so foolish as to have enlisted in this opéra bouffe? He’d just been getting into the trial, a little bit, when he pulled that gaffe, the nadir of a taxing day pulling teeth from the West Coast patriciate. He sighed. Quod incepimus conficiemus; what we have begun we shall finish.
He flipped through the pages April had assembled. Some were marked up with edits. Here was Detective Sergeant Hank Chekoff making Swiss cheese of Rosy, whoever she was. Cud Brown was woven prominently into the story. The hero seemed to be snooty Lance Valentine, surely the nom de guerre of Pomeroy himself.
Arthur spun his chair to the window. A late afternoon deluge was washing pigeon excreta from the statue of Gassy Jack, Gastown’s guzzling founder. Scaffolding rising around Maple Tree Square, the quarter getting a facial for the Olympics. Cars clogging the five streets that joined here, fleeing the inner city, honking and braking, reminding him of where he’d rather be.
He must call home, check on Nick. Try to get through to Margaret on her cell, wherever she is, in Shelter Bay or Oyster Beach or Gypsy’s Landing. But he was in too black a mood to talk to anyone.
“I’ll kill Loobie!” A bellow that elicited a startled yelp from behind him, Wentworth, who’d just walked in. “That idiot and his harebrained theories.”
“Actually, on the whole you did a masterful–”
“I blew it!” That was accompanied by a trumpet blast from below, a quintet warming up. It galled the more that Arthur had goofed in front of this groupie, who demanded a consistent level of genius from the old wheezer.
The opening bars of a Bach fugue from his briefcase. His cellphone, another of the devil’s devices–he’d taken it out of mothballs for the trial. It was his ex-son-in-law, ensconced in Blunder Bay until Arthur’s return. “I’m doing some quality time with Nick. Everything’s moving along slick at the old homestead; those woofers are right on the beam. By the way, Nick likes to hang around one of them, Lavinia. Should I worry?”
“Teenage crush. He enjoys her kidding.”
“You sure she’s not loose? A lot of these East European women are. Anyway, we’re getting along hooper-dooper. Nick is helping with Margaret’s campaign, handling the computer traffic or something.” He hadn’t much more to say, but Arthur was relieved his worries weren’t compounded by disasters at home.
He pressed the off button, fiddled with the phone. “How do you get your messages on this thing?” He flipped it to Wentworth, who pressed a button, listened, handed it back. “I’d like you to study the autopsy report, absorb it.” Wentworth fled.
Bob Stonewell. “Wondering about my jitney. Just checking, no reason to be concerned. Part of the service.” Presumably that meant there was indeed reason to be concerned. Arthur will check the tires, the brake fluid.
Dr. Alison Epstein, who seemed agreeable to discussing her patient–with a lawyer, in confidence. “The matter has gone beyond doctor-patient privilege, Mr. Beauchamp.”
He called back immediately, found her at her office. After pleasantries, she turned grave. “I’m extremely concerned about him; he isn’t adjusting to treatment.”
“For what exactly is he being treated?”
“Let’s call it a severe substance-induced delirium.”
The etiology of his near-psychotic state had to do with an intense feeling of being wronged, by his wife, by the divorce court, cheated out of his children. He loved them, but was morbidly fixated on Caroline, an obsession Epstein found troubling.
“It was a very intense two decades of marriage. They’re both highly intellectual, and rather arrogant about it. They competed about everything, argued each other to a standstill over philosophy, art, literature; they played word games, competed at tennis, even birding. They competed at sex–Caroline wasn’t without lovers. And latterly they competed about writing. And Caroline won that competition.”
Thus the latest obsession, starring Lance Valentine.
“I don’t claim to have some vast, penetrating insight into him, Mr. Beauchamp. He’s the most enigmatic patient I’ve ever encountered.”
They promised to keep in touch.
A final recorded message was patiently waiting. “Sorry, I missed you, darling. I’ll call again.” She sounded down, not her effervescent self.
He shut the door. It was already dark outside, rain sheeting against the window, a lone pigeon flapping off for cover, souvenir shops closing up, restaurants opening. Another blare from beneath the floorboards.
Margaret answered right away, to background chatter and music. “Where are you?” he asked.
“At the grand opening of the Duncan Doughnuts Diner. Free coffee and twizzlers. There’s a hundred people here. In two minutes I’m off to Cowslip to have more coffee and nibbles, with the United Church minister, very important guy there, then I’m speaking to the Save Our Estuary dinner in Floodwater. I’m getting fat.”
“Nonsense, you looked gorgeous on TV.”
“A new poll gets released tonight. I’m sure I lost points after the all-candidates. I blew it.”
An echo of Arthur’s own plight. “I saw a clip and thought you were masterful.”
“I botched the offshore fishing quota and added a billion to defence spending.” It pained him that she was so strained, so stiff upper lip. “How was your day, Arthur? Sec.”
A pause to shake a hand or two, affording him a chance to devise an answer. He shouldn’t burden her with his own foot shot, shouldn’t depress her further, not with the election only a week away. “How good to meet you both,” he overheard. “And isn’t that a sweet dress. Three and a half? What a big girl.” How does she manage not to go batty?
“Sorry, Arthur, I’ve got to scoot. You’re bearing up?”
“No complaints, my love.”
Cellular kisses. He pocketed the phone and opened the door to find Wentworth like a lonesome dog waiting to be let in. “What do I do after I absorb the pathologist’s report?”
“I want you to do the autopsy. Some of the other forensics while you’re at it, the substance analyses.”
Wentworth’s Adam’s apple became active in his struggle to find words. “You want me to do them.”
“I need to concentrate on getting Cud into that steam room with Florenza.”
“Excuse me, I’m to actually cross-examine them?”
“No, you’re to take them to the playground and climb the monkey bars. When are we hearing from them?”
“The pathologist is tomorrow afternoon,” he said faintly. “Ah, Mr. Beauchamp…Arthur…you mentioned that you wanted me to visit Pomeroy this evening, and, ah…”
“I’ll see Pomeroy.” It was long overdue.
Wentworth declined a dinner invitation and instead phoned for a pizza and got busy. Raincoat, briefcase, car keys, Arthur made sure he had everything. He was almost outside when Wentworth raced up with his umbrella.
“Wait, I’ll make a copy of tomorrow’s witness list.” Before doing so, Wentworth removed a page still in the copier, glanced at it, frowned. “First I’ve seen of this.”
Arthur read it over his shoulder, a scene featuring Lance Valentine, a Doberman named Heathcliff, a guard named Rashid, and Florenza LeGrand–a sitting room tête-à-tête missing from the material April had handed him.
I had dosed the custard with this new product that stops your heart; they can’t detect it. All Cudworth did was dump the body. This seemed the author’s attempt at drollery. More interesting was a reference to Carlos the Mexican.
“Run off another copy. Let’s find out if there’s a Carlos in her past.” Florenza’s drug-dealing Mexican lover of many years ago?
Wentworth made a note.
At his club, Arthur took tea in the lounge so he could make some calls and catch the news. He first tried Stoney, who was either not home or not answering. Arthur’s worries might be for nothing, he’d had a garage man look under the hood, everything was topped up. He left a message on Dr. Epstein’s service inquiring whether Pomeroy had ever mentioned a visit to Château LeGrand, then connected with Hollyburn Hall to announce his coming. He turned his attention to the big wall TV and the six o’clock news.
On a sofa nearer the set, two bald heads, old gaffers into the brandy, one hard of hearing but loud of voice, the other shouting into his ear. “Send more troops, that’s the answer.” An item on Afghanistan. “You wouldn’t get me near that place.” AIDS in Uganda. “By-election coming up.” Cowichan and the Islands.
“What?”
“By-election!”
“Where?”
“Jack Boynton’s old seat!”
“Who?”
“Jack Boynton!”
“Thought he died.”
As a result of this cannonade, Arthur missed the latest poll numbers. When the shouter paused for breath, a talking head was finally audible. “…perhaps lacks the right cachet for this rural riding, a Vancouver labour lawyer who only recently moved to Cowichan.”
The interviewer: “So it does appear the Left is coalescing around the Greens.”
“Yes, Jim, around Margaret Blake, who has run a strong rookie campaign.” A shot of Margaret shaking hands on a fishing dock.
“Nice legs!” The shouter.
“Extremist. Wants to turn off the gas pumps.”
“World’s changing! You got the hippie generation running things now!”
“Women’s libbers.”
Jim and the pundit were drowned out, but Arthur saw a graphic of the poll: Margaret was now seven points ahead of the parachuting labour lawyer, four points behind O’Malley, almost within the margin of error. He didn’t know whether to be glad or appalled. Glad for Margaret, ecstatic for her, sorry for himself. The last time he argued a case in Ottawa it had been forty below…
“Next up, the opening day of a murder trial at which a top Vancouver investment analyst was accused of being a party to a failed business deal…”
Arthur was out the door.
Dreading that the clutch, gears, or drive shaft might go at any moment, he clung to the right lane of narrow Lions Gate, conquered the span’s summit, tested the brakes on the decline. All systems seemed go, and ultimately he was spat out onto the North Shore.
On the Upper Levels Highway, as he neared the exit to Hollyburn Ridge, it struck him that he wasn’t far from Château LeGrand, so he descended into the maze of curling hillside streets above Lighthouse Park, finally coming upon Lighthouse Lane.
That was it, from the photos, a many-winged manse that seemed ready to take flight from a rocky promontory. The rain had not let up, and it was difficult to see through the one-wiper windshield, so he stopped and rolled down his window. He was on a narrow street that curled around a tiny inlet, perhaps sixty metres wide–Astrid Leich’s home was on the other side. A low stone wall circled the LeGrand property, its driveway protected by a forbidding steel gate. A uniformed guard, a dog on a chain.
Arthur went cautiously ahead and pulled up by the gatekeeper, who unfurled an umbrella as he left the protection of a portico.
“Can I help you, sir?” A booming voice.
“Just stopped to admire your handsome dog. What’s his name?”
“Heathcliff, sir.”
On hearing his name, the Doberman perked up, but not in a threatening way. “And you must be Rashid.”
“I am Rashid, sir.”
“Splendid,” Arthur said. “Splendid.” He drove off.
The rain came in cascades under the shadow of the mountains, obliging Arthur to sprint from the parking lot to Hollyburn Hall, three storeys of post and beam and cedar shakes overlooking a frothy creek.
“Beastly weather,” said an attendant who met him at the door. “Mr. Beauchamp, isn’t it? You’re here to see Mr. Pomeroy?”
“Please.” He was led past a reception area to a baronial hall with a fireplace so wide-mouthed as to be a threat to the forests. Fifteen or so inmates of either sex, some reading, some playing cards, a woman at a baby grand performing a nimble-fingered polonaise. All were alert enough yet slightly robotic, as if being kept at maintenance level.
He spied Brian on the lip of that vilest of architectural conceits, a conversation pit, staring into the roaring, spitting fire. With him was a balding, bearded man with a therapist’s attentive air.
Brian’s voice rose over the ambient tinkling and shuffling. “To be alone is the fate of all great minds.” He glared at his companion. “Schopenhauer.”
“He’s so very insightful, isn’t he?”
“I want to be alone! Leave me to my fate!” Brian’s shout echoed in the vast hall. The pianist paused mid-bar, then carried on gamely.
“Here’s Schopenhauer now,” Brian said.
“Schopenhauer?”
“Yeah, you idiot, Arthur Schopenhauer, my guru.” Brian didn’t rise but grasped Arthur’s hand. “Thank God you’re here. I’m being facilitated. They’re driving me bonkers.”
Arthur sat by the pit’s carpeted steps and introduced himself, as did Dr. Oswald Schlegg, who said, “Brian has a flair for the dramatic. Delightfully challenging. I enjoy our little tussles.”
“Tell this dick he’s not getting anything from me. He’s working for them. He funnels everything to them.” Brian was shaking. His eyes darted about. Though Arthur couldn’t put a finger on what kind of madness this was, he could read the obvious withdrawal symptoms.
As Schlegg continued on his rounds, Pomeroy eyed him disdainfully. “The elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top. He hasn’t a clue I’m faking it.”
“I see. Well, how are you, Brian?”
“Boss. The fun never stops. I’m trying to figure out their game. Did Caroline ask you to come?”
“No.”
“I have to get word to her. She got sucked in.”
“How, Brian?”
“It happened because of her.” He closed his eyes, swayed to a Chopin étude. “Everything.”
Arthur couldn’t make sense of this. “I’ll try to speak to her.”
His eyes snapped open. “What happened to my trial? Why am I off the case?”
“I’m taking it on. I’m using your office. I hope you don’t mind.”
“You haven’t let the pigeons in?”
“No, everything’s fine.”
“I hope you can finish it.”
“The trial?”
“Yeah, I had a block, I couldn’t get it past Chapter Fifteen. How far have you got into it?”
“The book?”
“The trial. I can help. I can do some edits.”
Arthur twisted uncomfortably. He had no back support. He eased himself down to a cushioned ledge. Brian followed.
“We call it the snake pit. I’m fine, don’t be fooled, I’m playing along with them.” A waiter came by with a tray of drinks; Arthur took an orange juice. “It’s safe, I checked, everything is fresh-squeezed here. You’re in the Buckingham Palace of recovery centres, they specialize in drug psychosis, the joint’s full of cocainiacs. You get traders, speculators, lawyers. Hard not to feel sorry for them.”
A burst of sparks and a hiss from a cedar log. Despite the fire, Arthur felt clammy. As advertised, Brian was crackers. Arthur wasn’t sure how to relate to him.
“What’s the latest? I have to keep on track.” Brian produced a pocket pa
d, and made notes as Arthur described his day in court, his lacklustre performance.
“I should have warned you,” Brian said. “I didn’t make Shiny Shoes a suspect. I had to pare down the list.”
“Loobie set me on the wrong path.”
“Loobie doesn’t know the path. Only I know the path. Anyway, he isn’t a suspect either.”
“Who?”
“Loobie. But I may make him one.”
Arthur played with the concept of Loobie as suspect. All his misdirections…Nonsense. “Brian, were you ever in Ms. LeGrand’s house? Did you talk to her?”
That provoked a startle response. Brian cast a wary eye at Arthur. “That wasn’t me. Ask April. She’ll confirm.”
“April? Was she there?”
A pause. He seemed rattled. “Lance called her.”
“Florenza has a guard named Rashid out front. With a dog named Heathcliff.”
Brian began twitching. “Don’t talk to me about dogs.”
“You remember Heathcliff? A Doberman pinscher.”
“It wasn’t me. It was Lance. He likes dogs.”
“Who’s Carlos the Mexican?”
“Her pretty boy. Lance wasn’t explicit.”
“Help me, Brian. Tell me what Florenza had to say.”
“Lance wouldn’t tell me. He was sworn to silence.” He looked around as if for rescue. “When you call Caroline, tell her to bring the kids. I want them to know I’m okay.”
This was going nowhere. Something in Brian’s disordered mind was blocking transmission.
“Let’s discuss the opal ring. I’d like to help you look for it.”
Brian hollered at the pianist. “Do you know any Bartók?” In a lower voice: “Chopin, for God’s sake, mush for the masses.”
“Let’s go to your room and look for it.”
“For what?”
“The ring. What did you do with it, Brian?”
“It’s not there. It…it was filched. This place is a den of pilfering thieves.” Suddenly he rose, hurried away, the pianist glaring at him. Arthur followed him up a carpeted staircase, arrived at the landing in time to see a door close. Arthur found it unlocked and Brian within, scuttling about in his madness, searching drawers, shelves. “You see, it’s gone!” He slumped into his desk chair, stared at the ceiling. “The power must not be used for evil, and now it’s too late.”
Kill All the Judges Page 20