“I have no knowledge of this,” Shawn said calmly, “and I have no other comment.”
“Shawn, you were hired by Florenza’s parents.”
“Can’t say. Solicitor-client privilege.”
“Your office was used as a drop-off.”
“Solicitor-client privilege.”
“It doesn’t apply to criminal agreements, Shawn.”
Shawn excused himself, strolled back to his seat as if he hadn’t a qualm in the world. Haley looked at Wentworth. He smiled. She smiled.
Abigail finished her call. “Sorry, Arthur, the police weren’t involved, so the Attorney won’t agree to a mistrial.”
Cud was back, the gallery filling, and the clerk was urgently beckoning counsel–the judge was antsy.
“I can’t see Shawn involved in this,” Abigail said, “his career would be in the toilet. Let it go, Arthur; the chief won’t order a mistrial and he won’t give you a directed verdict. Anyway, what does a mistrial get you? A retrial. You’d have to do it all over again.”
That seemed to curb Arthur’s enthusiasm. The jury were filing in, the judge lumbering to the bench.
“Abigail, you’ve undertaken to call any witness I want.”
“Well, yes…within reason.”
“Then call Florenza’s parents. I will hold my guns for a while.”
He shepherded Wentworth back to their side of the table. “This could actually rebound in our favour.”
Whynet-Moir’s caterers were next up, four of them, but none had much to add but a young server–she was nervous but soon proved to have been more sharp-eyed than any of the dinner guests. At one point, as she was tending table, she saw Florenza’s hand in Cud’s lap. “When I leaned over next to her, she kind of pulled it away fast.”
“And where in his lap was her hand?” Arthur asked.
“Well, ah, sort of between his legs, actually, and, ah…”
“Yes?”
A rosy blush. “When she withdrew it, he had…I think he had a…”
She couldn’t say it, so Arthur did, “An erection.”
“I would say, yes.”
“You didn’t assume he’d stashed a cucumber in his underwear?”
Kroop quelled the laughter with a grunt of displeasure. “Mr. Beauchamp, please.”
“What did you next observe?”
“I returned to the kitchen, and when I came back a while later, I saw Mr. Brown’s, ah, crotch area was kind of…all greasy, and he was zipping his fly and then he wiped his hands with a serviette.”
“Thank you, miss, you’ve been most forthright and helpful.”
Abigail said her next witness would be Dr. Rosa Sanchez, the pathologist. Wentworth sat upright, aquiver with anticipation. He was about to take the stage, his name would be in the papers. He ordered himself to be calm as he dove into his briefcase for his notes. If he pulled this off, he could win the award for best supporting lawyer.
“How long will this witness be?” Kroop said.
“‘He weighs time even to the utmost grain.’” That was Arthur, sotto voce. Wentworth must check where that came from, probably Shakespeare.
“A little over an hour,” Abigail said.
“It’s almost noon break. Can we pick up the pace? I’d like to recess at four o’clock today; I’ve been conscripted to attend a rather special event this evening.” Wentworth had seen the notice, a bar dinner to honour the chief for his upcoming Order of Canada. Only a hundred dollars a plate.
“Bear with me a moment, milord,” said Abigail. She leaned on Wentworth’s shoulder to talk to Arthur. “You going to this dinner?”
“Fortunately, I have other things to do.”
“I’m on the menu, have to give a sucky speech. Listen, for some stupid reason, Brian wanted the jury to hear the whole post-mortem. Do you really need Dr. Sanchez?”
“What I don’t need, my dear, is to have the jury looking at all those grisly photos.”
Wentworth knew those photos too well. Whynet-Moir’s broken skull, his death mask.
“Okay, no post-mortem pics, and you’ll let the autopsy report go in?”
“I can’t see a problem.”
“And what about the other stuff, serum analysis, the DNA guy?”
“I don’t really suppose we’re much interested in that either, are we, Wentworth?” Without waiting for a reply, Arthur rose and said, somewhat grandly, “Mindful of the pressing demands on Your Lordship’s time, the defence will admit all forensic evidence.”
“Thank you. Adjourned till two o’clock.”
Wentworth continued for a while to look dully at his sixty pages of cross-examination notes, then swept them back into his briefcase.
THE CARNIVAL COMES TO LIGHTHOUSE LANE
On his way out of court Arthur was almost knocked over by Felicity, barrelling up the aisle in tears. He turned to see Mrs. Brown looking censoriously at her wastrel son. Arthur couldn’t find much sympathy for Cuddles, who’d reaped what his hyperactive libido sowed. Better to be a tepid lover than suffer an unregulated sex drive.
Margaret’s remark still bothered him. He did make a pass, Arthur. A pass–the word encompassed all manner of repugnant undertakings. I rebuffed him. Of course Margaret would say that. Then he abruptly rejected his imaginings as unworthy and false.
Arthur was no sooner out the door when he saw Charles Loobie aiming for him like a torpedo. He tried evasion tactics, pulling Wentworth into an alcove as if they had critical business to discuss.
That didn’t deter the bad news bear, who cornered them. Resistance was futile. “I got my headline, ‘Bawdy Poet’s Banana Peeled and Buttered at Banquet.’ Juicy stuff about Boynton and Raffy, keep it coming. Hey, Artie, I’m real sorry about Whitson; my source turned out not to be as informed as he claimed. But I got another theory.”
“Charles, I’m hungry, and I already have indigestion from one of your theories.”
“Okay, but I ask you, why do two Supreme Court justices get dumped two months apart? I think we’re looking for a guy who had a motive to kill both. Maybe you should key on Judge Naught. Maybe he had some corrupt dealings with Whynet-Moir.”
Arthur was minded to brush aside this latest speculation, but Pomeroy’s words came back: They’re connected, you know, Whynet-Moir and Naught…Everything is connected, but they’re especially connected.
“I found out they knew each other since law school,” Loobie said. “There’s a pattern, both those guys were flung into the drink. No weapons, same MO.”
“Interesting, Charles, but that and a dill pickle don’t make a sandwich.”
“This is off record, you guys, but when I was covering the Naught trial, one of the cops told me off record Naught was being investigated for frequenting high-end pros like Minette Lefleur.”
“All the more reason why he may have taken his own life.”
“When he died, so did the file.”
“And how does all this relate to Whynet-Moir?”
“I got a deep gut sense those two deaths mesh. Maybe Whynet-Moir was blackmailing him, or maybe the reverse; maybe they each put out a contract on the other.” A lowered voice: “Try this on for size, Artie–maybe Raffy personally rubbed him out.”
Arthur would prefer proof over gut sense, but no harm exploring this latest dubious theory. Again he wondered at Loobie’s persistence in directing traffic for the defence. Time and again he’d sent them down blind trails.
“Order a transcript of Naught’s inquest, would you, Wentworth, then brief me on it. And take Charles to lunch at the El Beau Room.”
Loobie agreed to meet him there. Wentworth went off to change, paused in his tracks, returned to Arthur. “I’m in pretty solid with Minette Lefleur.”
Arthur recalled him mentioning he’d won her bawdy-house case, his first trial. “Of course, I’d almost forgotten. Excellent. When you have a moment, you might go over her account with her.”
“When I have a moment…”
“How about this ev
ening if you have nothing on?”
Wentworth looked woefully at his heavy briefcase but took a deep breath and hastened away. A little hard work never hurt anyone, that’s what Arthur believed. He spied Cud sidling toward him, seeking attention, and he escaped into an elevator.
He took lunch in the Law Courts Inn, joining a couple of judges of long acquaintance, Ken Singh and Bertha Rudweiler, both of whom felt he’d overreached with his sniping at Kroop.
“Lay off him, Arthur,” said Rudweiler, an ill-tempered appeal judge better known to the bar as Rottweiler. “He’s being feted tonight. He retires this summer, let him go in peace.”
“Yeah, why antagonize the old bugger?” Singh said.
“Because I need an enemy. I can’t get keyed up for a case unless I’m tussling with someone. Abigail Hitchins isn’t even putting up a front of opposing me.”
“Bending over backward with her legs spread, the way I heard it,” said Singh, then yelped as Rudweiler stabbed him in the ankle with the point of her shoe.
“I suspect Abigail is waiting in the weeds for Florenza LeGrand,” Arthur said.
“She must have a shitty case against you,” Singh said.
“Meantime, we are racing to get the chief to the Governor General’s soiree on Monday.”
“I worry he’ll have a cardiac first,” said Rudweiler. “He was carrying on about you and Abigail ganging up on him. Profane language.” The censorious justice went on to talk about her current appeal, the Ruby Morgan case.
Arthur listened with discomfort to her complaints about the “mutinous lot of brigands” who were the defence crew, finished his sandwich, excused himself, and headed outside for a pipe and a couple of calls, the first to Dr. Alison Epstein, to tell her he’d talked to Pomeroy last night.
“What was your impression?” she asked.
“He wasn’t entirely unresponsive. He has maintained his slashing wit. But conspiracies abound, and he seems to be lost between this world and a fictional one of his creation.”
“That’s perceptive, Mr. Beauchamp, but there may be more to the puzzle than that. I may not have mentioned some strange language he used when he was on cocaine: ‘They’re after me,’ he said. ‘I know too much. I know who killed the judges.’ Paranoid utterances maybe. He said all the clues were in his manuscript.”
“Does he remember anything of a visit with Flo LeGrand last month?”
“He says not. He may be withholding. Or some major event or disclosure may have caused a memory block.”
He next tried Margaret, who must be peppier now that the NDP vote was collapsing. She’d turned off her cell but left him a message. “I have just heard the noon news, Arthur.” He was taken aback by the cool, clipped tone of her rebuke over his repartee with Professor Chandra, his quip about election day not coming too soon for him. The phrase was “flip, impolitic, and implied a lack of support.” Arthur was hurt–no such innuendos were intended.
She should be pleased he was dragging the Conservatives through the mud–he’d lowered himself, engaged in the grimy game of politics (for her!) with his blunt hints that Whynet-Moir bought his judgeship. The press had gobbled it up.
He was dolefully packing his pipe on the steps when he heard voices from below, by a fountain around which reporters had convened. “Yeah, right now it’s a work-in-progress, but I’m hoping it’ll hit the shelves for Christmas.”
Arthur hurried down the steps, saw the poet in his poncho by a cement railing, behind a bouquet of microphones, holding a sheaf of verses.
A reporter asked, “What’s its title?”
“The Day the Hall Burned Down. My publisher already sent me the cover copy. ‘Laden with subterranean meaning and subtle subtext mined from the coal-pits of painful memory.’ I’m also working on a memoir about this case, called Scapegoat…”
Arthur yelled, “Cut!” and broke up this impromptu, leading Cud away. “Damn it, you’re not on a book promotion tour.”
“Give a starving artist a break, Arturo, a big publisher wants my story; I got to strike while the anvil is hot.”
“The only poem you ought to be interested in right now is ‘Reading Gaol.’”
“How’s it go?”
“‘Pale anguish keeps the heavy gate, and the warder is Despair.’”
“Nice groove. Hey, what was all the fuss about this ‘matter of great urgency?’”
“All will be revealed.” Arthur wasn’t about to tell him yet about April Wu’s subterfuge for fear he’d put it on the street. He led him past his cheering section, past a young couple holding a banner, “Poetic Injustice,” and back into the building.
“So how’s it looking, are we beating back the forces of reaction? The only honest witness for the last two days was a lowly wage-earner, the waitress; the others must’ve been told their eyes would be gouged out if they saw anything. So what do you think, compadre, what does the big picture look like?”
“The prosecution has drawn the curtain on the literary evening. The next stage will be police evidence, then forensics. The big-ticket items, Astrid Leich and Florenza LeGrand, are being saved for the end. Then you testify. Maybe. Depending on what they say. I’ll want to confer with you about that.”
Cud’s fan base had decreased by one: no sign of Felicity Jones. But he was not wanting for admirers–a pair of rose-lipped cherubim were on the courtroom terrace offering thin volumes for his willing pen.
Within was Wentworth, unpacking his briefcase. “Loobie had beans all to add to his double-murder theory. I don’t think it hangs together. The good news is, when I mentioned Carlos, he gave me this.”
A photocopy from the Province, November 1992. “Teenaged Heiress Jailed in Mexico.” It began: “Wealthy heiress Florenza LeGrand, 17, was arrested on drug charges yesterday near Guadalajara, Mexico, eight months after she disappeared from her Vancouver home.”
She’d been picked up by federal police at a farmhouse she shared with a “known” drug dealer, Carlos Espinoza, twenty-four. Charles Loobie, settling into the press table, bestowed on Arthur a wide smile that sought forgiveness for past sins.
Wentworth pointed to a paragraph mentioning Carlos’s record of three arrests, two escapes, a reputation as a dashing cavalier. He’d obviously had no difficulty slipping past Canadian immigration. Presumably he was benefiting from some manner of cover-up by the LeGrand family. The likely engineer of that was Shawn Hamilton, still on the counsel bench, with his trademark deadpan look with its touch of misery, as if life had dealt him a hard hand.
Time to strategize must wait; court was in session and a young officer was testifying, in the stolid manner taught in the policing academies, as to her “attendance” at the scene of “an apparent collision between a vehicle and a tree.” Constable Gaynor and her partner “responded to a call issued at 3:15 hours” and arrived just as an ambulance pulled in. About twenty neighbours were milling around an Aston Martin and a badly wounded cypress.
Swerving tire marks scarred a driveway and described an S-shape on a lawn, allowing Constable Gaynor to conclude the brakes had been applied “in a forceful manner.” The impact crushed the right front fender and bent the passenger door. The sole occupant was fully dressed and shod but minus poncho, and was snoring behind an air bag. When aroused, he appeared to be intoxicated, and assistance was required to place him in the patrol car.
“I had conversations with several neighbours, and consequently proceeded on foot approximately two hundred metres to an address at 2 Lighthouse Lane, where I found the driveway gate open and one of three garage doors open as well. I was about to radio the major crimes unit for instructions when a motor vehicle braked in front of me with emergency equipment on.”
That was Detective Sergeant Henry Chekoff, unaccountably late in responding to the 911 call from Astrid Leich. More emergency vehicles, crime scene personnel. Gaynor’s account of the ensuing melee prompted images of a travelling carnival setting up at Lighthouse Lane. Two 911 calls four minutes apart, Chekoff sl
ow to bring order from chaos, uniformed and forensics officers meandering up and down the street, getting in one another’s way.
Chekoff sent Gaynor back to the accident scene to help officers loop quarantine bunting around trees and fence posts. “The accused was transferred to a department vehicle, at which point I observed a Breathalyzer test being administered, after which he was taken away.”
“Your witness,” Abigail said.
“And do you know the result of that Breathalyzer test?” Arthur asked.
“Point two four, I believe.”
“Enough to bring an elephant to its knees, do you agree?”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Intoxication at that level would manifest itself how?”
“Slowed reaction time, slurred speech, lack of coordination, impaired judgment.”
“Exactly. According to your telling, Mr. Brown couldn’t even walk unaided.”
“I would say he had difficulty, yes.”
“Double vision, nausea, tremors, memory loss, those are also indicia?”
“He’d be grossly impaired, sir.”
Given that Cud had found his way into the garage and taken the Aston Martin for a two-hundred-metre joyride, Arthur didn’t see much profit in portraying him as too immobilized to perform the basic tasks of murder. But it didn’t hurt to draw from Gaynor that Cud, when asked to produce his licence, dropped it, lost his footing while bending to retrieve it, toppled onto his face in the grass, and vomited.
Her partner added little. He’d patted the accused down, given him the customary warning, accompanied him to the police station. There, a further Breathalyzer was administered–point two three. Cud was booked and shown to a cell.
Arthur asked if Cud’s belongings were catalogued, and the officer checked his notes. “Wallet with eight dollars, sixty-three cents in pocket change, six Tylenol tablets, three Cuban cigars, one peace medallion, one half-smoked marijuana cigarette, and I think they removed his ring.”
“He was wearing a ring at the time?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember seeing it earlier.”
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