“I’m a little guy, a shoplifter, why am I getting other peoples’ heat? Corporal Johnson, be honest, you don’t think I murdered that Winters lady.”
But Johnson won’t talk about the April Fool’s murder, not a word, he’s got strict orders. Faloon grows small as he pictures Mr. Beauchamp glowering at him, pissed because everything went off the rails after he’d set two weeks aside for the trial. A horrible thought: the great man refuses to act for him, turns him over to his off-the-wall female assistant.
He has to cling to hope. La situation est plus encourageante. But if things don’t turn out so rosy, it’s the big one, life in the attitude-adjustment centre. Goodbye, Claudette, forget me, have a happy future. Goodbye the good life on his newfound wealth. (Buried somewhere in that sea of gravestones in Cimitière Saint Pierre, guarded by the late Sebastien Plouffe. Bet he weighed three hundred pounds. Died of gluttony, traffic jam in the arteries. Voted Front Populaire. Made Arab jokes.)
Arthur hears mutterings of discontent as he walks from St. Mary’s to seek breeze and shade. This pocket-sized church holds only fifty souls and was sweltering within, and the faces of Reverend Al’s grumpy flock are shiny with sweat.
“I was staring at my watch the whole way,” says Ernie Sproule. “He went on for forty-seven minutes, nineteen seconds.”
Reverend Al and Zoë are nearby, shaking hands with parishioners, chatty and gay. “Hope I didn’t go on too long,” Al says. “I had the spirit in me today.”
Prompted by the settlement reached with Garlinc. No major celebrations yet–agreements must be drafted and signed, the funding campaign must push ahead. Arthur feels unburdened: he’s able to concentrate on refurbishing a marriage and defending a thief newly arrived from Polynesia.
Faloon should be in the Richmond lockup by now, near the international airport. Arthur has arranged with the Crown to meet him there within the hour, via Syd-Air from Blunder Bay. The timetable is tight–he must shuttle back to Garibaldi for another reunion, Margaret’s return to earth. Three p.m., no later.
There’s a do at the hall later, a potluck, a relaxed occasion to honour Margaret. Then will come the delicate first moments of being alone with her. Then the night, and whatever God intends.
Driving home, he frets–she hasn’t been emitting deafening signals that she misses him. The word love speckles her paper glider notes, but only in ways casual or dutiful. Such festering doubts have combined with eleven weeks of sleeping alone to create a suffocating shyness.
“Be attentive but do not smother.” Down-under Deborah. “She’ll need to talk, don’t fall asleep on her. Make love to her like the sensitive New Age male you long to be.”
He couldn’t bring himself to mention the Viagra, it’s not something one talks about with a daughter. The two tablets from Hubbell’s stash will do for now, but he supposes an uncomfortable, throat-clearing session with Doc Dooley is a prerequisite to obtaining more.
Back to Vancouver in the morning, the trial must go on. He must finish his cross of Holly Hoover, then the Crown’s case is almost in. A few minor witnesses and Adeline Angella.
Here comes Kim Lee, pedalling hard, waving urgently, pulling him over.
“Lo-tis prease hoary home.” She throws her bike in the back.
“My God, what happened to her?” She fell off Barney. She stepped on a hive of yellow jackets.
“Happy, happy happen.”
“Happy…happy, good?”
“She solve case.”
Lotis rises from her computer, stubs her cigarette. “Ultra low tar. One weakness isn’t bad.”
Arthur has learned to abide such intimations of near-perfection. He waits impatiently. She smiles, enjoying the moment, drawing out the suspense.
“Munni Sidhoo built a profile of Adeline Angella from Nick’s semen. These are the autorad charts.” The printer clicks and buzzes. “Angella dosed the corpse with Nick’s ten-yearold seed. She’s our perp.”
Arthur stares dumbly at the DNA ladders. “No chance of a mistake?”
“Whoa, get with it. Dr. Sidhoo wrote the book on DNA.”
He sags weakly to the couch, elated with a sense of impending triumph–yet there’s a sense of loss. All those other suspects, wasted. He finds irony. Almost convicted by science, Nick Faloon finds salvation from it. In the end, not law but science determines who is innocent, who guilty.
It was Ms. Know-it-all’s idea, this sifting through the semen sample for Angella’s DNA. He will forgive her smugness, her truancy, her capriciousness, even her revolutionary jargon.
He has one more task for her–to check out Angella’s alibi. I think I may have had a teeny, teeny bit too much at the Wanderlust. Lotis is to use utter discretion when talking to the staff. No stranger must know the defence armament holds such a powerful weapon as the DNA of troubled, obsessive Adeline Angella, who hadn’t been candid with the Crown–Buddy would toss her away like a worm-eaten apple if he knew she’d been Doctor Eve’s venomously unhappy patient.
Here comes Syd-Air. In half an hour, Arthur will be shaking his client’s hand, telling him he has chosen a propitious time to come back. As of tomorrow, when Angella takes the stand, the defence becomes a prosecution, the greatest, most honourable of defences, turning the tables on the true murderer.
It’s around noon, Faloon figures, as the wagon pulls up behind a typically square suburban RCMP detachment, in a town called Clearbrook. He feels fagged, slow, stupid. He wasn’t able to collar a nod the whole time from Tahiti, he never could sleep well on a plane, especially between two honking big cops.
“First thing, I want to call my lawyer.”
“Staff Flynn’s in charge of that,” says Corporal Johnson.
They go through the security door, and there he is, Jasper Flynn, in the booking room, a big salesman’s smile under his bulky ’stache, as if he’s meeting a wealthy customer. “Have a good flight, Nick?”
“Yes, thank you, and I want to talk to Mr. Beauchamp.”
“He been warned?”
“Couple of times,” Johnson says.
Jasper breezes through it anyway, after which Faloon says, “I want to commend you on your reading, Sergeant Flynn, especially the last part, where I have a right to a lawyer.”
“Let’s get the bureaucratic shit out of the way. We got to book you, do the prints and art.” To Johnson: “You tell him how it’s going?”
“No.”
Jasper Flynn shakes his head, demonstrating sadness maybe. Tell him what? Faloon isn’t going to ask. He’s got one thing to say to this copper. “When I am I gonna call Mr. Beauchamp?”
“Hey, Nick, it’s Sunday, let the man relax.”
He’s whisked through the system, Sergeant Flynn granting his right to a leak but not a phone call. Otherwise everything’s a blur, and what Faloon wants right now, more than even a lawyer, is a few minutes kip. But Jasper won’t even lock him up. “Let’s go for a ride.” Friendly, not like some gangster movie.
Out they go into the sweltering day, no bracelets, nothing, Faloon with his suitcase on rollers, trundling to Flynn’s Explorer, which has windows you can’t see into. Then Flynn opens the door, shows him this German shepherd in the back with cold eyes and a low growl. “Old Shep’s harmless,” Flynn says.
Faloon says, “Nice doggie,” and sits up front. “Where you taking me, Officer Flynn?”
“Moving you away from the city. There’s a lot of public feeling over this case, Nick, we want to avoid a media circus.” He pulls away. “Buckle up.”
So here’s Nick, no constraints except a seat belt, perched in the cockpit of this bus, with its kids’ sports equipment in the back and a dog that could possibly go for the throat, a very unofficial vehicle, which means the inside door handles should work. Maybe Flynn wants him to run when they get to a stop sign. Then he’s going to shoot him. Roadkill.
The paranoia keeps him awake as they swing onto the freeway, the 99, heading east up the Fraser Valley. A media circus…Do they even know he�
�s here? Does Mr. Beauchamp?
“I don’t get it, Nick, you make a clean getaway, a big score on the Riviera, and you blow it all by wild living at a thousand-buck-a-day resort.”
That’s why he’s a copper. Guys like Johnson and him don’t understand. Thieves have a different nature. Different aspirations.
“How’s that going to sound to the jury tomorrow?”
Faloon starts. “Would you repeat the question, sergeant?”
“It’s going bad for you, Nick.”
“What is?”
“Your trial. Jury’s waiting for the lawyers to finish blowing wind so they can convict you and get back to their families.”
“My trial…”
“I forgot, you been out of touch. You’re an absconding accused, Nick, that means a jury can convict you in your absence. Last few witnesses are going in tomorrow. Your ex-girlfriend, Adeline Angella, will talk about how you put a knife to her throat. You’re in the toilet, Nick.”
Faloon sits back, relieved that the horseman turns out to have a sense of humour. “I’m calling you on that one, Sergeant Flynn.”
At a cloverleaf, they pull over at a gas station. “Stay,” says Flynn, getting out at a self-serve pump. The Owl’s not clear if that’s meant for him or the dog or both, but he stays. It’s hot in here with the air conditioning off, even though Flynn left the driver’s door open. That gives a view of newspaper boxes. A tabloid headline: “Golly, Holly!” A shot of Hoover walking from the courts, a sexy smirk, like it’s all a big joke.
Though he barely touches the door handle, he hears a throaty rumble from harmless old Shep. Flynn has trained this dog to kill absconding suspects. Meanwhile he’s out there pumping gas with his door wide open, like an invitation. The Owl wonders if the trial’s really going that bad. Maybe it’s the Crown’s case that’s in the toilet.
“Want anything?” Flynn, pulling out his wallet. “I’m getting an ice-cream bar.”
“One of those newspapers would be good, Officer Flynn.”
“Naw, it would only depress you.”
Flynn doesn’t want him to see beyond the headline. This is the confirmation Faloon wanted, this is a setup, this pit stop is staged. This is Flynn’s career case, he’s not going to let the perp walk, he wants him to run, his mauled body will be recovered in the high grass behind the Texaco station.
When Flynn flagrantly turns his back and walks to a convenience store for his ice-cream bar, Faloon doesn’t budge. When Flynn returns chomping on it, he’s unhappy to see that the Owl hadn’t taken advantage of his leniency, and slams the door shut, and they take off.
Dinner at the Clearbrook RCMP is a takeout double patty slid through the meal slot, which Faloon has almost polished off when a constable comes down the aisle for him, jingling keys. “Your lawyer’s here.”
Mr. Beauchamp’s voice comes like rolling thunder down the hall. Then it’s Flynn, his spiel about how he was hiding the Owl from the media. Then a thunderclap: “Don’t give me that blather! You had me chasing all over God’s kingdom!”
The Owl can’t remember the great one being so riled. He hopes it doesn’t have anything to do with his phone call to Garibaldi Island, after he finally got his rights under the Charter. Mr. Beauchamp’s wife answered, weary and wiped, like she just got home from work. She didn’t know where Mr. Beauchamp was. Sounded a little cheesed.
His counsellor is standing just outside the secure area, dressing down the Roadkill Warrior. “Why wasn’t I told? I ought to have you up on charges for kidnapping.”
“Sir, I can’t believe the dispatcher didn’t tell you. We move people all the time in high-profile cases, I got Buddy Svabo’s okay…”
“If you’ve destroyed my marriage, Flynn, I hope you roast in hell!”
Arthur stares out the window of 807 Elysian Tower at the lingering agony of the June sunset. Presumably this tangerine sky is glowing for Margaret too, at Blunder Bay or wherever she is. The potluck at the community hall must be long over. She’ll be relaxing by the beach, on a driftwood log, watching her first sunset in thirteen weeks. That’s why she’s not answering the phone, she’s enjoying herself. Maybe with friends, Al and Zoë.
Margaret will have a laugh when she finds her answering machine clogged, unable to absorb more of his alternating contrite and jocular apologies, his dreary twaddle about the mischievous designs of Sergeant Flynn, about how he missed the last ferry, how every air taxi service was booked.
The only human he reached was Lotis, and the connection was bad. She was on her way–by bicycle or bus, it was unclear–to the Wanderlust, Angella’s suburban waterhole. “I love to go a-wandering,” she sang, her words breaking up. Arthur persisted in the face of her lilting reassurances. Hey, boss, relax a little. Margaret came down safe, she’s looking great. The ceremony was a hoot, the Garibaldi Pipers played “My Bonnie Lassie.” The press loved it, it was beyond hokey.
He finally rouses Reverend Al. “She was having dreams of luxuriating in a bath and sleeping in a bed. Can’t blame her for not answering the phone, this is her first private moment, she’s probably enjoying being alone.” He retracts that too late. “Prefer to have you there, of course, but that wasn’t to be. Anyway, she sacked out half an hour ago.”
“Did you explain why I wasn’t there?”
“Told her you fled out of fear of the Highland Pipers.”
“That I avoided them was the only amazing, saving grace.”
“Arthur, please accept this from a friend. She’s a little depressed. It was an important time for her, and you weren’t there. She accepts that. She understands that this is a critical time for you too, for your trial. She wants you to concentrate on it. She doesn’t want you to think about her or worry about her.”
The warm, reassuring pastoral tone only makes Arthur more anxious.
30
Ruffled and sour after a restless night, Arthur arrives in court a minute before starting time. Faloon’s already in the dock, in natty suit and silk tie and rimless spectacles. Nicholas is not a thug, that is the statement, he’s a gentleman thief. (A successful one. “I got real lucky in France, Mr. Beauchamp.”)
The jurors goggle at the returned exile. Photographs hadn’t prepared them for his clerkish look, a small man dwarfed by the sheriffs. Forewoman Ellen Sueda frowns, as if struggling to see him as a killer. When Kroop shuffles in, he too spends a few moments contemplating this late arrival. Missing is Arthur’s junior, still on the trail of Angella’s alibi.
“For the record,” says Buddy, “the accused has been taken into custody and is present.”
“Do you confirm that, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“Indeed. Mr. Faloon invited arrest on becoming aware the Crown’s case was falling apart.”
That editorial has Buddy sputtering. Improper, low! Beyond the bounds! Sitting too close, Ears recoils from a light wet spray.
Kroop waits until Buddy peters out, then flourishes his water pitcher. “Mr. Gilbert, this is empty.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I assumed the sheriff’s staff…”
“Their role is to ensure order and security. Your tasks are less exalted, Mr. Clerk. While you set about getting the water I will see counsel in my chambers.” There’s a tautness to Gilbert–for a moment, Arthur has the impression he’s a rubber band about to snap. As court adjourns Gilbert walks determinedly from the room.
Kroop rarely invites barristers to his sanctum, and Arthur has never been so favoured. On the way in, he brushes by Jasper Flynn. “Really sorry about yesterday, Mr. Beauchamp. I’m going to find who screwed up.”
Arthur’s too miffed to respond. The unreachable Margaret Blake will be on his mind all day, a crucial day, this trial is about to take an unexpected shift. She doesn’t want you to think about her. (Means what? She wants you to forget about her?)
There’s a sense of the nineteenth century about the Chief Justice’s space–musty and murky, curtains closed to sunlight, a brass desk lamp. No computer. On the wall is a Gainsborough,
a girl chasing a butterfly: unexpected lightness, therefore eerie. Framed nearby, a photo of a steely-eyed young man in a 1950s haircut on his call to the bar. No pictures of loved ones–Kroop married the law.
He motions them to chairs, then sits behind his desk and glowers at Buddy for a few moments, as if measuring his words.
“Mr. Svabo, I hesitated to interrupt in front of the jury, even as you were careering out of control. You have allowed Mr. Beauchamp to get under your skin. You may not be as used as I am to his grandstand gestures.” He waves the subject away. “Gentlemen, there’s no reason this should slow us up. The accused will be asked to confirm his plea of not guilty. Before we proceed with the rest of the case, I’ll want his consent to be tried on such evidence as was heard in his absence.”
Kroop wants to seal off any avenue to appeal. Arthur doesn’t blame him, and assents, subject to Faloon being allowed to read the evidence taken so far. He can do that in his cell overnight–Arthur doesn’t want this trial delayed.
“Excellent,” Kroop says. “From the outset, I’ve had misgivings about trying an accused in absentia. Rich fodder for the Appeal Court. But now he’s here, and fit to be tried. Himf, himf. Please don’t expect me to grant bail, Mr. Beauchamp.” A sweet, small smile.
During the break, Arthur waits on the vine-draped terrace, trying to keep his mind on the task ahead, the day’s remaining witnesses. He’s playing with his cellphone, and only realizes he’s dialling home when Buddy joins him. He switches off before it rings.
Buddy is still rankled at Arthur’s bold claim his case is falling apart, but he’s rarely able to maintain his grudges, and they are soon talking timetables. “Next up, I got two exhibit guys and then the brain-dead screws who let Faloon escape.”
“To save these fellows further humiliation I will admit their evidence. What about our disappearing friend Harvey Coolidge?”
“We’re kissing Harvey off, Internal Revenue wants him to stick around Kansas. Don’t pretend that doesn’t make you happy–you got his statement, he was nowhere near Brady Beach that night. Sure, make a case. Harvey’s running scared, Harvey’s got no alibi for April 1. Only one more element is needed–a miracle. Like maybe Harvey’s DNA is an exact match for Faloon’s.”
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