Trial of Passion

by William Deverell

  Patricia rises. “With that exception, counsel are agreed to take the first twelve.”

  Five men, seven women. I have several friendly faces, and I can only hope Hedy Jackson-Blyth will not be all that adverse to the defence.

  When the jurors are comfortable in their seats, Wally recites the boilerplate about their solemn duties: They may return to their homes in the evenings, but must not discuss the evidence outside the jury room. Innocence is presumed. The defence need prove nothing. The Crown must establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

  “I expect this trial will go two weeks, but we have legal matters to deal with, so I’m going to let you select your foreperson, and then go back home for — how long? Did we agree on two days?”

  I am missing Margaret already. Do we really need two days of opening arguments? Cannot we finish this trial in five days?

  I rise. “I hope we can shorten things a bit, m’lord. That’s important to the complainant, whose university classes start tomorrow. I also understand her fiancé has a business crisis to attend to — some kind of cyanide spill in a river. If Miss Blueman can agree with me on some minor matters, we might all get out of here by Friday to enjoy a stress-free long weekend.” I can see Patricia looking sourly at me while I play the fairy godfather.

  “Anything you can do to save time,” Wally says, and he orders a brief recess. Patricia and I arrange for a confabulation of counsel in the barristers’ lounge. I tell Jonathan to stay put and not to worry.

  “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I think I’ve been sweating over this more than I’ve let out. Suffered a morale collapse yesterday, so I had a long session with my therapist. I’m going to have her talk to you, Arthur. She can say some things I can’t. I’ve been a shitty client; I’ll try to make it up to you.” And he adds, “I’ve sorted a few things out.”

  “What might those be?”

  “I just have a clearer picture. I know what I have to do.”

  “What is that?”

  “Be honest with myself.”

  I’m not sure what he means — I would much prefer he be honest with me— but I pat him on the shoulder. “I will do my best for you, Jonathan.”

  “I know that.”

  Will my best be good enough? If I entertain doubts as to his innocence, how do I convince a jury they should not? His earlier dishonest evasions, the screams heard by the housekeeper, the bizarre rites of sexual arousal with Dominique Lander: These do not inflame a righteous indignation that an innocent soul is entangled in the law’s tentacles. Somehow I must resolve my ambiguous feelings about this man.

  In the mezzanine, I see Patricia talking with Kimberley Martin, who is still downcast. Is she unwell? Beside her, Clarence de Remy Brown is on his cellular phone. Patricia parts from them and follows me to the lounge.

  There, she and her associate, Gundar Sindelar, listen politely to my pitch to jettison Miss Lander. “We’ll save a day of argument. An argument you will lose.” I feign utter confidence.

  “Oh, no, I have previous acts of bondage,” Patricia says. “I have all that body-painting she did with O’Donnell.”

  “Ah, but, Patricia, the judge won’t like the chicanery. Clarence de Remy Brown hired a private investigator to track Miss Lander down. Frank Sierra posed as a hireling of the defence to obtain her statement. Walter Sprogue will be furious.”

  For some reason, this argument seems to be playing to attentive ears. I have a sense that Patricia, who looks contemplative, is — surprisingly — about to bite. She looks at Gundar, but he stubbornly shakes his head.

  “I say we go for broke.”

  I close my files and stuff them in a briefcase. “Let’s put it to the judge. He will shortly send Miss Lander packing back to the Slocan.”

  “Hold it,” says Patricia. “What does your client have to say about this bondage stuff with Dominique Lander?”

  “You’ll have to wait to find out,” I say.

  “I can always get it out of him in cross.” She ponders. “Let me talk to Gundar.”

  They walk a few paces away, but we can hear low snatches of conversation. “Don’t want to give him any grounds of appeal . . . we could keep her in reserve….”

  On her return, Patricia says, “Okay, this is the deal. When O’Donnell takes the stand, I’ll be asking him if he was into S and M and all this body-painting. I’ll call Dominique Lander in rebuttal only if he denies it. Agreed?”

  I tell them that now I must speak alone with Augustina. We caucus by a window.

  “Exactly what I was about to propose myself,” I say, pleased with my craftiness. “If Jonathan doesn’t testify, the Crown can’t call Dominique in rebuttal. That neatly gets rid of her.”

  For appearances, we spend a few more minutes in quiet discussion, then return to the foe, and ask them to throw the polygraph results into the deal. Patricia protests. I accuse her of having something to hide. Her hasty denials seem suspect. I produce a copy of a recent legal brief on polygraph disclosure — authored by one Walter Sprogue.

  After another conference of prosecutors, Patricia finally says, “All right, it’s a deal, but you have to undertake not to object to my calling Dominique to contradict your client.” She takes no chances, penning our promises to a scrap sheet of paper that we both initial.

  Patricia may feel she has the better bargain — she keeps Lander in reserve. But with one swoop I have not only eliminated proof of previous kink but shortened the trial. I am on a fast-track schedule that may yet get me to the fair on time. But I must curb this otiose wanderlust for my island.

  I return to the fifth-floor mezzanine and brief Jonathan, who greets this turn of events with an acerbic sense of humour. “Now Dominique is free to sell her story to the tabs. The National Enquirer will love it — ‘Law Prof Hits Bottom.’ “

  Court reassembles without the jurors, the next order of business being a voir dire, a trial within a trial to determine whether the jury may hear Jonathan’s words to Sergeant Chekoff: “I did no such thing. Of course I touched her. I took her to bed.” “Or put her to bed”; he wasn’t sure at the preliminary inquiry. I do not fancy either version, however exculpatory. I would have preferred silence.

  Chekoff is Patricia’s sole witness in the voir dire: a man of military bearing with grizzled hair who wasn’t particularly keen about making this collar and who failed to caution the suspect.

  The officer begins to relate his conversation with Jonathan in his front yard. “Mr. O’Donnell said, ‘Is this some kind of practical joke?’ “

  “How did you respond —”

  Wally impatiently cuts Patricia off. “Hold on. Was there a warning given? He was a suspect, wasn’t he? A very serious complaint had been made against him, and recited to him.”

  “M’lord, the accused is a law professor. He may be presumed to know his rights.”

  “Pauper or professor, Ms. Blueman, same rules apply to both. I’ll hear from the defence.”

  “I have case law on the point,” says Augustina.

  “And I know those cases. The Crown can argue until it’s blue in the face on this one.”

  “Your mind is closed, m’lord?” says Patricia, her tone overpolite.

  “Not closed, but only slightly ajar.”

  He impatiently hears Patricia out before ruling. “The Crown has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt the statements are voluntary. They will not go before the jury. Okay, let’s have them in.”

  “That was too easy,” Augustina whispers.

  My sense that the trial has got off to a good beginning is eroded by the fact that Hedy Jackson-Blyth is leading the jury in — she has been elected forewoman. As such, she has been elevated from ordinary pawn to influential queen on this human chessboard.

  I watch the jurors’ faces as Patricia makes her opening address. Eyes grow large and mouths fall open as the salacious allegations are described. I decide I do not like the fourth fellow in the back row: he smirks too much, a smart aleck. Goodman, a young investmen
t broker. A woman in the front row — a nurse, according to the jury list — often smiles, too, but in a different way, with a slight frown, as if she senses absurdity here. Miss Jackson-Blyth is looking distrustfully at Jonathan, who sits with head bowed in the dock, his reading glasses on, occasionally writing notes.

  Patricia’s opening is a rather flat summation of the evidence she proposes to call, and to her credit she does not use her speech as a platform to flog her case, to win votes for the prosecution.

  After she concludes, Wally asks, “Would you like to defer your first witness until after the lunch break?”

  “Well, I thought tomorrow —”

  I jump up. “Tomorrow? M’lord, we have half an hour left of the morning yet. Should we not plough on and allow Miss Martin to get off to her classes?”

  “Mr. Beauchamp, you’re full of zip today.”

  “According to my daughter, I’m in my second childhood.”

  “Maybe that explains it.”

  The jurors are chuckling — so important to relax them early.

  “M’lord,” says Patricia, “I hadn’t expected Ms. Martin would be needed so early. She hasn’t been fully briefed.”

  I leap at this chance. “If my learned friend needs time to rehearse her witness, can we not proceed with some of the other evidence?”

  “Brief her, not rehearse her.”

  “If she doesn’t know her lines by now, she never will.”

  Patricia is aflame. “M’lord, that’s entirely improper! The jury is present!”

  “That kind of comment is best reserved for argument, Mr. Beauchamp,” warns frowning Wally. “I wonder if counsel will oblige me by taking a few minutes in my chambers.”

  I suppose I am in for it now. Wally will chide me and prohibit further displays of forensic misbehaviour. But when we enter his chambers, he is chuckling. “Beauchamp, you naughty bugger, I’m going to have to keep an eye on you. Very good opening, Patricia. Brief, to the point; we’re sledding right along. Well, this will be a very interesting case. Please, sit down.”

  Wally’s eyes rove briefly to Augustina’s stockinged knee as she perches, dainty and cross-legged, on the edge of a chair. Melanie, his wife, is of a jealous bent, and with cause.

  “This is a manner of date rape that you’re alleging,” Wally says. “Acquaintance rape, that’s the right term, I think. Too much of it going on. I’m not prejudging of course, but a lot of this stuff never even gets reported. Professor and student, boss and secretary — there’s still that power imbalance thing between the sexes. We’re part of it ourselves, Arthur, it’s ingrained in old-timers like us. The patriarchal male hierarchy.”

  I fear he is warning me that if convicted my client will face the full measure of the law. I hope he does not see Regina versus O’Donnell as a test case — one in which his sentence must send a loud message to the patriarchal dictatorship.

  “Now, Patricia, can we call someone other than Ms. Martin? One of the boys in blue? Or, ah, girls. Women. “Tangled among the thorn bushes of politically incorrect speech, Wally can find no escape, and silently surrenders.

  “I’d like to put in the exhibits first.”

  “We’ll admit all exhibits,” I say. “Just show them to the jury, and we’ll agree they are what they are.”

  “You’re being awfully accommodating, Arthur. I get suspicious.”

  The marking of exhibits consumes the remainder of the morning, the jurors examining each item in turn: an outlandish tropical tie and a simple, unadorned gold-cross pendant, larger than I expected, about three inches high. Items seized from O’Donnell’s house are tendered: coat, dress, spike heels, pantyhose, panties, bra, pair of small gold earrings, purse, a tube of Shameless lipstick worn to a nubbin, and various bedsheets. Photographs of O’Donnell’s home, inside and out, are marked and identified.

  Upon adjournment Patricia confers with me. “I’m going to start with the students this afternoon. Your buddy Mr. Stubb first. Unless you need more time to prepare. I wouldn’t mind talking with him and Paula Yi a little more.”

  Obviously it is she who really needs the extra time. I have managed to push her far ahead of schedule. ” Tempus fugit, my dear. Proceed with your case.”

  As the room clears, Gundar Sindelar passes me a thin file. “Graphs, transcripts, examiner’s report. Mr. Mackleson is available if you need to talk to him.” The polygraph examiner.

  I pass the file to Augustina. “Talk to Mackleson and meet Jonathan and me in my hotel room for lunch.”

  “Sure. Order me a salad.”

  Jonathan and I take the stairs down, and walk silently out past the statue of solemn, firm-breasted Themis, goddess of justice and consort of Jupiter, onto the second-storey promenade and its artificial forest and waterfall, then down to busy Robson Square. Only a minute’s stroll away is the Hotel Vancouver, grande dame of the city’s better inns, a blocky Gothic fortress. My suite on the ninth floor overlooks Georgia Street, the exterior façade guarded by concrete gargoyles, griffins craning their necks, looking malevolently below.

  “Gruesome decorations,” Jonathan says.

  “A conceit of Gothic architecture,” I say, and reach into my store of trivia. “Evil spirits, seeing their own images, were thought to be deterred from entering Christendom’s grand palaces of worship.”

  “That one looks a little like Dominique Lander. Bloody woman tried to accost me during the last recess.”

  “Try to avoid her.”

  “She’s on my side, she said. She wants to help me.”

  But he seems less than eager to continue this conversation. Nor does he respond to my urgings to expand upon his so-called clearer picture. His mood remains solemn and dark. It is hard not to feel his pain.

  When Augustina arrives she spreads several papers and graphs across the desk.

  “There’s just a little more activity on the charts than I think there should be when the examiner asks the critical questions: Was she raped? Is she telling the truth? I’m no expert. Mackleson is, and he says that’s normal, just a natural autonomic response to a stressful memory.”

  “The actress Kimberley Martin,” says Jonathan. “This is her shtick, the violated woman.”

  “But here, look at this — the lines almost go off the sheet.”

  All four lines on the graph paper shoot upward at the point she indicates.

  “What was the question?”

  “‘Were you physically attracted to Professor O’Donnell?’ She answered, ‘Not really.’ Mackleson said she was lying, and so it was a terrific control question.”

  A sharp intake of breath from behind my shoulder — Jonathan seems unduly startled, but his tone is cynical. “Should I be flattered? Yeah, she’s attracted to me, all right. That’s why she wants me locked up for about twenty years. Remove the temptation.”

  I ask Augustina, “Does she know she answered untruthfully?”

  “Mackleson didn’t tell her. But Patricia is having lunch with her so I imagine it will be discussed. Here’s another jump: ‘Have you ever been sexually assaulted before?’ And she answered, ‘Never.’ The examiner said Kimberley was emphatic, but he called her big reaction a stress anomaly — there would be no reason for her to lie.”

  Jonathan says, “Maybe I should take the test.”

  “To prove your innocence to whom?”

  “Well, maybe to you, Arthur,” he says with a strained vehemence. Does he question my allegiance to his cause? “I’m sorry, that was a dumb thing to say. I just feel so damn alone sometimes, a nonperson, ignored, a neutral object caught up in a clever courtroom game. Why is innocence treated as incidental, a kind of academic irrelevancy? The aim is to work the system, right? — get the bad guy off, who cares if he actually did it? Oh, shit, forget it, I’m just shooting off my mouth when I should be down on my knees to you, Arthur. I’m frustrated; I’m scared.”

  This dithyramb of pent-up grief impresses me as deeply felt. I feel ashamed that he has so obviously tuned into the ni
ggling sense of distrust I have secretly harboured.

  Augustina takes his hand. “We’re here for you a hundred per cent, Jonathan. You’re not alone. You’re innocent and we’re going to prove it.”

  She speaks with an earnestness I can’t quite summon, but I must make an effort. “Quite so. There can be no question.” How sincere does that sound? Yet his emphatic plea, his offer to put his credibility to the test of a machine, argues strongly for his innocence. I must try to put my petty doubts aside.

  In the fifth-floor mezzanine, Charles Stubb, our future prime minister, approaches Jonathan and me with a salesman’s smile and shakes our hands in turn, speaking in conspiratorial undertones. “Everything going all right? Any last-minute advice?”

  Try not to sound bombastic? Avoid long speeches? Beware of coating Jonathan with too much sugar?

  “Just don’t overdo it, Charles,” I say.

  “I don’t catch your meaning, sir.”

  Jonathan interprets: “He’s telling you not to spread the butter on too thick.”

  Stubb’s protruding ears turn as red as sails at sunset, but the damage to his ego heals promptly — he will make a fine politician. “Sure, I get the point, don’t come on too strong.”

  But as court resumes, Charles Stubb embarks on a pathetic eulogy for Jonathan, sadly ignoring our advice not to fawn over him, describing him as “a man of fierce intellect who is highly respected by students and faculty alike.” Patricia works like a sheepdog to keep him in line, cutting him off when he becomes discursive. This is clearly not the fat part of the Crown’s case, and she hopes to make his long story short.

  Wally, who can’t keep his mouth shut, runs interference for the witness, chastising Patricia for amputating the limbs of his answers. I can find no occasion to object: Wally is doing everything for me, my surrogate, my gofer — though I am finding his interruptions time-wasting and annoying.

  After Stubb concludes a rambling account of Kimberley tagging doggedly after Jonathan at the dance and after-party, impatient Patricia ushers the witness quickly into Jonathan’s Jaguar and up to his house.