Trial of Passion

by William Deverell

  “By then I was pretty well the only sober person in the car. I may have had one beer. I’m not a —”

  “What about the others?”

  “Well, I sure wasn’t going to let Professor O’Donnell drive. Paula Yi was okay — she’d had a few, I guess. Egan Chornicky was higher than a kite, and Kimberley was very boisterous — I don’t know how much she had to drink. I would say a lot.”

  I watch for reactions from the jury as Stubb tells them about Kimberley’s costume change, but only one censorious-looking woman in the front row seems at all offended.

  Seated at the back, I am distressed to see, is Dominique Lander, busily sketching. I must advise Patricia that as a possible witness she should not be here; she will cause Jonathan unneeded discomfort.

  Patricia asks, “While she was still in her dress, did you notice any bruising on her? Especially her ankles or wrists?”

  “I can’t say I did.”

  “Did she ever fall down or bang into anything?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  Those bruises remain the Crown’s strongest weapon. How are they to be explained?

  Stubb’s lame reason for leaving Kimberley behind at Jonathan’s house: “She was going to be heading off in another direction anyway.”

  “Where?”

  “Up to her boyfriend’s place in the British Properties.” “How do you know that?”

  “Well, she told me —”

  “Objection,” says Wally Sprogue. “That’s hearsay.” He has risen an inch from his chair, but sheepishly settles back. Wally has forgotten he is no longer a lowly barrister: I cannot help but smile.

  “Objection sustained,” I say. “Old habits die hard, m’lord.”

  “Yes. Quite. Carry on, witness.” He is flustered; how easily the vain embarrass.

  “Anyway, it would make more sense for her to take another cab after she slept it off a little.” Stubb adds: “We knew she’d be okay. We knew Professor O’Donnell wouldn’t —”

  “Thank you. Those are all my questions.”

  “Let the witness finish,” says Wally.

  “He wants to answer a question I didn’t ask him,” Patricia says.

  Wally purrs to the young man: “What were you about to say, sir?”

  “Professor O’Donnell acted like a gentleman all evening. He would never do a thing like this.”

  “Thank you. Cross-examination, Mr. Beauchamp?”

  I have not liked Stubb’s evidence at all. Too glossy, too puffy, too sycophantic. Cross-examination would seem utterly self-serving. “Nothing, thank you.”

  Stubb walks from the stand looking disappointed; he had more to say. Patricia, in a severe pet, talks heatedly with her assistant, Sindelar, then turns on Wally. “I hope it’s clearly on the record that his last little speech was elicited by your lordship.”

  Wally assumes a hurt expression. “That’s what you get for cutting him off. We’ll take the mid-afternoon break.”

  In the mezzanine, Kimberley Martin and Clarence de Remy Brown are chatting with Paula Yi — much too amicably. Miss Yi will be the next witness: a rebel, a feminist, a victim herself of male assault, she must be handled with scrupulous care.

  Farther down the hallway I am shocked to observe Jonathan in an altercation with Dominique Lander, who has him backed against a wall. From their expressions, the exchange seems sharp.

  Jonathan tries gently to push her away and she slaps his hand. As I advance quickly to intervene, she slaps him again, in the face, then rushes away. I look about for jurors, but thankfully none are present, though others have observed this tatty scene — including Kimberley Martin, seeming quite taken aback.

  Jonathan is breathing heavily. “Love taps. It’s her way of showing affection. I told her to get out of my life, Arthur, that’s all that happened.”

  The Commander is severe with him. “You will not converse with anyone but your lawyers, do you understand that?”

  “Mea culpa.”

  I am unsure what effect the episode has on Kimberley, but as I pass her on my way back to court she is smiling. A small benefit is derived from the contretemps: Miss Lander does not return to court.

  “Call Paula Yi,” Patricia says.

  Petite Miss Yi enters the courtroom tentatively, obviously nervous. She is dressed casually: jeans and a floppy sweater rolled at the sleeves.

  Patricia repeatedly asks Miss Yi to keep her voice up; she is so soft-spoken we must strain to hear. Our untrained puppy of a judge continues to intervene, seeking clarifications, expanding the answers; he will earn a poor reputation if this keeps up. Like a child, a good judge should be seen and not heard.

  But my love-addled mind is unable to concentrate — as the scene Miss Yi describes is about to shift from the student dance to the danse macabre, my brain shifts, too, blown by a sudden southwesterly down Potter’s Road, past Stoney’s place to where the chickens freely range upon the road. I pause there to seek Margaret, but she is not to be found.

  I feel a need to hear her voice. I require an earnest of faith from her, a reassurance. I must know that her whispered contemplation of the possibility of love has not been scrutinized in the cold, hard light of day, withdrawn, discarded with the morning’s compost.

  I’m not ready. Yet.

  “ Mr. Beauchamp?”

  Dimly, I hear a voice that doesn’t belong in my reveries.

  “Do you wish to cross-examine?”

  I plummet from the clouds and plop onto my chair at counsel table. One of the trial’s most important witnesses is on the stand, and I have missed a vital scene: the snorting of coke in the rumpus room. I look uneasily about. Has anyone noticed I was gone? Augustina, for one. She frowns, a warning look: Stop gambolling in those fields of daisies.

  I rise in cross-examination with a snap of my suspenders. But I have early trouble finding my bearings. “Miss Yi, I understand you had never met Kimberley Martin or Jonathan O’Donnell before that evening?”

  “That is right. That’s what I said.”

  “And they were so friendly at the dance, you thought they were paired off as a couple.”

  “Yes, I already said that.”

  “Yes. Now, you told the jury about an interesting episode in the rumpus room.”

  “Well, no, I didn’t.”

  “We didn’t hear anything about a rumpus room, Mr. Beauchamp,” Wally says. “Maybe we should check if that’s just water in your pitcher.”

  This is a disaster. I have taken on the role of the court jester. But worse, has this reluctant witness gone over to the other side? In my confusion, I overreact. “Do you deny it? I’m talking about the cocaine, Miss Yi.”

  She looks at me with puzzlement. “No, I don’t deny it. The prosecutor never asked me.”

  “Mr. Beauchamp, are we at different trials?” Wally is enjoying this tremendously, spearing me as I writhe on the floor.

  “Sixty-two years of losing brain cells may have caught up to me, m’lord. Let’s work our way out of this maze, Miss Yi. There was an episode in the rumpus room.”

  “Yes. Sort of between acts.”

  Meanly, Patricia has left it up to me to call evidence that could injure reputation. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

  “Well, there was a bathroom break, and Egan Chornicky sort of pointed to his nose.”

  “His nose?”

  “Well, giving me a signal. So I followed him downstairs, into this room with a bar and a pool table. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble….” She falters.

  “I’ll say it for you. Mr. Chornicky produced some cocaine.”

  “Yes. From a little folded-up envelope, and he laid out some lines on the bar. Chopped them with a penknife.”

  “Was there conversation?”

  “He was pretty drunk. Didn’t know whose house he was in, actually.”

  “That’s hearsay,” says Wally.

  “This is cross-examination.”

  “I’m afraid it’s still hearsay.” He smiles a
t me. He hopes I’ll understand.

  “Miss Martin joined you, did she not?”

  “Yes, and Egan passed her a rolled-up bill and she .. .”Again her voice becomes indistinct.

  “She knew what to do with it.” “She did two of the lines.”

  “There may be some here who are not familiar with the process of doing lines. Would you describe it?”

  I finally seem to be on track. As Miss Yi relates to the uninitiated the art of snorting cocaine, I seek reaction from the jury. The smile on the face of Goodman, the broker, hints he needs no schooling. Hedy Jackson-Blyth has the peeved look of one whose bridge partner has trumped her ace. Two stripes of a mood-altering substance about the length and thickness of a match stick have disappeared up the complainant’s nose: She will not be seen as the soul of innocence.

  “Was this cocaine fairly strong?”

  “Yes, Egan said —”

  “No,” the judge warns. “You can’t tell us what someone other than the accused said.”

  This is wearying. I sigh rather audibly. “You’ve used cocaine before.”

  “Yes. Not a lot.”

  “And in your experience, was it potent?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Cocaine’s a sleep inhibitor, is it not?”

  “I think you’ll need to call a pharmacologist for that, Mr. Beauchamp,” says the judge. “Sorry.”

  I must keep my temper. “It certainly didn’t make you feel sleepy, did it?”

  “No, but —”

  “It stimulated you —”

  “Let her complete her last answer, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  “I wonder if your lordship would let me do my work here.”

  Wally looks hurt. “I have to be fair to both sides, you know. What were you about to say, Ms. Yi?”

  “Well, Egan passed out in the taxi, so I don’t know if it was that stimulating.”

  The whole room laughs. My cross-examination is again in shambles. I am so peeved at Wally that I find myself tottering badly during the balance of my inquiries, and limp to a stale close. “I understand you consider yourself a feminist, Miss Yi.” I seek to show that despite sisterly misgivings, she has come here prepared to tell the awful truth about Kimberley Martin.

  “Yes, but I don’t believe just because a woman gets high means someone has a right to attack her.”

  Hedy Jackson-Blyth nods in total agreement. My examination ends with that loud clong. I can think of no way to make repairs. The Commander fumbles his way to a chair.

  Wally is grinning, too obviously enjoying my discomfiture. “I have a leftover sentencing matter, so I think we’ll adjourn for the day.”

  “That was a disaster,” I mumble to Augustina as we flee the courtroom.

  She hands me her evidence notes. “In case you missed something,” she says sternly. “Make sure you phone Mrs. Blake tonight, okay? Might help keep you alert. If it’s okay, I’m having dinner with the client. Keep him sober, guard him from the witch of the Slocan Valley.”

  “Enjoy yourself.” A. R. Beauchamp, Q.C., says this bitterly, still disgusted with this morning’s amateur production. Caped hero, indeed. Where was the blood, the boldness?

  I retreat ignominiously to my hotel suite. I stare sourly out the window at a gargoyle sticking out its tongue, jeering. I’ve been out of training too long. My island has made me stupid and soft.

  I wait until five-thirty to call Margaret — she will be in the house, preparing her dinner. I let it ring several times — she is probably in the garden or the barn. I picture her rushing to the house, panting as she grabs for the receiver, ah, yes, yearning to hear my voice. But no. No answer.

  I try to console myself with a book, but cannot work my way into it and put it down. I order food up. I drink coffee and read the newspaper. I phone Margaret’s number again. No answer.

  She has a meeting to attend. The Fall Fair Committee. The Save Our Island Committee. She is campaigning for office. She is busy.

  I try to get into my book again, but the words slide around on the pages, forming an illegible, muddy paste. I stare out the window: traffic clogs the streets below. The city is turning orange against a sun that sets beyond Garibaldi Island.

  She knows where I am staying. She could call me.

  I venture out into the fresh evening air. I pause upon the lawns of the Vancouver Art Gallery, kick off my shoes, and swirl slowly about on the grass, fifteen minutes of mind-composing tai chi.

  At ten-thirty, back in my room, I phone Margaret again. And still no answer. Why is this early bird out so late?

  I pick up Augustina’s notes. I put them down. I pee. I shower. I brush my teeth. I go to bed. I fall asleep.

  My dreams are visited by old unwanted friends: Messrs. Ridicule and Shame. I stand flaccidly exposed before Wally Sprogue in his golden toga. The executioner stands by, masked and smiling. Guilty…. intones the chorus, guilty, guilty….

  On this first morning of September a soggy quilt of clouds lays atop the city, obscuring the peaks of the North Shore mountains. As I stand before my hotel window, I feel as gloomy as the sky; yesterday’s bout of courtroom impotence has caused me an ill foreboding. And where was Margaret all last night?

  “Hurry, Arthur. It’s almost ten.” Augustina has come to fetch me, armed with umbrellas. I grab a room-service muffin and munch it as we venture out into the drizzle. She sees I am morose, and kindly offers no reviews about the bomb I dropped on opening day.

  “I just talked to Patricia — she’s going to hold off Kimberley until the afternoon. Egan Chornicky is next; he should be okay, he likes O’Donnell. Then it’s Constable Peake, who’s on annual leave and wants to rejoin his wife in Arizona, followed by dashing Clarence de Remy Brown, who’s antsy to get down to South America.”

  “How was your evening with the accused?”

  “Like a sort of date, actually. Not romantic, I don’t mean that, but we went to a movie after, and had a decaf at his house. He didn’t try to tie me up and paddle me. He was being all very witty and sarcastic, but then he got moody. He kept saying, ‘I have to do the right thing.’ Refused to elaborate.”

  Inside, we sheathe our umbrellas and swim among a school of reporters, arriving in court to find Egan Chornicky already in the box. A spare, weedy-looking man, he wears a jean jacket that seems in the process of decomposition. A wild thicket of moustache. Unruly blond hair that he constantly sweeps from his eyes as he bends forward in whispered conference with Patricia. As court is called to order, she walks away shaking her head.

  Chornicky is quickly in trouble. “I don’t have a home address right now,” he testifies. “Like, permanent. My landlady and I had a little disagreement.”

  He is equally unsure about his current occupation. “My job? A short-order cook. I was going to repeat my year in law school, but I got a chance to promote this rock band. I dunno.”

  His memories of the dance are vague and of little help to either side. “I was too busy looking after the bar to really notice anything,” he says.

  “What was Professor O’Donnell drinking?” Patricia asks.

  “Stiffs. Doubles.”

  “What about you?”

  “I guess I was looking after myself pretty good. I didn’t want to have to lug away any full bottles.”

  “Tell us what happened after the dance.”

  “Well, we had this party to go to after, downtown here, and we all sardined into a bunch of cars. I was in there with Kimberley in one car, which Ears was driving —”

  “Ears?”

  “Charles. Charles Stubb. And we went up to this house, and there was this really large evening going on there, about fifty people, and I guess when they ran out of beer that’s when we went to the professor’s house. A lot of this was so long ago, I’ve forgotten what I did remember. Some of it I think I read in the papers. I was pretty zoned.”

  “Tell us just what you remember.”

  “I remember going over Lions Gate Bridge. I remember a fairl
y swish house, I assume it was his, the professor’s. Big library and a fire, lots of sort of Elizabethan music. There was some excellent scotch or something doing the rounds.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “I don’t know, there were five or six of us. Kimberley for sure, and another good-looking lady.”

  “Woman,” Wally says. “She was a woman.”

  “Very definitely, your honour. Chinese.”

  “Southeast Asian Canadian.”

  “Correct. And there was some kind of cross-dressing thing going on, I remember that Kimberley started, but I didn’t get into it. She did some kind of Shakespeare gig. Or that may have been at the other house. I don’t remember going home, but I must have.”

  Though I can’t fathom how he passed his LSAT’S, I admire this man: He has attained heights denied even to Beauchamp in his prime. The jurors are smiling.

  “Okay, Mr. Chornicky, there’s been some mention of drugs being used that night. Did you have any cocaine on your person?” It is a subject Patricia cannot avoid now.

  “Well, here’s where I object on the ground that the question will incriminate me.”

  “Nothing you say can be used against you,” says Wally. He frowns at the witness in warning. “Except on a charge of perjury.”

  Patricia says, “Okay, what is the answer to my question?”

  “Well, the night before, an associate of this band I work with laid on me a little powder which I assumed was cocaine, though I never had it lab-tested or anything. Could’ve been speed, could have been powdered milk. And I remember I had it on me at the dance.”

  “Did you consume any?”

  “Yeah, here and there.”

  “Did you ever share it with anyone?”

  “With Kimberley and the Chinese girl. I have a little spurt of a memory there. I think they each blew a couple of lines.”

  “But you don’t know if it was cocaine.”

  “Not for a fact, no.”

  “Oh, come, Mr. Chornicky, we weren’t born yesterday,” says Wally, who seems incapable of honouring his pledge to stay out of the arena and above the fray. “Did you really think it might be powdered milk?”