April Fool (29 page)

“And who else?”

“Well, Constable Beasely and I were the first into the cottage–that's after we looked through the window–and we rushed straight to the bedroom, and I guess we didn't put gloves on right away. So there's a few of mine, and a couple of Beasely's.”

Arthur can't make headway even on this trifling irrelevancy. An accusation of careless police work would be seen as a cheap shot from an exasperated lawyer–the sergeant is human, he'd just seen a shocking sight.

“No prints from Holly Hoover?”

“I'm afraid not, sir.” The condescending smile grates.

“What about the third woman hiker?”

Flynn consults his notes. “That would be Ruth Delvechio. No prints from her.”

Finally, a point for the defence. The embittered Ruth Delvechio, graduate student, tossed away like a worn toy by the imperious Doctor Eve.
It's over, Ruth. Ef you, your effing highness.
A last sharing of wine. Afterwards, the glasses washed, her prints wiped. A plausible script?

“Officer, I understand Ruth Delvechio was in a relationship with Dr. Winters.” The deceased's homosexuality has been well reported by now. She hadn't hid it, hadn't advertised it.

“Yes, from what I've learned.”

“In your report you refer to the other two women as, quote, admitted lesbians.” Buddy winces, and Ears's smile sits marooned on his face.

“That was a tasteless choice of words, Mr. Beauchamp. I guess what I meant to say is they were open about it.”

“They've lived together for several years, correct? Dr. Glynis Bloom and Wilma Quong.”

“They said that.”

“And Dr. Winters and Ruth Delvechio made up another pairing.”

“I guess so.”

“And you received a report that those two had a brouhaha in the cottage.”

“I heard something from Mrs. Cotter about a quarrel. I didn't think it unusual. Lots of people fight. Friends and couples fight.”

“Though both the victim and accused dined at the Breakers Inn, you went first to Cotters' Cottage.”

“Yes, I found out where Dr. Winters was staying, and myself and two members went there on foot.”

“Much closer, though, was the small lodge where the accused lived, the Nitinat.”

“That's true.”

“And it's fair to say that Mr. Faloon was high on your list of suspects?” Arthur may as well put Faloon's past on the table.
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit.
A wise man does not piss against the wind.

“He was the number-one suspect, yes.”

“So why didn't you dispatch either of your officers to the Nitinat?”

“There was a thief in town. We didn't know if he was dangerous. Our first concern was Dr. Winters.”

An unresponsive answer, but a good one. Arthur has rarely encountered such a well-prepared witness. A dumb cop, said Buddy. Not.

“You couldn't send one of the constables there?”

“That would go against procedure. He wouldn't have backup.”

“An officer needs backup for puny Nicholas Faloon? He can't weigh more than–what do you have him at, about a hundred and thirty pounds?”

“About that. A little over fifty-eight kilograms.”

“Five and a half feet in height?”

“Yes.”

“And Dr. Winters was at least four inches taller?”

“She was about five-ten, yes.”

“And extremely fit? An athletic woman?”

“I wouldn't argue.”

“There were no signs that the victim suffered any debilitating blows to the head or body? Nothing to render her helpless or unconscious?”

Kroop interjects. “Mr. Beauchamp, you're forgetting about the date-rape drug. What's the name…Rohypnol.”

“Thank you, milord, for your invaluable assistance.” Arthur's icy stare is returned in kind.

Arthur is tempted to needle Flynn about his negligence in skipping past Angella's name in Winters's records. But the urge comes from a childish wish to pay him back, and he quickly suppresses it. “No more questions.”

“We'll break for lunch,” Kroop says.

 

Arthur takes a long walk up Burrard Street to the art deco bridge that straddles False Creek. He's not hungry, and he wants to avoid pitying eyes in the El Beau Room–all will have heard about the debacle in Court 67. He should consult Brian Pomeroy, but doesn't want to deal with his blunt wit. Nor can he bring himself to call Lotis.

He can't remember when a cross-examination so backfired. His earlier doubts are verified, his courtroom skills have rusted up and seized, his one great talent has gone stale, frittered away
on songbirds and roadside poppies and daily hikes to the General Store.

Only the prospect of returning, even in shame, to his island retirement stays him from total wretchedness. It's not that Flynn blunted the secret weapon, Angella, but that Arthur's pride has been bruised–he was outduelled in the arena where once he was king. He ought not to have taken on Flynn at such length, should have shied away from the profitless wrangle about Hoover.

He looks down at the tide-bloated inlet. “Shit!” This brings a flurry of pigeons flapping from under the bridge.

 

Before court resumes, Buddy sidles up to Arthur again. “Change of plan. I'm going to do some forensics this afternoon.”

“What about the Topekans and their huge bills at the Hyatt?”

“A few administrative problems have cropped up.” That is so vague as to be meaningless, but Buddy doesn't clarify and Arthur doesn't ask.

The day is taken up by experts in DNA, serum, and blood analysis, who seem unready, resentful at having been moved up the list. The jury labours hard, trying to follow the biochemical jargon, the mixing solutions and reactive agents, extraction and precipitation, swabs and smears and stains, the chain of custody from crime scene to lab. Ears, assigned the task of leading these witnesses, is having trouble coping with the complexities of DNA.

Arthur has declined to make things simple by admitting any of these facts–he's stalling for time in the fast-fading hope that Nick Faloon will burst on the scene in all his owlish glory.

 

For some reason–his loneliness, his dull, dispirited performance–Arthur feels his alcoholism acting up as he waits for an elevator at Tragger Inglis Bullingham. He has been avoiding his old office, hiding from Bully and his crusade to drag
the deserter back to the front lines. He must also avoid the partners'lounge, where Messrs. Schenley, Seagram, and Walker wait in ambush behind the bar.

He sneaks into the library, where wizened Ed Riley is burrowed into a hill of case law. “Something on continuity of forensic exhibits, please, Riley.” The analysts had problems identifying a few of the zippered plastic exhibit bags. The jury might be persuaded some were mixed up, a desperation defence.

His old office is used by visiting rainmakers, lawyers, business leaders, but otherwise the firm has kept it empty, like a mausoleum. Which, as Bullingham frequently reminds him, is yearning for his presence. Doris Isbister maintains it as is, the Lismer on the wall, the Etruscan prints, degrees academic and honorary, the cabinet with his clippings, the immaculate desk with legal pad, ready jar of pens and pencils…and now a computer.

They tried to set him up with one years ago, but after several trials he demanded they remove the ugly mechanism–a TV with keyboard. The complexities seemed designed in hell. Keats didn't need a computer. Nor did Beethoven. Nor, for that, did Clarence Darrow.

He calls Doris in, a mistake has been made. She gives him a peck on the cheek and tells him he's being silly, everyone works with a computer today. Documents are transferred this way. Firms and friends e-mail each other. He is no longer simple Arthur Beauchamp, he is Beauchamp at TraggerInglis dot com.

She passes him a book,
The Idiot's Guide to Computing
. “This is a mouse. Click it here and see what happens.”

The screen goes white. A list of messages appears on it. Doris shows him how to open the first one, from the computer company congratulating him on his purchase. She lets him open another–it's from the entire staff of Tragger Inglis, welcoming him back. Suspicion fastens on Bullingham.

“I'll leave you to it, dear.” Forcing him to swim on his own. She pauses at the door, speaks meaningless garble. “Dual 64 G5, two point five gigs.”

Arthur moves the mouse, and arcane symbols appear at the bottom of the screen. He has heard of computers hanging up at the mere touch of a key, viruses, massive erasure of files, he must be careful. The next message is from Pomeroy and Company. “I am sick at heart, maestro, I just found this hiding in the bowels of my computer.” A copy of Sergeant Flynn's missing addendum about Holly Hoover ferrying Winters across the inlet.

Lotis too has learned he's computerized. “I've been Googling DNA. The science is advancing exponentially, all they need is a flake of dandruff, a bead of sweat, a partial fingerprint.” There follows a line lifted from a forensics text:
Vaginal swabs or stain from post-coital drainage will typically contain sperm cells mixed with vaginal cells.

She concludes: “Just in case Angella did keep Nick's discharge in her sperm bank, we should ask Dr. Sidhoo to have another look at the sample. I'll call tonight and we'll kick it through.”

Maybe computers have their uses after all–Arthur had almost given up on that theory. The Case of the Loosely Fitted Condom. Or it may have broken, as Lotis suggested. Probably a dead end. Arthur prefers the looter-in-the-trash idea.

Here's a final message, from one Richard Stiffe. Does Arthur know a Richard Stiffe? He reads with alarm: “Your credit card will be billed at $22.95 weekly. A free CD three-pack of
Sultry Sexteens
is shipping to your billing address. Please confirm…”

A hideous case of mistaken identity? Was this intended for a different, shameless Beauchamp? He is halfway across the room to summon Doris when he stops, feeling foolish. Junk mail. It floods the computer-driven society. This is the brave new world.

 

That evening, he watches the news hour on Hubbell Meyerson's wall-mounted, flat-screen television. The trial's coverage leans to the lurid, quoting Arthur's lines: “floating bordello,” “the
cozy arrangement” between hooker and cop. Viewers may get the false impression Arthur came out unscathed.

Lotis phones to say Dr. Sidhoo has actually found a trace of an unknown third person in the semen sample, and will try to build a DNA profile. Ruth Delvechio? Someone else with whom Eve may have been intimate? Or Adeline Angella? The tissues Brian pocketed during her crying jag will provide a control sample.

Arthur has only a scant knowledge of microbiology, and can't imagine how an analyst might find a sprinkling of vaginal cells in a bit of swab. But he supposes there may be tens of thousands of the little beasties there. Lotis has assured him an expert can build a profile from the most minute specimens.

“Hey, according to the news, you shot out the lights today.”

Not.

 

25

E
xhaustion imprisons Arthur in his bed until half past seven–he's rising later each day, adjusting to the rhythm of the city. He squints at the pen drawings, a man's head buried between a woman's splayed legs, then rolls awkwardly from bed.

Bagels, tea, and morning paper. He refuses to read about his disaster in Court 67. Gwendolyn is buried in the middle pages, six more arrests. Trial dates for the protestors are clogging the court calendars. The authorities are fast running out of leg bracelets for their electric monitoring program. Something is going to have to give.

As spied upon last week through powerful binoculars, Margaret looked thin, wasted, ragged. His badgering note about her physical and emotional health, her state of comfort and cleanliness, got this airmail response:
Arthur, you must stop worrying about me. I'm better off than hundreds of millions of women on this planet.
She's keeping in shape, she's equipped, harnessed, she's been in the canopy, it's exhilarating.

He's too late for his morning safari to Lord Stanley's park, but has time to stride briskly to the Law Courts through the dense checkerboard of the West End. The day of summer solstice blooms warm under filaments of fading mist, a day when he ought to be picking asparagus, not enduring the bitter harvest of the courtroom.

A news camera follows him up the courthouse steps. He smiles, waves, assumes a guise of confidence.

 

Before court sits, Buddy, his manifest of witnesses already in disarray, announces another schedule change. “The pathologist asked if I'd move her ahead. Not, I said, I have some heavy-hitters due up. But it turns out she's got a trial conflict. So I guess we'll have to get to the good folks from Kansas when we get to them.”

This procrastination argues something has gone askew. Yesterday these good folks were costing a freaking fortune, now they'll bide their time.

Dr. Rosa Sanchez has added grey to her hair since Arthur last met her. A senior forensic pathologist, competent and casual, she lacks the stiff mannerism of many professional witnesses. She's helpful to juries, translating medical jargon into recognizable English.

Buddy Svabo rushes her through the autopsy, as if finding it morbid or tasteless, then asks her opinion on the cause of death.

“Asphyxia due to occlusion of the trachea. In simple terms, her airway was blocked and she expired for lack of oxygen.”

The indicia included heart congestion and cyanosis: blue discolouring of the lips, which were also marked by slight contusions. Not severe enough to be caused by a blow to the mouth, nor bearing any relation to the chipped front tooth. Both wrists had minor abrasions, as if pressure had been applied. No other soft tissue injury other than light bruising around the lower abdomen.

“Given that her blood alcohol reading was .04 at the time of death and that she'd been consuming wine, what conclusions do you draw?”

“That reading would be consistent with her having had three or four glasses of wine within the previous two hours.”

“But on top of that, we have…” Buddy struggles with a word from her report. “Flunitrazepam…I'll use the trade name, Rohypnol. Tell us about that.”

This potent sedative, she explains, is on the banned list here but used in Europe and in Latin America, most often as a sleeping pill, but occasionally as an anaesthetic. Its use as a date-rape drug is widely known. It may cause impaired judgment and motor skills, short-term memory loss, blackouts, and even coma. “The intensity of effect depends on dosage, elapsed time after ingestion, and varies with the individual.”

“Okay, given that this drug was found in Dr. Winters's bloodstream, what can you tell us about how much she ingested?”

“That's a hard one. Flunitrazepam metabolizes rapidly. We don't know when she ingested it.”

“Okay, let's say Mr. Stubb here–he's about Dr. Winters's height–let's say he popped a couple of…what are they, a milligram each?”

“They come in one or two milligrams.”

“Will he black out if he takes, say, more than three milligrams?” Perhaps concerned that Buddy will pull out a packet of rochies and employ him as lab rat, Ears drops a half-chewed pencil and becomes comalike himself, a smiling upright cadaver.

Dr. Sanchez studies Ears for a moment. “Yes, he might. But the deceased may have been semi-conscious and putting up at least token resistance. The abrasions to the wrists and chipped tooth suggest that.”

“Excuse me.” Buddy huddles with his coach, Jasper Flynn, who sends in a new play. “Okay, the light bruising around the lower abdomen. Could she have received a blow to the stomach?”

“It is possible.”

“A blow that could have incapacitated her?” Buddy boldly demonstrates, a low, sweeping uppercut.

“At least temporarily.”

“Especially when her senses were already dulled by this powerful drug?”

“Yes.”

“And she could have been gasping, out of breath?”

“The resulting trauma could have been that severe, it is difficult to say.”

“And the bruising to the wrists, is that consistent with an assailant seizing and gripping them tightly?”

“Possibly but not likely. The bruising was solely on the interior aspect of her wrists, near her palms.”

“Well, let's say she's on her back, and he's straddling her, kneeling on her wrists, and she's struggling to free herself.” Buddy illustrates with another visual graphic, turning again to his junior counsel with an apelike posture, knees bent. Ears makes himself small, fearing he will be called upon to play the role of Eve Winters. “And her horrible nightmare ends when he stuffs the panties down her throat.”

Making objection to these dramatics would only signal Arthur's concern and give this theory added stress. Martin Samples is awed by Buddy's shtick, a
coup de théâtre
transcending anything seen on film. However clownish and gruesome, the mime will indelibly remain with the jury: a credible reason why Winters, already woozy with Rohypnol, was unable to resist, to push or scratch or flail or kick. It explains the lack of defensive wounds, of fingernail scrapings, of blood stains, of hair pulled out by the roots.

Could Adeline Angella have delivered such an incapacitating blow to the solar plexus? A picture of this uptight, tidy woman performing with such violence refuses to take on definition. The chipped tooth bothers Arthur. It's as if she had bitten not a finger but something hard, metallic.

In cross-examination, Arthur stresses the minimal nature of the injuries. Dr. Sanchez agrees they could have been sustained on the trail, from slips and falls on roots and creekbed rocks.

“No trauma to the vaginal area?”

“No, there wasn't.”

“In fact there was no bruising anywhere on her body that might normally be associated with a violent sexual assault, isn't that so?” The point is vital to his case that Eve Winters wasn't raped.

“I would agree, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Thank you.”

Kroop, sensing a possible hole in the Crown's case, moves to plug it: “Clarify for me, doctor–would you expect bruising to the deceased's private parts if, during copulation, she was beyond all mortal capacity to resist her assailant?”

Dr. Sanchez looks around as if for help. “I'm…sorry, my lord, I didn't follow that very well.”

“If she were dead.”

Behind Arthur, someone sucks in air. Sanchez responds with a shrug. “With all the variables, I couldn't say.”

A telling reminder of why judges ought to stay out of the fray. Some jurors look slightly irritated by his Lordship's crude intervention. Martin Samples, however, enjoys this black moment, a barely hidden smile.

“May I be allowed to continue, milord?” Arthur's faux politeness causes someone in the gallery to snort.

“Do so, and don't make a major issue of it.” Kroop is hunched back, scowling at Arthur with his ferrite eyes, blaming him, as if he engineered the awkward moment.

Arthur establishes Rohypnol's notoriety as a tool of sexual predators, and asks Dr. Sanchez if it can lead to death.

“Yes. Particularly when mixed with alcohol, Rohypnol may cause respiratory depression, aspiration, or even death.”

“And certainly coma.”

“Yes.”

“And there is no way to be certain that Dr. Winters was conscious when she was asphyxiated.”

“I can't dispute that.”

“It's a uniquely powerful sleeping pill?”

“Yes, used mainly for sleep disorders.”

“Such as?”

“Insomnia, recurrent sleepwalking.”

The one question too many.
You're not supposed to ask.
Arthur spins out his examination for a few minutes in an effort to bury the last answer, then packs it in. Nick Faloon wasn't using medication for sleepwalking…Or was he? Did anyone bother to ask him?

Still avoiding the Topekans, Buddy brings in Constable Beasely, Flynn's sidekick. He adds little but an echo of evidence heard. Beasely at the Breakers Inn, Beasely at the crime scene, Beasely at the Nitinat Lodge. Beasely finding nothing. Certainly no Rohypnol.

After Buddy's store of questions is exhausted, he looks pleadingly at Arthur to take up the slack with cross-examination. “No questions,” Arthur says.

Buddy must clear his throat before addressing the judge. “I'm afraid that's all I have for this morning.”

“Mr. Svabo, are you saying you have run out of witnesses?”

“At this point in time.”

“Mr. Prosecutor, at this point in time we are about to take the morning break. When we return in fifteen minutes I expect the stand to be occupied by a person prepared to give relevant testimony.”

He leaves, shaking his head. Kroop detests incompetence, abhors clumsy prosecutions, and might be incited to start sniping at the Crown.
Carpe diem
.

While the prosecution joins in frantic, three-headed debate, Arthur slips out to crack open the door of the witness room. It's full of Topekans.

 

Still buying time for some unstated reason, the Crown has dredged the holding cells in the bowels of the Law Courts, where Father Yvon Réchard has been awaiting his call to duty.
This bald, lugubrious penitent lacks the collar, but has been permitted a black suit. He has a haunted expression–as if knowing he's hellbound.
Fallen, like myself, so far from grace.
He takes the oath with the Bible in both hands.

Buddy lightly touches on Réchard's sinning ways–the jury learns only that he's awaiting sentence on morals offences. Ellen Sueda, who is Catholic and instructs grade fivers, is already looking at him coldly, perhaps guessing the worst. Jasper Flynn is bent over a pad, doodling, fretful about this unsavoury witness.

As Réchard recounts talking to Faloon about faith and philosophy, his lawyer makes clamorous entry, still knotting his tie, face muscles bunched with indignation. Howie Solyshn, known as the Dealmaker, a large, loud, and windy rascal. He steams past the bar of the court, roaring at Réchard. “Don't say another word!” The witness recoils.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Solyshn?” Kroop's eyes have sunk into their sockets.

“I represent Father Réchard, who I was assured was not on today's witness list.”

“You have no standing at this trial.”

“I have every right to advise my client about self-incrimination.”

“You would interrupt the proceedings of this court and have the jury twiddling their thumbs while you finally instruct a client who has been ten weeks under subpoena. Ample opportunity, Mr. Solyshn.”

“I'm making a motion to adjourn.”

“I cannot hear your motion. I cannot hear
you
.” With each syllable, Kroop's voice rises. “You do not have standing. So sit down!” A screech.

Resigned to his fate, the rambunctious Dealmaker plumps down on the bench behind Arthur.

Buddy must now go into bullying mode with Réchard, who's been so cowed that his voice has dropped, his words less
intelligible, his French accent more pronounced. Haltingly, he tells of finding Faloon in a pensive mood one day, inviting him to unburden himself, then taking confession several hours later. Réchard glances at Arthur, at Solyshn, a silent plea for mercy.

Arthur has a perfectly valid explanation for Faloon's words:
She was beautiful, I just couldn't help myself.
He was sleepwalking, sleeptalking, his unconscious mind on his guilty night with Holly Hoover. But Arthur won't rely on that. More profit lies elsewhere.

To Buddy's final question, Réchard repeats a phrase from his statement: “I felt it was my duty to come forward.”

A tap on Arthur's shoulder, the smell of Solyshn's salty breath. “Help me here, pal, ask for a recess.”

Arthur stares him back into his seat, rises to face Réchard. Shallow breathing. A repeated grimace, like a tic. Staring at his hands.