April Fool (31 page)

“I don't, I'm sorry.”

The one question too many.

“Okay, but were they legally prescribed?”

“Well, I assume…I honestly can't say.”

Two questions too many. Kroop snaps his daybook shut with such force that Ears breaks the pencil he was chewing. “We will adjourn until tomorrow, ten o'clock.”

Arthur has ended the day on an encouraging note. In truth, he will be happy if the joke-telling developer never returns. Better to have him run off like a fugitive than swear on oath he left the Breakers for twenty minutes to walk off his burps and farts. In making a late break for the border he has helped direct a fat red herring to Arthur's hook.

 

26

I
n court this morning, among the young lawyers here to watch and learn, is Brian Pomeroy–curiosity has got the best of him. The prisoner's dock remains starkly empty, a glassed-in vault without a body. Buddy looks grumpy–the Crown's case is being forced onto detours. Despite a rocky start, Arthur has piqued the jury's interest in other culprits. Doctor Eve's hiking companions comprise today's list, and he has a few questions for Ruth Delvechio, her ex-lover.

First up is the anaesthetist, Glynis Bloom–early forties, a prematurely greying soldier's haircut. Her manner is poised, her answers flavoured with a breezy turn of phrase, as she describes six days of tramping on sand and sandstone, up muddy trails, over waterways, their packs heavy with tents, clothes, and “enough granola to feed a herd of cattle.” In the evenings, they would explore the beach for shells, write letters and postcards by candlelight, play cards, read.

“Okay, and you finished this hike?”

“Yes, we actually did.”

That generates the fabled titter that runs through courtrooms, stilled by Kroop's searching spotlights. Buddy might not have pulled this boner if Flynn hadn't been tugging at his sleeve, reminding him of some overlooked morsel of evidence.

“I meant…Let me go back. When the four of you started off on March 21, you signed in at the trailhead?”

“Yes.”

“And then you signed out at Pachena Bay?”

“Yes.”

She identifies their signatures on a register for March 26. Beside hers, Doctor Eve wrote,
Magic
.

“And what did you do after that?”

“We persuaded our sore feet to carry us the last mile to Bamfield.”

All four bunked in Cotters' Cottage that night. Dr. Bloom and her partner, Wilma Quong, had to leave the next day, but Eve Winters had another week of holiday. “She was knocked out by the place.”

“Knocked out?” A small, pursed smile from Kroop. “I regret, madam, that my ear is not trained in the nuances of modern speech.”

“What a jerk.” The scornful whisper of Brian Pomeroy. Kroop could not have heard, though his ears picked up something, causing him to lose the stub of his smile.

“I meant she was captivated by the ambience of the village, the lovely little beach, everything. ‘I'm never leaving this place,' she said.” Dr. Bloom bites her lip–as if she only now appreciates the irony.

Buddy spoils the soft moment with rude bluntness. “Well, she was sure right about that.” An embarrassed silence has him shuffling through papers, seeking some better note on which to conclude. Again Flynn tugs at him, and they confer, then Buddy asks if Winters suffered any injuries on the trail.

“Just the usual bumps and thumps.”

“Any injury to her teeth?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Buddy sits. “Your witness.”

On rising, Arthur expresses condolences for her loss of a friend.

“Thank you, she was special.”

“A fascinating woman, by all accounts.”

“Intuitive. She could see through your skin.”

“I would often come upon her column. There was help there for even a used-up old fellow like me.”
The Man Who Thinks He's a Masochist.

“I think there's probably a lot of use there yet, Mr. Beauchamp.” She is smiling. Kroop isn't, and seems poised to shut down this cocktail-party colloquy.

“She was entertaining?”

“Usually.”

“Occasionally volatile? She had a temper?”

“She had a temper and could use it.”

“And what might cause it to show?”

“Frustration if things weren't going her way. Impatience with some of her clients.”

“You gave an example to my assistant, Ms. Rudnicki.”

“Yes, Eve was in a rage over a threatened lawsuit by a woman who claimed to see herself in one of her columns.”

Lorelei. Arthur glances at Brian, who gives a little shake of his head. Quite right, Arthur shouldn't risk pursuing this now. Dr. Bloom can be recalled later. He asks about Winters's mood during the hike.

“Usually carefree, but there was an underlying strain.”

“That had to do with the relationship between Dr. Winters and Ruth Delvechio?”

“It was faltering.”

Winters and Delvechio were together for six months. Lotis surmised it started as a fling–Delvechio moved in after staying a night, then stuck like glue.

“In fact, they had a very serious quarrel, did they not? At the cottage?”

The witness hesitates. They hadn't mentioned this to Lotis when they met because Delvechio was present. “Yes, I think that's fair to say. Ruth wanted to stay on in Bamfield with Eve. Eve wanted to be alone.”

Arthur has a sense Bloom isn't fond of the young student. “This had been simmering?”

“Well, Eve once told me she felt like a leaning post…”

“Nope,” says Buddy. “This is pure hearsay.” He's disgruntled by the relaxed rapport between counsel and witness. Though he has kept his temper well, he can be counted on to blow his top at least once per trial.

A lecture from the bench: “Madam, you were poised to jump into the troubled waters of the rule against hearsay. It is offended when we are asked to believe the words of one who is not a witness.”

“Let me just say I sensed a dependency that made Eve uncomfortable.”

“Angry words were used on the morning of your departure?” Arthur asks.

“It was no love duet.”

“I understand Dr. Winters told Ruth, ‘It's over.'”

“Exactly, yes.”

“And Ruth Delvechio's response was what?”

“She told Eve to fuck herself.” Kroop looks up sharply, displeased at this woman's bold use of taboo language. “Then the landlady came by and Eve went out for a walk. The rest of us packed to leave.”

“For the
Lady Rose
.”

“Yes, we'd left our car in Port Alberni.”

“Ms. Delvechio was in a dark mood on the journey home?”

“She wasn't a barrel of laughs.”

Arthur draws from Bloom that Delvechio spoke little during the drive to Vancouver, stared morosely out the car window. She asked to be dropped off at her mother's house. Bloom and her partner had no contact with Delvechio between then and April 1. They've seen her infrequently since.

Arthur is satisfied with this sketch of a heartsick vassal of her royal highness, curtly uncoupled and shamed. Motive
enough for murder? Likely not, but another red herring for the bouillabaisse he's stirring.

Arthur is about to sit, then remembers to ask about the balky door of Cotters' Cottage.

“I almost put my back out tugging it closed.”

“And the lock would then click shut?”

“Correct.”

Something else is niggling at him. Buddy hadn't asked how this hike came about.

“It was Eve's idea,” the witness explains. “We first talked about it almost a year ago, but left it too late to make reservations for the summer, so we chose the end of March and prayed for sun.”

“Reservations are required?” This is news to Arthur.

“Parks Canada restricts the numbers who can enter. For summer, you have to book a year ahead.”

“And when did you book?”

“Four months earlier, in November.”

“They check you off as you enter the park?”

“And lecture you about bears.”

“Did you see any?”

“We were trying hard not to.”

Arthur thinks he's done, but again something is bothering him. He fiddles with papers, buying time.

“Are you through, Mr. Beauchamp? The jury might prefer enjoying their mid-morning coffee than watching you stand there ruminating. Himf, himf.”

“A final question. How did you learn there was a cottage for rent on Brady Beach?”

“The Internet, a list of places to stay in Bamfield.”

“And when did you make reservations with the Cotters?”

“In November. At the same time we booked for the trail.”

Here is food for thought. A magazine writer capable of basic research could have tracked Winters's movements, learned she reserved for the trail, for Cotters' Cottage.

“Can I assume that's your last final question, Mr. Beauchamp?”

 

Wilma Quong, a timid, bespectacled accountant, must be prodded through her testimony. She isn't as forthright as Bloom about the spat, and blushes even to use the inane euphemism “f-word.” She is so apprehensive and soft of voice that Arthur makes her ordeal brief–she is blunting the force of Bloom's more candid testimony.

Quong squeezes beside her partner, a few rows back, as Ruth Delvechio takes the stand. Auburn-haired with wide pale eyes, pretty if her face weren't so stretched and tense. This tautness is only slightly relieved as she catches the eye of Glynis Bloom, and she frowns again as she looks upon Arthur, the defender of her lover's murderer, the enemy.

Buddy draws from her that she met Winters in September while researching for her master's thesis, a history of sexual misbehaviour in an isolated farm community. Their meetings grew more intimate and, Delvechio says with a flourish, “We fell desperately in love.”

She moved into Winters's upscale condo and lived, according to Delvechio, in sweet harmony. “We were so happy, so, so much in love.” At another point, she says, “It was so fairy tale.” Cloying, Lotis warned, but the sugar is coated with a bitter shell. “And despite what some people may say, we shared that love till the end.”

The Crowns must have taken Delvechio aside during the break, prepared her for Arthur, filled her in on his cross of Glynis Bloom. He asks if there was strife during the hike.

“There's always a little friction in close quarters like a two-person tent. I don't think we had many cross words. We were too tired in the evenings even to
talk
.”

“We heard something this morning about an exchange in the cottage…”

She blurts: “That was
so
tempest in a teapot. You have to know Eve, she didn't mean it.”

“She didn't mean what?”

“She didn't mean it was over. It was just a silly little thing. We would have had a good laugh about it when she came back home from her…whatever, her meditative holiday.”

Buddy assesses the pros and cons of punctuating those last few words. Finally he can't resist. “But she never did come back home, did she?”

“I think I'm going to throw up.” Again, it's Brian, directly behind Arthur.

Kroop glances up so quickly that he may have pulled a neck muscle, because he winces. “Who said that?”

No one responds.

Kneading his neck, Kroop looks about for a likely culprit, sees only a sea of innocent, sheeplike faces. He pins his fierce eyes on Arthur, his preferred suspect, then turns to the clerk. “Mr. Gilbert, did you hear someone say something about being sick?” He will wheedle the truth from the spineless clerk.

“I heard…” Gilbert clears his throat. “Something to that effect, sir, but I was looking down.”

“You must keep a better eye on the courtroom. Was he close by?”

“Near the front, I believe,” Gilbert says faintly. Almost everyone in the front benches heard Brian clearly, but none wants Gilbert's role as conscripted fink. Now the judge inspects the row of young lawyers. A long study of Brian Pomeroy, who, with magnificent gall, turns and looks behind him, redirecting the search.

“There will be an order of detention for the next person who attempts to mock the proceedings of this court.”

Behind her hand, the forewoman, Ellen Sueda, is stifling either shock or amusement. A progressive teacher, no doubt, whose students aren't sent off regularly to the principal's office.

The episode causes Buddy to lose his way. He bends to Jasper Flynn to confer about the roadmap. Lazy, maybe overconfident, Buddy has relied on Flynn to do the tedious tasks of assembling this prosecution.

“Okay, Ms. Delvechio, when did you leave Bamfield?”

“It was a Monday. I'd already lost a day of classes, and had to get back.”

“And where were you the rest of the week?”

“I had a full schedule on Tuesday and Wednesday, then an off day, and I had a seminar on Friday.”

“And on that night, Friday, March 31?”

“I was at the UBC library until late, and after that I was at my mother's. You can ask her. I was there that entire weekend.” Though accused of nothing, she's asserting her innocence.

“You were staying at your mother's because…?”

“Eve forgot to leave me a key.”

Buddy consults again with Flynn, then says, “No more questions.”

Arthur takes a while to think about that last answer. He looks at his watch.

“Are you interested in joining us, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“Milord, I would prefer my cross-examination not be interrupted by the lunch break.”

“Time flies, Mr. Beauchamp.” Kroop puts his glasses on, sees the wall clock reads five minutes to the half-hour. “Oh, very well.”