Kill All the Judges (33 page)

She'd been picked up by federal police at a farmhouse she shared with a “known” drug dealer, Carlos Espinoza, twenty-four. Charles Loobie, settling into the press table, bestowed on Arthur a wide smile that sought forgiveness for past sins.

Wentworth pointed to a paragraph mentioning Carlos's record of three arrests, two escapes, a reputation as a dashing cavalier. He'd obviously had no difficulty slipping past Canadian immigration. Presumably he was benefiting from some manner of cover-up by the LeGrand family. The likely engineer of that was Shawn Hamilton, still on the counsel bench, with his trademark deadpan look with its touch of misery, as if life had dealt him a hard hand.

Time to strategize must wait; court was in session and a young officer was testifying, in the stolid manner taught in the policing academies, as to her “attendance” at the scene of “an apparent collision between a vehicle and a tree.” Constable Gaynor and her partner “responded to a call issued at 3:15 hours” and arrived just as an ambulance pulled in. About twenty neighbours were milling around an Aston Martin and a badly wounded cypress.

Swerving tire marks scarred a driveway and described an S-shape on a lawn, allowing Constable Gaynor to conclude the brakes had been applied “in a forceful manner.” The impact crushed the right front fender and bent the passenger door. The sole occupant was fully dressed and shod but minus poncho, and was
snoring behind an air bag. When aroused, he appeared to be intoxicated, and assistance was required to place him in the patrol car.

“I had conversations with several neighbours, and consequently proceeded on foot approximately two hundred metres to an address at 2 Lighthouse Lane, where I found the driveway gate open and one of three garage doors open as well. I was about to radio the major crimes unit for instructions when a motor vehicle braked in front of me with emergency equipment on.”

That was Detective Sergeant Henry Chekoff, unaccountably late in responding to the 911 call from Astrid Leich. More emergency vehicles, crime scene personnel. Gaynor's account of the ensuing melee prompted images of a travelling carnival setting up at Lighthouse Lane. Two 911 calls four minutes apart, Chekoff slow to bring order from chaos, uniformed and forensics officers meandering up and down the street, getting in one another's way.

Chekoff sent Gaynor back to the accident scene to help officers loop quarantine bunting around trees and fence posts. “The accused was transferred to a department vehicle, at which point I observed a Breathalyzer test being administered, after which he was taken away.”

“Your witness,” Abigail said.

“And do you know the result of that Breathalyzer test?” Arthur asked.

“Point two four, I believe.”

“Enough to bring an elephant to its knees, do you agree?”

“I couldn't say, sir.”

“Intoxication at that level would manifest itself how?”

“Slowed reaction time, slurred speech, lack of coordination, impaired judgment.”

“Exactly. According to your telling, Mr. Brown couldn't even walk unaided.”

“I would say he had difficulty, yes.”

“Double vision, nausea, tremors, memory loss, those are also indicia?”

“He'd be grossly impaired, sir.”

Given that Cud had found his way into the garage and taken the Aston Martin for a two-hundred-metre joyride, Arthur didn't see much profit in portraying him as too immobilized to perform the basic tasks of murder. But it didn't hurt to draw from Gaynor that Cud, when asked to produce his licence, dropped it, lost his footing while bending to retrieve it, toppled onto his face in the grass, and vomited.

Her partner added little. He'd patted the accused down, given him the customary warning, accompanied him to the police station. There, a further Breathalyzer was administered–point two three. Cud was booked and shown to a cell.

Arthur asked if Cud's belongings were catalogued, and the officer checked his notes. “Wallet with eight dollars, sixty-three cents in pocket change, six Tylenol tablets, three Cuban cigars, one peace medallion, one half-smoked marijuana cigarette, and I think they removed his ring.”

“He was wearing a ring at the time?”

“I'm not sure. I don't remember seeing it earlier.”

“Please describe it.”

“Gold or imitation gold, with a big oval stone, kind of yellowish-orange.”

“An opal.”

“Could be.”

Arthur nudged Wentworth to write all this down–he seemed inordinately fatigued. There was Vogel in the back, the old farmer bamboozled by Clearihue. Arthur didn't know how to build that defence, a murder to abort a judgment. Clearihue lived a twenty-minute walk from Whynet-Moir, so there was opportunity and motive but not much more.

Detective Sergeant Chekoff took the oath. Bull-like, with a razor-resisting muzzle, a suit that hadn't known pressing for a week. An old-style cop from the ranks, not a bad fellow, though an exemplar of the Peter Principle and out of his depth here.

Roused from bed by his dispatcher shortly after 3:00 a.m., he'd “jumped” into his car and “raced off” to 2 Lighthouse Lane. Given that Gaynor easily beat him there, this effort to imply he leaped buildings with a single bound seemed suspect–maybe he'd got lost or stopped for a coffee and doughnut. Two more detectives arrived on his heels and were directed to Astrid Leich's home. Then came the forensics unit, another ambulance, two more patrol cars, sirens howling, neighbours congregating.

In the LeGrand manse the windows remained dark, only a few exterior lights burning. While officers fanned out along the deck and directed beams onto the rocky shore, Chekoff buzzed the front door. Twice. Three times. Then he was summoned to an area of the deck where a metal chair lay on its side. Officers were gaping down at a “human form, male, partially clad in a dressing gown.”

At this point Abigail began to thrust exhibits at Chekoff: pictures of the house exterior, the yard, the decks, the fallen chair, the sprawled body thirty feet below, shots of intrepid climbers lugging up the corpse on a stretcher. House plans, a landscape architect's drawings, diagrams showing distances, elevations.

The fingerprint people went inch by inch over the railing and fallen chair but found nothing to place Cudworth near the critical area. Towels were seized from around the pool, as well as a bottle of Hennessy VSOP, nearly empty. Cud's prints were lifted from the bottle and the door. No clothing strewn about, though Cud claimed he and Flo had stripped by the pool.

Chekoff made another fruitless effort to arouse someone, knocking and yelling, “Police!” Probably because he knew these were the diggings of local nobility, he'd shied away from radioing for a search warrant or attempting forced entry. Instead, he posted two guards on the grounds until morning.

Unfortunately, Chekoff's only instructions to the constables, both rookies, were to forbid anyone leaving the house, and before he showed up again at 8:00 a.m. they'd let the maid and gardener
in and given fawning admittance to Florenza's father, Donat J. LeGrand, as well as an entire medical-legal entourage. Chekoff and his crime scene team were guided to a bedroom doorway where “I observed Ms. LeGrand in bed, apparently ill, and under treatment by a doctor and a nurse.” He did not venture in.

He was then led to a drawing room and introduced to “a lawyer named Shawn Hamilton, whom I identify as sitting right over there.” Shawn nodded, unsmiling. “As a result of that conversation, I did not make further inquiries of Ms. LeGrand, but I produced a search warrant and told them I intended to enforce same.”

That search turned up nothing but Cud's cigar butt, overlooked by the maid, who had already done the living room, dining room, and tidied up what the caterers hadn't. Assuming her employers were still abed, she hadn't entered the main bedroom. The gardener was also on duty, raking leaves.

Chekoff looked uneasy as he related this fiasco, especially with Kroop muttering under his breath. Arthur could read his lips: “Nincompoop.” He caught the forewoman's eye and couldn't help smiling–but he felt sorry for Chekoff.

The sergeant next made inquiries of the Haitian maid, Philomène Rossignol, who escorted him to her suite. The bed had been tidily made and its linen washed. She'd set aside a backpack and male toiletries for whoever was the rightful claimant.

The judge ordered a break, and Arthur nudged Wentworth, who was staring at the protruding bottom of a junior prosecutor bending over the counsel table. “Wentworth.”

“Oh, sorry,”

“I'll want a transcript of Leich's 911 call. And ask Abigail to produce the maid for cross-examination. Rashid too, while we're at it. I'll want you to interview them first.”

Arthur went out to the gallery to check his messages. Nothing from Margaret. It still smarted that she'd chastised him, but when he thought back, yes, he could see how his jests about
her campaign, about Ottawa, might have smacked of smirking faithlessness.

Nicholas Braid had called. “I guess you're not there. A couple of locals are out in the barn, they told me you hired them to build a pedestal for that monstrosity in there. A Mr. Stonewell and some fellow he calls Dog, they assured me they have permission to use the Fargo to haul the cement. Nicky vouched for them, so I gave them the keys, hope you don't mind.”

Arthur uttered a profane lamentation; the Fates had it in for him. He dragged himself back to court 67, looking for Wentworth. A junior prosecutor, buxom and freckle-faced, had him in close encounter, trapped against the jury railing. Finally, he moved back to his station, flushed.

Arthur said, “Well?”

“She said yes.”

“Who said yes to what?”

He stammered. “Oh, um, Abigail, she'll produce the maid and Rashid.”

Chekoff stepped back into the box, smoothed his rumpled suit, and described his wanderings around the grounds with a photographer, illustrating the tour with photos. Exhibits P-33 through P-39 showed views of Leich's balcony from the vantage of the fallen chair, an unobstructed distance of sixty metres.

They next went to the other side of the little nipple of an inlet, to 5 Lighthouse Lane, Leich's house, where photos were snapped in the opposite direction. “I had a conversation with Ms. Leich following which I escorted her to headquarters. There she attended a lineup of eight men as depicted in Exhibit 54, in which the accused is shown wearing a placard with number six. I instructed Ms. Leich to write down the number of any person she'd seen from her balcony at approximately three a.m.” And of course she wrote down number six.

“That's the man,” she'd said–hearsay, but Arthur didn't object, didn't want the jury thinking he was hiding an awkward truth.

He rose to cross-examine, wondering why the jury seemed distracted–they were watching Felicity Jones return in a pout. She retook her seat between Cud and Mrs. Brown, quickly withdrew her hand when Cud tried to press it.

“Let's try to understand this, sergeant–after you discovered the body you made no attempt to enter the premises?”

“Okay, I called the chief and he spoke to some other people, I don't know who, and he called back to tell me to button down the place and post guards until the daylight hours.”

“The night before, responding to Ms. Leich's call, you arrived well after my client ran the car into the tree.”

“I had to do some checking, see who lived at 2 Lighthouse Lane.”

“Prominent people–is that why the investigation was put on hold?”

“From what I could determine, there was no one at home, and it looked like it could have been…” Hesitation.

“Suicide?”

“Well, it had some of the earmarks.”

“Suggesting that Ms. Leich didn't see what she claimed to see.”

“We were keeping all options open.” Sullenly.

“In your search of the house, did you find any copies of Mr. Brown's poetry books?
Liquor Balls
,
Karmageddon
.”

Chekoff pondered. “Can't say we did.”

“Not in the maid's room either?”

“I have no note of that.”

Shawn was writing his own note. Arthur wondered if he'd gone so far as to remove evidence. He played with a thought that Shawn might be representing not just Flo LeGrand but, more surreptitiously, friends in Ottawa, friends who wanted things hushed up.

“Odd to think that my client, even intoxicated, would drive off and leave behind his belongings–unless, if he was doing any thinking at all, he intended to come back. Did that thought strike you?”

That, in retrospect seemed a foolish question, and Arthur got the answer he deserved. “Maybe he had a reason to wanna get out of there fast.”

“As I understand it, Ms. LeGrand was under instructions not to talk to you.”

“That's about it, counsellor.”

“Does the name Carlos Espinoza mean anything to you?”

“Can't say it does.”

Again Shawn was writing, an indication Arthur was on the right track. “Are you aware that fourteen years ago Ms. LeGrand had a lover in Mexico by that name?”

“I may have heard something about that.”

“And what did you hear?”

“Mr. Beauchamp, we're not interested in scuttlebutt.”

“But I daresay, milord, we are interested in knowing who killed Rafael Whynet-Moir.”

“What the sergeant may have heard is of absolutely no probative value. I will not have this court used as a forum for backhanded attacks on reputation.”

“Nor should the court erect a shield against relevant inquiries that involve reputation.”

“Mr. Beauchamp, your lack of deference to this court has not gone unnoticed.”

Arthur had the old fellow going, and he was thinking of adding fuel, but Abigail was now trying to enter the fray. “Milord, if I may…”

“You may not. I do not need to hear from you. The question is entirely unseemly and is disallowed. It's four o'clock, we'll adjourn.” He swept out, slammed the chambers door. Arthur felt badly about putting the fellow in a sour mood when he was soon about to enjoy accolades with his rubber chicken.