Kill All the Judges (46 page)

“A wise man does not urinate against the wind.”

Leich seemed embarrassed on resuming the stand, couldn't look at Kroop, even though he was doggy-eyed with sympathy. But she turned on a stiff-upper-lip smile while the lineup photo was circulated to the jury. She didn't study hers for long. “Number six. I made a mistake earlier.”

“And do you see that man in the courtroom?”

She was explicit: third row from the back, eighth seat to the left, in the brown cardigan with leather elbow patches.

“For the record,” said Abigail, “identifying the accused.”

“No more questions.”

Leich heaved herself up with great relief and left the box. She looked like she was about to make a complete getaway until Kroop hesitantly called her back. “I'm sorry, madam, but there is the little matter of cross-examination.” He was looking darkly at Arthur, sending a message that he'd better go easy on her or else.

Arthur slowly rose, and all through the room you could feel the tension rising with him. This was going to be the cross-examination of a lifetime.

“I have no questions.”

Wentworth pedalled the long way around, looping by the southern belly of the West End, taking time to ponder why Arthur hadn't cross-examined, a letdown, like air hissing from a balloon. The boss hadn't wanted Leich to embellish her revised version. But choosing not to object to the lineup photo–couldn't that boomerang?

And then there was the weird thing with the chief justice, how he mooned over Astrid Leich, thanked her with even more applesauce than usual–she'd bravely come forward, she'd done her best under stressful circumstances. Wentworth, who hadn't got over his mauling by the chief, wanted to throw up.

Leich had stuck around a while in the gallery, but couldn't have been too impressed with her admirer, watching him tussle with the boss. Kroop insisted on recessing halfway through the afternoon and starting fresh on Saturday with Flo LeGrand. That made Arthur livid; he'd made urgent plans for Saturday. His best line: “May I congratulate Your Lordship for having been cured of your obsession with running this trial as if it were the Olympic hundred-metre dash.”

“This court is adjourned,” said the chief.

“He wants to rush me, wants me ill-prepared,” Arthur had complained as they left the courts. “He correctly has assumed I'd planned to be with Margaret for her debate tomorrow. Damn him to hell. When is his turn?”

For what? His turn to die? Arthur didn't expand, though he did explain why he'd been called away to Garibaldi. Then he went off to the quiet of his club to prepare for Florenza LeGrand.

His bike secured, Wentworth took a moment to read the notice on the door of the former Gastown Riot. “God Loves You. Welcome to the Leap of Faith Prayer Centre.” Opening this weekend, that was fast. “Rev up your spirits with Pastor Blythe at our grand opening on the coming Lord's Day.”

Wentworth tried to look on the bright side. At least these guys won't drive everybody nuts with amplified heavy metal. The broken window had been replaced. A couple of people hanging bunting on walls, setting up chairs. One of them spotted him, opened the door. “Are you sick, brother?”

“No, I'm fine, I bicycle every day.”

He fled to the elevator. Upstairs, at the front desk, April Fan Wu was filling in for the receptionist, who'd gone on stress leave. A group of Ruby Morgan's backers, his financial team, were waiting for Brovak, valises at their feet. Wentworth recognized all but one, a pink, shiny, bumlike face, a neatly trimmed beard, a suit of the latest cut. Maybe he was security, the guy with the gun.

April rattled him with her sultry look, a pucker of smiling lips. He didn't have a clue why she seemed to be hustling him. There was nothing she could get from him. The lesbian thing had been a cover, okay, but why was that “our secret?'” Maybe she didn't want the Animal to know she was straight. Or that other womanizer, Pomeroy.

He bent toward her. “What did you do with Brian?” As she slipped off her headset he smelled something nice, like apple blossoms.

“I took him to his psychiatrist's office. I expect she drove him to his treatment centre.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“We had a few private moments. She's afraid he may be bottoming out. That may cause him to snap back to reality. Or he could go under.”

“What's that mean?”

“Destroy himself. Apparently, writing is the only thing that keeps him from giving in to dangerous impulses. That is why I'm doing this.” She gestured at her monitor. “Brian's manuscript. He's been dictating it to disk.” Wentworth twisted around to read the line just transcribed: “It is time, dear reader, before we close our list, to meet our final suspect…” In his descent, Brian had turned to flowery prose–in the manner of that writer he favoured, Widgeon.

Brovak walked in, hung up his helmet and his Harley jacket, ignoring his clients. “Augustina checked in yet?”

“Ms. Sage is in her office,” April said.

“About fucking time. I'm exhausted from running this show alone.” Alone? Had Wentworth turned invisible?

Brovak looked over the several faces uplifted in inquiry. “Bail has been set, gentlemen. Five hundred kilos for Señor Morgan, smaller change for the peons. Please proceed to my office so we may discuss my own financial needs.”

He sent them down the hall with their valises, grinned at Wentworth, as if to say, This is how it's done, kid. He gave April a head-shaking appraisal before following them. “What a waste.”

The bumface stayed in his chair, unsmiling, flipping through
New Yorker
cartoons. Wentworth said, “Excuse me, are you here to see someone?”

“I was hoping to catch Mr. Beauchamp.”

“He won't be in today. Can I help?”

“Yes, well…You must be Mr. Chance? Can we talk?”

“About what exactly?”

He rose, extended a perspiring palm. “Thomas Drew. Tom to my friends. Her Majesty's Service.” He produced a card embossed with the Canadian crest. Office of the Prime Minister. Just his name, no title. “I may have some useful information.” Close to his ear: “About someone you may wish to add to your list of suspects.”

Wentworth blinked. This was too eerie.
It is time to meet our final suspect.

He deposited Tom Drew in his cramped office (incorrect feng shui, according to April, poorly designed). He held his curiosity in check long enough to pop across the hall to greet Augustina Sage, who was sipping herbal tea and going through her backlog in a dreamy, desultory way. A touch of grey in that curly mat of hair. Still pretty in her forties, thinner, cut off from the world at her Buddhist retreat–yet another effort to figure out why she was prone to self-destructive relationships.

“I don't want to hear about Brian's problems, Wentworth. I don't want to discuss him at all. I don't want to hear about dead judges, either, and I don't want to hear about your lurid trial.”

“Okay, well, welcome back.”

“I have achieved a level of holiness that I intend to maintain as long as I can, despite knowing it will all go to shit after five days in this madhouse. At which point I will completely fall apart, join a lonely hearts club, and try to get laid.”

“Good luck.”

“Bless you. Peace.” A bowed head, a Buddhist salute, palms pressed together.

Tom Drew was standing by a window, examining the fire escape, as if calculating a means of escape.

“So, Mr. Drew, what exactly do you do for the prime minister?”

“Let's say I look after certain security issues.”

Wentworth could smell his sweat. He didn't think a high-level cop should sweat. “You've come from Ottawa to tell us something?”

“I thought we might share some information.”

“Don't expect many answers from me.” Wentworth was emboldened by the man's nervousness.

Drew sat, contemplated, then bluntly asked. “Who do you think murdered Rafael Whynet-Moir?”

“Who do
you
think?”

“Can I have your undertaking that this is off the record, Mr. Chance?”

An undertaking–a very solemn matter for a lawyer. How
would Arthur respond? Wentworth decided to play along. “Okay, but I have to share this with Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Understood. Whynet-Moir served as Jack Boynton's parliamentary aide some years ago.”

“We know that.”

“Yes, and in return for a judgeship, he paid a substantial bribe to Jack Boynton. No question. Can we put that to rest?”

“Okay.”

“Our information is that an intermediary was involved. Have you considered that?”

Wentworth nodded.

“And have you considered that this party might have a motive for murder, to cover up his corrupt role?”

Wentworth was chafing at the way this Tom Drew was giving information under the guise of interrogating him. “Okay, I assume we're talking about some bureaucrat?”

“I'm afraid that's not the case. In fact…well, I may as well tell you that our investigation has been seriously compromised by such rumours.”

“Compromised in what way?”

Drew cleared his throat. “Frankly it would help us get to the bottom of this if, ah, certain persons refrained from making allegations that the go-between was in government service.”

“Certain persons like Mr. Beauchamp?” Drew winced, as if in affirmation. “Who was the go-between?”

“Perhaps the deal was brokered by a certain solicitor–have you considered that? Someone not unknown to the LeGrand family?”

Again, this clumsy interrogative phrasing. Wentworth waited him out.

“There may be evidence to suggest this solicitor accepted a substantial broker's fee. Do you have any idea whom I might be referring to?”

Wentworth wondered if Tom was secretly recording this. “You tell me.”

“Maybe a lawyer representing a member of the LeGrand family?” The list had just been narrowed to Silent Shawn Hamilton. “Would you care to guess the amount of the fee?”

“Well, no, I'd like you to tell me.”

“Would you be surprised if it's in the high six figures?”

“How high?”

“Three quarters of a million has been mentioned.”

“By whom?”

“We are acting on information, Mr. Chance.”

“From whom?”

“A person of high repute in the, ah, court system. I can say no more.”

Judge Dalgleish Ebbe? That would add a touch of plausibility, but it didn't make Wentworth any less skeptical.

“Can you see, Mr. Chance, why this lawyer might want to do away with Judge Whynet-Moir?”

“Are you a cop?”

“Let's say I'm close to important people, for whom I handle sensitive issues.” He began to talk rapidly, heightened colour showing in his round pink face. “Let us hypothesize that after Jack Boynton died of a stroke, Whynet-Moir was the only person who knew of the go-between. Let us assume Whynet-Moir was under suspicion and that we were about to question him. His obvious tactic would have been to deflect blame by denouncing the intermediary. And…you can figure out the rest.”

This stank. Who in high places was he protecting?

Drew rose. “I'm afraid that's all I'm permitted to say. I have to catch a plane. Pleasure to meet you.” Once again he proffered a damp, soft hand, then departed.

Wentworth figured he'd heard a lot of bullshit. In which case, maybe he'd just met someone involved in the murder.

 

FEMME FATALE

A
rthur lowered himself with a comfortable grunt into his preferred chair, a wingback facing away from the bar's distracting offerings. After a week at the Confederation Club, he'd finally staked a claim to this chair, a claim recognized by members and enforced by staff.

The maître d'hotel, who liked to fuss over him, set out linen, cutlery, and his regular welcome basket: tea, menu, and newspapers. “The garden salad and the lamb stew, please, Manfred.” That should satisfy Margaret, the rich food critic, when she cross-examined him tonight from…where will she be? Moose Hills, Mosquito Flats, Mud Creek, maybe one of those logging camps where they heckle her.