April Fool (12 page)

“And who had keys?”

“Owners had a spare set. Ask your client, maybe he made a copy. It's pretty freaking obvious that's how he got into the rooms at the Breakers.”

“Let me finish my shopping list, Buddy. I would like the laboratory reports in their entirety, including the Rohypnol test. As to the main exhibit, the semen sample–may that be released to us for an independent analysis?”

“Not. You'll have to get a court order. There isn't enough material left to give out free samples. What's all this about? I thought you were going on insanity. You managed to push it this far, you've got nothing else.”

“I want all bases covered.”

“If you're thinking of defending the main issue, whether Faloon actually did it, I'm going to have to call Adeline Angella–I guess you remember her. Previous rape, it shows a pattern, the similar fact rule applies.”

“I will be strenuously opposing.”

“I like a good fight.” Buddy affects a boxing stance. “Seriously, I can't go easy on your guy, Artie. I have to get him off the streets, there's a huge amount of pressure on me.”

Arthur watches Brian talk animatedly at a pay phone. Caroline, maybe, or their counsellor.

“Let us have some give and take, Buddy. You consent to my
independent analysis and abandon the idea of calling Ms. Angella, and I will not argue insanity.”

Buddy's eyes narrow in suspicion. “You're willing to throw away the one hope you've got?”

“An insanity verdict means a mental institution. Could be forever, who knows. A pyrrhic victory for us but a loss for the Crown.”

“I smell a rat. If you're that scared of Angella, I'm hanging on to her.”

Ultimately, Buddy consents to further testing of the diminishing sample of Faloon's precious bodily fluid. Arthur will abandon insanity.

A stirring from the press table as Arthur enters court. The provincial judge, Iris Takahashi, is working her way through a long list, the daily menu of remands, bail applications, and guilty pleas. She nods at Arthur as if recognizing him, though he can't remember where they met.

“That worked out very well,” he tells Brian as they settle on the chairs reserved for counsel. “He's going to give me a second chance at Adeline Angella.”

“Don't look now, but she's third row from the back, on your left.”

Arthur resists an itch to turn.

“Regina versus Faloon,” the clerk calls.

Arthur's client comes into the room blinking. As his eyes settle on Arthur, a puckish smile.

Brian rises. “Your Honour, I had this case brought forward so I could apply to withdraw as counsel. A matter has arisen…I can't say more, let's just say there are some friendly differences of opinion between counsel.”

A fine, understated performance for Angella. Arthur comes forward. “May it please the court, I apply to go on record as counsel.” There is not usually such rigorous formality in the changing of the guard in criminal matters, but he has decided to
milk it. “Arthur R. Beauchamp of Tragger, Inglis, Bullingham.”

“I know,” Takahashi says. “I articled there, Mr. Beauchamp. You tutored me in criminal law.”

It comes to him just in time. “Ah, yes, the studious young woman at the back–more observant than her tutor, it must be admitted.” She smiles. More proof of his decrepitude, he once had an acute memory for faces.

“Very well, Mr. Pomeroy, you are discharged.”

Arthur chances a look at Angella as Brian leaves. She packs away her notepad and rises in pursuit of him. A short-legged woman with a penguinlike waddle. Late thirties–ten years older than when he last saw her–smartly dressed and coiffed, not a hair out of place. So earnest and self-effacing when she was on the stand.

“May I also put on record that the defence of insanity is being withdrawn. In its stead, I shall be seeking a full verdict of not guilty. Circumstances have come to light that impel me in that direction.”

Reporters write furiously. Buddy, unhappy that Arthur has got the first punch in, must be prodded to record his consent to the independent analysis of the semen sample.

A date for the preliminary hearing is set, the last two weeks of June. The trial itself will likely be another six months away. Arthur will rent a comfortable suite, persuade Margaret to accompany him, a break from the farm. Assuming she's down from her tree. (“
DAY SIX
!” cried the
Times-Colonist
in its daily front-page countdown. Such encouragement could incite her to stay up there in perpetuity.)

A van awaits to convey his client away, so Arthur has only a few moments with him in the cells. Faloon apologizes for dragging Arthur from his life of ease, and hopes his friends didn't lean on him too hard. He will be in Arthur's debt “for all eternity, and then some.” He adds: “I like Mr. Pomeroy, don't get me wrong, but maybe he's a little too imaginative when he's falling apart like that.”

“I understand your friend, Claudette, is being very supportive.”

“Non-stop. It would be a lot better if we didn't have to meet in the nut house.”

“We'll get you out of there within the week.”

Arthur will interview him at length another day, but now must hurry off to the injunction hearing–it is probably long over now, but he wants to learn the result.

As he emerges from the elevator, he hears a voice call out, “Here he is.” Santorini's agitated clerk. She hurries him into the courtroom. “The judge is fit to be tied. This was to have come on at ten o'clock.”

Confused, Arthur makes his way toward the counsel table. Selwyn Loo again picks up his presence from imperceptible clues. “Good morning, Arthur. The judge seems to think we can't go on without you.”

“He wants you to get a grip on your wife,” says Lotis, deadpan. No challenging hairdo, a touch of makeup today. Ankle-length fawn dress. This petite actress (“
actor
,” she insists) knows she must dress for the role if the revolution is to be won.

When court assembles, Santorini fixes on him icily: “You had more important business, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“Merely a murder case. I wasn't aware I was required here. I still don't know why.”

“To explain
this
.” Santorini hold up a page of newspaper. “‘Fat Chance, Says Tree Sitter.' I take it that is Mrs. Beauchamp's response to my offer?”

Arthur wonders if he lost at golf yesterday. “Margaret Blake made an unguarded comment, not intended to offend.”

Selwyn rises. “Milord, no harm is done if the defendants remain where they are. Logging can't proceed anyway–that's clear from the act. An eagle habitat cannot be disturbed.”

Garlinc's counsel, Prudhomme, rises wearily. “It's not a habitat if the nest is abandoned, the court has already ruled that.”

“Milord, eagles don't easily abandon nests that have been maintained over the years…”

Santorini interrupts. “Eagles
aren't
the problem. The problem is I've held out the hand of conciliation, and it has been summarily rejected. I'm going to give the respondents two more days, and I want you to know, Mr. Beauchamp, that my patience is wearing thin.”

The matter is being taken as a personal slight; Arthur is the blameworthy party, he has failed to govern his wife.

“I mean it. There's a serious contempt-of-court issue here. I won't be afraid to order incarceration. And if anyone else tries to go up that tree, I'll have him or her arrested on the spot.” Santorini slams his desk book shut and walks out.

Santorini's ultimatum will get Margaret's back up; Arthur has a discomforting vision of her in the women's lockup, stubborn, refusing to apologize and purge the contempt.

In the barristers' lounge, Lotis seeks the bright side. “We bought two more days.”

“Eagles mate for life,” Selwyn says. “A solitary parent can't raise a brood. These developers may not be beyond shooting one. Even if we have a nesting pair, that only wins us the summer. The fledglings leave the nest in September, in go the loggers.”

“Selwyn, stop being a bringdown.” Lotis brushes hair from her eyes. Arthur wants to send her off to a salon, or buy her a clip. “This is guerrilla warfare, man, you've got to fire up the troops.”

After Selwyn heads off to a meeting, she says, “He hates shrinks, won't do tranks. Generalized anxiety disorder. I talked to him about it, you can see where it comes from. His mom was a Chinatown junkie, a hooker. Throw in the blindness. Throw in extreme environmental angst. I shouldn't be so hard on him.”

Arthur doesn't know what to say but express sympathy–he understands anxiety. His chauffeur, Brian Pomeroy, has unaccountably disappeared from the courthouse–cornered
by Angella?–so he invites Lotis to join him in a taxi to the ferry terminal.

“Yeah, I can make the three o'clock.” Unenthusiastic.

“You do have a residence on the mainland? Or do you live out of that?” A heavy packsack.

“Got evicted last week. Too many meetings, too much shouting. I couch-surf.”

Arthur assumes there's some kind of radical underground where beds are freely available to itinerant urban guerrillas. He remains leery of this woman, distrustful–revolutionaries reject that most precious of concepts, the rule of law.

Still, he needs a sounding board, and en route to Chez Forget–his boat doesn't leave until three-fifteen–he shares with Lotis the burdens of wifelessness on the farm, being forced to eat tofu, Woofers leaving, kid goats coming.

“Sounds ghastly.”

Denied sympathy, he turns the topic to her, admits a curiosity about her acting career.

“My total pitiful output was three teeners, three screamers, two soaps, a comedy series that never made the cut, and numerous acts of prostitution.”

“Acts of…I'm sorry, what?”

“Commercials, dah-ling. How I got through law school.”

Arthur doesn't prompt her, but she's unreserved in talking about her Hollywood career, its collapse. A bad love affair, a stop at an abortion clinic, a breakdown. She decided to start fresh, immigrate to her favourite city–she'd done film work in Vancouver–and arm herself with a law degree. To her, a weapon in the struggle.

Again, Chez Forget is crowded, but Pierre sits them at an outside table in the warming April sun. “It is
intolerable
. This is not the Burger King, here you need reservations. I will start you with the foie gras.” With a bow, he places before Lotis a small vase with a single red rose. “For you, mademoiselle, who is so beautiful.”

She blows him a kiss. “Oo-la-la.”

Lotis refuses the foie gras with the proletarian disdain Arthur has come to expect from her, and Arthur is made to feel badly not just about the homeless and hungry but about geese and their ill treatment. Still, he's finding this relationship less prickly, as if a form of accommodation has been reached. He was expecting more vanity from an actress. Actor.

Pierre presents Arthur with a telephone. “Normally, I would say go to hell, Beauchamp is dining. But it is Pomeroy, returning your call.”

Brian is in his car. “Sorry I missed you, I was having a few nervous moments with Angella. She wanted a ride to Vancouver, I made a lame excuse about having to visit my uncle in jail. I won't be ready for her until I'm wearing a body pack.”

“When will that likely be?”

“We're on for Thursday night. Adeline asked if I like paella, so it's back to El Torro, where Nick made his error in judgment. She still lives nearby in the same apartment. Maybe she wants to re-enact the event, slip me some Rohypnol, stuff underpants down my throat. Won't Caroline be sorry then.”

“Did she ask about your sudden exit from the case?”

“I said it was an ethical problem. ‘I make it a rule never to represent the guilty.' That actually came out with a straight face. She asked, ‘How do you know he's guilty?' I said, ‘Solicitor-client privilege.' She nodded, impressed with my formidable grasp of ethics.”

 

Arthur stands fast against dessert, orders coffee, while Lotis, who ate like a bird, plays with a fallen petal from the rose Pierre gave her. It's so pleasant, the sun beating down, robins singing, that he's sorry they must soon leave. He's enjoying a healthy venting about his murder case. Lotis seems easily entertained, wide-eyed, attentive–she doesn't treat Winters's death as a casual act of brutality dwarfed by the evils of our rapacious economic structures.
She's curious about the case, a diligent if skeptical listener, though seems to regard it as a badly plotted screenplay.

She's unafraid to criticize Arthur's defence of ten years ago, his effort to persuade a jury that Angella seduced a felon, then cried rape. “Could anyone be
that
desperate to get published?”

“She tried to impress Faloon with her poor catalogue of clippings. It may not be desperation but obsession. Mental disease could be at play.”

Arthur's magazines are replete with ads for writing schools and vanity presses. He suspects that being published is, for some, the central fantasy of their lives, in the extreme case, neurotic, all-consuming. (Cud Brown once told him he would kill to get published. Though that was several years ago, and he was drunk.)

“When was that rape trial?”

“Ten years ago. The appeal process went on for several years.” Dead-ending at the Supreme Court of Canada:
Our job isn't to second-guess the jury, Mr. Beauchamp.

Lotis finds it incredible that Angella would save Faloon's semen. “On the off chance she might want to incriminate Nick again? Sorry, the theory leaves me underwhelmed, it's beyond unlikely.”

Arthur is wounded by her casual rejection of the theory. He had hoped it at least skimmed the surface of plausibility. “My dear, murder itself is unlikely, especially when planned, a rare event. The motives that propel it are just as unusual.” He's lecturing, as if to a student, a donnish habit from his days of giving tutorials.