I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (11 page)

“Some people act distant when they're depressed. Did Dermot seem that way to you?”

“You couldn't tell what he was feeling. He never cracked a smile unless he was around that Indian. Roscoe asked me if they was acting perverted – like homos – and that got me thinking, like, what did they do on their hikes? You'd have to say Dermot was a
little funny, if you know what I mean, like, sexually. This is between you and me, okay?”

“I won't repeat it.”

Any hope that she wasn't spreading around that despicable theory was quickly dashed. “A lover's quarrel, that's what Doug thinks. Doug Wall – we had a little powwow, Buck and me and Doug. I guess you heard he saw Gabriel sneaking onto that field out there with a rifle. It's all over the valley.”

“Do you know if anyone heard any shots?”

“Mrs. Lumley, who's down the road a piece, says she heard a gun fire, but given she's half deaf and they was bucking up timber behind her, I got my doubts. To be fair.”

“Yes, we want to be fair.” This was a neighbour sent by Satan. She'd been up and down the valley offering salacious opinions and daily updates.

“One theory we're working on, Buck and me, is sexual blackmail. We told Roscoe that maybe Gabriel held that 30-30 on him to get him to pay up. Then he tells Dermot to take off them clothes and swim for it.” She points an imaginary rifle. “And then
blam, blam.”

I wasn't interested in hearing more ludicrous theories. When I showed signs of stirring, she tendered a small redemption, offering to phone Doug Wall. “He's a little distrustful with strangers, but maybe not lawyers, being as he's had a few troubles along the way. Anyway, I'll put in a good word.”

I rose. “Thank you for your kind hospitality.”

“I just want to see justice done.”

The storm front had arrived in all its petulant splendour; I could barely see through the flapping wipers as I passed through Cheekye, a small cluster of dwellings striving to be a village. A dilapidated lodge on the Cheakamus River looked like paradise compared with what awaited me in a tent. I had to roll down my window to make out the No Vacancy sign.

Farther on, in Brackendale, was the Big Chief Drive-in, a Native-run roadside café and souvenir shop where Doug Wall had agreed to meet me for lunch. I parked behind his fender-crinkled red Nash Metro and made a run for the door. The smells and sizzles in this overheated diner reminded me that I hadn't eaten since the previous night's burger and root beer at an
A&W
drive-in.

I hung up my coat, which gave off mist in the heat. A jukebox was playing. A couple of families from the Squamish band were sitting by a barrel stove, their lunch done, enjoying refills and bantering, teasing, laughing, the children quietly listening, absorbing.

Among the non-Natives at the tables was a stout, broad-faced fellow, ketchup on his grey whiskers as he attacked a steak. The image was of a bear at a carcass. He nodded at me.

I ordered the buck-and-a-quarter soup and sandwich, then joined Wall, who stared at me awhile, his mouth working until he swallowed, washing everything down with a swig of Orange Crush. “Bo-champ?”

“That's right.”

“Thelma told me you're a square dealer. Ain't you awful young to be defending a murderer?”

“I haven't lost one yet.”

“You can't be worse than the last attorney I had. Never seen him sober.”

“What were you charged with?”

“A fire that someone else started.”

I reminded myself to check his record. “Bad luck. How did they set you up?”

He said something with his mouth full, a profanity. Maybe someone had informed on him.

“You know Gabriel Swift fairly well?”

“Yeah, everybody knows everybody around this here valley. He's a agitator, a pain in the ass.” He pushed his plate away, swabbed his lips and whiskers with a napkin. “I'm sticking with what I told the bulls. It was in the afternoon I seen him.”

He had a liar's stubborn eyes. He'd seen Gabriel deer hunting, that was certain, but surely in the morning. “How do you know it was the afternoon, Doug?”

“I been around long enough to tell morning from afternoon.”

“So what time exactly did you see Gabriel?”

“Around two is what I said in my statement.”

“Maybe an hour or two earlier or later?”

“Not a chance.”

“Were you wearing a watch?” His wrist was bare.

“It got stole.”

He glanced accusingly at the Native families – two men, two women, four kids – watching us, speculating. I wondered how the Native community felt about the case. Chief Joseph seemed in the pocket of the
RCMP
, but surely others had views that sharply differed.

I showed Wall his statement. “Who asked you to write this out?”

“Jettles. Brad Jettles.”

“He dictated it and you wrote it down?”

“I said it in my own words, exactly like he asked me to.” He thought about that, then added, “Because it's the truth.”

“Where were you driving from?”

“I have a cabin up in the back country where I been staying since my old lady kicked me out. I was going down to see some friends.”

“Who else did you see while you were on the road?”

“I can't remember. Whoever was there, I guess.”

“Mrs. Mulligan? She often takes a walk in the afternoon. Did you see her that day?”

“Maybe … I don't know.”

There was little point in spending more time with a fellow so determined to be evasive. I would have another go at him at a preliminary inquiry, and it would only forewarn him if I asked why he'd waited until Wednesday, four days after Mulligan's disappearance, to come forward. But I fired a final shot. “Everybody knows you bootleg into the reserve. Especially the cops, right? Because they gave you a licence to do it. Roscoe and Brad.”

He signalled for his bill. “I got a engagement.” As he began to rise, I beckoned to him with a crooked finger as if I had a secret to impart. Curiosity drew him forward.

“My friend, I am going to come after you with all guns firing, and when I prove you're lying – because I've got the goods – the judge will send you up for twenty years on a perjury beef. You've been in the joint, you know what they do to informers in there.” It was my hard-boiled voice, but I didn't have to feign anger. In retrospect I'm not sure it was wise to imply I had secret evidence against him, but I wanted to shake him, dissuade him from being so certain on the stand.

Wall's head disappeared into a rain poncho and he went off to pay his bill. “It's on me, Doug,” I called. He turned and walked out into the downpour, everyone staring at him.

The young waitress leaned over to me as she served my soup and sandwich. “Good luck, Mr. Bo-champ,” she whispered.

“Beech'm,” I said.

I turned north to Cheekye, where Chief Joseph lived, just over the Cheakamus bridge. My little car slithered dangerously near some grazing horses, near a collapsed cedar fence. In this rain-darkened afternoon, lights were on in the reserve's scattered frame dwellings. No one was outside. Everything looked wet and sad.

I had no set plan for the weekend's most delicate task: separating Monique Joseph from her parents, entreating her to tell the truth. She had got Gabriel into a bad pickle by lying to her parents. He could be hanged were she not to recant – that's what she must understand. But she was only sixteen and dependent on her parents, perhaps in fear of them. The cop-suckers, Gabriel had called them.

I was kicking myself for not having invited Ophelia to come when I ought to have insisted. Who better to interview Monique Joseph than the crisis intervener who'd won over the mutinous women of Oakalla?

The cultural centre loomed through the rain, a windowless sawn-lumber longhouse with a few smoke holes in a shake roof. Election signs out front, stuck there proudly – the great white chief, Diefenbaker, had recently granted treaty Indians the right to vote.

Around the corner was a two-storey dwelling, obviously that of Benjamin Joseph. Obviously because an
RCMP
van was sitting outside it, engine running. I called down curses on my own head for not going there first. They'd wasted no time after Doug Wall alerted them.

I parked nose to nose with the van, whose driver was slouched, wiping a wet nose, pretending to ignore me. Puffy red cheeks and recessed, close-set eyes. Jettles, I guessed.

A girl's rain-blurred face stared from a second-floor window: Monique, confined to her room. The front door opened and Staff Sergeant Roscoe Knepp stepped out, pulling on a rain cape, and came purposefully down the path toward my car. Rugged, handsome, square-chinned – the Sergeant Preston type one saw in the tourist posters. He called, “Step out of the car, sir, with your hands up.”

I was astounded at his effrontery. Grabbing my umbrella, I alighted to find him unhooking his handcuffs from his belt.

“I'm afraid we have to impound this vehicle, sir. We don't allow people to drive tin cans on the public roads.” A broad grin at my confusion, then a raucous laugh. “Gotcha!” He grabbed my hand. “How're you doing, counsellor? You sure picked some kind of pissy day to come moseying around the valley.”

I recovered, attempting a smile. “So what's going on here, Staff?” As if I didn't know.

“Let's talk about it in comfort – we got the heater on. Grab the front seat there, I'll jump in the back.” Pushy, but I didn't resist. “Brad Jettles, Arthur Beauchamp.” Just a chortle issued from those pudgy lips; he was still enjoying his honcho's little joke.

Knepp leaned toward me from the back. “Last time you were up here, it was over that narcotics roundup, a really big shew – you
watch Ed Sullivan? – at one of the camps. I watched some of the trial; you were smooth. I said to myself, here's a fella to watch.”

I turned, observed an old yellowed bruise on his cheek. Gabriel had indeed got his licks in, though it would be counter-productive to raise that issue here. “I'm complimented, Staff. I'm here to interview the Joseph family. Individually and in private.”

“Look, we want to do what's right,” Knepp said. “Normally I'd say no big deal, talk to anyone you want. Doug Wall told us you were here, by the way. I want to be open about that.”

“Did he mention I accused him of having a licence to bootleg?”

Knepp shrugged that off, still smiling. “Come on, counsellor, we deal in the real world. If he doesn't sell hooch, some even slimier asshole will. Hey, he came to us with information, what can I say? We want to be straight with you, Mr. Beauchamp … That's awful formal – is it Arthur or Artie?” He was battling to save his grin.

“Arthur.”

“The situation here … Well, Chief Ben and his family, they told me explicitly they don't want to talk to you. These folks don't talk much anyway to whites. Maybe you don't understand their culture – you're dealing with people who are withdrawn. It's in their nature. I'm not saying you'd do anything wrong, Arthur, but some people aren't too quick, if you get my meaning, and their words get twisted. And they're afraid of that, and frankly they told me they won't answer the door to you.”

“Cyrus Smythe-Baldwin won't condone this.”

“Well, come on down to the station, you can call him on our phone. We got Smitty's private home number, Brad?”

“Have it somewhere. I'll look around.” Jettles honked into a Kleenex. “Crap, I hope I'm not coming down with something.”

“Follow us in, Arthur. We can talk, show you things. We're playing slow-pitch here, not hardball. We're just country cops looking after folks' safety and trying to be fair.”