I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (8 page)

Ira had scrounged scores of oddball movie and art posters, and they added to the Dada-esque decor of this narrow rectangle of candle-topped tables. Maximum seating was forty-five but only eight were in there, plus Lawonda, an impossibly exotic Ghanaian in charge of coffee, chili, and the till – she was Ira's entire workforce. A chess game was underway at one table, Chinese checkers at another.

Ira jumped on the small stage to do a sound check while I signalled Lawonda to bring me a bowl of the best and a coffee. The
busker wandered in, cigarette dangling from his lips. He vaulted onto the stage, knocked the spit from his harmonica, and did some tuning licks on his guitar. A young aspirant marking time before returning to college or his dad's insurance business. Straddling a stool, he began to sing with an unforgiving nasal twang: “Corrina, Corrina.”

Lawonda came with a tray and placed before me a bowl of chili that brought impatient groans from my stomach. “I made it special for you, Stretch.” She leaned toward my ear. “Ira told me you like it hot.”

She was in her thirties, wise, salty, and sexy. Body by Botticelli in charcoal, stunning beyond my dreams, therefore untouchable. She was swathed in a multicoloured wrap, something West African and dramatic. A worldly woman, rumoured to have enjoyed a sinful past, she'd bounced from Accra to the Canaries, then Barcelona and London. Lovers galore, I supposed.

“Who's that kid up there?”

“Dylan – like the poet.”

Only nineteen, his first album was out … and I can't remember what else she said because I'd been turned to stone, spoon suspended six inches from my mouth as I zoomed in on Ophelia Moore. She had just entered, arm in arm with Jordan Geraldson, the prince of torts.

As he pulled back her chair, she gave him a smooch. I rose unsteadily, my appetite in powerful remission. Lawonda stepped back, startled.

Outside by the curb, I retched, but nothing came out.

On 23/4/62 at 1120 hours, U/S Cst Jettles attended home of Benjamin Joseph, near Cheekye, Cheakamus Reserve, in company of Cst Borachuk. Benjamin, who everyone on the force calls Ben, is hereditary chief here. Also present was his common-law wife Anna and their youngest daughter, Monique, 16, who is in high school. Ben
advised Monique was home all afternoon of Saturday, 21/4/62, and was never in the company of Gabriel Swift on that particular day. Monique also signed a statement to same effect
.

This was a photocopied scrap of lined paper titled “unsworn affidavit.” One sentence:
I, Monique Joseph, full-time student at Squamish Secondary, state as a fact that on Saturday last I was never in the company of Gabriel Swift, of this reserve
. Dated, signed, and witnessed by its author, Brad Jettles.

Though these words smacked of artificiality –
Saturday last
sounded of cop talk – they came as a blow. So much for the prospect of bail. I blinked away a vision of Gabriel walking morosely to the gallows, betrayed by his lover – for surely she had bent to others' wills. I couldn't see an intelligent man like Gabriel lying to the police, creating an alibi that could be so easily exposed.

This day had already set a record for being the worst of my dismal life. It was near its end, ten-thirty, and I finally managed to eat and keep down my tin of sardines and six saltines, all the while desperately hoping Ophelia hadn't seen me cringing my way out of the Beanery.

There was one last document.

23/4/62, at 1500 hours, transcription of recorded interview with Gabriel Swift, in cells at Squamish Detachment. Present were S/Sgt. Knepp and U/S Cst. Jettles. Suspect not restrained. Suspect looked like he'd been in a brawl, with what we observed as facial bruising
.

K: You been cautioned you don't have to say anything. You remember that warning, Gabriel?

S: (nods)

K: You prefer Gabe? I heard on the reserve it's Gabby, which is good, because we'd like to hear you do some talking
.

S: This is totally crazy
.

K: Okay, we just want to straighten out a few things here, then if everything checks out maybe we can all go home
.

S: Home to what? Who's going to pay for garbaging my cabin? I want a list of everything you took. I want it back, every damn book and magazine, my radio and my records
.

K: Settle down, son. We just want to ask a few questions about what you were doing Saturday afternoon
.

S: I told you. I was with my girl
.

K: Uh-huh. Where, exactly?

S: In my cabin
.

K: Doing what?

S: I was teaching her chess. We were listening to music
.

J: Teaching her chess? That's all you did?

(no response)

J: We just talked to Monique, pal. She never saw you once on Saturday
.

K: So it looks like you got some explaining, right, Gabriel?

S: Why am I in this cell, Sergeant? Am I charged with something?

K: Right now, we're just holding you for investigation. You want to rethink what you were doing on Saturday? You were with Professor Mulligan, right? A part of the time anyway
.

J: We don't say you did anything, Gabriel, but we heard he invited you to go fishing with him
.

S: You heard that from whom?

J: From whom? Whom? Who learned you such refined English, Gabriel? Your fishing buddy, maybe? Professor Mulligan?

S: Fuck off, you fat creep
.

K: Whoa, whoa, let's all cool down here, and watch your language. Let's talk about the deceased. What were your relations with him?

(no response)

K: Sounds like you've got something to hide. I'm not saying you and him had a fight; maybe something else was going on between you
.

S: Let me ask you a question, Sergeant. Are you making up this case out of pure bullshit because I dropped you for calling me a lippy fucking Indian shit?

At this point interview was concluded, as suspect wasn't willing to cooperate further at this time
.

I returned to the prologue of this interview.
Suspect looked like he'd been in a brawl
. Remarkably, during the Q and A session these so-called peace officers hadn't asked how he'd got those bruises.

I was prepared to gamble my soul that Gabriel's version was the gospel truth. Impatient with his attitude, Knepp had delivered a few shots to his head. The sidekick, Jettles, had taken that role literally, aiming a kick below the ribs. Quite a feat, unless Gabriel was down on the floor.

There wasn't much else in the file: a note that the abandoned clothes had gone to Vancouver for analysis, along with various scrapings, tweezered unknowns, and fingerprint lifts.

Framed by a fascist fucking cabal of racist brownshirts
, as quoted, more or less, by a
Sun
reporter.

I would head up there on the weekend to undo what damage I could. I would have to skirt around Knepp and his crew and be careful in my approach to Chief Joseph. I would have to reach out to his cowed daughter before her lying words gelled as false memory.

I told myself that Ophelia Moore would only get in the way were she asked to accompany me.

I
was committed all day to be legal aid duty counsel at 312 Main Street, which in those days incestuously housed both the police station and the magistrates' courts. Such coziness would be regarded as appalling today, but in the sixties the line between justice and enforcement was fuzzy. The Public Safety Building was (and remains) Vancouver's ugliest structure, an institutional intrusion into skid road, with its strip clubs and beer parlours and general sense of carefree lawlessness.

The fifth-floor cells at 312 were mostly populated by alcoholics and vagrants, who were dealt with in bunches in court – hapless hungover men and women who would troop up to get their week or month or more in custody. It was an offence to be homeless back then (Vagrancy A) or to be in a state of intoxication in a public place (
SIPP
), and Vag A's and
SIPPS
comprised the bulk of those who were run through the daily mill in Courtroom Two. The human zoo, we called it.

Occasionally real criminals would be called up, and while their lawyers spoke to bail I'd use the break for whispered conferences with derelicts in the dock. I spent the lunch hour doing quickie interviews in the cells. The work was as exhausting as it was unfulfilling, and Magistrate Scott was grumpy, erupting at poorly prepared counsel.

At day's end I had a couple of drafts next door at the West Coast Central Club, whose “membership only” designation was largely ignored, particularly by the many police who enjoyed off-hours there. Its roof occasionally served as a landing site for escapees roping down from prison windows at night.

When I returned to the Crypt at five-thirty, I was still in a sour mood. Gertrude had kindly waited up for me, but I was peremptory when I asked her to phone Oakalla. “Do it quickly – they go bananas when they don't get notice.”

Then I saw, sitting on my desk blotter, copies of Woodcock's
Anarchism
, the Camus, the I.F. Stone, and the
Monthly Review
for April, along with a sales slip. She had hiked down to the People's Co-op Bookstore, a task that I'd promised to do and forgotten, and paid twelve dollars from her own purse.

The top item on my blotter was a note from Ophelia:
This just in
. It was clipped to another
RCMP
witness report, one long handwritten sentence:
Last Saturday, I would say around 2 o'clock, as I was driving my 1958 Nash Metro hardtop near the Mulligan farm on Squamish Valley Road, I saw an Indian male who I identify as Gabriel Swift, crossing the road with a rifle and going into the bush
. Signed two days ago by Doug Wall, with an address on Squamish Valley Road.

This smacked of devious afterthought by overeager beavers at the Squamish detachment. Some scumbag who owed them a favour. I could see the car buff, the often undersigned Brad Jettles, dictating
1958 Nash Metro hardtop
.

Ophelia whisked into my office. “I guess we have to track down Mr. Doug Wall.”

I held my voice steady. “Yes, I was thinking of going up there tomorrow for the weekend. Take my camping gear. Rough it a bit.”

“How fun.”

“Legal aid – they're pinchy, they won't pay for hotels.” Abrupt, decisive, businesslike: “I've arranged to see Gabriel this evening to ask a few questions and keep him informed. I was going to ask if you have some time this weekend to get a more detailed statement from him.”

“I can cancel everything but Victor Borge tomorrow night at the Queen E.” Letting me know she hadn't left the weekend open for camping trips. She obviously had a date with her new beau. “Do you not want me to go to Oakalla with you tonight?”

“Of course I don't not want you to. I mean, I do, I'd like you to come.” The stammering buffoon. “I didn't want to assume you had the time.”

“Arthur, is this about what happened the other night?”

“I wasn't being chummy with Harvey Frinkell. He is a revolting skunk.”

“Thank you, but I'm talking about the previous night.”

A throat-constricting silence. “I'm … mixed up about that. Sorry, I'm exhausted. Hard day in court.”

“We really should talk. Not now, but after seeing Gabriel. I'll be in my office.” She walked off briskly and was soon replaced by Gertrude, holding coat and purse.

“I called Oakalla. They'll expect you at seven. I guess I'm off.”

I leaped to my feet. She took a fearful step back before I was upon her, pressing folded bills into her palm, apologizing, currying favour. She'd earned one hundred per cent on the firm's next performance review. National Secretaries Week was coming up – might she be free then for dinner?

She answered with a shy smile. Pretty Gertrude with her crooked stockings. My previous secretary was half as efficient and had the temperament of a mule.

I'd put off too long one more pressing duty: calling Irene Mulligan with words of consolation. I reached her at her Point Grey home, where she was being attended to by a few members of her bridge club. She remembered me as her husband's former student and was pleased I was acting for Gabriel. “He didn't do it,” she said in a husky, trembling voice. “I'm just praying Dermot is still alive.”

She thanked me for my words of sympathy but wasn't able to continue. The phone was taken by a woman who apologized. “She needs her rest, Mr. Beauchamp. Perhaps in a week or so?”

I'm praying Dermot is still alive
. One could hardly blame her for maintaining that hope. The likelier premise of suicide would invite gossip, that he saw it as the only way to escape an empty and unhappy marriage. I settled the phone into its cradle and heard thrumming in my head.
Sometimes I live in the country, sometimes I live in town
. Leadbelly's song had started to haunt me.