Trial of Passion (17 page)

I hear all this. But what could have caused that supposedly healthy, happy, normal twenty-three-year-old woman to claim he tied her up?

“Now it's the wee hours, and suddenly she remembers her fiancé has just returned home from a business trip — where was he, South America right? She panics — she probably told him she'd be home no later than midnight. And she's plastered, her brain isn't exactly functioning with cool precision. Her only hope of saving the marriage is to yell rape. Following this?”

“Yes, Gowan.”

“So she runs next door, makes a big show of having been attacked.”

“Why all the lipstick on her body?”

“Oh, God, who knows, some sort of fetish. Shameless — it's the colour of blood. Primitive self-decoration. Remember: She's drunk, she's abnormal, she's seeing a shrink. And it's only on the tits and the lower parts of her body, places she can reach. Does she call the police? No. She's tied up and raped, and she doesn't want the police involved? She probably hopes her boyfriend will listen to her tearful explanation and, because he doesn't want embarrassing controversy, he'll advise her not to pursue it. But he does. He, Clarence de Remy Brown, calls the cops. There's no backing out. She has to play out the farce to the bitter end.”

“Why does she embellish this story with an account of being tied up?”

“To divert any suspicions Remy may have that she willingly put out. She chafes her ankles a bit, bruises herself up just a little to make the whole thing credible. Okay? See any holes in it?”

“It's not totally implausible, I suppose.”

“So, okay, Arthur, don't forget to ask her about her tapes: where she says pigs like Judge Pickles still run the farm. He'll be smouldering, and he might just buy a pitch that the case is an abuse of process.”

I am having difficulty staying tuned in. The mention of pigs has
me wandering into a different courtroom. Should I subpoena a swine broker to testify as to Betsy's value? Should I counterclaim for the total value of my recently disassembled Rolls-Royce? My small claims case seems much more fun than this atrocious business, with its inherent peril of blighted lives.

“Long in the back, Mr. Beauchamp? Something suave? Yes, I think the beard is beginning to work. Bit of salt and pepper. It says we are robust, manly, lusty.” Roberto is in a much better mood as his sculpting has progressed.

“Long in the back,” I say.

“Blueman hasn't been warned you're taking over as the senior. Wanted it to be a surprise. Bringing in the home-run king to pinch hit in the ninth. It'll keep them off-balance.”

From the street outside, a sudden squeal of brakes, the sound of crunching metal. Loud curses. Roberto doesn't miss a clip. He is humming to himself. He is an old warhorse of the city, inured to urban sound and fury.

Joining Gowan and me in the limousine are two students-at-law from the firm, excited fidgeting hod-carriers bearing valises filled with law reports that I will never use. But they are young and innocent, and believe the law has to do not with human foibles but with musty precedent.

We whisk along the causeway through the preserved wilderness of vast Stanley Park, then slow to a crawl on the clogged First Narrows Bridge. The preliminary is being heard in the courthouse of West Vancouver, a wealthy suburb on the North Shore, its pompous eyries terraced upon the rocky slopes above English Bay. High up live the
haute bourgeoisie;
those who have not quite made it to the top;
arrivistes
and mere professionals, like Jon O'Donnell, live lower down.

Several media vans are parked in front of the court building, and
cameras follow us to the doors. A quarter after ten:There is time for a last cigarette in the free fresh air. Gowan goes inside to track down our client while I joust good-naturedly with some of the reporters about matters irrelevant and frivolous. They are here solely upon a watching brief — evidence at preliminary may not be reported.

All heads turn as a taxi pulls up. Patricia Blueman steps out, followed by a striking woman in brown braids, obviously the traffic-stopper Kimberley Martin, then followed by a man in his mid-thirties, of medium height, handsome in the manner of a model for a Jockey shorts billboard: a dimpled chin, a square, almost prognathous jaw. Dark glasses. A cellular phone in his suit jacket pocket. Mr. Clarence de Remy Brown, I presume.

Kimberley is smartly dressed in a white blouse and a long skirt that catches the tawny colour of her hair. She is smiling, but I detect she is doing so with effort — the rims of her eyes seem slightly raw, her posture strained and rigid. Her hair is done up in those strange Jamaican braids — what do you call them? Dreadlocks. There is a kind of Hollywood panache about her. The actress Kimberley Martin.

For some reason, she halts her progress and looks at me with an intensely quizzical expression. I smile. She rears a little, like a startled colt, then quickly follows her fiancé into the building.

Patricia Blueman shoos away the press so we can talk.

“And what brings
you
here, Arthur? I thought you'd retired.”

“How better than to spend my twilight years sitting around courtrooms, Patricia.”

“So O'Donnell finally had the good sense to fire that obscenity Cleaver. I have to give him some credit for brains after all.”

Patricia Blueman is in her late thirties, spare, and spindly-legged. Myopic behind monstrous black-rimmed spectacles, she has a presence that can be best described as bookish — though why that adjective should have a pejorative meaning, I don't know. I have always found her brittleness and self-consciousness appealing.

“I have been dragged by wild horses, Patricia, into this
opéra
bouffe.
Kicking and screaming”

“I am complimented. The defendant must be feeling the heat.”

“No more than Saint Joan, I suspect. You have her all fired up and ready?”

“She's telling the truth, Arthur.”

“And why are you so sure of that?”

“For one thing, last week she volunteered for a lie detector test and she passed with flying colours.”

“Oh, have they figured out how to make those things work?”

“For another, I
believe
her. I've spent some time … oh, you know all our secrets, don't you, Arthur? You heard her tapes. Candid, isn't she? No, I don't mind at all that I was ordered to copy them for you. That's Kimberley Martin, unrehearsed and real. Same as you'll get in court, chum. Ready when you are.”

She is about to go inside, then pauses. “Oh, do me a favour. When you're cross-examining Kimberley on her tapes, bring out that business where Judge Pickles is called a sexist pig.”

She goes inside. I butt my cigarette and follow her.

The waiting area is thronged with gawkers, mostly older women who have abandoned their morning soaps to take in a live performance. I have been warned that a cadre from the Women's Movement would be here, Ms. Martin's support group. I see her standing there, sheltered among them, Venus amidst her mischievous train of Loves and Graces. Clarence de Remy Brown is talking on his cellphone but glowering fiercely at Jon O'Donnell.

I join Gowan and my client, who are sequestered in a hallway, our students standing a respectful distance away. There is little time to waste on idle chatter — a sheriff's officer is summoning us into court.

“Ready, gentlemen?”

“Showtime,” says Gowan.

“Barnum and Bailey,” says Jonathan. “Bring on the clowns. I'm the high-wire act.”

His manner is relaxed, but his demeanour grave. No glazed-over eyes, no essence of intoxicants. He seems in better mental health now that he is purged of his former deceit. I will do what I can for him. I may wear the horns for him, but he is my client, and knows some Latin poetry.

Jonathan's attention is suddenly elsewhere, and I turn to see Kimberley Martin, on the arm of her swain, hesitating at the courtroom door. She looks at Jonathan, then at me, then at Jonathan again. Suddenly, with a cocky toss of her head, she smiles, then turns away, and walks in. I cannot read this smile: confident, vain, a mask to hide her fear?

In the courtroom, William Pickles is at roost upon on his dais, bawling out a sullen young revolutionary who apparently defaced a bank building with a spray-on slogan encouraging the eating of the rich.

“Thirty days,” says Pickles. This stoop-shouldered, rheumy-eyed gentleman long ago rose to the level of his incompetence — he has been gracing the low-court bench for at least fifteen years, watching younger and brighter men and women pass him by.

“Regina versus O'Donnell,” calls the clerk.

I stroll to the counsel table, my client in tow. Pickles looks surprised to see me.

“Mr. Beauchamp, you're appearing in this case?”

“Quite so, your honour. I shall be counsel for the accused today, assisted by Mr. Cleaver.”

“Fresh blood. That should promise some entertainment. Always delighted to see you. Miss Blueman, are we ready?”

“Yes, and I call Kimberley Martin to the stand.”

I sit, and Jonathan joins me to my left, Gowan to my right. Kimberley walks to the witness box with seeming self-assurance, yet something tells me she is not as relaxed within as she appears
in exterior.

She responds to the standard opening questions about age and
background with a voice that is measured but musical, reminding me of a precisely tuned cello. Well rehearsed? It is difficult to say. William Pickles, the judge-in-our-pocket, stares sternly at her over spectacles riding low on his nose, then busies himself with pen and bench book.

A transcript will be available, so I am making only mental notes — it is more important now to observe the language of the body and the eyes.

“You are about to move into your final year of law?” the prosecutor asks.

“If I pass two exams next week. I'm being allowed to rewrite them.”

“Last fall you were taking lectures in property law?”

“Yes, I was.”

“And who was your teacher?”

“Professor O'Donnell.”

“Do you see him in court?”

Her eyes slowly turn to my client, and she studies him solemnly.

“That is him.”

“Identifying the accused.”

Curiously, her look does not waver for several seconds. Nor does Jonathan's in response — and I have a sense of some silent, angry conversation.

In a subdued, unfaltering voice, the complainant relates, with little embroidery, her early dealings with O'Donnell, in the classroom, on the campus, in his office — sketching a series of scenes of avid though not discourteous male pursuit.

I catch Jonathan at one point shaking his head. “But she brought her coffee to
my
table,” he whispers.

I softly admonish him not to show reaction.

As to the events of November twenty-seventh, her version varies little from that of her tapes, though she is more forthright about the amount of alcohol she consumed — doubtless Patricia Blueman has cautioned her to avoid straining her credibility on that issue. Clearly,
Kimberley is a witness prepared to amend her lines. But most witnesses, even the fundamentally truthful, tend to repair and varnish their stories. One waits and watches for the big lies.

“Did you at any point that evening consider that his intentions might be dishonourable?”

Kimberley responds oddly, with a flicker of a smile, as if finding the question rather florid and Victorian.

“Well, I had the sense he was coming on a bit strong, if that's what you mean.”

“But you were not in fear for your safety?”

Gowan snorts and stirs, and whispers, “Bloody well leading, don't you think?”

“Very much so,” I respond. But I am comfortable in my chair; an effort to rise would be unduly taxing.

“I wasn't afraid of him. I trusted him”

“And is that why you agreed to go along with the others to his house?”

Gowan moans, “Arthur, are you going to allow this to continue?”

“No harm is done.”

“I felt perfectly secure. And he asked me to come, and one doesn't say no … Um, what I mean is, he was my professor, the acting dean, actually, and I thought it would be polite….” For the first time, she is flustered, but she quickly recovers. “And I was curious.” A smile, a shrug.

“Left herself wide open,” says Gowan. “You don't say no when the prof asks you to come.”

I wish he would refrain from the running commentary while I try to concentrate. Jonathan, to his credit, remains still, though his limbs are stiff, and he stares at her over his glasses like an owl, wide-eyed and sombre.

Patricia leads her witness into the taxi, into O'Donnell's house, into his library. Cognac is poured. (“I had … I guess it was an ounce — with a little shot of Benedictine.”) Jolly political conversation takes
place. (“Professor O'Donnell was being very … you know, crusty and curmudgeony.”) The zombie Chornicky wanders about. (“He pretty well had his fill.”) Kimberley browses through the library. (“I thought we could have a little fun with a Shaw play I was involved in.”)

There follows a minor production of the last of G. B. S.'s great plays, with all but Chornicky taking roles.

“Okay, and at some point during all of this you left the room”

“Yes, well . . . actually, I went upstairs to the bathroom. Then — I don't know what was in my mind, maybe I felt this ought to be a dress rehearsal — so I, well, I went into Professor O'Donnell's closet and I put on one of his suits. It sounds silly now.”

William Pickles's eyes darken with confusion — and possibly with the distrust I suspect he feels for this woman.

Kimberley attempts to help him out with a nervous
eruditio
about Shaw's image of Saint Joan as a mannish dresser. She concludes, “Joan has this thing about male armour — and a suit . . . well, it's sort of male armour, isn't it?”