The winner was the justice minister in the Conservative government, Jack Boynton, a large man with large appetites for food and drink who died of a stroke at a wedding banquet. Hence the by-election. The date for that had yet to be set, and the Greens’ nomination meeting was just a few weeks off.
Arthur expected Margaret to be a shoo-in. Her main competitor, a charisma-deprived nursery operator, was the fellow who fared so poorly in the general election last year. Margaret Blake had been on the front pages and in the supper news for eighty straight days, guarding the gates to Gwendolyn Valley from fifty feet up an ancient fir. Now the valley was parkland, she had rescued Gwendolyn from a quick-buck developer.
After Margaret and Cudworth Brown were chosen by lot to do the sit-in, the regulars at the general store teased him cruelly about Cud’s priapic prowess, recounting–or making up–stories of his conquests. He’s humped about half the island women, wouldn’t you say, Barney? Well, he screwed my wife, and she ain’t nowhere as good-looking as Arthur’s. Arthur joined in the merriment with a false grin and a palpitating heart.
Margaret’s version, however, had been reassuringly credible. After two weeks, she’d decided she could no longer endure his company and had him replaced by an unthreatening female anarchist. Somewhere buried in this history was substantial reason for not getting involved in the murder trial of Cudworth Brown. There were many small, subtle ways in which Arthur didn’t like the man, more reasons being discovered on each encounter.
He made out no sign of Nick outside, but he could barely see his own footfall in the heavy mist. Only the house and barn rose above it, and the milking shed up the hill. Arthur found his way to the root cellar–the door was closed, a bag of turnips set outside. When a breeze stirred the fog, he spotted Nick up at the milking shed.
A closer view, from the corral fence, might well have inspired Vermeer. In the glow of yellow rays slicing through the mist, Nick sat beside Lavinia, raptly watching her pull milk from Bess, their Jersey cow. Lavinia was sure-handed, in rhythm with Bess–but suddenly, a Chaplinesque moment, she gave Nick a squirt in the eye. He jumped, but Lavinia’s infectious laughter made him grin. The kid was loosening up.
“I show you how.” She extended him a teat.
Arthur would find another moment to talk to Nick, he had no desire to spoil this pastoral scene with its gentle touch of Eros. He retreated quietly, took the turnips to the house, slung his day pack over his shoulder, and headed briskly up the driveway.
He trod up Centre Road, where bungalows decked out in lights and tinsel glowed through the mist. Once again, as they had for time immemorial, Jack and Ida Shewfelt had celebrated the divine miracle of Christ’s coming with the engineering miracle of hoisting Santa, his sleigh, and his entire team of reindeer onto their split-level roof.
Next door to them resided Bob Stonewell, target of their many complaints under the Unsightly Premises Bylaw. A sign advertising his car parts business was by Stoney’s rusted gate, behind it a ramshackle house and an old barn converted to a garage. Everywhere, relics poking from the mist, a jungle of them, a whole hillside, Chevies and Fords, Datsuns and Skodas. Arthur’s ailing 1969 Fargo pickup, his pet, his baby, was sitting by the garage on blocks, under a tarp.
There was the great mechanic himself, newly risen from bed, packing out yesterday’s beer bottles, a cigarette aglow between his lips. He waved. “If it ain’t the town tonsil, out getting his morning exercise. If you can’t do it easy, do it hard, that’s what I always say.” The merry clink of empties going into boxes.
Arthur asked after the health of the Fargo.
“I got a line on a rebuilt transmission. I can get a real sweet deal for cash up front.”
“What happened to the cash I already fronted?”
“Right. Well, it sort of got used on startup costs. I got a new business, limousine rental, I call it Loco Motion. Check out these beauties.” Indicating a pair of shiny fin-tails from the 1970s, a Chrysler and a Buick. “I’m restricting operations to Garibaldi, so normal car rental laws don’t apply, right?”
“Merry Christmas, Stoney.” Arthur carried on down the road.
Baking powder, silver wrap, and…yes, lemons, eight lemons. He mustn’t forget the mail. Above the fog was glorious sun, so despite his lack of sleep, he will adhere to his plan of huffing up Mount Norbert.
He found his way to Hopeless Bay, small-boat dock and a warehouse, century-old general store, a false-front structure with an enclosed porch serving as a coffee lounge. Here, several regulars were enjoying alcohol-enriched coffees. As a sideline, the proprietor, skeletal, dour Abraham Makepeace, sold brown-bagged bottles of rum or whisky to tippling locals. Hapless Constable Pound, wary of upsetting the community, turned a blind eye to the evils perpetrated here.
A couple of the lads were celebrating the season with Bacchus-like determination. Gomer Goulet, whose crab boat was tied up below, was standing, swaying as if in heavy seas, proclaiming his love of mankind. Gomer tended to get drunkenly soppy, especially at Christmas. Emily LeMay, the sultry ex-barmaid and untiring vamp, told him, “Sit down before you fall on your kazoo.”
Lemons, silver foil, and…yes, baking powder. Or was it soda? He mined the lemon bin, excavated a dozen fat ones. At the next bin, bagging up oranges, was Al Noggins, a spry, short, bearded Welshman, Garibaldi’s Anglican minister.
“Lemons? Fish for Christmas, Arthur?”
“Margaret has invited a dozen major contributors to the Granola Party, many of whom don’t eat warm-blooded life forms. I am to be on my best behaviour.”
“Firing up the troops, is she? Good luck to her; she’s a fresh voice in politics. While I have your ear, old boy,” Noggins moved close, “Cudworth came by for a spot of spiritual counselling. He’s pretty messed up. Carried on about this lawyer fellow, Pomeroy. Couldn’t understand why you recommended him, instead of…Well, he feels abandoned, Arthur.”
“Reverend Al, I do not defend bad poets. It is a long-standing policy.”
“Told him I’d speak to you. Merry Christmas.” He walked stiffly off. An awkward moment regretted–Noggins was a close friend.
Lemons, foil, baking powder, and, just in case, baking soda. Arthur bought a packet of pipe tobacco as well, then waited patiently while Makepeace sorted through the Blunder Bay mail. “Mostly Christmas cards–this one came open, it’s from that doctor you got off, the one who poisoned his wife. This here letter has no return address; I always get suspicious when I see that. Your Literary Gazette, your Guardian, and your Island Bleat, special holiday edition. And some stuff, I think from your accountant, about your retirement funds. Didn’t know you were sixty-nine, Arthur.”
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Abraham.”
Arthur was about to go but couldn’t pretend not to hear Emily LeMay calling him. “Hey, handsome, I got you something for Christmas.”
It would be uncivil to run off without an exchange of yuletide greetings, so he made his way to the porch. “Merry Christmas,” Gomer cried. “Very merry Christmas, it’s a time of joy, the cup of love is brimming over. Hey, you look like Santa.” That irked Arthur–he had the white beard and the pack on his back, but he didn’t have the legendary hero’s paunch.
“Santa, baby, you can come down my chimney any day.” Emily advanced, she was not to be denied her Christmas hug.
Nearly overcome by her perfume, its overlay of whisky, by her bounteous breasts pooling against him, he had trouble peeling himself free. “And a happy Christmas to you all.”
“Arthur, you’re gonna help out Cud Brown, aren’t you?” she said.
“You gotta defend him!” Gomer was gesturing wildly. “Arthur, you gotta have heart; it’s Christmas, the season of love, and Cud’s our buddy, he’s one of us. We got to stick together on this here rock.” His voice rose theatrically. “Cud worships you, man. Just like a father.” He began staggering toward Arthur. “He loves you, man, can’t you see that? Oh, God, don’t let them nail him to the cross.
”
This last was blubbered to Arthur’s retreating backside, and then all he heard was sobbing. A few minutes later, as he crested a rise, he turned to see Gomer, his legs so rubbery as to be useless, being helped by friends down to his crab boat.
The episode was unsettling. The island was ganging up on him. Cud had capable counsel, the successful defender of the assassin of an Asian czar and, just last January, an addled court clerk bent on shooting the chief justice. The locals didn’t understand, and Arthur was loathe to explain, but he was definitely the wrong lawyer for Cud. He began mumbling to himself. “I wouldn’t have my heart in it; I plain don’t like him. Doesn’t have anything to do with Margaret, it’s something else. Not sure what it is.”
A fleeting suspicion: had it to do with his own lack of sexual prowess? He brushed off the thought like lint. Utter nonsense. He may not be the world’s most dynamic lover, but he showed sparks of competency. With the aid of Viagra. It’s not the lack of gas, it’s the engine. Volo, non valeo, I am willing but unable. Oddly, however, he functioned with unusual facility after winning a trial. But then weeks would pass…
He hiked uphill to the Mount Norbert trail still talking to himself–a bad habit, especially for a lawyer–then paused to rest, folding open the Bleat. From the front page, Hamish McCoy grinned at the camera, brandishing a hammer at a scaffold on the rise known as Ferryboat Knoll. Below the photo: “Tourists to our lovely island will be welcomed soon by the Goddess of Love, the internationally acclaimed and world-renowned local sculptor Hamish McCoy told the Bleat in an exclusive interview.”
A few days ago, Nelson Forbish was seen quaffing beers with McCoy in the Legion, and he must still have been drunk when this edition went to bed. Nowhere in the chaotic six-page special Christmas edition could Arthur find this exclusive interview. Even the image beside the Merry Christmas streamer was out of tune with the season–a turkey fanning its tail.
Here was Margaret, as he might have expected. Another letter to the editor. No strident calls to action today. Calmly urging a ban against deforesting steep slopes, a popular issue, nothing that would mire her in controversy just before the nomination.
Arthur was not looking forward to spending Christmas Day with a crew of eco-holics and their glum scenarios. He was depressed already. I’m not asking you to support me in this. He felt cornered. He’d never been so impolitic as to suggest Margaret’s quest was quixotic or to openly oppose, though he had supportively urged her to think it over. Everyone hates politicians, why would a sane person want the job? Sitting in a raucous chamber with 308 preening narcissists. Giving up the great civil liberty called privacy. What Arthur most feared was that politics would corrupt Margaret, but of course he hadn’t the courage to say that.
He lit his pipe, subsided onto a bench at the foot of Summit Trail, dug out the no-return-address envelope from his pack, and tore it open. Folded within was a note: “For your eyes only,” and initials, “E.S.” Who might that be? Stapled to it, a one-page report, obviously a photocopy, from the discipline committee of the B.C. Law Society. The date was September 8, 2006, it was stamped “classified,” and had to do with unguarded remarks made by Provincial Judge J. Dalgleish Ebbe. It seemed unconnected with anything Arthur might be interested in, but he read on.
The matter was referred by a barrister who need not be named, who was among several counsel having cocktails with Judge Ebbe in a lounge after court. The judge was overheard to excoriate Mr. Justice Rafael Whynet-Moir, using foul language. He claimed His Lordship and his spouse were major contributors to the Conservative Party and accused him of bribing the justice minister, the late Hon. Jack Boynton, Q.C., to get the appointment.
As Arthur recalled, Boynton had named Whynet-Moir to the Supreme Court in late summer of 2006. Judge Ebbe often liked to entertain after court and was notorious for his acerbic tongue. The humourless tattler was doubtless a priggish and unseasoned counsel.
Judge Ebbe is alleged to have accused Mr. Justice Whynet-Moir of having been corrupt when in practice, and close to Boynton. He is reported to have said, “Someone would be doing a blow for justice if he’d drop him down a well.” The committee is of the unanimous view that this matter need not be referred to the judicial council and that, because a fair amount of alcohol was likely consumed, no action need be taken.
Arthur gazed up at Chickadee Ridge, Mount Norbert’s western wall looming through the mist. “Why me?” he asked the air. Why was this anonymously sent, and why to Arthur? That teased at him. He must fax it to Pomeroy.
He stared up at the switchback trail, seven hundred more feet to climb. The air was less hazy here, and Norbert faintly beckoned, double-humped like a Bactrian camel. Let’s see what you’re made of, Beauchamp.
It was mid-afternoon as he surmounted Chickadee Ridge, jutting out from Norbert’s fir-crowned crest. Normally this mesa afforded a sweeping overlook of farm, field, and forest, but today all he could see, through fog gaps, were hilltops on the horizon and a stretch of shoreline, the Queen of Prince George nudging into the dock on Ferryboat Road, bearing a throng of Christmas visitors.
There was Hamish McCoy’s community service project, and the energetic little fellow himself. Distantly came sounds of hammering and welding from his scaffold. Would it house a fifteen-foot-tall goddess of love and beauty? Would he put his own abstract stamp on the Venus de Milo? If one discounts the alleged exclusive to the Bleat, he has stayed tight-lipped about his vision.
McCoy had promised to haul the Fall of Icarus to Blunder Bay soon. Arthur regretted having spoken so glowingly of it. What was he to do with a bronze sculpture the height of two tall men? Put it up by the gate. The sight of doomed, horrified Icarus might deter unwanted visitors.
A couple of passing drivers honked, and McCoy waved back. The old scamp was in better emotional trim these days, with the tension of his trial over. He’d laid to rest his grievance against the suspect squealer, Zoller. “Oi’ve been given a rare break. There’s a toime for anger, a toime for forgiveness.” This was said in passing as Arthur was buying fencing wire and McCoy loading his truck with two-by-fours donated by the local lumberyard.
His watch said three o’clock, the shank of a rare December day, made warm as May by the sun reflecting off the whiteness below. The cheeky, cheery birds for which this ridge was named were calling “Dee-dee,” flirting and flitting sideways and upside down on the cones of the tree he was leaning against, several feet from the lip of the void. Below: a sixty-foot wall, a few firs and spindly oaks rooted in the crevasses.
He backed away, looked about, and found a fine resting place in the crook of an arbutus tree. The base of its smooth, barkless trunk made an ideal chair-back, and the low-slung winter sun was directly on him. To the east, he could make out the Gwendolyn Cliffs, fractured by the Gap Trail. A mist hovered above Gwendolyn Pond, from which a pair of grebes took wing into the mist, raising wakes. He was thankful he couldn’t see the carnage on the flatland by the beach, the twenty acres of spilled giants, firs, cedars, maples.
Parks Canada had decided to let those giants rest in peace, a graveyard with its sorrowful epitaphs about the depredations of man. Matters could have been immeasurably worse–the developer had proposed hundreds of lots and condos for these 580 acres. Arthur’s case for an injunction had wound its way to Ottawa, to the Supreme Court. At the eleventh hour, as the court was about to throw him out on his ear, Parks Canada announced it had bought Gwendolyn Valley. This was Margaret Blake’s triumph–after eighty days in a tree fort she’d won the Battle of the Gap, holding off the loggers, inspiring a campaign, winning over the public, the TV-watching masses, and, finally, the politicians.
He’d been proud of Margaret when she got that award from the International Wilderness Society. Now he felt hollow and cheap. I’ve heard your speech about politics a dozen times. With a steely stare at the stubborn old mule. I’m not asking you to support me in this. “Damn you, Beauchamp,” he shouted, “nor should she have to ask.” What a wr
etch you are, what an ingrate, you have devalued her before her comrades with your feigned, lukewarm show of support.
Yes, he will charm her dinner guests, he will be the prospective candidate’s perfect husband, he will proclaim his support, extol her–a fresh voice, Reverend Al called her. She’s just what we need in Parliament. (Of course, she has the merest hypothetical chance–a recent poll had the Greens at 11 per cent–so he’ll not find himself spending his winters in a rented flat in the frozen hell of Ottawa.)
And with that resolved, pleased with his solution to a needless nuptial irritant, he sensed a burden lift, sensed it soaring off to join the three bald eagles drifting on updrafts from the Gwendolyn cliffs. He smiled and zipped up his jacket. He drifted off.
He awoke shivering, thinking he’d been blinded, then saw by the glow of his watch it was a quarter to six, already night, the early blackness of winter, hours after he was expected home. An owl whistling above him in the arbutus branches, that is what woke him, and the chill. Only starlight above, no lights below. As he scrambled to his feet, he sensed a whisper of wings, the owl abandoning him. Which way was down? How close was the precipice? He checked his pocket. Half a packet of penny matches.
EAT THE RICH
A heavy footfall up the stairs, the tight end making no secret of his coming. Lance supposed he could dispatch him with a well-timed scissor kick–his years of study under Master Dao should not be wasted–but just in case, he reached into his desk drawer for his insurance policy.
His 9 mm Beretta was gone!
April Wu spun toward him, smiling, the Beretta aimed low, horizontal with his testicles.
“So you’re with them,” Lance said.
“Loyalty is a delusion, trust but a false mirror.”
The hallway door crashed open. It wasn’t the tight end, it was…Cudworth Brown! Furious, stomping toward him, fists balled. “You sold me out!”
Kill All the Judges Page 7
