Kill All the Judges

by William Deverell

  Nick raced off, and Arthur yanked the cord and the saw coughed to life. The sweet, dripping forest, the crisp clean smell of fresh-cut timber, the arcs of flying flakes, the sputter and roar of a manly weapon: all these made Arthur feel good. The outdoorsman. Happily engaged in the only profession he cared about, farming. Enjoying his retirement years. He should burn his gown, a public ritual, a proclamation to the Cudworths of the world that this lawyer is no longer in service.

  The luckless fellow was dealt a joker when Wilbur Kroop nominated himself to do the trial–this made the paper the other day, with a sidebar account of Pomeroy’s caustic portrayal of the chief at the Gilbert Gilbert trial. Surely, Pomeroy will move to have His Lordship stand down. Extreme apprehension of bias: a substantial ground of appeal.

  “One more reason to stay away from that fiasco, Beauchamp. The Badger despises you even worse than Pomeroy.” Twenty years ago, Arthur told Kroop his jury instructions were “a hopeless mishmash of error and speculation devoid of facts and biased to the point of low comedy.” Arthur was then on a quart-a-day habit, and after three nights in jail couldn’t take any more, so he apologized. “Grovelled. The unpitying old bugger.” He must stop talking to himself this way.

  He cut a last butt from the lower trunk, then bowed to the remains of a brave fallen warrior who will warm his house next winter. The task of splitting and hauling will wait until he has his Fargo back. “It will be gracing your driveway tomorrow,” Stoney promised. That was ten days ago.

  It was almost five-thirty, time for dinner. As he packed his tools away, he saw that Nick had left his day pack hanging on a bough. Retrieving it, he felt a budge in a side pocket and pulled out a clear plastic bag with half an ounce of crushed green leaves. Marijuana. This deeply saddened him–he’d already given the boy one lecture. It explained his detachment, his blank attitude to his father’s visit and engagement.

  He trudged to the house, hung up the day-pack, and pocketed the cannabis. He didn’t want to bother Margaret with this problem right now, not before dinner, not as she was chopping peppers in the kitchen.

  He asked, “How did it go with the old farts on Saltspring?” She’d been at a glad-handing session, the Pioneers Club.

  “Arthur, I don’t think it suits you, of all people, to use that expression. Old-timers are respected. They deliver votes.”

  “Is it fair to campaign when you’re not yet nominated? What if someone decides at the last minute to contest?”

  “I don’t think it’s in the cards.”

  “Not a healthy sign for your political party, this lack of choice. Undemocratic somehow. Odd there isn’t some young crackerjack willing to test himself against the old guard.”

  “Old guard!” A scoffing laugh.

  “My dear, your Green Party has an establishment. You are part of it.”

  “Oh, sure, the Green machine.” She was enjoying politics, knew she excelled at it, her grin gave proof she was even vain about it. Had the infection begun? The creeping corruption? Sadly, her party still barely showed in the polls, a mere sixteen per cent.

  Underfoot, the fat tabby, was on his lap, chewing his belt, some kind of rare leather deficiency. He pushed him off. “I hope we’re to have a quiet evening together finally.”

  “I’m not going out, if that’s what you mean. I’ll be on the phone a lot.” Somehow, Arthur didn’t like the sound of that. “Wash up so we can watch the six o’clock news.” He didn’t like the sound of that either.

  After showering, he transferred Nick’s baggie into his fresh pants. The prospect of disciplining the boy repelled him, but there must be consequences. Confiscate the iPod. Cut off access to the Internet. Force him to read Dickens. Arthur ought not to delay the matter, he’d tackle him this evening. It was hard being a grandparent.

  Rejoining Margaret, Arthur lowered himself into his club chair, face to face with the cyclopean monster. He’d resigned himself to it, a new thirty-inch TV, apparently an essential tool for the aspiring politician. Complete with the mysterious usages and workings of a DVD recorder.

  He grumped loudly through the six o’clock commercials. A diabolical intrusion, this machine. Mind-numbing pap for the docile masses. He’d come to Garibaldi for peace and quiet.

  “Then be quiet.”

  Underfoot was back on his lap, and his brother, Shiftless, was going up his pant leg. They may have sensed he needed love.

  “Good evening. There’ll be a by-election in Cowichan and the Islands on Tuesday, February 26. That word came down today from…”

  That’s all Arthur bothered to listen to. He looked up at Margaret, standing beside his chair, looking very intense and white in the television’s glow. This is the news she wanted them to share, the starting pistol has fired. Arthur had visions of mindless sign-wavers covered in badges, staged photo ops, babies thrust at candidates. Worst would be the innuendos, the mudslinging, private lives stripped bare. But he shook off the cats, moved behind her, and encircled his arms about her waist. “In case there are lingering doubts, I’m behind you. All the way.”

  The phone was ringing. “Don’t answer.” She squeezed his hands and pressed him back into his chair. “Look.”

  A political analyst. “Well, Jim, all three major parties now have candidates in the field, and the Green Party, with its typically late start, is expected to go with former island trustee Margaret Blake–”

  “Who is credited with bringing about a new national park in that riding.”

  “Yes, Jim, with her standoff against developers.”

  Fifteen seconds of free advertising for Margaret Blake. The other candidates didn’t fare so well, a sentence each.

  Both cats were on his lap, licking, getting his slacks wet with their saliva. But a graver matter was at hand: Nick had come in and was searching through his day pack, frowning. “Anyone seen the catnip I got for Underfoot and Shitless?”

  “Shiftless, dear,” Margaret said. “I suspect it’s in Arthur’s right pants pocket.”

  Arthur fished it out, tossed it over, wordless in his embarrassment–he had no idea what to say without seeming even more foolish. Margaret laughed quietly as she got up to a ringing phone.

  On a hazy, rainless morning a few days later, Arthur found himself at the terminus of his health walk, the general store, getting the usual silent reception in the lounge–the latest tactic of the Cud Brown Defence Coalition.

  That organization had started off as a small local body, but somehow it had taken a leap over the Salish Sea to the Mainland. Now there were chapters. Literary groups, artists, workers. Cud’s old union, the Steelworkers. Bloggers (whatever they were) had taken up his cause, conspiracy theories were floating around the brave new world of the Internet. There was a sense that this working-class poet had been railroaded by the rich.

  At least Cud had stopped pestering–he was on a reading tour of hinterland libraries.

  Arthur strode guiltily past the school where he’d missed too many of AA’s bi-weekly Tuesdays, past the turnoff to Breadloaf Hill, where lay the ashes of the community hall. Only fifty thousand pledged to date, the rebuilding drive was going slowly. Here was the Shewfelts’ roof, still tenanted by Santa and his reindeer two weeks into the New Year. Rudolph had weathered last week’s storm poorly, had buckled to his knees, his nose hanging by a wire.

  Arthur had trained islanders not to offer him rides during his daily hike, and for a split second he wasn’t bothered that Stoney drove out of his driveway and past him, eyes fixed ahead, as if deliberately not seeing him. It struck him there was something wrong with this picture, and he waved and hollered.

  Stoney must have been watching his rear-view because he braked with a seemingly grudging effort and pulled over to the shoulder. The Fargo had been repainted a garish yellow as if in a clumsy effort to disguise it. Arthur took a minute to catch up–too long, time enough for the culprit to come up with a story.

  “Hey, I was gonna call to say your truck is ready, but I been away. Pretty l
ate for your daily walk, ain’t it? You change your schedule? Yeah, I was just breaking in your new trannie. Not part of my regular service, but for my best customers, I go the extra mile.”

  “You have gone your last mile behind the wheel of this truck. Slide over.”

  Arthur pushed his way in, removed the view-blocking sign from the inner windshield. “Rent me,” with the Loco Motion phone number. “How long has this truck been in service?”

  “Just a brief little while, honest.”

  Arthur reached over to the glove compartment, fished out some recent ferry receipts. The Fargo had been on the Mainland for a week.

  Confronted with the evidence, Stoney said, “I was gonna surprise you with it, but I may as well tell you the astounding news. This here pickup is going to be in a big Hollywood production they were doing in Vancouver, kind of set in the 1970s, a period piece. They put zero point three miles on it. I’m gonna give you your cut as soon as the cheque clears.”

  Stoney knew he could keep Arthur from erupting by rattling on, and did so until they pulled up at the general store. “Maybe I could take it out in trade. Dog and me, what do you say we come by and pour a base for that statue you got, Icterus.”

  “Icarus.”

  “Only charge you for materials. A bit of cement. Otherwise it’s our thank-you for all you’ve done for our community. By the way, ain’t gonna see me joining them braying hyenas who think you let Cud down. That’s your entire own decision. I’d be suspicious too if my wife was up in a treehouse with a guy like him, though I don’t got a wife.”

  Arthur pocketed the ignition key before entering the store. The gang in the lounge greeted him with loud silence. Makepeace didn’t look at him, handed over his letters without deigning to enlighten him as to their contents.

  It seemed hypocritical of these locals to accord the status of persecuted hero to a reckless loudmouth who’d caused marriages to break up, who’d bedded a host of the island’s wives and its every willing maiden. Felicity Jones was his main squeeze these days, the greeting card poet. Her mother, the only islander encouraging him not to represent Cud, was enraged that Felicity had joined him on his reading tour. According to oft-repeated rumour, Tabatha had had her own fling with Cud.

  Here, finally, was someone willing to talk to him, Nelson Forbish, wedged between the new freezer and the junk food shelves. “I got a hot scoop, Mr. Beauchamp.” Forbish secured the bag of Frito’s he’d been fishing for. “I found out who killed that judge Cud is charged with. It’s all in here, I got this long e-mail letter to the editor.”

  He showed Arthur several stapled pages. “It’s from an old farmer named Vogel up at Hundred Mile House. He got his woodlot and half his land swindled off him by Clearihue Investments, and the case went before Judge Whynet-Moir.”

  That piqued Arthur’s curiosity. Todd Clearihue was a familiar name–he was known locally as Todd Clearcut. He’d held Gwendolyn Valley hostage, profited handsomely when the federal government was forced to buy it for parkland.

  “Except that Whynet-Moir got himself killed before he wrote the judgment.” Forbish waved his printout. “So this farmer says Clearihue bumped him off so there’d have to be a new trial, and now he can’t afford a lawyer for it. He tells the whole story, how he was defrauded by Clearihue, how he thought he was just selling an easement to a lake.”

  “This came to the Island Bleat?”

  “He’s reaching out to me for help.”

  “Mr. Vogel has obviously sent this to every paper in the province, and not one of them will dare use it.”

  “Then I’m his only voice.”

  “I shall not defend you on a libel action, Nelson.”

  “I didn’t expect you would,” he grumbled.

  “Give me the letter.” No harm will be done by passing it on to Pomeroy. It seemed unlikely that anyone, even Clearihue, would kill a judge to get a new trial, but the prospect of seeing him behind bars, however remote, brought a glow to the heart.

  He stuffed a few purchases into his pack and before leaving made an elaborate point of sticking a fifty-dollar bill into the Cud Brown Defence Fund jar.

  On his return home he called Pomeroy’s office, and again was put on to April Fan Wu. “He has gone for two weeks to Cuba, Mr. Beauchamp.” A holiday before the trial, not a bad idea. He will need to restore himself, gain strength for Wilbur Kroop.

  On Saturday evening, he found himself in a meeting hall on Vancouver Island, awaiting Margaret’s crowning as Green candidate for the election five weeks hence. Honouring his pledge to her, he mingled, shook hands, talked about the weather, avoided politics.

  The crowd was sizeable, over three hundred, more than he had expected. Print media, TV cameras. Margaret was working the room, guiding Malcolm Lewes about, the fellow who dropped from the race, as if showing off a trophy. Something was changing in her. A false face showed, a too-wide smile, a too-loud laugh, rapt attention to the bon mots of bores.

  Here was portly Eric Schultz, the corporate lawyer, motioning him to caucus in the corner. Three-piece suit, briefcase, a truly anomalous soul with his business connections, his long-distance jump from the right wing. “Not happy. Angus Reid has Chipper breaking out of the pack on top.” This was gobbledygook to Arthur. “Forty-three per cent, margin of error three points plus or minus.”

  Arthur responded with a tentative “Hmm.” He guessed Schultz was referring to a recent poll. Chipper would be Chip O’Malley, the Conservative candidate. He’d seen his TV ad, a chicken-farming mesomorph with sleeves rolled up, promising fewer laws, a leaner bureaucracy, expanded services.

  “Got to push him under thirty to have a chance. Good scandal would help.”

  The meeting had got underway with announcements that cars may be towed from the medical-dental lot next door and that organic pastries and coffee were for sale at the back. Schultz led Arthur there, bought him a coffee.

  “Your Mr. Pomeroy hasn’t responded to my calls.” Schultz pulled a thin computer from his case. “Too bad. A hint that Whynet-Moir paid millions for his judgeship would get the press digging. Would help if Pomeroy raised the issue in the privileged sanctum of the courtroom.”

  Here it was. Heavy-handed politics. “It would help whom?”

  “Our candidate. Your wife.”

  A photo filled the screen, a guest table at a banquet. “That’s Jack Boynton.” The late justice minister. “At a wedding, just before he keeled over with a stroke. That’s Chip O’Malley beside him.”

  “Ah, yes, Chipper, the candidate. He knew the minister well?”

  Schultz seemed taken aback by Arthur’s political illiteracy. “Served two decades as riding president, bum boy to Boynton, his impatient successor. And no stranger to Raffy Whynet-Moir. All members of the same cabal. Shit sticks.”

  Arthur excused himself.

  “Nominations once,” called the chairman. “Nominations twice.”

  “Yay, Margaret,” someone yelled.

  “Nominations three times. Hearing no further nominations, I declare Margaret Blake elected.”

  A great cheer went up. Someone raised Margaret’s arm. She was held in a circle of clicking cameras, then led grinning to the podium. A chant: “Margaret! Margaret! Margaret!”

  Arthur made himself small. Please, he prayed, don’t drag me up to the stage.

  “Arthur Beauchamp, where are you?” the chair shouted into a mike. “Don’t be shy, come on up here.”

  TRIAL RUN

  “Rafael likes to watch, that’s how he gets off. Cudworth and I did it on the dining-room table so he could lick off the custard after. We had lots of leftover custard. Poor Rafael, he was dead in an instant.”

  Florenza smiled seductively as she recounted this merry tale. She and Lance were in her sitting room with Heathcliff, the Doberman. Carlos the Mexican had not shown his face since Lance felled him with a left hook. Rashid had returned to his guard post.

  “I dosed the custard with this new product that stops your heart; they c
an’t detect it. All Cudworth did was dump the body. Would you like another gingerbread cookie?”

  “I prefer my facts straight, Ms. LeGrand, like a fine single malt.” Lance rubbed Heathcliff’s neck. Dogs loved Lance. “The prosecutor is wetting her knickers at the prospect of indicting you. They found his semen in the steam room, all over the towels, not to mention your skivvies.”

  “That’s not true, I washed them.”

  He had her at his mercy. “This is the version I would prefer to hear: Distraught upon your return from your romp with Cuddles, Raffy waits until you’re asleep, then, overcome with depression, he shuffles off into the night. After a few heart-rending moments contemplating the fickleness of love, he climbs on a chair, leaps, and joins the church triumphant. What we do not want to hear are the words ‘Help me escape.’”

  Brian was annoyed at himself, he’d just given away a dark secret of the criminal law, the crafty tactic of enticing a witness to alter testimony. No wonder the author had disguised himself as Lance Valentine for this shysterism. One ought not to add to the public loathing of lawyers. Select paragraph. Delete.

  He’s got to stop Valentine from oozing his way into these creatively non-fictional pages. The fellow has begun to wear, infuriating Brian with his snide advice and plummy accent. Brian can’t get rid of him; alter egos cling. He’d fired the syrupy gumshoe but never properly killed him off, that’s the problem.

  Having persuaded himself he could coax his body back to health, clean out his system, Brian had spent two weeks in Cuba, swimming, hiking, but he’d got lost a few times and had to phone Dr. Epstein collect to ask directions. Then there was that scene at the Havana airport, after his return tickets went mysteriously missing. The matter had gone up to the highest level, resulting in a decree from the presidential palace that he be immediately deported to Canada.