Kill All the Judges

by William Deverell

  He alighted from the cab, unfurled an umbrella. “What are you doing out here? It’s starting to rain.”

  “I was worried you’d be late.” Wentworth tried to take control of the umbrella, but Arthur wouldn’t give it up.

  “Where’s Cud?”

  “He’s waiting in another courtroom. With Felicity and his mom.”

  Arthur didn’t realize Cud had a mother. He herded the fusspot to the door. Reporters converged. A camera was thrust at him, microphones.

  “Going to be any surprises for us today, Mr. Beauchamp?”

  “The surprise is that this flimsy case is even going to trial.”

  Wentworth clapped with delight. They escaped into the male barristers’ locker room, crowded with colleagues in underwear, deodorizing their armpits, buttoning wing collar shirts, gossiping, joshing. “Hey, Arthur, still enjoying retirement?” “You bring any goat cheese?” “It’s Rocky Balboa, he’s come back for his title.”

  Now came the final stage of the transformation, the robing, the costuming of Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp, Q.C. He supposed it was similar for actors, dressing up, becoming another person. But here the drama was live, the players at risk, the consequences grave, the end unknown.

  Down the aisle, John Brovak was also robing, about to launch a week-long appeal for Ruby Morgan and his gang of cocaineros. An obstreperous, broad-shouldered knave, a stud, Cud-like but with a law degree. “Hey, Arthur,” he yelled, “make sure Kroop don’t eat the kid alive. Watch your ass, kid, the Badger thinks you’re shit.” Referring, Arthur supposed, to the young man’s role as Pomeroy’s junior in the Gilbert Gilbert case. Brovak carried on, demanding Wentworth get some fees in, grumbling about the cost of keeping Pomeroy “in a high-end acorn factory.”

  As Arthur pulled on his striped pants, Wentworth looked away, embarrassed to see him in underwear.

  “‘Someone else is going to die.’ What’s that about?”

  “Brian Pomeroy called in the middle of the night. That’s all he said.”

  Brovak caught that as he came by lugging a mountain of files. “I got the same wiggy message. He better not be talking suicide.”

  “Just addled talk, I’m sure,” Arthur said. “Wentworth, I’ll want you to visit him this evening. And while there, do a thorough search for Ms. LeGrand’s ring.”

  The reporters were still scavenging in the hall but reluctantly allowed them access to the elevators. “How do you feel going into this with only three days’ prep, Mr. Beauchamp?”

  “Had no alternative. I couldn’t stand by and watch an innocent man being railroaded.”

  Charles Loobie was waving his notepad, demanding Arthur’s attention. “Hey, Artie, I got something for you.”

  “When I have a moment, Charles.” Arthur didn’t care for this gossipy newshound, a nuisance, a time-waster. He didn’t like being called Artie.

  Outside court 67, deputy sheriffs were denying entrance to those with “Free Cud Brown” buttons. They were having a particular problem with the frizzy blonde who had the words in lipstick on her bared shoulder. Silent Shawn was conspicuously absent; presumably he didn’t want Arthur pestering him about his equally close-mouthed client.

  He cracked open the door. The chief was finishing off a leftover from last week, a motion to exclude wiretap evidence. Lawyers won’t be tasting his lash much longer–he was nearing seventy-five, retirement age. They might have to drag the old fellow out with a tow truck, he’s been up there for a third of a century, stubborn, unmoveable. Thickset, a broad fleshy face, a small, puckered, disbelieving smile as he rushed along a terrified young lawyer. “Get on with it, counsel.”

  Loobie came up from behind, a sneak attack. “Artie, I think you want to talk to this gent.” He steered him to a wiry senior in scuffed boots who offered Arthur the dubious gift of a weighty file. “Mr. Loobie says I oughter talk to you about how that rattlesnake tried to bamboozle me.”

  Vogel, the rancher from Hundred Mile House. Arthur shook his knobby hand, then called Wentworth over. “Mr. Chance will be pleased to look into it.” Wentworth stuffed the file into his overflowing briefcase.

  “I won that damn trial, and then Clearihue kilt the judge and stole victory away.”

  “Mr. Chance will also check his whereabouts on October 13.”

  “I can’t afford a lawyer for a new trial without selling off my entire herd.”

  “Maybe Mr. Chance can help you out there too. He’ll be pleased to take you for lunch today.”

  Clearcut Clearihue would be Arthur’s preferred suspect, but a very unlikely one.

  He popped into the next courtroom, where something complex about construction codes was underway. A dozen lawyers and an equal number of expert witnesses, and no one in the audience but Cud and his mother and girlfriend.

  Irma Brown was introduced, here all the way from Northern Ontario, a portrait from Hard Times Magazine, thin and worn and tired, in a faded dress. “Cudworth says you’re the man.” He didn’t know how to respond.

  He led them out, took his first critical look at Cud. He’d had a haircut too, above the ears, no longer shaggy. Sans medallion, sans braces. Cleancut in sports jacket and turtleneck. With loving mother and rosy-cheeked girlfriend beside him, he would present as an upright citizen, unthreatening were it not for the broken nose.

  Arthur felt obliged to pass pleasantries with Irma Brown. “Your husband couldn’t make it?”

  “He’s in too much pain.”

  Arthur recalled something about a mining accident. “You have another son, right?”

  “Jimmy, he’s in Kingston.”

  “Ah, the university?”

  “The penitentiary. Cud was the one we had hopes for.”

  “Yes, well, let’s be off to court.”

  He asked a deputy sheriff to escort them because again he had to brave Charles Loobie, pest reporter. “You going to get to Whitson today?”

  “I expect so.” The owner of the Lamborghini, the investment counsellor.

  “I got it on the q.t. from a reliable source he was in a scheme with Whynet-Moir that went off the rails. Raffy stiffed him for some big bucks, and Whitson was pissed.”

  Loobie seemed to have an inordinate interest in dredging up suspects. Arthur summoned Wentworth again. “When we break at noon, sit down with Charles here.”

  He led them into court 67, where Wilbur Kroop was bickering with counsel. “Your argument would put the police in handcuffs, not the culprits. Surely in these perilous times wiretap laws must be given a broad and liberal interpretation.”

  Impaled by his glare, the young counsel stammered incoherently.

  “Well? Do you have more to say?”

  “No, sir, that’s my case.”

  “Appeal is denied, reasons reserved. I see, Madam Clerk, that the combatants in today’s main event are present.” Kroop acknowledged Arthur, advancing up the aisle, with a gracious smile belied by his pitiless eyes, black holes in a galaxy of wrinkles and skin folds. Abigail Hitchins was already at counsel table, with a couple of helpmates, arranging files. Her well-known animus toward Kroop–he’d made a couple of anti-abortion rulings–would help deflect some of his shots at the defence.

  Arthur motioned Cud to enter the prisoner’s box and introduced Wentworth as his junior.

  “Ah yes, Chance, I believe you were involved with Mr. Pomeroy in that Gilbert matter.” A menacing glint of a smile. “And for the Crown we have Miss Hitchins and a young lady I’ve not met.”

  Haley was the name of this freckled, Rubenesque redhead. Young lady. Arthur must refrain from echoing such expressions–for reasons he couldn’t fathom, they were no longer in season.

  Kroop studied Cud solemnly. “You’re Cudworth Brown, the accused?”

  “Last time I looked.”

  Arthur directed a harsh look at his client. This flipness was a bad start; Kroop had taken on colour and spoke sharply: “As is the usual practice in these courts, accused will be taken into custody and remain there until ter
mination of these proceedings.” Cud’s mouth fell open.

  “Before Your Lordship so directs, I wonder if I may be heard, if I may be so bold.”

  Abigail was quick to pitch in. “Milord, there’s agreement between counsel to maintain the conditions of interim release during the trial.”

  A pause as Kroop digested this cozy deal, then sniffed. “Very well, but you might have considered alerting me. Let’s bring the first batch in, Mr. Sheriff. We’ll take about twenty.”

  And the first batch filed in, anonymous souls pulled from kitchen, office, and factory to serve their country. Names, addresses, occupations–that is all the information the sheriffs divulge. One must rely on a talent to read faces and body language. As they stepped up in turn, Arthur sought eye contact–long experience had taught him to read intelligence in eyes, empathy in smiles. He let go those with frown and worry lines, and a few who might lack strength to endure a fractious jury room.

  He wanted a cheerful lot, and with no interference from Abigail, that’s what he got. He picked a few plums from the second batch, a retired classics professor he’d once met; a Steelworkers organizer, Cud’s old union; a restaurant hostess from hip Commercial Drive, Cud’s milieu. (“I’ve been at poetry bashes at her joint,” Cud whispered.) To Arthur’s surprise, he ended up seating eight women, only four men. But his instinct in doing so seemed reliable. Men, with their petty sexual jealousies (An unregulated sex drive; I think you resent that), seemed less likely to side with the accused libertine.

  “Well done, we’re moving right along. Let’s keep it up, stick to the timetable–I have to be in the nation’s capital Monday for the Order of Canada ceremonies. We’ll take five minutes.”

  Abigail came by. “I think he wants us to know he’s getting the Order of Canada. You okay with those admissions of fact? Same ones Pomeroy approved in his brief lucid state.”

  “I’m fine with them. I’d like to mull over Astrid Leich, if you can put her off for a few days.”

  “Your word is my command.”

  “I assume she has been breathlessly following the news coverage of this titillating case.”

  Abigail raised a hand: “I swear. She hasn’t seen your guy’s face since the lineup. Hank Chekoff, who has been babysitting her, insisted she cancel cable and morning paper in favour of a line of credit at Blockbuster’s. She’s actually a very honest woman.”

  Arthur doubted that, doubted she could be so incurious, but said nothing.

  “Gag me, but I’m going to suck up to Kroop by dispensing with an opening. I don’t know what to say anyway, and I’ve got impatient witnesses.”

  It was almost noon when jury and judge returned. Arthur was pleased to note the thin, bespectacled classics professor, Jane Glass, was foreperson. Sitting beside her was the Steelworkers organizer, Tom Altieri, a robust man with an air of confidence, probably a good tongue on him, an experienced persuader. The jury, Kroop directed, could spend their nights in their own beds but were admonished to ignore news reports of the trial–though everyone in the court system knew such directives were ineffectual.

  The registry had cleverly assigned as clerk a stout woman whom Kroop rarely badgered, possibly because of their reputed affair many years ago. She rose and bawled out an indictment charging that on the fourteenth of October, in the year of our Lord 2007, in the Municipality of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, Cudworth Brown did commit the murder in the first degree of Rafael Whynet-Moir against the peace of our lady the Queen, her Crown and dignity.

  Cud entered his plea with a modicum of theatrics, a firm “Not guilty” and a slight nod for emphasis.

  “Identification issues are in play, milord.” Arthur wanted the jury to know this early. “So may the accused be seated in the body of the court.”

  “Mr. Beauchamp, in nearly four decades on the bench, I have yet to countenance that kind of arrangement…Yes, Ms. Hitchins?”

  “The Crown has no objection, milord.”

  Kroop was taken aback. “Well, I do.”

  “In fact, the Crown consents, milord.”

  A long pause. Kroop wasn’t bound by her consent, but he regularly sided with the Crown, he was infamous for it, and now looked confused as he worked through his dilemma. He tried to salvage the moment by turning to the jury with a mock helpless look. “There doesn’t seem much role for a judge here. Those two agree on everything.” He got a ripple of laughter as compensation for having been shown up.

  Cud joined mother and girlfriend in the third row. Too close to the front for Arthur’s comfort–he must meld him with the hoi polloi in the back when Astrid Leich takes the stage.

  “You may open to the jury, Ms. Hitchins.”

  “I’ll forgo it, milord. We want to get you on that plane to Ottawa.”

  A grunt of satisfaction, the old boy mollified by the blatant pandering. “We’ll break now. Fourteen hundred hours, Madam Clerk; let’s be on time.”

  Arthur packed his files, roused Wentworth from a trance.

  SEE NO EVIL

  His cry for justice still echoed through the courtroom. Then silence, except for sobs from the jury. Suddenly the gallery erupted in applause. Mr. Beauchamp looked up at him with newfound respect. “Exceptional piece of work, Wentworth, absolutely brilliant…”

  Wentworth returned to this world: a sub shop. He was on a stool, the old rancher beside him was bitching about the rotten justice system. He riffled through the mammoth transcript of Vogel v. Clearihue, wondering when he’d have time to read its eight hundred pages. He was besieged. Consult with Vogel, help him out. Handle Cud. Talk to Loobie. Look up the law. Mr. Beauchamp was testing him, putting him through boot camp; he’d better not buckle. Arthur, he must learn to call him Arthur. The boss, that felt more natural.

  A visit to Pomeroy tonight–he wasn’t looking forward to that. Someone else is going to die.

  “Mr. Vogel, why didn’t you see a lawyer before you signed this deal?”

  “I figured it was simple, I didn’t need no lawyers. The one I hired for the trial cost me a year’s receipts and didn’t know his arse from his elbow.”

  “Have you even got a scrap of proof Clearihue murdered this judge? Any idea where he even was that night?”

  Vogel scratched his head. “Maybe at home. He lives up there with all them moneybags in West Vancouver.”

  “How far from Whynet-Moir?”

  “Twenty-minute walk downhill, I did it mesself.”

  Mr. Chance will also check his whereabouts on October 13. How was he going to do that? Call him up? Was it even worthwhile pursuing this? But he must, for Mr. Beauchamp, for Arthur, whose wife spent two and a half months up a tree because of this jerk. Wentworth will provide pro bono services to the rancher. Justice must be done. Beauchamp’s enemy is his enemy.

  He repacked his briefcase, paid the bill, got a receipt, two $7.99 specials with Big Gulp colas, then checked the time. “Oh my God, I’m due in court.”

  “I’m down here for only a few days, then I got to get back to the range. I got two hundred head and only my three granddaughters there to help. If you’re able to come up when it ain’t winter, we got a pretty swimming lake.”

  Wentworth thanked him and hurried up Granville Street.

  “We’re so happy you’re here to save Granddad’s farm,” said the prettiest one as she pulled her jeans off. “We usually go in with no clothes on.”

  The first witness was already on the stand as Wentworth rolled in, two minutes late. Kroop examined him like a buzzard circling roadkill, hungry for this defender of Gilbert Gilbert. His legs buckled a little as he bowed to the court and sat. The judge scared him, the Darth Vader of the courts.

  Abigail Hitchins was examining a stout miner of Arctic diamonds, who gave the impression he’d rather have attended a street riot than a literary salon at Whynet-Moir’s. Wentworth would bet his wife had to drag him there.

  He hadn’t had any dealings with Cud except to shake his hand, so Wentworth wasn’t sure w
hy they’d bothered to subpoena him. No damage done until Abigail steered him to Cud’s reading of “Up Your Little Red Rosie, Rose.”

  “Do you remember what that poem was about?”

  “Well, as the title suggests, an unconventional sexual practice.” He seemed to be trying not to smile. Wentworth was scribbling madly, recording all this, but he couldn’t resist an urge to turn to Cud, looking sheepish beside his stern mother. Mr. Beauchamp nudged him: pay attention. Not Mr. Beauchamp. Arthur. He has to learn to think of him that way.

  “Could you be more explicit?”

  “An act of buggery.”

  “And what was the reaction?”

  Wentworth couldn’t understand why the boss wasn’t objecting; this evidence was irrelevant, highly prejudicial.

  “Some people were shocked, the ladies especially. It was fairly…vivid.”

  Arthur rose, strolled over to Abigail, offered a slim volume. “It’s all in here, Ms. Hitchins, funded by the Canada Council for the Endowment of the Arts. Why don’t you read the whole thing?”

  “Order.”

  Arthur ignored Kroop and turned to the witness, who’d given up trying not to smile. “I’ll bet you had a good laugh over it afterwards.”

  “I was in stitches.”

  “We will have order!” Kroop bawled, quieting the rumble of laughter in the room. “Counsel, await your turn. Ms. Hitchins has the floor.”

  The boss gave Wentworth a friendly nudge as he sat. That’s how it’s done, he was saying. Turn the tables on them.

  Abigail was obviously expecting a suicide defence, so she asked about Whynet-Moir’s mood and demeanour. “Happy, attentive, entertaining, charming to the ladies. Very gracious host. He seemed pleased the way his literary evening was going.”

  The hostess was, ditto, very pleasant, spirited, happy, said the mining mogul. He’d been seated several chairs from Cud and Flo, saw no unusual interaction, but wasn’t really looking.

  It went on like that with the next witness, and the next. Whynet-Moir the perfect host, Cud knocking them back like there’s no tomorrow, no one picking up on the under-table grope session. Abigail asked each to identify Cud in the gallery, and no one had trouble, despite Cud’s cleaned-up act, his neat haircut, though the bent nose was a kind of giveaway. Arthur didn’t ask many questions and looked sour. “We need that blasted ring,” he grumbled.