Kill All the Judges

by William Deverell

  Ebbe reared back. “I beg your pardon.”

  Wow, he was taking major affront. But Wentworth was in too deep to pull back. “Well, ah, we wouldn’t want to make any wrong accusations in court, Judge, so if we knew where you were on October 13…”

  “Why, you impertinent prick!”

  Heads turned. The bartender was advancing. Wentworth slid off his stool, focused on the nearest exit, found his way outside, took several deep breaths, and tried to walk it off along the harbour to Gastown.

  Inspector Chance looked down at the stiff with a world-weary smile. Many had motives to lace the chief’s buttermilk with strychnine, but only one had a cold killer’s heart. “In your insane lust for a high court judgeship, Judge Ebbe, you have been thwarted again. Take him away…”

  Screaming guitars from below sliced through his throbbing head like an executioner’s blade. Blood’n’Guts in rehearsal for tonight’s opening. He’d looked in on them, unshaven brutes in black leather. Even the pigeons were fleeing, seeking sanctuary across the street on the hoardings of the Olympics 2010 renewal project.

  How was he going to survive the upcoming hours with his balky client? Cudworth was on his way, he’d called five minutes ago, complaining, where the fuck had Wentworth been, he must’ve called ten times. Leaning over the Burrard Inlet seawall was where he’d been, hoping someone might come along and nudge him over. To join what was left of his stomach.

  He should pack up, go home to Fort Nelson, open a traffic ticket practice, escape from this firm with its sweatshop pay and bullying prima donna partners. It had seemed so magical when he signed on to article here, the baddest, boldest criminal law firm in town.

  He checked his e-mails. The first message: “Chip O’Malley is a clucking chicken plucker.” A photo of fat, immobile birds in tight cages. Electoral spam, infiltrating in-boxes, maybe even address books. Crudely adolescent, one rhyme short of obscenity. He’d heard these were going out all through the province, mostly to well-to-do businessmen, lawyers, other professionals.

  His bottle of Zap jiggled with the vibrations from the Gastown Riot, an incessant bass beat like someone was pounding his chest with a hammer. The entire office resounded.

  Oh-oh, an e-mail from Brian Pomeroy. “Private and Confidential” in the subject line, then: “Another judge will die.” Why was Wentworth the undeserving recipient of this information? He had an image of Brian hunched over his keyboard bug-eyed on withdrawal drugs, plotting his next death. He shook his head, refusing to be drawn into Pomeroy’s unreal world.

  Here was an e-mail from Jobson, Clearihue’s lawyer, an attachment setting out the terms of their offer. Wentworth looked over it, but didn’t have the resilience to respond to it now.

  A screech of guitar as he answered the intercom line. “I’m going to have a breakdown, do something, for Christ’s sake!” The receptionist was near the stairwell, got the brunt of the noise. He should serve a writ for noise nuisance, an injunction, but how would he find time? “Mr. Beauchamp’s on the line.”

  “Afternoon, Wentworth. I’m at the store and ready for your fax…Could you turn down your radio?”

  “It’s a heavy metal band downstairs.” He had to shout. “How’s the, ah, crisis?”

  “Can’t talk about it on the phone. Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll call you this evening to give you my arrival time.”

  Wentworth wrote down the number, the general store on Garibaldi, then banged out a cover letter, scanned LeGrand’s one-page affidavit, faxed both pages. The receptionist buzzed him to tell him she’s had it, she’s out of here. Also, Mr. Brown had arrived.

  Wentworth looked numbly up as Cud entered, pulling off his poncho, impatient and sour. “You think you got some time for me, counsellor?”

  Wentworth rose wearily, led him to a chair. Cud’s sour beer breath threatened to induce another bout of nausea.

  Another howl from below. “Shit, I’m gonna pop a drum,” Cud said. Now a yowling, amplified voice over squawking guitars. Cud propelled himself up. “What kind of ape-fest is going on down there?”

  He strode out before Wentworth could warn him that those guys were apes. He dialed Jobson, might as well get it done.

  The lawyer sounded cheery. “Got my note? What do you say we wrap it up and put this sucker to bed?”

  Wentworth was tempted to let it go at that, forget the $30,000 insult Arthur wanted him to push for. But this guy seemed anxious. He took a deep breath, tried to sound on top of things, assertive: Vogel had shelled out heavily for his first lawyer, Vogel’s case was unassailable, victory was assured should they go to court, with taxable costs and punitive and aggravated damages. Throw in $40,000, save half a million.

  In background, he could hear shouts from downstairs. Drums and electric guitars were stilled.

  “No can do. I’m rather disappointed, Mr. Chance, we’ve been overly generous.”

  A curse-enhanced tirade from Cud. Somehow this emboldened Wentworth. “I look forward to going to trial then, Mr. Jobson.”

  No immediate response. From below, scuffling, more shouts.

  Finally, curtly: “I’ll get back to my people. But I doubt…Maybe we can sweeten it a little, ten or twelve.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Jobson, but my principal very strongly advised me not to take less.”

  “Your principal?”

  “Arthur Beauchamp has taken an interest in the case.”

  Another long silence, punctuated by a crash in the Gastown Riot, more scuffling, a twang of strings. “I might be able to recommend, say, fifteen, twenty.”

  “Can’t see our client accepting that, after all he’s been through…but, what the hell, maybe we can split it down the middle. Thirty.”

  “I’ll get back to you, Mr. Chance.” Sullen, but Wentworth knew he had it in the bag. The hell with Haley, he’ll surround himself with grateful granddaughters. Joy and Penny and Lucy.

  A wild clanging of cymbals and a fierce ripping sound, possibly a boot going through a bass drum. Then golden silence.

  Cud strolled back in, sweating heavily, brushing himself off. A wide red welt on his cheekbone, the collar torn on his grey flannel shirt, and an obviously skewed back. He sat, working his shoulder muscles. “Okay, Woolworth, where were we?”

  JUST THE FAX, MA’AM

  Arthur whipped Wentworth’s fax from the machine before Abraham Makepeace had a chance to study it and was punished with a sour, offended look. He covered the two pages with his arm as the postmaster passed him a box. “Here’s some books you must’ve ordered, and this here’s an open letter from the Liberal candidate, most of the rest is bills and flyers and stuff. Be careful of this one, says you’re eligible to win a million dollars, could be one of those lottery scams.”

  As Makepeace grudgingly doled out the mail, Arthur found himself squeezed against the counter by Nelson Forbish, peering over his shoulder. “Nelson, you’re squashing me.”

  “Well, I can’t see, you’ve got your elbow right on the last paragraph.” His heft caused Arthur to give way, and before he could retrieve the fax, Nelson’s camera flashed on it. “Is this for real? Whew. It’s the smoking gun, you got them on the run. Four million, is that what he paid the judge? Who’s this from?”

  The cover page had fluttered to the floor, and Nelson went down on his knees to photograph it too.

  “Blast it, Nelson, give me that camera, this is not for public consumption.” He swiped at the camera, but Nelson clutched it to his chest.

  “Maybe you heard of freedom of the press, Mr. Beauchamp? It’s right there in our Charter of Rights, at the top of the page.” This was as close as Nelson ever got to sarcasm. He was still on his knees, struggling to rise.

  Arthur stooped to pick up the page. “I’m warning you, Nelson, this is a very delicate matter.”

  “I got my story.” He gripped the counter, pulled himself up with a groan. “Now you made me hurt my back.” Before Arthur could protest further, he squeezed through the doorway, out to his
ATV.

  A minor calamity, because his next edition wasn’t due for a week. At any rate, the LeGrand camp obviously expected the matter to go public, though in a carefully engineered way, not on the front page of the Garibaldi Island Bleat.

  A crisis of far greater moment was brewing, a possible electoral disaster, and that is what had whisked Arthur to Garibaldi on this baleful Thursday. A tip from the cops, more particularly from Ernst Pound, by way of the constable’s best friend, the fire marshal, as confided to the marshal’s best friend, Reverend Al Noggins, who’d called his best friend, Arthur, just before noon.

  The tip: RCMP investigators would be arriving on today’s late ferry to interview a certain party thought responsible for the anti–chicken farmer spam that had invaded computers province-wide. That unnamed party resided on Potters Road, near its dead end–which was Blunder Bay.

  Nick is helping with Margaret’s campaign, handling the computer traffic or something. Nicholas Senior had spoken proudly, with no idea how his son was helping. The family computer wiz, brighter than anyone knew, off on a wild, illicit tangent. Arthur had felt a trembling, like a coming earthquake about to pull down the Beauchamp household and the entire Blake campaign.

  In near-panic, he’d phoned Nicholas: he and his son were to lay low, speak to no one, Arthur was chartering a flight. He’d met them at his dock an hour later, Nicholas pale with worry, Nick distraught, fighting tears. They went fishing, or at least made a pretense of it, an hour of quiet, intense confession and confabulation.

  Arthur had been dropped off at Hopeless Bay, he planned to walk home, to work out how to deal with the investigators. Was spamming illegal? Surely not. But maybe they found some criminal charge. Mischief. They’d want to examine Nick’s laptop, maybe the phone records.

  An alluring scent wafted from the lounge, addictive, fearsome. The house special, café à la rhum. A drink, a drink, my kingdom for a drink…

  Arthur paid for some groceries, threw them in the pack with his mail. He knew he wouldn’t be able to escape without passing a few moments with the locals, hungry to hear about the trial, the inside story, an exclusive. They wanted to believe in Cud, wanted assurances he’d been railroaded to protect powerful interests.

  All in the lounge were wearing “Free Cud” buttons except for Stuffy Stankiewiczs, a contrarian heavy-equipment operator with a long-simmering grudge against the hero poet. Truculent when he had a few glasses, and he’d had more than a few.

  “I ain’t got nothing against you, Arthur,” he said. “I know you got no use for Cud after what went on between him and your wife.” He rose dramatically, paused at the doorway. “Jumping people’s old ladies, that’s his modus opera-andy, it’s obvious the judge caught him boffing his wife, and Cud croaked him.” He threw open the door, nearly tripped over his feet on his way down to his truck.

  Arthur felt smothered by the heavy, shuffling silence. Finally someone said, “He don’t count for spit, that assoholic.”

  “Hey, remember how Cud broke Stuffy’s jaw outside the old Brig tavern?”

  “He wasn’t the transgressor, Stuffy was the transgressor, came at him with a tire iron.”

  “Shut him up for a while.”

  “Good old Cud.”

  As they prattled on about that scrap, the calumny about Cuddles and Margaret was buried as if never spoken. Arthur strove to maintain an unflustered façade, but his face muscles were tight. After what went on between him and your wife.

  Arthur slung his pack on and headed morosely down Eastshore Road, still feeling humiliated by that ugly slur from Stankiewiczs. Forget it, he wasn’t going to let it hobble him from mounting a zealous defence for Cudworth. That’s not how lawyers must think.

  He watched waves curl and flip on a roiling sea, a front quickly moving in, a light sprinkle of snow from the darkening sky. He’ll have to drain the water lines. He’ll phone Syd-Air, make sure their Friday schedule is in effect. “Can’t leave Wentworth in the lurch,” he mumbled. “Sounded a little harassed on the phone.”

  Here came Ernst Pound in his RCMP van, stopping, rolling down his window, an anxious look. “I’ve been sent to fetch you, Mr. Beauchamp. A couple of members from the telecom unit are outside your house with a search warrant. I told them given your prominent status they better not just walk in.”

  Arthur climbed in beside him, feeling a little unstuck. The investigators had got in earlier than expected, he hadn’t yet armed himself for their coming, hadn’t devised a strategy, a way of delaying things.

  “I better give you a little heads-up, which I wouldn’t except I’m pulling for Margaret and I don’t want to see her chances hurt. Seems someone hacked into the Conservative Party address book, got their list of possible donors, big wheels, businessmen, accountants and doctors and law firms and the like, and that chicken plucker spam is coming from your house.”

  Arthur tried to collect his thoughts–they had a warrant, there was little wriggle room, they’re not likely to buy any bluff.

  As they pulled into his driveway, he craned to see if the Blunderer was tied up. No, just Icarus plummeting into the surf, a telling, dark metaphor. Stoney and Dog had actually finished a promised job, setting Icarus into a pedestal of lumpy cement at the tideline.

  Then he saw the boat a couple of hundred metres out, putting into the bay. Nick gathering up rod and tackle, his dad at the stern, disappearing below, returning with binoculars.

  Snow was falling harder, lightly coating a green sedan in the driveway. Two plainclothes officers, a young man and woman, rose shivering from the porch. The house was unlocked, they might have just walked in. It was a sign they were courteous, respectful.

  Not umbrage but courtesy, even affability, was the right tool. Take a lesson from Whynet-Moir–such a lovely host– and brazen it out with charm. A broad smile and firm handshake extracted their names, Eloise and Matthew, corporals both, learned in the computer sciences, newly recruited to the telecom unit.

  Before they could produce the warrant, Arthur said, “Please come inside, you look chilled to the marrow. Ernst, you as well, you can help set a warm fire.”

  “Naw, I got to run, Mr. Beauchamp, sure as shooting there’s gonna be all sorts of problems with bald tires in the snow.” He hurried off.

  Arthur opened the door wide–nothing to hide here, folks–and ushered the two corporals into the parlour, then excused himself for the kitchen. “Would a hot cocoa go down well?” he called. “Though if you prefer, coffee or tea.”

  “Please don’t go to any bother,” Eloise called back. He imagined them scanning the room, seeking tools of the culprit’s trade. The simmering of the kettle made it hard to hear their talk, but it seemed innocuous: the weather, concern over the ferry cancelling its run.

  He looked outside–the boat was nudging the dock. But here was Lavinia at the window, calling: “Is freeze coming, you want I run taps like last time?”

  Arthur slid the window up a few inches, spoke in a low, tight voice: “Tell Nick the chicken plucker police are here.”

  “Chicken…”

  “Plucker. Go, right now. Tell them to stay clear.” He didn’t want them trooping in, unready, Nick blurting out something inculpatory.

  Returning with three steaming mugs on a tray, he found Matthew crouched before the fire, enjoying the manly pursuit of blowing on lit tinder, while Eloise stared out at the clouds racing in. Being stuck on a storm-tossed rock in the Salish Sea seemed not a fancy they cared to entertain.

  The fire took but was slow to warm the parlour, always the coldest room in the house, lacking baseboard heaters. Eloise, after hesitating, as if unsure if regulations allowed it, accepted Arthur’s gift of a floppy sweater, draped it over her shoulders. “Front’s coming in fast,” he said. “Minus ten tonight, I heard. Last winter the power went out for nine days straight.”

  They silently sipped their cocoa. Through a window he could see Lavinia and the Nicks hurrying toward the woofer house.

  “Now let’
s see if I can help you folks. Ernst mentioned something about the Internet. I’m totally bereft of computer skills, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to fill me in.”

  Matthew explained they were acting on a complaint about political junk messages. Records of the Internet host had been obtained by warrant and the alleged offender traced to Blunder Bay. A charge under the Elections Act of unauthorized political advertising was under review, as was one of mischief involving theft and misuse of telephonic data.

  Arthur had never heard of the latter offence, but doubtless it existed, buried in sub-paragraphs of subsections somewhere, and equally doubtless it would be full of holes. But the preferring of any charge would be damage enough.

  “And who is the complainant?”

  They looked at each other, and both spoke at once: they weren’t authorized to say.

  “A political organization maybe?” Chip O’Malley’s campaign team, for instance. These officers must be aware that they were in the home of his opponent but seemed to regard the matter as too delicate to raise, and they remained mute, merely showed him the warrant.

  Arthur studied it. A loophole! The warrant permitted a search of only Arthur’s house, not the woofer house. “Oops, looks like you folks have a little problem. The phone line written down here, that’s for the neighbouring dwelling, where we pasture our woofers. Young folk from overseas, constantly coming and going, Japan, New Zealand, Finland, all over the map. Well, looks like this warrant has to be amended. Bit of a nuisance, reckon it means another trip back and forth on that old tub of a ferry, if they don’t cancel.”

  Eloise grinned as if to tell him she was seeing through his crafty spiel. “Well, let’s see,” she said, “next boat doesn’t go till four-thirty, I reckon.” Mimicking his folksy mannerism. “Guess we have a little time to sit around and jaw with you folks.” She sipped her mug of cocoa, smiling, watching out the window as the Nicks jogged up the woofer driveway. Stow the bullshit, she was saying.