Kill All the Judges

by William Deverell

  Arthur’s tactic of lobbing the occasional curveball at Shawn Hamilton finally paid off. He was on his feet, red-faced, in a rare fury. “Milord, I must be allowed the right to object.”

  This deflected Kroop from his original target, and he erupted. “You have no business before this court! Sit down!”

  Arthur continued unflustered. “Sick with worry, then, is that it? Worry about what? Your unloved husband’s consignment to the afterlife? The perils facing your drug-dealing lover? Or your own skin?”

  “All of those, Mr. Beauchamp. For one thing, I was worried I could be wrongly suspected. No one told me Astrid Leich had seen it. And yes, I was upset at my husband’s death, you’d have to have the soul of a slug not to be. And yes…” Drawing a great breath. “Yes, I was afraid for Cud Brown, tremendously afraid. I couldn’t believe he’d done this, he was in terrible trouble.” Overdramatized, only one point.

  “Poor Cud. The man you were smitten with. Smitten, you said.”

  “Something very deep happened between us.”

  “Love at first sight, is that what we have here?”

  “Call it that if you like. Call it infatuation.”

  “How remarkable. And it carries on to this day?”

  “I continue to have strong feelings for him, I can’t deny that.” A glance at Cud, but it didn’t hold, and she dropped her eyes. Cud was a blank, you had no idea what he was thinking. Felicity was gripping his hand, asserting her right of possession.

  “And while he was on bail, did you seek him out to express those feelings?”

  “No.”

  “No phone calls? No love notes?”

  “I have been acting on advice, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  Arthur looked long and hard at Shawn. “Yes, I can imagine.”

  Hamilton had retreated behind his wooden mask, but Wentworth saw rancour in his eyes. Ebbe, though, was enjoying this.

  “I believe it’s generally known, Ms. LeGrand, that in your youthful years you had a habit of running away from home.” Another quick shift, deflecting her from the prepared script.

  “A few times. You had to know my situation…I don’t want to get into it.”

  “Once to join a cult in Oregon, from which you were rescued and deprogrammed. Deprogrammed, madam.” Getting lots of juice from that word, letting the jury know she was susceptible to fantastical beliefs.

  “The media made a lot out of a simple religious experience.”

  “Another time, you ran off to Mexico.”

  “I was seventeen, Mr. Beauchamp. I was restless, immature, and all the other illnesses of youth.” A good answer, she’d quickly adjusted to this new line of attack. Point for her.

  “While in Mexico, on a farm near Guadalajara, you were arrested on serious drug charges.”

  “I was arrested as an accessory, but I wasn’t really, I was just…there.”

  “Just there? A shed full of pot, cocaine triple-wrapped in feed sacks, ecstasy from a lab in Mexico City. Visitors coming by, smugglers with money. And you only stood by and watched?” A tone of utter disbelief, but she stuck to her story that she played no role.

  Kroop asked where this was going, and Arthur urged patience. Carlos Espinoza, Carlos the Mexican, that’s where this was going. For six months she’d cohabited with Carlos at this drug depot, which was run so lackadaisically that Wentworth wondered how they expected not to get busted. Maybe they weren’t paying the Federales enough. The LeGrands more than made up for that, probably to someone high up. Flo was deported after two weeks in the cooler.

  Arthur showed her a photo of Carlos, the one where he was handcuffed to a grinning cop. “A dashing buccaneer, a cunning risk taker, two escapes to his credit. Handsome fellow. One could see why you were so drawn to him.”

  “Well, I was. He was the first man I loved.”

  “First love. And what happened to this admirable chap?”

  “He took the whole blame. He exonerated me, everyone else. He paid for it, did five years.”

  “And did you correspond during that time?” He turned to Wentworth, who made a show of pulling a file folder from his briefcase. Flo darted an anxious look at Shawn as Arthur put his glasses on and picked through the various folded letters. This was a decisive moment: could Florenza be seduced into believing some of her prison letters had been intercepted? Mexican jails were notorious for undelivered mail.

  “Yes, we wrote letters, I sent him money.”

  The boss had got a foot in the door. “Of course you did. And you talked on the phone.” He was studying a printed page, not a long-distance telephone record but a list of recipes for making healthy soups and stews from Wentworth’s doting mother.

  “Yes, we spoke on the phone.” Another look at her deadpan lawyer. Not a flicker from him, maybe because Ebbe was scrutinizing him.

  “And you flew down and visited him in the jail.”

  A gamble, but it paid off. “Yes, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Time and time again in your letters you expressed your undying love for each other.” Flipping through pages.

  “I’m sure we did.”

  Arthur adjusted his glasses, pretended to read. “‘Our love is rapturous.’” He looked up over his glasses. “That fairly sums it up, madam?”

  “I probably wrote something like that.”

  “And you planned to meet after his release.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And in fact you did get together.”

  “Yes, we did.” Softened up now.

  Arthur took another leap. “Quite a few times.”

  “A few times.”

  “Where?”

  “Here and there. I did a lot of travelling. So did he. Mexico. Honduras. We met in Paris one time.”

  She wasn’t sure how much Arthur knew and didn’t want to risk being seen a liar, that’s what Wentworth intuited. So she even admitted to recent liaisons in the States, L.A., San Francisco, Aspen. A few weeks here, a couple of days there, long weekends, posh hotels, beaches, ski hills, financed mostly by Flo, but occasionally by Carlos when he was flush. She made no bones about his trade, drugs; he loved the danger, the freedom. “He wasn’t interested in my money, that was rare among the men I’d known.” Even the dumbest juror had to see this was not just some sporadic affair, Arthur had opened up a lot of territory thanks to Wentworth’s possessive, letter-writing mom.

  “He wasn’t interested in your money, but you did send him money.” Looking at another sheet of paper, a series of figures, Wentworth’s budget for 2005, he’d ended up $800 in the hole.

  “I sent money.”

  “How much all told?”

  “Over the years, a few hundred thousand.”

  “More than that.” A confident smile. “What was the last payment?”

  “I can’t remember. It was cash.”

  “Oh, you handed it to him. Where was that?”

  “Seattle.” She’d lost eye contact with Arthur by now. Losing points big time.

  “Ah, closer to home. When?”

  She looked at the ceiling, found no answer there, then said, “That would be August, year before last.”

  “A little break from your boring husband-to-be, was that it?”

  “We weren’t engaged yet. I told Carlos I was seeing Rafael, I told him I wasn’t, you know, going to be…able to carry on with him.”

  “And how long were you in Seattle with him?”

  “A few days.”

  “Separate bedrooms?”

  “We shared a hotel suite. I was a free woman. I wasn’t shackled to anyone.” Getting back her pluck. “We knew it couldn’t go on. He had a different life, a rebel life. I was in the mood for something different.”

  “So you paid him off, is that what we’re to believe?”

  “I gave him…maybe three hundred.”

  “Thousand.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you mutually agreed not to continue your fifteen-year affair?”

  “We did.”<
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  “But you did see him again, during your marriage, after you’d decided you’d had enough of it.”

  “No, we didn’t, we didn’t write, didn’t talk on the phone until…after Rafael died. I contacted him during the Christmas holidays, I was lonely.”

  Wentworth suspected she was covering her ass–if they’d conspired to do in Raffy, they’ve have planned it out. But Arthur couldn’t budge her, she must have felt on safe ground.

  Arthur took one of his little detours. “Earlier that year, you decided this marriage was not for you. The bloom had gone, you said.”

  “That’s true, I can’t lie about that.”

  “I don’t know why not, madam, it seems second nature.” Kroop let this zinger pass, maybe he was running out of gas. “So you must have been contemplating a divorce.”

  “Well, no, I…I didn’t have grounds.”

  “You didn’t have grounds for an amicable divorce? Surely they aren’t hard to come by. Incompatibility.”

  “I’d lose millions…” A quick look at Silent Shawn, she’d gone off script.

  Arthur leaped into the lurch. “Millions. Hundred of millions. A good lawyer could get a settlement of half your fortune, your shares in your father’s shipping empire, the mansion on Lighthouse Lane. But a dead man, Ms. LeGrand, can inherit only the grave.”

  A long spell of quiet. “The thought never struck me, Mr. Beauchamp.” Weak. Five-point loss.

  Arthur made what hay he could over Carlos’s stay at 2 Lighthouse in January, but Flo had anticipated this. Yes, his visit was clandestine, he’d entered Canada illegally, that’s why she’d dismissed the maid for the week and sworn Rashid to secrecy. She wasn’t abashed over admitting they resumed their roles as bed partners.

  “So while still claiming to hold the torch for my client, you were sleeping with your long-time lover, your true lover.”

  “I’m not a nun, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  “No one in this courtroom will disagree. Love at first sight with Cud Brown, you said, an intense, almost religious experience. In truth, he’s been set up to take the rap so you can ride merrily off into the sunset with the only man you’ve ever truly loved.” Topped off with his trademark vibrato. Wentworth shivered. Beauchamp was back. “Madam, I put it to you that you and Carlos Espinoza conspired to murder your husband.”

  “No way.”

  “In the early morning hours of October 14, he came out from hiding, saw opportunity beckoning, and obeyed your murderous summons.” The raised finger of accusation. This was the climax.

  But not the one Wentworth expected. Flo took a gulp of air and shouted: “That is absolute, unadulterated bullshit! What I said in this court is exactly what I said to Cudworth’s ex-lawyer last month. Ask him! Ask Mr. Pomeroy!”

  Arthur darted a look at Wentworth, like he needed help all of a sudden. This had come out of nowhere.

  “Excuse me, madam,” Kroop said, “exactly when did you speak to Mr. Pomeroy?”

  “Last month. He sneaked onto the grounds past Rashid–”

  Arthur cut in desperately. “Yes, Ms. LeGrand, we’ve heard all about that from other witnesses.”

  “But not this business about Pomeroy,” Kroop said. “I’d understood there was an altercation with a British news reporter. Are we now to discover this was Pomeroy? Your predecessor in this defence?”

  “Milord, I am in cross-examination.”

  “Yes, of course, and that will continue. But first I think the jury wants to know what Mr. Pomeroy was doing there, what this conversation was all about.”

  The jury looked confused, Cud looked lost, Abigail astonished, then a little betrayed–Arthur hadn’t been up front with her. Silent Shawn was unperturbed. Maybe that was a smile.

  “I would be pleased to be allowed the traditional courtesy of cross-examining uninterrupted.”

  Abigail said, “I support your Lordship.” Smiling at Arthur, enjoying his discomfiture.

  “About time, Miss Hitchins, you’ve been sitting there like a lump. Objection is dismissed.” Kroop swivelled to Flo, gave her a sly, searching look. At last he’d caught the detested Pomeroy up to some hanky-panky. “He sneaked onto the grounds, you say? We heard something about a news reporter, so forgive us–” A sweep of his hand to take in the jury, “–if we are confused.”

  Arthur made a show of sitting, leaning back, his hands clasped behind his head, giving the judge the floor. Wentworth wasn’t fooled by this nonchalant act. Ask Mr. Pomeroy. That had a dreadful ring to it. Major points for Flo LeGrand.

  “Rashid thought he was one of the reporters who parked out front like they owned the street. Yeah, there was this whole scene with the dog and Rashid and Carlos. Then Mr. Pomeroy, Brian Pomeroy, gave me his card, and I checked with his office, and sure enough he was Cud Brown’s lawyer. Frankly, he looked a little smashed, he wasn’t making a lot of sense, but I realized I needed to talk to him…Shall I just go on?”

  “Indeed, do.”

  “I took him inside. Carlos decided to skedaddle, things were getting a little extreme, he wasn’t legal. Anyway, I had this strange conversation with Brian Pomeroy. He talked about his ex-wife a lot. And about some kind of book he was writing, a creative non-fiction mystery, he called it, something like that. I couldn’t make head or tail of it, I was actually wondering what kind of lawyer poor Cud had hired.”

  “This is pure hearsay,” Wentworth whispered.

  “Keep smiling.”

  “Anyway, he finally asked me if I’d seen Rafael get killed, and I told him, told him everything I said here in court. I told him because he was Cud’s lawyer, I was trying to help, I wanted him to know the worst. I knew I wasn’t supposed to blab away, but it was a relief to let it out. And as I got to the end, where Cud does this terrible thing, he began acting really strange, paranoid, he wanted me to keep my voice down, the police were listening, the thought police. I asked him what was going to happen to Cud, and he told me he hadn’t got to that part of the book yet. Oh, yeah, he asked if we could do some coke. I said, I don’t think so, and then he left.”

  She shrugged, as if to say, that’s it. Kroop looked at Arthur. “Do you have anything arising from that?”

  Arthur rose wearily. “You had a supply of cocaine?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were snorting cocaine earlier with your boyfriend?”

  “Carlos, yes.”

  “How much?”

  “Several lines.”

  “Meaning what? Ten, fifteen, twenty?”

  “I didn’t keep count.”

  “No more questions.”

  “Trial is adjourned till Tuesday, nine-thirty a.m.”

  As Wentworth slouched past the Leap of Faith Prayer Centre, he was accosted with, “Are you in need of help, brother?”

  A lot, a hell of a lot.

  THE REAL MCCOY

  Arthur was in a strange, elaborate house, looking for a way out, but all the doors led to more doors, like a maze, then ultimately to a bedroom where Florenza and Shawn were drinking champagne and laughing at his nakedness. “It’s not supposed to end this way,” said a familiar voice. Then he was transported to the top of Mount Norbert, lost again, fog rolling in, the view not the same.

  He didn’t know what woke him from this dismal dream, maybe the distant shouts. “Lug the camera up here!” “Can we get her feeding the goats?”

  He dragged himself upright. A hazy day, mists in the fields. A TV van in the driveway, Margaret leading its crew to the goat corral. Nelson Forbish of the Bleat was also out there with his camera. Should she get elected, this is what it will be like for the foreseeable hereafter. She’ll be the poster girl of the Green set, media everywhere, like wolves circling, seeking weakness, seeking scandal. It’s not supposed to end this way. The end of privacy.

  But Ottawa may be receding from the future. It had been on the radio last night, how she was sabotaged by the chicken-plucker issue during question period, an O’Malley stooge accusing her of being the source
of those e-mails. She’d answered truthfully: a youthful escapade by her husband’s grandson, unbeknownst to all others. This was met by her opponents with scathing disbelief and by the press with damaging headlines.

  Their reunion last night was sad and strained. They gave comfort to each other, but neither felt like making love. “I couldn’t not answer,” she said. “I couldn’t lie. That could only come back to haunt me.” Arthur insisted she’d done the right thing, tried to be cheery, but had to hide his despondency–he should have been there. He felt renewed sympathy for Gilbert Gilbert, failed assassin of the Badger.

  “Watch out! That’s Polly, she can kick!” Arthur had the window open now, could see the camera operator stumbling backwards. A warm day, springlike weather, not a snowball left of last week’s snow. The melt had brought crocuses, delicately offering themselves to the sun, violet and yellow. The Blunderer was not at the dock, meaning Nicholas had taken his son out fishing, hoping to hide the computer ace from the media.

  Arthur had returned to Blunder Bay to find Nicholas fretting about how to handle his son’s apparent initiation into the mysteries of the erotic. He’d discovered Nick’s iPod, three days lost, in the barn, along with a well-used condom–proof positive, in his view, he’d been seduced by the Estonian temptress.

  “He’s only fourteen, for God’s sake, how am I going to explain this to Deborah?”

  Arthur suspected it was somehow sexist of him not to be grossly offended by this apparent tryst, but the condom was evidence that reassured as well as blamed. Still, he was relieved this hadn’t happened on his watch.

  Nicholas had silently returned the iPod but hadn’t confronted Nick, and wanted advice on how to do so. Arthur merely said there was no point in spoiling the farewell party tonight. He wasn’t the person to ask for advice, anyway, he’d been a late bloomer, his deflowering at twenty-three a predictor of a lifetime as a sexual non-starter.

  He must get up, get out, take advantage of this clement weather. But he couldn’t stand, he was paralyzed by feelings of incompetence and failure.

  He didn’t want to believe Florenza had bested him, but his cross-examination had ended with a crash, its climax snuffed out like a candle, all his hard work in ruins as she entertained with the strange tale of Pomeroy’s visit. A credible tale, possibly because it was true. Tough to refute in any event, despite the cocaine.