Yes, he’d made severe dents in her evidence, but the jury expected more, expected the famed barrister to thrash her. They watch too many TV shows, these modern jurors, they demand naked exposure on the witness stand, wails of confession and contrition. He’d been distracted, of course, distressed that he’d been forced to abandon Margaret in her most important hour, but that was no excuse–he was a professional, damn it.
Afterwards, he hadn’t been able to look Wentworth in the eye. “You were terrific,” he’d said, almost dutifully.
Blame it on Pomeroy…
“Big smile.” That was Nelson, capturing Margaret, feeding alfalfa to a kid. “Now I want you looking really sad.”
“Why?”
“In case you lose.”
Arthur finally rose when he saw the television crew packing it up. A quarter to eight; he would have a couple of hours of peace before the obligatory appearance at Sunday service.
But when he came down fifteen minutes later, showered, shaved, and dressed to go out, he found the Garibaldi news anchor still here, at the kitchen table, wolfing down a plate of scrambled eggs and sausages, his chair creaking under his weight. After swallowing, Nelson said accusingly, “Your trial is taking me very close to deadline. I have to prepare two different front pages. ‘Local Poet Gets Off’ or ‘Local Poet Gets Life.’ I’m going to need comments to fit each of those eventualities.”
The potential for typographical blunders was extreme. “Not now, Nelson.”
Forbish wiped his lips on a napkin and rose, fondling his camera. “Then maybe a couple of pictures. One smiling, one sad.”
Margaret came in, a little ruffled, shedding her jacket. “God, Polly got him right in the scrotum. Arthur, I put your breakfast in the oven to stay warm…Oh, Nelson, I didn’t see you.”
That seemed virtually impossible. Nelson apologized profusely, adding, “I came in because I was cold, I figured you made me something to eat like usual. Sure was good, tastes like more.” When encouragement was not forthcoming, he added, “Can’t stay, sorry, I got to put the Bleat to bed.”
Never one to mix religion and politics, Reverend Al eschewed religion altogether today, except for some obscure opening passage from Isaiah, opting to give his sixty parishioners, five journalists, and the Conservative Party spy a spirited speech about the need for electoral ethics. The spy was a “smart-ass college student,” to quote Margaret, like a leech on her for the last week, appointed by O’Malley’s team to listen, report back, and sometimes heckle.
They had staff assigned to attack her on call-in shows. Others did midnight forays to steal her posters. A high-powered agency wrote their attack ads. Ottawa had chipped in, millions for a fisheries research station, a Tourism Canada office. All to shore up their thin lead in Parliament amid rumours a few backbenchers were revolting over the bribe scandal. Well, the whole process was revolting. The doughty woman sitting hip to hip with him was a rarity in this vile trade. As the birth mother of Gwendolyn Park, she’d already done more for her country unelected than most of those 308 squabbling Members of Parliament.
And now she’s being attacked for being honest, for frankly admitting Blunder Bay was the source of electoral spam.
Arthur would have taken tomorrow off to campaign had the trial been less demanding. He must give thought to his summing-up to the jury, though he was usually at his best extempore. More importantly, there was work to do tomorrow with Cudworth Brown. Wentworth was to meet with him at noon, he’ll have to extract an account that doesn’t beggar belief.
Arthur was loath to put the loudmouth on the stand, but juries can be capricious when they think there’s a case to meet. A verdict of manslaughter would be no victory at all, given the Badger’s predilection for giving the statutory max, in this case, life. Knocking off a judge would merit nothing less. Besides, it would teach that impertinent Beauchamp a lesson.
Outside, post-sermon, it was, “Do it again, Ms. Blake, kind of turn to the camera.” She shook hands again with Reverend Al as Arthur stood by with an insipid smile.
Margaret had to stay for the women’s tea, then stop at the Evergreen Estates neighbourhood yard sale, so Arthur planned to hike home, with a stop at the general store. But here was another photographer following him to his truck, where he’d packed a change into country clothes. The fellow had the decency to quit his pursuit when Arthur went behind his cab to remove his pants. This was not how Arthur wanted to live.
He chose a shortcut to Centre Road, across the cemetery–where he feared he might be residing soon, done in by the stress, the close election, the beastly trial. The graveyard was well kept by volunteers, with its flowerbeds and sculpted hedges. Spikes of daffodils poking through the earth, spring coming an inch nearer every year with global warming. Not much to be done about that. As inevitable as the ultimate dying of the sun, thereby putting into perspective the infinitesimal matter of an alleged poet and his alleged crime.
Cud had reacted strangely to Florenza’s testimony, as if confounded, sitting up suddenly as if he’d had a flash, a revelation. Arthur could see him on the witness stand, arrogant and coarse, offending jurors, easy meat for cross. Yet it would be a daredevil’s gamble not to let them hear his proclamations of innocence.
The Shewfelts had finally rescued Santa and his reindeer from their roof, Christmas was officially over. Expect another pagan display at Easter, a monster bunny rabbit. Smoke was curling from Stoney’s chimney, so he must be up, though it was only noon. “I’ll try to come by to look at that dock.” This obscure message may have been garbled in translation, given the flustered state of Nicholas, its recipient.
Kurt Zoller’s aluminum twelve-seat water taxi was tied up at the store dock, but the only land vehicles around were Makepeace’s old delivery truck and Emily LeMay’s motorcycle. Unusually for a Sunday, a sparse congregation in the coffee salon: Emily, plus a city freelancer taping an interview with Kurt Zoller, and Gomer Goulet weaving his way from the counter with a fresh-poured rum. “Arthur, we gotta have a heart-to-heart. I heard in the news Cud’s in shit, we gotta save him. I’m begging you, from the bottom of my heart.”
Arthur veered away from him, past Zoller, who was into one of his circumlocutions. “The way I see it, Garibaldi is a big winner with all this publicity over a sensational murder trial featuring local celebrities, one of who has just walked in–good afternoon, Arthur–who nobody seems to remember I personally defeated his wife in the last trustee election.”
The young freelancer looked bored. She must have assumed Zoller was an interesting oddball with his buckled-on yellow fluorescent life jacket.
Virgin oil, five green peppers, sliced almonds; Arthur had written it down this time. “Where is everybody?” Arthur asked Makepeace as he tallied his purchases.
“Ferry dock. Hamish is just about to unveil his Goddess of Love. You must have forgot.”
He had. The ceremony was scheduled for the arrival of the Sunday inter-island ferry, a popular tourist run.
The freelancer, thwarted in her search for local colour, started packing up.
“Wait, I haven’t got around to the event that’s going to put Garibaldi on everyone’s lips.” Zoller launched into a spiel about McCoy’s statue.
Makepeace chimed in: “He’s gonna get the church ladies all churned up if he shows naked boobs.”
“When it’s art, it’s morally acceptable,” Zoller proclaimed, “as long as they’re regular breasts. Normal, not exaggerated, like, ah…” He stalled on seeing Emily’s venomous look.
“Like what, Mr. Art Expert?”
“Abnormal.”
“Like your two inches?”
Zoller turned petulant. “I don’t get a darn lick of gratification for all the sweat, blood, and tears I volunteer.” He checked his watch. “We don’t want to be late.” He jumped to his feet, urging his interviewer up too. “Stop the presses, all aboard, this is your lead story. I modestly admit to having a role in it.”
“What was your role, M
r. Zoller?” the journalist asked.
“If Hamish hadn’t been busted…forget it.”
In his zeal to earn kudos, Zoller had practically admitted his invidious role as fink, widely suspected and, to Hamish McCoy, undoubted.
Arthur followed them out to Zoller’s boat, not wanting to miss this. He helped with the lines as Zoller, ever safety-conscious, strapped on a seat belt. Arthur hopped on, but here came Gomer Goulet, tottering down the planks with his mug of rum, crying, “Wait for me!” Arthur helped him aboard.
The reporter was up with Zoller, so Arthur had to take one of the bolted plastic seats, with Gomer breathing alcohol fumes right behind him. “Tell me he didn’t do it, Arthur. We still love him anyway, don’t we? ’Cause he did it out of love. Love, Arthur, thass what makes the world go round.”
The Queen of Prince George was cruising into Ferryboat Bay as they barrelled around a sharp point, almost grazing the buoy. Zoller was heading for the public dock beyond the ferry slip, and he went full throttle past the ship’s stern.
Arthur was holding on, jolted by the turbulent wake. Though he was standing, Gomer Goulet astonished Arthur by keeping his balance, his legs working mechanically, like pistons, with every rise and fall of the deck. A lifetime as a crab fisher must have adapted him, Poseidon-like, to deal with the seas. “Cud loves her, Arthur, and she loves him. Thass a fact! Give them their happiness, for God’s sake!”
When the salt spray cleared from the window, Arthur could see three dozen vehicles in the ferry lineup, as many foot passengers and cyclists. All eyes were trained on Ferryboat Knoll, two upswept wings above scaffolding draped with tarps. Hamish McCoy was scurrying about, untying ropes. The Lions Club hot dog wagon was busy. The Highland Pipers were squeezing out “Scotland the Brave.” Two news vans. The railings of the Prince George’s outer decks were crammed with the curious.
Zoller decided they weren’t going to get a better view on land, so he idled and they sat in the cove. The freelancer deserted Zoller, who’d been talking non-stop, and shifted to the back. “I can’t make head or tail of what he’s saying, Mr. Beauchamp. What’s this all about?”
But now the tarps were falling, people were cheering…
And there it stood. Arthur had trouble at first discerning the artist’s intent. Sweeping curves, a snakelike creature with a great round belly and two knobby bare feet and a curling rat’s tail. No, not a snake, that was its serpentine neck, sprouting from between the wings in a graceful arc downwards, past dwarfish male sexual organs, a rat’s head seeking entrance into the anal cavity below. The creature was painted bright fluorescent canary yellow, and a similarly coloured life jacket was draped over its upper neck. McCoy had combined the motifs of snake, rat, and canary.
The pipers stopped playing, a final squeal, as from a frightened, yowling cat. A hush. Then Gomer. “Forgive him, Kurt. Oh, God, forgive him. Hamish is our pal, he loves you.”
Zoller wasn’t buying that. The water taxi jolted forward, made crunching contact with the dock, splintered a kayak, and sank a rowboat, whereupon the skipper bounded from his cabin and raced down the planks to shore.
Arthur tied the craft up and made sure all systems were off, then led the survivors along the rickety boardwalk to the ferry slip. Arthur had left his cellphone at the house, so the freelancer lent him hers before racing on ahead for her local colour.
He connected with Margaret in her truck. “I thought I’d take a quick spin out to Ferryboat Bay,” she said. “All the media are there.”
“Turn back! You don’t want to be seen anywhere near here.” Parents were sheltering their children from the sight.
It took Arthur a few moments to explain, then a few more while Margaret reversed into a driveway and turned for home. She warned him not to tarry, the barbecue was about to begin.
He hastened to the off-ramp to hitch a ride, waited for foot passengers and cyclists to disembark. Laughter from above, then yelling, Zoller’s full-tongued recriminations. Then, closer to his ear, a voice that caused as much surprise as dread. “That’s the bleeding edge, man, art as it should be, raw and real.”
Cuddles himself, lupus in fabula, the wolf in the tale, once again proving his talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The wrong place was walking off a ferry on Garibaldi Island. The right place was Wentworth’s office, where he was to have shown up two hours ago.
He was staring up at the Goddess of Love. “McCoy’s got balls of steel. I feel like a poem coming on.”
He continued to extol this masterwork as he led Arthur to a little bench behind the Winnebagel, then said, “I had a brainstorm, too heavy for your apprentice to handle, I need to talk to the top dog.” Arthur lit his pipe, waited with foreboding.
“Florenza, man. I didn’t know what to make of her at first, but then I realized, hey, this lady sounds totally up front, she’s not slagging me off like I expected. It’s like I got like a pact with her. If she’s got nothing to hide, maybe I should follow suit; it’s the honourable thing.”
“What do you mean she’s got nothing to hide?”
“Hey, she admitted it in front of everybody, she’s still carrying the torch and it’s burning bright.”
“Your ears must have been plugged when she named you as a murderer.” Plugged by ego-wax.
“I heard it loud and clear. That’s just it, maybe she honestly said what she saw.”
Arthur blew out a spume of smoke. This had the earmarks of a horror story, not the way the author wrote it. The hollering above ceased as Constable Pound’s van pulled up, emergency equipment on. If Arthur was asked to defend an obscenity charge, he would hide in bed, feign a crippling ailment.
“I’m going to give you the goods, counsellor. Trouble is, I don’t remember nothing. Not from the point I passed out in bed with her. Not until I woke up doing the Technicolor yawn with cops all around. So I must have got out of bed like she said, got dressed, gone down those stairs. I was out of it, a zombie. She said maybe I was having a nightmare. I could’ve been sleepwalking, man. She told me she wanted to be free of him, so maybe I was acting on a kind of post-hypnotic suggestion. That’s got to be a medical defence, right, Arthur? I’ve got amnesia, so you can argue I was in a trauma because of what went on, battle fatigue, what do you call it, post-traumatic stress…”
He’d built up a head of stream but finally trailed off.
“Florenza is a psychopath, Cud, much cleverer than you. As clear proof of that she has set you up as the fall guy, and you are more the fool for acting the role.”
“Jesus. You think that’s it?” He looked hurt, incredulous.
“You are to get back on this ferry and go directly to Wentworth’s office. I will try as best I can to explain matters to him. I will see you Tuesday in court.”
He walked up Ferryboat Road, his thumb out, but by now the traffic had disappeared up the road. He turned to see Cud shuffling sadly back to the Queen of Prince George.
Then he realized he’d almost walked off with the borrowed cellphone. Before returning it, he called Wentworth, who, as expected, was flustered and breathless, worried Cud had gone on the lam. Arthur’s instructions were brief. “Find some way to tell him we won’t be putting him on the stand.”
The view is always the same from behind prison walls.
Arthur ended up walking home, having dallied long enough to see law and order prevail. Pound had ordered the tarps rehung and might have contemplated arresting McCoy, but the crime of obscenity wasn’t in his area of competence, so he went off to seek instructions.
As he trudged into his driveway, not too late, he felt relief that Cud was out of the game, a wild card he didn’t have to deal to the jury. That meant more time with Margaret’s campaign; he’d been a useless appendage. Tomorrow he will go door to door with her in Cobble Hill or Honeymoon Bay or Ladysmith or wherever her agenda takes her.
This evening he’ll put the trial out of his mind, there will be barbecued lamb chops, good cheer, fond farewells. L
avinia was leaving Monday, Nick the next day. Invitations to Blunder Bay’s fetes were highly prized, but the list had been restricted to old friends and neighbours, many who’d already arrived. The two Nicks and the Japanese woofers were at the outdoor brick barbecue, from which sizzling smells were coming. Young Nick was looking sad, his father hawk-eyed. But Lavinia was up in the milking shed with Margaret, chores had to be done.
And here, predictably, came Stoney’s flatbed, Dog in the back guarding the beer. They waved at Arthur and the guests, pretending they hadn’t planned to crash the party. I’ll try to come by to look at that dock. That’s where they went, with hammers, nails, crowbars, and a chain saw. Arthur was fleet of foot to join them.
“You should have called us earlier, eh, someone could’ve broke his neck tripping on this plank.” Wasting no time, Stoney positioned himself, grunted, levered out a resisting, screeching nail. Many of these boards did need replacing, a task Arthur had set for himself; he’d even piled some fresh-milled wood behind the barn.
“How odd, Stoney, that I don’t remember engaging your services.”
“That’s totally natural, you got a lot on your plate. Thought we’d use them uncured planks you got behind the barn, that way we don’t have to charge too much additional for materials. So leave the grunt work to me and Dog and go back and enjoy your fiesta. C’mon, Dog, let’s hop to it.” He cracked open a beer.
Margaret was watching from the goat corral. She shrugged, surrendering to the inevitable.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to join us?”
“Naw, we set our minds to do this.”
“The invitation’s open.” Arthur started walking away.
“Well, okay, if you insist.”
Though the house was available for those wishing to take their plates inside, most guests enjoyed the softness of the springlike evening, their bottoms warmed by a roaring pit fire. Nick was squatting by it, contemplative. No iPod, no laptop–he’d hidden that away after his sorry episode with spam. Lavinia stayed far away from him, looking guilty.
Kill All the Judges Page 36
