April Fool

by William Deverell

  Arthur rises. “If I can be of help, I saw several of them in the witness room. U.S. citizens whom the Canadian taxpayer is lavishly hosting in the Hyatt Hotel.”

  Buddy is boxed in. “Okay, call Mr. Karlsen.” He gives Ears a wag of the head, tells him to fetch. Kroop continues to glower at Buddy through the ensuing minute of silence before Ears leads in the first of the Topekans, a meaty businessman who keeps looking at his watch as if he has a plane to catch.

  Arthur must concentrate, he is almost too buoyed up to focus on Karlsen’s fishing holiday. He and his group booked five days of trolling in Barkley Sound and lounging at the Breakers Inn. They didn’t otherwise bestir themselves except to explore the boardwalk shops and visit Brady Beach. On Friday, two strangers joined them for dinner. From photographs, Karlsen identifies the nondescript little man in the owlish glasses and the comely blond therapist.

  Karlsen noticed Faloon wasn’t drinking and Winters was only sipping wine, though it otherwise flowed freely. He and his wife retired at about ten o’clock. He can’t remember hearing anything that night but crashing surf. The thefts were discovered just before breakfast, the men comparing half-empty billfolds, initially blaming the owners and staff, demanding action, complaining about slow police response.

  The thief didn’t touch Mrs. Karlsen’s five-thousand-dollar necklace, and Karlsen lost only two of the six thousand in his wallet. “Heck, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed the money was gone if Harvey hadn’t asked me to check my wallet.”

  Harvey Coolidge, who plunked himself beside Winters at dinner. Who likely asked where she was staying. Harvey Coolidge, who went out for a walk in the middle of the night. Arthur has no questions of Karlsen, he will wait for Coolidge.

  At lunch break, while walking to the Confederation Club, Arthur feels the old craving, a memory of martinis at noon, a tradition with his cronies. He can hear the shaker even before he enters the lounge, like music, a tambourine.

  He’s no longer a member but is welcomed as one. Indeed the maître d’almost weeps to see him. “We thought you’d given up on us, sir.” Arthur is settled like an invalid into a plush chair beside his landlord, Hubbell Meyerson, just back from a trademark dispute in Shanghai. He raises his martini. “L’chayim.” Arthur orders a Virgin Mary.

  Hubbell expresses greeting-card sympathy over Arthur’s wifeless ordeal, but can’t smother a smile. Arthur supposes it’s quite a joke among the profession, this spectacular uncoupling that extended through the lush, fertile spring. Day Seventy-six! Read all about it! Tune in tomorrow!

  “Everything’s all right with you and Margaret?”

  “Yes, of course.” Blurted.

  “She’s having the adventure of her life. People need to do that. At least one adventure.”

  What is he babbling about? Arthur regales him with Howie Solyshn’s bad day. He imitates Réchard’s pointed, shaking, bony finger. You told me to say it.

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer shyster. Enjoying the apartment?”

  “Better if I didn’t wake every morning to the sight of engorged penises. I’m reminded of age and incapacity.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Hubbell is a year older than Arthur, no fitter, but apparently lustier. “Early nineteenth-century art that inspires and instructs in the act of love. Pillow pictures, that’s the term Anika uses. My designer, amazing woman.” He waits until Arthur receives his bloodless Mary, lowers his voice. “Hope you won’t need the apartment for the weekend.”

  “I shall be on Garibaldi Island.”

  “Good. Your lips are sealed. I have a little thing going on the side.”

  “Not with this Anika?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “How ridiculous, Hubbell. You’re a happily married man. A grandfather thrice over.”

  “She doesn’t have a problem with that. She’s married too. Very…hormonal woman. Hasn’t been getting enough of the you-know-what.”

  Arthur knows what. He’s having another Annabelle moment. She had a voracious appetite too, but for young men. She was about Margaret’s age when she married her conductor, fourteen years her junior…

  He has little appetite for lunch and less for listening to Hubbell’s elogium to his reinvigorated manhood, aided by Viagra. Only ten bucks a pop. There’s some in the medicine cabinet of 807 Elysian Tower. Arthur is encouraged to try one. A tester. Guaranteed to get a bone on. Take a couple. Arm himself for his reunion with Margaret. She won’t be climbing any trees after that.

  Arthur is shocked speechless. Viagra has turned his friend into a lecherous fool. Or is Arthur the fool for lagging behind the times when a marriage might be saved for ten bucks a pop?

  The parade of Topekans resumes at 2 p.m., portly middle-aged men and their thinner weight-watching wives, all dressed up for the occasion and anxious to please. Arthur senses their affront that Eve Winters ignored them at dinner in favour of Faloon, who in turn was ignored by all but a former insurance executive who recalls Faloon saying he was retired from the jewellery business.

  His sharp-eared wife overheard snatches of conversation between Faloon and Winters. “Not that I was trying to listen, they were talking quite low. But she was going on about her hike, and the cabin where she was staying, funky, she called it. And she asked him if she could find any fun in Bamfield–that’s the word she used, fun–and I heard him give directions to some kind of place with music. She gave him her card.”

  “Dinner was very jolly,” another woman testifies. “When I learned what happened to that poor thing I was…well, I’m still in a state of shock. She was so…regal.”

  Harvey Coolidge has yet to take his turn, and Arthur has few questions for the others, who seem disappointed, snubbed again. Ingrid Coolidge is the seventh Topekan to take the stand: attractive, mid-thirties, a trophy wife of the wealthy developer, her senior by two decades.

  After retiring to bed, her husband became restless–too much wine, an acid stomach–and went out for a walk. She stirred awake when he returned. She can’t say how long he was gone. Nothing else disturbed her in the night. In the morning, he pulled his moneybelt from under his pillow and, upon discovering a “considerable sum” was missing, raised a hue and cry.

  “How much was this considerable sum?” Buddy asks.

  “I…can’t be sure. Harvey handled all our financial matters.”

  Forty thousand dollars, by his account. Twenty-five by Faloon’s. A hint of cozenage. Arthur will ask if he had theft insurance–he may have hoped to cover a hefty deductible. One who is dishonest in small matters may be unscrupulously venal when larger issues are at risk. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

  In cross, Arthur hones in on the amount lost: “I expect your husband will say he was out of pocket by forty thousand U.S. dollars. Does that sound right?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She doesn’t always trust his word. “Some twenty-five thousand remained in his moneybelt the next morning?”

  “Yes, he counted it out.”

  “So altogether he was carrying sixty-five thousand. Where in this tiny village could anyone expect to spend that much?”

  “I think he just closed a deal on a condo unit.”

  “A down payment in cash?”

  “He never bothered me with the money aspects of business.”

  “One assumes he keeps a bank account.”

  “I don’t know much about it, I’m sorry.”

  Arthur shares the suspicion that shows on many jurors’ faces. The conclusion seems unavoidable that Coolidge treats the IRS with jaunty disregard.

  “At dinner, your husband was seated to the right of Dr. Winters?”

  “Yes.”

  “He talked with her?”

  “Oh, he always has a lot to say.”

  “Witty and engaging fellow, is he?”

  “Well, he…likes to entertain. Tell jokes.”

  “He’s about sixty?”
>
  “Sixty-one.”

  “Big rangy fellow?”

  “He’s a big man. He keeps in shape.”

  “If you are an example, madam, he obviously has an eye for a good-looking woman.”

  She seems flustered. “Well, I suppose, I don’t know.”

  “And he was giving Eve Winters quite the once-over, wasn’t he?”

  Kroop tires of waiting for Buddy to object. “Mr. Beauchamp, I would suggest that you take care not to overstep the bounds of decency.”

  “Thank you, milord. I’ll reword that. He was ogling her all through dinner, wasn’t he?”

  “Don’t answer that question,” Kroop says, his dentures clicking.

  Arthur ploughs ahead. “And later, in bed, he was restless, sleep wasn’t coming.”

  “I guess so.”

  “He often has difficulty sleeping?”

  “When he overdoes it.”

  “Occasionally takes a sleeping pill?”

  “Yes, but…I don’t know if he brought them.”

  Fine. Arthur will let the matter rest there. “And he went out for his walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the rain.”

  “I’m not sure if it was still raining.”

  “And he disappeared into the small hours of the night?”

  “I…suppose.”

  “Did he shower before returning to bed?”

  “I don’t…” A hesitation. “Yes, he must have.”

  Because he’d been rooting in the Nitinat’s garbage for a discarded safe? Arthur will shelve that farfetched possibility, Coolidge is not his real target.

  Kroop sighs impatiently. “These questions are much better asked of her husband, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  Buddy, who has been stirring restlessly, winces. “On that matter, milord, there’s a slight problem. Mr. Coolidge suddenly had to return home to attend to some financial matters.”

  Arthur exclaims, “He what?” This is the glitch the Crown has been trying to conceal.

  “He’s coming back in a few days, after he straightens out his problem.”

  “A problem?” says Arthur. “What problem?”

  “Some tax matter,” Buddy says.

  Arthur cocks his ear. “Taskmaster?”

  “A tax problem.”

  “We can only hope Internal Revenue will allow this ogling undertaxed Topekan to come back. And I’ll bet he had a far graver reason to flee the jurisdiction.” Full and roundly said. Nobody has thought to send away the jury. They’re smiling, enjoying him–he’s on a roll today.

  As he sits, Kroop looks at him like he would at a dog who’d fouled the rug. Buddy rises to re-examine: “You told Mr. Beauchamp your husband took sleeping pills–do you know what brand?”

  “I don’t, I’m sorry.”

  The one question too many.

  “Okay, but were they legally prescribed?”

  “Well, I assume…I honestly can’t say.”

  Two questions too many. Kroop snaps his daybook shut with such force that Ears breaks the pencil he was chewing. “We will adjourn until tomorrow, ten o’clock.”

  Arthur has ended the day on an encouraging note. In truth, he will be happy if the joke-telling developer never returns. Better to have him run off like a fugitive than swear on oath he left the Breakers for twenty minutes to walk off his burps and farts. In making a late break for the border he has helped direct a fat red herring to Arthur’s hook.

  26

  In court this morning, among the young lawyers here to watch and learn, is Brian Pomeroy–curiosity has got the best of him. The prisoner’s dock remains starkly empty, a glassed-in vault without a body. Buddy looks grumpy–the Crown’s case is being forced onto detours. Despite a rocky start, Arthur has piqued the jury’s interest in other culprits. Doctor Eve’s hiking companions comprise today’s list, and he has a few questions for Ruth Delvechio, her ex-lover.

  First up is the anaesthetist, Glynis Bloom–early forties, a prematurely greying soldier’s haircut. Her manner is poised, her answers flavoured with a breezy turn of phrase, as she describes six days of tramping on sand and sandstone, up muddy trails, over waterways, their packs heavy with tents, clothes, and “enough granola to feed a herd of cattle.” In the evenings, they would explore the beach for shells, write letters and postcards by candlelight, play cards, read.

  “Okay, and you finished this hike?”

  “Yes, we actually did.”

  That generates the fabled titter that runs through courtrooms, stilled by Kroop’s searching spotlights. Buddy might not have pulled this boner if Flynn hadn’t been tugging at his sleeve, reminding him of some overlooked morsel of evidence.

  “I meant…Let me go back. When the four of you started off on March 21, you signed in at the trailhead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you signed out at Pachena Bay?”

  “Yes.”

  She identifies their signatures on a register for March 26. Beside hers, Doctor Eve wrote, Magic.

  “And what did you do after that?”

  “We persuaded our sore feet to carry us the last mile to Bamfield.”

  All four bunked in Cotters’ Cottage that night. Dr. Bloom and her partner, Wilma Quong, had to leave the next day, but Eve Winters had another week of holiday. “She was knocked out by the place.”

  “Knocked out?” A small, pursed smile from Kroop. “I regret, madam, that my ear is not trained in the nuances of modern speech.”

  “What a jerk.” The scornful whisper of Brian Pomeroy. Kroop could not have heard, though his ears picked up something, causing him to lose the stub of his smile.

  “I meant she was captivated by the ambience of the village, the lovely little beach, everything. ‘I’m never leaving this place,’ she said.” Dr. Bloom bites her lip–as if she only now appreciates the irony.

  Buddy spoils the soft moment with rude bluntness. “Well, she was sure right about that.” An embarrassed silence has him shuffling through papers, seeking some better note on which to conclude. Again Flynn tugs at him, and they confer, then Buddy asks if Winters suffered any injuries on the trail.

  “Just the usual bumps and thumps.”

  “Any injury to her teeth?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  Buddy sits. “Your witness.”

  On rising, Arthur expresses condolences for her loss of a friend.

  “Thank you, she was special.”

  “A fascinating woman, by all accounts.”

  “Intuitive. She could see through your skin.”

  “I would often come upon her column. There was help there for even a used-up old fellow like me.” The Man Who Thinks He’s a Masochist.

  “I think there’s probably a lot of use there yet, Mr. Beauchamp.” She is smiling. Kroop isn’t, and seems poised to shut down this cocktail-party colloquy.

  “She was entertaining?”

  “Usually.”

  “Occasionally volatile? She had a temper?”

  “She had a temper and could use it.”

  “And what might cause it to show?”

  “Frustration if things weren’t going her way. Impatience with some of her clients.”

  “You gave an example to my assistant, Ms. Rudnicki.”

  “Yes, Eve was in a rage over a threatened lawsuit by a woman who claimed to see herself in one of her columns.”

  Lorelei. Arthur glances at Brian, who gives a little shake of his head. Quite right, Arthur shouldn’t risk pursuing this now. Dr. Bloom can be recalled later. He asks about Winters’s mood during the hike.

  “Usually carefree, but there was an underlying strain.”

  “That had to do with the relationship between Dr. Winters and Ruth Delvechio?”

  “It was faltering.”

  Winters and Delvechio were together for six months. Lotis surmised it started as a fling–Delvechio moved in after staying a night, then stuck like glue.

  “In fact, they had a very serious quarrel, did they
not? At the cottage?”

  The witness hesitates. They hadn’t mentioned this to Lotis when they met because Delvechio was present. “Yes, I think that’s fair to say. Ruth wanted to stay on in Bamfield with Eve. Eve wanted to be alone.”

  Arthur has a sense Bloom isn’t fond of the young student. “This had been simmering?”

  “Well, Eve once told me she felt like a leaning post…”

  “Nope,” says Buddy. “This is pure hearsay.” He’s disgruntled by the relaxed rapport between counsel and witness. Though he has kept his temper well, he can be counted on to blow his top at least once per trial.

  A lecture from the bench: “Madam, you were poised to jump into the troubled waters of the rule against hearsay. It is offended when we are asked to believe the words of one who is not a witness.”

  “Let me just say I sensed a dependency that made Eve uncomfortable.”

  “Angry words were used on the morning of your departure?” Arthur asks.

  “It was no love duet.”

  “I understand Dr. Winters told Ruth, ‘It’s over.’”

  “Exactly, yes.”

  “And Ruth Delvechio’s response was what?”

  “She told Eve to fuck herself.” Kroop looks up sharply, displeased at this woman’s bold use of taboo language. “Then the landlady came by and Eve went out for a walk. The rest of us packed to leave.”

  “For the Lady Rose.”

  “Yes, we’d left our car in Port Alberni.”

  “Ms. Delvechio was in a dark mood on the journey home?”

  “She wasn’t a barrel of laughs.”

  Arthur draws from Bloom that Delvechio spoke little during the drive to Vancouver, stared morosely out the car window. She asked to be dropped off at her mother’s house. Bloom and her partner had no contact with Delvechio between then and April 1. They’ve seen her infrequently since.

  Arthur is satisfied with this sketch of a heartsick vassal of her royal highness, curtly uncoupled and shamed. Motive enough for murder? Likely not, but another red herring for the bouillabaisse he’s stirring.

  Arthur is about to sit, then remembers to ask about the balky door of Cotters’ Cottage.

  “I almost put my back out tugging it closed.”