I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel

by William Deverell

  “Not at the time, no.”

  I let it go at that. “Two decades ago, Professor Mulligan served two years as principal of an Indian residential school in Saskatchewan. You’re aware of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he ever talk about it?”

  “Very little.”

  I picked up restlessness from the bench and hurried on. “As far as you were aware, he served there honourably?”

  “Where is this going, Mr. Beauchamp?”

  “To the heart of the Crown’s case, milord.”

  “The question – if it is a question and not mere rhetoric – calls for both speculation and hearsay. It probably fails the relevance test too, but I shall suspend judgment while I try to figure out where you’re going.”

  I looked him squarely in the eye. “As always, milord, I appreciate your helpful instructions.” Hammersmith awarded me a little smile – he relished combat.

  Back to Irene. “Let me ask you this, then. Dr. Mulligan made many public pronouncements, did he not, about his opposition to the residential school system?”

  “Yes, he believed they were obliterating Native culture and should be shut down.”

  Hammersmith was glaring at Smythe-Baldwin, challenging him to object. But Smitty was focused on me, maybe intrigued a little. Maybe he hadn’t expected much from me.

  “Your husband hired Gabriel some two and a half years ago?”

  “October of 1959.”

  “Let’s talk about the circumstances of that. The accused was on probation at the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’d received a six-month suspended sentence for assaulting a police officer in Squamish?”

  “Yes.”

  The judge stopped making notes, taken aback by this rare instance of a defence counsel putting his client’s criminal record in issue. Lukey too looked confused – I was doing the Crown’s work.

  Reporters were scribbling; they’d caught a scent of something, maybe today’s lead item. I wanted this story shouted over the radio, printed in boldface: how a vengeful cop falsely incriminated a lippy Indian.

  “Gabriel had felled the officer with a single blow?”

  “Yes, it was in the papers.”

  “And the man he put on the ground so unceremoniously was Sergeant Roscoe Knepp, the chief investigating officer in this case?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “And that incident occurred after the accused intervened to protect his father from harassment and false arrest—”

  That brought Smitty to his feet, but not fast enough for Hammersmith: “The objection you are about to make is sustained.”

  I bulled ahead, talking loudly over him. “Whereupon Sergeant Knepp taunted my client by calling him a lippy Indian shit –”

  “This court is adjourned!” Hammersmith rose, paused, gathered himself. “You will have ten minutes, Mr. Beauchamp, to compose your plea for clemency. I shall expect an appropriately cowering apology.”

  The jury filed out, looking bewildered. I headed directly to the men’s for an urgent piss – I’d been imbibing gallons of coffee since going off the sauce. Maybe I was over-caffeinated. I’d shocked myself by letting loose like that, though was pleased I’d found the courage. The press had enjoyed it. So had Gabriel, who awarded me a half-hidden thumbs-up.

  Ophelia and I had spent many hours briefing him on his testimony, preparing him for cross, how to relate to the jury. His evidence would expand on Irene’s: his innocent and caring relationship with Mulligan, his total lack of motive. There would be forceful refutation of Lorenzo’s claim of a gushing confession. But much would depend in the end on whether the alibi about being with Monique would hold up. We still hadn’t achieved access to her, though she was under subpoena. Lukey had guaranteed us a full hour with her before putting her on the stand.

  I was still emptying when Smitty came in and eased his generous patrician belly into position at the adjoining urinal. “Nice bit of work, old chap.”

  “I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Bollocks. You have both jury and press titillated.” There’d been a race for the bank of pay phones.

  Smitty finished, washed, brought out a cigar, sniffed it, snipped it, rolled it between his fingers, tasted it, put his Ronson to it – a long, silent cameo while I zipped my fly.

  “You were distraught, of course.” He blew a plume of smoke. “Pressure of a capital case. The first one can be a highly emotional experience. The formidable burden of defending when the penalty is death. Retain your dignity – don’t grovel.”

  I thanked him, and we hurried off.

  Leroy Lukey impeded my progress to counsel table. “You’re putting Roscoe on trial? That’s your best shot?”

  “Along with whoever invented the phony confession.”

  I slipped past him and joined Ophelia, who looked at me as if at a stranger. “What got into you? Who was that masked man?”

  “The Lone Ranger. How come.” I was still learning, but I’d watched the courtroom masters: Branca, Bert Oliver, Smythe-Baldwin himself. They understood the theatrics of law. “This is not a big deal. Irene never got a chance to answer the question.”

  “It wasn’t a question, it was a speech. Then you drowned out The Hammer when he was calling you to order.”

  “I did?”

  Court was called and I treated Hammersmith to a penitent face as we waited for the rumble to cease, reporters hurrying in, bottoms meeting benches. The jury remained out.

  “In a couple of recent trials, Mr. Beauchamp, I have observed a tendency to deliberately ignore both the rules and your duty of courtesy to the court. I say ‘deliberately’ because you are not at the intellectual level of some of the cretins currently being pumped out by the law schools. I am encouraged to believe you knew what you were doing. Please persuade me that I am wrong.”

  “I am informed, milord, that I talked over you as you were admonishing me. I am distraught about that. I had allowed my voice to rise and my attention was elsewhere.”

  “On yourself, no doubt.”

  His little sally hinted that his anger had dissipated. I spoke of the formidable burden of defending when the penalty was death, and built on that in ways I hoped Smitty would approve of. I had been too consumed by the case, I’d got carried away. It had been wrong to adduce evidence by hearsay. No harm was intended, or done. Sergeant Knepp would have his chance to tell his side.

  “Let me make clear, counsel, that without a firm evidentiary basis this court will not permit the maligning of peace officers. It smacks of gutter tactics, and there will be a price to pay if it happens again.”

  “We will build that firm evidentiary basis, brick by brick.” Said with a confidence I didn’t feel.

  Nothing was said to the jury when they returned. They seemed surprised to see me still in action. Irene was back on the stand, maybe less apprehensive but still under a strain. I had her relate her practice of taking walks on Squamish Valley Road in the afternoon, and asked if she’d followed that routine on Saturday, April 21.

  “I did.”

  “What time did you leave for that walk?”

  “About three-thirty or four.”

  “In the course of it, did you happen on anyone or see anyone?”

  “A delivery truck. And one of the neighbours from the upper valley drove by and waved.”

  “Do you know Doug Wall?”

  “Not really. You showed me a photograph of him.”

  “You’re right, I did. A mug shot.” A sharp look from the judge, and I hurried on. “Did you see him that day, or a small red car, a Nash Metro?”

  “Not during my walk, but in the morning, yes. Around eleven a car like that drove by.”

  “What were you doing at the time?”

  “I went out to get the weekend Province from the mailbox.”

  A little bonus earned during our interview, and it had Lukey tugging at Smitty’s sleeve. This seemed a good point at which to quit, but I c
hecked first with Ophelia.

  “Are you going to show her Frinkell’s letter?” she whispered.

  It hadn’t been mentioned here so far, just filed as Exhibit Thirty-Seven, Letter dated April 13, 1962. “I’m going to save it for when we need it most.”

  Irene again wobbled on her way out; I imagined she was unused to wearing high heels. An older couple joined her at the door, maybe bridge club friends.

  Taking the stand next was Thelma McLean, hair in a beehive, wearing a flowery print dress with ruffles, something one might wear to a square dance. I’d expected her to seize this chance to make the news again, and she didn’t disappoint, answering Smitty’s questions at great length – homey, colloquial, discursive, with occasional glances at the press.

  “Me and Buck moved to the Squamish Valley in fifty-two, after our kids grew up and left the nest. We’re just plain folks, living a simple, honest life logging and farming, raising a few chickens.”

  Thus positioned as guileless and upright, she told of meeting Dermot Mulligan three years earlier, without his wife, as he was closing the deal on the nearby ten acres. “We were his only neighbour for half a mile, so Buck and me did our best to help. Passed on some tips about flood season, about how the reservation’s real close and you get thieves, also the occasional cougar, that sort of thing. Buck connected him to a reliable builder for an addition to that old A-frame.”

  Smitty cut in. “I see, and did you form a friendship with Dr. Mulligan?”

  “I wouldn’t say we ever got real close. He was … I’d like to think shy, but if I’m honest, it was more like standoffish. He wasn’t much for small talk, anyway. I’d deliver a dozen eggs and it would be thanks, keep the change, goodbye. We never met Irene till the next year. She only visited off and on, like on a nice weekend, but we got along pretty well. Obvious she was lonely; the Squamish Valley wasn’t her thing.”

  As to Gabriel Swift, he “just suddenly showed up one day, unannounced – this was back in fifty-nine, soon after they bought – and started taking down some brush. I went over and asked him what he thought he was doing and he said he was clearing the site for the addition, and I asked …”

  “To cut it short, madam, he’d been hired by Dr. Mulligan as a live-in caretaker. Did you seek to befriend him?”

  “Well, to be honest, Buck and me tried. We took every opportunity. We’d wander across the road and try to get him talking, just chitchat about the weather or Buck’s bad back, whatever … Well, he’d kind of look right past you. Like he couldn’t be less interested.”

  Snotty, she wanted to say. The cigar-store Indian, aloof, superior. She carried on relentlessly, describing her many sightings of Gabriel at his labours, how he had the run of the house, his unusual way of relaxing – with books.

  Clearly she’d been ordered not to rebroadcast her opinion that Mulligan and Gabriel were lovers, limiting herself to this confusing peregrination: “We hardly ever saw Dermot with his wife. He spent more time with Gabriel than he did with her; they were like glue, if you want my honest opinion. We wondered maybe if he missed not having a son and he was almost fifty and making up the time. Whatever, I wasn’t sure what was going on.”

  Smitty gave up on her and sat. I feared a lengthy cross-examination might do more harm than good. I didn’t want her rambling on about missing chickens and underwear or declaring that Gabriel was a book-reading subversive.

  “Mrs. McLean, we’ve heard that on Good Friday, the day before Dr. Mulligan disappeared, he and the accused went hiking up the Stawamus Chief.”

  “I heard that too.” Unprompted, she added that she’d been up there once with her husband and darn well wasn’t going to try that again. There were no guardrails.

  “Yes, and if an evildoer wanted to push some poor soul over the edge, no one would be the wiser, right?” Quoting her very words to me. “One would never know if it was an accident.”

  “Well, unless there was other people up there watching, people from the city, like you get on long weekends.”

  Having already asked one question too many, I dug myself in deeper, suggesting that someone with murder in mind would wait until there was no one about. Her response: she didn’t know; she wasn’t there. Surely, I urged, she would agree the trail to the Chief attracted little traffic except in summer. No, she wouldn’t agree.

  I retreated to safety. “You know Doug Wall?”

  “We’re on chatting terms. He stops by. He has a cabin up north there, by the old Indian graveyard. Does little fix-it jobs.”

  “Yes, but his main occupation is selling bootleg whisky and rum, mostly on the reserves, isn’t that so?”

  “I heard he does a little trade in that, but it’s more like he offers a convenience. A lot of the Natives don’t have vehicles. I don’t think no one complains.”

  “Especially the RCMP, right?”

  “Mr. Beauchamp …”

  “Sorry, milord, we’ll get into that later. Now, on one of his visits to you and Buck, the three of you sat around and fantasized about how the deceased might have been done in.”

  “I don’t know about fantasized.”

  “Speculated. There was talk of a homosexual love affair, a lovers’ quarrel.”

  “Everybody in the valley was talking about it. It’s not against the law to sit around over a beer and speculate about a murder in your backyard.”

  Leroy was grinning like a jackal – he’d prepared her well.

  The witness had devoured the morning; I wanted to get her off the stand before the noon break. In a last desperate bid to end on a high note, I reminded her that Knepp had called Gabriel a communist troublemaker.

  She hesitated. “Not exactly.”

  “Then what, exactly?”

  “Actually, he said communist shit-disturber, if you’ll pardon my French.”

  “He also sought to know if Gabriel had demonstrated any, quote, ‘sexual problems or unusual perversions.’ ”

  She affected confusion, and I showed her those phrases from Knepp’s interview notes. She attempted to hedge – “Well, I’m not an expert in that sort of thing” – then finally conceded. “To be perfectly honest, nobody ever saw or heard anything like … like sexually unusual.”

  “But Sergeant Knepp seemed very interested in that kind of nonsense, didn’t he? He was keen on coming up with some kind of motive, any motive – spurious, mendacious, ridiculous, it didn’t matter –”

  I was at full volume, but the last words were buried beneath the louder uproar of prosecutorial protest, Lukey joining his master’s voice, barking and baying.

  “No more questions,” I said, ducking down into my seat.

  “We’ll adjourn until two o’clock.” Hammersmith studied me with a little whorl of a smile. He was savouring the prospect of putting leather to the repeat offender’s bared bottom. “Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  We ate in the Georgia lounge. Across the way was Leroy Lukey, deserted by his senior, a connoisseur of finer dining than the plain fare offered there. But joining him, just back from the men’s, was Roscoe Knepp, who must have been briefed on my courtroom exploits. He sent me a look of great sadness and confusion, as if he’d been betrayed by his dearest friend. Lukey did not stoop to such artifice; I got the exhilarated smile one might see from the cheering Roman vulgus as they anticipated the crucifixion of a rebellious slave.

  The Hammer had offered me a second chance. I had spurned it and must be taught a lesson. A contempt citation, a fine, a spell in the clink? Over weak coffee, a ham on white, and a pickled egg, I urged Ophelia to believe I hadn’t planned to go off the rails again.

  “Arthur Beauchamp, passionate young barrister, as played by Laurence Olivier.”

  I think I had gotten over the worst of my physical longing for Ophelia by then, though a glimpse of bared knee would still cause a flaring of desire. But since she’d announced the new ground rules, one source of tension had gone: the tension of not knowing where we stood. Now we stood as friends, simplic
iter.

  “You should take a fling at the legitimate stage.”

  “It’s Roscoe.” We both looked his way. “The mere thought of him causes me to spin out. All I see is red.”

  “So fuck it – it was effective. You were good.”

  “Not with Thelma. I was bloody awful.”

  “She came across as a hypocrite and a racist. She doesn’t matter, Arthur. Save your energy for the real players: the cops.”

  She was right. I would have to be in better control when their turns came. Knepp was glib, would enjoy the protection of this law-and-order judge. Ultimately his hearty, back-slapping style could impress a jury.

  “You going to kiss the judge’s toes this time?”

  “If he jails me you’ll have to take over.”

  “Absolutely fucking not.”

  “Then you’d better get me out fast on appeal bail.” I watched thirstily as a waiter swung past our table with a tray laden with cold, sweating bottles of ale.

  Ophelia grabbed my arm before I could signal him. “I don’t think so, Arthur.”

  I was astonished. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We have a trial to worry about.”

  “Do you think I have a problem? I haven’t had a drink for a week.”

  “Great. Keep it up. I dare you.” She insisted on leaving it at that. I felt insulted.

  The wall clock had just ticked off the tenth minute past two o’clock. The court clerk was biting his fingernails. The room was hot, smelled of the sweat of impatient spectators and fussing reporters. Adding his own peculiar odour was the former fullback, staring at the door that never seemed to want to open upon Cyrus Smythe-Baldwin, Q.C.

  The jurors were still in their room but Lukey had already sat bull-like Buck McLean in the witness box, as if by that act he would magically cause his senior to appear. Buck looked like a patient in a dentist’s waiting room, tense and rigid after hearing from Thelma, over their free government lunch, how that legal aid attorney had badgered and shouted at her.

  Smitty’s unforeseen lateness gave me more time to come up with an abject apology, but the words weren’t coming. I truly hadn’t the faintest idea what to say …