Knepp approached his task with disarming candour, sharing my view that Wall was less than reliable, agreeing he drank too much, that he curried favour with the law. But what could the Squamish RCMP do? Wall had approached them, however late; they’d had no choice but to take his statement.
Hammersmith, who had already written off Wall as a dubious party, a felon, nodded with appreciation at this earnest apologia from an officer just doing his job – it wasn’t up to him to suppress evidence, however fishy. The jury, too, seemed appreciative.
Knepp calmly dismissed my allegation that he’d sought out Wall in desperation to bolster an alarmingly weak case. “I wouldn’t rely on Doug Wall to bolster a parking offence.” Chuckles from the gallery. Lukey grinning. That’s your best shot?
Rattled, desperate to recoup, I retreated three years to the summer of 1959, Knepp’s faceoff with Gabriel outside the Squamish Hotel beer parlour. Bill Swift had been drunk, said Knepp, and was causing a scene. And yes, he admitted sorrowfully, he may have used inappropriate language in ordering Gabriel not to intervene. On being assaulted, Knepp stumbled and fell. He and his partner “proceeded to arrest both individuals.” He said it was part of police training “to keep a cool head under such circumstances.”
A disbelieving guffaw from the back of the room. Hammersmith looked about but was unable to pinpoint the offender. He couldn’t resist a little drollery: “That rude objection is not sustained. In my view, the sergeant showed admirable restraint.”
“I’m sure the witness appreciates being cheered on by the bench,” I said.
“Do I take it your purpose is to discredit him, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“I gather I haven’t made that plain to your Lordship.”
Tempers might have flared had not Smitty chosen that moment to enter. All went silent as he bowed to the judge almost theatrically, then took his seat in the anticipatory manner of one settling in to watch the Friday-night fights on TV.
I reminded myself my real opponent was not Hammersmith but Knepp. While he was dancing and jabbing, I was missing with my punches. I was embarrassed that the great barrister had returned to see me at my worst.
I put it to Knepp that he’d been furious when the local magistrate rewarded Gabriel with a suspended sentence.
“Not at all,” Roscoe said, affecting shock, finally overacting. “As a police officer my duty is to gather the evidence, not to question what the courts do with it.”
Another snort from the back of the room. Hammersmith looked up sharply, this time zeroing in on a familiar face. Jim Brady in the back row, covering up by applying a handkerchief to his nose.
I hurried on. “Thelma McLean said you described my client as a shit-disturbing commie. You don’t dispute that?”
“I don’t think I used that exact language, but your client never made a secret of his radical sympathies. If there was any kind of demonstration, he’d be there.”
He continued to bob and weave as I flailed about, trying to egg him on, prodding him to admit to his vendetta, his racism, his slanders about Gabriel. My cross finally deteriorated to its low point when I accused him of fetching his old pal Walt Lorenzo from Winnipeg to play the role of lying jailhouse informer.
His response: Lorenzo was indeed a good friend, but more importantly a fine undercover officer. They had worked together as constables in a small detachment in Alberta, and years later had joined in breaking up a heroin ring that Lorenzo had expertly infiltrated. “I put out a special request to have Walt brought in for the Swift case. He was someone I could trust to do a professional job.” He put on a mask of confusion and hurt as he denied there was anything improper about a trip with their wives to Reno to celebrate smashing that heroin ring.
Eventually my efforts to discredit Knepp proved tiresome, and Hammersmith interrupted wearily. “Am I to understand your defence involves a conspiracy among police officers to perjure themselves in an effort to frame the accused for murder? Do I have that right?”
I didn’t know what to say. It seemed a preposterous defence the way he’d framed it. The gutter tactics that he’d earlier inveighed against.
“A conspiracy theory.” Hammersmith shook his head, smiling as if in pity. “Good luck with that one, Mr. Beauchamp.”
That earned laughter, led by the hockey coach, Cooper. I was piling up the penalties and he was clearly against me. Most of the jurors, if I read them right, were of similar mind, appalled by my desperate measures.
I think I was suffering at that moment what actors call flop sweat, the clammy sense that one has so badly flubbed his role that the audience is about ready to boo the bum offstage. I’d been going after Knepp for an hour; nothing was working. Smitty was watching me with growing disappointment, if not concern.
In short, I choked. I actually seized up, unable to frame a next question. I no longer knew what to ask. I played for time by shuffling through my notes.
“Harvey Frinkell,” Ophelia whispered.
I had no idea what she meant.
“His letter.” She scribbled in big letters on her pad: Exhibit 37.
“Time passes, counsel.”
“Excuse me, milord. Ah, yes, Exhibit Thirty-Seven – may I have that?”
The clerk passed me Frinkell’s letter, the one found on Mulligan’s desk, his threat of a messy suit. I’d let the suicide defence gather dust while trying to put a shine on an unsalable conspiracy theory.
Knepp said he’d found the letter in what he called an in-basket. He hadn’t shown it to Irene or contacted its author, Frinkell. “I didn’t think it was my business to stir up an unhappy marital situation.”
That seemed rather puerile. “Put yourself in Dr. Mulligan’s shoes, Sergeant. Had you received a letter like this, you would be fairly distraught, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be happy, I guess.”
“A distinguished scholar, a world-renowned ethicist – and suddenly he’s looking at a scandalous trial, at becoming a laughingstock, at his world falling in. Enough to make you want to end it all, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’m not Dr. Mulligan. I wouldn’t say.”
I’d finally got the jury interested. Maybe they’d forgive the hapless ninety per cent of my cross-examination. “No more questions.”
All eyes followed Hammersmith’s to the wall clock. “I see the noon hour is upon us. Let us break for lunch.”
I told Ophelia I wasn’t hungry; I needed to be by myself. I escaped out into the hot summer air, found my way across the CPR tracks to the industrial docks, and stood on a pier for a long, long time, staring into the slurping waters of the inlet, trying to form a picture of Mulligan similarly gazing down at the thickly flowing Squamish River. Naked but for socks, perhaps, as he flung away that soiled gaudy undergarment.
Maybe he intended it to be found. A clue. There it is. Now find my murderer.
Bull-like, thick-necked Walt Lorenzo embraced the Bible with even more ardour than his comrades-in-arms, an audible smooch on the spine. There seemed a corollary there: the more flagrant the intended perjury, the more showy the reverence.
He was methodical in answering Lukey’s questions, describing in monotonic detail his laborious campaign to bond with the accused. The pridefulness that was so apparent in his written statement had been coached away; he’d been told to stick tightly to a script.
He seemed less than razor sharp – certainly duller of mind than Knepp – so I expected him to be not as good a counterpuncher. I hoped he would reveal himself in cross as the lousy ham actor Gabriel had made so bold as to call him to his face.
Smitty again wandered in late after another successful dining experience, and upon settling into his chair he closed his eyes, seemingly lulled to sleep by the witness’s emotionless recounting of how he infiltrated the enemy camp.
Finally Lorenzo slogged his way to Day Nineteen – confession day – when he’d shared with Gabriel his tale of dealing a death blow in an alley scuffle. “I told the accused it was him or me; I had
to kill him.”
“Give us that in your own words,” Lukey said.
Lorenzo seemed unable to elaborate. “I said, ‘It was him or me. I had to kill him.’ ”
“Just for the record,” said Lukey, “was there any truth to that story?”
“It was my invention, sir.”
Supposedly overcome with a burning need to share, the accused had described how he’d planned to waylay Mulligan at the fishing hole and send him to his reward for having mistreated children at “some kind of Indian school in Saskatchewan.” Lorenzo’s account of this alleged conversation was remarkably similar in wording and sequence to his written version, right to the end: “He shot him as he flailed.”
“Your witness.”
I drew a half-chewed pencil from my mouth as I gained my feet. “I understand you’ve earned quite a reputation as an undercover performance artist.”
He didn’t hear the sarcasm. “Thank you, sir. It’s something I’m often asked to do.” Warming to the topic: “I’ve been told I have a way with people.”
“A talent for the stage.”
“Maybe.”
“Ever had any training as an actor?”
“No, sir. I just have whatever talent God gave me.”
“Is this your specialty – posing as a prisoner?”
“Not really. Mostly it’s drug purchases. I guess I’ve done the jail thing five, six times, different places across the country. Ontario, the Maritimes. Even Iowa, on loan to the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics.” His hubris finally showing.
“Typically you would play the role for how long?”
“That varies. I got one confession after three hours. On average, I’m at it maybe a few days.”
“But this operation took nineteen. Ever heard of anything similar, outside the USSR? An undercover officer sharing a suspect’s cell for three weeks?”
“No, I guess that wouldn’t be the usual experience.”
“Unheard of, in fact. There were times, I’ll bet, when you wanted to give up.”
“Well, that wasn’t my decision, totally.”
“Whose decision was it?”
“The officer in charge.”
“Your good friend Roscoe Knepp.”
“I’ve known him for some years, yes.”
“And he said, ‘Keep at it, Walt. Give it another week, another few days’ – that sort of thing?”
“He encouraged me.”
“Throughout your twenty-one-day tenure at Oakalla Prison Farm, you met with him privately at least a few times a week?”
“Yes, in an interview room there. When I was supposed to be seeing, like, a lawyer, maybe, or the visiting priest.”
“You’d consult, plan tactics.”
“And I’d write out my notes from the previous day or two.”
“And he’d coach you.”
“No, sir, he’d ask questions. Debrief me.”
“You’ve known Roscoe since you were young constables in Grande Prairie, Alberta – 1947 to 1950, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kept in contact over the years?”
“Sure. Our wives too. We’d call each other. Exchange Christmas cards.”
“Visit each other on holidays?”
“Sometimes. Camping with our trailers, that sort of thing. Cookouts.”
“You’d go off to places together too. Reno, where else?”
“Fishing lodges. Disneyland with our kids.”
“You consider him one of your very best friends.”
“One of many, sir.”
I wasn’t getting much traction. “Okay, back to your efforts as a jailhouse informer. Despite your persistence, the accused declined to talk about the case for twenty straight days, yes? Except to say he was being framed for murder.”
“As I explained, he was a little slow to warm up to me.”
“He was quiet, uncommunicative, right? You’d play some cards, some chess, but he hardly ever talked.”
“That’s … Yeah, well, Natives are like that, I found.”
There came another sound from the back, like a half-smothered expletive – Brady, of course – and I pressed on quickly. “When you told him you supported the Communist Party, what was his reaction?”
“He kind of nodded and smiled. I took that as approval.”
“And when you said you were part Indian, how did he react?”
“Pretty much the same. I think he appreciated my sharing that.”
“It was a lie, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Another approach you made was to suggest an escape plan. What did you propose exactly?”
“I never got into details. He didn’t seem interested.”
“Did the accused strike you as slow on the uptake?”
“No, he was pretty smart, actually. A reader. He was learning French.”
“Beat you regularly at chess.”
“I wasn’t really trying.”
“And you didn’t think this smart fellow had guessed what your real game was?”
“Apparently not.”
“Come now, Corporal, from the outset it was clear, was it not, that he distrusted you?”
“I can’t say what was in his mind.”
“So on Saturday, the twenty-sixth of May, you tearfully regurgitated to him some nonsense about a murder you claimed to have bottled up.”
“You could put it that way, I guess.”
“Over a game of cribbage?”
“Yes, sir.”
I read to him from his notes: I told him my secret was torturing me and he was the first person I’d ever told this, because he was like a brother. “Suddenly he’s like a brother? Where did that come from?”
“I considered it important to let him know how close I felt to him.”
“And so when you told your tale of a back-alley brawl, breaking a man’s neck, you felt this intelligent young fellow fell for that hook, line, and sinker?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In fact, witness, he said you were a lousy actor who wouldn’t be winning any Oscars with that pitiful performance.” Commotion at the press table.
“He didn’t say that. He told me how he planned to kill Professor Mulligan.”
“What exactly do you claim he said?”
“He told me he planned to confront the deceased at his fishing hole and make him take his clothes off so he could fake a suicide, but the deceased tried to grab his rifle and there was a tussle and he, ah, threw him down over the rocks, into the river, where he shot him …” – a pause as he fought to get it exactly right – “… as he flailed.”
Again, almost word-perfect from his original notes. The only difference: he hurled him became he threw him. Those notes were signed and dated 27-05-62, at 0910 hours. In more relaxed format, May 27, at nine-ten in the morning. Sunday, not Saturday.
“Give us that in your own words,” I said, mimicking Lukey.
“Exactly?”
“Yes, the words the accused spoke to you. Each and every one. I don’t want to be surprised later on to find you’ve added or amended something.”
“Okay, well, the accused said, ‘My plan was to confront’ … no, ‘meet the deceased’ … or he would have said ‘Dr. Mulligan’ … I didn’t write down his exact words, just a summary.”
“Why not the exact words?”
“I memorized the substance. It was some time later before I could put things on paper.”
“How much later?”
“Well, I had to wait for the morning – that would be around nine o’clock. A meeting with my lawyer was scheduled.” He put lawyer in wiggling finger quotes.
“That doesn’t register on the transcript, Corporal.” Hammersmith’s tone seemed almost apologetic. Throughout, he had been treating this poseur with the benevolence owed a favourite son-in-law.
“Sorry, milord. The lawyer, unquote, was actually my case officer.”
“Sergeant Knepp,” I said.
“Yes
, sir.”
Smitty’s eyes were still closed but I knew he was listening. Was that a smile? Did he feel I was finally making some limping progress?
“So something like twelve or thirteen hours after this allegedly teary cribbage game, you sat down with Roscoe to write this up?”
“I recorded my conversation with the accused to the best of my memory.”
“I see, and did Roscoe try to jog your memory with little additions here and there?”
“No, sir.”
I waited, staring hard at him, daring him to break the silence, expand on his simple answer. It was a technique I’d seen Smitty use many times to good effect – encouraging witnesses to go off script.
Finally he said, “I know what you’re implying.”
“What am I implying, Corporal?”
“That my memory isn’t perfect.”
“I’m implying a lot more than that, but surely you agree that your memory in fact isn’t perfect?”
He had to think about that. “I guess not. No one but God is perfect, I guess.” Then, earnestly: “Mr. Beauchamp, I would never lie about something like this. I would never lie in a courtroom.”
Said like a polished, seasoned liar, but others not so cynical – most of those who packed that courtroom, the jurors – likely heard sincerity. I’d expected Lorenzo to come across as shallow and vainglorious, had prepared poorly for him.
“So here we have the two of you in a cell, confessing to your crimes. The accused was emotional, choked up. Surely to goodness the whole wing of cells could hear your wailing and sobbing.”
“I didn’t say we were loud. Nobody was wailing.”
“So my client spoke in a low voice? Hard to hear him?”
“I got most of it.”
“You said, and I quote, ‘He got very choked up so I didn’t get his full meaning.”
“He was talking about the deceased presiding over an Indian school in Saskatchewan, and he’d committed or been involved in some physical or sexual assaults – that’s the gist of what I heard. He was clear about pretty well everything else.”
I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel Page 22
