“Come on, now, Corporal, let’s be fair. If all this transpired as you claim it did – a major cathartic scene, emotions running high – the accused’s words could easily have been misconstrued. Correct? Is that fair?”
“I always recorded to the best of my ability what he said, so help me God.” (Only later, on reading the transcript, did I become mindful of his tendency toward extraneous pieties. One assumes he saw Gabriel, an atheistic communist, as an enemy of the Church. More motivation for him to lie, though it may seem unchristian to say so.)
“According to your version, there was some kind of struggle for the rifle. During that, the deceased fell over some rocks into the river. He could have stumbled, right?”
“I have in my notes, sir, that the accused hurled him down over the rocks.”
“Gabriel could easily have said, I heard him go down over the rocks.”
“That’s not what he said. Because he added, ‘I shot him as he flailed.’ ”
“But you’re not sure those were his exact words. He was talking in a low voice, you said, sobbing and gasping, so he was hardly distinct. He could have said, I shouted at him as he flailed.”
“That’s definitely not what I heard.”
It was nearing four-thirty. The last witness, the last day of this hearing. I couldn’t allow it to end on such a contrary note; I sought a rhetorical flourish: “What you did hear correctly, Corporal, was a calm affirmation on Day Four, when you asked him what he was in jail for. In his exact words, his answer was …?”
He looked from me to Lukey, to the judge, but got no help. “He said, ‘I’m being framed for murder.’ ”
I resisted the urge to punch that home. Why spoil the moment with overkill? I sat.
Hammersmith remained stone-faced. “Ten o’clock tomorrow.”
From “Where the Squamish River Flows,” A Thirst for Justice, © W. Chance
DESPITE THAT LOVELY LITTLE TOUCH at the end, Beauchamp was clearly disappointed with the day’s effort. A loss to Knepp, a draw with Lorenzo, when he had needed to deliver each a shattering blow.
The bits of cross-examination reproduced above show the best and the worst of him, and the worst of him was sad indeed. Note how often he telegraphed his punches. Be it remembered, however, that at twenty-five he was far from attaining the form of his prime years, when he could disarm a witness with a smile while slitting his throat.
Nor had he learned to make full use of his large, commanding voice or imbue it with emotion. (In subsequent years he got over inhibitions about doing so by fortifying the defence table’s water pitcher with gin.)
It should surprise no one that the troika of Knepp, Lorenzo, and Jettles defended so well against our young challenger. These were not rookies; all had been in court many times, the two senior officers battle-hardened veterans, all led expertly by their commanding officer, Leroy Lukey, who had drilled them relentlessly. (This was confirmed to me by Gene Borachuk.)
Significantly, in the final stages of that critical last cross, Beauchamp took a cautious approach. Instead of attacking Lorenzo as a shameless perjurer, he sought to blur the words of Swift’s alleged confession, thus seeming to accept that Swift had made some sort of inculpatory statement.
I asked Beauchamp if that meant he’d decided to open up a manslaughter defence, based on an unintended homicide, as the safest route to save his client’s life.
“I don’t know what was in my mind,” he said. “I guess I was looking for any port in the storm.”
Whatever the reason, that decision made manifest his loss of confidence – in his client, in himself. As Ophelia Moore confided, he was so “obsessively depressing” it was a chore to be around him.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1962
Ophelia and I supped that evening in a popular but culturally confusing all-you-can-eatery called the Marco Polo Chinese Smorgasbord. Over my tong shui and shrimp I continued to be bugged by a question a reporter had asked as we fled 312: “What’s your theory about the pink panties, sir?” First of all, it bugged me that he was no longer calling me “Arthur” but “sir” – more proof the press was distancing itself from me, seeing as more inept than brave my defence of an underdog.
It also bugged me that this newsman followed Ophelia and me halfway to Chinatown without once daring me to repeat my insinuations that Knepp and Lorenzo lied under oath. If politely asked, I would have done so, bluntly, and dared them to sue for slander.
Also vexing me, as I admitted to Ophelia, was the pink panties puzzle. “Maybe something was going on between them.”
“Dermot and Gabriel?” Ophelia spooned up some egg drop soup, sat back. “Get realistic. Dermot was fucking faculty wives and grad students at a pace right out of Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not.’ And Gabriel … well, if it’s not obvious to you, it sure is to me. He’s pure, unadulterated hetero. He gives me all the looks, the signals.”
“He does?”
“Under normal circumstances I’d be climbing all over him.” Said as if she meant it.
“Well, maybe his unadulterated hetero hormones triggered some kind of wild outburst. What if it wasn’t suicide? What if –”
“Bullshit. Mulligan was about to be exposed by a cuckolded colleague. That threatened his totally utilitarian relationship with Irene, a woman invaluable if not loved – his cook, secretary, washerwoman, fuck-who-you-want freedom-giver, full-time serf, and, presumably, donor of the pink unmentionables. More importantly, an illustrious reputation was about to be reshaped as a source of side-splitting humour. Abject with despair but always neat, never wasteful, he lays out his clothes, conjures up Rita Schumacher as a masturbatory last wish, then kicks off his sticky bloomers and jumps.”
I applauded her by clicking chopsticks.
Still ill-tempered after Gabriel’s eleventh-hour disclosures, I’d been unable to face him after court, so Ophelia had attended to him while I brooded on the courthouse lawn. He too was massively depressed, she said, blaming himself for not being on the level about so many things. He assured her there were no more secrets.
But I’d heard that song from other clients. I felt I could no longer trust anything, even my instincts. “What if Lorenzo was actually telling the truth?”
“How unlikely.” She had finally located a retired nun, Sister Beatrice, who’d been at Pius Eleven Residential School in 1942. Affecting a cloying voice: “Principal Mulligan was such a kind young man, so spiritual. We all just loved him.”
“Well, what would you expect Sister Beatrice to say? Stay with me on this. What if Lorenzo isn’t lying? What if it’s our guy who’s lying? About everything.”
“Yeah? About being punched and kicked by Knepp and Jettles? Do you think your pal Borachuk was lying?”
On taking the stand, Gabriel would offer his own version about that, and the many other facets of the case that, he’d bluntly say, the police lied about. The defence was to open on Friday, after argument on motions Thursday. Gabriel would be the sole witness and, I feared, would miscarry in that role, despite all our coaching. It would be clear to the jury that he’d never graduated from charm school. He would decline not only to kiss the Bible but to swear on it. He wouldn’t be recanting any revolutionary views – of that I was painfully certain. Smitty would snipe at him artfully, create confusion, contradictions, expose his irritable side, his disdain for bourgeois justice. The Hammer would rattle him, infuriate him. Gabriel had been a sleeping volcano, and an eruption was due.
Ophelia fumbled for her smokes, tried to switch topics. “The bylaw inspector shut down Isy’s. Did you hear about that? ‘Lewd and immoral performance.’ This is such a hick town. Lenny Bruce called it the last outpost of puritanical hypocrisy. We’re going to be on an entertainers’ blacklist; we’ll be down to Liberace, the Happy Gang, and Paul Anka.”
I wasn’t to be distracted. “No, I’ve got it. This is what happened: Gabriel did confess to that clown, but he lied. Gabby, the locals call him. Gabby lied. He didn’t really kill Mulligan but
he wanted Lorenzo and Knepp to believe he did.”
“You’re losing it, Arthur.”
I batted away her smoke. “Don’t you get it? This is a carefully crafted plot by Gabriel to get himself falsely charged with a murder so he can be hanged, feeding a martyr complex inspired by Louis Riel and somehow advancing Native rights through an upswelling of our notorious national guilt.”
“Yeah, and he beat off into some pink panties to titillate the press and get even more publicity for his cause. Hey, maybe Hammersmith’s part of the plot, and the entire trial is a fake.”
“There’s something we’re missing.”
“You’re missing something.”
“Bill Swift claims he’s alive. That Mulligan faked his own death, disappeared.”
“And he’s manning the gas pumps at a BA station in Upper Spodunk.”
Afterwards she herded me into a taxi. “The sun will rise in the morning, Arthur. It’s not over. Get a good night’s sleep.”
As I slipped into my suite, I hummed, I’ll see you in my dreams. The phone began nagging me. It had to be another of Lawonda’s former suitors; I’d given the number to nobody but Ophelia and Gertrude.
I tucked away the mickey I’d bought, laid out my writing tools, centred my typewriter. I had to organize a pitch to The Hammer, what we call a no-evidence motion: a motion to direct the jury to acquit. I pictured him smirking. You can talk till the cows come home, counsel. He’d enjoyed watching me drown in a sea of damning evidence. I had been a bad boy with my aggravating outbursts.
Manfully I ignored the whining demon on my shoulder (Why bring home a mickey of rye if you’re not going to partake, Arthur?). I submitted to the phone instead.
“I know you’ve been intending to call, Arthur, but the thought struck me that you’d forgotten our number.”
“How did you get my number?”
“I went up to your office and dragged it out of that stubborn young thing who runs interference for you. I had to hint that your father was ill, though I regret to tell you he’s quite hale and hearty. I assured her you would never dream of breaking contact with your devoted parents.”
“Excuse me, I have something on the stove.” I reached up, uncapped the rye, took a big, quick slug, gathered strength. “As doubtless you’re aware, Mother, I’m at the tail end of a rather complex murder matter. It has been with me day and night for the past several weeks. I apologize for not having been the dutiful son.”
“Dutiful? Is that how you see our relationship? As one of duty?”
“When this is over, let’s the three of us go out for dinner.”
“Not if you look the way you did on CTV – like a tramp, in that wrinkled suit. Please do something with your hair.”
“I am really up against it right now, Mother. Overwhelmed.”
“Goodbye, then. Vale, jurisconsulte.”
The call ended on that abrupt note, and I punctuated it with another shot of rye, grimacing from its sharp bite, then rolled a sheet into my Smith-Corona.
Again the phone. “I need to speak to Lawonda.” A new one, a gruff voice.
“She doesn’t live here anymore.”
“You better not be covering for her, pal, or I’ll take it out of your skin.”
“Take what out?”
“She owes me five grand.” He disconnected. I used to wonder how Lawonda could afford her fine clothes and furnishings. Not from tips at the Beanery, it seemed.
I worked for an hour on my motion. Its basis: there was no evidence of an essential ingredient of the charge of murder, i.e., an actual death. My fingers kept getting stuck between the keys, their hammers jamming on the page. I was tired, that was the problem. Then I saw with surprise that the mickey was almost empty. I ripped my speech from the typewriter. It was stiff, over-prepared. I’d be better off winging it after a sound sleep.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1962
The phone was ringing. It must have been for Lawonda, because there she was, a swirl of colour as she disrobed. Bubble-gum-pink panties slipped down her ebony legs. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Her hand grasped my cock …
But it was my own hand holding that stiff instrument as I stumbled to the phone. It was barely seven o’clock. Lawonda’s cast-asides never called that early, so it had to be important. I croaked a hello, my throat clogged by night phlegm.
“Tell her I am standink here with Luger pointed at ze right temple.”
“Lawonda isn’t here.”
“You bring her to phone or I having tventy seconds to live.” Obscure accent, maybe Slavic.
“Lawonda moved out two months ago! Who is this?”
“Time is wasting. Soon you having my blood on your hands.”
A spurned lover’s empty threat? I dared not take that chance. “Give me your phone number. I have some contacts. I’ll get right back to you.” After I called police emergency.
“Ten seconds, you Bolshevik scum.”
“Craznik? Is that you?”
“Three, two, one – I die!”
The bang that came wasn’t quite the sound of a gun firing, more like a serving spoon hitting a pot.
“Ira?”
“How’s it hanging, Stretch?”
“It wasn’t, until you woke me up.”
“Aw, man, the time difference – I keep forgetting. You had a boner on?”
“Lawonda was here a while ago.”
“In your dreams, Studley. She’s in Loosiana. I’d give you her number but then you’d just be one of the loonies bugging her with calls. Guess one night with that hot hammer didn’t satisfy. She’s more addicting than shmeck, man – you’re gonna have to sweat her out of your system. How you holding out otherwise? Trial-wise?”
Fine, I told him, adding that I expected to die later that morning under the judge’s withering fusillades. Otherwise I didn’t need to bring Ira up to speed – the case had been fully reported in Toronto.
“You’re going to have to turn your Marilyn Monroe calendar to the wall. It wouldn’t be right to use it as a wanging-off aid given she’s got a new boyfriend who just happens to be the President of the US of A. I have the inside dope, schnookie – she’s just had an abortion, and Kennedy provided the spawn. Expect the CIA to shove her off to keep it covered up. After that, they’ll be going after JFK himself. I’m setting up some dates for Ronnie and the Hawks. I’ll call you if we do the Coast. Give your hard-on a hug for me.”
“The charge is wholly misconceived, milord.” That was me walking to the office, slightly hungover. “It has proceeded on the assumption that Professor Mulligan is not alive, yet he hasn’t been formally pronounced dead. If he is dead, where are his remains?”
I was mumbling so loudly that two boys giggled as our paths crossed, repeating, “Where are his remains?”
A grey day, and from the heights of the Burrard Bridge I was denied one of my frequent pleasures on a summer’s walk, a view of pretty girls in bathing suits on Sunset Beach. I was actually feeling refreshed that morning by a sleep of unexpected soundness. With the Crown evidence in, no surprises waiting, my brain had turned off its engines for eight hours. I expected my motion to be quickly disposed of, then to be granted the rest of the day to prepare my defence: a final run-through with Gabriel, a tough pretend cross-examination à la Cyrus Smythe-Baldwin.
But what chance would we have with twelve dutiful middle-class strivers brought up to be respectful to police, distrustful of extremists, and chary of minorities, particularly our First Peoples? How could they possibly find the courage to believe veteran officers would perjure themselves so wantonly?
I thought again of Steven Truscott. Aged fourteen and sentenced to hang. A white kid, never in trouble. By the time I got to my building I was in the pits once more.
Pappas was just outside my office by the secretarial pool, propositioning a summer temp, a task he set aside to follow me in. I supposed he intended to lecture me again on how I was handling Hammersmith (An old-timer might get away with it, not a cock
y young punk like you; you got to learn to suck a little).
He unfolded the Province. “At least you’re getting some ink off this sucker. ‘Cops Conspired to Lie’ – that’ll make the Palmer brothers happy. Shows them you got a healthy attitude. Guys like the Palmers, they respect a man who goes down fighting. Unless, of course, he goes down for the big count. That they don’t respect.”
“My guy isn’t going down.”
“Is there anyone in this town believes that? Including you, hotshot? Way I read it, your chances of bringing this stinker home are next to zero. I could’ve maybe got you a deal for non-capital, but that’s slipping away.”
He turned to leave and met Ophelia coming in. They did a little dance in the doorway, Ophelia finally manoeuvring past him. She mimed washing her hands and shaking them dry.
“Smythe-Baldwin’s office called. Case is being put down for an hour or so. Mysteriously, they want to meet us at the Coroner’s Court.”
Now what? I affected nonchalance. “Gee, maybe they’re conducting an inquest into their case.”
The Coroner’s Court, a deco heritage building near the police station, is now a police museum, but in those days it also housed the city analyst’s laboratory, the morgue, and autopsy facilities.
As our cab pulled up, we saw Lukey holding its ornate carved door for Irene Mulligan, who exited grief-stricken. She brushed off his attempts to comfort her and approached us, signalling our driver to wait. “It’s his.” She daubed at her runny mascara. “I’m sorry. Oh, God, my Dermot …”
I couldn’t form the words to ask her to complete her sentence, left it to Ophelia. “What do you mean, Irene?”
“His toe.”
Lukey barrelled toward us. “Come on, guys, she’s in a pretty bad way.”
He held the cab door for Irene, who hissed, “Leave me alone. You didn’t have to be so cruel.”
Leroy pulled a look of repentance as the taxi sped off. “Maybe we should’ve showed her a photo instead. Now we got to apply to recall her to the stand, making everything even messier, tougher on her.”
I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel Page 23
