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

by William Deverell

  The young fellow ahead of me is reciting some rudimentary rule of sentencing. “We are well aware of that principle, counsel,” Chief Justice Schupp tells the supplicating wretch. “We’re not complete idiots, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, your Lordship, I didn’t realize that.” Not intended as a wisecrack, more of a verbal knee-jerk reaction.

  Schupp ignores, or pretends to ignore, the poorly smothered laughter in the gallery. “We do not need to hear from Mr. Wotherspoon. Appeal dismissed.”

  The loser flees with his files. Wotherspoon is fighting for a straight face as he announces our case.

  I take my place at counsel table and Ram Singh says, “I don’t know if we’re ready for you, Mr. Beauchamp, but I assume you’re ready for us.”

  “Ready to try our fortunes, milord.”

  Singh smiles under his lavish moustache. He’s a thickset man but athletic, a squash player. He is the one I will have to sway. I will not win over Schupp (unless I dazzle her with my love of cats) but I ought to be able to count on Bill Webb, a former corporate counsel who surprised everyone by being the court’s sternest upholder of the Charter of Rights. His preferred manner is collegial, his look avuncular: bald but with a bushy outcropping on cheeks and chin. He’s the justice who granted me leave to appeal.

  All give me uninterrupted attention as I trace the history of why we are in this courtroom. They are not slow or lazy, like some of their lower-court brethren; they’ve read the appeal books and factums and know the issues.

  I sense that Schupp is smarting from the wayward shot she took from the frightened rookie; with her look of pain, she seems determined to inflict some on me. When I finish my recitation of facts, she jumps in. “Can we agree, for the record, that your client has not given us the courtesy of being present in this courtroom?”

  I was expecting this. “Let us say he is at liberty.”

  “It’s a notorious fact, is it not, that he has fled the country? And that he faces a charge of escaping lawful imprisonment? I need not tell you there is ample precedent in such cases to order a stay of the appeal.”

  “Milady, the blunt truth is I have advised him not to appear, because of the risk, however slight, that I may not persuade this court to free an innocent man. Dr. Swift would then spend his remaining life in prison. As we speak he is in Bolivia, somewhere in the Cordillera Oriental in the province of Cochabamba, recording voices of aged speakers of a vanishing tongue. He is leading an initiative to preserve and revive Native dialects, a program that has the sanction of the United Nations, and from which he cannot break free. In the meantime, the Canadian government has made no recent moves to return him to this country.”

  “Is that right, Mr. Wotherspoon?”

  Lost in other worlds, Wotherspoon seems puzzled for a moment, as if not quite recognizing his name, but finally stands. “May it please the court, the Canadian government has little recourse, because Bolivia has granted him refugee status.”

  I add, “Ottawa has shown far less interest in his return than certain of our high-ranking universities, which have honorary doctorates waiting for him.”

  Webb and Singh have said nothing through this. They seem embarrassed for the Chief, who has lost this one, particularly in the eyes of the press. “Proceed with the appeal,” she says.

  I hardly get going before she again pounces like a hunting cat, when I admit to taking on the additional burden that my client pled guilty.

  “Surely that’s an overwhelming obstacle, Mr. Beauchamp. Appealing a conviction based on a guilty plea is exceedingly rare. My sense is it ought not to be countenanced except in the most special and unusual circumstances.”

  Singh chimes in, grinning. “Especially when that guilty plea was advised by a counsel well-known for his mental acuteness.”

  “Milord, at that point in my career I was about as green as the young gentleman who preceded me today, and far less keen-witted.”

  Webb plays along. “You give yourself too much credit, Mr. Beauchamp.”

  My hope is that when these justices look at some of the pathetic boners pulled by the young Arthur, they will let him off lightly. But the Chief Justice, with her penchant for rigid rules, must be confronted about the guilty plea. “If special circumstances be the test, milady, this case is replete with them. You have an affidavit from a retired RCMP inspector that the two chief investigators lied under oath. There’s evidence from a washed-up foot that, if I may be so crude, stank. Compelling fresh evidence is on offer that supports suicide. What circumstances could be more special and rare than those?”

  “None of this proves your client’s innocence, however.” Singh, flipping through my books of cases. “That’s your burden, isn’t it?”

  Have I already lost this lover of wine and women songstresses? I let him know I’m affronted. “I have never understood our laws as requiring any person to prove his innocence.”

  Schupp seeks to modify Singh’s distressingly hardcore position. “I think what my brother Singh is saying is that your appeal can’t succeed unless there is no reasonable chance the appellant was guilty.”

  “I submit, with respect, that the appeal ought to succeed on the traditional basis, that there is reasonable doubt – an excess of it. No jury properly charged would find it safe to convict.”

  Webb offers a helping hand. “I take it you’re saying, Mr. Beauchamp, that the same rights and rules of appeal apply whether the appellant has been found guilty or has pled guilty.”

  “Especially when the plea was practically forced upon the defence to forestall the risk of a death sentence. The guilty plea was based on matters as they stood in August 1962. Recent developments have caused so much structural damage to the Crown’s case as to give reasonable apprehension of an intolerable miscarriage of justice. Our courts are not in the business of sanctioning such miscarriages.”

  I get up quite a head of steam, leaning heavily on that grand phrase miscarriage of justice, associating it, for the benefit of her Ladyship, with abortion, though in the sense of a fiasco. And so it carries on through the entire morning, heavy wading but I’m up for it, no excuses needed, no pretence about the slowing mind. I am in a courtroom, therefore at home, in the comfort of debate, as others might be around their fireplace or television set.

  When we break for lunch, I am too keyed up to deal with food. I head out through the West End, a peninsula of towers now, with few survivors of the sixties, those grand old houses. My old home on Haro has been spared, though. A stroll down the lane reveals a backyard swing set and a trampoline – evidence of normalcy, of happiness, the memory of Crazy Craznik erased.

  Life was simpler then. I wasn’t burdened by eminence; there were no high expectations. But now I sense those every time I walk into a courtroom. From the visitors’ gallery, from the press table, from court staff and counsel. But I doubt that Dr. Swift shares those expectations. I have received no communication from him other than that crisp, chilly email authorizing the appeal.

  I’m glad he expects so little of me. I don’t care if I disappoint the mobile vulgus, though I fear I will. Nor have I impressed Schupp, who keeps buzzing around me like a mosquito, alighting for the occasional stab. But I wrote her off before we began. My main worry has to do with Ram Singh, the supposed wild card. A lot of light-hearted interjections from him but little substance. He’s treating the appeal as a merry divertissement among more vital matters such as contested estates and corporate takeovers. His family has major timber holdings, so he’s not likely to share the worldview of an anti-capitalist rebel. My best chance will be to appeal to his sense of self-importance.

  I reach the rim of Stanley Park, the tennis courts, and watch a vigorous doubles match between skilled couples. But now I must head back to those other courts, to my own strenuous game.

  Resuming the bench, Martha Schupp looks refreshed, ready to play another few sets. “Before you continue, Mr. Beauchamp, my brothers and I were having a little colloquy about the options we’re lo
oking at. What exactly are you seeking here?”

  “I’m asking that the conviction be quashed and an acquittal entered.”

  “But alternatively you are asking for a new trial. And if there’s any merit in the fresh evidence you are urging on us, that may be all you’d be entitled to.”

  Ram Singh: “I see that as a real problem. How does the Crown resurrect its case? There can’t be many witnesses still alive. Exhibits have disappeared. According to the material filed by Mr. Wotherspoon, the key witness, Corporal Lorenzo, was murdered nearly two decades ago in a mysterious drive-by shooting.”

  That is what is bugging Singh – the 1983 slaying of Walt Lorenzo, an act few dared call random. The undercover specialist had built up a backlog of embittered enemies – corporate crooks, mobsters, drug cartel bosses – but none more prominent than Gabriel Swift. So it was widely speculated, though without an iota of proof, that Gabriel acted through agents, soldiers, for instance, of the American Indian Movement.

  “It’s troubling, isn’t it?” says Schupp, appropriating the issue. “An unsolved murder. A brave and dedicated officer.”

  “Brave, no doubt,” I say, “and dedicated to his job maybe. But not necessarily to the truth, as I will argue.”

  “You may argue that,” says Singh. “But he faces insuperable difficulty in arguing back. Which returns me to my point. How can this court realistically order a new trial?”

  “Milord, if Dr. Swift is to be denied a right to a new trial, there can be no alternative but simply to enter an acquittal.”

  Schupp, sharply: “Well, I’m far from persuaded he has a right to a new trial.”

  Bill Webb again tries to ride to my rescue. “Mr. Beauchamp, what I hear you saying is that if we find there’s been a miscarriage of justice, our only reasonable and proper alternative will be to order him acquitted.”

  “Exactly.”

  By late afternoon hunger is punishing me for having skipped lunch. My complacent adversary, Hollis Wotherspoon, watches with pretend agony as I take my shots, occasionally exchanging knowing nods with the press. I continue trying slices, lobs, and drop shots against the aggressive doubles team of Schupp and Singh. They consider the fingerprints on the wallet to be telling, absent any testimony explaining them. They’re unwilling to challenge Lorenzo’s credibility. (Singh: “Even if, as Inspector Borachuk avers, two officers lied under oath, it doesn’t prove Lorenzo also lied, does it, Mr. Beauchamp?”) They are not swayed by his closeness to Knepp – the Reno and Disneyland trips, the cookouts.

  They express themselves deeply troubled by the startling recollections of Ethel Brière about her teenaged tête-à-tête with Caroline Snow in 1942, but appear inclined to hold them inadmissible. Old Riley’s brainstorm about evoking the doctrine of recent complaint finds no buyers – even Webb is against me. Maybe they’re fearful of utterly trashing Mulligan’s already tarnished name.

  Nor do I get traction with the misidentified foot. Their attitude is So what? Singh, predictably, makes jokes: “Counsel seems not able to get his foot in the door.” And (a loud titter runs through the courtroom), “This ground of appeal has one foot in the grave.”

  It is half past four, quitting time, and we are all getting a little silly with fatigue. I exit with a line about my getting off on the wrong foot and being ground underfoot by their lordships, then neatly segue into a mention of my adorable cats, Underfoot and Shiftless. Instead of warming to me, Martha Schupp wrinkles her nose as she recesses for the day. She probably names her cats properly, like Fluffy or Precious.

  Wotherspoon, who’ll be called upon tomorrow to answer me, commiserates as I pack my book bag: “Never say die.” But I am desolate. All the thought and work and passion that I expended on this case may be for naught. A further appeal to Ottawa’s ever-more-authoritarian Supreme Court seems futile.

  As I turn to leave, I espy, rising from the back row and pocketing a notepad, a tall, wiry, bespectacled wonk in Lycra cycling shorts, clutching a bike helmet: Wentworth Chance. A strained smile says he’s apprehensive about our imminent coming together.

  A casual exchange of greetings, constrained on my part though not icy, wasn’t enough for Wentworth, and he has tagged along from the courthouse to Robson Square and points north, walking his bicycle. I’d bumped into him only a couple of times since A Thirst came out, always in company, so there was no opportunity to have (in diplomatic language) a frank exchange of views.

  And though there’s opportunity now, I hold back. There’s something about Wentworth that stops me – an inner frailty, a softness, a sense that a single sharp word from the icon will cause total disintegration. He is content to maintain this unspoken entente, not once mentioning the book. Or repeating any of the views expressed therein, such as that I’d choked during my first murder case and sold out Gabriel Swift.

  But he does talk about the appeal, insisting I fill him in on the issues debated before he arrived, soliciting my views of the court’s inclinations, sharing his, bringing me down further with his unalloyed pessimism. His tone is urgent, proprietary: “We’ve got to come up with something.” What I’m hearing, though he doesn’t say it, is: You can’t do this to me; it wasn’t supposed to end this way. I am to blame for the likely demise of this appeal. I’ve failed Gabriel again, and Wentworth too, a final betrayal not only of them but of my alleged prowess as a barrister.

  He is a thief, Wentworth Chance, stealing from me my sorrow at this turn of events, my right to grieve. He stays with me up Howe Street, the financial district, confiding in a filial, self-absorbed way about his career as a lawyer. “I’ll never get the great cases. Max and Brovak covet anything that makes headlines. I do the office scraps – the cranks and crackheads and loonies. By my age you’d already done d’Anglio and Smutts; you were already the heir presumptive to Smythe-Baldwin. I’m third rank; maybe I’ll make it to second, maybe not. Maybe I’ll just get out of it. Write books.”

  I can’t think of anything to say that will not encourage him to carry on in this vein, but finally I find myself telling him, idiotically, to follow his heart. Rather than showing insult at this high-school nostrum, he becomes more ardent. Yes, that’s just what he wanted to hear. There is something more satisfying than a big win (a fleeting event, after all); a book is permanent, its production has its own thrills. “Creation – using the right side of the brain, seeing it all in print, between covers – you can’t beat that.”

  I’m tempted to remind him of Lord Byron’s famous words: ’Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print; A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t. But we don’t talk about the book the right side of his brain produced. He fills all available audible time until we reach the Confederation Club building, jabbering at an accelerating pace, as if on drugs, maybe speed. But I assume he’s simply nervous, in fear of what I might say about A Thirst if allowed a moment of silence.

  “As you probably guessed, I am working on another writing project. I’m taking a leave from the firm for this one, so I’ll have to earn my daily bread some other way. Teaching. I’ll be doing some People’s Law School stuff, how to get by in Small Claims Court, and, ah, doing some readings around the country – you can sell lots of books at those things. I got one coming up in the Squamish Library, as a matter of fact … And, ah … well, this is kind of ironical – I’ve applied and got a writer-in-residence gig at Mulligan House. Comes with a subsistence grant, so that’ll get me through the winter. Dermot Mulligan’s old house, where the Squamish River flows. Weird, eh?”

  Weird.

  The Confederation Club does not accept guests in spandex, so we must part. I worry about Wentworth as I sign in; the kid seems in trouble. Staying in Mulligan’s shrine as writer-in-residence – that suggests he may be as obsessed with this case as I, though in a way less healthy.

  I hoped for privacy in the dining room, a time to mourn the day and recharge for tomorrow, but the haunting continues. This time it’s Hubbell Meyerson, who must have been lying in
wait for me; he rarely drops by the club. He signals me to his table, where he’s working on a tall vodka tonic and a bowl of nuts.

  I expect subtle accusations of spurning his oldest, dearest friend. But over our dinners – I could eat half a steer but settle for a share of its loin – he is convivial, supportive, encouraging me to fight on. He is more interested in my personal dramas, though, than the stale and dusty epic that engrosses me. Rather than chiding me for my cowardly flight from Annabelle’s party, he sees it as a great joke.

  “Ah, yes, we saw you spying outside the Orpheum, Annabelle and I. Having a little laugh at her expense, were you? Setting her up with that pompous, posturing fool Stan Caliginis, with his nonstop winey soundtrack.”

  This scenario – having a little laugh – I can live with, the sin of cruelty being preferred to cowardice. I have escaped major damage from the incident. I expected far worse than I got from Margaret when I phoned to tell her about my near incursion into Annabelle’s welcoming party and to confess I’d hooked her up with Stan Caliginis. “How oddly you’re behaving” was all she said.

  Hubbell is still going on about Caliginis. “Big-time hustler in marginal stocks, junks, derivatives. I had him checked out, just to make sure he doesn’t try to sell Annabelle a gilt-edged lead brick.”

  “Stan read A Thirst and was staggered by Annabelle’s adventurous spirit and earthiness. She is steely, crisp, and juicy and has a very good length.”

  “I suspect he has a very good length himself, because the next day she asked me to pass on to you her most ardent thanks.”

  “She slept with him?”

  “One assumes. He’s also a major mover and shaker in the Liberal Party, so he’ll be coming to Bullingham’s ninety-third on Saturday. Annabelle has been invited, of course. Bully has always found her fascinating.”