Stung

by William Deverell

  Arthur likes to believe many of Garibaldi’s artists are quite talented and original; otherwise their creations would not be stacked up in his commodious basement. Almost every Easter show has seen him or Margaret buy canvases, though there’s no more room on the walls of either house. So they’re stored, along with Taba Jones’s pottery.

  Arthur pretends not to notice Taba, even though she and her bowls and vases are only a few tables away. Arthur particularly tries not to observe that Margaret is chatting with her. Instead he concentrates on McCoy and his crew as they wrestle with the penis. It is thirty degrees from the horizontal, and is wobbling. McCoy and Stoney pull taut lines and Dog has his shoulder to it. Exhibitors and attendees gather around, and occasionally applaud or heckle.

  Meanwhile, shockingly, the conversation between Margaret and Taba continues for several minutes. There are smiles. At one point they turn to look at Arthur, who ducks his eyes. Good grief — are they comparing notes?

  Maybe this is an elaborate practical joke. Not maybe — probably, because Margaret bends toward Taba and they buss each other’s cheeks.

  A cheer goes up as the penis stabilizes — proudly erect. A jokester hugs it. The cameras roll. Viewers of this documentary will wonder how a community as bizarre as Garibaldi came to exist.

  * * *

  Arthur and Margaret are finally alone, at their dining table, eating celery, beets, and artichokes left over from last evening. Solara has just left to put the animals to bed. They talk about her for a while, her brave smile, how she was unafraid to talk about Stefan. “Win some, lose some,” she’d said.

  “I guess you saw me talking with Tabatha.”

  “Yes, I glanced over. I was watching the erection’s erection, of course.” Arthur rises, pours her a second wine, refills his tea. “I couldn’t imagine what you were discussing.”

  “Oh, the petition to recall Zoller and Shewfelt. She did an incredible job. Got two hundred more signatures than needed. Nineteen alone on our road. Where did I read that? Nelson Forbish’s column.”

  “Ah, yes, the recall count was last week, I’d completely forgot. Too preoccupied with other bees-ness.” His joke falls flat. “I should have congratulated Taba. And while we’re on the topic, ah . . .”

  “She came visiting. I know. She told me.”

  “Came in from the cold to warm up. Nineteen signatures! Even old Gullivan, who thinks climate change is fake science. She had brandy and coffee, it was the least I could do.”

  Arthur’s hopes to leave it at that are dashed when Margaret says, “Did she come on to you?”

  Arthur’s teacup rattles. “Did she tell you that?”

  “She did, didn’t she?”

  He’s trapped. How much did Taba tell her? Surely not the nitty-gritty. They were smiling, they exchanged kisses! “Well, I did have quite an odd experience. So awkward that I hesitated mentioning it to you. Not that anything actually happened, really; it might have been the brandy, but she—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, what did you do?”

  “I did nothing, my dear. She, ah, offered herself, made a slight move in that direction . . .”

  She flares. “That cow. Always after your ass.”

  He’s in it deep now, and opts to fashion the event as a merry tale in which he played the innocent, fumbling fool. That doesn’t work, lacking the verisimilitude a story demands if it’s to hold water — Margaret finds little humour from the stripped-down version: her husband backed against his desk, rejecting Taba’s advances.

  Arthur does admit to having been slightly aroused, as he believes any man would be, but edits out the unbuckled belt, unzipped fly, the upright, finger-encircled cock, and the climactic event in the shower. Clearly, she suspects there’s more to his story. Women, in his experience, can invariably tell.

  Margaret drains her wine, stands, studies him as if he were some creature dredged from the ocean depths. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” She gathers up some dishes, heads to the kitchen. “That scheming bitch!”

  Part Three

  Rites of Spring

  Chapter 19: Maguire

  1

  Monday, May 13

  It took Jake Maguire five escalators to get up to the biggest courtroom in Canada, 6-1, it’s like a football field if you can imagine goalposts on the left and right, the judge’s bench at the midfield sidelines. Here is where famous trials are held, serial killers, celebrity defendants, international conspiracies with multiple defendants represented by multiple lawyers elbowing each other for the limelight.

  Maguire is at about the forty-yard line just behind the prosecutors, in a new suit for this occasion because his old ones barely fit. He has a sore neck — a legacy from his Hawaii so-called holiday — so he has to twist his body around to see to the back.

  The gallery is filling fast with the non-working public: a full platoon of lawyers who apparently have nothing else to do, students, media, and maybe a hundred Bee-hippies and Bee-beatniks, some wearing honeybee stripes but muted, not as ridiculous as at the bail hearing. Someone must have coached them: no plastic wings, no Bee-Dazzle T-shirts, because no jury’s going to be wowed by clown acts.

  A block of about a hundred and fifty seats has been allocated to the jury panel — less about twenty excused for illness or late pregnancy or severe disabilities — from which twelve will get conscripted this morning. The court sheriffs checked them out: all citizens, local residents, eighteen and over, no red cards for misbehaviour. Maguire dug a little deeper — Facebook was a kick-ass resource — and weeded out a bunch of names the prosecution might want to challenge. Environmentalists and lefties, do-gooders like social workers and community advocates. He doesn’t feel guilty or sneaky about that because defence lawyers all do it too.

  Maguire is officially retired but doesn’t feel that way because the Sarnia Seven case is still his baby, or to put it another way he’s chief babysitter, responsible for last-minute briefings and debriefings of Crown witnesses, catering to their needs, giving them courses in how to not fuck up on the witness stand.

  Deputy A.G. Azra Khan gave Maguire that job because he doesn’t trust his unseasoned underlings: a robot hooked on Brylcream and an articling student who’s gawky as a flamingo and hooked on Azra Khan. Both sit there staring like zombies at their open laptops, while Khan chats with the lady known around here as Miss Pucket, the Court Clerk. Khan has worked with Maguire on some big ones, murders, kidnappings, and he made sure Jake is looked after, with an extra weekly stipend.

  That will help pay off the bloodsucking credit card company, whose last bill gave him such a jolt that he thought, finally it’s the heart attack Sonia keeps worrying about. Hawaii was three times as expensive as he’d roughly estimated, he hadn’t factored in the cruise or the beachfront villa upgrade. Never mind. All good. Sonia was happy, that’s all that counts.

  Maguire overnights in an upscale uptown hotel except for weekends in London. Sometimes Sonia stays over with him and they go out for dinner or a show, like Come from Away, which was okay, but nothing beats a live performance in a courtroom. Khan versus Beauchamp, it’ll be like Ali versus Frazier.

  Maguire winces as he turns; somehow he kinked his sunburned neck on the flight from Honolulu in a midget-sized middle seat. Here comes Gaylene Roberts, Inspector Roberts now, down the middle aisle — she’s also helping orchestrate this production, staying in the same hotel as him.

  The boys in the OPP clubhouse bought out Gaylene’s rights from the Sarnia PD, so she’ll soon be on her way up the totem pole. Maguire hopes to still be around when she makes it to top raven. If he’s not, he will raise a glass from the graveyard. She saved his ass that night he got looped at Squirrelly Moe’s. He still hasn’t mentioned the penilingus incident to her, and never will. It’s buried now.

  The deal with the defence lawyers ensures it won’t be mentioned during testimony. It is
to be considered irrelevant. Deputy A.G. Azra Khan had also promised that the photo of Maguire in wide-eyed shock will somehow disappear. They’d met in private, “man to man,” as Khan put it, with a wink and a grin, jovially skeptical, unwilling to believe Maguire didn’t get a head job. Khan seemed peeved he wasn’t being showered with gratitude for making Maguire’s problem go away.

  Gaylene settles in beside him. “I’m glad you’re going before me. So I can correct all your bloopers.”

  “I’ve a memory like a steel trap.”

  “One that’s rusted shut.”

  They regularly joust like this, a friendly game, upsmanship. They’ve had only one verbal shootout — over Maguire’s perhaps ill-considered remark that men tend to make better jurors than women. He meant that men are better jurors because they don’t get all weak-kneed over reasonable doubt and such. But he let her win that one.

  There’s a rustling in the room that, he guesses, announces the entrance of the defence team. Maguire must endure neck pain again as he turns to see Arthur Beauchamp chatting with a law student back in the pews, then another fan, the old pro working the room. Finally, he makes his way forward, smiling, swinging his heavy briefcase onto the table, merrily greeting Khan and his team.

  In his wake comes Nancy Faulk, also looking confident today, and not hungover. This feminist brawler is not a favourite of Toronto coppers, male ones anyway, but Maguire feels sorry for her — he would rather take a bullet between the eyes than go through a divorce like hers.

  She’s followed in by her clients Ivor Trebiloff and Amy Snider, the demonstration junkies, then mastermind Helmut Knutsen, who they call Doc, and their sad-eyed cyber guy they call Okie Joe, then Rockin’ Ray Wozniak, looking like he pulled an all-nighter and is ready for bed. This dude lives in a different time zone from normal people.

  Rivke Levitsky and Lucy Wales break ranks, stopping to engage with supporters, exchanging pats and hugs and fists. Miss Pucket takes this as a breach of decorum and rises in alarm, but relaxes when a court officer collects the two little hotties and ushers them into the prisoners’ box.

  How do these seven wannabe saviours of the world expect to get off? Except for one weak manslaughter count, there’s no chance of any acquittals. They’ve been all over the media boasting about their burglary like it’s a great political coup. Maguire’s theory is they want to be martyrs, to use the trial as a political platform, and go down in flames.

  “I stopped in the witness room,” Gaylene says. “No Howie.”

  “He’s not on till tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “You sure he’s going to be all right?”

  Maguire shrugs. “As long as he stays on his antidepressants. He threw up last time I pushed him for details.”

  “He’s jerking you around. You said you were going to lay into him.”

  “Look at his side — head of security, thinking with his dick, gets shitfaced, gets shucked, and gets fired after giving away the crown jewels without even a piece of her ass as a consolation prize. I’m through forcing him to relive it. It’s bad enough he’ll have to regurgitate everything in front of a jury, then do a perp march in front of the TV cameras. I feel sorry for the dork.”

  Sharp at ten, not a second later, Justice Donahue swaggers in like a wrestler climbing into the ring. Miss Pucket calls, “Order in court,” too late — the judge is already on her throne, surveying her kingdom. Maguire has never appeared before her, but Azra Khan told him she’s strictly by-the-book. “Anal retentive,” is how he put it. “That’s her weak spot and Beauchamp knows it.” Maguire assumes Beauchamp will keep picking at that weak spot, like an infected sore, hoping to get her rattled, making appealable mistakes.

  Checking that everyone’s in place, Donahue asks the accused to stand and they go through the formality of everyone pleading not guilty to everything. They do it straight, no speeches, no gestures, no embellishments, until they get to Wozniak, who pleads to the manslaughter charge “Definotly guilty,” getting laughter from the partisans and even from some in the jury pool. Judge Donahue is not amused. She tells Beauchamp to remind his client “this is not a comic opera,” following which there’s a testy exchange about an accused’s right to be emphatic in making his plea.

  She’s still smarting, after all the pleas are made, and lets counsel know there’s not going to be any screwing around in her courtroom, though not in those words.

  One of her things is not letting counsel ask questions of the jury panel. “This isn’t the U.S., where they seem to revel in that annoying ritual.” But even so, the jury selection is slow, prosecutors and defence challenging a dozen before making their first picks. Basically, the Crown rejects anyone who isn’t straight and safe, the defence challenges those who are. Half an hour in, only two guys and two women have got seated in the jury box.

  The process consumes the morning, a cat-and-mouse game where both sides try not to burn through their quotas of challenges — Crown and defence each have eighty-four. Khan may not have been looking ahead — he’s running out of bodies, and has only one challenge left, and all but three seats on the jury are filled. Faulk also has one challenge left and Beauchamp has hoarded his last two.

  It’s like the NHL draft, Beauchamp’s team hoping that two prospects farther down the list — a social studies teacher and a college student — will be available to play defence for them. But first they have to stickhandle past four other prospects: an auditor named Mabel Sims, a well-dressed woman who’s obviously rolling in it named Joyce Evans, and two scowling businessmen.

  Beauchamp and Faulk have a long whispered conversation about Mabel Sims, who audits for the provincial tax branch and is an unknown quantity. Not a Facebooker anyway. Flinty-looking, as you’d expect an auditor to be. Finally, Beauchamp gambles on her, says, “Content,” which surprises Maguire. But then he gets it — the wily old lawyer wants to save a challenge for the last dude in line, a petroleum engineer with Exxon.

  Khan also says he’s content, and Mabel Sims gets sworn. Just as much time is spent worrying over Mrs. Evans, and again Beauchamp finally says, “Content.” Khan wins a smile from her as he welcomes her to the jury.

  Now the jury box awaits a final bum to occupy its twelfth chair. The two businessmen, one in finance, the other in property development, get culled quickly by the defence, and now both Khan and Beauchamp are down to their last challenge.

  The defence lawyers go into a sham huddle over the social studies teacher, a longhair who they’ve got to know gave Facebook likes to the David Suzuki Foundation. The prosecutors don’t like him, but they’re also not keen on the nineteen-year-old knockout who’s next, a U of T pre-med student, Abbie Lee-Yeung, whose Facebook saves were mostly feminist and pro-lesbian.

  Beauchamp says he’s content with the teacher. Now Khan has to decide who he’s going to spend his last challenge on. He doesn’t agonize much — the teacher gets a failing grade, the pretty student gets a pass, with Khan taking a long, fond look at her lovely legs. With no sign of smugness, Beauchamp graciously says he welcomes the youthful energy she will bring to the deliberations.

  And that’s it, that’s the jury. The Exxon engineer never got a look.

  The judge recites an upbeat civics lesson to the jury about their historic role et cetera et cetera, and asks Azra Khan if he has any opening remarks. He’s brief, a ten-minute summary of the plot and how it was carried out, a few bullet points about the manslaughter, and a promise to lay everything out chronologically “with as much clarity as the Crown can muster.”

  Donahue tells the jury they’re not allowed to talk with anyone about the case, except jurors always do. She announces she won’t “countenance any unnecessary delays.” Her court will sit from ten to twelve thirty and two to four thirty and there will be no breaks mid-morning or mid-afternoon, and everyone should keep that in mind “by anticipating physical needs.” She wants everyone back here at two
p.m. on the dot.

  2

  Maguire suggested a nearby tavern. Gaylene suggested a sushi place. Maguire explained he only had a coffee this morning, mediocre at that, and no amount of sushi would fill the void. He finally got his way on something, and they are in the tavern and he’s working on a quarter-pounder with fries.

  “You could at least have gone for the salad option.” Gaylene is being holier-than-thou with her tomato and lettuce on multigrain. “A big, sopping, high-cholesterol burger — I thought you were on a diet plan.”

  “Hey, I already got a wife to nag me about food. She’s got me on a sixty-day diet that only a fanatic would get through to the end. It allows for exceptions, however, like special occasions.”

  She pretends confusion as she looks around this Ye Olde England cliché pub with its Union-Jacketed staff. “This is a special occasion?”

  “Day one of the trial that you and me wrapped up for Azra Khan with a red ribbon on it. Except I don’t see him putting much oomph into it.” Maguire has a whole lot of time for Khan, as a professional, even though he’s vain and snobby and an addicted womanizer.

  Gaylene says, “It’s too easy for him. He’s bored. Or easily distracted. Maybe he’s got issues at home, the wife or the kids.”

  Maguire wonders what’s with her sad face. Maybe she has issues at home. “He’s distracted? That’s why he runs out of challenges and gets stuck with a militant feminist?”

  “Oh, God, a feminist on the jury? We’re doomed.” She steals a fry from his plate.

  “Maybe, Gaylene, you ought to appreciate I have some experience about juries. Feminists make bad jurors, they’re quarrelsome, always arguing the other side. That’s where you get your hung juries. Everyone’s unanimous but them.” He holds up his hand, commanding her to silence as he swallows the last of the burger. “Now normally you want Oriental jurors, they’re old-fashioned, they actually believe in law and order, but this one, Abbie something, she’s third-generation, a millennial, probably a socialist — it’s all the rage. Also she’s a freaking chemistry major, an honours student. I wrote a big red X next to her name.”