“As I say, my views have, ah, matured.”
“You were wrong. Can you admit that?”
“I was wrong. As it turned out.”
“Thank you. Last year you appeared on a major U.S. network called Fox News, commenting on a United Nations report that excoriated the major pesticide manufacturers for their, quote, ‘systematic denial of harms,’ ‘aggressive, unethical marketing tactics,’ and heavy lobbying of governments, all of which ‘have obstructed reforms and paralyzed global pesticide restrictions.’ Do you recall how you characterized that report?”
“I may have used some firm language.”
“Would you like us to play back your words?”
“I believe I described the UN report as alarmist anti-corporate propaganda from the bloated bureaucracy of a once respected international institution.”
“And you’re aware that caught the eye of the U.S. president?”
“I believe he tweeted his approval.”
Arthur catches several jurors making faces, reflecting Mr. Trump’s dismal approval rating in Canada.
“I assume, Dr. Easling, that you are familiar with PLOS One, the online journal of the Public Library of Science.”
“It’s well known, yes. Fairly well respected.”
“You’re familiar with its recently published study on neonics?”
“I can’t say, to be honest . . . they publish thousands of studies.”
Arthur hands him a printout. “Just last year. Surely you’ve read it.” Said with a slight tone of astonishment.
“Well, my schedule has been hectic.”
“Understandable, with all your appearances in public and on the media. Here’s the abstract on the first page, you can read along with me. It says that since neonics became widely used in the mid-2000s, American agriculture has become forty-eight times more toxic to insect life. That’s because neonics don’t break down like other insecticides; they persist in the environment for years.”
“Was this peer-reviewed?”
“It was.”
“I’m afraid I can’t comment without further study.”
“But you wouldn’t categorize it as typical alarmist anti-corporate drivel?”
“I suppose . . . No.”
“Okay, maybe you can comment on the recent UN warning that unless we clean up our act insects will be extinct within a hundred years. Do you regard that as alarmist anti-corporate propaganda?”
“I regard that as an extreme view.”
“You’ve been wrong before though, haven’t you?”
Easling’s struggle to respond is manifest, his face screwing into one massive frown. But it’s four thirty, so Arthur will not get to hear his answer. His flight to Missouri leaves at nine a.m., so he’s through with Easling, but Nancy will want to take a few more shots at him.
Donahue recites the mantra about not discussing the evidence, then bolts as if her bladder is on fire.
Easling straightens tie and jacket, reassembling himself, knowing he will have to survive the gauntlet of press outside. He catches Ariana Van Doorn’s eye, and mimes getting his throat cut. Arthur finds that bravely non-egoistic for a change.
“I render him unto you, my dear,” he tells Nancy. “Have at him.”
“Nothing more to do but dispose of the remains. Never follow a dog act, they say.” She collects the clients, boldly takes Doc’s arm, places it around her waist. The alleged hypochondriac offers no resistance.
Rivie Levitsky turns on her way out, blows Arthur a kiss, and flashes five fingers. Five out of five. He knows she’s exaggerating, but he held his own battling on the enemy’s turf.
Now approaches Azra Khan, whose proposal for a quiet tête-à-tête has morphed into an offer for early dinner at his favourite restaurant before he visits his dying mother.
3
Khan barely seems aware of the fawning going on about him, the maître d’ effusively escorting them to the best table, the servers scampering about them like puppies. In the fashion of a kindly prince, Khan asks after their health and their families. He can speak a passable Afghan Persian.
Arthur now understands why this restaurant, the Kabul, is his favourite. Not that the food is bad — the curried lamb is quite tasty.
Azra doesn’t come quickly to the reason for this meeting but Arthur suspects he is angling for a deal, maybe on sentence, two or three years maximum. There’s little chance his prideful crew of idealists would accept that. Or instruct him to negotiate.
But if it’s about a deal, why isn’t Khan bringing Nancy in on it? The answer to what he seeks may hide in the fat brown briefcase that sits by his feet.
“I must say, Arthur, you’ve done a superb job turning the trial into a prosecution of Chemican. It’s rather like blaming the assault victim for the crime, isn’t it? Then you left Jerod Easling sucking air. Now we must pull out the stops and plug all the holes.”
“One of those holes seems to be your prime witness.”
“Howie Griffin. He is indeed a hole.”
“A clenched one, I gather.”
Khan snorts into his tea, alarming the server picking up their plates. “He has a lawyer, as I suppose you know.”
“I know Nancy advised him to retain counsel.”
“Greta Adelsen, who articled under her five years ago. She has gagged him, but I have to put him on the stand nonetheless. I can have him declared a hostile witness, I suppose, if he claims head office instructed him to dupe some starry-eyed radicals into raiding the Sarnia plant for the insurance. Arthur, that has to rank as the reddest herring in the history of the criminal courts.”
A tray of cakes and cheeses arrives. More tea is poured. Azra orders a brandy.
“I’m driving, so just one,” he tells Arthur. “But it helps soften the pain.”
“It’s a difficult time for you, Azra. I’m so sorry. You have other family helping, I hope.”
“Brother, sister, my wife. Her own sister has flown in from Lahore.”
Khan clears a clogged throat. “Sorry, back to business. Clearly, we have three of your clients — Knutsen, Lucy Wales, Joe Meekes — in possession of stolen documents. Caught in the act of uploading them. The break and entry, however, offers problems—we may not be able to show beyond a reasonable doubt that each and every accused was actually in the plant. Except Wozniak, of course.”
So it does appear Khan seeks a plea bargain. The trial and his mother’s grave condition have worn him down. Arthur must now play hard to get. Probation, fines: Are they in the realm of possibility?
“Without a cooperating witness in Howie Griffin our case against Ms. Levitsky gets especially wobbly. Their computer nerd seems to have erased every image, every bit and byte she copied from Howie’s office-in-home. We can’t place her in Sarnia at all. She wasn’t among those seen at the gas stop at Hickory Corner. Her footprint in Griffin’s discharge means what? So she brought him off in his office. They went to it on the floor, who knows?”
Arthur finds that image most unsavoury. He refuses to imagine his spunky second-floor tenant in lewd coition with the enemy. Her true version is jarring enough.
Khan continues: “She’s been coy in her public interviews about whether she drugged him, but that’s obvious. She admits engaging with him physically, in the vaguest of terms, but that’s more than Howie remembers, even though he woke up in a sea of sperm. You’ve seen Maguire’s paltry interview notes — Howie gave him nothing. Maybe purposefully, maybe because he’d been stupefied by drink and testosterone.”
“Do you really have anything on Rivie? She may have looked in Howie’s drawers, as it were, but she stole nothing from him but his pride.”
“We have her on uttering a forged passport.” Khan shrugs. “Okay, small potatoes. You could solve my problem by calling her so I could have a go at her, but why would you?”
/> “A good question, Azra.”
Arthur is in a dilemma over having his clients testify. Yes, they could enhance the necessity defence, give it focus, a personal touch. But they would have to admit they conspired. They would thereby supply the proof Khan seeks, proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they burgled the Chemican plant. As well, Khan’s cross-examinations would cause the flimsy structures of Arthur’s various red herrings to come crashing down.
Even worse, at least for Nancy’s clients, those cross-examinations would yield proof that Ivor Trebiloff and Amy Snider had aided the conspiracy. Nancy has been pressing Arthur not to put the five others on the stand, to stick with the experts only.
“So what do you propose?” Arthur asks.
Khan goes into the brown briefcase, pulls out a thick binder. “Levitsky shot her mouth off all over town justifying her actions. So did a few others, particularly Knutsen.”
Arthur has to wear that. It was Selwyn Loo’s idea, to enhance the necessity issue, portray the clients as authentic, true to themselves, not cowards hiding behind their constitutional right to silence. The chickens have now come to roost.
The binder is full of clippings, maybe a hundred. From several international dailies and magazines — New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Walrus, Toronto Life — and transcriptions from radio and TV broadcasts, plus a hard drive, presumably with video and audio interviews.
“I’m not comfortable subpoenaing journalists, Arthur. They resent the appearance of not being objective — the Crown is sensitive to that — and it also means extra days of trial. But let me tell you, my friend, I’ll be damned if I’m going to crawl from the courtroom like a well-used doormat.”
Arthur’s bemused look as he tries to picture a crawling doormat seems to set Azra off: “Please don’t suffer any misapprehension about my determination to see your clients not just fairly convicted but sentenced in a way that sends a loud message to wannabe do-gooders who arrogantly believe they’re above the law. I intend to go flat out to win this goddamn trial.”
The serving staff may not have heard Khan’s words, but they seem disturbed by the force field he projected. So much for Arthur’s notion that a deal was on the agenda.
Khan swallows the last of his brandy, ruefully shakes his head. “Terribly sorry for the outburst, I’m under a bit of strain. It’s an old briefcase, you can keep it.” He returns the binder to it.
Arthur sees an upside to Khan’s proposal, but keeps that to himself. “No one wants to rankle the media, Azra, and it would be impolite were I to say it’s your problem . . .” Arthur raises a finger, announcing he has a thought. “Dare I propose a quid pro quo? Might you be willing to surrender your right to have last go at the jury?”
“The closing addresses?”
“It’s not carved in stone that the Crown closes last. In any event the judge will have the last word with the jury, and she won’t exactly be cheering our side on.”
Khan manages a wry smile. “I think we can live with that.”
“Then let’s see if we can agree which interviews will be admitted.”
“Yes. Yes.” He’s heartier now. “That’s what I was hoping. Nothing in them diminishes your necessity defence. Oh, and you might tell Nancy that her two clients aren’t affected. Mr. Trebiloff and Ms. Snider were circumspect about their roles, as well they should have been.”
He picks up the bill, waving off Arthur’s feeble protests. “Please allow me to drop you off.”
Arthur declines, says he enjoys his twice-daily walks.
“I understand you’re sheltering Ms. Levitsky in Punky Kiefer’s house. Widely respected con artist, that fellow. Nancy did very well to get him two less a day.”
“I’d rather it not be widely known we’re there.”
“Of course. The obnoxious fanatic who targeted Levitsky. I hear the Police Service have a make on him.”
“Donald Stumpit, über-lieutenant in the Final Reich. He’s on the run, but I worry. It’s not in an obsessive’s nature to give up, is it?”
By now they are outside, a crisp, bright evening. Khan pauses at the door of his Lexus.
“Sharing quarters with that young woman doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”
“Why should it?”
“A bit of a conniver, isn’t she? Levitsky and fellow traveller Lucy Wales think it’s quite a lark to follow me around during lunch breaks. Up and down the escalator, out in the square.”
“Maybe they’ve taken a fancy to you, Azra.”
That is met with a sardonic grunt. Arthur heads off down Ossington with the brown briefcase. Nothing in these interviews diminishes your necessity defence. Could they even enhance it? More importantly, could they save the Sarnia Seven from the hazards of the witness stand?
Arthur will pore through the clippings tomorrow, Friday, on his hopscotch flight to Joplin, Missouri, to meet with Judge W.W. Squirely and, hopefully, Charles Arnold Dover.
4
Friday, May 24
After enduring the obstacle course that flying has become — lineups, multiple security checks — Arthur has arrived in the pleasant little city of Joplin in the heartland of the USA. It’s early afternoon as his taxi drops him in front of a single-storey building with Doric columns. It looks like a minor Greek temple, or maybe a miniature courthouse.
It’s actually the law office of W.W. Squirely, who’s known locally as Judge Squirely, though he was voted out of office seventeen years ago. Admirably, he’s still practising at ninety-three, though he’s likely a souse — he was calling out drunkenly as Nancy spoke to Cherry, his bossy secretary. That was at three in the afternoon.
Cherry has since persuaded the judge, or bullied him, to give audience to Arthur. She seemed confident that Charles Dover will also agree to see him.
A sign inside the door window says the judge is in. An older couple in the waiting room nod and smile at him. There’s no receptionist. Various awards and tributes from service clubs festoon a wall. Photos of Squirely presiding in court. This seems a man lost in the past.
A printer chatters from somewhere, and presently a large, shapeless woman emerges from an office with several stapled sheets, and loudly greets him. “I looked you up on Google, Arthur Ramsgate Bo-champ. Famous criminal counsel from up in Canada. Don’t tell the judge you’re a teetotaller, he won’t respect you.”
“If it will make him feel better I used to be an infamous drunk.”
Cherry calls the couple over to the reception desk, hands them pens. “Sign here, here, and here.”
“The judge says this is all right?” says the husband.
“Stanley, he wrote it out, why wouldn’t it be all right? You take possession soon as you clear it with the bank.” They hurry off.
Arthur asks, “How long have you been working for the judge?”
“Ever since he stopped being one in 2004.”
“What is it he can do that you can’t?”
“Write his signature, that’s about it.”
A loud, raspy query from down the hall: “Why are we working on Saturday?”
Cherry shouts back: “Because it’s Friday, you dimwit. I’m gonna bring in that lawyer from Canada wants to meet you.”
“Would I be guessing right, Cherry, that the judge may be suffering a little dementia?”
“Between you and me, his engine tends to miss a lot.”
“Even though it’s well lubricated? Fills his tank with premium, I gather.”
She smiles, pleased that he can loosen up and banter with her. “You want to catch him before he wets his first whistle, and that’s about now, after lunch. He’s real good at nodding and smiling when I bring clients in. I do most of the talking.”
She goes to a bank of old metal filing cabinets, bends with difficulty, pulls out a folder about six inches thick. “Charlie Dover. This was the judge’s first big case
after the voters gave him the boot. I was pretty green myself then — my only experience with the law was being his mistress for the previous ten years. Still help the old boy out sometimes. Anyway, I felt real bad about Charlie Dover. He got shafted. Doctors said his condition would go away and it never did. Settled for only two hundred grand, and that’s all gone now.”
She hefts the file onto the reception desk, then locks the front door and flips the sign so clients will know the judge is out.
“I need you to understand, Mr. Bo-Champ—”
“Please call me Arthur.”
“I will, that’s real friendly.” She sizes him up. “We can get friendlier. You staying the night?”
“Ah, no, I have a flight to catch at eight.”
“Charlie will be along at four when he’s off work.”
“That’s fine. What work does he do?”
“Admitting office at the hospital. A desk job — he gets lost easy so he has to stay put. Lives with his twin sister, a radiologist.”
The judge roars again: “Operator? Operator? Gaw-damn, get me long-distance!”
Cherry ignores that. “I’m leery to give you this file because of the non-disclosure, which as I read it means Chemican could sue me for double the two hundred thousand.”
“Well, Cherry, I’m pretty sure the non-disclosure clause only applies to discussing the amount of the settlement.” She has already breached it, but no matter, she means well. “Maybe you can let me have a quick peek just to confirm that.”
A louder roar: “Where’d you hide my Jack?” From the office, scowling and brandishing a cane, steps a stooped old fellow with a bloom of snow-white whiskers.
Cherry yells: “You go set your scrawny ass back down and I’ll get you your fucking Jack. We got a distinguished visitor here to talk about Charlie Dover’s case.”
Cherry shepherds him away, pausing to reach behind a bookshelf for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
The Dover-Chemican file is conveniently open to the settlement deed, and Arthur can’t avoid taking his quick peek. The $200,000 settlement and the $400,000 disclosure penalty are stated in clear language but there’s no bar against discussing the claim in general. As well, the standard exception applies: “Subject to a ruling of a court of competent jurisdiction.”
Stung Page 46
