April Fool (43 page)

Not only does Mr. Beauchamp have the whole joint mesmerized, he looks a little mesmerized himself, it's as if he's forgotten he's in a courtroom and is talking to himself. Sort of like the Owl talking in his sleep. He's squinting into space, jiggling a pencil like a baton.

“Why has she begun writing to Daisy again, after a long lull? Because events have changed. The affair had been furtive, difficult, and finally had to be abandoned. But ephemeral Desirée has since split from her husband, so why were they apart? Yes, this letter to Daisy was a work in progress, begun during the hike. She would have carried on about her disastrous affair with Ruth. And of course this is the same letter Ruth sneaked a peek at.”

This provokes a nod from the assistant prosecutor, who for obvious reasons is called Ears by the other lawyers. He's stopped eating his pencil, he's being swung over by the honey-tongued lawyer.

“No doubt Eve added a note to Daisy about the quarrel, to tell her she was free of Ruth.” He nods to himself, still flicking that pencil. “This is the letter, of course, that mysteriously disappeared from the cottage. Along with a little grey address book with Daisy's address.”

Miss Rudnicki is looking surprised, as if it's the first time she's seen her boss kick it into high gear. The Owl's seen it many times. He did a foolish thing last night with this rookie throat, told her where the Topeka money was hidden. Did he trust her? Not a hell of a lot. She's a lawyer with no fixed address. But in the end he drew her a map of where the cedar-root hollow is. If Flynn hasn't already filched his hard-earned thirty-one grand, Miss Rudnicki can have it.

“Eve doesn't finish her final postscript. The fire, the wine, the lateness of the night have conspired to make her suddenly
quite woozy. She stands, wobbly, makes her way to the bedroom, falls onto the bed. She doesn't know what's going on, she wonders if she's ill.”

For no reason that Faloon can figure, Mr. Beauchamp is now beamed onto Ears. But it's like he's still talking to himself, like he doesn't really see Ears, who is just a leaning post for his eyes, a vacant spot in the room.

“She hears the stairs creaking as the intruder steps heavily down from the loft, she struggles to her feet as she sees him, a bear of a man, making his way swiftly to her. A quick, expert blow to the solar plexus.” Mr. Beauchamp's fist darts forward, and Ears jerks back.

Mr. Beauchamp looks around, it's like he has just returned to the living and is startled to see everyone here. But maybe it was an act, that talking-to-himself stuff. “Wasn't it about a week ago, Mr. Stubb, as the pathologist was on the stand, that you were conscripted to play the role of helpless victim?”

“That's right,” Ears says nervously.

“And do you remember Jasper Flynn coaching Mr. Svabo?” Ears nods. The scene is kind of eerie or surreal, the judge and prosecutor taking the day off work, it's like they've given up, surrendered the courtroom.

Faloon turns to see Mr. Pomeroy at the door, bringing an extra chair. But not for him, it's for a lady with him, thin, snow-white skin, real good-looking for middle age. Faloon thinks he's seen her on television…Mr. Beauchamp's wife, that's it.

Pomeroy sets her up at the back, then takes one of the reserved seats for lawyers.

The great defenceman doesn't notice any of this because he's reading the croaker's testimony aloud, about the victim's lower abdomen being bruised, and how a hard shot could've incapacitated her.

“I won't ask Mr. Svabo to repeat his graphic performance of straddling the victim and kneeling on her wrists, but that's exactly how it happened, isn't it? The prosecutor put it
dramatically enough…” Another line from the transcript. “‘And her horrible nightmare ends when he stuffs the panties down her throat.' Is that how you remember it, sergeant?”

“I wasn't there.” Sounding like he has to honk something out of his throat. “You don't have it right, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“Yes, pardon me, I have missed something. Your firearm. Your service revolver, I presume. What is it, a Smith 9 mm, I believe.”

Flynn clams up again, combs his fingernails through his mighty 'stache.

“Eve Winters chipped a front tooth.” Mr. Beauchamp raises his voice so loud you can almost hear the fixtures rattle. “Because she bit on the gun barrel! Because you used it to ram her panties down her throat!”

Flynn suddenly tenses and cranes forward, like he's going to bolt out of here. But no, he's looking to his left, the door of the judge's chambers, it's opening, someone's coming through it. It's that sad sack, the humiliated clerk, Gilbert.

Faloon jerks upright. Emergency. Red alert. Gilbert's got a heater and he's pointing it at the Chief Justice with two shaking hands. Flynn jumps up, roaring. “Everyone
down
!”

Gilbert takes a step back, swings the piece around, it's a snub, a belly gun, and as Flynn lunges at him,
crack
, he fires. Flynn's big body jerks as the bullet hits, but his momentum knocks Gilbert down, who disappears under him, only his hands and feet showing.

Is Faloon hallucinating? Did he just see Jasper Flynn get one in the chest? All the people yelling and shrieking and running for the exit tell him he's not in some sleepwalk nightmare, this bedlam is real.

Mr. Svabo has picked up the snub, and a couple of sheriffs are clawing Flynn off Gilbert. The jury is being hustled out, but one of them doesn't want to go, he's protesting, he doesn't want to be dragged away from this action movie. Though it looks like the last reel for Flynn, the way he's so still.

The top half of the judge's head can be seen from behind his desk, like Kilroy, just his eyes and nose. Emerging from under the counsel table come Mr. Pomeroy and Ears. But Miss Rudnicki is standing on a chair so she can see better. Sad to say, because it doesn't look very heroic, Mr. Beauchamp is suddenly making a late break for the exit, scrambling off to the back, gown flapping, climbing over a row of seats, shouldering his way through the spectators.

Cops come rushing in from a trial down the hall. Sheriffs are trying to clear the courtroom, but nobody cares a hoot about the Owl, the forgotten but totally innocent outlaw. Former outlaw, because the Owl has been inspired to make a resolution. He is going to go straight after this traumatic event. No, wait, the resolution will kick in after he digs up his fortune.

He closes his eyes, tries to replay the scene slower. He can see, on rerun, how Gilbert acted almost instinctively, like you'd do if you're jumped by a bear. But he can also see how the copper may have wanted a bullet. The cross-examination that kills. He hopes Mr. Beauchamp doesn't see it that way, it could give him bad dreams.

But where
is
his counsellor? There he is, and the Owl is ashamed for thinking he was running off like a coward. He's framed in the sunlight pouring through the big window at the back. He and his lady have their arms around each other. Tight. Real tight.

 

33

W
hen Arthur shows up for his mail, he finds Nelson Forbish stuffing the latest
Bleat
into the boxes. Makepeace comes grumbling from the far reaches of the store, shooed away by Winnie Gillicuddy. “Just leave me alone to look,” she calls.

There's no room for the postmaster behind the counter, the local news anchor fills every inch of space. Arthur forks over a dollar for a
Bleat
, and Nelson leans to his ear. “I have it from a reliable source that Todd Clearihue has a fetish for diapers. Wears them to bed.”

“Who might this source be?”

“Not just some gullible person. A hotshot columnist from the mainstream media.”

“Nelson, it's a joke.”

“Oh.”

Arthur takes his
Bleat
to the lounge, draws a coffee. Here's a picture of the town tonsil, walking from the ferry arm in arm with the mistress of Blunder Bay. In exuberant typeface: “Welcome back, Mr. Beauchamp! He may be a famous lawyer to some, but he's just a goat farmer to us.”

A goat farmer with the dazed look of a war refugee being led to a resettlement area. Margaret maintains a tight grip on his arm, but has her face to the sun, soaking it in–Arthur was shocked at how pale was the revenant wife after two and a half months of unremitting shade.

The picture was snapped the morning after a .32-calibre bullet ended a life and a trial for murder. Not truly a trial but an elaborate sham, a nightmarish construction, brilliantly conceived–except for the flaw: an unforeseen DNA profile in Exhibit 52. In the end, Flynn was heroic or suicidal or both. Wilbur Kroop, in the face of mutterings he was provocateur to this violent scene, has taken sick leave.

Arthur left it up to Brian to sweep up the debris from the aborted trial, and he was in top form, working Kroop like a horse broken to saddle and bridle, prevailing on him to bring the jury back the next day for a directed verdict of not guilty. Forewoman Sueda was overheard to mutter, “I should hope so.” The burglary charges are to be stayed. As a small gesture toward saving Her Majesty's face, Faloon will plead guilty to escape in return for three months of imprisonment, less time spent in custody.

It is Desirée Flynn who is forced to feed the media's untiring appetite for this story of same-sex seduction and the homicidal vengeance of a cuckolded cop. Her two sons are under intense emotional pressure, and she has taken them to Montreal to stay with her sister until the uproar exhausts itself. Arthur finally saw her image on the news, she and her boys being escorted by her glum fiancé into the airport. Slender, strawberry blond, wide startled eyes. Not a hint of trailer trashiness.

The lounge hosts only a few idlers today, one of them Cudworth Brown, buying drinks, celebrating an arts grant. “Twelve thousand clams, Arthur. This keeps rolling in, I can afford to get off this fucking rock. You getting it on okay with your old lady?”

“I'm flattered to know my love life is of such interest, Cud.”

“Hey, man, just curious. She was pissed you weren't there for her big exit.”

If the truth be told–and it won't be told here, in a bootlegger's bar–the doornail didn't need the Viagra. Somehow all the unruly emotions of the day got the blood flowing, and
though the two lovers might not have matched, in acrobatic skill, the nuptial display of eagles, they were well fuelled by pent-up desire. Five stars.

They talked through the night. (“I'm supposed to throw leaflets from a hot-air balloon? Of course I love you.”) They laughed, relived their time apart, the oddball things that happened. He has decided she probably does care for him deeply. But he senses demands, subtle and unspoken. He knows he has to perform. Not physically, thank God. Politically. In court. Her hero saved Faloon, now he must save Gwendolyn.

Nelson finally gives way to Makepeace, who weeds out the offers and fliers, and deals the legitimate mail like playing cards. “Invitation from Flim Flam Films to a screening.”

Cud Brown from the lounge: “I put them in touch with the Sundance Film Festival. I told them to use my name.”

“Postcard from Melbourne, your grandson's coming to visit. This here letter with the political sticker is from your friend Lotis. ‘Be Tribal, Buy Local, No Logo.' What's that mean?”

Arthur doesn't know. How does one be tribal? He doesn't open Lotis's letter, he doesn't want to. Inexplicably, he fears it. Why would she write him? She has a phone.

As he strolls up Potter's Road, his own phone rings, with the sound of chimes–he is no longer anyone's sunshine. It's Brian, asking if he cares to hear the latest insight from Lila Chow-Thomas.

“Not really.” Brian frightened Arthur with his marriage tribulations, inflamed his condition, the Annabelle Syndrome. He was too ashamed to mention his jealous imaginings to Margaret, she would have been insulted.
My God, Arthur, did you think you married a whore?

“She says we've got to stop one-upping each other, we enjoy the drama of conflict too much, the theatre of marriage. We've begun dating, by the way. I'm feeling great, off the booze forever this time, plus I found out who pulled the panties prank. A secretary with whom, regrettably, I'd shared a weak
moment. News from another front: I'm now formally retained by Gilbert Gilbert.”

“How did that happen?”

“I gave my card to him as they were taking him away, before some other shyster could get his mitts on him. He's impregnable. No jury will convict him.”

“Your confidence is admirable.”

“Jasper didn't strike him, didn't try to knock the gun askew. He walked into the bullet. Ergo, it's a suicide not a murder.”

If you've destroyed my marriage, Flynn, I hope you roast in hell!
Well he may, but Arthur refuses to allow that to sit on his conscience. One person's death can never atone for another's. Suicide can never atone for grisly murder. Flynn knew he would never earn parole after so deliberate a slaying. He escaped a living hell, took his chance that a last brave act might rescue his reputation if not his soul.

“Add to that, Jasper jostled him so hard the gun went off. Accident. Lack of intent. Insanity. Self-defence. Necessity. I've got a cornucopia of defences. Got to go. Good luck in Ottawa.” Where Arthur is to argue next week before the nation's court of final appeal. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the welter of injunctions and cross-injunctions,
Garlinc versus Gwendolyn
,
Gwendolyn versus Garlinc
.

The arguments are complex: misrepresentation, equitable estoppel, breach of contract, unjust enrichment. But the event Arthur is gambling on is a simple handshake, witnessed, admitted by the defaulter. Ancient law demands that land deals be in writing. But if placing one's initials on a scrap of paper binds the parties, why shouldn't a vigorous handshake?

Undressed, stripped of verbiage, the issue is really about saving one of the few clumps of beauty left in the world, a microscopic green dot on a global map…And how do you express that to a high court panel?

Arthur clumps past his gate to be greeted by a now familiar, unlovely sight. Six feet of water, a lumpy hill of clay, and
a backhoe wanted by the law–these make up the abandoned engineering works of Island Landscraping. It's been noted that Stoney is a little soft on Kim Lee, and crafty Margaret intends to use that as a lever to get him to finish the job. Maybe he'll even let Arthur have the Fargo back for a while.

He enters his garden under hanging tentacles of wisteria, in riotous bloom on the trellis. There is much work to be done, that last row of beets may be beyond salvaging. He sits on the garden bench and examines Lotis's letter. Postmarked Port Alberni. What's she doing on Vancouver Island?

 

I don't do well at goodbyes, Cyrano. I made such a weepy, soggy mess of it with Selwyn yesterday that I can't bear a repeat. Especially with you, you lovely grumpy man. Can't find words to tell you what a pleasure it was working with you. It's been real, Arthur. I mean it. Realer than you can imagine. I'm going to do some travelling, rouse a little rabble here and there. Next stop, Tokyo, where the IMF will feel my wrath, I've been asked to help co-ordinate the protest. It's your baby now whether Gwendolyn lives or dies. Love and solidarity. Good luck in front of the Supremes.

 

Whoa, just like that, the Woofering Morningstar flutters off. Arthur is rather shocked by his distress. Somewhat like a father who sees his wild daughter leave home, he feels a little cheated, wishes he'd tried harder to understand her.
Many a time have great friendships sprung from bad beginnings.
On first meeting, he quoted that to her, in Latin. The hippie nymph immediately saw through the pompous dead-tongue rapper.

No return address. She left a few things at Bungle Bay, so he imagines she'll come back. He's going to worry. She hitchhikes everywhere, it's risky…

He sighs, looks squint-eyed at his thistles, ambles to the house to get into his coveralls. Margaret's in the kitchen, on the phone to Deborah in Melbourne, catching her up. “You couldn't
walk
into the laundry room. And of course he let Stoney loose in the yard. It looks like a damn
bomb
hit. I've ordered him and Dog to get their lazy asses back and finish the job or they're mud on this island…No, Arthur's incapable of dealing with those characters, they know how to get by him.”

She's hasn't noticed him. Curried chicken tonight, the good smells are back.

“I don't dare wear it on the farm, I can't imagine
what
possessed him…” She's referring to the Piaget watch, the one Freddy Jacoby assured him wasn't hot. “Oh, you don't really think
that
…Arthur wouldn't have anything to feel guilty about…Lotis? Coming on to
Arthur
?” Helpless laughter. “Oh, he probably had thoughts, but you know him. Anyway, she said he reminded her of her favourite old pontificating uncle.”

That, in the end, is how the pixie remembers him. Another Falstaff:
that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that vanity in years
.

“No, they're not cutting yet, Deb, it's still in court. It's all up to Arthur now. I'm packing him off to Ottawa next week.”

Pressure? What pressure? Arthur doesn't feel pressure.

She spots him. “Darling, can you call Reverend Al?”

He does that in his garden while thinning carrots. Al exults: “Cheese and crackers got all muddy, we've gone over the top.” He means, Jesus Christ, God almighty, the Gwendolyn Society doesn't have to borrow. The public furor over Garlinc's attempt to reneg has brought in a spurt of donations.

All that remains is for Arthur to win over the Supreme Court of Canada. “We're not out of the woods yet,” is how Zoller put it.

“A strange gift, anonymous, showed up this morning in the donations slot of St. John's church in Alberni,” Al says. “Labelled ‘For the Save Gwendolyn Society.' Thirty-one thousand smackers U.S. in a zip-lock bag. Can you see any, ah, ethical situation arising?”

“A gift from the heavens, Reverend Al. A gift from the heavens.”