Kill All the Judges (40 page)

“Hey, remember how Cud broke Stuffy's jaw outside the old Brig tavern?”

“He wasn't the transgressor, Stuffy was the transgressor, came at him with a tire iron.”

“Shut him up for a while.”

“Good old Cud.”

As they prattled on about that scrap, the calumny about Cuddles and Margaret was buried as if never spoken. Arthur
strove to maintain an unflustered façade, but his face muscles were tight.
After what went on between him and your wife.

Arthur slung his pack on and headed morosely down Eastshore Road, still feeling humiliated by that ugly slur from Stankiewiczs. Forget it, he wasn't going to let it hobble him from mounting a zealous defence for Cudworth. That's not how lawyers must think.

He watched waves curl and flip on a roiling sea, a front quickly moving in, a light sprinkle of snow from the darkening sky. He'll have to drain the water lines. He'll phone Syd-Air, make sure their Friday schedule is in effect. “Can't leave Wentworth in the lurch,” he mumbled. “Sounded a little harassed on the phone.”

Here came Ernst Pound in his RCMP van, stopping, rolling down his window, an anxious look. “I've been sent to fetch you, Mr. Beauchamp. A couple of members from the telecom unit are outside your house with a search warrant. I told them given your prominent status they better not just walk in.”

Arthur climbed in beside him, feeling a little unstuck. The investigators had got in earlier than expected, he hadn't yet armed himself for their coming, hadn't devised a strategy, a way of delaying things.

“I better give you a little heads-up, which I wouldn't except I'm pulling for Margaret and I don't want to see her chances hurt. Seems someone hacked into the Conservative Party address book, got their list of possible donors, big wheels, businessmen, accountants and doctors and law firms and the like, and that chicken plucker spam is coming from your house.”

Arthur tried to collect his thoughts–they had a warrant, there was little wriggle room, they're not likely to buy any bluff.

As they pulled into his driveway, he craned to see if the
Blunderer
was tied up. No, just Icarus plummeting into the surf, a telling, dark metaphor. Stoney and Dog had actually finished
a promised job, setting Icarus into a pedestal of lumpy cement at the tideline.

Then he saw the boat a couple of hundred metres out, putting into the bay. Nick gathering up rod and tackle, his dad at the stern, disappearing below, returning with binoculars.

Snow was falling harder, lightly coating a green sedan in the driveway. Two plainclothes officers, a young man and woman, rose shivering from the porch. The house was unlocked, they might have just walked in. It was a sign they were courteous, respectful.

Not umbrage but courtesy, even affability, was the right tool. Take a lesson from Whynet-Moir–
such a lovely host–
and brazen it out with charm. A broad smile and firm handshake extracted their names, Eloise and Matthew, corporals both, learned in the computer sciences, newly recruited to the telecom unit.

Before they could produce the warrant, Arthur said, “Please come inside, you look chilled to the marrow. Ernst, you as well, you can help set a warm fire.”

“Naw, I got to run, Mr. Beauchamp, sure as shooting there's gonna be all sorts of problems with bald tires in the snow.” He hurried off.

Arthur opened the door wide–nothing to hide here, folks–and ushered the two corporals into the parlour, then excused himself for the kitchen. “Would a hot cocoa go down well?” he called. “Though if you prefer, coffee or tea.”

“Please don't go to any bother,” Eloise called back. He imagined them scanning the room, seeking tools of the culprit's trade. The simmering of the kettle made it hard to hear their talk, but it seemed innocuous: the weather, concern over the ferry cancelling its run.

He looked outside–the boat was nudging the dock. But here was Lavinia at the window, calling: “Is freeze coming, you want I run taps like last time?”

Arthur slid the window up a few inches, spoke in a low, tight voice: “Tell Nick the chicken plucker police are here.”

“Chicken…”

“Plucker. Go, right now. Tell them to stay clear.” He didn't want them trooping in, unready, Nick blurting out something inculpatory.

Returning with three steaming mugs on a tray, he found Matthew crouched before the fire, enjoying the manly pursuit of blowing on lit tinder, while Eloise stared out at the clouds racing in. Being stuck on a storm-tossed rock in the Salish Sea seemed not a fancy they cared to entertain.

The fire took but was slow to warm the parlour, always the coldest room in the house, lacking baseboard heaters. Eloise, after hesitating, as if unsure if regulations allowed it, accepted Arthur's gift of a floppy sweater, draped it over her shoulders. “Front's coming in fast,” he said. “Minus ten tonight, I heard. Last winter the power went out for nine days straight.”

They silently sipped their cocoa. Through a window he could see Lavinia and the Nicks hurrying toward the woofer house.

“Now let's see if I can help you folks. Ernst mentioned something about the Internet. I'm totally bereft of computer skills, I'm afraid, so you'll have to fill me in.”

Matthew explained they were acting on a complaint about political junk messages. Records of the Internet host had been obtained by warrant and the alleged offender traced to Blunder Bay. A charge under the Elections Act of unauthorized political advertising was under review, as was one of mischief involving theft and misuse of telephonic data.

Arthur had never heard of the latter offence, but doubtless it existed, buried in sub-paragraphs of subsections somewhere, and equally doubtless it would be full of holes. But the preferring of any charge would be damage enough.

“And who is the complainant?”

They looked at each other, and both spoke at once: they weren't authorized to say.

“A political organization maybe?” Chip O'Malley's campaign team, for instance. These officers must be aware that they were in the home of his opponent but seemed to regard the matter as too delicate to raise, and they remained mute, merely showed him the warrant.

Arthur studied it. A loophole! The warrant permitted a search of only Arthur's house, not the woofer house. “Oops, looks like you folks have a little problem. The phone line written down here, that's for the neighbouring dwelling, where we pasture our woofers. Young folk from overseas, constantly coming and going, Japan, New Zealand, Finland, all over the map. Well, looks like this warrant has to be amended. Bit of a nuisance, reckon it means another trip back and forth on that old tub of a ferry, if they don't cancel.”

Eloise grinned as if to tell him she was seeing through his crafty spiel. “Well, let's see,” she said, “next boat doesn't go till four-thirty, I reckon.” Mimicking his folksy mannerism. “Guess we have a little time to sit around and jaw with you folks.” She sipped her mug of cocoa, smiling, watching out the window as the Nicks jogged up the woofer driveway. Stow the bullshit, she was saying.

Arthur raised his hands in mock surrender, took a deep breath: “Okay, let's go about this another way. See that boy out there? That's my grandson, he's fourteen. Computers are his passion–as I'm sure they were for both of you at his age. My wife, as you obviously know, is a candidate in next week's federal byelection. She knew nothing about this, nor did I. Nick went tearing off on a secret frolic for which he meant no harm. He doesn't even live here but in Australia with his mother, my daughter, and he's on the cusp of returning there from an extended summer vacation. He's already missed school opening.”

They nodded without expression. “What he did was out of affection for my wife, not malice. Maybe out of a rebellious spirit, but we were all rebellious at that age, weren't we? I don't have to tell
you he can't be brought before the adult courts or that your mischief charge will be embarrassingly difficult to prove. I don't have to tell you that the Charter of Rights permits–indeed exalts–free political speech, and I don't have to tell you that the RCMP won't want to find itself in the inglorious position of seeming to take sides in an election campaign.”

A blast of wind rattled the windows. The snow came in whirling gusts, no longer melting but caking the roofs of outbuildings, driveways, vehicles. The two officers were staring at each other again, neither daring to be the first to speak. Finally, Matthew said, “Wow, look at that snow. Guess there'll be a lot of cars scrambling to get off the island.”

Eloise nodded, handed back the sweater, and rose to lead her partner to the door. “We'd better not miss that old tub of a ferry.” For Arthur, a little wink, like a kiss.

It was an hour later, after lines had been drained and animals sheltered, that Arthur came into Nick's room and caught him teary-eyed on the bed, issuing directives to his humming computer.

“Everything erased?” Arthur sat down with him, propping himself up with a pillow.

“I'm doing a deep dig, cleaning out the register.”

His dad had already talked to him, severe but sincere. Arthur suspected he was suppressing pride in his boy. And in truth it was quite a feat, despite the close call. One could only pray that the repercussions to Margaret's campaign would dissipate.

“Other officers might have mindlessly followed through. We were lucky.”

“I'm sorry. I've been so stupid.”

“You're too bright for your own good. That's a blessing, you'll need to scramble to pick up a few weeks of school.”

Nick wiped an eye, shut down his computer. “It wasn't real hard
to hack in to them. It was sort of an experiment, figuring out how spammers beat the system. I hate spam.”

“Well, you'll never want for a job in cyberspace. Looking forward to getting back?”

“Yeah, but I like it here. I didn't at first. I guess I've been a real headache.”

“We'll always welcome you back.”

A smile came out of nowhere. “Lavinia told me the chicken fuckers were here.”

All day, Arthur had fought off calling Margaret, not wanting to alarm her, to tell her about Nick's escapade–it would be too distracting, could put her off her game in the campaign's critical final days. But he decided to touch base after hearing on the news that the latest poll had her only a whisker behind O'Malley, two points.

He caught her canvassing in Porcupine Bog, so hoarse as to be barely audible.

“Arthur, I'd like you to come to the last all-candidates.” On Saltspring Island, Saturday afternoon, half past one.

“I thought I made you nervous.”

“I'm beyond nervous.” He barely made out the next phrase: “I need you.”

That caused a welling of feelings that for some foolish reason he couldn't translate into words. She
needed
him. The political recluse had been elevated several feet above the level of excess baggage. “Of course I'll be there.”