Kill All the Judges (42 page)

A TRAGEDY OF JUSTICE

W
entworth held fast to one of the westbound lanes on Sixth Avenue, the tires of his Outback 310 spitting slush on his pants and boots. He was cold, his patched sheepskin jacket bringing little comfort, his feet and ankles sopping. Mindless of the traffic he'd backed up, he was finally forced into six inches of snow by an impatient driver. He stopped, wiped his goggles. Don't be a traffic fatality on this day of all days.

His dreams of glory were to be tested by a live audience this morning. Wentworth Chance gets his turn to show his mettle in swordplay with the chief justice–assuming he's good to go today. If he's still ill, another recess, giving the boss time to get back and ruin Wentworth's debut. But when weighed, his dreams were jokes, he was terrified of Kroop, terrified of screwing up–Arthur had
better
make it back, if not for Philomène and Rashid, then for Astrid Leich, next on deck. How long could he spin things out for?

What was he supposed to do with the LeGrand affidavit? Why had the boss cancelled LeGrand's subpoena? Also bugging him was that he blew yesterday's interview with Cudworth, who'd been a jerk, thinking he was wily, but just slippery, proposing unlikely scripts, none saleable. “I'll chew on it, give you a fresh draft in la
mañana
,” he'd said as he walked to the door with a crooked back. “I got to get some painkiller.”

The sidewalk had been cleared the next few blocks, so he risked
a ticket, darting around pedestrians all the way to the Cambie Bridge, across it, then downhill to Gastown.

A sign behind the bicycle rack read, “The Gastown Riot is closed until further notice.” A window cracked and taped. Inside, a custodian cleaning up, a guitar with a broken fretboard leaning against a broken chair, a bashed-in drum. Wentworth had worked in the office till ten last night, undisturbed. He'd even been able to take a nap, despite his fearful anticipation of this day.

The staff hadn't arrived yet, but Brovak was in the library, looking up law–a chore so rare that Wentworth gaped. Brovak was dressed in black, as if in mourning. The room smelled of stale cigar smoke, a stogie in the ashtray.

“Hey, kid, what happens to an appeal when one of the judges is rendered combat ineffective?”

“Like what, sick?”

“Bertha Rudweiler has gone to a better world. Acute salmonellosis complicated by choking on her upwardly mobile stomach contents.”

“Oh, my God.” Wentworth sat, feeling shaken, queasy.
Another judge will die.
Wentworth had read somewhere that mentally ill persons were often prescient. He shuddered. Another unnatural death of a judge unloved by the criminal bar. If the canard à l'orange had been poisoned, John Brovak was a likely suspect…

“I've still got two live ones on the panel.”

“They'll have to start over. Section 13, Appeal Court Act.”

“Dearie me, that'll take a year to set up. Now my poor lads must be released on bail. I hear the Badger is off the endangered list, kid. Watch he doesn't take you off at the knees; you're high on his hit list. Hey, that Haley, man, she wouldn't stop. Great view from her suite when you come up for air.”

Brovak rose, groaned, reached for his stogie–he was having trouble moving, it looked like a severe hangover. When he lit up Wentworth began to hiccup.

The receptionist peaked in, with the mail and newspapers. “Wentworth, you've had several calls from the media.”

“Later, I've got a zillion things.” Hic.

“Maybe you want to look at this.”

She left him the
Province
, with its loud, accusatory question: “Multi-million Bribe for Judgeship?” A subhead: “Parliament in Uproar.” One photo depicted LeGrand's affidavit, another the cover page, legibly signed by one Wentworth Chance. The hiccupping accelerated. The enterprising editor of the Garibaldi newsweekly quoted Arthur as saying, “This is a very delicate matter.”

He pulled a bottle of Zap from his pack, drank slowly. Ten seconds later, another hiccup.

Brovak yawned, limped to his sofa. “Put up the don't disturb; I need an hour's kip. When are you going to bring in some bread, kid? Pomeroy's five-star hospice is draining the general account, and I'm up to the knuckle with spousal payments.” He closed his eyes.

Wentworth mentioned the Vogel receivable of $30,000.

“Maybe it's time to reconsider that raise you promised five years ago.”

“We'll have a partners' meeting over it. Augie's winging in from Thailand today. Max won't be long behind.”

“He's in Europe for the next three months.”

“I'm on your side, kid, count on me.” He rolled over, tucked a cushion beneath his head.

“One at a time, please. Yes, you, in the grey fedora.” “Mr. Chance, can you tell us how you were able to trace the suspect?” “Pecker tracks, gentlemen. Next?” “Sedgwick,
New York Post.
Does it bother you, sir, that you worked in the same office with this pervert?” “It would be wrong for me to let personal feelings…”

The picture shattered as Wentworth, his hiccups coming like
clockwork, pedalled around Nelson Street to the law courts entrance, where a pack of reporters was waiting. Maybe they won't recognize him in helmet and goggles, he'll try to slip past them. And he did, sneaking into the entrance hall. But then: “Yo, Wentworth.” Charles Loobie.

“Pressed for time, Charles.”

“One question: what's going to be your strategy when Kroop goes berserk?”

“Do I look worried?” Hic. When he was tense, like now, they sometimes went on for hours. Something about an oversensitive glottis, a doctor had told him.

“I got a remedy for those,” Loobie said.

“Tried them all.”

“Stand on your head for two minutes sipping soda water through a straw…”

“Got to run.” Wentworth had a remedy for Loobie. Imprisonment. Where was he on October 13? In the lounge he took some water down slowly. Thirty seconds passed. Hic.

In the locker room, he removed his wet trousers, borrowed an ill-fitting pair from the firm's locker. Pomeroy's; he recognized the gaily coloured suspenders. After robing, he made his way to gallery six, where a dozen firstcomers were lined up outside court 67 to stake claims on prime seats. The witness-room door was ajar, and he could see Abigail with Astrid Leich, who was saying, “Oh, yes, I'm quite certain…” Abigail, looking queasy, closed the door on him.

Haley was in an interview room with Florenza LeGrand, who was wearing tons of eye shadow, wrapped cellophane-tight in something she hadn't bought at Dress Mart. Gold locket, an emerald ring where once there'd been an opal. She was ignoring Haley, reading a glossy. Silent Shawn was in a corner chair, his thumbs hooked into his braces. “We're busy,” he said.

Flo studied Wentworth's ill-fitting robes, looked down at where his pant cuffs ended above his ankles. “Cute outfit, Wentworth.”
She knew his name! She rose languidly, as if stoned, pulled her Gitanes from her bag, slung on her coat, and brushed past him, too close for comfort. He smelled something earthy, spicy, exotic.

Shawn rose with a groan and followed his client. “Bye-bye,” Haley said icily, and turned to Wentworth, making like she was holding a pistol on him. “Kroop's back.” She aimed, squeezed the trigger.

“I hope Brovak warned you about the diagnosis.”

“What do you mean?”

“Scabies venerealis. Antibiotics don't help.” Hic.

“I've got a remedy for those. Stick your head in a bucket of ice water and hold your breath for fifteen minutes.”

He walked off. The perfect line would come too late, after he replayed the scene, recasting himself as master of the pointed barb. He could see Florenza below, leaving. She almost bumped into Cud and Felicity coming in. It looked like he said something to her as she paused to light up. She smiled, waved, floated down the street. Shawn watched through the glass, coatless, unwilling to test the weather outside.

Felicity, obviously in one of her pouts, overtook Cud at the top of the stairs, went straight to Wentworth. “He called her ‘Goddess.' It was totally not cool, and embarrassing.”

Cud shrugged from his poncho. “‘Keep them guessing, Goddess,' that's what I said. A message. I'm saying, Hey, baby, we're in this together, let's pull together.”

“She gave me this smirk.”

“I'm sorry, but that lady and I share a little past, one hot night on the same wavelength; she reads me, I read her. Where's Arthur?”

“He asked me to handle a few minor witnesses until he gets here.”

“No way, man, we hold everything off until he shows. You don't have the experience, Woodward.”

“Oh, you are
so
insulting,” Felicity said, and turned to Wentworth. “He doesn't mean that, honestly.”

“No offence, but Arthur's the guy I personally hired. I'm wondering if he ain't taking this case serious enough. Maybe he's decided it's a duck shoot, he doesn't want the jury thinking he has to bust his ass over it. That how you see it?”

Wentworth answered with a hiccup, a stray one. They were letting up.

“I use a tablespoon of Alka-Seltzer with honey,” said Felicity, who'd morphed into a better humour. “Oh, you should've been with us last night, Mr. Chance, when the power went out. Cud had to do a reading by candlelight in the Cinco de Mayo Bar and Grill. It was, like, transcendental.”

“I had the place rocking.” Cud took Wentworth's arm and drew him away. “Let's try this on for size. When I hear Raffy scream, I jump out of bed, rush outside in time to see the perp run across the lawn, through the rose bushes, or whatever they've got, and over the wall. But I catch a look at him, and he resembles me, same brawny build, which is why Astrid picked me out in the lineup, right? The Mexican guy, Carlos, what's his complexion, could he pass?”

Wentworth showed him a picture he'd copied from the Net last night, Carlos Espinoza handcuffed to a Mexican cop, both of them grinning at the camera. Bronze-skinned, thin-waisted, an unbent, aquiline nose, jet black hair. Cud's hair was light, almost sand-coloured.

Cud frowned over the picture, disappointed. “Well, there were only a few outdoor lights. That neighbourhood snoop, how was she gonna see details? Let me continue. I figure I'll jump in a car and follow him. And I zoom out in the Aston Martin just in time to see him running down the street. And I…maybe I slip on a wet patch–did it rain that night?–or if that doesn't work, I swerve to avoid a cat or dog…and bang, I hit that tree. Think it's got legs?”

Wentworth made no effort to respond. “Look invisible. Astrid Leich is in the far witness room.”

A girl came by with a copy of
Karmageddon
. “It's for my mom's birthday.” Cud didn't look so invisible signing books and CDs.

Abigail exited the witness room, took Wentworth aside, grimacing, slugging from a bottle of Mylanta. “I'm not going to let the chief know my pain. Bertha Rudweiler's death has confirmed for him the essential weakness of women. What's up with Arthur?”

“Riding in at high noon. I'm the whipping boy for the morning.”

“Maybe you shouldn't have sent that fax to an open mailbox.”

It would be easy to blame the boss, to claim he was acting under orders. But Wentworth Chance wasn't made of custard filling, he won't squeal even if they apply electrodes.

“There's a chance we won't go ahead out of respect for her ladyship. The chief wants to see us in chambers.”

“When?”

“Now.”

Hardly anyone got invited to Wilbur Kroop's sanctum; why was junior counsel being so honoured? Maybe he wanted to take his shots at Wentworth out of view of the jury. That's fair. He'll stand tall, die bravely. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Abigail was looking oddly at him.

“Um, nothing. Okay, let's go.”

Haley was not among the invited; Wentworth took satisfaction from that, giving her a pitying smile as he walked by. She won't have the pleasure of seeing Wentworth get slapped around.

The thirty-inch TV in the chief's room seemed totally out of place, as did the library of DVDs. Otherwise it was right out of Dickens, gloomy and cluttered, wall-to-wall books and musty law reports. Old English masters on the wall. A small-wattage bulb under a flower-patterned lampshade. A yellow pool under a lit brass desk lamp, spotlighting a gnarled, hairy hand signing papers with a fountain pen. A hulklike form on a high-backed throne. His gown and vest were on a hook, and he was in shirtsleeves. Yellow suspenders. Smiling…

“Miss Hitchins. Mr. Chance. Very kind of you to join me. Please sit. That chair is more comfortable than it looks, Mr. Chance.”

Wentworth took it, feeling discombobulated. He had trouble drawing his eyes from a desk photo of a steely-eyed young man in a 1950s haircut, beside him, a smiling woman, Kroop's late wife. She'd died in an accident forty years ago. He'd never remarried.