Trial of Passion (22 page)

“How long will this take? I intend to be present, but I want to run up to the general store before it closes.” I am expecting word from an astute young lawyer by the name of Augustina Sage: I have asked her to junior me for the O'Donnell trial.

“We got at least an hour's prep,” says Stoney. “I think we should tie a line to that beam on the garage, Dog.” His taciturn companion nods again. “Another line about a third the way up that cedar tree. Should go down smack in the middle of the driveway.”

He pauses to roll a cigarette from his packet of Player's tobacco, then looks sideways at me.

“Now for this we gotta charge skilled-labour rates. But I been thinking, Mr. Beauchamp, remember that old pot case I was telling you about? I got busted last summer for a few plants? It's coming up next week, and I figured maybe in return for this job, you could sorta defend me on legal aid.”

“I'm afraid I'm not doing pot cases any more, Stoney.”

“Gee, I thought we could do a little barter.”

“I will pay the going rate.”

I cannot watch. I leave them as they start uncoiling their ropes, and head off in my pickup to the general store for my mail. “Looks like your grandson caught a little bug over there in Venice,” says Mr. Makepeace, handing me a postcard from Deborah. “Feeling better now.”

Here is also a four-day-old letter from Augustina Sage (the mail service here is less than prompt), accepting my offer to assist in the O'Donnell defence — and advising she is arriving on a ferry that should have landed an hour ago. Accompanying her will be the students Charles Stubb and Paula Yi, who Augustina informs me have new and helpful information.

The
Queen of Prince George
cannot always be depended upon to be late, but thankfully she has lost one of her engines today — so I am informed by Nelson Forbish after I park behind him at the drop-off-and-pick-up line.

“I hear you and Emily Lemay are an item.” A lecherous grin.

“She's hot stuff, eh?”

I am about to instruct this master of the misquote as to the laws of libel, but he quickly says, “Don't worry, Mr. Beauchamp, my paper doesn't handle sex. Otherwise, I'd have to go ten extra pages with
what goes on around this island. You should see the stories that don't make the light of day.” A wink. “I have my sources. Don't worry about Sam, Mr. Beauchamp. I explained you were a lawyer with Mafia connections. Anyway, he's a chickenshit. So what's up? What's the hot scoop on that professor's case?”

I sigh. “Well, Nelson, you'll just have to come to court to satisfy this prurient interest of yours.”

“Wish I had the time.”

He returns to his car, and I watch as the
Queen of Prince George,
tilting to port, shudders into reverse. The boat banks hard against a rubber-tired buttress and crunches against a piling, sending its resting gulls aloft, fuming and wailing.

After the vessel finally comes to a full stop, Augustina Sage marches eagerly onto the dock, waving at me. I have borrowed her from the esteemed small firm of Pomeroy, Macarthur, Brovak and Sage, practitioners of criminal law. She is in her mid-thirties, a darkly attractive Métis woman, bright, energetic, single, though with, as I recall, a sorry history of romantic misadventures.

She drops her briefcase and reaches up to kiss me. “Arthur, you look like God in that beard.”

“I am often mistaken for Him. So good of you to find the time for this. Were you able to adjourn your other cases?”

“I'd have adjourned the rest of my life to do the O'Donnell trial with you.”

“You've read all the files?”

“Yes, I picked them up from your office.”

“Excellent.”

A young couple are standing by the ferry waiting room, the male bright-cheeked, bespectacled, with elephantine ears, the woman petite and sloe-eyed, subdued and pensive. Obviously Charles Stubb, the future prime minister, and his girlfriend, Paula Yi. Augustina makes the introductions.

“Mr. Beauchamp,” says Charles, “I'm tremendously honoured. I've
heard so much about you. Actually, I was at one of your trials — “

“We'll have time later for the passing of compliments. You don't mind hopping in the back?”

Charles and Paula look at the truck, look at me. They are deciding that I am eccentric. Perhaps I ought to have brought the Rolls.

Augustina climbs in beside me. “Love this truck. I love it. You're looking great, Arthur. I thought you'd be a wreck. I mean, I heard . . . about you and your wife. Sorry. What can I say?”

“I feel fine, Augustina.”

“Marriage is such a rotten institution anyway, I think. Never made it that far.” She sighs. “I never will. This case a winner, Arthur?”

“Normally I'd say chances were excellent. But we can't put O'Donnell on the stand.”

“Uh-oh.”

En route home I explain the problem to her: his lies to everyone — including the police — about his not-so-knightly behaviour with Kimberley, lies that severely compromise any defence that the woman consented.

“He went to great pains to destroy evidence: he burned the sheets between which they frolicked. He lied to the investigating officer, denied intercourse. If we call him as a witness, he will be forced to admit to these untruths, and the Crown will have a field day. The jurors will ask themselves: Do we believe the candidly open complainant or the admitted liar?”

“Arthur, if he doesn't answer her charges, the jury is going to wonder why. They'll want an explanation — you know, for the bruises and the lipstick.”

“Quite true. The defence will be difficult.”

“Unless you can trap her into a lie.”

“That may be a Herculean task, my dear.”

We ride in silence, Augustina watching the scenery roll by.

“Not much happens here, I guess. Do you ever get bored?”

“Only between crises.”

The latest of which is still unfolding in my yard, where Stoney is practising his own peculiar form of bondage — he is tangled in his ropes high up the cedar tree, which was to be the anchor for the damaged alder. Somehow he has managed to loop one of his legs to a dead branch. Dog is at the base of the tree, holding one end of the rope and calling up instructions.

My passengers alight and stare wordlessly at this scene, perhaps thinking I have arranged some mild entertainment for the morning. I offer a half-hearted explanation about the prospect of my house going the way of my former veranda should the alder tree plummet onto the roof.

“Please join me in my office. I have told my secretary we're not to be disturbed.”

I remove my guests from the danger zone, leading them to the beach — the forecast has promised a sunny day in the wake of last night's storm. We comfortably array ourselves on the bleached driftwood logs that are piled like benches.

“Well, this is sure different,” says Charles Stubb. “It's really odd to see you like this, Mr. Beauchamp, because last time I caught your act you were in your silks. That doctor you defended last year? A bunch of us students took a field trip. Your speech to the jury — I'm telling you, it had me trembling.”

“It was that bad.”

“Oh, God, no, it was —”

“Cease and desist, Charles, I'm embarrassed. Now, you apparently have some something to tell us.” Augustina brings out pen and notepad.

“Well, Paula here does. I pretty well said my piece at the preliminary hearing.”

Yes, this floppy-eared young man was a solid rock of support for his beloved acting dean. My impression is that he has been prevailing on his girlfriend to aid the cause.

“But Paula was never called at the prelim.”

“I can speak for myself, Charles.”

“Sure. You explain it.”

Paula pauses, lights a cigarette. She is nineteen, small-boned, attractive, and soft-spoken. A badge is pinned to her khaki shirt that says simply, “Equality.” Doubtless a radical of sorts.

“I don't feel good about this, Mr. Beauchamp. I sort of feel I'm on the wrong side somehow. I think I'd better tell you — I was assaulted once myself. Romance rape, I guess you call it. I'm definitely not into protecting Professor O'Donnell if he did it.”

“If he didn't do it, you wouldn't want to see him wrongfully jailed.”

“No, I guess you're right.”

“That's why she —”

“Never mind, Charles.” Paula seems the dominant figure here.

I pack a wad of tobacco into the bowl of my ancient Peterson bent. “Have you been interviewed by the prosecutor yet, Paula?”

“An officer came by for a few minutes. He didn't take any notes. I have an appointment to see Ms. Blueman. I don't know what to tell her “

“The truth. Just as I hope to hear it”

“Okay, well, I don't know Kimberley Martin. I'm in arts. I'd met a few of Charles's friends in law school, but not her. And the night of the law-school dance .. . Well, frankly I was confused. For a while I thought she and Mr. O'Donnell were going together. I didn't even know she was his student.”

“What gave you that impression?”

“Oh, just the casual way they interacted, like they'd known each other a long time. The way they joked and touched each other. I was thinking: Do they live together? I'd heard he wasn't married.”

“Did you have a sense that one was making advances to the

other?”

“She was all over him,” Charles says.

“He was giving her
attention,
Charles. It's something quite normal
that men often do. I really hate getting involved in this trial, Mr. Beauchamp, but this has been grinding away at me a lot.”

“Well, you tell me about it and let us see where we go from there.”

“Egan Chornicky had a couple of grams of cocaine with him that night.”

“I think I heard something about that.”

“And I, ah, I had a couple of lines.”

“I see. Where did you consume these lines?”

“I got a kind of hand signal from Egan, and I followed him down into a little rumpus-type room in Professor O'Donnell's basement and . . . we did the dust. The coke. And . . .”

“And?”

“Kimberley came down and joined us.”

I puff my pipe and ponder this. “She partook?”

“A couple of fat ones. And it was high quality. I do it once in a while, a little dope. It's no big deal. I'm a rec user.”

“I don't approve,” says Charles. “It's her business.”

“Kimberley was already loaded. She'd had quite a few drinks.”

“And did you notice if this drug had any effect on her?”

“More animated, I guess, than she was before. Louder. Pushy. Got everyone up performing parts. She was overacting, I thought. She thinks pretty well of herself. I'm sorry, but that was my impression. But then . . . half an hour into this she just fell asleep . . . well, I didn't believe it at all. Coke's a truck-driver's drug. You
can't
sleep.”

The song of a chainsaw intrudes.

“We will continue this conversation.”

I abandon my guests to return to the job site. Dog is working at the alder while Stoney stands by, testing the tautness of lines strung to cedar tree and garage post. They quiver like bowstrings.

As the chainsaw cuts, the tree shudders, then leans ever so slightly towards its intended trajectory, the driveway.

“Timber!” Stoney yells.

But the tree does not fall. Now I can see that Dog is having trouble with the chainsaw, and its roar suddenly abates. I hear the words, “It's pinched.”

I venture closer, but Stoney warns me away. “Better stay back, Mr. Beauchamp, we got a chain caught here. Trunk is severed right through, but she's still standing. Don't know how, but that's the way it is. Okay, Dog, let's ease off on one of these ropes. We'll let her down gently, Mr. Beauchamp, neat as a pin.”

Though I was never much of a student of physics, I have a sense of something amiss in the configurations of tree and fastening posts, and when Stoney and Dog play out one of the ropes, the stricken alder tree does a slow, grotesque pirouette, falling as it turns.

It collapses onto my garage and, with a great clatter of splintered wood, caves the roof in.

I stoke my pipe and fire it up again. I blow a perfect smoke ring. I watch it wobble and lose its shape.

I join Stoney and Dog at a window of the garage. The roof of the Rolls has managed to hold up fairly well, but the windshield has popped. An entire can of green paint has spilled on the hood.

After what seems a very long while, Stoney says, “Little paint and bodywork and she's good as new. You defend me on that weed charge, I'll do it for free.”

Though I emphatically decline the offer, I can't help but admire his gall. I leave them to clean up the rubble. I return dolefully to my guests.

After their interviews are done, Charles and Paula, perhaps to escape the continuing embarrassment of my sulking company, decide to walk to the ferry. Augustina stays — carefully avoiding topics that cause pain, such as alder trees and Phantom v's — and instead rambles on about the O'Donnell case.

“He gives them taxi fare,” she says. “They all take off. They leave
Kimberley behind. I'll just bet that Mr. Goody Two-Shoes Charley Stubb knew they were going to make out. He
could
have removed the temptation, but he probably wanted to be able to hold something over the professor. Feels guilty now, that's why he's being so helpful.”

“Does cocaine — with some people — cause them to go over the edge? I don't presume you're an expert.”

“I don't think so. But maybe. I'll do some reading.”

Good afternoon, Jonathan.

You've cut your hair, Jane. I like it.

Different look. There's a current trendy theory it alters personality. New look, new persona.

It's so
short.
Makes you seem younger.