Trial of Passion (31 page)

“Constable, how long have you been sitting out here?”

“Long enough to see what I saw.”

“And what was that?”

“You tending these plants, Mr. Beauchamp. I note for the record there is a bag of WonderGrow fertilizer right over there.” He takes a photograph of it, and another of the path to my house. “And how many weeks have you been doing this?”

“I've been coming here on my days off. Waiting until I can catch the perp in the act.”

Stung by Stoney's acquittal, this proud officer has been assiduously seeking revenge, checking for hidden garden sites near Stoney's land.

“You are a patient man, but not patient enough. You have caught the wrong perp. You know perfectly well that I just stumbled onto these plants.”

“You were in personal contact with one of the plants, sir. You held it up to your nose in an act of smelling.”

Constable Pound obviously knows he has collared the wrong
party. But I fear his long vigils have frustrated him: Any perp will do. I hunger to play the common fink, to squeal on the malefactor whose hammer I distantly hear. Tap-tap-TAP. Is that what Pound wants me to do — to cooperate, to roll over for him? This is laughable.

“And do you have a warrant to be on this property?”

I am not particularly elated to find that he does. He shows it to me, and it seems in proper form.

“Do you mind if I check through your house?”

For several seconds I am as silent as guilt. I think of the stash Rimbold left with me. Hidden with the cookies in a twist-top tin container in the fridge. But surely the officer is merely hoping to turn the screws, to encourage me to turn Crown's evidence. I will devise my own unique form ofjustice for that sorcerer's apprentice Stoney — though I would love to rat on him, to tattle the tale of his many strolls up the path just photographed.

“Of course not,” I finally say, finding inner wells of heartiness. He will see Stoney working on the garage. His attention will be diverted and I will have a chance to stash my stash. “Get your vehicle, come by, and we will have tea.”

His look is heavy with suspicion. “We'll walk there together if you don't mind, sir.” Perhaps he thinks I intend to uproot the evidence and scurry off with it.

When we emerge into my yard, he turns and takes a picture of the trail we have just exited. I look for Stoney, but he is hidden behind a tree. Dog, however, is sitting on the apex of the roof and peering in our direction. All hammering suddenly stops: just the tinny sound of music from the truck's radio.

Pound turns and takes pictures of the house and garage, but too late to capture Dog, who has already descended from the roof.

As we recommence our journey, I hear an engine ignite and rumble into life. Stoney's creaky flatbed two-ton truck comes into view, Dog at the wheel and beside him, cap slid down almost to his nose, a slouching Stoney. The truck chugs quickly up my driveway
and with a roar of acceleration escapes down Potter's Road.

Pound stops in his tracks, uncertain now of his next move. “Who were the individuals in that vehicle?”

“Ah, yes, that would be my work crew.”

Constable Pound will get the hint and chase after the perps while the trail is fresh. But he just stands there. The skin on his face seems to tighten, and he takes on the frantic look of a man helpless in the grip of a dilemma. Now he looks at me with a raw hostility, sizing me up, seeking potential for revenge. I can see he wants to blame someone other than himself for the bungling of Operation Stonewell.

And abruptly he turns and races to my back door, entering the house half a minute ahead of me. Aghast, I find him in the kitchen, hurriedly looking through the spice racks, examining a container of oregano, pouring out a sample onto his hand, smelling it. He runs his hands over sills and peeks under teacups, his frenetic search progressing ever closer to the refrigerator.

But of course this coming calamity was foretold; long ago I knew that wherever Stoney goes he lays down a trail of land mines. To have befriended him is to have accepted his curse. I muster in my mind the various defences in law: lack of intent, alibi, automatism, insanity. These will be available, too, upon the charge of murdering Stoney.

Now Margaret Blake's half-ton pickup rolls into the driveway, braking hard near the open kitchen door. She sees me and steps out. “Arthur, I just drove by Stoney's truck; it was parked off the road, and there was a police vehicle in the bushes. I was worried there'd been an accident.” Now she enters, and spies the constable crouching at the open fridge door, suddenly immobile, as if frozen into place. “Oh, it's Constable Pound. . . .”

“Ma'am, what did you just say?”

“I said I thought there'd been an accident. Are you hungry? What
are
you doing in the fridge?”

”
Whose
truck was beside my unit?”

“Stoney's.”

Constable Pound is faster than a speeding bullet out the door, and runs pell-mell up the path leading to the marijuana plants. “What
has
been going on, Arthur?”

In partial explanation I pull out the cookie tin and show Margaret the contents: twelve home-baked peanut butter cookies and a plastic bag containing some cannabis cigarettes.

“Not very clever,” she says. “Never hide your stash with your homemade cookies. What a character you are. Have you been smoking this?”

“I'm afraid Rimbold turned me on.”

The bells of her laughter. “I'll hold onto it in case he comes back.” And she finds a better stash, unbuttoning her shirt-top and tucking the pot into the cup between bra and breast. I glimpse a seductive roundness, a flash of untanned flesh. When she catches me staring I blush.

“I always used to get dizzy when I smoked this. Chris liked to get stoned, though.”

“Ah, yes. What should I bring for dinner tomorrow?”

“Just yourself.”

But will she set the usual three places?

I am alone, doing tai chi warm-ups (Flying Dove Spreads Its Wings), as Constable Pound returns — on foot and in a mood of dejection. He apologizes for his uncivil behaviour earlier. He asks me if he might use my phone to call the local garage: There's a problem with his ignition. The perps, he tells me, have absconded with the evidence. He seeks to know whether I shall be expecting Stoney to return to work today. I tell him I doubt it.

He asks me if I mind keeping this quiet. He doesn't want it reported in the
Echo.

A hectic Saturday, as I put my little farm to bed for the next two weeks. Early in the morning, the girls from Mop'n'Chop show up to clean my house and receive instructions about the garden, though the drenching rain of last night ought to keep it green, and a grey, lowering sky promises more.

My garage may still not be roofed in by the time I return. Janey Rosekeeper and Ginger Jones think they know where Stoney and Dog are hiding, and will pass on two items of free legal advice: one, say nothing; two, finish the roof before the rains of autumn come.

As the girls work, I prepare a small breakfast: a slice of toast, lightly coated with locally produced marmalade. It is all I can handle. I have a poor appetite these days, and I fear my city suits will hang upon me like beach umbrellas.

As I nibble my toast, Hubbell Meyerson phones from the office to worry me with questions about how well prepared I am. He hints that O'Donnell's “defence team” would feel more comfortable if I spent the weekend in Vancouver working with them.

“Gowan and I are going over the jury list now, weeding out feminists and fundamentalist preachers.”

I ask Hubbell to pick up my suits at the dry cleaners and bring them to the office. I remind him I will be homeless in the city, but he has already booked a suite in the Hotel Vancouver. He tells me — by the way — that my divorce is set for early this fall.

After we disconnect, I munch toast and remember Annabelle, happy in the hills of Northern Bavaria, half a world away. This woman who for so long held dominion over me has been nudged from the stage, has slipped through the cracks of my mind.

Was I truly in love with Annabelle or was it only a false sentiment, dutifully felt as a part of the baggage of marriage? Ah, yes, the bonds of matrimony. I grieve at all those wasted years.

I can hear Ginger and Janey gossiping over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. They are talking about who is doing it with whom. I think of doing it with Margaret. I try to picture it, but the scene
that plays out in my mind seems graceless, a Chaplinesque farce.

But George Rimbold interrupts these crude ruminations. He is at the door with a salmon.

“The coho are running, my son. This fat fellow was disgorged by the seas only this morning. Five pounds easy.”

“I am overcome with envy.”

He lays the gleaming, sticky fish atop my kitchen counter. “May I offer you and Margaret this pre-wedding gift.”

“We haven't quite planned a date, George.”

“Are you not her guest for dinner then? I am providing the main course.”

“Then you'll join us.”

“Oh, I will not do that. No, I see this as a decisive time in your relationship. You are going off to the wars. She will want to give her soldier something to remember her by.”

Savouring his role as mischievous Cupid, George seems almost happier than I have ever seen him. I sense this man of lost religion has managed to come strongly to terms with himself: There is no faith, perhaps, but there are fish.

He stays for coffee, and laughs with knee-slapping glee at my recounting of the close call yesterday over his previous gift to me. Then he retrieves his salmon and trots over to Margaret Blake's house.

The telephone rings again.

“We're back. Thought I'd bug you, find out all the poop.”

“Ah, Deborah, safely home from Rome.”

“Yeah. Back to work on Monday. And I've got to get one weary world traveller enrolled in Grade Three.”

“I can give you the poop next week — I'm coming to Vancouver for the O'Donnell trial.”

She insists that tomorrow, Sunday, I stay the night with her and the Nicks before trundling off to my hotel.

“I'd enjoy that.”

“How's your life?”

“Rather intense right now.”

“How's the widow Blake?”

“We are continuing to mend fences.”

“Sounds torrid. Love you, Dad.”

I will see the widow Blake tonight, but then not for several days. Could it be possible, I wonder, to finish this trial in a week? And be back for Labour Day. Join her at that most glittering gala of the Garibaldi social scene, the annual fall fair, barbecue, and dance. But if the trial is not wound up by then, I fear I will be too caught up in it to return; I will be drowning in it, unable to come to the surface for a breath of fresh country air.

The girls are finished; the house is gleaming. I pay them extra, and also let them keep the prince's ransom in change Janey found tucked behind the cushions of my club chair.

Another phone call. Gowan Cleaver this time.

“You'll be working against a bummed-out prosecutor, Arthur. I just beat Pat Blueman yesterday on a bank heist. My guy had an alibi as tight as a popcorn fart.”

“Congratulations.”

“Okay, the jury: We've managed to whittle the list down to about twenty hopefuls. I'm working on the assumption you want a female or two in there for balance, so we've got a couple of housewives, but no self-made women except for one beauty-shop owner — one of the senior partner's wives gets done by her something like ten times a week. There's a guy who's an interior decorator living in the West End, so he's probably gay, and I think we want gay. No Orientals, of course, too law and order. There's one lady you don't want. Hedy Jackson-Blyth, she's the executive director of the Telephone Workers' Fed, active in the women's coalition, vocally pro-choice.”

“But she sounds very liberal.”

“Not on this issue.”

The phone again summons me as I emerge dripping and grumpy from the shower — Cleaver's cynical approach to jury selection has
been grating on me — and I take the call in the kitchen as I towel off. I apologize to Augustina for answering with so brusque a voice. “What are you up to, Arthur?”

“I've been manning a switchboard. Now I'm preparing to go out for dinner.”

“Then I'll be brief. Patricia gave me her list of witnesses. She'll be starting right off the bat with Kimberley Martin. Do you want me to make the opening legal arguments? I have all the cases.”

“Yes, relieve me of that agony.”

“I hope this isn't a problem, but we can't locate Professor O'Donnell. He's supposed to be here helping us prep. I hope he hasn't fallen off the wagon.”

Yes, this has been a constant worry: Might he succumb to the demons of alcohol as his day of reckoning draws closer? If he breaks under the tension, he also breaks his vow to me, and I have half a mind to leave him in the lurch.

“Send a posse out to find him. I'll be arriving tomorrow in the afternoon.”

“Shall I pick you up on this side?”

“Thank you, but I'll be driving in.”

“Who are you having dinner with, as if I didn't know? Make sure you bring her flowers.”

“But she has a myriad of flowers.”

“Bring her flowers.”

I dress. I fasten my suspenders, snap them for good luck. I emerge from my house with knocking knees. From my garden, I gather nasturtiums and cornflowers, and zinnias, a floral potpourri that clearly lacks an arranger's fussy touch, but makes up for that in sheer size and variety.

I aim myself in the direction of Margaret Blake's house. I march purposely forward.

I'll not disturb you, darling. I'll be reading. Call me if you want coffee or anything.

Thank you, Penny.

The meal was delicious, Mrs. Kropinski.

Thank you, dear.

Please be comfortable, Kimberley. Would you like to lie down on that divan?