April Fool (27 page)

“You on top of the jury roll?” Brian asks. A panel of sixty will be showing up, homemakers and plumbers and shoe sellers culled at random from voters' lists. They've been well picked over, most having served on at least one jury during this assize. Arthur would have preferred them fresh and innocent–experience breeds cynicism, distrust of the system.

“Watch out for three, eighteen, thirty, and fifty-one. They were on the Michaelson jury.” A contentious conviction last month. One ought not forget Shakespeare's counsel:
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, may in the sworn twelve have a thief or two guiltier than him they try.
It is not thieves, however, whom Arthur will worry about, but the overly righteous and stern.

Brian's phone rings. “You have reached the Sixth Sense Law Office. We know who you are and what you want, so at the sound of the tone, please hang up…Of course, Lila, I knew it was you…By your laugh, I'm reminded of the bells of St. Mary's…No, not a drop…Yes, it's been suggested, but I'm not AA material, not clubby enough…Sure, if you have some ideas…Always willing to listen…” He takes his phone outside, lights a cigarette.

Here is a marriage under repair. The new improved Brian Pomeroy. New life, relenting wife. There's glue in the shared love of children–Margaret has never known the joy. Ah, but she has a nest of them now.

“The swordsman takes shape,” says Roberto, flourishing his scissors like an épée. “You will look twenty years younger.”

 

In the locker room, the makeover from humble farmer continues as Arthur dons starched shirt and dickey, striped pants with suspenders, drycleaned gown. In this uniform, he feels transformed, a different man, competent, assured, his self-doubt dissipating like mist. Bring on Wilbur Kroop. He is
Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp, Queen's Counsel, standing tall, freshly shorn, and of imposing nasal eminence.

He strides up the stairs to level six, to the largest of the assize courts, 67, scene of many of his famous duels. From a vine-draped terrace, one can gaze down to the Great Hall, or up to the massive skylight. Young lawyers mill about the terrace, waiting for the doors to open, eager to watch the return of Cyrano, along with reporters and curious citizenry: fans of the courtroom who shun the daytime soaps, preferring their drama live.

Nearby, in a crowded witness room, Buddy Svabo and his errand runner, Jasper Flynn, are readying witnesses: crime scene officers, analysts, technicians. Not the key people, Holly Hoover, Adeline Angella, who are to be served up like dessert at the end of Buddy's menu.

Deputy SheriffWillit opens Court 67. It's wider than long, the jury box to the right; in the middle, the prisoner's dock, glassed in on three sides, and the witness stand to the left. In ascending levels are counsel table, clerk's station, judge's bench. At the back, behind a shiny brass bar, the public gallery, behind that, wall-to-wall windows looking out upon the glass towers of midtown Vancouver.

The room fills to half-capacity. Attendance will grow as the public becomes aware the trial is in progress, presuming Arthur isn't able to abort it. He'll have a full house for his scene of exoneration with Adeline Angella, whose lies put Faloon behind bars. This chance to reverse Arthur's one great failure has helped energize him.

Buddy has a junior, Charles Stubb, known as Ears, a tribute to a pair of pennantlike flappers. He rises from counsel table, thrusts both hands, imprisoning Arthur's one. “Honoured to be opposite you, Mr. Beauchamp, can't wait to watch you in action.”

“You'll be watching an old dog who hasn't learned a new trick in years.”

“It'll be something for my memoirs.” Stubb intends a political career but is entirely lacking in charisma, though a voracious glad-hander.

“Order in court,” says Gilbert the clerk, a pitiable Bob Cratchit type. All rise as Kroop shambles from chambers and parks his ample form with a complacent grunt, as one might sit down to a tasty dinner. It's 10 a.m. exactly–Kroop, a stickler for time, has fined lawyers for being as little as ten minutes late.

A brusque nod to Buddy, a thin, sinister smile for Arthur. “I have before me a transcript of proceedings before Justice Mewhort in which he ordered trial of the accused
in absentia
–I daresay he is more profitably engaged elsewhere–a ruling that learned counsel for the defence seems to have heartily endorsed.” He quotes Arthur's words, now regretted:
I am prepared to choose a jury on June 19 and go to trial.
“Gentlemen, are we ready to proceed?”

“Ready, milord,” says Buddy.

A glitter in Kroop's anthracite eyes as he gazes down at Arthur. He's inviting him to crawl, to grovel for an adjournment. Before brushing him off, Kroop will scold him like a child who soiled his pants, express shock and dismay at his late repentance while jury and witnesses wait eagerly to do their duty to their country. Arthur will look like a fuddled, irresolute fool.

“I am content,” he says.

Kroop has a reputation for eating clerks alive, and his favourite meal is Gilbert F. Gilbert, whose name has caused him to be mocked, making him timorous, easy meat for the Chief Justice. But he starts off fine with his proclamation that all witnesses must leave the courtroom until called upon to give evidence.

Perhaps fearing Ears will be of limited use at counsel table, Buddy seeks an exception for the case officer, asks if Jasper Flynn may sit up front to help with exhibits. Since the sergeant is to be the Crown's first witness, Arthur has no objection, and the officer ambles ponderously to the table. That leaves it overbalanced, a crowd at one end, Arthur friendless.

As Sheriff Willit leads the jury panel into court, Arthur watches for smiles, signals of benign temperament. Brian has crossed off names of those to be peremptorily challenged, one of them shown in the city directory to be a police officer's wife. But little else is known of this Vancouver hoi polloi. He has always preferred the U.S. system, where prospective jurors face friendly questioning.

“Read the charge,” says Kroop.

Gilbert reads out the single count of murder. The burglary offences are to be tried later.

“Well, Mr. Gilbert?” says Kroop.

“Yes, sir?”

“Are you ready with the plea?”

“The plea, sir?” Gilbert may wonder if he's been mistaken for the accused.

“The plea. Where the accused does not answer, the court shall order the clerk to enter a plea. Section 602. Get on top of it, Mr. Gilbert, enter your plea.”

“Not guilty, milord.” He's flustered.

The process of empanelling the jury takes half the morning, Arthur exhausting all his challenges, eliminating one jeweller and two store managers, and using caution with anyone with expensive watches or decorations of gold, silver, or pearl.

He is satisfied with the final crop of seven women, five men, of age twenty-five to sixty-five, devoid of sourpusses. But not ethnically balanced, Buddy seeming intent on standing aside anyone with a dark complexion or a suspect name such as Abdullah or Singh.

Buddy launches into his opening address, a workmanlike job, portraying the crime scene with sad-eyed solemnity, tracing with triumphant sarcasm the culprit's attempt to flee the scene, his pretence of being a Dutchwoman, his flight from justice and jail. He promises devastating evidence from Father Réchard but avoids mention of Adeline Angella, keeping her in his pocket,
hoping the aging opponent in the other corner has overlooked this crucial aspect of his case.

The jury listens intently until Buddy picks up a sheaf of notes and begins a confusing explication of DNA profiling, and they lose all attention when tinny music sounds, two bars of “You Are My Sunshine.” Arthur turns around, seeking its source, and sees smiles being stifled. The refrain repeats. Buddy stops midway through an exposition of vaginal smears.

“What is that infernal sound?” Kroop rasps.

Arthur is suddenly, abundantly aware that these incessant, simple chords are coming from his open briefcase on the floor. He pulls out a tangle of adapter cord, reeling in the phone as he might a fish, fumbles among the myriad buttons. A known voice speaks: “Yo, Arthur, what's happening, man?”

For a metaphysical few seconds, Arthur is transported to Blunder Bay. He knows a crisis is occurring. “Stoney? What the hell have you done now?” He shouts this, as if fearing the little device may not pick up his words.

“Hey, man, cool. I'm backhoeing your pond, okay, and suddenly there's this, like, stink coming from the septic field.”

Arthur blinks, he's back in Court 67, goggling at this impertinent contrivance, trying to find a button that will take him off the air. Kroop seems rendered speechless, as if an affront has been committed that is beyond words of reproach, but there's loud laughter from the young lawyers in the pews.

“You at some kind of party? Sounds like a real donkey roast…” Ears comes to the rescue; Stoney is disconnected.

“Because of your hiatus from these courts, Mr. Beauchamp,” says Kroop, “you might not have heard how I normally deal with cellphone offenders. Repeaters are not given suspended sentences.”

“My only defence, milord, is that I am telephonically challenged.”

Kroop cranes his neck in a vain search for the person snickering. Arthur can only hope there is an upside to his inept
display–hearts could go out to the outgunned old fellow at the end of the table; all the world loves one who flounders at skills they've mastered.

Kroop waves a hand in dismissal, as if flicking away a mosquito. “You have been warned.” Arthur is surprised the judge didn't take off an inch of his skin.

Buddy tries to pick up where he left off, but loses his way when a page of his notes slips free and flutters to the floor. The remainder of his opening is a monotonic medley of the science of identifying deoxyribonucleic acid and the benzodiazepine called Rohypnol–it has the jury stirring in discomfort or staring at walls or, in a couple of cases, offering Arthur timid smiles. One of them is the foreperson, Ellen Sueda: a teacher, warm, intelligent eyes. Another is Martin Samples, third from the right in the back, who runs a Web site devoted to obscure noir films, which he rates on a five-star system. Maybe he will see Faloon as immersed in a Kafkaesque quagmire. Four and a half stars.

“We'll take the noon break,” Kroop says.

Buddy follows Arthur out like a grouchy dog, snorting at his heels. “Don't tell me it wasn't set up, that freaking phone call. While I'm up there sweating.” He continues on down the stairs. Stubb trots along behind him, with his pointless unabating smile.

 

On the way to the El Beau Room, Arthur fiddles with his phone, determined to master it, dialling, holding it to his ear in imitation of several passersby, hearing it ring, feeling accomplished, modern.

One of the new Japanese Woofers answers and turns him over to Reverend Al, who has volunteered to run Bungle Bay for the next two weeks. Yes, Stoney is out there, at the controls of the backhoe, calling encouragement to Dog, who is replacing the shattered outflow pipes, up to his knees in fecal matter. It is a scene so evocative of the picaresque carnival of his island that Arthur feels a tickle of nostalgia.

Reverend Al tells him arrests have slowed in Gwendolyn Valley. Agile protestors have taken to climbing trees during predawn hours, and the RCMP are loath to pursue them. The tactic is to wait them out until they give themselves up at day's end. The Mounties have begun to see their endeavours as untypical of their many noble causes, and are showing signs of frustration–especially as the public mood is against them. This morning they busted Flim and Flam for getting in their faces with their cameras.

“Have there been any calls from, ah, overseas?”

“Nope.”

Gaining confidence with the cellphone, Arthur rings Doris Isbister. No long-distance calls to his office either, a number Faloon committed to heart long ago.

Brian is waiting for him in the restaurant, drinking a potion called near-beer, which Arthur has always avoided: too near for him. Brian looks through the jurors' names. “I wonder if you want so many women, they sank you at Faloon's last trial.” Eight women in that case, but the result was surely an aberration.

Brian has been on the line to Adeline Angella's priest–a flimsy ruse, an anonymous client seeking to remember the parish in his will. While chatting, he dropped the name of an acquaintance. Ms. Angella is one of his faithful, said the priest. He recalled that she won a prize at the April 1 bingo, a gift certificate from a flower shop.

“‘How lovely,' I said as my heart was sinking into the mud. But let us pray. The bingo started at noon, and she owns a car, a little Chev. After doing the dirty, she could have caught a morning ferry to Vancouver.”

Assuming she found a way to cross the Bamfield Inlet at two o'clock in the morning. How might she have done that?

As Arthur returns to the Law Courts, “You Are My Sunshine” burbles merrily from his suit jacket pocket.

“Reporting in.” Lotis Rudnicki in Victoria, taking a breather from court. Mewhort released Flim and Flam
without conditions after a lawyer for the Civil Liberties Association carried on about irresponsible and baseless arrests of journalists. “Only three other new cases, the cops are pooping out.”

At the Law Courts, he remembers to turn his phone off.

 

Buddy stands by the jury box, shifting on his toes, peppier than when last seen, ready to parry more low blows. “The Crown calls Staff Sergeant Jasper Flynn.”

The officer takes the oath, standing tall and square-jawed. Arthur hopes to make some hay with his sloppiness at the crime scene. A dumb cop, Buddy said, yet he seems disposed to lean on him for help.

The witness establishes his credentials: on the force for nineteen years, a staff sergeant for three, based in Port Alberni for the last eight months.

“And before that?”