Murder as a Fine Art (28 page)

“Thank you, Alec. I'm sure I'll be okay. I was sorry to hear about the Chinook grant falling through.”
Turning in her seat to look up at Kevin, she said, “We artists are counting on you to stand up for us.”

“You can count on me, Laura,” Kevin looked the president in the eye as he spoke.

As soon as the door closed behind the two Centre representatives, Gratton called the police station on his cellular phone. The conversation was brief and his end consisted mostly of grunts and “damns.” When it was over, he said, “Switzer's not talking, and Hubert Nasmith is on his way up from Calgary.”

The detectives exchanged glances. The flamboyant Nasmith was Calgary's leading criminal lawyer.

“It ain't gonna be all that easy to convict the son of a bitch.” Al, the overweight detective who had met Laura and Karen in John Smith's dressing room, mopped his face with a grungy-looking handkerchief.

Gratton nodded. “About the only real evidence we have against him is what Madrin told Laura in the pool. And that's probably not admissible.”

“Why on earth not?” demanded Laura. “He
said
it.”

“The rule against hearsay evidence,” the inspector said with a grimace.

“I can almost guess what it means from its name,” said Laura. “But maybe one of you experts could spell it out for me.”

Both Karen and the inspector started to speak at once. Gratton waved his had to indicate Karen should carry on.

“Madrin is dead, so he can't testify or be cross-examined in court. The hearsay rule says that statements made by a person otherwise than in testimony on which he can be cross-examined are inadmissible.” Karen paused. “There are a number of exceptions, however.”

“What about a dying declaration?” suggested Al. “Madrin is sure as hell dead.”

“Won't work.” Karen told him. “For two reasons. One, the person making the statement must have a hopeless expectation of death while making the declaration. The fact that Madrin may have been contemplating suicide isn't good enough, even if we could prove that he was, which we can't. Second, the dying declaration exception only applies when the death of the deceased is the subject of the charge. In other words, the statement has to come from the deceased victim.”

Gratton listened to Karen's dissertation with growing wonder. Then his face cleared. “The Jepson case. You were on Jepson.”

“That's right. Everything turned on the hearsay rule. The only way we could get a conviction was if a statement that deceased had made to an associate could be admitted. And how we wanted a conviction! We knew the accused was a violent serial rapist who beat up on the women he raped, but we couldn't pin anything on him. Then he finally killed one of his victims. We had evidence that placed him near the scene of the crime at the right time and there was blood on the site, but there was no body. No
corpus delecti
, as the lawyers say. The body was never found. But we were sure the victim was a real estate agent who had unexpectedly gone missing. She had told one of her fellow agents that she was going to meet someone that night up in Green Hills Estates to sign a listing. That's where Jepson was seen and where the blood was found. The Crown prosecutors worked like mad trying to fit the statement into one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule. I found the whole thing so fascinating I nearly resigned from the Force to go to law school.”

“You've got us all on tenterhooks,” said Laura. “Did the statement get in?”

“Oh, yes. Jepson got life with no parole for twenty-five years.”

“It was a landmark case,” added the inspector. “Do you think it might work here, Karen?”

She looked dubious. “I don't think so. In the Jepson case, the court held that the statement was part of the
res gestae
.” She looked a little embarrassed at using the Latin phrase, and hastened to explain, “That means it was so closely connected to the act being done that it was part of the act, or
res gestae
. But in our case, what Madrin said to Laura wasn't so closely connected to the murders as to form part of the act of murder itself. It was related to the murders, but it wasn't part of them, if you see what I mean.”

The inspector nodded. He was looking at Karen with obvious respect. She's found a mentor, thought Laura. It'll be the fast track for her from now on. “There's
got
to be a way to get Laura's statement in,” the inspector was saying. “It's absolutely damning to Switzer. Well, I guess we can let the Crowns worry about it, although you seem to know as much about the rule as they do.”

“Spontaneous declaration, or spontaneous exclamations,” Karen murmured, a slight frown creasing her forehead as she thought it through. “Statements made under pressure or emotional intensity when there's no incentive for the person making them to lie are allowed in.” Her voice took on an edge of excitement. “God knows Madrin was under pressure and was in a state of emotional intensity. And he had no reason to lie, his statement implicated himself as well as Switzer.”

The inspector was leaning forward in his chair. “Keep going. Are there any court decisions on this spontaneous exclamations exception?”

“Yes.” Karen hesitated, then said, again almost apologetically, “I've followed these cases because I find the subject fascinating and I think I understand it.”

“She has a textbook on evidence in her office,” Laura smiled. “I've seen it.”

“
Phipson on Evidence
,” Karen acknowledged.

The inspector gave a pleased nod, and Karen continued. “The leading case on spontaneous declarations or exclamations — the terms are interchangeable — is one involving a sexual assault charge against a doctor. He was alone in an examination room with a young girl three and a half years old. Afterwards, she and her mother stopped at a Dairy Queen for an ice cream and the mother asked about a wet spot on the child's sleeve. The little girl told her mother what the doctor had done to her. How he asked her if she liked candy and told her to open her mouth, and, well, you can guess the rest. The wet spot was semen.”

“Hey, is that the case where the doc promised her a candy and the kid said, ‘You know what, Mom, he never did give me my candy'?” chuckled the fat detective.

“That's the one,” Karen confirmed.

“Do you know what the case stands for, Al?” asked the inspector in some surprise.

The detective looked deflated. “No. I just remember hearing that line and thinking it was a hoot. That's all.”

“In the sexual assault case against the doctor,” Karen went on, “the court held that the child couldn't testify because she was too young to take the oath, or to appreciate the difference between telling the truth and lying. Without her testimony there was no evidence of the offence except for what she had told her mother. The doctor sure as hell wasn't going to testify.”

“What happened?” demanded Laura when Karen paused.

“They let the mother testify as to what her daughter had told her. The court ruled that it was a spontaneous
exclamation made by the daughter when she was under emotional stress and had no incentive to lie.”

Inspector Gratton turned to Laura. “Could you repeat once more what Madrin said to you.”

Without hesitation, Laura recounted every word of the exchange that had taken place between herself and Richard in the pool.

“That does it. We've got the murdering bastard!” the exultant inspector exclaimed. “I think we can consider the case of the Banff murders closed.” As if to emphasize the point he shut his notebook with a decisive snap.

“You think you know someone, and then you find you don't know them at all,” mused Laura.

“Were you in love with Richard?” asked Karen. She and Laura were standing beside Karen's cruiser outside the administration building. The inspector and his detectives had gone back to the detachment office, where Jeremy was lodged in a holding cell.

“No, I wasn't. I was attracted to him, and I liked him a lot. He was wonderful company. But I was not in love with him. Thank God.”

“Excuse me, Karen.” It was Constable Peplinski, who Laura would always think of as having just left the farm. “Professor Norrington's prints are all over the manuscript we found in Madrin's studio.”

Karen glanced at Laura. “That confirms your theory. Not that it needed any more confirmation.”

“I remember once telling Richard that he was a writer because he wrote,” said Laura. “And he didn't write one word! How's that for irony?” She managed a rueful little smile and said, “I'd like to see a copy of the manuscript.”

When the constable confirmed that the fingerprint people were finished with it, Karen told him to make a copy for Laura. “I'm sure someone on the Centre's office staff will make you a copy,” she said.

“I know just the person,” he replied with a grin. “She works in the president's office.”

“It would seem the gallant constable has made a conquest,” smiled Laura as he hurried off.

“He usually does. I'll have the manuscript delivered to your studio if you like. It shouldn't take long.”

The press was in a feeding frenzy on the day following Richard's grisly death and Jeremy's arrest. But it wasn't the multiple murders that excited their interest; it was the literary hoax. People love to see reputations shredded, to see the successful and famous brought down, thought Laura as she watched Norrington holding forth outside the Valentine Studio. The “No Trespassing” signs meant nothing to the voracious reporters. Laura had been on her way to her studio when she saw them, and she immediately melted into the shelter of the pines. From her place of concealment she heard Henry say into a forest of tape machines and microphones that the ghostwriter's trade was an ancient and honourable one.

Knowing that she would be a prime target for the media, Laura quietly retreated. She would thwart them by borrowing Kevin's car and driving aimlessly along the highway.

It was late afternoon when she returned, and when she gave the keys back to Kevin he told her that the horde of reporters had departed. “They really wanted to interview you,” he added, “but they couldn't wait. They had to file their stories.”

“Good. Then I guess it's safe for me to go to my room.”

As she stepped out of the elevator on the sixth floor of the residence she saw Norrington, wearing a bathrobe, coming down the corridor on his way to his daily session in the pool.

“ ‘Fearful symmetry', indeed,” she said as he stopped in front of her.

“William Blake. English poet. 1757 to 1827.” replied Norrington. “From his poem
The Tiger.”

“And also from page 91 of Richard's manuscript. Somehow I doubt that Richard was all that well acquainted with Blake's poetry. But you are. You've written a paper about William Blake.”

Norrington merely smiled.

“Your fingerprints are all over the manuscript.”

“They would be, wouldn't they?” he replied blandly. “Where are you going with this, Laura? By now the whole world knows I wrote those books of Richard's . For my sins,” he added with mock piety.

“For a great deal of money, you mean. But I think there's more to it than that.”

Hands stuffed into the pockets of his robe, Norrington peered expectantly at Laura through his thick eyeglasses. “Pray continue,” he murmured in his best professorial tone.

“I spent two hours with that manuscript last night. It's first class, as I'm sure you know. Somewhere along the line, Henry, you lost your contempt for thrillers and began to really write.”

“As always, you are very astute, Laura. I finally realized that there was nothing to be ashamed of in writing thrillers. Quite the contrary. And, as Richard never tired of pointing out, they outsold my other books by a wide margin. A very wide margin. This revelation, if you will
forgive my using the term, occurred about midway through
The Blue Agenda.
The way in which sales are taking off is very flattering as well. I like to think the new book, of which you speak so kindly, shows me at the height of my powers. I am quite proud of it, in fact.”

“So proud you decided to claim authorship.”

“You continue to impress me, Laura. Might I ask what led you to the remarkable conclusion?”

“You were preparing the ground by leaving a trail of literary clues. Like the quote from Blake. There are a number of other expressions that, if they were put under a microscope, as in a court case for example, could be identified only as yours.”

“Such as?”

“In the manuscript you describe a character as, ‘Measuring his words like medicine from an eye-dropper.' A memorable description; it's also used in your essay on the reclusive Israeli philosopher, Eli Kaplan. It's in the library.”

“All my writings are, I'm pleased to say.” Norrington gave a gleeful little chuckle. “If my claim of authorship had ended up in court, I would have called you as a witness.”

“It never would have gotten that far, Henry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you forgotten what happened to Erika?”

For once, Norrington was speechless. He stared at Laura in mounting horror as the realization struck home.

“You tipped her off, didn't you?” asked Laura.

“Erika I mean.”

Norrington shook his head. His expression was returning to normal as he realized the danger was safely behind him. “No. Not directly, that is. I might have been a little careless, leaving manuscript pages lying around, and so on. But that's all.”

“What will this do to your career as tenured professor, much-quoted philosopher, and literary guru?”

Norrington smiled complacently. “I have lived that life for many years. Now I find myself rather looking forward to my role as the creator of the best selling fictional hero, James Hunt, who is surely destined for a long and successful career in bookstores and on television screens.”