Trial of Passion (37 page)

“I'm afraid it's still hearsay.” He smiles at me. He hopes I'll understand.

“Miss Martin joined you, did she not?”

“Yes, and Egan passed her a rolled-up bill and she .. .”Again her voice becomes indistinct.

“She knew what to do with it.” “She did two of the lines.”

“There may be some here who are not familiar with the process of doing lines. Would you describe it?”

I finally seem to be on track. As Miss Yi relates to the uninitiated the art of snorting cocaine, I seek reaction from the jury. The smile on the face of Goodman, the broker, hints he needs no schooling. Hedy Jackson-Blyth has the peeved look of one whose bridge partner has trumped her ace. Two stripes of a mood-altering substance about the length and thickness of a match stick have disappeared up the complainant's nose: She will not be seen as the soul of innocence.

“Was this cocaine fairly strong?”

“Yes, Egan said —”

“No,” the judge warns. “You can't tell us what someone other than the accused said.”

This is wearying. I sigh rather audibly. “You've used cocaine before.”

“Yes. Not a lot.”

“And in your experience, was it potent?”

“I'd say so.”

“Cocaine's a sleep inhibitor, is it not?”

“I think you'll need to call a pharmacologist for that, Mr. Beauchamp,” says the judge. “Sorry.”

I must keep my temper. “It certainly didn't make you feel sleepy, did it?”

“No, but —”

“It stimulated you —”

“Let her complete her last answer, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“I wonder if your lordship would let me do my work here.”

Wally looks hurt. “I have to be fair to both sides, you know. What
were you about to say, Ms. Yi?”

“Well, Egan passed out in the taxi, so I don't know if it was
that
stimulating.”

The whole room laughs. My cross-examination is again in shambles. I am so peeved at Wally that I find myself tottering badly during the balance of my inquiries, and limp to a stale close. “I understand you consider yourself a feminist, Miss Yi.” I seek to show that despite sisterly misgivings, she has come here prepared to tell the awful truth about Kimberley Martin.

“Yes, but I don't believe just because a woman gets high means someone has a right to attack her.”

Hedy Jackson-Blyth nods in total agreement. My examination ends with that loud clong. I can think of no way to make repairs. The Commander fumbles his way to a chair.

Wally is grinning, too obviously enjoying my discomfiture. “I have a leftover sentencing matter, so I think we'll adjourn for the day.”

“That was a disaster,” I mumble to Augustina as we flee the courtroom.

She hands me her evidence notes. “In case you missed something,” she says sternly. “Make sure you phone Mrs. Blake tonight, okay? Might help keep you alert. If it's okay, I'm having dinner with the client. Keep him sober, guard him from the witch of the Slocan Valley.”

“Enjoy yourself.” A. R. Beauchamp, Q.C., says this bitterly, still disgusted with this morning's amateur production. Caped hero, indeed. Where was the blood, the boldness?

I retreat ignominiously to my hotel suite. I stare sourly out the window at a gargoyle sticking out its tongue, jeering. I've been out of training too long. My island has made me stupid and soft.

I wait until five-thirty to call Margaret — she will be in the house, preparing her dinner. I let it ring several times — she is probably in the garden or the barn. I picture her rushing to the house, panting as she grabs for the receiver, ah, yes, yearning to hear my voice. But no. No answer.

I try to console myself with a book, but cannot work my way into it and put it down. I order food up. I drink coffee and read the newspaper. I phone Margaret's number again. No answer.

She has a meeting to attend. The Fall Fair Committee. The Save Our Island Committee. She is campaigning for office. She is busy.

I try to get into my book again, but the words slide around on the pages, forming an illegible, muddy paste. I stare out the window: traffic clogs the streets below. The city is turning orange against a sun that sets beyond Garibaldi Island.

She knows where I am staying. She could call me.

I venture out into the fresh evening air. I pause upon the lawns of the Vancouver Art Gallery, kick off my shoes, and swirl slowly about on the grass, fifteen minutes of mind-composing tai chi.

At ten-thirty, back in my room, I phone Margaret again. And still no answer. Why is this early bird out so late?

I pick up Augustina's notes. I put them down. I pee. I shower. I brush my teeth. I go to bed. I fall asleep.

My dreams are visited by old unwanted friends: Messrs. Ridicule and Shame. I stand flaccidly exposed before Wally Sprogue in his golden toga. The executioner stands by, masked and smiling. Guilty…. intones the chorus, guilty, guilty….

On this first morning of September a soggy quilt of clouds lays atop the city, obscuring the peaks of the North Shore mountains. As I stand before my hotel window, I feel as gloomy as the sky; yesterday's bout of courtroom impotence has caused me an ill foreboding. And where was Margaret all last night?

“Hurry, Arthur. It's almost ten.” Augustina has come to fetch me, armed with umbrellas. I grab a room-service muffin and munch it as we venture out into the drizzle. She sees I am morose, and kindly offers no reviews about the bomb I dropped on opening day.

“I just talked to Patricia — she's going to hold off Kimberley
until the afternoon. Egan Chornicky is next; he should be okay, he likes O'Donnell. Then it's Constable Peake, who's on annual leave and wants to rejoin his wife in Arizona, followed by dashing Clarence de Remy Brown, who's antsy to get down to South America.”

“How was your evening with the accused?”

“Like a sort of date, actually. Not romantic, I don't mean that, but we went to a movie after, and had a decaf at his house. He didn't try to tie me up and paddle me. He was being all very witty and sarcastic, but then he got moody. He kept saying, ‘I have to do the right thing.' Refused to elaborate.”

Inside, we sheathe our umbrellas and swim among a school of reporters, arriving in court to find Egan Chornicky already in the box. A spare, weedy-looking man, he wears a jean jacket that seems in the process of decomposition. A wild thicket of moustache. Unruly blond hair that he constantly sweeps from his eyes as he bends forward in whispered conference with Patricia. As court is called to order, she walks away shaking her head.

Chornicky is quickly in trouble. “I don't have a home address right now,” he testifies. “Like, permanent. My landlady and I had a little disagreement.”

He is equally unsure about his current occupation. “My job? A short-order cook. I was going to repeat my year in law school, but I got a chance to promote this rock band. I dunno.”

His memories of the dance are vague and of little help to either side. “I was too busy looking after the bar to really notice anything,” he says.

“What was Professor O'Donnell drinking?” Patricia asks.

“Stiffs. Doubles.”

“What about you?”

“I guess I was looking after myself pretty good. I didn't want to have to lug away any full bottles.”

“Tell us what happened after the dance.”

“Well, we had this party to go to after, downtown here, and we
all sardined into a bunch of cars. I was in there with Kimberley in one car, which Ears was driving —”

“Ears?”

“Charles. Charles Stubb. And we went up to this house, and there was this really large evening going on there, about fifty people, and I guess when they ran out of beer that's when we went to the professor's house. A lot of this was so long ago, I've forgotten what I did remember. Some of it I think I read in the papers. I was pretty zoned.”

“Tell us just what you remember.”

“I remember going over Lions Gate Bridge. I remember a fairly swish house, I assume it was his, the professor's. Big library and a fire, lots of sort of Elizabethan music. There was some excellent scotch or something doing the rounds.”

“Who was with you?”

“I don't know, there were five or six of us. Kimberley for sure, and another good-looking lady.”

“Woman,” Wally says. “She was a woman.”

“Very definitely, your honour. Chinese.”

“Southeast Asian Canadian.”

“Correct. And there was some kind of cross-dressing thing going on, I remember that Kimberley started, but I didn't get into it. She did some kind of Shakespeare gig. Or that may have been at the other house. I don't remember going home, but I must have.”

Though I can't fathom how he passed his
LSAT'S,
I admire this man: He has attained heights denied even to Beauchamp in his prime. The jurors are smiling.

“Okay, Mr. Chornicky, there's been some mention of drugs being used that night. Did you have any cocaine on your person?” It is a subject Patricia cannot avoid now.

“Well, here's where I object on the ground that the question will incriminate me.”

“Nothing you say can be used against you,” says Wally. He frowns at the witness in warning. “Except on a charge of perjury.”

Patricia says, “Okay, what is the answer to my question?”

“Well, the night before, an associate of this band I work with laid on me a little powder which I assumed was cocaine, though I never had it lab-tested or anything. Could've been speed, could have been powdered milk. And I remember I had it on me at the dance.”

“Did you consume any?”

“Yeah, here and there.”

“Did you ever share it with anyone?”

“With Kimberley and the Chinese girl. I have a little spurt of a memory there. I think they each blew a couple of lines.”

“But you don't know if it was cocaine.”

“Not for a fact, no.”

“Oh, come, Mr. Chornicky, we weren't born yesterday,” says Wally, who seems incapable of honouring his pledge to stay out of the arena and above the fray. “Did you really think it might be powdered milk?”

“Well, you do get ripped, but, yeah, it was probably cocaine.”

“Surely your supplier told you that's what it was.” A tone of impatience: Wally will teach this ruffian a lesson.

“Not really, your honour.”

“What exactly did he say?”

“All he said was it was pure Ivory Snow, and had never been stepped on.”

“Stepped on?”

“Like, it was very powerful. Never diluted.”

“M'lord, has your cross-examination concluded?” Patricia asks. “Or is there more inadmissible evidence you'd like the jury to hear before this finds its way to the Court of Appeal?”

I marvel at her boldness. A shock wave seems to pass through Wally, who has the horrified expression of one who has observed a dead rat in his soup. The magic words, Court of Appeal — their lordships love to put the whip to new judges — seem to cause him to reflect, and he says petulantly, “I was just clarifying, counsel.”

Wally is doing such a fine job for the defence that I worry the jury may conclude we sleep together. I'd actually feel more comfortable if he was well on the other side of the bed.

“Your witness,” says Patricia. “For what it's worth.”

I do not want to risk another debacle by cross-examining Chornicky. I have been dealt good cards and will stand pat. “Thank you. No questions.”

“Not many questions left, are there?” Patricia glares at the judge, who has begun to look worried: His fly is open and his bias is showing.

“Call Constable Gavin Peake.”

He enters, a cordial, husky boy in blue with an Arizona tan who I sense is not unsympathetic to his fellow white male in the dock. He tells his tale efficiently, describing his reception by Clarence Brown at a few minutes before six o'clock in the morning, his long wait while the couple conferred, then finally his visit to the bedroom, where he awkwardly accepted Kimberley's offer to view her scrubbed and bruised bare bosom.

I rise and snap my suspenders for luck. Do this right. No more bumbling, Beauchamp.

“A weird business, constable.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not your usual sort of West Vancouver mischief.”

“No, sir. Although you'd be surprised.”

A sprinkling of laughter from the jury: a hopeful sign some of them may not be taking this case too seriously.

“Mr. Brown was in quite a fury when you showed up, wasn't he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cursing, carrying on, vowing revenge, that sort of thing?”

“That's right.”

Never ask a question without knowing the answer — the primary rule of cross-examination. But sometimes it must be broken.” ‘I'm going to get that son of a bitch' — did he say something like that?”

“Close.”

“How close?”

“He said, ‘I'll kill that fucking son of a bitch.'”

“Thank you.” A pause to let this surprise gift sink in. “Mr. Brown had a red substance on his hands and clothing, did he not?”

“Yes, some lipstick he got from —”

“Be careful,” Wally warns. “That sounds like it could be hearsay.”

I give him a warning look: Stay out of my yard. “Let's assume it's this Shameless-brand lipstick he got from being in contact with Miss Martin. On what part of his clothes was it?”

“Well, he had on a white shirt, and the front and sleeves were discoloured. He changed into a fresh shirt before we went up to talk with Miss Martin.”

“No lipstick on her?”

“No, sir. She'd bathed.”

“It was obvious she had been drinking?”

“I smelled it on her breath, yes.”

“From a few feet away.”

“Yes.”

“Any other signs of intoxication?”

“Her words were somewhat slurred. I had a little trouble getting a sense of what happened.”