April Fool (11 page)

“Death.”

“Suicide.” Faloon has already told her about his feelings in that direction.

“Anger.”

“Love.”

“Woman.”

“Love.”

Nurse Thompson gives him this distrustful look. “Is that all you can come up with?”

“On account of maybe I'm in love.”

“Why are you staring at me?”

Faloon worries she may think his feelings are for her, and explains about Claudette. How though it wasn't at first sight, it ballooned into a romance, and how she is so big-hearted and has faith in him.

Nurse Thompson looks like she doesn't believe him. Or isn't equipped to deal with love.

 

On Monday, Brian Pomeroy drops in unannounced. Having asked around in the joint, Faloon has learned this counsellor is hitched but has a reputation for affairs that get him in shit. He's courting extreme danger by planning to go out with Adeline Angella, and the Owl is impressed by that.

Since lawyers don't usually make house calls except with bad news, he assumes there has been a wrong turn in his fortunes. But no, Mr. Pomeroy comes into the little interview room with one of his rare smiles.

“Are you holding up okay?”

“Basically, I'm in love. How about you?”

“I'm on Prozac. You're lucky to have Claudette cheering for you.
I
should be so lucky to have such a partner. She tells
me Holly Hoover is very outdoorsy for a hooker, has a big boat, also a canoe. No one saw them, but they may have gone for a romantic paddle in the drizzle. Maybe across the inlet. I gather Ms. Hoover rents a place not far from Brady Beach.”

“Ever since maybe a month ago. A trailer.”

“I want you to tell me, Nick, man to man–ever get it on with Holly Hoover?”

“I am committed to another woman.” Faloon must brazen it out, he can't trust loose mouths not to talk, especially this one, with the smell of yesterday's whisky on his breath.

“Holly stayed overnight at your place. Good-looking woman, I hear.”

“Whatever you're insinuating, Mr. Pomeroy, I am in denial. She just rented a room.”

Pomeroy grins in a winking, skeptical way, then jolts him with good news: “Arthur Beauchamp is going to take you on.”

It's as if the clouds have parted and the sun is shining on Faloon. In this elated state, he listens to how some of his colleagues visited Beauchamp and pleaded his case. Coming out of retirement for Faloon is such an honour he feels a lump in his throat.

“We're bringing you back to court tomorrow. I may not be able to help him much, because I'm having a few family problems.”

“I figured it was something like that, Mr. Pomeroy. You never even got around to asking if I did it. I never even…”

His hand says halt. “I want you to listen carefully, Nick, because I'm going to put a situation to you. It goes like this: Nick Faloon and Eve Winters strike up a conversation over dinner at the Breakers. She finds him droll, interesting, a character. Maybe he's not a stud, but as a psychologist she sees beneath the surface. She wants to celebrate her strenuous hike with something more interesting than amateur night at the local, she wants to do something quirky and daring and totally off the wall, because she's that kind of gal: she's into
experimenting, she's innovative, curious, fascinated by all aspects of human sexual behaviour. So she asks Nick to wander by later to share a bottle of wine. And of course they get it on.”

“Only a baboon's going to buy that, Mr. Pomeroy.” He wonders how much Prozac this fixer has been doing. “This was a very refined lady. No way she would stoop to hustling a low-class citizen like me.”

Pomeroy keeps on with his scenario. “She forgets to lock the door when Nick leaves, and the prowler strikes.” Finally, his voice trails off with the absurdity of the proposition.

“Mr. Pomeroy, I don't even want Claudette to know that idea ever got mentioned. Not to be personal, but…maybe you should be getting help with your marriage? Like, ah, maybe a relationship analyst like Dr. Winters?”

“Thanks, we have one. Except that I'm the outsider in
their
relationship.” The lawyer is showing emotion and has to pull himself together. “Anyway, this brings us to the ironical possibility that you, too, were victimized on April Fool's Day.”

“I am listening.”

“Someone may have planted your seed in the victim. The someone we have in mind is Adeline Angella.”

Faloon isn't startled, he'd played with the thought but rejected it–there wasn't much sense to it, or any motive. Unless Angella was offended by what he testified in court, implying that after the big sexual come-on she wasn't that hot in bed.

“You used a rubber, right, Nick? That's what you said in court.”

“She says not, but on God's word, Mr. Pomeroy, she provided it. She went to the bathroom, came back with a Trojan.”

“Her version is that she begged you to put on a condom as you held a knife to her throat, and you refused.”

“What I was holding was not a knife.”

“And what happened to the skin?”

“I don't know, it was the wrong size, too big. If you have to know, Mr. Pomeroy, I don't have very much circumference
in that department. Somehow it kind of slipped off and got stuck up there.”

“Up her pussy?”

“I guess. I never saw it again.”

“Nor did the cops. A doctor examines her an hour later, takes a couple of swabs, and not surprisingly they've got your come on it. Meanwhile Angella has fished out the safe and put it in the freezer with the ice cream.”

This theory showed almost as many gaping holes as the scenario of Faloon making it with Dr. Winters. Why would Angella have kept some of his discharge? Only madness would drive her to a deed like this, a murder, trying to hang it on him.

After the lawyer leaves, he tries out that word again. Madness…

Maybe he didn't see that side of her because he was blinded by lust, it was three years since he went to bed with a woman. But she practically offered it on a spoon, took him to a small apartment that was so clean it didn't seem lived in. The first thing she did after pouring him a snifter was show him her book of clippings, stories she wrote, which were mostly for low-rent publications, not regular magazines.

Again, she asked him for the inside story of the Kashmir Sapphire, and he kept putting her off, saying maybe some other time. He continued to make up fables instead, Angella purring, “How exciting, it's just like a Cary Grant film.” She had a taste for old caper flicks, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn. Somehow they got onto the romantic side of such movies, then sexual fantasies involving masked intruders, and that's when Faloon started to feel strange about her, she seemed to want to act out a movie role, scripted.

She put out the lights until there was just a glow from the bedroom like an invitation, and that's when he asked if he could kiss her.

“You're not supposed to ask,” she said.

 

10

A
rthur rises early this morning to assemble himself for the courtroom, feeling ill prepared after his long hiatus. He remembers his brogues, and selects a poorly fitting suit of a cut he hopes has returned to vogue after a decade. Brian will meet him at the Victoria ferry terminus, so he'll go as a foot passenger. The Faloon hearing ought not to take long, a few housecleaning items, sweeping out the garbage that has collected around the case, the claim of insanity.

The Gwendolyn injunction is also set for hearing this morning. Arthur will wander in when he can: he doesn't want Santorini thrusting him into the role of counsel–Selwyn Loo is more than capable, though his larder of arguments is growing bare. He has filed photographs of the nest, of a solitary eagle on a nearby branch. The Save Gwendolers are worried–why has its mate not been seen for several days? Selwyn will plead for more time.

Arthur sent ten handwritten pages up the dumb waiter yesterday, a collage of farm concerns–they're down to one Woofer–a denial of the rumours of film stardom, a ponderous explanation about owing a debt to Nick Faloon, and an obliquely worded invitation to come to ground. He sought reaction as Margaret read it. Was she relieved he'd stopped being a doornail? Irritated to have been shunted onto a sidetrack and having to share the family spotlight? She looked startled for a moment, but it was only the onset of a sneeze.

In the end, she deflated every expectation with a shrug. “Why even think about it? If you feel strongly, go for it.” The inference was inescapable: she's not about to abandon her post. Still, like Minerva on her throne, who gave Ulysses strength, Margaret blessed this project. And, like Ulysses, Arthur has set sail for the Isles of the Blest, fully aware the legend is unclear whether he reached those shores or capsized.

He dusts off his elderly, sagging briefcase, and gathers up the Faloon file, its pages scattered to every reach of the dining-room table. He spent a day absorbing witness statements, exhibit lists, synopses of laboratory tests. It will take him months to bone up on recent law and forensics. DNA profiling was in its infancy when he quit practice.

Staff Sergeant Jasper Flynn wrote up the file in typically stilted police prose: “The scene of the incident is the property of Gerald and Inez Cotter, 85 and 79 respectively, who reside in East Bamfield, and advertise said cottage for rent.”

The Cotters knew Faloon casually, but “suspect never visited them or had access to the key to their cottage.” Twenty-four fingerprint lifts were taken, “none matching suspect, twenty-two others identified as known individuals.” Not known to the defence, however. Intriguingly, there were two unidentified prints.

Eve Winters stayed there four days, after hiking the West Coast Trail with three women friends, who batched with her one night, then returned to Vancouver. The inelegant Sergeant Flynn refers to two of them as “admitted lesbians.” Professional women: an anaesthetist and an accountant. The third is a graduate student in history at the University of British Columbia.

The pathologist's report discloses no external injuries, other than the chipped front tooth, abrasions to the undersurface of both wrists, and light bruising around the mouth, possibly from the panties being forced into it. The few tiny cuts and sores on her body were days old and consistent with scratches and sore feet earned during a wearying hike. Why didn't
Winters resist more forcefully? The Crown may have a problem rationalizing that–the jury, too, as they look upon the meek, runty figure in the prisoner's dock. Eve Winters was five inches taller, and fit.

But Adeline Angella doesn't weigh much more than Faloon–how could
she
have taken on the athletic Doctor Eve without suffering the worst of it? Unless a weapon was used–Winters yielding to the threat of a gun, allowing herself to be tied. This would account for the abrasions on the wrists. No rope or cord was found.

Harvey Coolidge is the Topekan developer who went for a walk to settle his stomach. His wife, a heavy sleeper, has only a dim memory of him rising from bed, then returning. He denies being anywhere near Brady Beach; he was strolling the deserted town. No one seems to have asked him why he would take so much money to a fishing resort in an isolated village and keep it under his pillow. He was duplicitous enough to have exaggerated his loss, probably for insurance reasons.

Another person of interest is a woman in the sex trade. Brian telephoned last night to tell him Claudette St. John suspects there was an apparent liaison between Winters and Holly Hoover.

“Apparently she swings either way, and Eve has similar inclinations.”

“Were these observations reported to the police?”

“Claudette spoke to Jasper Flynn. But his attitude was, don't bother me with trivia, don't complicate matters, the Mounties already got their man.”

In all seven pages of Flynn's summary of evidence, the interview with Claudette St. John merited not even a footnote. Arthur finds this either lazy or negligent. Holly Hoover earned two sentences. “Witness was talking at the bar with deceased about music, hiking, and the weather. She was thrilled to meet her, having read her column.” No hint of romantic overtures, no mention that Holly Hoover practices the ancient profession. Truly, this is a mind settled.

Briefcase in hand, Arthur emerges into the grey April day. It will feel odd returning to the arena; he can only hope he can slip into the routines, as one slips into old shoes, with remembered ease.

Outside the Woofer house, Kim Lee is changing the tire on her bicycle.

“Kim, you, me, drive ferry.”

“You dry very?” She extends a water bottle.

“Drive. To ferry.”

“Ah,
very
…Very good?”

Kim joins him in the truck's passenger seat. On the way, Arthur gives monosyllabic pointers about keeping Blunder Bay Farm afloat for the day. She nods, smiles, a lovely, open, innocent face, like a sunflower.

When he parks and hands her the key, Kim looks confused. “I no dry.”

“You don't drive?”

Kim shakes her head. Not understanding what Arthur wanted, she accompanied him out of politeness. She will have to hitch back, someone else will retrieve the truck, Paavo–no, he left last night. Arthur foresees confusion reigning at Blunder Bay, but he can't dally, the
Queen of Prince George
is pulling in.

He will try to get back early to sort things out.

 

A rubber toy squeaks as Arthur climbs into a well-used family Honda. “Sorry about the kids' mess,” Brian says. “Caroline has custody of the Saab.” He snaps his cellphone shut. “I just got word that the state has assigned one of its top slingers, Buddy Svabo, to the case.” Senior Crown Buddy Svabo, who occasionally mismanages his anger, will be a headache, but an over-reaching prosecutor wins no popularity contests with juries.

“Something else you should know. I just got the lab reports. They did a screen for Rohypnol, and found some traces in Doctor Eve's bloodstream.”

“A mood elevator?”

“You've been out of commission too long, Arturo. Rohypnol, rochies, roofies, Mexican Valium. Little white tabs from the friendly folks at Roche Pharmaceuticals. Powerful intoxicant, ten times the strength of Librium, odourless, colourless, tasteless. It's one of the hot date-rape drugs.”

Opening up an absorbing array of possibilities. “It causes the victim to lose consciousness?”

“Can do. Takes effect in twenty minutes, reaches a peak in about an hour. Amnesia afterwards, the victim doesn't know who, when, where, or how.”

“I assume no such pills were found in the rented cottage?”

“Nor at Faloon's lodge.”

“How available are they?”

“Illegal here, but you can get them easily, from Mexico, off the Internet.”

Angella's researches must have acquainted her with Rohypnol. Now there is a clue as to how she might have overpowered Doctor Eve. But, still, why would she?

They are moving with the traffic down Pat Bay Highway, where the farmland peters out and the malls and condos multiply. Brian is driving well enough, no sign of a hangover. Arthur dreads another teary spectacle, but politeness demands he ask after his family.

Brian responds calmly, in the manner of one sedated, telling of his Sunday outing with his daughter and two sons. “They've learned to turn the situation to their advantage. ‘Mommy lets us do that'is one of the refrains.” His cellphone interrupts. “Oh,
really
? How fun.” Pleasure animates his voice, but he makes a sour face. “Fine and dandy then, we'll hook up.”

He tosses the phone into the back seat, where it clatters among the plastic animals. “Angella. She's in Victoria, meeting our new prosecutor. Third call this week, and it's what–Tuesday? Our date is this weekend. Meanwhile, I am to look up her Web site, which has the entire article from
Real
Women
on it, how she got raped and how you were so mean to her in court.”

He has more immediate concerns. “I'm a damn good father, Arthur. I don't try to turn them against Caroline, I speak of her only to praise her. But from Antonio–he's the seven-year-old–I got, ‘Why does Mommy call you a rooster?'”

He sniffs, fumbles for the sunglasses behind the vizor. “You're going to have to get someone else to junior you, Arthur. I'm liable to snap. I can't handle it.” He bangs his hand on the steering wheel. “A rooster! To my kids! I've been straight! For almost two years…”

Arthur finds it hard to sympathize. He's been straight all his life. His thoughts flip to Margaret, up in her roost with the roostering, roistering original voice from the bush. Arthur once went to a reading by that posturing poetaster. His “earthy muscular renderings”(
Capilano Review
). More like barnyard grunts.

 

Outside the courtroom, they come upon Buddy Svabo, who dons a mask of delight. “Here comes trouble.” Early forties, short, compact, a bent nose–he was an amateur boxer. With him is a burly man, obviously the case officer. “Told you, Jasper, they're desperate, they're bringing in the artillery.”

Staff Sergeant Jasper Flynn heartily takes Arthur's hand. “Looking forward to seeing you in action, sir.” Thick-necked, forty, attractive in a square-chinned, barrel-like way. Premature hair loss is compensated for by a handsome, curling moustache.

“Beautiful area, the Alberni Inlet,” Arthur says. “I don't suppose you get many murders out that way, Sergeant.”

“No, sir, but I've only done six months there, filling in for the head of Major Crimes, he's on sick leave. Now they want to move me back to Vancouver to push paper.”

“That makes for a rather short stint.”

“Yes, but thanks to your client, I get to stick around while I run this file and chase a few salmon. Tell him I appreciate it.”

Brian searches in vain through pockets and briefcase for the cellphone he left in the car. Finally he marches down the hall to a public phone.

Buddy asks, “How long are you going to maintain this pretence your guy's insane, Artie?”

Arthur hates that diminutive–it's like artsy, used of one who is tasteless and imitative. “Evidence mounts,” he says. “We have a trail of dissociative identity disorder going back to childhood.”

“I'm no expert,” says Flynn, “but I'd say he's as crazy as a fox. Otherwise, he's as normal as you and me.”

Buddy seems annoyed by the officer's flip attitude. “He's freaking
ab
normal.”

“And that's our position too,” says Arthur. He draws Buddy to an alcove.

“Yeah, Flynn
should
be pushing paper,” Buddy says, glaring at the officer. “That guy's in deep doodoo. He had a dangerous ex-con in his jurisdiction, a thief, a rapist, and he didn't warn the community. That's why the head honchos plan to shift him out of Alberni, sooner than he thinks. There's already been heat, we've been getting it from women's groups too.”

“I'll try not to add to your burden. Do we have full particulars?”

“Why? Is there anything missing? Nothing to hide, that's the way I always work. Did you get the latest analysis? Rohypnol, you slip it into a girl's glass of wine, and pretty soon she just can't say no.”

“I want the names of the known individuals whose prints were in Cotters' Cottage.”

“Her three girlfriends, the owners, a previous tenant, and a couple of dumb cops who didn't wear gloves. One of them
that
brilliant sleuth.” A nod in Flynn's direction.

“None of Harvey Coolidge, I presume.” The condo developer.

“You've got to be kidding. The guy's straight as an arrow, solid pillar of Topeka.”

“What about the two unidentified prints?” Perhaps Holly Hoover, perhaps Adeline Angella, though he doesn't want to alert Buddy that she's of interest.

“Who knows? Eve was there for almost a week, she probably had visitors, hikers. There was a bottle of Chablis on the table, uncorked, three-fifths empty. The prints on it were deliberately smeared. Two glasses in the sink, washed. They didn't analyze for Rohypnol, but that's how he did it.”