April Fool (28 page)

“Here at Thirty-third and Heather, General Investigation Section, Serious Crime Unit. I liaised with some of the outlying detachments, co-ordinating evidence.”

“You have a family?”

“Two strapping boys, fourteen and sixteen.”

“And you're a kids' hockey coach?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you've done volunteer work in schools?”

“I've done about fifty school visits, talking to kids in class.”

This is to arm Flynn against what's to come, his sheltering of Holly Hoover. Arthur dares not object, but Kroop saves him from having to. “We have only two weeks, Mr. Svabo.”

“I note a couple of commendations on your…”

“
Please
, Mr. Prosecutor. We all accept that he's a sterling fellow.”

Pleased with that gift, Buddy desists. “All right, is the Village of Bamfield within your jurisdiction?”

“Yes.”

Area maps are produced, showing the long bent finger of Alberni Inlet, the web of logging roads that lead to Bamfield. Photographs of the Breakers Inn, Nitinat Lodge, Cotters' Cottage, the crime scene: Dr. Winters's body, supine, a puff of cotton extruding from her mouth, the undergarment that blocked her airway. Most jurors glance quickly at these photos, distressed, but Martin Samples, the film noir buff, studies them with narrow-eyed concentration.

Close-ups of the Chablis bottle, uncorked, about ten ounces remaining. A grey smear of fingerprint dust, suggesting the surface was wiped by a cloth. Two clean glasses in the sink. Near the fireplace, a chair with bra, jeans, an outdoors shirt. A bath towel lying loosely on the bed. In background, from the wall, the cougar stares malevolently.

The murder weapon is passed among the jurors in a zip-lock bag. Serums and blood samples will be identified later, but are given exhibit numbers. The swab with the suspect semen is 52.

Kroop makes no attempt to alter the flow, rarely seeking clarification. Ears remains an unnoticed fixture at counsel table. With his handsome ears and his habit of chewing the ends of pencils, he brings to mind a rabbit.

Flynn is prompted to describe his doings on April 1, arriving by launch with two officers, first stopping at the Breakers Inn to investigate the thefts, then trudging up the rutted road to the cottage.

Arthur can see why Buddy wanted Flynn at counsel table despite his missteps: he is well rehearsed, organized, relaxed, even amiable. This notorious trial is the highlight of the officer's career, and he's giving it his best.

After sealing the cottage and calling in the Ident Section, Flynn went to the Nitinat Lodge, missing Faloon but finding a makeup kit and, in a trunk, garments of disguise. When he finally returned to Alberni, Faloon was in the lockup, in women's garb. Efforts to take a statement were fruitless, the suspect staring close-mouthed at him.

Buddy shows photos of Faloon, staring moronically, pretending illness. “You'd met him before?”

“I introduced myself when I was posted to the area. Paid him a visit.”

“Why?”

Arthur is on his feet. “Before the witness responds, may I suggest we give the jury time off for good behaviour? A break until tomorrow, it's been a long and tiring day.” It is almost half past four, and Arthur is weary himself.

Kroop cautions the jury, sends them to their homes, then says, “What answer do you expect to your last question, Mr. Svabo?”

“Sergeant Flynn knew the accused had a horrific criminal record, including a previous brutal rape and scores of thefts and break-ins. So he was checking him out. Like any responsible officer.” Almost imperceptibly, Flynn nods.

“I have often doubted the wisdom of the rule, Mr. Svabo, but evidence of previous misdeeds remains beyond the pale.”

“This isn't just bad character. It's a lifestyle. Faloon has shown up on police blotters around the world. Banned from at least half a dozen hotels in this very city. It all points to him being the person who did a nighttime foray through the Breakers just before the murder.”

“He's being prosecuted for a murder, not a lifestyle,” says Arthur, but with only half a heart. The jury has heard about Faloon's disguises, they will hear about the gangland-style jail breakout. They will not think he is a paragon. Especially after Adeline Angella tells why she sought him out for an interview.

“The objection is sustained.”

“Okay, I've run out of questions.” Buddy isn't unhappy, he was merely hoping to prejudice the judge against Faloon, paint him in villainous colours.

After court breaks, Arthur watches Buddy and Ears give kudos to Flynn for his fault-free performance–and probably encouragement for tomorrow, when he'll undergo Arthur's first cross-examination in six years.

 

24

A
gain, on this grey morning, Arthur does his health walk, along the seawall to Brockton Point, where totems rise above the mist of dawn. He's more at ease now that he's wet his toes, got that first day behind him.

Back at Elysian Tower, he spends several minutes hunting for his reading glasses–they're under Plutarch, where he ought to have looked in the first place. He put down the essays last night upon finding new and distressing meaning in the famous proverb:
When the candles are out, all women are fair.

Candles are the illuminators of choice for Margaret and her band of merry Robin Hoods, that's how they light their way to bed. He shivers with disgust at his insistent, ridiculous suspicions.
You're too young, darling, we have to stop doing this
…He's appalled at himself. The Annabelle Syndrome.

Margaret could have come home weeks ago, they smuggled the rope ladder back up. It's hubris and stubbornness that keep her in that tree. But now she must compete with Arthur Beauchamp for the rave reviews. Day Two!

 

As the judge is summoned, Buddy Svabo leans to Arthur's ear. “After you're through with Flynn, I'd like to do the folks from Topeka. They're in the Hyatt, costing us a freaking fortune.”

“Anything to help the struggling taxpayer.” For whom
Buddy isn't showing that much concern. He doesn't need half those witnesses.

Kroop enters, fluffs his robe, and settles like a contented hen on a nest. He'll grow more cantankerous as the trial progresses, but today he shows the jury a small puckered smile.

Buddy tells Flynn to retake the stand, and bows to Arthur. Be my guest.

“We'll be a few minutes,” Arthur says, “so you may want to sit.”

“Thanks, but I'll stand.” Flynn, who was on his feet all yesterday afternoon, reacts by standing taller. The jury seems to have taken to the handsome, burly officer: forthright, easygoing, the sort of fellow who'll sit down with your teenager and straighten him out.

“Officer, the last time we saw each other was in Bamfield.”

“That's right, sir, a couple of months ago.”

“You had business there?”

“Routine patrol, as I recall. Some of the boys in the bar get boisterous on a Saturday night.”

“Did you have a little chat that day with Holly Hoover?”

He purses his lips, and his generous moustache moves in concert. “I think I said hello to her.”

“Is she the young lady who was sharing barstools with Dr. Winters only a few hours before she was murdered?” This is the first mention of Hoover to the jury; Arthur wants to put her in the picture quickly.

“That's right.”

“In your report, you describe her as ‘unemployed, single, a local.' The fact is, she's vigorously employed, is she not?”

Another twitch of moustache. “Not in a legitimate sense, I guess. She does a lot of entertaining of men.”

“Less timidly put, she's a prostitute.”

“I don't think she's ever been arrested for it. It seemed fairer to call her unemployed.” The officer is showing decency,
letting the jury know he's not one to add to a woman's soiled reputation.

“Surely you know she hires herself out to loggers up and down the coast from a boat called the
Holly Golly
?”

“Never had a complaint.”

“Who would you expect to complain?”

Again Kroop fails to locate the perpetrator of a poorly smothered laugh. Buddy is in close, deep conference with Ears–can it be that Hoover's career as
demimondaine
comes as a surprise to them?

“Mr. Beauchamp, I cover a huge jurisdiction, I don't have a lot of manpower.” A helpless face. “We have to concentrate on what bothers people most–property theft, assaults, domestic violence.”

Arthur confronts Flynn with his snippet of a report about Hoover and Winters chatting about music, hiking, and the weather. “These pages don't offer the slightest hint Ms. Hoover operates a motorized bawdy house up and down the coast. Did you not think that may be of interest to this court?”

Buddy pops up. “He's trying to smear a witness we haven't even heard from.”

“Is this going anywhere, Mr. Beauchamp, or is it merely a titillating digression?”

“The doings of this woman on the night of the murder are of considerable moment, milord. As is her relationship with this witness.” He snaps his suspenders, a habit when he's about to zero in. He moves closer to Flynn, softens his voice. “Many of the good people of Bamfield believe she has an unofficial licence to carry on her business.”

“I don't issue such licences, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“They say you're often seen talking to her.”

“I talk to a lot of people.”

“In fact, you look her up every time you come to Bamfield.”

“We bump into each other.”

“Yes, at her home and on the
Holly Golly
.”

Flynn may not know Arthur is merely surmising, and he looks at Buddy, finds no help. “Once in a while. Just to talk.”

Arthur pauses, letting the jury play with their speculations. A woman in the back looks offended, either at Flynn for being chummy with this Magdalene or at Arthur for his lewd insinuation.

“I'm in a tough spot here,” says Flynn.

He looks pleadingly at Buddy, who bounces up, too eagerly, to make rescue. “All right, I didn't want it to come out, but after these snide innuendos, I can't see any way around it. If this puts Miss Hoover in danger, it's on Mr. Beauchamp's head. Sergeant Flynn will have to explain the true nature of the relationship.”

“Holly Hoover is a police informant,” Flynn says.

Arthur has underestimated Buddy's wile, he ought to have known this was coming. An innocent explanation for their many meetings, for Flynn's mollycoddling, his house calls.

Buddy presses his advantage. “Sergeant Flynn meets regularly with her in Bamfield, sometimes privately, sometimes in public. It looks like he's cautioning or hassling her. Not. He's receiving vital crime-stopping information.”

Instead of objecting, Arthur wades into battle. “Nonsense. This case aside, there's hardly been a crime worth stopping in Bamfield for the last twenty years. Are we to believe this woman earns the officer's generous leniency by snitching on hunters who bag deer out of season? Everyone in town knows about the cozy arrangement between him and his so-called informant, and she's under no threat whatsoever.”

“You are flagrantly out of order,” Kroop says. “Let's get back on track, Mr. Beauchamp.”

Arthur is chafing at having the rug pulled out from under him. Hoover probably does feed information to Flynn in exchange for his winks and nods, it's smart police work. The jury may well resent Arthur for portraying this dutiful family man as a lecher on the take. Buddy had prepared Flynn well, advised
him to take a few blows, bob and weave, then land a haymaker.

“Officer, how many times have you met with Ms. Hoover since the murder?”

“Two, three times. I took an initial statement from her that day.”

“From which you learned she was the last person to see Dr. Winters alive?”

“Except the killer.” He's confident now.

Arthur flutters a page of Flynn's evidence summary. “And this is all she had to say? A bit of inconsequential chat at the bar of a public house.”

“Yes, but she told me only half the story. About a week later she gave me the long version. About how she met Dr. Winters outside the bar, and they went by canoe to West Bamfield.”

Hearsay by the carload. But it's Arthur's fault, he has opened it up. He must stay on the attack. “I put it to you, officer, that you sought to dissuade her from admitting to this.”

“I certainly did not.”

“You told her to stick to the short version and not complicate matters.”

“I told her just the opposite. The conversation's in my notes, and I copied them to Mr. Svabo.”

Arthur struggles not to show his distress, turns to Buddy.

“Don't look at me,” Buddy says. “I sent a letter of further particulars, let's see…” He bends, whispering to Ears, who shuffles through a file and hands him a memo. “On April 7, to Mr. Brian Pomeroy, when he was still acting for the accused.”

This cross-examination is turning into a disaster. Pomeroy, the inattentive ex-dissolute, is to blame, too engaged in marital strife to read his mail.

Kroop has enjoyed watching Arthur squirm, but reluctantly orders a break. Arthur needs it, a chance to retool. As the jury is led out, he sees disappointed looks from the counsel who came to watch the storied barrister in action.

Buddy hands Arthur a photocopy of Flynn's handwritten notes. “I thought you had all this stuff.”

The notes back up the witness's account: “Hoover attended Alberni h.q. 14:15 hours to see undersigned having ‘remembered' she took deceased by canoe across inlet around 22:00 on prior 31 March. Because of rain, ‘we didn't dawdle' and not much conversation except deceased couldn't wait to get out of wet clothes. Undersigned warned Hoover re withholding material evidence. She refused to sign statement until talked to lawyer.”

A version sketchier than the one she confided on that stormy night the lights went out at Brady Beach. No mention of Winters's invitation to extend the evening over a glass of wine.

Again he reminds himself that this will matter little in the end. He's merely spreading manure across the field, an odour for Buddy and Ears to sniff at, to distract them from Adeline Angella's pungent Fantaisie.

Bolstered by that thought, he sticks it out, hoping to pick up the pieces of his cross-examination. When Flynn resumes the stand, he prods him about his threat to charge Hoover with obstructing justice.

“Why did you stay your hand?”

“I guess I figured no harm was done. Anyway, she had a right to see a lawyer and get advice on her situation, and I assume she did that.”

“She talked to a lawyer?”

“On Saturday, April 15, I saw her leaving the licensed premises with a six-pack of cider. I asked her where she was going. She said she was on her way to talk to you, Mr. Beauchamp.”

Her tongue in his ear, her hand between his legs, the clams roiling in his gut. Flustered, he can only ask, “Did you have any other dealings with her?”

“Just to serve a subpoena on her.”

Arthur shuffles through notes, unsure where to pick up. “Ms. Hoover claimed to
remember
paddling across the inlet with Dr. Winters?”

“
Remember
was the word she used.”

“And didn't she also remember Dr. Winters invited her to join her at the cottage for some wine?”

The question causes a stir among the press and brings Buddy bouncing on his toes. “Mr. Beauchamp's trying to sneak in a wild theory by the back door. It's all hearsay.”

“It's hearsay, Mr. Svabo, but we should give Mr. Beauchamp leeway, don't you think, given the obstacles he's encountering?” A patronizing knife. “What's the answer, officer?”

“She didn't say anything like that. But she tends to remember things when she wants to.”

This is going nowhere. Arthur must find a less-travelled road, where the potholes aren't as treacherous. “Whatever she might have said, someone was being entertained in Dr. Winters's cabin that night. The bottle of Chablis and the glasses in the sink might suggest she had a guest, do you agree?”

“It's possible.”

“Hardly likely that she would be sharing wine with an intruder.”

“I couldn't say, sir.”

“Who might very easily have slipped a few tablets of Rohypnol into her wine.”

“Yes, but someone could also have sneaked in and done that.”

“A garment stuffed down the victim's throat–an odd means of suffocating someone, do you agree?”

“I guess so.” Flynn twiddles that moustache.

“Ever heard of anything similar in a murder investigation?”

A shrug. “I can't bring anything to mind.”

“You've told us you found no fingerprints of interest. None of the accused.”

“That's right, but the glasses had been washed, and the bottle wiped, it looked like.”

“You have a knack for answering questions I haven't asked.”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Beauchamp,” Kroop says, “he's doing his best.”

“Then he doesn't need any help from the court.”

“This court does not take sides.”

Arthur wants to have it out with him, make the jury aware that behind a facade of fairness lurks a partisan for the prosecution, with a bias showing like poorly tucked-in underwear. But he must not let his temper get the best of him, for now he'll take his licks.

“All but two prints came from known individuals, as you put it. From whom, precisely?”

“The deceased, of course. There were quite a few of hers. Inez Cotter, the owner of the cottage. And two of the women who had been hiking the trail with Dr. Winters.”