I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (25 page)

Hammersmith ordered them sequestered, which meant that a block of hotel rooms would be provided. No radio, no newspapers. None looked too happy as they returned to court after setting their immediate affairs in order.

“Call your first witness, Mr. Smythe-Baldwin.”

That was an identification officer, custodian of the exhibits. After taking the oath, he kissed the Bible. This unsanitary practice was a custom that pervaded the lower courts in the sixties. It was adopted by police officers in high court in an effort to give their testimony credence, though it's now a curious relic.

The
ID
officer began the dreary process of describing and labelling the Crown's sixty-seven exhibits. Diagrams, maps, garments, fingerprints, serum samples, cartridges, documents. Frinkell's letter. Dermot's memoir. Several innocuous photographs taken from Mulligan's desk, mostly of him: feeding his horse; astride his horse; riding his horse, playfully doffing a hat to reveal his bald top; Irene in their city home, hair piled up, dressed as if for a party. None showing them together.

Smitty called Irene next. Like all subpoenaed witnesses, including policemen, she had been excluded from the room. It took so long to fetch her that I feared she'd run off, but finally she came, walking unsteadily up the aisle in high heels. Pleated skirt, elaborately buttoned sleeves, tight collar, something puffy and flowerlike adorning her blouse. Over-powdered, with glossy lipstick exaggerating a thin mouth. Even through the half-veil attached to her rather shapeless hat I could see the dark circles under her eyes.

“Ghastly,” Ophelia whispered.

“Madam, I expect this is distressing to you,” Smitty said, “so we shall try to keep it as brief as possible.”

He led Irene quickly through undisputed terrain: age, residence, year of marriage, husband's achievements and station in the academic community, date of purchase of the Squamish Valley farm,
and, with the aid of survey maps and photos, the layout of that property. She described their general run of activities there. She conceded she found the hobby farm lonely and hadn't been looking forward to spending her husband's sabbatical there.

Irene spoke in a breathless voice, no weight to her syllables, and Hammersmith twice asked her to speak up. His war service, with the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, had dulled his hearing.

Smitty's first task was to discredit the suicide hypothesis, and he drew from her that Mulligan had been in good health, diligently working on his memoirs, planning a time out to visit the Seattle fair. Then she added, “But in his last days he seemed to be brooding over something. Worried.”

Smitty hid well his displeasure at that excursus, and proceeded cautiously in asking about Gabriel and his role as caretaker/house-sitter. He'd had the run of the house before Irene showed up the week before Easter, but thereafter declined invitations to come in to warm himself after chores. He even brought his own lunch, so she had negligible contact with him. His mornings were often spent with Dermot, sharing yard and barn chores, talking, debating. In the afternoons, from three to six, Dermot would usually closet himself in his study and Gabriel would disappear.

“Dermot was very fond of him,” she added.

Smitty had no interest in asking whether Gabriel shared that fondness, and moved on quickly: “Dermot was fond of him, but what were your feelings?” A tricky question, but Smitty had obviously interviewed her carefully and may have been expecting something noncommittal.

“I regret I never got to know Gabriel better, but he was unfailingly polite and helpful. A very nice young man. Very intelligent and well-spoken.”

Hammersmith: “I'm sorry, very what? Intelligent and soft-spoken?”

“Well-spoken,” Smitty said.

“Unfailingly polite and helpful,” I added.

“Please be seen and not heard, Mr. Beauchamp. Your time will come.”

(A verbatim transcript that Wentworth Chance found in the law school archives and copied to me serves as an
aide-mémoire
, so to bring back specifics like these I don't have to rely on old memory cells, with all their smudges, erasures, and flaws.)

Smitty moved Irene quickly to the Saturday of Easter weekend. Mulligan had spent the morning at his desk and after lunch gathered up his fishing gear, promising to be back by supper.

“And he went off to his fishing hole?”

“That was his intention.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“I don't think anyone did.”

“Except Gabriel Swift.”

“Well, yes.”

“And your husband never returned.”

“He didn't.”

“Let us leave it there. Other witnesses will fill out the rest more than handsomely.” And Smitty turned her over to me.

I began by expressing appropriate words about her husband's disappearance, reminded her to try to keep her voice up, then made what hay I could from Gabriel's role as Mulligan's diligent hired man, omnivorous student, and faithful outdoors companion.

“He never showed hostility to your husband?”

“I never heard a cross word.”

Hammersmith cupped an ear. “He never did a crossword?”

I could see that the jury was having trouble hearing her too, and I repeated her answer. “And did the accused show any lessening of affection in the days just prior to your husband's disappearance?”

“No.”

“In fact, on the previous day, Good Friday, they hiked together to the top of the Stawamus Chief?”

“Yes.”

Hammersmith asked, “Who or what is the Stawamus Chief, madam?” Irene looked at me for help.

Ophelia retrieved an article from a travel magazine with graphic, dizzying photos of the mountain, and passed it around while I
educated his Lordship. “A fifteen-hundred-foot sheer rock face just south of Squamish. It is accessed by back trails, and the cliff face descends almost perpendicularly to its base. Certain death for anyone who might slip over the edge.”

Hammersmith looked up from the photos, stared at the Crown table, saw no one stirring. “I hear no objection to counsel's travelogue. The article will be the next exhibit.”

I returned to Irene. “And they seemed to be getting along well that day? No problems between them?”

“Not at all. I saw them go off together; they were chatting amiably.” Her voice was stronger now, though still husky. Much throat-clearing.

“There'd been no quarrels on this trek?”

From the bench: “How could she know? Unless she had somehow transported herself there.”

“Let me rephrase. Your husband didn't seem distressed on his return?”

“Just exhausted.”

“Now in answer to my learned friend, you said that in the days before Easter Dr. Mulligan seemed to be worried. He was brooding. Did you find that strange?”

“It wasn't normal for him.”

“Did you know what was distressing him?”

“Not at the time, no.”

I let it go at that. “Two decades ago, Professor Mulligan served two years as principal of an Indian residential school in Saskatchewan. You're aware of that?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever talk about it?”

“Very little.”

I picked up restlessness from the bench and hurried on. “As far as you were aware, he served there honourably?”

“Where is this going, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“To the heart of the Crown's case, milord.”

“The question – if it is a question and not mere rhetoric – calls
for both speculation and hearsay. It probably fails the relevance test too, but I shall suspend judgment while I try to figure out where you're going.”

I looked him squarely in the eye. “As always, milord, I appreciate your helpful instructions.” Hammersmith awarded me a little smile – he relished combat.

Back to Irene. “Let me ask you this, then. Dr. Mulligan made many public pronouncements, did he not, about his opposition to the residential school system?”

“Yes, he believed they were obliterating Native culture and should be shut down.”

Hammersmith was glaring at Smythe-Baldwin, challenging him to object. But Smitty was focused on me, maybe intrigued a little. Maybe he hadn't expected much from me.

“Your husband hired Gabriel some two and a half years ago?”

“October of 1959.”

“Let's talk about the circumstances of that. The accused was on probation at the time?”

“Yes.”

“He'd received a six-month suspended sentence for assaulting a police officer in Squamish?”

“Yes.”

The judge stopped making notes, taken aback by this rare instance of a defence counsel putting his client's criminal record in issue. Lukey too looked confused – I was doing the Crown's work.

Reporters were scribbling; they'd caught a scent of something, maybe today's lead item. I wanted this story shouted over the radio, printed in boldface: how a vengeful cop falsely incriminated a lippy Indian.

“Gabriel had felled the officer with a single blow?”

“Yes, it was in the papers.”

“And the man he put on the ground so unceremoniously was Sergeant Roscoe Knepp, the chief investigating officer in this case?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“And that incident occurred after the accused intervened to protect his father from harassment and false arrest—”

That brought Smitty to his feet, but not fast enough for Hammersmith: “The objection you are about to make is sustained.”

I bulled ahead, talking loudly over him. “Whereupon Sergeant Knepp taunted my client by calling him a lippy Indian shit –”

“This court is adjourned!” Hammersmith rose, paused, gathered himself. “You will have ten minutes, Mr. Beauchamp, to compose your plea for clemency. I shall expect an appropriately cowering apology.”

The jury filed out, looking bewildered. I headed directly to the men's for an urgent piss – I'd been imbibing gallons of coffee since going off the sauce. Maybe I was over-caffeinated. I'd shocked myself by letting loose like that, though was pleased I'd found the courage. The press had enjoyed it. So had Gabriel, who awarded me a half-hidden thumbs-up.

Ophelia and I had spent many hours briefing him on his testimony, preparing him for cross, how to relate to the jury. His evidence would expand on Irene's: his innocent and caring relationship with Mulligan, his total lack of motive. There would be forceful refutation of Lorenzo's claim of a gushing confession. But much would depend in the end on whether the alibi about being with Monique would hold up. We still hadn't achieved access to her, though she was under subpoena. Lukey had guaranteed us a full hour with her before putting her on the stand.

I was still emptying when Smitty came in and eased his generous patrician belly into position at the adjoining urinal. “Nice bit of work, old chap.”

“I don't know what got into me.”

“Bollocks. You have both jury and press titillated.” There'd been a race for the bank of pay phones.

Smitty finished, washed, brought out a cigar, sniffed it, snipped it, rolled it between his fingers, tasted it, put his Ronson to it – a long, silent cameo while I zipped my fly.

“You were distraught, of course.” He blew a plume of smoke. “Pressure of a capital case. The first one can be a highly emotional
experience. The formidable burden of defending when the penalty is death. Retain your dignity – don't grovel.”

I thanked him, and we hurried off.

Leroy Lukey impeded my progress to counsel table. “You're putting Roscoe on trial? That's your best shot?”

“Along with whoever invented the phony confession.”

I slipped past him and joined Ophelia, who looked at me as if at a stranger. “What got into you? Who was that masked man?”

“The Lone Ranger.
How come
.” I was still learning, but I'd watched the courtroom masters: Branca, Bert Oliver, Smythe-Baldwin himself. They understood the theatrics of law. “This is not a big deal. Irene never got a chance to answer the question.”

“It wasn't a question, it was a speech. Then you drowned out The Hammer when he was calling you to order.”

“I did?”

Court was called and I treated Hammersmith to a penitent face as we waited for the rumble to cease, reporters hurrying in, bottoms meeting benches. The jury remained out.

“In a couple of recent trials, Mr. Beauchamp, I have observed a tendency to deliberately ignore both the rules and your duty of courtesy to the court. I say ‘deliberately' because you are not at the intellectual level of some of the cretins currently being pumped out by the law schools. I am encouraged to believe you knew what you were doing. Please persuade me that I am wrong.”

“I am informed, milord, that I talked over you as you were admonishing me. I am distraught about that. I had allowed my voice to rise and my attention was elsewhere.”

“On yourself, no doubt.”