I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel (29 page)

When asked, “Where did you suppose he got these bruises from?” Jettles said: “My best guess would be from a fist-fight the previous night in a bar in Squamish. You see that sort of thing all the time.” Beauchamp got snarky. “When you look at this one closely, can you make out a standard-issue
RCMP
boot print?” That had Smythe-Baldwin rising in umbrage. Hammersmith again scolded Beauchamp for a vexatious cross-examination.

“And that, Wentworth, is when I realized the folly of having promised not to ask Borachuk if Gabriel was bruise-free when brought in.” He added: “I was stuck with the deal, and at trial it would be the word of two white cops against one red hothead.” That deal would long continue to haunt him.

Jettles vigorously denied he'd initiated the rendezvous with Wall at the sports grounds: “He came to us.” As for Lorenzo, Jettles did not know him well, had never met him until two weeks earlier, had never talked to him for more than five minutes.

At this critical juncture Beauchamp felt as if he were pedalling backwards. As he put it, he went off the road, with a sarcasm-laden final cannonade at Jettles and much irrelevant sniping at the remaining police witnesses. During this he was constantly skirmishing with Hammersmith.
^*

The jury was removed for a voir dire to test the admissibility of Swift's curt alibi after he was picked up by Constables Grummond and Borachuk on Easter Sunday afternoon (he'd said:
I was with my girlfriend all afternoon. Anything else?)
. Beauchamp put up a strong argument that the officers' failure to advise Swift of his rights poisoned the statement, and the jury ought not to hear it.

It was half past eleven. Hammersmith reserved on it until two o'clock.

I
was sweating as I fled the court, thinking of a frosty glass of ale, scheming a way to sneak one past Ophelia. But Gabriel had asked to see me, so I told her to run ahead to the Georgia and find a table for lunch while I detoured to the little holding jail.

I was taken right into his cell, as was the practice there. I was still in black robe and vest and wing collar; it's a funereal look at best, and he stared at me darkly, as if I were the messenger of death. I would not have been surprised to hear him announce that my services were no longer required, that he'd revived his plan to defend himself – better having a fool for a client than a fool as a lawyer – but he merely said, “I guess Jettles is one of those born liars. Nice talent to have if you're a cop.”

“I was frustrated and angry. I lost it.”

“I've been there. Congratulations, Arthur, you have normal human feelings and frailties. I knew they'd show eventually.” A biting comment – I wasn't used to that from him. “Why is it so important to keep that statement out?”

“So no one can accuse you of inventing an alibi.”

He grimaced, seemed troubled, perhaps by something else he hadn't been forward about. “Who's up next?”

“Crime lab people. Ident officers. The fingerprint guy, firearms guy, serologist.”

“What about Benjamin and Anna?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“What are you going to do to them?”

“I have to take them on. They're lying about their daughter being home.”

“And Monique?”

“An hour has been set aside tomorrow for us to interview her. I may need to shake her up in court. It could be unpleasant.”

He nodded, wandered off in thought, wandered back. “Food here's better than at Oakie. They send out – Chinese, Greek, steak sandwiches Deluxe.”

I read his lack of eye contact as bad news. “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

“The cartridge shells they found.” He finally looked at me. “They could have been mine from a few months earlier. A bear was hanging around while we were fishing. I shot in the air a couple of times to warn it off.”

“Did you just remember this?”

“Well, I usually took my rifle along on those trips, so my folks could lay in a little venison. Yeah, I just remembered about the bear. I remember Dermot being pissed off; he hated guns, wouldn't own one.”

“So he was with you?”

“Yeah, it was Christmas break.”

I had warned Gabriel it would be a hard slog to convince a jury that Knepp planted the shells, so this was a boon, but also, I suspected, a convenient falsehood. “Okay, that will be our defence. We'll fill in the details well before you testify.” I held myself back from a sharper reaction. I was nagged by a feeling he was playing with me, doling out information when it suited him. Ophelia's remark continued to rankle:
He knows he can't manipulate a top counsel
.

As I readied to leave, he said, “I may want to see you at the end of the day.”

“What about?”

He spread his hands, palms up, as if offering them for the teacher's strap. “I need time to work through something.”

Outside it had turned hot, the pavement of Georgia Street shimmering with summer heat. A day for the beach, not an overheated courtroom. I was starting to reproach myself for having been so swellheaded in taking the case on, believing I had the moxie to win.

In the Georgia lounge I was irritated to find that Lukey had taken my intended chair at Ophelia's table. “How about that Brad Jettles?” he said. “Bullets bounce off.”

I dragged in another chair and situated it between them, forcing him to shift over. Ophelia had already ordered; she passed me my coffee, now lukewarm. She was nursing a white wine, Leroy attacking a cold Calgary Ale.

Jettles was enjoying a beer too, celebrating at a far table with Knepp and another cop – red of face, thick of neck and shoulder, balding in front – fairly fitting Gabriel's description of Walt Lorenzo.

“So I'm wondering, how do you guys explain why your boy's dabs are all over the dead guy's wallet and clock?”

“How should we explain it, Leroy?” I signalled the waiter, pointing to the beer taps. That brought a frown from Ophelia.

“Okay, your Indian's got some jets. While the laughingstock puffs along behind, he goes whooping off, has time to check out the scene, decides to rummage around, maybe collect his week's pay out of the dead man's poke. Have I got it right so far?”

He had, sort of, but I wasn't about to say so.

“That scenario starts to sound almost rational, except why does he go running off there in the first place? Trying to lose everyone? Answers?” He smiles at me, then Ophelia. “Because he suddenly remembers:
Jeez, I got my prints all over the pervert's wallet after I snuffed him yesterday. So I better run off and lay down some more prints, so there's no way to pick out the day-old ones. And I'll say I was looking for, say, a suicide note.”

I wondered if he had a spy at Tragger, Inglis, or if the Oakalla interview room was bugged. He craned his neck, either to look down Ophelia's dress or at the magazine article open in front of her.

“Friedan,” she said. “A psychological critique of Freud, according to whom I'm supposed to be envious of your penis.”

“Sigmund got it wrong, my love. Only the guys envy my penis. Girls swoon.”

“Do they have to bring their own microscopes, or do you supply?”

Lukey leaned toward me. A stage whisper: “I hear she likes guys to sit on her face and fart in her mouth.” He downed his beer and trotted off toward his
RCMP
team.

“Fuck yourself,” she called. Those nearby were staring.

I took a deep swill from the mug of ale newly set before me, felt that first ease of false escape. “How was Lenny Bruce?”

“Not as filthy as Leroy, and a lot funnier. Just that one, okay?”

Two Denver sandwiches arrived. I had little appetite. “Now I know what it's like to feel Jettles's boot. And he's the local dimwit. Knepp will pulverize me.”

Ophelia dug into her sandwich, not even a smile to shore me up, and I sensed a slipping of respect, of confidence. She greeted Gabriel's eleventh-hour disclosure with cynicism. “Scaring off a bear, was he? Fair enough. At least he's playing the game right. I guess he's decided not to be a martyr after all.”

I caught Lukey and the triad of cops appraising me. The scouting report was in: Beauchamp has a good tongue but lousy hands, fumbles a lot.

As I sought to signal the waiter for a refill, Ophelia grabbed my arm and tugged me to my feet. “Get yourself together, for God's sake. Let's go back to work.” She marched me back to Court One, a schoolmistress with an errant child.

Hammersmith's reasons on the voir dire were not exactly bulletproof but predictably framed to aid the prosecution, were they to be attacked on appeal. To ward off any suggestion that he held any animus toward defence counsel, he began by thanking me for my “able and eloquent submission” before dismembering it.

Let me quote salient passages from the transcript:

Mr. Beauchamp argues that the accused's statements in the police vehicle are inadmissible because he wasn't warned of his right to be silent. To me, that incorrectly frames the question, which should be:
Were the officers required to issue any warning at all? If a questioned person is regarded as a suspect, yes, the usual caution is highly desirable. But if such person is merely regarded as a possible witness, an information-giver, the authorities face no such obligation. Can one imagine the chaotic situation that would occur if all prospective witnesses in all criminal cases had to be told they could remain silent?

Mr. Beauchamp argued that the accused was indeed seen as a suspect by the two officers, and he made the point that ordinary witnesses “are not picked up on a rural road, and given a third-degree in the back seat of a cruiser.” The evidence on voir dire is far less clear than that. Constable Grummond made it abundantly clear to the accused that they had no reason to suspect him, and that they just needed, and I quote, “the whole picture from someone who knew the deceased so we can figure out what happened.” The fact that they drove him a few miles to his reserve is to their credit
.

Lukey then brought the jury back to hear Grummond and Borachuk recite Gabriel's alibi about being with his girlfriend. Grummond and Gene Borachuk were not this drama's culprits, and my cross-examinations were brief, restricted to implying this was all part of a set-up by others to pin a murder on my client. More flack from the bench.

Smitty had little to do that afternoon – he'd sluffed off to Lukey the tedium of leading the expert witnesses – and for much of the time reclined in his chair with eyes closed, as if enjoying a nap after an appetizing meal.

I'd already read the reports of the crime lab people, all of whom I knew from previous cases, and asked few questions. I had nothing for the fingerprint examiner. The ballistics man accommodated me by agreeing there was no way to tell how long the 30-30 cartridges had lain on the ground. Could have been months, years? Possibly.

The prissy Victorian clerk kept glancing at Ophelia with disapproval. She was in a dress that day, but too short – one could see her calves and ankles. He seemed doubly offended that she smothered
mirth when the pair of frilly panties was displayed to judge and jury, or at least remnants of same with swatches cut from them. One of the Eaton's brands, described in its catalogue as “flare-leg nylon tricot, $1.99.”