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 abnormal.”
“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.”
“And who had keys?”
“Owners had a spare set. Ask your client, maybe he made a copy. It’s pretty freaking obvious that’s how he got into the rooms at the Breakers.”
“Let me finish my shopping list, Buddy. I would like the laboratory reports in their entirety, including the Rohypnol test. As to the main exhibit, the semen sample-may that be released to us for an independent analysis?”
“Not. You’ll have to get a court order. There isn’t enough material left to give out free samples. What’s all this about? I thought you were going on insanity. You managed to push it this far, you’ve got nothing else.”
“I want all bases covered.”
“If you’re thinking of defending the main issue, whether Faloon actually did it, I’m going to have to call Adeline Angella-I guess you remember her. Previous rape, it shows a pattern, the similar fact rule applies.”
“I will be strenuously opposing.”
“I like a good fight.” Buddy affects a boxing stance. “Seriously, I can’t go easy on your guy, Artie. I have to get him off the streets, there’s a huge amount of pressure on me.”