A few minutes later, Selwyn Loo comes into view, walking slowly, his cane ticking against rock and root. Reverend Al is beside him, offering no aid but his voice. “Straight ahead.”
The media part as if for Moses, affording Selwyn clear passage to the tree. A wholesale sucking-in of breath as he nearly trips on a buttress root. A collective exhalation as his hands go to the gnarled, knobbed bark of the ancient fir.
His fingers find a teardrop of sticky sap, which he puts to nose and tongue. He cocks his head, seems to be listening to the tree, as if to hear it breathe. The moment is shattered beautifully by a piercing note, a flicker flying by. He kneels and finds a newly fallen cone, thick with seed, which he spends a moment fondling, then pockets. “Good afternoon, everyone,” he says.
This is an almost transcendental moment for Arthur. He feels something powerful welling from him, like love. For Selwyn, for Gwendolyn, for the primal splendour of this forest. For the mystery of life itself. He resists an urge to join Selwyn at that tree, to put his arms around it, to hear it breathe, find its cone, its seed, its offering.
Arthur denies himself a second helping of stew-unless he gets a grip on his appetite, he will soon resemble Barney, the farting horse. An alcoholic may occasionally cut a romantic figure, but nobody loves a glutton.
Selwyn begged off staying the night, but enjoyed-in his manner, ever dour and long of face-a Blunder Bay walkabout. As they wandered along the paths, a solitary eagle flew in slow, grave circles above them. “They mate for life,” Selwyn said. He continues to suspect Garlinc shot one of the pair. He apologized for his gloom. “Depressive episode.”
Lotis took him to the ferry. Despite her frequent chiding of this morose fellow, her feelings for him, Arthur suspects, go beyond simple friendship. Beyond affection, maybe even to the barren wastelands of love not returned.
“Scene five, how she spent her summer holidays.” Lotis hoists a tray with bowls of stew for Stoney and Dog, who are in the barn, celebrating-the Fargo has been pulled from the pond. “Call 911 if I’m not back in five.”
He follows her out. A nippy evening, with stars and a burgeoning moon. In less difficult times, he and Margaret would be strolling to Blunder Point under that moon, their after-dinner ritual, with Slappy, his diligent inspection of every rock and bush and turd.
Lotis emerges from the barn waving away smoke. “Whoa, I got a contact high just walking in there. We’re going for a walk, want to come?” We includes Slappy, who came home today, charmed by Lotis. Maybe there’s a smell that she and Margaret share, something brave and rebellious, a smell that tells the old dog he’ll have adventures with them.
On the way, Lotis doesn’t try to break Arthur’s silence, and the only sounds are footfalls and snapping twigs, and Slappy behind them, sniffing and snorting.
Where the trail takes a short, steep upturn, Arthur absently takes Lotis’s hand. “Let’s not twist any ankles this time, my dear.”
“What?”
His mind has become a wandering fool. “Mental slip, sorry.”
“You’re totally hopeless without her, aren’t you?”
16
Because all the rooms in the Victoria courthouse are taken, the disclosure hearing takes place in a study area of the law library. Arthur has Lotis at his side; Buddy Svabo sits alone, looking pugnacious. Judge Iris Takahashi is here to arbitrate, Arthur’s former student, dimly remembered. On the other side of a glass partition, wandering around the stacks with a briefcase, is Staff Sergeant Jasper Flynn.
Arthur is cross, depressed-Munni Sidhoo, the biotechnology professor, worked all weekend on the semen sample, and her result, no surprise, has Faloon’s DNA floating about in the biochemical mix. A long shot that didn’t pay off.
“We seek to examine,” Arthur says, “the dirty underwear my learned friend has been loath to disclose. He claims to enjoy the services of a jailhouse snitch.”
“My witness is a Crown informant. By long-standing rule, I don’t have to divulge his name.”
“Nonsense,” says Arthur. “He will be called to give evidence. He won’t be wearing a bag over his head.”
“This person is in jail awaiting sentence, he’s at risk if he’s exposed.”
“You’ll have to make safe arrangements for him,” says Takahashi. “Counsel is entitled to know who he is and what he intends to say.”
“How is it the defence gets everything and gives nothing?” Buddy’s exasperation is poorly feigned. “Okay, you’ve got me on the ropes. Father Yvon Rechard of the Holy Roman Church-more of a saintly soul than you expected, eh, Artie?”
“And how does he find himself behind bars?”
Buddy shrugs. “One of those Indian residential school things. Thirty years later, a bunch of guys decide to complain. They’re grown up now, you’d think they’d want to put this behind them.”
“Put what behind them?”
“Well, Father Rechard…” To give him credit, Buddy reddens as he grapples for a safe way to answer. “He’s up for seven counts of sexual assault.”
“Which you intend to prosecute with faint heart.” Arthur wonders how strong his own heart is, he shouldn’t get riled. But he finds his voice rising. “Or maybe not at all-is that the deal you made? You’d swap the ruined lives of seven men for perjured testimony?” As Arthur slaps the table, lawyers in the library turn from their studies. Jasper Flynn, standing among the legal texts, glances up, stiffens, as if ready to go into action. Lotis looks surprised to see that the icon has a temper.
Buddy has raised his hands defensively, as if protecting his head. “Hey, hold on, Artie, if he gets a cheaper sentence for co-operating, that’s up to the judge, I’m neutral.”
Doubtless a deal not made on paper, but with winks and nudges between Svabo and counsel for the priest: a suspended sentence, probation. Arthur must sit down with his client, must garner information on this pedophiliac.
Buddy hands out copies of Rechard’s statement. A mere three paragraphs, in a neat hand on lined paper. He occupied a cell adjacent to Nick’s. They often shared a table at mealtime. They talked about religion and philosophy. The priest believed Faloon was a Catholic-“fallen, like myself, so far from grace.”
Arthur picks up a hint of Milton in that line. The final paragraph, the nub of this jailhouse confession, is less poetic, just as pious: “I felt something was bothering poor Nick because he had been sleepwalking in his cell. I asked him if he wished to relieve himself of any troubles. He shook his head, and I didn’t press it. But that night I heard him whispering to me from the next cell. He said, ‘I couldn’t help it. She was beautiful. I just couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t help myself.’ His voice trailed off as he repeated that. I felt it my duty to come forward.”
“Short and sweet,” says Buddy, trying to look virtuous.
“He felt it his duty to come forward?” Arthur raises his voice again. “The very forward Reverend Rechard, is it? If the man has no compunction about betraying the confessional, why should we assume he’s honest at all? I can hardly wait, Buddy. I am chomping at the bit. I want the jury to see how desperate you are.”
“I have to call whatever evidence comes my way, Artie, that’s my job.”
“Whom did he come forward to? I want every word of every interview that led to this. I want every piece of paper you’ve got on this fellow.”
“Not. Can someone tell me why we’re even here?” A testy, aggrieved tone. “The case is tight-we’ve got DNA, you guys are looking at a ten-billion-to-one shot. Faloon is going to do it all, the freaking book, and he can forget parole.” His temperature is up, his face red. “How are you doing with those new tests, Artie? What about our rights to disclosure? I’ll eat my shirt if the results don’t spell Faloon in neon.”