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
Again, 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.”