“They’ve lived together for several years, correct? Dr. Glynis Bloom and Wilma Quong.”
“They said that.”
“And Dr. Winters and Ruth Delvechio made up another pairing.”
“I guess so.”
“And you received a report that those two had a brouhaha in the cottage.”
“I heard something from Mrs. Cotter about a quarrel. I didn’t think it unusual. Lots of people fight. Friends and couples fight.”
“Though both the victim and accused dined at the Breakers Inn, you went first to Cotters’ Cottage.”
“Yes, I found out where Dr. Winters was staying, and myself and two members went there on foot.”
“Much closer, though, was the small lodge where the accused lived, the Nitinat.”
“That’s true.”
“And it’s fair to say that Mr. Faloon was high on your list of suspects?” Arthur may as well put Faloon’s past on the table. Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit. A wise man does not piss against the wind.
“He was the number-one suspect, yes.”
“So why didn’t you dispatch either of your officers to the Nitinat?”
“There was a thief in town. We didn’t know if he was dangerous. Our first concern was Dr. Winters.”
An unresponsive answer, but a good one. Arthur has rarely encountered such a well-prepared witness. A dumb cop, said Buddy. Not.
“You couldn’t send one of the constables there?”
“That would go against procedure. He wouldn’t have backup.”
“An officer needs backup for puny Nicholas Faloon? He can’t weigh more than-what do you have him at, about a hundred and thirty pounds?”
“About that. A little over fifty-eight kilograms.”
“Five and a half feet in height?”
“Yes.”
“And Dr. Winters was at least four inches taller?”
“She was about five-ten, yes.”
“And extremely fit? An athletic woman?”
“I wouldn’t argue.”
“There were no signs that the victim suffered any debilitating blows to the head or body? Nothing to render her helpless or unconscious?”
Kroop interjects. “Mr. Beauchamp, you’re forgetting about the date-rape drug. What’s the name…Rohypnol.”
“Thank you, milord, for your invaluable assistance.” Arthur’s icy stare is returned in kind.
Arthur is tempted to needle Flynn about his negligence in skipping past Angella’s name in Winters’s records. But the urge comes from a childish wish to pay him back, and he quickly suppresses it. “No more questions.”
“We’ll break for lunch,” Kroop says.
Arthur takes a long walk up Burrard Street to the art deco bridge that straddles False Creek. He’s not hungry, and he wants to avoid pitying eyes in the El Beau Room-all will have heard about the debacle in Court 67. He should consult Brian Pomeroy, but doesn’t want to deal with his blunt wit. Nor can he bring himself to call Lotis.
He can’t remember when a cross-examination so backfired. His earlier doubts are verified, his courtroom skills have rusted up and seized, his one great talent has gone stale, frittered away on songbirds and roadside poppies and daily hikes to the General Store.
Only the prospect of returning, even in shame, to his island retirement stays him from total wretchedness. It’s not that Flynn blunted the secret weapon, Angella, but that Arthur’s pride has been bruised-he was outduelled in the arena where once he was king. He ought not to have taken on Flynn at such length, should have shied away from the profitless wrangle about Hoover.
He looks down at the tide-bloated inlet. “Shit!” This brings a flurry of pigeons flapping from under the bridge.
Before court resumes, Buddy sidles up to Arthur again. “Change of plan. I’m going to do some forensics this afternoon.”
“What about the Topekans and their huge bills at the Hyatt?”
“A few administrative problems have cropped up.” That is so vague as to be meaningless, but Buddy doesn’t clarify and Arthur doesn’t ask.
The day is taken up by experts in DNA, serum, and blood analysis, who seem unready, resentful at having been moved up the list. The jury labours hard, trying to follow the biochemical jargon, the mixing solutions and reactive agents, extraction and precipitation, swabs and smears and stains, the chain of custody from crime scene to lab. Ears, assigned the task of leading these witnesses, is having trouble coping with the complexities of DNA.
Arthur has declined to make things simple by admitting any of these facts-he’s stalling for time in the fast-fading hope that Nick Faloon will burst on the scene in all his owlish glory.
For some reason-his loneliness, his dull, dispirited performance-Arthur feels his alcoholism acting up as he waits for an elevator at Tragger Inglis Bullingham. He has been avoiding his old office, hiding from Bully and his crusade to drag the deserter back to the front lines. He must also avoid the partners’lounge, where Messrs. Schenley, Seagram, and Walker wait in ambush behind the bar.
He sneaks into the library, where wizened Ed Riley is burrowed into a hill of case law. “Something on continuity of forensic exhibits, please, Riley.” The analysts had problems identifying a few of the zippered plastic exhibit bags. The jury might be persuaded some were mixed up, a desperation defence.
His old office is used by visiting rainmakers, lawyers, business leaders, but otherwise the firm has kept it empty, like a mausoleum. Which, as Bullingham frequently reminds him, is yearning for his presence. Doris Isbister maintains it as is, the Lismer on the wall, the Etruscan prints, degrees academic and honorary, the cabinet with his clippings, the immaculate desk with legal pad, ready jar of pens and pencils…and now a computer.
They tried to set him up with one years ago, but after several trials he demanded they remove the ugly mechanism-a TV with keyboard. The complexities seemed designed in hell. Keats didn’t need a computer. Nor did Beethoven. Nor, for that, did Clarence Darrow.
He calls Doris in, a mistake has been made. She gives him a peck on the cheek and tells him he’s being silly, everyone works with a computer today. Documents are transferred this way. Firms and friends e-mail each other. He is no longer simple Arthur Beauchamp, he is Beauchamp at TraggerInglis dot com.
She passes him a book, The Idiot’s Guide to Computing. “This is a mouse. Click it here and see what happens.”
The screen goes white. A list of messages appears on it. Doris shows him how to open the first one, from the computer company congratulating him on his purchase. She lets him open another-it’s from the entire staff of Tragger Inglis, welcoming him back. Suspicion fastens on Bullingham.
“I’ll leave you to it, dear.” Forcing him to swim on his own. She pauses at the door, speaks meaningless garble. “Dual 64 G5, two point five gigs.”
Arthur moves the mouse, and arcane symbols appear at the bottom of the screen. He has heard of computers hanging up at the mere touch of a key, viruses, massive erasure of files, he must be careful. The next message is from Pomeroy and Company. “I am sick at heart, maestro, I just found this hiding in the bowels of my computer.” A copy of Sergeant Flynn’s missing addendum about Holly Hoover ferrying Winters across the inlet.
Lotis too has learned he’s computerized. “I’ve been Googling DNA. The science is advancing exponentially, all they need is a flake of dandruff, a bead of sweat, a partial fingerprint.” There follows a line lifted from a forensics text: Vaginal swabs or stain from post-coital drainage will typically contain sperm cells mixed with vaginal cells.
She concludes: “Just in case Angella did keep Nick’s discharge in her sperm bank, we should ask Dr. Sidhoo to have another look at the sample. I’ll call tonight and we’ll kick it through.”
Maybe computers have their uses after all-Arthur had almost given up on that theory. The Case of the Loosely Fitted Condom. Or it may have broken, as Lotis suggested. Probably a dead end. Arthur prefers the looter-in-the-trash idea.
Here’s a final message, from one Richard Stiffe. Does Arthur know a Richard Stiffe? He reads with alarm: “Your credit card will be billed at $22.95 weekly. A free CD three-pack of Sultry Sexteens is shipping to your billing address. Please confirm…”