Arthur was minded to brush aside this latest speculation, but Pomeroy’s words came back: They’re connected, you know, Whynet-Moir and Naught…Everything is connected, but they’re especially connected.
“I found out they knew each other since law school,” Loobie said. “There’s a pattern, both those guys were flung into the drink. No weapons, same MO.”
“Interesting, Charles, but that and a dill pickle don’t make a sandwich.”
“This is off record, you guys, but when I was covering the Naught trial, one of the cops told me off record Naught was being investigated for frequenting high-end pros like Minette Lefleur.”
“All the more reason why he may have taken his own life.”
“When he died, so did the file.”
“And how does all this relate to Whynet-Moir?”
“I got a deep gut sense those two deaths mesh. Maybe Whynet-Moir was blackmailing him, or maybe the reverse; maybe they each put out a contract on the other.” A lowered voice: “Try this on for size, Artie-maybe Raffy personally rubbed him out.”
Arthur would prefer proof over gut sense, but no harm exploring this latest dubious theory. Again he wondered at Loobie’s persistence in directing traffic for the defence. Time and again he’d sent them down blind trails.
“Order a transcript of Naught’s inquest, would you, Wentworth, then brief me on it. And take Charles to lunch at the El Beau Room.”
Loobie agreed to meet him there. Wentworth went off to change, paused in his tracks, returned to Arthur. “I’m in pretty solid with Minette Lefleur.”
Arthur recalled him mentioning he’d won her bawdy-house case, his first trial. “Of course, I’d almost forgotten. Excellent. When you have a moment, you might go over her account with her.”
“When I have a moment…”
“How about this evening if you have nothing on?”
Wentworth looked woefully at his heavy briefcase but took a deep breath and hastened away. A little hard work never hurt anyone, that’s what Arthur believed. He spied Cud sidling toward him, seeking attention, and he escaped into an elevator.
He took lunch in the Law Courts Inn, joining a couple of judges of long acquaintance, Ken Singh and Bertha Rudweiler, both of whom felt he’d overreached with his sniping at Kroop.
“Lay off him, Arthur,” said Rudweiler, an ill-tempered appeal judge better known to the bar as Rottweiler. “He’s being feted tonight. He retires this summer, let him go in peace.”
“Yeah, why antagonize the old bugger?” Singh said.
“Because I need an enemy. I can’t get keyed up for a case unless I’m tussling with someone. Abigail Hitchins isn’t even putting up a front of opposing me.”
“Bending over backward with her legs spread, the way I heard it,” said Singh, then yelped as Rudweiler stabbed him in the ankle with the point of her shoe.
“I suspect Abigail is waiting in the weeds for Florenza LeGrand,” Arthur said.
“She must have a shitty case against you,” Singh said.
“Meantime, we are racing to get the chief to the Governor General’s soiree on Monday.”
“I worry he’ll have a cardiac first,” said Rudweiler. “He was carrying on about you and Abigail ganging up on him. Profane language.” The censorious justice went on to talk about her current appeal, the Ruby Morgan case.
Arthur listened with discomfort to her complaints about the “mutinous lot of brigands” who were the defence crew, finished his sandwich, excused himself, and headed outside for a pipe and a couple of calls, the first to Dr. Alison Epstein, to tell her he’d talked to Pomeroy last night.
“What was your impression?” she asked.
“He wasn’t entirely unresponsive. He has maintained his slashing wit. But conspiracies abound, and he seems to be lost between this world and a fictional one of his creation.”
“That’s perceptive, Mr. Beauchamp, but there may be more to the puzzle than that. I may not have mentioned some strange language he used when he was on cocaine: ‘They’re after me,’ he said. ‘I know too much. I know who killed the judges.’ Paranoid utterances maybe. He said all the clues were in his manuscript.”
“Does he remember anything of a visit with Flo LeGrand last month?”
“He says not. He may be withholding. Or some major event or disclosure may have caused a memory block.”
He next tried Margaret, who must be peppier now that the NDP vote was collapsing. She’d turned off her cell but left him a message. “I have just heard the noon news, Arthur.” He was taken aback by the cool, clipped tone of her rebuke over his repartee with Professor Chandra, his quip about election day not coming too soon for him. The phrase was “flip, impolitic, and implied a lack of support.” Arthur was hurt-no such innuendos were intended.
She should be pleased he was dragging the Conservatives through the mud-he’d lowered himself, engaged in the grimy game of politics (for her!) with his blunt hints that Whynet-Moir bought his judgeship. The press had gobbled it up.
He was dolefully packing his pipe on the steps when he heard voices from below, by a fountain around which reporters had convened. “Yeah, right now it’s a work-in-progress, but I’m hoping it’ll hit the shelves for Christmas.”
Arthur hurried down the steps, saw the poet in his poncho by a cement railing, behind a bouquet of microphones, holding a sheaf of verses.
A reporter asked, “What’s its title?”
“The Day the Hall Burned Down. My publisher already sent me the cover copy. ‘Laden with subterranean meaning and subtle subtext mined from the coal-pits of painful memory.’ I’m also working on a memoir about this case, called Scapegoat…”
Arthur yelled, “Cut!” and broke up this impromptu, leading Cud away. “Damn it, you’re not on a book promotion tour.”
“Give a starving artist a break, Arturo, a big publisher wants my story; I got to strike while the anvil is hot.”
“The only poem you ought to be interested in right now is ‘Reading Gaol.’”
“How’s it go?”
“‘Pale anguish keeps the heavy gate, and the warder is Despair.’”
“Nice groove. Hey, what was all the fuss about this ‘matter of great urgency?’”
“All will be revealed.” Arthur wasn’t about to tell him yet about April Wu’s subterfuge for fear he’d put it on the street. He led him past his cheering section, past a young couple holding a banner, “Poetic Injustice,” and back into the building.
“So how’s it looking, are we beating back the forces of reaction? The only honest witness for the last two days was a lowly wage-earner, the waitress; the others must’ve been told their eyes would be gouged out if they saw anything. So what do you think, compadre, what does the big picture look like?”
“The prosecution has drawn the curtain on the literary evening. The next stage will be police evidence, then forensics. The big-ticket items, Astrid Leich and Florenza LeGrand, are being saved for the end. Then you testify. Maybe. Depending on what they say. I’ll want to confer with you about that.”
Cud’s fan base had decreased by one: no sign of Felicity Jones. But he was not wanting for admirers-a pair of rose-lipped cherubim were on the courtroom terrace offering thin volumes for his willing pen.
Within was Wentworth, unpacking his briefcase. “Loobie had beans all to add to his double-murder theory. I don’t think it hangs together. The good news is, when I mentioned Carlos, he gave me this.”
A photocopy from the Province, November 1992. “Teenaged Heiress Jailed in Mexico.” It began: “Wealthy heiress Florenza LeGrand, 17, was arrested on drug charges yesterday near Guadalajara, Mexico, eight months after she disappeared from her Vancouver home.”
She’d been picked up by federal police at a farmhouse she shared with a “known” drug dealer, Carlos Espinoza, twenty-four. Charles Loobie, settling into the press table, bestowed on Arthur a wide smile that sought forgiveness for past sins.