“I wonder if your lordship would let me do my work here.”
Wally looks hurt. “I have to be fair to both sides, you know. What were you about to say, Ms. Yi?”
“Well, Egan passed out in the taxi, so I don’t know if it was that stimulating.”
The whole room laughs. My cross-examination is again in shambles. I am so peeved at Wally that I find myself tottering badly during the balance of my inquiries, and limp to a stale close. “I understand you consider yourself a feminist, Miss Yi.” I seek to show that despite sisterly misgivings, she has come here prepared to tell the awful truth about Kimberley Martin.
“Yes, but I don’t believe just because a woman gets high means someone has a right to attack her.”
Hedy Jackson-Blyth nods in total agreement. My examination ends with that loud clong. I can think of no way to make repairs. The Commander fumbles his way to a chair.
Wally is grinning, too obviously enjoying my discomfiture. “I have a leftover sentencing matter, so I think we’ll adjourn for the day.”
“That was a disaster,” I mumble to Augustina as we flee the courtroom.
She hands me her evidence notes. “In case you missed something,” she says sternly. “Make sure you phone Mrs. Blake tonight, okay? Might help keep you alert. If it’s okay, I’m having dinner with the client. Keep him sober, guard him from the witch of the Slocan Valley.”
“Enjoy yourself.” A. R. Beauchamp, Q.C., says this bitterly, still disgusted with this morning’s amateur production. Caped hero, indeed. Where was the blood, the boldness?
I retreat ignominiously to my hotel suite. I stare sourly out the window at a gargoyle sticking out its tongue, jeering. I’ve been out of training too long. My island has made me stupid and soft.
I wait until five-thirty to call Margaret — she will be in the house, preparing her dinner. I let it ring several times — she is probably in the garden or the barn. I picture her rushing to the house, panting as she grabs for the receiver, ah, yes, yearning to hear my voice. But no. No answer.
I try to console myself with a book, but cannot work my way into it and put it down. I order food up. I drink coffee and read the newspaper. I phone Margaret’s number again. No answer.
She has a meeting to attend. The Fall Fair Committee. The Save Our Island Committee. She is campaigning for office. She is busy.
I try to get into my book again, but the words slide around on the pages, forming an illegible, muddy paste. I stare out the window: traffic clogs the streets below. The city is turning orange against a sun that sets beyond Garibaldi Island.
She knows where I am staying. She could call me.
I venture out into the fresh evening air. I pause upon the lawns of the Vancouver Art Gallery, kick off my shoes, and swirl slowly about on the grass, fifteen minutes of mind-composing tai chi.
At ten-thirty, back in my room, I phone Margaret again. And still no answer. Why is this early bird out so late?
I pick up Augustina’s notes. I put them down. I pee. I shower. I brush my teeth. I go to bed. I fall asleep.
My dreams are visited by old unwanted friends: Messrs. Ridicule and Shame. I stand flaccidly exposed before Wally Sprogue in his golden toga. The executioner stands by, masked and smiling. Guilty…. intones the chorus, guilty, guilty….
On this first morning of September a soggy quilt of clouds lays atop the city, obscuring the peaks of the North Shore mountains. As I stand before my hotel window, I feel as gloomy as the sky; yesterday’s bout of courtroom impotence has caused me an ill foreboding. And where was Margaret all last night?
“Hurry, Arthur. It’s almost ten.” Augustina has come to fetch me, armed with umbrellas. I grab a room-service muffin and munch it as we venture out into the drizzle. She sees I am morose, and kindly offers no reviews about the bomb I dropped on opening day.
“I just talked to Patricia — she’s going to hold off Kimberley until the afternoon. Egan Chornicky is next; he should be okay, he likes O’Donnell. Then it’s Constable Peake, who’s on annual leave and wants to rejoin his wife in Arizona, followed by dashing Clarence de Remy Brown, who’s antsy to get down to South America.”
“How was your evening with the accused?”
“Like a sort of date, actually. Not romantic, I don’t mean that, but we went to a movie after, and had a decaf at his house. He didn’t try to tie me up and paddle me. He was being all very witty and sarcastic, but then he got moody. He kept saying, ‘I have to do the right thing.’ Refused to elaborate.”
Inside, we sheathe our umbrellas and swim among a school of reporters, arriving in court to find Egan Chornicky already in the box. A spare, weedy-looking man, he wears a jean jacket that seems in the process of decomposition. A wild thicket of moustache. Unruly blond hair that he constantly sweeps from his eyes as he bends forward in whispered conference with Patricia. As court is called to order, she walks away shaking her head.
Chornicky is quickly in trouble. “I don’t have a home address right now,” he testifies. “Like, permanent. My landlady and I had a little disagreement.”
He is equally unsure about his current occupation. “My job? A short-order cook. I was going to repeat my year in law school, but I got a chance to promote this rock band. I dunno.”
His memories of the dance are vague and of little help to either side. “I was too busy looking after the bar to really notice anything,” he says.
“What was Professor O’Donnell drinking?” Patricia asks.
“Stiffs. Doubles.”
“What about you?”
“I guess I was looking after myself pretty good. I didn’t want to have to lug away any full bottles.”
“Tell us what happened after the dance.”
“Well, we had this party to go to after, downtown here, and we all sardined into a bunch of cars. I was in there with Kimberley in one car, which Ears was driving — ”
“Ears?”
“Charles. Charles Stubb. And we went up to this house, and there was this really large evening going on there, about fifty people, and I guess when they ran out of beer that’s when we went to the professor’s house. A lot of this was so long ago, I’ve forgotten what I did remember. Some of it I think I read in the papers. I was pretty zoned.”
“Tell us just what you remember.”
“I remember going over Lions Gate Bridge. I remember a fairly swish house, I assume it was his, the professor’s. Big library and a fire, lots of sort of Elizabethan music. There was some excellent scotch or something doing the rounds.”
“Who was with you?”
“I don’t know, there were five or six of us. Kimberley for sure, and another good-looking lady.”
“Woman,” Wally says. “She was a woman.”
“Very definitely, your honour. Chinese.”
“Southeast Asian Canadian.”
“Correct. And there was some kind of cross-dressing thing going on, I remember that Kimberley started, but I didn’t get into it. She did some kind of Shakespeare gig. Or that may have been at the other house. I don’t remember going home, but I must have.”
Though I can’t fathom how he passed his LSAT’S, I admire this man: He has attained heights denied even to Beauchamp in his prime. The jurors are smiling.
“Okay, Mr. Chornicky, there’s been some mention of drugs being used that night. Did you have any cocaine on your person?” It is a subject Patricia cannot avoid now.
“Well, here’s where I object on the ground that the question will incriminate me.”
“Nothing you say can be used against you,” says Wally. He frowns at the witness in warning. “Except on a charge of perjury.”
Patricia says, “Okay, what is the answer to my question?”
“Well, the night before, an associate of this band I work with laid on me a little powder which I assumed was cocaine, though I never had it lab-tested or anything. Could’ve been speed, could have been powdered milk. And I remember I had it on me at the dance.”
“Did you consume any?”