Arthur tires of being ignored. “A slight housekeeping matter, milord-the usual practice is to invite opposing counsel to cross-examine.”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic about it. An oversight. If you have some questions of Sergeant Flynn, just say so.”
“I do.”
Flynn lumbers back to the stand. Arthur must go at this with utmost care.
“Sergeant, we have on record that Eve Winters reserved Cotters’ Cottage in November. It wasn’t any great secret. Surely somebody mentioned it to you?”
“Not at all.”
“According to Ms. Hoover, when she first spoke Dr. Winters’s name to you, you said, ‘Who’s she?’”
“That conversation never occurred.”
“You had in fact heard of Doctor Eve?”
“Yes…I’d never met her.”
“She was well known to you from her syndicated column. You might have seen her as a guest on television.”
“Okay, yes. I might have read a couple of her pieces.” His eyes finally leave Arthur, focus elsewhere, a hint of deceptions to come.
“You won’t dispute that Holly was excited about this chance to bump into the famous Doctor Eve.”
“Maybe so.”
“Yet you say this loquacious young woman didn’t mention it to you?”
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“Well, what in the world did you talk about during your many friendly chats?”
“What people were up to, the local troublemakers. General things.”
“Ah, yes, and the weather, I suppose, and the latest hockey scores.”
“Sometimes. Or we’d just joke about this and that.”
“And she’d ask how your boys were, your two young hockey stars.”
“That sort of thing.” Definitely uneasy. Now release the pressure.
“You’ve told us that you were posted to Port Alberni-when was that, eight months ago?”
“Late October. I went there to fill in, the senior man in Major Crimes had fallen ill. And I guess I stayed.” Talking fast, relieved to be off the topic of Doctor Eve.
“Before that, you worked out of RCMP division headquarters here in Vancouver.” Arthur slips on his glasses, quotes from the transcript. “You testified, ‘I liaised with some of the outlying detachments, co-ordinating evidence.’”
“A pretty tedious job, Mr. Beauchamp. Important, though. Major Crimes.”
Pushing paper, he’d called it. Brian Pomeroy is trying to gather proof it was more than that. If necessary, he’ll serve a subpoena duces tecum, with documents, proving the chain of possession, what officer handled what exhibit.
“You co-ordinated physical exhibits?”
“Materials for testing, cartridges, serums, paint scrapings, that sort of thing.”
“How does the system work?”
“You have to make sure the item goes to the right forensics person. Then make sure it gets back to the exhibits custodian in the outlying detachment.”
Lotis settles beside him, her phone calls done. She posed a solution months ago. Someone from forensics could have planted Nick’s ejaculate in Winters. Or a cop. Arthur hadn’t listened. It galls.
“Is it fair to presume you had high clearance, and with it access to the exhibit locker?”
“Here in Vancouver? No, sir, that’s off-limits except for our exhibits custodian.”
“However, exhibits would be signed in and out by you. They’d go through your hands.”
“Packaged for delivery, sir. I never touched them. I was like a switching station.”
Arthur feels a nudge, looks down to see Lotis’s capitalized note: ASK ABOUT TRASHING OLD EXHIBITS. Presumably relayed from Brian.
“In closing out a file that’s been through the courts, all appeals exhausted, you would destroy the exhibits, yes?”
“Records section would notify the exhibit custodian that a file has been concluded, as we call it. Some exhibits might be returned to the owner, otherwise they’re destroyed locally. Blood samples, that sort of thing.”
“Do you hop to it right away, or do these notices pile up?”
Hesitation. “They collect. Every once in a while, when there’s some down time, my staff would aid the custodian in a housecleaning.”
A sound from the bench like low, distant thunder, bad weather coming. Cross-examination shouldn’t be an excuse to romp all over the playground.
Arthur will ignore him unless he says it out loud. Another note. HE WAS BACK HERE IN JANUARY.
“After your posting to Port Alberni, did you return to Vancouver headquarters from time to time? Business to clean up, that sort of thing?”
“No, not really.”
“What does ‘not really’ mean?”
“I came back for a couple of weeks to help with a backlog, but that’s all.”
“When was that?”
“Mid-January…around there.”
Kroop has been watching the clock. “I suppose you have some relevant point buried in all this, Mr. Beauchamp, but how long is it going to go on?”
“That will depend on the witness.”
“We’ll take ten minutes.”
Arthur and Lotis walk up to the seventh level, for privacy while they call Brian. On the tier below, they can see Buddy also on his cell. Getting clued in.
Brian talks fast. “I’m so coffee’d up I’m ready to scream at the next droid who asks me to be patient. This can’t possibly be a secure line, our every word is being digitally analyzed, so I’ll be short. No one is confirming or denying. A flying squad of Crown attorneys has arrived. Also I hear ACU has been alerted. But that’s between you and me.”
“ACU?”
“Anti-Corruption Unit.”
Below, heading for the exit, presumably for a smoke, are Hoover and Claudette, friendly, old transgressions forgiven. Alone in the Great Hall is Jasper Flynn, composing himself. Hoping Arthur is just sniffing around.
Buddy Svabo never really cottoned to the man, despite his meticulous preparation for this prosecution. He had a dangerous ex-con in his jurisdiction, a thief, a rapist, and he didn’t warn the community. Flynn didn’t want to scare Faloon off. He had a use for Faloon.
Arthur hopes he has it right this time. Finally, after so many blind alleys, he has a plausible chronology. Almost exactly a year ago, early summer, Desiree began seeing Eve Winters-professionally, but the relationship soon altered. At some point, she fled her husband. In October, she and Eve parted ways, and Eve took up with her graduate student. That same month, Jasper was rushed to Port Alberni to relieve the Major Crimes chief. Work was left undone, paper left unpushed. It jogged Flynn’s memory-perhaps as he was checking out Faloon-that records section had “concluded” a case relating to this same infamous felon, a rape conviction.
As he summarizes this for Lotis, she nods, smiling up at him. Respect. He has her respect.
“In January, Holly lets out that Eve was planning a spring break in Bamfield. Eureka, it came to him, a plan for the perfect murder. He found a reason to come back to Vancouver briefly, to work on the backlog. Helped the exhibits custodian with a little housecleaning.”
“Is that enough, do you think?”
“Enough to convict him? Doubtful. A jury will demand proof he knew of the affair between Daisy and Eve.”
“Ask him. Ask him how he felt when the mother of his children got turned into a queer by her therapist.”
“It’s critical that we talk to Desiree. Keep after her lawyer.” There’s a new presence in the courtroom: a gentleman of apparent authority, crisply attired, closely shorn. If Flynn’s jumpy reaction is read rightly, he’s a redcoat of high rank, probably inspector. The Anti-Corruption Unit. A law degree too, because he has taken a chair in front of the bar that separates barristers from the unwashed laity.
Presumably, Buddy has talked to this officer, has been put wise, knows the defence hopes to subpoena paperwork that could tie his aide-de-camp to a coolly planned murder-one lacking any mitigating circumstance, the investigation a charade. Buddy won’t be forgiving if he decides he’s been duped.