Here comes the jury settling in, here comes Father Time, and here’s the disgraced copper going back into the stand. Faloon, who by now has read the transcripts twice over, is puzzling out Flynn’s MO. Maybe he got advance word that the Owl and Doctor Eve made dinner reservations at the Breakers for March 31, making it an excellent night for murder. A bonus, a gift on top of the fact he had the DNA, the gob on the swab.
He probably didn’t come straight into Brady Beach, instead hid his Cormoran behind one of the outcrops and rowed his dinghy in. Maybe he had time to prowl the town. Maybe he saw that drunk condo guy. Saw Faloon! Saw him sneaking down from the Breakers. Saw him bury the zip-lock.
If thirty-one large has gone to the Sergeant Flynn Retirement Fund, easy come, easy go, it’s chickenfeed. There’s a thousand times more buried in Cimitiere Saint Pierre.
Here comes peppery Miss Rudnicki, breezing into the courtroom like a movie star, settling in beside her learned master. The Owl always enjoys the way Beauchamp snaps his braces when he stands to cross-examine, it means he’s ready, he’s racked.
Flynn looks like he fuelled up at lunch, maybe a beer or two to help relax. He tries to interrupt Beauchamp with an excuse about the print on the fridge door, but he’s cut off by the judge, who has gauze or something in his mouth, you get a glimpse of white sometimes.
Beauchamp begins again. “Let’s try to reconstruct your movements on the eve of April Fool’s Day. You went off shift, joined an officer for a drink, stopped by the detachment…”
“To sign off on some paperwork.”
“Thank you, let me finish. And you arrived home at eight o’clock. Correct?”
“About that.”
“And then what?”
“Oh, I may have unfrozen a steak dinner, watched some television. I was pretty beat. Hit the sack early.”
“Can you give me the name of one person who might have seen you between 8 p.m. and dawn the next day?”
Flynn frowns, struggles, like it’s almost there, a name of somebody, but no, he can’t bring it home. “No.”
“Ever sat around with your mates and speculated about the perfect murder?”
“I don’t get your meaning.”
“I’m sure we’ve all done it. A parlour game. I would imagine police detectives are more prone than most to indulge.”
“Can’t say I’m interested in parlour games, Mr. Beauchamp.”
“It’s always something the murderer leaves behind that does him in, isn’t that the case? A footprint, a hair, a bloodstain-you’ve seen it all. But a tranquilized victim gagged on her own garment leaves no telltale bullets, no knife wounds, right? No blood, no clues.”
The judge can’t take any more of what Faloon thinks is called rhetoric. “Don’t answer that question, witness. It is not a question. It is a speech with question marks.”
“My question is, sergeant, did you ever consider that scenario?”
“Don’t answer.”
“Milord, this issue is at the very heart of the defence.” Bellowed, he actually causes the old boy to jump.
“Are you accusing this officer of murder?”
“Your Lordship will forgive me if I haven’t made that abundantly obvious.”
“Staff Sergeant Flynn? Then this is a serious matter. But I see Her Majesty’s consul isn’t moving a muscle.” The judge turns his black, vacuum-cleaner eyes to Mr. Svabo, but they can’t suck him up off his chair. He’s just watching, arms folded. “Proceed then. Proceed.”
The great man has recovered from yesterday’s reversal with Angella, a rare stumble, but what a trouper, the good don’t stay down. “Sergeant, do you understand my question?”
“I don’t sit around in my off hours contemplating how to get away with a crime. I want to get away from crime.”
Flynn got off a good one, he had too much time to think. Mr. Beauchamp reacts by speeding up his questions. He puts it to the witness that he never went to bed that night, the witness denies. He waited for darkness, then took off in his boat. Denied. At Brady Beach, he anchored out, rowed in. Denied. He had some ground-up rochies on him. Denied. He had the swabs. Denied categorically.
“I’m a little vague on the specifics of your plan, sergeant. Were you hoping to catch her before she went to bed? To share a glass of wine, to talk, to complain about her unprofessional conduct, her seduction of your wife? And did matters then get out of hand?”
Flynn just looks at him.
“Or did it play out this way-there was a light on in the cottage, you saw through the windows that no one was home. You tugged the door open, you looked about. In the fridge was an open bottle of Chablis. You doctored it and hid. Outside? In the loft? Did you take a chance on the loft? I think so.”
Flynn doesn’t even try to get a word in, he keeps looking at the judge, waiting for cues to respond. But the old chief has turned sideways, arms folded like he’s disgusted with Mr. Beauchamp, Mr. Svabo, the whole trial. The jury’s got to be wondering why the prosecutor isn’t tearing his hair out. It’s as if he knows something.
Mr. Beauchamp bends to his assistant, who says something nice to him, and he pats her hand. She shuffles through some transcripts.
“I’m going to put a narrative to you, sergeant, and ask you to comment when I’m done. Doctor Eve returned to Cotters’ Cottage about midnight, still embarrassed by the romantic faux pas with Holly Hoover. She went to the fridge, she needed a drink after that. She made a fire, had a shower, wrapped herself in a towel, poured another glass, and settled down to the little writing table by the fireplace. She pulled out her letter to Daisy, many pages long by now, to add another postscript, about her evening’s doings, dinner at the Breakers, a chance meeting with a woman of the night.”
Not only does Mr. Beauchamp have the whole joint mesmerized, he looks a little mesmerized himself, it’s as if he’s forgotten he’s in a courtroom and is talking to himself. Sort of like the Owl talking in his sleep. He’s squinting into space, jiggling a pencil like a baton.
“Why has she begun writing to Daisy again, after a long lull? Because events have changed. The affair had been furtive, difficult, and finally had to be abandoned. But ephemeral Desiree has since split from her husband, so why were they apart? Yes, this letter to Daisy was a work in progress, begun during the hike. She would have carried on about her disastrous affair with Ruth. And of course this is the same letter Ruth sneaked a peek at.”
This provokes a nod from the assistant prosecutor, who for obvious reasons is called Ears by the other lawyers. He’s stopped eating his pencil, he’s being swung over by the honey-tongued lawyer.
“No doubt Eve added a note to Daisy about the quarrel, to tell her she was free of Ruth.” He nods to himself, still flicking that pencil. “This is the letter, of course, that mysteriously disappeared from the cottage. Along with a little grey address book with Daisy’s address.”
Miss Rudnicki is looking surprised, as if it’s the first time she’s seen her boss kick it into high gear. The Owl’s seen it many times. He did a foolish thing last night with this rookie throat, told her where the Topeka money was hidden. Did he trust her? Not a hell of a lot. She’s a lawyer with no fixed address. But in the end he drew her a map of where the cedar-root hollow is. If Flynn hasn’t already filched his hard-earned thirty-one grand, Miss Rudnicki can have it.
“Eve doesn’t finish her final postscript. The fire, the wine, the lateness of the night have conspired to make her suddenly quite woozy. She stands, wobbly, makes her way to the bedroom, falls onto the bed. She doesn’t know what’s going on, she wonders if she’s ill.”