For no reason that Faloon can figure, Mr. Beauchamp is now beamed onto Ears. But it’s like he’s still talking to himself, like he doesn’t really see Ears, who is just a leaning post for his eyes, a vacant spot in the room.
“She hears the stairs creaking as the intruder steps heavily down from the loft, she struggles to her feet as she sees him, a bear of a man, making his way swiftly to her. A quick, expert blow to the solar plexus.” Mr. Beauchamp’s fist darts forward, and Ears jerks back.
Mr. Beauchamp looks around, it’s like he has just returned to the living and is startled to see everyone here. But maybe it was an act, that talking-to-himself stuff. “Wasn’t it about a week ago, Mr. Stubb, as the pathologist was on the stand, that you were conscripted to play the role of helpless victim?”
“That’s right,” Ears says nervously.
“And do you remember Jasper Flynn coaching Mr. Svabo?” Ears nods. The scene is kind of eerie or surreal, the judge and prosecutor taking the day off work, it’s like they’ve given up, surrendered the courtroom.
Faloon turns to see Mr. Pomeroy at the door, bringing an extra chair. But not for him, it’s for a lady with him, thin, snow-white skin, real good-looking for middle age. Faloon thinks he’s seen her on television…Mr. Beauchamp’s wife, that’s it.
Pomeroy sets her up at the back, then takes one of the reserved seats for lawyers.
The great defenceman doesn’t notice any of this because he’s reading the croaker’s testimony aloud, about the victim’s lower abdomen being bruised, and how a hard shot could’ve incapacitated her.
“I won’t ask Mr. Svabo to repeat his graphic performance of straddling the victim and kneeling on her wrists, but that’s exactly how it happened, isn’t it? The prosecutor put it dramatically enough…” Another line from the transcript. “‘And her horrible nightmare ends when he stuffs the panties down her throat.’ Is that how you remember it, sergeant?”
“I wasn’t there.” Sounding like he has to honk something out of his throat. “You don’t have it right, Mr. Beauchamp.”
“Yes, pardon me, I have missed something. Your firearm. Your service revolver, I presume. What is it, a Smith 9 mm, I believe.”
Flynn clams up again, combs his fingernails through his mighty ’stache.
“Eve Winters chipped a front tooth.” Mr. Beauchamp raises his voice so loud you can almost hear the fixtures rattle. “Because she bit on the gun barrel! Because you used it to ram her panties down her throat!”
Flynn suddenly tenses and cranes forward, like he’s going to bolt out of here. But no, he’s looking to his left, the door of the judge’s chambers, it’s opening, someone’s coming through it. It’s that sad sack, the humiliated clerk, Gilbert.
Faloon jerks upright. Emergency. Red alert. Gilbert’s got a heater and he’s pointing it at the Chief Justice with two shaking hands. Flynn jumps up, roaring. “Everyone down!”
Gilbert takes a step back, swings the piece around, it’s a snub, a belly gun, and as Flynn lunges at him, crack, he fires. Flynn’s big body jerks as the bullet hits, but his momentum knocks Gilbert down, who disappears under him, only his hands and feet showing.
Is Faloon hallucinating? Did he just see Jasper Flynn get one in the chest? All the people yelling and shrieking and running for the exit tell him he’s not in some sleepwalk nightmare, this bedlam is real.
Mr. Svabo has picked up the snub, and a couple of sheriffs are clawing Flynn off Gilbert. The jury is being hustled out, but one of them doesn’t want to go, he’s protesting, he doesn’t want to be dragged away from this action movie. Though it looks like the last reel for Flynn, the way he’s so still.
The top half of the judge’s head can be seen from behind his desk, like Kilroy, just his eyes and nose. Emerging from under the counsel table come Mr. Pomeroy and Ears. But Miss Rudnicki is standing on a chair so she can see better. Sad to say, because it doesn’t look very heroic, Mr. Beauchamp is suddenly making a late break for the exit, scrambling off to the back, gown flapping, climbing over a row of seats, shouldering his way through the spectators.
Cops come rushing in from a trial down the hall. Sheriffs are trying to clear the courtroom, but nobody cares a hoot about the Owl, the forgotten but totally innocent outlaw. Former outlaw, because the Owl has been inspired to make a resolution. He is going to go straight after this traumatic event. No, wait, the resolution will kick in after he digs up his fortune.
He closes his eyes, tries to replay the scene slower. He can see, on rerun, how Gilbert acted almost instinctively, like you’d do if you’re jumped by a bear. But he can also see how the copper may have wanted a bullet. The cross-examination that kills. He hopes Mr. Beauchamp doesn’t see it that way, it could give him bad dreams.
But where is his counsellor? There he is, and the Owl is ashamed for thinking he was running off like a coward. He’s framed in the sunlight pouring through the big window at the back. He and his lady have their arms around each other. Tight. Real tight.
33
When Arthur shows up for his mail, he finds Nelson Forbish stuffing the latest Bleat into the boxes. Makepeace comes grumbling from the far reaches of the store, shooed away by Winnie Gillicuddy. “Just leave me alone to look,” she calls.
There’s no room for the postmaster behind the counter, the local news anchor fills every inch of space. Arthur forks over a dollar for a Bleat, and Nelson leans to his ear. “I have it from a reliable source that Todd Clearihue has a fetish for diapers. Wears them to bed.”
“Who might this source be?”
“Not just some gullible person. A hotshot columnist from the mainstream media.”
“Nelson, it’s a joke.”
“Oh.”
Arthur takes his Bleat to the lounge, draws a coffee. Here’s a picture of the town tonsil, walking from the ferry arm in arm with the mistress of Blunder Bay. In exuberant typeface: “Welcome back, Mr. Beauchamp! He may be a famous lawyer to some, but he’s just a goat farmer to us.”
A goat farmer with the dazed look of a war refugee being led to a resettlement area. Margaret maintains a tight grip on his arm, but has her face to the sun, soaking it in-Arthur was shocked at how pale was the revenant wife after two and a half months of unremitting shade.
The picture was snapped the morning after a.32-calibre bullet ended a life and a trial for murder. Not truly a trial but an elaborate sham, a nightmarish construction, brilliantly conceived-except for the flaw: an unforeseen DNA profile in Exhibit 52. In the end, Flynn was heroic or suicidal or both. Wilbur Kroop, in the face of mutterings he was provocateur to this violent scene, has taken sick leave.
Arthur left it up to Brian to sweep up the debris from the aborted trial, and he was in top form, working Kroop like a horse broken to saddle and bridle, prevailing on him to bring the jury back the next day for a directed verdict of not guilty. Forewoman Sueda was overheard to mutter, “I should hope so.” The burglary charges are to be stayed. As a small gesture toward saving Her Majesty’s face, Faloon will plead guilty to escape in return for three months of imprisonment, less time spent in custody.
It is Desiree Flynn who is forced to feed the media’s untiring appetite for this story of same-sex seduction and the homicidal vengeance of a cuckolded cop. Her two sons are under intense emotional pressure, and she has taken them to Montreal to stay with her sister until the uproar exhausts itself. Arthur finally saw her image on the news, she and her boys being escorted by her glum fiance into the airport. Slender, strawberry blond, wide startled eyes. Not a hint of trailer trashiness.
The lounge hosts only a few idlers today, one of them Cudworth Brown, buying drinks, celebrating an arts grant. “Twelve thousand clams, Arthur. This keeps rolling in, I can afford to get off this fucking rock. You getting it on okay with your old lady?”