She was to be the final witness, probably Friday. A call to the Crown confirmed she hadn’t taken a Breathalyzer. She remained the wild card, with her self-incriminating silence. Arthur found no indication Pomeroy tried to contact her-doubtless, in any event, she would have slammed the door in his face.
A swivel of the chair brought Roy Bullingham into view, staring at his lathered face from behind the glass. Bully, they called him, Tragger, Inglis’s last surviving original, ninety-one, still at his office nine to five.
“Ah, it is you,” he said, popping in. “Haven’t seen you around much, Arthur. On holiday, were you?”
“Bully, I retired eight years ago.”
“Evidently not so. Nasty case. A high court judge. A home of good repute.”
“I shall not be using my old office.”
“Just as well, I can’t imagine we’d want to be associated with this dismal business. Your Rabelaisian poet and his drunken goings-on.” He left.
“Voila, a dapper statesman emerges from the ruins. I call this the British ambassador.”
Wentworth Chance was anxiously waiting for him at the curb, already gowned, looking confounded at the new, improved version of his idol. Arthur always felt more confident after his traditional pre-trial haircut. In his three-piece suit, he felt distinguished, ambassadorial. The transformation was setting in, from a doddering yokel to the lion of the courtroom. The process, vaguely magical but hinting of a dissociative disorder, tended to unsettle Arthur. It was if Stoney, say, had another life as a neurosurgeon.
He alighted from the cab, unfurled an umbrella. “What are you doing out here? It’s starting to rain.”
“I was worried you’d be late.” Wentworth tried to take control of the umbrella, but Arthur wouldn’t give it up.
“Where’s Cud?”
“He’s waiting in another courtroom. With Felicity and his mom.”
Arthur didn’t realize Cud had a mother. He herded the fusspot to the door. Reporters converged. A camera was thrust at him, microphones.
“Going to be any surprises for us today, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“The surprise is that this flimsy case is even going to trial.”
Wentworth clapped with delight. They escaped into the male barristers’ locker room, crowded with colleagues in underwear, deodorizing their armpits, buttoning wing collar shirts, gossiping, joshing. “Hey, Arthur, still enjoying retirement?” “You bring any goat cheese?” “It’s Rocky Balboa, he’s come back for his title.”
Now came the final stage of the transformation, the robing, the costuming of Arthur Ramsgate Beauchamp, Q.C. He supposed it was similar for actors, dressing up, becoming another person. But here the drama was live, the players at risk, the consequences grave, the end unknown.
Down the aisle, John Brovak was also robing, about to launch a week-long appeal for Ruby Morgan and his gang of cocaineros. An obstreperous, broad-shouldered knave, a stud, Cud-like but with a law degree. “Hey, Arthur,” he yelled, “make sure Kroop don’t eat the kid alive. Watch your ass, kid, the Badger thinks you’re shit.” Referring, Arthur supposed, to the young man’s role as Pomeroy’s junior in the Gilbert Gilbert case. Brovak carried on, demanding Wentworth get some fees in, grumbling about the cost of keeping Pomeroy “in a high-end acorn factory.”
As Arthur pulled on his striped pants, Wentworth looked away, embarrassed to see him in underwear.
“‘Someone else is going to die.’ What’s that about?”
“Brian Pomeroy called in the middle of the night. That’s all he said.”
Brovak caught that as he came by lugging a mountain of files. “I got the same wiggy message. He better not be talking suicide.”
“Just addled talk, I’m sure,” Arthur said. “Wentworth, I’ll want you to visit him this evening. And while there, do a thorough search for Ms. LeGrand’s ring.”
The reporters were still scavenging in the hall but reluctantly allowed them access to the elevators. “How do you feel going into this with only three days’ prep, Mr. Beauchamp?”
“Had no alternative. I couldn’t stand by and watch an innocent man being railroaded.”
Charles Loobie was waving his notepad, demanding Arthur’s attention. “Hey, Artie, I got something for you.”
“When I have a moment, Charles.” Arthur didn’t care for this gossipy newshound, a nuisance, a time-waster. He didn’t like being called Artie.
Outside court 67, deputy sheriffs were denying entrance to those with “Free Cud Brown” buttons. They were having a particular problem with the frizzy blonde who had the words in lipstick on her bared shoulder. Silent Shawn was conspicuously absent; presumably he didn’t want Arthur pestering him about his equally close-mouthed client.
He cracked open the door. The chief was finishing off a leftover from last week, a motion to exclude wiretap evidence. Lawyers won’t be tasting his lash much longer-he was nearing seventy-five, retirement age. They might have to drag the old fellow out with a tow truck, he’s been up there for a third of a century, stubborn, unmoveable. Thickset, a broad fleshy face, a small, puckered, disbelieving smile as he rushed along a terrified young lawyer. “Get on with it, counsel.”
Loobie came up from behind, a sneak attack. “Artie, I think you want to talk to this gent.” He steered him to a wiry senior in scuffed boots who offered Arthur the dubious gift of a weighty file. “Mr. Loobie says I oughter talk to you about how that rattlesnake tried to bamboozle me.”
Vogel, the rancher from Hundred Mile House. Arthur shook his knobby hand, then called Wentworth over. “Mr. Chance will be pleased to look into it.” Wentworth stuffed the file into his overflowing briefcase.
“I won that damn trial, and then Clearihue kilt the judge and stole victory away.”
“Mr. Chance will also check his whereabouts on October 13.”
“I can’t afford a lawyer for a new trial without selling off my entire herd.”
“Maybe Mr. Chance can help you out there too. He’ll be pleased to take you for lunch today.”
Clearcut Clearihue would be Arthur’s preferred suspect, but a very unlikely one.
He popped into the next courtroom, where something complex about construction codes was underway. A dozen lawyers and an equal number of expert witnesses, and no one in the audience but Cud and his mother and girlfriend.
Irma Brown was introduced, here all the way from Northern Ontario, a portrait from Hard Times Magazine, thin and worn and tired, in a faded dress. “Cudworth says you’re the man.” He didn’t know how to respond.
He led them out, took his first critical look at Cud. He’d had a haircut too, above the ears, no longer shaggy. Sans medallion, sans braces. Cleancut in sports jacket and turtleneck. With loving mother and rosy-cheeked girlfriend beside him, he would present as an upright citizen, unthreatening were it not for the broken nose.
Arthur felt obliged to pass pleasantries with Irma Brown. “Your husband couldn’t make it?”
“He’s in too much pain.”
Arthur recalled something about a mining accident. “You have another son, right?”
“Jimmy, he’s in Kingston.”
“Ah, the university?”
“The penitentiary. Cud was the one we had hopes for.”
“Yes, well, let’s be off to court.”
He asked a deputy sheriff to escort them because again he had to brave Charles Loobie, pest reporter. “You going to get to Whitson today?”
“I expect so.” The owner of the Lamborghini, the investment counsellor.
“I got it on the q.t. from a reliable source he was in a scheme with Whynet-Moir that went off the rails. Raffy stiffed him for some big bucks, and Whitson was pissed.”
Loobie seemed to have an inordinate interest in dredging up suspects. Arthur summoned Wentworth again. “When we break at noon, sit down with Charles here.”