William Deverell - April Fool

He hits the brakes, steals a look at Lotis, who has just returned. She misses this chance, an easy score into an open net. Instead, she’s staring at Arthur with her wide bold eyes. Suddenly, where there was mystery, light appears. Tea goes down the wrong way. Arthur lurches from his chair coughing.

“We have to find Daisy,” he says.

It’s half past eight as Arthur sets out for his office, a vigorous walk along the shoreline. A trio of girls runs past, jostling him. “Sorry, Pops!” Arthur feels as a foreigner must, he’s a rural refugee, out of place among the flashy towers, the grunting traffic of the harbour. Margaret too will find this a test, it’s a poor setting for reconciliation. (About now, she’s packing her suitcase…Will she bring a suitcase? Does she even plan to stay overnight?)

Despite his anxiety, he had a sustained sleep, less troubled by all the clutter of the trial. He’s back on track, knows where he’s going. But he isn’t sure how to get there. The fingerprint on the fridge. He had almost missed that. There are so many bits and pieces. So much depends on the Crown validating Munni Sidhoo’s analysis. Everything.

Christ, I’d like to strangle the conniving …Brian’s rhetoric pointed Arthur to the cipher, the solution to the coded messages that keep getting dropped in his mailbox. What an odd sensation, that bonding of minds with Lotis. Last week’s dream of Dogpatch haunts him now: daisies everywhere, beckoning, whispering. Find me. Find me.

After Brian left, Arthur and Lotis continued to talk excitedly, she pacing in her underwear while her clothes were in the washer, oblivious to her roommate’s discomfort. Arthur set her tasks, directed her to contact Winters’s secretary. As of this moment they should be combing through every scrap of paper in Doctor Eve’s office. Locked since April 1, it may yield clues in old billings, appointment calendars, notes in desk drawers. A love letter hastily hidden between a book’s pages, overlooked as Doctor Eve sought to obliterate all traces of Daisy. “You are My Sunshine” sounds, it’s Lotis. “We have a name of interest. Desiree. Scribbled twice on an appointments calendar for last July, so the time is right. Nothing else, no last name or phone number. Desiree. Daisy.”

An appropriate nickname for someone hobbled with Desiree, though he daren’t say that to Lotis Morningstar. July, August, September, and the affair broke off in October, according to Ruth Delvechio, who bounded onto the scene very quickly after that. The affair was so dead in the water.

“Does the secretary remember her?”

“She thinks so. Golden-haired, poorly dressed, graceful, fragile. Came in a few times last summer, and around that time Eve stopped being a workaholic, began taking an occasional afternoon off.”

Doris Isbister calls next. Arthur demands to know how to switch off the banal campfire song.

“Bring it up here, dear, and I’ll install a new ring. Miss Hoover is in the waiting room. Coffee and croissants?”

“Please.” He can’t reach Brian Pomeroy, who’s at RCMP division headquarters with a friend, an inspector, whom he’s asking questions about procedures to avoid contaminating exhibits.

As Arthur packs himself into a crowded elevator, Buddy Svabo calls, falsely hearty, shouting so loudly that Arthur must hold the receiver away. “You looked kind of sick yesterday, hope it wasn’t contagious.” A stirring in the lift, people shifting away. “I hate to admit it, but we got a positive on Adeline. Turns out that forensics actually did find a third-person trace in the semen-this was back in April-marked it down as an unknown, and flagged the investigation team. Don’t know why I wasn’t informed. What’s going on, Artie?”

Arthur promises to call back, relief washing over him. Sidhoo’s test has held up, and Buddy is stuck with Sweet Adeline’s profile in Exhibit 52, wondering how to explain that to the jury. Arthur’s new paradigm is clicking into place.

On the forty-third floor, Tragger Inglis’s waiting clients (stock-option holders, corporate raiders) sneak looks at the snow-white thighs of fellow entrepreneur Holly Hoover, who’s reading a business magazine. Trademark mini, new hairdo, cascading curls. A cynical smile, her eyes quick today, the pupils clear-maybe it’s drug-free Tuesday. That doesn’t mean she won’t be any less scheming and devious.

“Hey, I sold my boat. Thanks for the free advertising.”

“Did you get your price?”

“On the nose.” She rises and follows him. “Why am I here? — that’s not a metaphysical question.”

“I thought I was harsh on you in court the other day, and wanted to make amends.”

“Sure you do.”

SheriffWillit has to clear a path for Arthur through the crowd waiting for Court 67 to open, past the Whalley Wanderers, who scowl at him. “His Lordship is in a foul mood today, Mr. Beauchamp. Bit of a canker under his lower plate.”

“The poor chap. And how is Gilbert Gilbert, have you heard?”

“Total breakdown. Not the first time. Couple of years ago he went berserk in an Italian deli when his girlfriend left him. This time his mother’s trying to commit him.”

“How frightful.”

Arthur’s thoughts fly, as they do sporadically, to Selwyn Loo. Driven not to madness but thoughts of suicide, not by bullying and shame but by a larger despair, planetary.

At counsel table, he’s confronted by Buddy Svabo, whose call he forgot to return. “Fine, Artie. So don’t tell me what’s going on.” Hurt, exasperated. “All I know is Adeline has an alibi as tight as a popcorn fart. And here comes Jasper with his cockeyed theory.”

Flynn shuffling toward them, smiling. “You mind, Buddy?”

“Tell him, already.”

“Mr. Beauchamp, I’m asking myself is there maybe another paradigm.”

Arthur is annoyed at his theft of this word. He’ll put his paradigm up against Flynn’s any day. Arthur has a bigger one. “How does your theory work, sergeant?”

“Eve Winters supported abortion rights big time. Adeline Angella hangs with an extreme crowd of pro-lifers. Writes newsletters for them. She has a history of choosing lousy friends, fringe people, fanatics. Okay? So one of them agrees to do Adeline a favour, because Doctor Eve is a pro-abortion queer. It’s more than a hunch, a gut-feeling.”

Ears has joined the scrum, listening, nodding like a marionette. Buddy barks, “Wipe that stupid grin off your face.” Today may see the fabled eruption.

“I want to work on it, Buddy,” Flynn says.

“We’re sticking with the program, pal. I’m not in the market for new theories until I hear from Faloon. I got a few questions I want to ask him. You got the balls to put him on the stand, Artie?” Buddy leads him to a neutral corner, away from his rebelling seconds. “I’ve had it to here with that bull. He wants me to enter a stay against your guy.”

Arthur hears that as an invitation to negotiate, and doesn’t bite. The prosecution has become a cock-up, but Buddy will ask a price for a stay of proceedings-a plea to the burglaries and the escape. “Let’s see how the day develops,” Arthur says. He is again hungry to solve this crime. He has the old engine revved up finally, it’s purring. He has a feel for the nuances of this case, how its many streams intersect.

He watches Faloon enter and look about for Claudette, who waves tentatively, a timid smile. Faloon transfers a kiss from mouth to hand to the bulletproof glass behind his chair.

Interestingly, Ruth Delvechio is in the gallery, as are her former friends, Bloom and Quong. And if Arthur’s not mistaken, that’s Lila Chow-Thomas back there, casual friend of Doctor Eve, the alleged marriage-breaker whom Brian proposed to strangle.