Whipped: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel(58)
I expect, Arthur, you have read about Dr. Alfred J. Scower’s recent forced resignation as executive director of the Bow River Institute. He is now regarded by former conservative colleagues as a black sheep, or perhaps a green one, because of his evolving views on conservation and climate change.
Dr. Scower is soon off to Edmonton to teach a fall semester, and when we met at his Calgary home, I found it full of packing boxes. He is a big, ruddy, amiable man in his late sixties, and quick of mind. My lame explanation for wanting to see him was shredded before I could utter it.
“You’re working for Margaret Blake, I suppose.”
To have pretended otherwise would have been foolish, especially since Dr. Scower didn’t try to conceal his delight in her public shaming of Farquist, whom he suspected of influencing the Institute’s board to cashier him.
He holds some admiration for your wife but has little good to say about Farquist, under whom he worked for several years as a Senior Fellow.
He went on at length about our opponent’s political sins and seemed particularly upset by what he called his “wheedling” to win cabinet approval of the Coast Mountains Pipeline.
That approval came only four days after a Russian consortium bought into Coast Mountains Pipeline Corporation. A mere 5 percent stake but worth close to a billion dollars.
My notes read: “Stinks to high heaven. Russians? Those thugs have got more petro resources than they know what to do with.”
He was helpful with Mr. Farquist’s personal history, though he regretted that much of it was anecdotal. “It was known that Emil regularly had a physical therapist come by his home [in Calgary]. Office gossip had him enjoying a little sex with it. Maybe it was something different.”
I append several more quotes from our taped conversation:
“He never talked about his mother’s death — or about her at all. It was as if he’d repressed it, buried it.” But clearly hers was not a blissful marriage.
Lee Watters had just got her teaching certificate when she met Emil’s father. “She was quite the beauty, and deeply in love with Sandor, but was apparently no intellectual spark plug.” It appears Sandor became bored with her, and several years into his marriage began an affair with a fellow academic that led to the divorce. Emil had little contact with his father after that.
“The consensus was that Lee’s broken heart never mended, but she waited until Emil was of age before ending it all.”
We chatted awhile about how her death might have impacted Farquist in perverse ways. Dr. Scower didn’t press me but obviously was curious about the source and details of Margaret’s tale told out of school. I explained I had to seek your permission to divulge more.
I thank you for your note saying that you stopped by in Victoria to water and deadhead my roses. How grows your garden?
Stay well,
Francisco
THE CLIPPINGS FILE
Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, September 4
CALGARY —The trial of Emil Farquist’s $50 million slander suit against Margaret Blake has been set to begin in six months, on Monday, March 4.
At a hearing Tuesday in the Alberta Queen’s Bench, Chief Justice Rachel Cohon-Plaskett scheduled eight days for a trial that most observers believed would take at least a year to get underway.
Speaking to his application for an early trial date, George Cowper Jr., counsel for Environment Minister Farquist, said, “It’s vital that my client’s name be cleared as quickly as possible, given the massive and unseemly publicity this case has roused.”
A.R. Beauchamp, counsel for Margaret Blake, the Green Party leader, agreed to the date but spoke against another application by the plaintiff for “further and better particulars of the statement of defence.”
That document, he said, is “clear as a bell” and needed no amplification. His client had admitted to speaking the words complained of and stood by them, he said.
Cowper argued that his client had the right to know the source of Blake’s “salacious” comments and the circumstances surrounding them. Beauchamp contended it was not the purpose of court pleadings to recite evidence.
Chief Justice Cohon-Plaskett denied the motion, saying, “I agree with Mr. Beauchamp. There are other ways of seeking and testing the opponents’ evidence.” She advised counsel to arrange for early discovery, a procedure by which parties are examined under oath before an official court reporter.
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Montreal Gazette, Tuesday, September 10
The sudden disappearance of three men accused of racketeering at the Port of Montreal has forced a postponement of the trial of the Waterfrontgate Seventeen, originally scheduled to begin next month.
A motion for a delay was granted Monday in Quebec Superior court after Crown Counsel J.R. Charlebois announced that the three men, alleged to be high-level Mafia figures, failed to sign in Saturday to Montreal police headquarters, as required each week by their conditions of bail.
A new date will be set at a hearing on September 29.
Warrants have been issued for Sergio Castellani, Mario Baptiste, and Jules “the Monk” Moncrief. Airports and U.S. border crossings are being monitored, said Superintendent A.R. Malraux of the S?reté de Quebec. He expected, however, they had already left the country. Moncrief is known to have business interests in Colombia.
The remaining fourteen accused include two employees of Transport Canada, five elected municipal councillors, a business agent for the Longshoremen’s Union, and six reputed mid-level Mafia figures.