Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [180]
In 1960,80 women were still considered too dim for jury duty in Quebec, so my fate was in the hands of twelve men, good and true citizens. Local yokels. Pig farmers, and a hardware clerk, a bank teller, a mortician, a carpenter, a florist, a snow-plough operator, and so on, all of whom obviously resented their wasted time in court. Educated, as they were, by backwoods priests, I figured they were waiting to see if I had a tail. I even considered turning up barefoot one day, if only to prove I did not have cloven hoofs.
Opening for the Crown, Mario Begin, QC, said, “My learned confrère will no doubt remind you again and again that there is no body, but the truth is we do have sufficient facts at our disposal to prove that a murder was committed. And far from there being no body, I prefer to put it to you that the corpse of the murdered man has not yet been found. Look at it this way. Between the accused’s first phone call to the police, which was awfully clever of him, and the second inquiry by Detective-Sergeant Sean O’Hearne, he had a long day in which to dispose of the murdered man. And, remember, we are dealing with a self-acknowledged liar. Mr. Panofsky has admitted that he lied twice to the Sûreté. I put it to you that he lied not twice but three times about that revolver. First of all, he told Detective-Sergeant O’Hearne that he had no idea how the revolver got to be lying on his very own bedside table. And then confronted with the fact that there was an empty chamber in the revolver, he lied again, saying that the revolver had been left behind by his father, who never knew how to load a gun properly. I find that amazing, considering that his father had been an experienced police officer. But the third lie is what concerns us here. Yes, the accused finally admitted he had fired the revolver, but only in jest, over the victim’s head. But as you will learn from Detective-Sergeant O’Hearne, the accused did break down in the end and confess to murder. He said, quote, I shot him through the heart, unquote. These were his own words. ‘I shot him through the heart.’
“Now this is not easy for me. Like you, gentlemen of the jury, I am not without compassion. We are talking about a husband who came home to find his wife and best friend in bed together. Surely he couldn’t have been pleased. But, without making light of the accused’s distress on finding his unhappy wife in bed with another man, it was no licence for murder. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is one of the commandments in the covenant that his people made with the Lord, and, as we all know, when it comes to the Chosen, a deal’s a deal. I will not detain you here with a windy and fanciful opening statement, because I can rely on the evidence at hand to prove that the accused is guilty of murder. There is the revolver, and the missing bullet, and the victim, who we are told was last seen diving into the lake. Had he drowned, his body was bound to float to the surface within weeks, if not days. But maybe he’s still alive, and just possibly I’m the last descendant of the Czar of Russia, whose family was most cruelly murdered on the orders of the Communist Leon Trotsky né Bronstein. Or possibly Mr. Moscovitch — without money — his passport left behind — climbed out of the lake on the opposite shore and, clad only in his bathing suit, hitchhiked back to the United States. If you can believe that, I’ve got a property in a Florida swamp that I’d like to sell you.
“Gentlemen of the jury, you must not let your feelings for a wronged husband impose on your good natures. Murder is murder is murder. And, once you have heard the evidence, I expect you to find the accused guilty as charged.”
Then it was John Hughes-McNoughton’s turn to shine.
“I honestly don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m amazed. In all my years at the bar, I’ve never had a case like this. Open and shut, if you ask me. I’m expected to defend my client, to the best of my humble abilities, against a charge of first-degree murder, but there is no body. What