by Ron Corbett
“So you survive from the bounty of this land?” said Cambino.
“Yes, I suppose,” said Sloan.
“Did your company steal the land?”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Does more than one person claim the bounty of this land?”
“There are always land claims, I suppose. But I don’t think there are any serious legal problems.”
“Legal problems? Is that how you decide dominion of the land around here? By lawyers?”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re saying. What do you want to know?”
“Who owns the land?”
Sloan had been staring straight ahead, too scared to make eye contact with his passenger, but he risked a sideways glance when Cambino asked his question. Was surprised to see him with his eyes closed, his head resting against the passenger window, just starting to snore it seemed. Sloan looked at the handgun in Cambino’s lap and thought, This might be my only chance. Thought of nothing else for thirty miles. Until he started to cry, knowing he was never going to chance it.
. . .
When Cambino awoke, he gave his body a long stretch, opened his eyes and saw that the mist had cleared. They were driving through a dark forest now, with thick stands of evergreen trees and rivers that twisted and turned and ran beside the campervan for many miles. They needed to be atop a hill, or midway on a span over a deep gorge, to see the sun.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“About fifty miles outside Cree Falls.”
“Very good.”
“What will happen when we get there?”
Cambino looked at the driver but didn’t answer. Looked at the handgun sitting on his lap. He picked up the gun and examined it. “You are a smart man,” he said. “For that, you get to decide.”
“Decide what?” asked Sloan. “I’ve done as you asked. I’ve taken you where you wanted to go.” He began to cry. Tried to choke it back, but couldn’t. “Fuck, all I did was try to help you.”
“Do you believe being helpful gives you the right to a long life? Why would you believe such a thing?”
“I have a family. I’ve already told you that.”
“Fathers die every day, my friend.”
“Please, take whatever you want. Take my camper. Take my wallet. I won’t do a thing until tomorrow. I’ll stay right where you leave me, and I won’t move until tomorrow. I promise on the eyes of my children that I will do that.”
“Promises mean little in this world. It is no different than being a father, or being a helpful man. Do you think God ever considers these things? Pull over here, please.”
Sloan was crying and trembling and having a hard time focusing on the road, but he did as he was told. When the campervan was parked, he kept both hands on the steering wheel. Ten and two. He had always done that. Was teased about it from time to time. Doing things the right way, the proper way, was something he had always believed was important. Cambino looked at the hands on the steering wheel and said, “I am going to a land where they mine diamonds. Can you imagine? I think I have made the journey just so I can see it. A land that holds the light of the inner earth in stones you can pluck from the dirt and hold in your hands. Who do you think deserves the bounty from a land like that?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“That is a good answer, my friend. I am not sure either.”
“Please . . . what are you trying to tell me?”
“I am telling you it is random, it is happenstance, the relationship we have with the land we live upon. We wish it to be more, but it never is. The bounty of the Lord is decided only by the Lord.” Cambino looked at the man sitting next to him, his grey suit wet from sweat, lines of moisture collected in the rolls of his neck. The salesman had not cried as much as he had expected. The drive had been rather pleasant.
“Would you like to decide now, or when we reach Cree Falls?”
“What are you talking about? Who the fuck, are you?”
“Perhaps now is best. You will roll the dice, and we will see what sort of God looks down upon you today. The decision will be yours and His. It is the best I can do, my friend. The next car we see — will it be coming from the north or the south?”
“What difference will that make?”
“Nothing. I have just told you that. You still need to choose.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Yakabuski’s sister was waiting for him at the Blue Bird diner dressed in an Armani suit and Jimmy Choo shoes. She belonged in the Blue Bird diner about as much as electric guitars belonged on a Hank Williams record. Yet she was having an animated conversation with a table of elderly ladies when Yakabuski arrived. The waiter, a dour man with the mien and personality of pencil-lead, must have refilled her coffee cup four times.
That was Trish. A force of nature that collected friends the way her brother collected bruises. She was in her early forties now, but looked ten years younger, with coal-black hair and hazel eyes, a full figure she liked to slip into summer dresses when she wasn’t wearing business suits, a laugh that sounded like ice cubes tinkling at a summer cocktail party, slightly amplified because everything about Trish was slightly amplified. Her hands rarely stopped moving. She leaned in to hear what people were saying, leaned back to speak. The effect of all that motion was her body seemed to be constantly swaying. Undulating. Shimmering. A hopped-up heat mirage blowing right by you.
“Frankie, over here!”
Yakabuski walked to her table. He bowed to the ladies she had been talking with and took a seat. His back was turned to the other table, and he heard one lady say, “Now that’s a gentleman,” and then another lady say, “Do you know who that is?” After that there was whispering.
Yakabuski smiled at his sister and said, “So what did you need to see me about, Trish?”
“What do you think? You come to my house and punch my husband. That seems like the sort of thing a brother and sister should talk about.”
“I thought Tyler was better than that at keeping secrets.”
“Christ, Frankie, you broke his nose. How’s he supposed to keep that a secret?”
Yakabuski looked over at the table of elderly ladies. They all looked away. One raised her hand for the cheque.
“I thought he had a racquetball story all ready to go.”
“I’m his wife. I don’t think Tyler even knows where his racquet is.”
“So what did you do, beat it out of him?”
“No, big brother. I figured it out. Like a de-tec-tive.”
She gave him one of her smiles. Yakabuski envied people who could make their faces do whatever they wanted. Who had smiles ready to go, whatever the occasion might be. He wasn’t sure whether it was something innate or something you needed to practise.
“Your husband has a busted nose, and I’m the only one you can think of who might have done it?”
“Very funny. I guessed, and he admitted. With everything that is happening in Springfield right now, you in the middle of it all, and now that little girl is missing . . . I guess I know you, Frankie.”
“You figured I’d be ready to punch somebody?”
“Something like that. You look like shit, by the way.”
“Thanks. You look great.”
“I really mean it. When was the last time you slept?”
“Got a couple hours earlier today. People have to stop burning things around here.”
“On the radio they said the army might come in. Is that true?”
“It’s possible. Sending a company in to the North Shore isn’t the worst idea I’ve heard today.”
“My God, what is happening to this city? The North Shore Travellers? I didn’t think they even existed. Dad never found any of them.”
“He never found Gabriel Dumont. He found plent
y of Travellers. As you can tell by what happened last night, they’re still around.”
“I never knew. I don’t think Tyler has once mentioned them.”
“They like to keep a low profile. Or they used to. Burning down Cork’s Town — I guess that’s changed. So why am I here, Trish?”
His sister bit her bottom lip and lowered her eyes. Another practised mannerism. Or maybe it was natural, something she did when she was nervous. Again, Yakabuski wasn’t sure how such things worked. All he knew for certain was that when Trish bit her lower lip, lowered her eyes, then looked up and asked for something, she generally got it.
She looked up at her brother and said, “Tyler told me you’re looking for Sean Morrissey’s mother.”
“I am. Know where she is?”
“No. But I know you’re going to have trouble finding Paddy McSheffrey’s widow.”
Yakabuski stared at his sister. “How much did Tyler tell you?”
“He told me you’re trying to find neighbours of Augustus’s from 1974, the year Sean was born. The McSheffreys fit the bill.”
“Do you know them?”
“I know the widow,” she said, and here his sister looked around the diner, seemed unsure what to say next. “I also know my husband is a good man, Frankie. I know you don’t believe that, but he is. He loves me. He loves our children. His situation is — it’s awkward, Frankie. He really would like to do something different, quit being a lawyer. We talk about it all the time. It’s just . . . it’s complicated.”
“Why are you telling me this, Trish?”
“So maybe you’ll understand the pressure he’s under, what he’s dealing with. And so maybe you won’t hit him again when I tell you he wasn’t completely honest with you yesterday.”
“What did he lie about?”
“Not knowing where the widow is. She gets a monthly pension from Augustus. Or she got one, I suppose. Don’t know how that will work now.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because she phoned the house once looking for Tyler. She was quite drunk. She said her cheque was late. I spoke to her for a while. It didn’t make a lot of sense, what she was saying. She insisted I take down her address, so Tyler could mail the cheque. Tyler already had her address, but she was drunk and she insisted on giving it to me.”
“You kept it?”
Trish opened her purse, took out a yellow sticky-note and handed it to her brother.
Yakabuski looked at it. “She lives on the French Line?”
“Curious, isn’t it? She doesn’t go by McSheffrey anymore, either. There was a second husband who didn’t stick. Fiona McGee. That’s who you’re looking for. If you’re smart, Frankie, you’ll show up with a bottle.”
Chapter Forty-Six
The French Line was an old colony road on the north shore. Surveyed and cut in the late-nineteenth century, by a provincial government that wanted more settlers on the Divide, one hundred acres was granted to any settler who built a cabin and lived on the road for five years. The land was gneiss and granite, covered by a topsoil of bad dirt, and very few settlers made the five years. The government struggled for many years to make the colony road a success — it doubled the size of the land grants and built a macadamized road to replace the original corduroy road — but nothing worked.
It was land you couldn’t farm, not two running feet of it was level, and none of it was what you would call enticing, or made you think of easy days ahead. The land-grant program was quietly cancelled and the colony plans forgotten. What was left behind was a 103-mile gravel road, and log-cabin farms that were either abandoned or lived in by recluses and families too large and too poor to live anywhere else.
Although Yakabuski had an address, he drove by Fiona McGee’s house. Tracked back and missed it again. There was no smoke rising from the bush, where the address should have been, which was usually the sign you were passing a house on the French Line: camp smoke rising from the spruce and pine. Except for the warmest days in summer, you needed an airtight stove burning to feel warm in those old cabins. He parked his Jeep and began searching, and after a few minutes found the mailbox hidden beneath a cedar that had fallen upon it. The driveway to the cabin was blocked by more fallen cedar. No way you could spot it unless you knew exactly where it should have been. Yakabuski pulled away a few of the cedars and walked back to his Jeep.
The driveway switchbacked for a quarter mile and then came out on a small ridge of cleared land. In the winter, the ridge would have a view of the Radisson River, a tributary of the Springfield that travelled from headwaters not that far away, an untamed river that could not be navigated and travelled through the unincorporated townships before falling over the north shore escarpment, twenty miles upriver from the high-rises by the North Shore Bridge. The Radisson Falls were a popular destination for sightseeing boats sailing out of the Springfield Harbour.
Despite the proximity of the river, there was nothing on the ridge to attract a sightseer. The cleared land was overrun with junk: empty oil drums, wooden crates, a rusted pedestal bathtub, two cars on cinder blocks, one of the cars more rusted than the bathtub. At the far edge of the ridge was the log cabin. The front door was off centre, and the mortar between the logs was a yellow wood-glue colour, so Yakabuski knew it was an original Colony Road cabin. Probably built in the 1880s. There was a vegetable garden to the right of the house, still not turned for winter, and garbage cans and green plastic bags lined up against the leeward side, to keep them sheltered from the wind that would come tumbling over the ridge, falling with the water to the edge of the escarpment, where it would shoot free over the open air above the Springfield River, turned to gust and gale and howl that would sweep its way down the valley. Only smart thing Yakabuski could see on that ridge. Keeping the garbage sheltered from the wind.
He parked in front of the cabin, next to a Ford Focus that looked like it could join the two other cars already on blocks. Yakabuski knew that for some people cars weren’t things you traded in. You ran them into the ground because you couldn’t afford the garage bill and you needed to get to work, so you kept moving and hoping for the best, until one day the car died and you had to start looking for another one. That’s the narrative for more people than anyone wanted to admit. Planning was a joke. You just learned to keep on keeping on.
It took almost ten minutes to get Fiona McGee to answer the door. It was almost five o’clock and Yakabuski was pretty sure he knew what that meant. If Fiona McGee were a hardcore alcoholic, as his sister had warned, she would have spent the morning drinking. Passed out mid-afternoon. He walked around the cabin, banging on every window. Eventually he heard: “What the hell do you want? Who’s out there?”
“Ms. McGee, it’s Frank Yakabuski, with the Springfield Regional Police. I need to talk to you.”
“What the hell for? I haven’t done anything.”
“It’s for a case I’m investigating. I believe you can help me. You were once a neighbour of Augustus Morrissey’s, is that correct?”
“Fuck Augustus Morrissey. And fuck you. If you don’t have a warrant, I’m going back to bed.”
“Augustus is dead.”
There was silence for a moment. When the woman spoke again her voice was quieter. “I didn’t know that. When did it happen?”
“Six days ago. He was murdered.”
More silence. Although not as long this time. And then Yakabuski heard laughter from the other side of the door.
“Fuck, that’s the best news I’ve heard in years. I’m going to get up and have a drink. Toast the son of a bitch who finally had the stones to kill that fat pig.”
“Ms. McGee, I need to talk to you. Can you open the door, please?”
“Fuck off.”
Yakabuski straightened his back and let out a sigh. Trish had been right. He should have brought a bottle. He looked around the yard. There was a bust
ed canoe leaning up against a cedar. Looked more like kindling than a boat. Yakabuski wondered when the last time Fiona McGee went canoeing might have been. No guess seemed right to him.
Yes, a bottle would have made things easier. But there were other ways to get a drunk’s attention. He kept looking around. Eventually he walked over to Ford Focus. Circled it. Stooped to wipe some dirt from the back licence plate. Walked back to the cabin and knocked on the door.
“Ms. McGee, before I go I’m going to have to collect for your licence plate sticker.”
Silence.
“It expired two years ago, so I’m going to have to collect for both years. Plus this one.”
More silence.
“I can take cash or a credit card. I can’t take a cheque, I’m afraid.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” the woman finally yelled.
“Your car, Ms. McGee. The licence plates are expired. I need to collect the money you owe.”
“I don’t have it right now. You’ll have to come back.”
“Not a problem, Ms. McGee. But the car can’t stay.”
Silence.
“I’ll need to take the car if you don’t have the payment. It’ll go to the impound yard, and you can pick it up there when you have the money to pay for the plates.”
More silence.
“Ms. McGee, are you still there? The law requires that I tell you how much the daily impound fees will be.”
She started kicking the door. Yakabuski stepped back, thinking a house that old, with a drunk that mad, the door might come flying off. He watched the door shake and thud, bark from the crossbeam falling off, mouse droppings raining down from the termite-destroyed frame. Eventually the kicking stopped and Yakabuski could hear moaning. Then sobbing. He stepped toward the door and waited for it to open.
