Dark August

by Katie Tallo

  Charlie was on the radio giving updates as to their location. Rory was driving. The van took an exit at the edge of Kingston. Charlie called it in. But instead of Battersea Road, he said Montreal Street, which is what Battersea turns into once you’re on the south side of the highway. Charlie got it wrong. Same road, different name on the north side.

  Deadly mistake.

  Backup got turned around. The van made a hard left into a salvage lot. Too hard. It crashed into a fiberglass sign at the edge of the property. One guy took off on foot. The van spun its wheels, dislodged, then raced off, bumping down the dirt road between the rows of derelict vehicles. Charlie jumped out and went after the runner. Rory gunned it in the cruiser after the van.

  A nasty flu bug, the wrong street name, late backup, and a lone runner all converged to bring Charlie racing full speed around the hood of a rusty ’78 Chevy Malibu and straight into the raised muzzle of an AK-47. Rory doubled back when he heard the shot. Found Charlie on his back in the mud, a hole blown through his chest. Eyes wide.

  Officer down. Officer down.

  Shannon heard the call come in over the police radio that she kept on the windowsill. She stopped stirring her cheese sauce and listened. Waiting to hear Charlie’s voice. A name. Anything but the voice she kept hearing over and over. The tearful broken voice of Rory.

  Officer down. 10–64 ambulance required. Oh God. Oh God.

  Backup arrived within minutes and managed to corner the shooter. He didn’t put up a fight. And later, when ballistics and fingerprints matched, they had the guy dead to rights, but none of that mattered. Charlie was gone.

  The sauce burned black as she sat at the kitchen table until they came.

  Rory tried his best to help with the arrangements. To field phone calls. To be a shoulder for her to lean on. But he was no Charlie. He drove her to the hospital when the baby came ten days later. Brought them home. Got her groceries and diapers. But it was pointless. She didn’t want his help. Shannon wanted her husband back. She wanted him to be there to kiss their new auburn-haired baby girl. She didn’t want to go it alone. This wasn’t what they’d promised each other. Wasn’t even close.

  Your daddy could take up all the space in a room and yet he always made everyone around him feel important and safe and loved.

  Shannon distanced herself from Rory even though he lived down the hall. His voice reminded her too much of Charlie’s last moments. She stopped asking him over for Sunday dinners. He got pulled off patrol a few weeks after Charlie’s death. Lost his nerve. Ended up in a basement job. Archives and records, then the property office.

  Shannon did the opposite. She threw herself into work. She cut short her maternity leave, got full-time daycare, and got reassigned from desk jockey to patrol. She needed to be out on the streets doing what she was trained to do. It made her feel closer to Charlie. Shannon and Rory said hey when they passed each other in the hall at the apartment building or at work. Sometimes he babysat when she couldn’t find a sitter. But mostly they were like strangers.

  He was Uncle Rory to Augusta.

  Even after they moved to Ottawa, Rory still tried. The week before Christmas, he’d drive the two hours from Kingston to bring a Beanie Baby or a new Barbie for Augusta. He always brought a box of Black Magic chocolates and a small bouquet of white roses for Shannon. She’d apologize and tell him they were just on their way out the door, then she’d watch him drive off from behind the front curtain. Augusta would ask where they were going.

  Nowhere.

  The last part of Shannon and Charlie’s story is not Shannon’s to tell. It’s Augusta’s. She knows it by heart. She was eight. Awakened by a policewoman who turned on the ceiling light in her bedroom. Blinding her. She could hear Annalee crying. The woman told her that her mother had been in a car accident. It was a muggy summer night.

  The kind of night when it was best to sleep out on the front porch.

  The kind of night it is tonight, twelve years later, as Gus sits in the Buick and looks into the windows of a stranger’s house that now sits where their front porch used to. Gus knows the story of her parents, but she wonders about Rory. What became of him. Where his story took him. If he found love. If he ever got over Shannon and Charlie and the good old days.

  Uncle Rory was at the funeral. His forehead sweaty. His face puffy and pasty white. He hugged Gus too tight. His hands were shaking. She felt sorry for him, but she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he looked a hundred years old even though he was only in his late twenties. Gus remembers thinking it would probably be the last time she’d ever see him.

  And it would be.

  Until today.

  14

  Rory

  AUGUSTA WATCHES RORY FROM ACROSS THE PARKING LOT OF the high school. School must be letting out for the summer soon. It’s almost July. Levi rests his chin on the back of her seat. He huffs. Bored. She tosses him a cookie and he settles down, grinding his teeth into the hard biscuit.

  Rory is skirting the brick wall. He approaches a group of young boys. About fifteen years old. One boy is taking a drag from a joint. The kid drops it when he sees Rory. Digs it under his heel. Rory folds his arms. The kid picks up the butt and tosses it in a coffee can by a back door. Rory nods then turns and walks away. Behind his back, the kid flips him the bird. The other kids laugh. One imitates Rory, walking with his belly pushed out, legs bowed, arms wide like he’s six hundred pounds.

  Rory has put on a few pounds since she last saw him. His neck balloons over his collar. He’s wearing short sleeves and short pants like he’s going cycling. His police revolver sits in a pocket on his belt. Shiny badge on his chest. Hat tipped slightly off to one side. He looks like a kid playing dress-up. Goofy as ever. Just as she remembers him.

  Must be about forty. Graying sideburns. Chewing gum. She realizes he’s about the age her father would be if he’d lived.

  Augusta gets out and stands next to the Buick. He glances in her direction. Nods then turns and heads toward the front doors of the school. Doesn’t recognize her. Then something registers under that tilted hat. He glances back. One eyebrow raises. He squints as recognition floods his puffy face. He moves closer, head tilting one way then the other.

  “It can’t be!”

  He’s shouting across the parking lot. The boys are staring. He’s so embarrassing. Gus wants to hide.

  “Is that my Little Monet? All grown up?”

  She wishes the boys would go back into the school. Rory strides over and before she can stop him, he bear-hugs her, lifting her off her feet. She can’t help herself. She giggles. Feeling like a five-year-old. Rory could always make her laugh. He drops her gently then steps back. Chewing his wad of gum.

  “And those freckles. Still got those freckles and your pop’s red hair.”

  He tells the school office he’s going on break and ten minutes later they’re sitting across from each other in a booth at Timmies. She’s explaining how she tracked him down. How she called the Kingston detachment. How the desk sergeant on duty told her Rory was a school liaison officer in Kemptville. At North Grenville District High School. A forty-five-minute drive from Ottawa. So she drove out to see him.

  “Quite the detective.”

  “I told the desk sergeant who my parents were and he opened right up.”

  “That’d do it. They’re legends down Kingston way. Everybody knows them.” He grimaces. “I mean, knew them. Sorry, kiddo.”

  “It’s okay, Rory.”

  He slurps coffee spillage from the plastic lip of his triple triple. Augusta inches the conversation forward, not wanting to coldclock him until she’s warmed him up. She casually asks him what, exactly, his job entails. Big mistake.

  Rory launches into a half-hour description of life as a school liaison officer. The day-to-day school patrol, the drug counseling, the special event chaperoning. His favorite duty by far is organizing the Cycle Safe rides each spring for their sister elementary school. Teaching first-time riders the rules
of the road. He sets up an obstacle course with little stop signs and yield signs dotted across the parking lot. Some of the kids are still on training wheels. He calls it a hoot. Gus smiles and eats another Timbit.

  When he finally takes a sip of his coffee, Augusta cuts in. It’s now or never.

  “Um, Rory? I came to see you for a reason. See, my great-grandma Rose died.”

  “Oh gosh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I inherited her house, sort of, and I found some of my mother’s things in the basement and I was looking through them. I thought you might be able to help me figure out what they are. Fill in the blanks since you knew her back then.”

  “Blanks?”

  “Like, for example, what Kep Halladay’s got to do with my mum’s death?”

  Rory snorts coffee out his nose. “What the? Who?”

  He dabs his chin with a paper napkin. She pushes on.

  “I was out there. Near Elgin. Saw his grave. He died the same night she did? August fourth, 2006. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  “What the heck have you been up to, Little Monet?”

  “I think Shannon was investigating something that had to do with Halladay. A land deal or something. I don’t know. But this boy went missing and now his body’s been found, and Gracie is dead, and it’s all connected, Rory.”

  He holds up his hands in a stick-up position. “Whoa, slow down, girl. You’re six horses ahead of me and I haven’t even broke outta the barn yet. You’re talking about Senator Halladay from Elgin. That Halladay?”

  “Yes. They died the exact same night. Isn’t that weird?”

  “I’m sure other people died that same night. Doesn’t mean their passings are related.”

  He’s not getting it. Gus bites her lip to keep from snapping at him. Takes a deep breath and tries a different tack.

  “Tell me about the night she died.”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Bits and pieces, but mostly nothing.”

  “You blocked it out. That happens.”

  “All I have is what she left me. But it’s just more bits and pieces.”

  “I don’t follow. What’d she leave you?”

  “Come. I’ll show you.”

  She gets up and grabs her satchel, then waves for him to follow. He grabs his coffee and jacket and an hour later, Augusta and Rory are standing in Rose’s living room. He’s staring at the wall. The one she’s written all over with red marker and plastered with newspaper clippings, documents, and photographs. Gus grabs her red marker and continues the red line past the evidence. Above the line she adds the date August 4, 2006. She caps the marker then steps back beside Rory.

  “It’s a timeline. See?”

  Rory slowly nods. He opens a pack of Nicorette gum and pops a couple in his cheek, his eyes never leaving the wall. He hasn’t spoken since entering the room. Gus pretends to look at the wall, but she’s watching him out of the corner of her eye. He steps forward to take a closer look at each item. He touches the documents, runs his finger along the red line, taps each photo, one after the other.

  All the while, Levi is sniffing Rory’s lower thighs just below his short pants. Now he’s licking the top of one of Rory’s police-issue oxfords. Rory chews his gum slowly. After what seems like an eternity, Rory folds his arms across his belly and takes a deep breath.

  “Impressive.”

  “This is exactly how she had these. In the garage. In her office. Above her desk. At our old house.”

  “So you do remember?”

  “I remember this.”

  “But not what happened that night?”

  “Some stuff I see just like a photo projected onto my brain. It’s like I’m standing in that garage, looking up and seeing it. Clear as day. And then some memories are all muddy like they’re under water or something. I can’t make them out but I know they’re there.”

  “Where’d you say you found all this?”

  “She hid them in my room. In a toy chest at the foot of my bed. I found the chest in Rose’s basement. Somehow it ended up here.”

  Rory looks like he’s having trouble connecting the dots. Not digging deep enough. She tries to prompt him.

  “See how Senator Halladay’s name is circled everywhere. I didn’t do that. Shannon did that. Well, I did that one.”

  Gus points to the recent article about Henry. The Halladay she circled.

  “But she did the rest. See?”

  Rory doesn’t see. Gus wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him hard until he does. But she holds herself steady, speaks clearly and slowly, as if to a small child.

  “I always thought it was a dream. Her coming into my room that night. But it wasn’t. This is why she was there. She was hiding evidence in my trunk. For me to find. All this has something to do with a cold case she was working. I’m sure of it, but I don’t know what any of it means. What does it mean, Rory?”

  Augusta suddenly bursts into tears. She has no idea why, but it feels so good to cry. Rory looks scared. He pats her shoulder. She hugs him and cries into his shirt. It’s good to share her wall with someone other than the dog.

  “Now there, there, Little Monet. Come on. Buck up.”

  He pats her head lightly. She dabs her eyes with her fingertips and looks up at him. His eyes glisten too. He swallows hard.

  “Sorry I’ve made you sad, Rory.”

  “No, no. It’s just that you remind me of your mother. How she was before.”

  She smiles. “Before?”

  “Before your dad passed.”

  “Not after?”

  His eyes wander across Shannon’s wall. “She wasn’t herself after that. Then that whole business with June Halladay happened. Shan got caught up in it. Got too close. Not saying Shan wasn’t a good cop. She was. The best. Just lost her way.”

  “Do you mean this business?”

  Gus points to the newspaper clipping about June’s accident, trying to get him to open up. He does know something. But just as quickly, he shuts down. Slaps his hands together. Tucks his belt under his belly and turns to Augusta. His tone official like he’s delivering a press conference.

  “I’m sorry. Your mother meant a lot to me. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. Especially her.”

  And with that, Rory checks his watch, picks up his hat and keys, and heads for the door. Levi bounces after him hoping for a walk.

  “The ladies in admin will think I’ve fallen off a cliff.”

  Gus can’t believe he’s leaving. They were just getting started.

  “We’ll talk more soon, Little Monet.”

  He waves awkwardly as he opens the front door.

  “Did I say something wrong, Rory?”

  She follows him outside. So does Levi. Rory stumbles across the lawn toward his cruiser. Dark clouds roll across the sky. Gus stares at him. He sighs. Can’t look her in the eye.

  “Tell me the truth, Rory.”

  He fumbles with his keys.

  “Truth is, Little Monet, that I don’t know what happened that night. I know she didn’t see eye to eye with Senator Halladay. I know that. But Shannon wasn’t talking to me. Hadn’t spoken in months. Wasn’t talking to anyone on the force since her suspension.”

  “She wasn’t suspended.”

  “You were a kid. She didn’t tell you. But you asked for it and there it is.”

  He opens the cruiser door and gets in. Gus holds on to Levi’s collar so he doesn’t jump in with Rory.

  “You got that same look in your eyes that she had.”

  He starts the engine, shuts the door, then rolls down his window.

  “That wall in there? Might look like something you remember from when you were a kid, but it’s nothing but thunder and lightning. Leave it be, Little Monet. Leave it be so you don’t end up like her.”

  Augusta watches in stunned silence as Rory’s cruiser backs out of the driveway and heads down Island Park. The afternoon sky darkens and thunder rumbles in the distance. Levi tu
rns tail and scoots back inside the house.

  A syrupy yellow aura descends on the neighborhood, making it feel more dreamlike than real. Clouds gather and a flash of lightning streaks the sky. Augusta can smell the rain coming. Can feel the electricity in the air. The solstice has just passed and the hot, muggy, midsummer months are heavy on the horizon.

  A storm is approaching.

  She takes a deep breath and braces herself.

  15

  Lucky

  WITH JULY’S RELENTLESS NIGHTTIME HEAT WAVES COME vivid dreams. When Augusta wakes, she often feels like she’s left a part of herself behind in the dream. Sometimes she’s brought someone from the dream back with her into the waking world. Usually, it’s her eight-year-old self.

  Maybe it’s the thick humidity or the electric summer storms. Pressure systems building and shifting energy both inside and out. Or maybe this always happens, early July, as the anniversary of her mother’s death looms.

  Augusta sits up in bed. Her phone is lit up on the side table. She picks it up. Three texts from Lars.

  Okay I’ve given you your space. Time to come back, babe.

  Auggie, I’ve been patient but I’m gonna lose my shit if you don’t text me back.

  The fuck.

  As Gus reads, she becomes aware of breathing under the bed and for a split second her heart stops. That anxious eight-year-old still inside her head. She slowly dips her head and looks under the bed. It’s Levi, hiding from the thunderstorm that tore through last night. He’s fast asleep. Her shoulders relax. She lies back and looks out the half-open blinds. The sky over Rose’s backyard is a deep cobalt blue.

  Gus lifts the window. Below in the yard, she can make out the crab apples strewn about the lawn like beads let loose from a broken necklace. The crows gossip across the high maples.