The Devil's Dust

by C. B. Forrest

  “Maybe Duncan doesn’t remember things too clearly.”

  “All I know is that my dad was questioned by the local cops more than a few times. And yet there’s no record of a police report. I spent about two hours looking through the archives in the back room at the police station this week and there’s no trace of the incident. It’s like it never happened.”

  Fergus looks down at the beer bottle and turns it around a few times.

  “I didn’t sleep for about a year after all that shit went down,” he says. “But then, you know, eventually you have to sleep again. Life goes on. You get as old as me, your mind gets good at mucking with the details, you know, changing things around to the way they ought to be.”

  McKelvey sits in silence. The room is warm, the closed-air heat that old people seem to love. The house is neat for an aged bachelor, and McKelvey sees his own future in this orderliness. But then he is reminded of the state of his health, the secret he carries within his cells, and the future becomes less clear, a stark image of a hospital bed, tubes and IVs.

  “Did my father help kill that scab?”

  Fergus blinks beneath untrimmed eyebrows.

  “Know the father, know the son,” McKelvey says. “I just want to know.”

  “Well,” Fergus says, smiling now, “you’re about as fucking stubborn as your old man, that’s for sure.”

  McKelvey is back in the kitchen of his old home, one hand against the wall, the other hanging at his side as he stares at the telephone. He knows that he owes Caroline a call, an explanation, an updating of the state of the union where his health is concerned. It came to him in the middle of the night, this line of truth. He would want to know if something was happening with her. They were married for over thirty years, for God’s sake. What kind of asshole keeps this stuff to himself? He no longer believes the lie he has tried to tell himself, that he wishes to protect her from a cold reality. The truth is, he is scared. Scared to speak the words out loud. Charlie McKelvey is mortal …

  Caroline’s phone rings four, five, six times. It clicks to the answering machine and he gets snagged on those first few words, inevitably sounding like a borderline moron.

  “It’s Charlie,” he says, finally. “It’s just Charlie. I wanted to apologize for, you know … for being me, I guess. You don’t deserve to be cut off like that. I got lost for a little while but I’m good now. I really am, Caroline. I feel good for the first time in years. I have some news for you, but it can wait until I get back to the city. And you’re not going to believe this, but I’m working for the cops up here. I know what you’re thinking. I just can’t get away from it. I’ll talk to you soon …”

  He hangs up and dials Peggy’s home number. She’s off tonight and answers on the third ring.

  “Hey there,” he says.

  “Agent McKelvey.”

  “Special constable, actually.”

  There is silence between them, and he closes his eyes. He will practise with Peggy. He likes this woman. He trusts her.

  “It’s your dime,” she says, playful.

  “Are you going to the memorial tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Of course.” And again she waits.

  “Charlie? Are you all right?”

  He clears his throat. “Sure. I just wondered if you wanted to go with me. I could pick you up around ten thirty.”

  “I’d love to. I thought you might be busy with work. You know, watching the crowd for clues. Isn’t that how they do it on TV?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes that works.”

  He thinks she might be on to something, actually. The memorial will provide an excellent opportunity to bring the entire community together. It will be interesting to see if Celluci shows, or Levesque. To watch the faces and reactions of those in attendance.

  “If you were sick,” he says, but stops. The words won’t come; they don’t even materialize within the ether of his thought process. There is empty space. If you were sick, would you, would you … What?

  “Do you want me to come over?” she asks.

  Yes, he thinks.

  “Charlie?”

  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow, Peggy. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she says. “Be good.”

  He dreams of his boy, Gavin. Standing there with his back to the light so that his features are burned away by shadow. But this is Gavin, there can be no mistake. The light is the sun or something even more powerful, it is a light that never falters. McKelvey stands there, he can feel his feet on the ground, but he looks down and can’t see his legs.

  “Why did you do drugs?”

  The question has come from some place beyond his consciousness. It has been waiting there on the tip of his tongue for years, the letters forming words and the words forming a sentence.

  “To feel better.”

  “You didn’t feel good?”

  “I didn’t feel good enough.”

  “Your mother and I. We didn’t love you?”

  Gavin laughs. The sound fills McKelvey with love and hate and anger and sadness, longing and regret. He remembers now something he has long forgotten: the melody to a favourite song, the sound of his boy’s laughter.

  “Drugs made me feel better,” Gavin says. “At first they fill a hole. But the more you take, the bigger the hole gets. It works against you. It’s a trick. That’s all. It’s not very complicated.”

  “I wish there were no drugs, no addiction,” McKelvey says, and his own voice sounds like that of a boy, overwhelmed by adult notions too obtuse to comprehend. “What are we supposed to learn from all of this?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Gavin says, and laughs lightly. “I didn’t live long enough to find out.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” McKelvey asks. And he feels the same old weight pressing on his chest now, this weight he has carried since that midnight phone call woke him and his wife from their ungrateful and sleepy lives.

  “Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light.”

  McKelvey feels the grip on his chest releasing like a sigh.

  “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life …”

  McKelvey steps forward to touch his boy, but Gavin recedes in synch with each step. McKelvey stops. Gavin glows white and then phosphorous, and McKelvey can feel the heat, like the warmth of the sun on his face.

  Thirty-One

  All three churches in Ste. Bernadette have lost their full-time ministers over the past decade, relying now on the gospel delivered according to the travel schedule of various circuit preachers. The ongoing criminal investigation against Scott Cooper has necessitated that Mark Watson’s body remain in Toronto for further toxicology tests and autopsy. The family has chosen to proceed with a memorial service, and now what appears to be the entire community sits together in rows and stands along the walls in the Ste. Bernadette Community Centre. Everyone is here, and McKelvey can’t help but think what a terrific time it is to be a house thief, to move from house to house like a ghost. He remembers working a case back in the Hold-Up Squad, this guy who read the newspapers and tracked the addresses of family members who would be attending funerals. He focused entirely on the rich families of Rosedale and Forest Hill. By the time he was caught, he was driving a BMW and supporting three girlfriends.

  The community centre is normally the location of Lions Club meetings or, back when there were enough families around, this is where the Boy Scouts would convene on Wednesday evenings to learn about knots and morals. Today it has been decorated at the front with a podium and two large stands of flowers loaned by the funeral home. To one side there is a tripod holding a poster-size photo of Mark Watson. The young man has the shaggy hair of any teen, and he smiles only half-heartedly — for it is not cool to smile for class photos — and McKelvey marvels at the innocence in the boy’s eyes, the lack of understanding of the dangers of the world. And perhaps this is the blessing of childhood, but he can’t help but feel even the toughest am
ong these children is completely unaware that they are participants in a new game with no replays, no pause, no second chances. Violins play through overhead speakers. The thought crosses his mind and he wonders if that is what purgatory is like, being on hold with Muzak piped in.

  Peggy sits beside McKelvey, and she looks so different, as she always does, when she is out of uniform. Madsen is stationed at the entrance and Nolan sits beside the Watson family. McKelvey scans the crowd and spots Dr. Nichols, Laney from the arcade, Duncan and the old men from the lobby of the Station Hotel, the school principal, Gaylord the pharmacist, and even Celluci standing off to the side with his arms crossed as though there is nothing on TV so he might as well be here. He can’t find Carl Levesque, though.

  “You haven’t seen Carl, have you?” he whispers to Peggy.

  “Not yet,” she says. “He’s probably still doing his hair.”

  Peggy is dressed in a black pantsuit, her hair tied back, and she smells like a vanilla candle. McKelvey catches himself stealing looks at her. She gets more beautiful each time he sees her, and he hopes it’s not just because he feels old and gets lonelier with each day. Mayor Danny Marko stands at the podium at the head of the room. The mayor appears disheveled, as though he hasn’t slept in a week; his tie is knotted in a lump and his hair is messy. He probably hasn’t slept in days, McKelvey thinks. The town has imploded. It can’t be easy. Marko taps the microphone and clears his throat.

  “Friends,” he says, and then stops. He looks out among the faces, and the silence builds as though this is the last inning of a World Series game, the final batter at the plate crouching now in his stance, bat in hand, eyeing the pitcher. McKelvey supposes the crowd is thinking the same thing he is thinking: What can this man say or do that will make any difference now?

  “Friends,” he goes on, “something has happened to our town. Our mine is closing and times are tough. This is all true. But something even worse has happened. Our young people have no hope. And when our young people have lost hope in their own future, well, then we are all truly lost.”

  There are a few comments uttered, either people agreeing or blaming Marko himself for the entire state of affairs.

  “This country was built in rural towns just like Saint B. A hundred years ago, everybody lived in towns like ours. The cities were these distant places that we read about or heard about from friends who travelled. The world has changed, and our rural way of life is disappearing.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” a man’s voice heckles.

  “We’re here today to remember the life of one of our bright young lights,” Marko says, and his voice changes a little. He is choking up. “Minister Harvey will lead us in that remembrance, but I wanted to come and talk to you about hope. And how the worst thing we can do for our young people is to take that away from them. When we stop believing in ourselves, when we stop believing in some sort of future for this town, well …”

  Again Marko stops and regards the crowd. He seems lost in his place, if he even has his words collected, and McKelvey feels the same empathy he always feels when a public speaker begins to stumble. He wants to jump up and create a diversion. But there is nothing to be done. The room is beginning to fidget, and there is a rustle of whispers.

  “We must believe, friends, that even in the face of these problems … even though this is our darkest day, the light will shine again on Saint B….”

  “Save it for the election,” a voice heckles.

  “Sit down, Marko,” another man’s voice adds.

  The mayor looks close to tears. His hands shake and he grips the sides of the podium. His face reddens and he swallows hard. Finally his town administrator, a silver-haired woman named Maria, has the courage to step in. She moves to her mayor’s side and she gently places her hand at his elbow, leading him like a child or an old man to a seat in the front row.

  The minister steps in and nods toward the mayor in a show of respect. Minister Harvey is a middle-aged man dressed in a simple dark suit, with his dark hair neatly cut and parted on the left. Nondescript is the word that comes to McKelvey’s mind, the sort of man a witness would find difficult to describe.

  “Let us pray,” he begins, and all heads bow in unison. “God of all mystery, whose ways are beyond understanding” — the minister closes his eyes, his hands turned palm up — “lead us, who grieve at this untimely death …”

  And McKelvey closes his eyes now, too, for these very words bring back the service for his boy. He feels his chest tighten. He is too hot. The minister’s words get drowned out by the thrum of his rising blood pressure, and he can hear someone sniffling — the grieving mother — and now it is full-blown tears, and he is back there again in those darkest of days, sitting useless beside Caroline when all she wanted was his hand in hers.

  “I’m going to step out,” he whispers to Peggy.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nods, and he stoops at the waist and excuses himself, in a hurry, moving like someone who might get the sick at any moment. He makes it to the back where Madsen stands like a sentry with her hands clasped in front of her, and he wipes his brow. His hair is matted from sweat.

  “Are you okay, Charlie?” she says in a low voice.

  “I need some air,” he says, already unbuttoning his shirt at the collar. “I don’t see Levesque in the room. I’m going to take a drive and see what he’s doing while the rest of the world pays their respects.”

  The cold air outside feels like being reborn. He puts his hands on his knees and hauls air like a marathon runner who has just crossed the finish line. The day is crisp and not quite sunny or cloudy either. McKelvey has never been so anxious to get out of somewhere, as though the walls were literally falling in on him, and he wonders if his father ever felt that way down in the confined darkness of the mine. He straightens up and he thinks of his wife, where she is and what she’s doing, and he thinks of the minister’s words and wonders where Gavin is, too. For the first time in his life he wishes someone had told him about God, or made him memorize a few prayers, something he could use in a moment such as this.

  He could use a cigarette, too. Or a pain pill. A cold draft beer pulled from the polished brass pipes down at Garrity’s Pub. Maybe even all three combined for a Triactor of Bliss. Christ, he’s given up everything. There is nothing left, as though he is a baby again, devoid of the awareness of vice. And then it hits him, he no longer feels the physical twist in his guts from those bastardly pills.

  “Free,” he hears himself say out loud.

  McKelvey drives slowly out of the packed parking lot and down Main Street. He is struck by the loneliness of the empty streets, and again he wonders what will become of this place, and all of the places like it. There are small towns in every province, in every state, that have been forgotten by the cities, forgotten for a long time now. The places where the wheat is grown and cut for the food that gets served in restaurants on the Danforth in Toronto, bays where the crabs are caught and the mussels are raked, deep woods where the trees are cut and sliced into two-by-fours to build the cottages, where men and women descend thousands of feet below the earth to claw from its stubborn jaws the diamonds and gold we require for our shiny things, the nickel that makes our cellular phones work. More than a generation gap, or the expected turn toward nostalgia as one grows older, McKelvey senses a shift within the very fabric of society, of the stuff that makes us who and what we are, the strings that connect us across the expanse of the grid. When a place like Ste. Bernadette dies, it takes with it not only a part of history, but of our shared future as well. He passes the storefronts, more than half of them empty or boarded up, and he sees ghosts on every corner.

  He passes the Station Hotel and then on down past the police station, and he turns off Main to wind through the residential area. He pauses in front of Chief Gallagher’s house. The driveway is empty, the fresh snow untouched by either tires or feet. Where have you got to, Gallagher? He closes his eyes for a mome
nt and plays through the steps, the possibilities here. Gallagher gets in deep with Celluci for the landfill deal. Celluci needs access to Garson’s property for the deal to work, and when Garson won’t budge, Celluci intimidates or tries to kill Garson by blowing up his trailer. Gallagher argues with Celluci about his tactics. Gallagher takes off … or Celluci has done something with Gallagher, with his body …

  It explains perhaps one part, but it doesn’t fit with the whole, McKelvey thinks. It doesn’t solve the problem.

  Garson isn’t in the trailer when it blows, but he sees who has tried to kill him and he takes off on foot through the woods. Celluci tracks him to the truck stop and puts an end to any risk of Garson talking …

  It seems a long stretch that a man working for the city of Detroit — even a slick son of a bitch with a concealed-weapon permit like Celluci — would risk twenty years in prison over a plan that touches on the property of a modern-day hillbilly. The meth, that is the connection, the starting point from which all violence can be traced. Travis Lacey hits Nolan; Scotty Cooper stabs Mark Watson; Wade Garson’s trailer explodes; Garson is found shot to death; Gallagher goes missing; Celluci tests positive for GSR and is found in possession of a matching shell casing; the girl Casey Hartman has provided a statement indicating she got the foil of meth from Scott Cooper, not Levesque as she told her father, and Scott Cooper told Nolan that he got the foil from the arcade washroom …

  Celluci — or someone with sufficient motivation — has introduced meth into the community for purposes beyond profit. The purpose of all this, that is where the answer lies. Who, why, and how. It occurs to McKelvey that the only good lead they have at this time is putting the Garson death on Celluci. It won’t explain or stop the larger problem, though, and if they can’t do that, they have failed the people of Saint B.

  McKelvey rolls on, past the empty houses that once held the families whose fathers worked in the mine, and he drives by Carl Levesque’s house. The black Caddy is gone, fresh tracks in the snow. He pauses there a moment and then turns around and comes back out onto Main, eyes scanning for sign of Levesque’s vehicle. He is turning off Main to come in behind the Station Hotel when he stops. Levesque’s Cadillac is parked in the middle of the road, a black SUV turned across it at a forty-five degree angle. It looks like a police action, McKelvey thinks as he comes upon the scene. He sits in the cruiser thirty metres back, watching three men argue between the vehicles. This is not a simple traffic disagreement. McKelvey squints to make out who the other two men are. They are Natives, likely from the Big Water First Nation. He has never seen them before. The way the men are standing, the way Levesque is flapping his arms in some sort of hyper explanation, they appear like school kids in the midst of a shakedown for lunch money.