by Eric Wright
“How long did you meet after church. Months? Years?”
“About two years.”
“You must have got to know each other pretty good.”
“Everything that matters. When the time come, we saw no sense in waiting.”
“You got married then, and moved up to the farm in … what? Two weeks?”
“Four. The minister said that was enough.”
“And Thompson moved out then.”
“A couple more weeks. As soon as I had found my way around the farm. It’s not complicated, chicken farming, and Ruth knows as much about it as Thompson.”
“Did you get to know him at all in those two weeks?”
“We all et together, but that was all. He wasn’t my kind of people, or Ruth’s either.”
“What kind was he?”
“To start with, he was a drinker.”
“Heavy?”
“Every Saturday afternoon he’d come back smelling of it.”
“Week after week, eh. Any other bad habits?”
“Like what?”
“Did he play cards, maybe?”
“You trying to make fun of me, mister?”
“No, no. I’m just trying to establish if maybe someone had a grudge. Could be he didn’t pay his debts. See what I mean?”
“I see all right.” Sproat made it clear that he had seen through Wilkie’s protest and didn’t believe it. Reluctantly, he added, “He only went to town on Saturday afternoons. Nights, he listened to the radio and watched TV. He liked hockey games.”
“Who were his friends?”
“He never brought any back to the farm.”
“Enemies?”
“Never saw any of them, either. He kept out of trouble, kept to himself.”
Wilkie judged that the conversation had recovered from his failure to have a little fun at Sproat’s expense, and now he tried to be more man-to-man. “We think he may have interrupted someone trying to rob him, Mr. Sproat. Came home while they were going through his stuff. Did he have anything valuable apart from his TV, do you know?”
“Not that I ever saw. A railway watch was all, but those things aren’t valuable, are they?”
“We got that. No. What about money? How did he keep his money, do you know? He left the farm with a few dollars, about six weeks’ pay—how much would that have been?”
“You’d have to ask Mrs. Sproat. He got all his meals, and the use of the truck on Saturday afternoons. He didn’t need much.”
Wilkie heard a defensive tone in Sproat’s reply, and made a note to himself to find out about Thompson’s wages. Sproat would know the price of farm labor. So far, it sounded as if Thompson had been a kind of indentured servant.
“One thing, did you ever get the impression that Thompson was a little bit backward? Did Mrs. Sproat ever suggest it?”
“He could read and write, but you didn’t catch him doing either very much. No, he was an inward-looking man, but I think he wasn’t deficient.”
“It must have been hard on him when you came and he had to go.”
“He didn’t have to go. Who said he had to go? He left of his own accord. Just up and left. I suppose I must have had something to do with it, but his going was his own concern. He could have stayed, and I could have carried on delivering feed. I don’t really like chickens much. They stink. But I can do it for Mrs. Sproat’s sake. No, we didn’t send Norbert away. He had a home with us if he wanted. Mrs. Sproat would have seen that as a duty, being nearly kin. She was glad he went, but he could have stayed.”
“Now, something I have to do is find out where everybody was on Friday night. Did you go out?”
Sproat straightened up. “I left Mrs. Sproat to go into Lindsay. I needed to buy some oil for the truck, and it’s cheapest at the Canadian Tire store there. I got a receipt, if you want to see it, and I chatted for a couple of minutes with an old customer in the store. If you want, I could get his name.”
“That isn’t necessary. I’m just filling in the blanks.” He nodded and stood up to close the interview. Sproat stayed seated.
As Wilkie moved away, Sproat said, “Catch the waitress, would you? I think I’ll have a refill.” He held up his cup.
“Another piece of pie?” Wilkie joked.
“I’ve had my pie,” Sproat said. “Just the coffee.”
9
The minister lived in a small, white-painted house next to the church. A sign—no more than a label—over the door of the church said it was the First Gospel Church. There was no notice board indicating the time of services or the minister’s name.
“We call ourselves the First Gospel Church of Sweetwater, though there isn’t any Second. We are the only congregation in the county, and we aren’t affiliated with any others outside.”
“Mrs. Sproat said you had split off from the other … congregations? Why was that? Was there a quarrel?”
“They wanted more ritual. We wanted none of it. Now they’re talking about joining up with the United people. Next will be the Anglicans, then Rome. But our faith is based on the Bible, not on a lot of edicts from a pope. The word of God unadorned. We don’t hold with organs, either. There aren’t any organs in the Bible. Or guitars, for that matter.”
“When do you hold your services?”
“We meet Sunday mornings and evenings. Why?”
“I thought I might drop by.”
“Why?”
Wilkie had not anticipated this. “I was just interested.”
“What in?”
“What you had to offer.”
“Don’t you subscribe to any faith?”
“I think my wife is Anglican.”
“Then ask your wife to take you to church. Don’t bother to come to ours. We don’t like tourists.”
“We live here.”
“There are different kinds of tourists. What I mean is that we aren’t on show. We get together to worship God. Try the Anglicans, they put on a good show. I hear they’re using incense now.”
“So you are on your own. I suppose the other churches would call you strict?”
“We practice the faith that they preach.”
“Did Norbert Thompson ever attend your church?”
“Never. I remember asking Mrs. Maguire, as she was called then, to encourage him to come along, but she said he wasn’t interested. To tell you honestly, Inspector …” The minister looked unsure of himself for a moment.
“Sergeant.”
“Sergeant. I don’t think she tried very hard. I think he must have been quite a good man—hard worker and all that—but Mrs. Maguire was more strict than the rest of us. You see, she used to be Cotterite, and when that sect died out, she came over to us. But on her own, in her house, she kept up the Cotterite faith.”
“What would that involve? This is all new to me.”
“I can tell that. You have to have grown up here. Hubert Cotter broke away from the Baptists when some of them joined up with the United Church … what? Seventy years ago? But he was more … er, what?—purist?—than the other Baptists who broke off, and he started his own congregation. Time took care of it, though; it’s gone now. But Mrs. Maguire kept the faith. No cooking on Sundays, that sort of thing. I found out just how literalist she was when she came to me to see if it was all right for her to have a cup of coffee once a week with Aaron Sproat.” For a few words, the minister sounded slightly incredulous about what he was saying, but his orthodoxy prevailed and he brushed aside the apparent temporary apostasy. “I gave them my blessing, as long as they met in public.” Suddenly, urgently, he burst out, “It was the only relief the poor woman got. Coffee once a week with Sproat. She was doing nothing wrong in her heart. The rest of the time, she lived with a sick husband and a man she detested.”
“Detested?”
Now the minister looked confused. He bowed his head. “I’m sorry. You’re right. That was too strong. But when you asked me if Thompson had ever come to church, I wasn’t quite straight with you. Thomp
son came to see me once, to find out if it would be all right if he attended services. I discouraged him, even though he was family-connected. Mrs. Maguire had already mentioned that he wanted to join us—that he had asked her. I don’t think he realized that she didn’t like him. Of course, a more likely reason is that he would have had to ride back and forth with her in the truck every Sunday morning, and then her little coffee get-together with Aaron Sproat would have been affected. So I discouraged him. Mrs. Sproat is one of our … I couldn’t afford to lose her. Taking one thing with another, I think I did right. He just needed somewhere to worship, and it would have been divisive to have him with us. Anyway, he was doing his Christian duty by sitting with his brother while she came to church. Otherwise, she would have had to stay home herself. She’s a very good woman, but …”
“But what?”
“Sir, a man like you doesn’t have the right to know the problems of keeping to the true faith, what it’s like for a real Christian.”
“So tell me.”
The minister looked at Wilkie with contempt. “You haven’t the slightest idea of what I’m talking about, have you?”
“That sounds kind of arrogant. For a Christian.”
The minister flushed. “All right, I’ll try you. Observing our congregation, I have come to the conclusion that there is a process always at work turning faith into dogma. A church like ours—all churches in the beginning—starts with revelation, but then it lays down an order of service so that the congregation doesn’t have to create it every week. The form of the service is the letter, not the spirit, but inevitably in time the letter becomes more important than the spirit, and then it becomes necessary for some to regain the spirit—I’m trying to talk in a language you would understand. Do you’?”
“I think so. You’re finding your own congregation a bit rigid. Right?”
The minister shrugged and said nothing. Then, “Anything else?”
“Just … good luck.”
Before he checked the Sweetwater beer parlors that Thompson might have patronized on his Saturday afternoons off the farm, Constable Copps did the rounds of the few stores in Larch River.
Along the highway, many of the small businesses that existed to serve the summer trade—the soft-ice-cream bars, the live-bait shops, the doughnut counters, and the chip wagons—had not yet opened for the season. Of those that were open, none could report any significant sightings of strangers on Friday afternoon or evening. He had more luck in town; the assistant in the hardware store offered a list of possibilities, including “a guy who was around on the Friday a week before, inquiring after whoever built the cabin-Mr. Pickett. This guy was wanting to build one of his own, and he wanted to talk to Mr. Pickett because he’d heard about the one he’d put up. I told him where to find the cabin, and that if no one was there, then Mr. Pickett’s granddaughter would probably let him have a look at the cabin.”
“Who?”
“Mel Pickett’s granddaughter. She came out from England and he lets her use the trailer.”
“That’s not his granddaughter. She’s somebody else. I know her. She lived here last summer while they put on that play.”
“I wasn’t here then. Somebody told me she was his granddaughter.”
“Somebody’s mixing them up. You’re mixing them up.”
“Well, who’s with the Pakki, then? The granddaughter or the other one?” The assistant grinned. “Or both?”
“Who’s this Pakki?”
“An Indian guy who spends time in the trailer. They were talking in the beer parlor about him the other day.”
“What were they saying?”
“Siggy Siggurdson said he could stay in Larch River as long as he behaves himself.”
“Who would he use as a model? Siggy?”
“What?”
“Never mind. You remember anyone else hanging around? You’ve got a good view from this window. You ought to rent chairs.”
“We’re starting to see some tourists, people driving around looking for a restaurant. And people looking for a summer cabin come in here a lot. But I don’t remember anyone special, and the guy wanting to see the cabin never came back.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“He was a young guy, about thirty, but he’d been in the wars, so his age was hard to tell.”
“You mean been in a lot of fights?”
“Something like that. He had six or seven scars on his face, and no teeth up top. I think he was probably a hockey player. You know, like one of those guys in the Paul Newman movie, playing in the American League, old guys, over thirty, stretching out their last few years.”
“Did you see what he was driving?”
“An old pickup. A white one. There was someone else with him. I never saw him, but I remember the hockey player waving through the window at someone sitting outside, as if whoever he was with might be getting impatient. But the first guy was the driver. Yeah, when he went out to the truck, he got in on the driver’s side and whoever it was moved over.”
From the hardware store, Copps moved on to Harlan’s motel and beer parlor, where the waiter assured him that Thompson never patronized the place. Before he left Larch River, Copps remembered to ask Harlan, as the owner of the gas pump outside the diner and of the gas station on the highway, to provide the police with a list of all the license numbers on the credit cards that had been used on Friday. Copps didn’t expect much from this; punks, in his experience, used cash when they were on a job.
From Larch River, he drove back to Sweetwater to check the three beer parlors that Thompson might have used. Thompson’s death was now an item in Sweetwater gossip, and in the first beer parlor he called on, the waiter knew all about the dead man.
“He used to come in here every Saturday afternoon—I mean right up to last week. He sat at the same table every week and drank two beers, no more, no less, every week. Then he’d have his supper over at the Chew’n’Chat, and pick up his laundry, and that was it. The big afternoon out.”
“Did he have any buddies here?”
“Once in a while you’d see him shooting the shit with a couple of senior citizens, two-beer types themselves, but they just talked about what was playing up there.” He pointed to the TV screen. “He didn’t come here to meet them, no.”
They remembered Thompson in the Chew’n’Chat, a sandwich-and-fries restaurant that also offered steaks, chops, and liver and onions. The meals came with potatoes, green beans, and gravy. “He always had a steak,” the owner/waitress said. “And a piece of pie a la mode.”
“Was he always by himself?”
“Always.”
The woman who ran the Laundromat wrung her hands and smiled too much for someone with all her wits about her. She dressed like an old woman, but Copps thought she was no more than forty. She had a pleasant face in spite of her smile, and a smallish frame, but a bosom of a size Copps associated with sopranos; it was a feature she seemed to want to conceal with her wringing hands.
She, too, knew that Thompson was dead. When Copps introduced himself, she shook her head and locked onto Copps’ eyes, bonding in sympathy.
“He did his laundry here?” Copps asked, pointing at the row of machines.
“I did it,” she said. “See, he used to take his shirts to the Sentinel Cleaners and they charged him a dollar fifty a shirt, and when he told me that, I offered to iron them for him. So it became a regular thing. He’d bring in his dirty laundry and give me enough change for the machine, and I’d give him back the clean things from the week before.” She smiled and smiled, and dropped her hands slightly, relaxing as she talked. “It wasn’t much of a job. He was such a clean man. So clean.”
Copps smiled at her. “I need some shirts ironed.”
She ducked her head, avoiding his smile. “I just did them as a favor for him. He didn’t have anyone else. I’ll bet you do.”
“Special, was he?”
“He was a nice man.”
�
�So you said. Did you ever see him with anybody? Any friends?”
She shook her head.
“He ever talk to you about himself?”
“Only about how many chickens they had killed that week, and the eggs they sold.”
“Not too lively.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” Her face closed down.
It was an odd response, requiring an effort to connect it with what they had been saying. Was she defending Thompson’s dullness, or talking about her own preference for a quiet life? Whatever it was, he had put her off for the moment, so he thanked her for her time, and left.
Finally he called in at Sweetwater’s muffler shop, The Quiet Man, to find out who had had his truck repaired since Friday. He got three names, and left behind instructions that he wanted to know if any more turned up needing mufflers. On his way out, he remembered the welding truck.
“There’s none in Larch River,” the owner of the muffler shop assured him. “They get any welding they want done here in Sweetwater, either by McCormack or Fred Grange.”
“Which one drives a white pickup?”
“Neither. One’s blue, dark blue, and the other’s black.”
10
That morning, Pickett told Charlotte he wanted to do something about Eliza’s safety, explaining that he planned to fix floodlights by the cabin that would be triggered by anyone coming through the property. It had been on his list for some time, but now he used Thompson’s death to push it to the top.
Charlotte said, “Can you get them in Sweetwater?”
“I think I have to go in to Toronto. There’s a specialty place on St. Clair where I can take my pick. I could waste an hour in Sweetwater and two in Lindsay and still not get what I need. This place has it for sure.”
“You’ll be gone all day then?”
“You nervous about being on your own?”
“I’ve lived in this house for twenty-five years, ten of them on my own. But you be back by dusk, so I’ll know how to time dinner. Call me if you’re going to be done earlier.”
