Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

Where the hell was Jim going?

She dug her phone from a back pocket and hit the number for Jim’s cell.

“Yeah.” His voice crackly down the line.

“Where are you going?” Emma strode out of the rows, angling the phone for a better reception. “Is everything okay?”

“I gotta talk to Kate. Somebody just screwed us over.”

Click. The line gone dead. She hated it when he got cryptic. Was she supposed to guess what that meant?

To hell with it. Emma knelt back down to uproot the mangled pepper plants.

THE OAK STEM Diner was the place where business was conducted over eggs and bottomless cups of coffee, had been since the sixties. Business had slackened the last few years when the new Tim Hortons coffee shop landed further out on the strip, siphoning off customers but the Oak Stem held its own with its booths and swivel stools. A universal truth; you couldn’t negotiate a deal under a sign declaring a twenty minute minimum.

The bell over the door rang as Jim entered but staff and patrons alike were deaf to it now. Jim scanned the tables and spotted Kate in the last booth. Sitting across from her were Hitchens and Tom Carswell, the manager of the Pennyluck Savings and Loan. All three looked up when Jim approached.

Jim nodded to the two men before squaring his eyes on the mayor. “We need to talk.”

“Jimmy, sit down,” said Hitchens. “We were just talking about you. And your new neighbour.”

“Is that so? You know about this guy?”

“Sit down.” Kate’s tone was conciliatory although her eyes seemed troubled.

Hitchens slid over and Jim sat. “He said his name’s Corrigan. Where the hell did he come from?”

“No idea,” said Kate. “John found him on the steps of the county office this morning, waiting for it to open. He filed a claim on the property.”

“So some yahoo walks in and makes a claim? If I knew it was that easy, I woulda done it ages ago.”

Tom Carswell clinked his cup back onto the saucer. He had that puffy faced, worn out look some men get sliding down the other side of forty. Swollen looking hands that were oddly dainty holding a cup. Jim had never liked the man, disliking his air of superiority. He guessed that handling other people’s money did that to a person. Carswell spoke slowly. “He had a formal statement of claim. ID, proof. If everything checks out, the property is his.”

“I thought it belonged to the county.”

“It’s in trust to the county.” Carswell clucked, the way a school teacher does. “Has been forever.”

“But it’s still Corrigan property.” Kate shrugged, like everyone knew this but Jim. “Weird, I know.”

“But there hasn’t been a Corrigan for years. How could it still belong to them?”

“It’s still in their name. Held in trust” Carswell said, as if this was all over Jim’s head. “The land’s been for sale since Adam but never sold. It’s complicated.”

Hitchens snorted. “Who the hell would want that creepy old place?”

Jim zeroed in on Kate, telegraphing a simple message. I want it. He said, “So?”

Kate folded her hands together. “So the land remained in the Corrigan name. This man, William, is it?” Carswell nodded, she went on. “He filed proof that he’s a descendant of the original family and lays legal claim.”

“And just like that, you believed him?”

“We believed his money.” Carswell slurped his coffee. “He paid the outstanding back taxes for the last ten years. Didn’t even blink an eye about it either. Just cut a cheque.”

Jim sank back into the bench. “So that’s it? It’s his land and how’s your mother?”

“There’s a process, Jim. Nothing’s written in stone yet.”

“Yeah.” Jim slid out of the booth, turned to go.

Hitchens called after him. “What do you care, Jimmy?”

Kate watched him storm out. She’d explain it to him later when he cooled off.

Hitchens swung back to the table. “What’s his problem?”

“Covetousness,” Carswell said.

“Don’t gossip, Tom.” Kate pushed her coffee cup away. Her sixth and it wasn’t even noon. She looked up to see old Mr. Gallagher staring at them from his perch at the lunch counter. Openly eavesdropping. “Can I help you Mr. Gallagher?”

“That name,” he said. “What was that name you said?”

Hitchens looked at him. “You mean Jim?”

“No, ye idiot.” Gallagher waved his hand as if to shoo Hitchens off. “The other name.”

Kate was in no mood for the old man’s carrying on but Carswell piped up. “Corrigan?”

The old man winced as if stung. “That one. What’s wrong with you people anyway? Don’t ever utter that name.”

Hitchens laughed, looking at Kate and Carswell. The old geezer was in form today. “Why not?”

Gallagher turned away. “It’s bad luck.”

Driving home, Jim felt a gaping black hole yawning open under his feet. It would swallow him whole. His wife, child, home. He pulled to the shoulder and clambered out to be sick but nothing came up. He stayed doubled over, hands on his knees.

His whole plan had popped like a balloon with the appearance of this man at the old property. Without the new acreage, Jim was painted into a corner with no way forward or back. He’d go under and with it, they’d lose it all. The bank and the creditors would pick the bones clean. Turkey vultures. Everything lost because of his ineptitude.

His teeth felt gritty and burned when he turned back into his driveway. He was surprised to see Travis mowing the front lawn, a chore he normally had to cajole and harass the boy to do. Emma must have scolded him into doing it, anticipating his mood. Jim waved at his son as he rumbled past him, drove on towards the barn. He heard the lawnmower shut down and Travis crossing the yard towards him. The boy would have a million questions, none of which Jim wanted to face, let alone answer.

“So this carpetbagger just shows up out of the blue. Says the place is his. Weird looking guy too.”

Travis sat perched in the tractor seat, legs dangling. “What’s a carpetbagger?”

“City people. Con artists. They’ll steal your wallet while shaking your hand.” Jim lifted out the air filter and slotted the flathead into the idle screw. Tweaked it a hair. “Try it now.”

Travis hit the ignition and the engine sputtered up. The idle too fast. Jim turned it back until it slowed and then waved at Travis to cut it. “Dollars to donuts, he’s got some scam going.”

“Where’d he come from?”

“Dunno. Out east, I guess. Probably run out of the last town he was in for pulling something stupid.”

“Uh… Dad?”

“You can tell a shyster by the look in his eye. You know—”

“What happened up there?” Emma stood just inside the barn door, hair wet from the shower. Listening to his tirade. He gave her a brief rundown of the stranger in the house, his talk with Kate at the diner. Carswell and his condescending tone. “So why are you talking trash about this guy?”

“Because he just screwed us over.”

“You don’t know anything about the man.”

“Don’t need to.”

“Yes you do. Go back and invite the man over for coffee.”

He looked at his wife like she had suddenly grown two heads. “No way.”

“Yes way. Go be neighbourly. Let’s find out about our mystery man.”

Jim dropped the filter back in, replaced the cover. Refusing to budge. Emma looked up at her son in the cab, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Travis, take your dad over there and invite our new neighbour over.” She looked back at Jim. “Or I’ll do it myself.”

Travis sat in the box, bouncing on the wheel well as Jim drove back to the decrepit house. The debris pile in the yard was even taller now. Lengths of mouldy sheetrock and lines of cast iron pipe. Travis hopped out of the pickup and joined his dad in the overgrown grass. He looked over the mess. “What’s he doing? Gutting the place?”