Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

Now she was in the thick of it, patrons talking over each other in their rush to get out all the details, all the horrible things that man said. And now they all looked at her like she had an answer. “I’m sorry,” she confessed. “I’m as much in the dark as you are.”

“Meaning what exactly?” Berryhill thumped the table, rattling the coffee spoons. “You ain’t gonna do anything about his slanderous shit?”

“I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Useless,” Berryhill grumped. “Fucking useless.”

“We’ll sue the bastard.” Hitchens pointed a finger at the faces assembled around the tabletop. “Slander. Defamation of character. Whatever else you got. All of us, like a class action thing.”

The tables rumbled in approval.

Puddycombe stood and waved until he had everyone’s attention. “How do we even know this guy is who he says he is? A Corrigan? For all we know he could be some huckster trying to shake us down for a quick payout.”

“Excellent point,” Kate said. The mood was turning uglier and she’d heard enough. Looking for a way to cap the discussion and get out. “Thank you. All of you. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

She stood but the men weren’t letting her off that easy, peppering her with questions and demands for action. A hand gripped her elbow and she turned, ready to blow.

It was Jim, elbowing his way through and pulling her away. “You’re a popular lady today.”

“Can we talk outside?” Kate’s words, but her eyes said something else. Get me out of here.

The street was quiet and the breeze cool after the greasy heat inside the diner. They stepped under the shade of an oak tree. Kate looked at her fingers, garden soil still crusted under the nails.

“You missed the big show,” Jim said.

“I heard. What do you know about this guy?”

“Nada.”

“You’re the only one he’s talked to. He must have told you something.”

“He said his grandfather was the sole survivor of the massacre that night. The little boy who witnessed it all and lived to tell the tale.”

“What does he want?” Kate rubbed her eyes. She just wanted to get back to her flowerbeds. “What is he trying to prove with this little stunt?”

“You’d have to ask him. He’s kinda cagey about what he’s up to.”

“Did he tell you anything else?”

“He’s from Halifax. Said he used to work in security.” Jim shrugged. It was all he had.

Ding. The door swung open. Berryhill and Hitchens spilled out, with the dutiful Combat Kyle dogging their heels. Hitchens nodded a polite goodbye but Bill openly scowled. Kyle’s mug was a lemon pucker of disdain but his face was forever fixed that way no matter what his mood. The happiest day of his life and his sneer wouldn’t budge.

Jim watched them stomp off to their cars. “What about Corrigan’s story? The murders? Is it possible they were really killed by their neighbours?”

“No. I don’t know. It’s ancient history. If it was true, don’t you think it would be known. Even a rumour or a skeleton in the closet? A ghost story?”

“It is a ghost story. Do you know how many spook-hunters I’ve chased out of that old place?”

“It’s just so…” Kate groped for a word, settled for “preposterous.”

“So he’s making it up?”

“Can you talk some sense into him?”

Jim stepped back. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the only friend he’s made.” Kate leaned in close, eyes bright. “Find out what he’s after. Reason with him.”

“I don’t want to get involved in this mess.”

Her tone dropped, face set in stone. “You already are involved, remember? Just talk to the man. Find out what he wants.”

It took a moment but Jim realized he was learning a tough lesson. Playing politics was like learning to throw a boomerang. The harder you hurl the thing, the faster it screams back at you.

He shook his head, wanting to say no but obligation swapped out his answer.

“Okay, okay. Jesus…”

THE CORRIGAN PLACE was quiet the rest of the day. No more visitors, no sign of the man nor his vehicle. The big sign Corrigan had placed near the roadside had been defiled, pummelled with something red and sticky. Red rivulets of it dripping down the stencilled lettering. Looked like tomato.

Monday was spent tilling the rough skirt of land down near the creek. He slowed the tractor as he passed the breech in the fence he’d made days earlier. The stones neatly piled up and the first few passes with the plough on the other property. The tractor ticked and sputtered as he wondered what the hell he was going to do about it now. Reassemble the fence stone by stone? To hell with it. He chucked up the gear and trundled on.

He couldn’t shake the awful story Corrigan had told with such glee. How could such a horrible thing be true? How could it remain so forgotten? Other than kids goosing one another with ghost stories, no one ever talked about the Corrigans or what happened to them. And yet he knew of the town’s reluctance to say that name aloud. He remembered being shushed as a kid once while talking to a cousin about the ‘haunted house’. Uncle Finn scolding him for uttering that name, saying it brought bad luck.

That was just plain weird.

When he got back to the yard he found the goats in the flowerbed, snapping up tulip heads. Why they needed goats, or why the horse needed ‘companion animals’, Jim still didn’t quite buy but Emma was the horse expert. He took her word for it but the damn things were getting into everything. The marble-eyed goats had the strangest taste too, ignoring the vegetable garden but devouring every tulip they could find. Jim had tried to feed them dandelions, hoping they’d acquire a taste and start weeding his lawn for him but the goats turned away in disinterest. Instead, they had started eating the bark off some cedar saplings he had planted three years ago, leaving the greenwood bare and exposed like a wound. Jim had kicked the animals away but the brainless goats just looked at him, jaws grinding away.

He washed up at the sink, told Emma he was going to run errands in town. He was out the door and into the truck, almost away before she ran out with a grocery list for him. Damn.

Galway Road was quiet, a few cars zipping from the hardware store to the grocery store and then home. Pat Murdoch stood outside his auto garage, chewing a toothpick and watching the sun go down. Jim bopped his horn and Murdoch waved.

The errands went quick enough. A spanner wrench, a replacement blade for his circular saw and a roll of heavy gauge wire to wrap the saplings and save them from the goddamn goats. Groceries went into the lock-box in the back of the pickup, which would keep them cool enough until he got home. He left the truck in the lot, cut through the alley to Galway and down a block to the town hall building. A limestone gothic edifice with a clock centered in the tower.

He passed Hitchens coming the other way. “Where you going, Jimmy?” Hitchens pointed in the direction he was going. “The pub’s this way.”

“Got some homework to do. I’ll catch up.”

Hitchens watched Jim take the steps two at a time. “When did you learn to read?”

Jim flipped him the bird and passed through the doors of the Pennyluck public library.

Where the hell was the history section?

Jim went down one aisle and up the next. Lost. He hadn’t been in a library since he was a kid and having already wandered the stacks for five minutes felt too embarrassed to ask for help. Kids slouched over the desks watched him wander hopelessly like an idiot.

A film of sweat had settled on his brow when he finally located it, in the end stack near geography. Frustration returned when he couldn’t find what he was looking for. There was Canadian and U.S. history, then European and finally world history. This last section consisted of a travel book about Mexico and a picture book about mummies. Not a single book about Pennyluck or even Ontario history.