Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

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You go back far enough, every family’s got blood on its hands.
Three miles down the Roman Line, you’ll find the old Corrigan house, empty for decades, the sight of an unspeakable crime that has been long forgotten. Until now, when a stranger rolls into town claiming to be a long lost Corrigan.
Inviting the locals to a tour of the derelict property, the stranger regales the townsfolk with a gruesome tale of how his family was slaughtered by an armed mob. The murderers, he claims, were the ancestors of everyone assembled before him.
Jeered as a fraud, the man’s claims are dismissed but doubts linger over what happened all those years ago. Dissent grows as the stranger agitates for retribution and long dead feuds reignite. Caught in the middle is Jim Hawkshaw, a struggling farmer living near the old house. As he digs for the truth, Jim is forced to choose sides when the locals decide to take matters into their own hands and punish the outsider for his lies.
While the town prepares for its first heritage festival, a band of vigilantes march on the old Corrigan house to exact revenge but this time… this time the Corrigans are ready for them.

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Joe Keefe told him to go to Hell and stood, ready to follow McGrath.

“Oh come on, boys. You haven’t even heard the best part.” Corrigan held up the map again. “Look at these lots. Primo real estate, making the wrong people rich for a hundred years. I want them back.”

The sting. The racket of crickets filled the silence. Thompson declared him a crazy son of a bitch and a fraud to boot. All agreed.

“That’s my counter offer,” said Corrigan. “Take it or leave it.”

McGrath was incredulous. The stupid bastard was bargaining from no position. “Counter offer? To what?”

“Your clumsy attempt to buy me off, using old Jim Hawkshaw as your puppet.” Corrigan gauged their confused looks correctly. Shot back. “I assume the right honourable mayor told you of her manoeuvre?”

Kate shrank under the weight of all those eyeballs. She held her head high and utilized the same tactics of any tyrant big or small. Denial and bluff. Brinkmanship. “That’s enough of your conspiracy theories, Mister Corrigan. Take your paranoia elsewhere.”

The councilmen grumbled in agreement, grunting support for their mayor.

Corrigan feigned a look of martyrdom, all forlorn suffering not dissimilar to Joan in the flames. “I tried, I really did. But since you won’t listen to reason or morality, we can fight it out the old fashioned way. In the courts.”

McGrath laughed at him. “You’re suing us?”

“For the return of stolen lands. For conspiracy to profit from a crime. And the aggregate revenues lost during the last hundred years.”

“Then we’ll see you in court. Goodnight Kate.” McGrath tossed his glass on the table and huffed away. The other councilmen followed. The cook doused a pitcher of water on the grill and the coals hissed up foul and cruel.

The trio on the bandstand held their instruments still. Stranded on the old gazebo, unsure of what the hell was happening. One of them flipped open his guitar case, ready to pack it in.

“Dirty old town!” Corrigan stomped up the steps of the bandstand, champagne bottle in hand. “That old Pogues tune. You know the one.” He dug into a pocket and tossed a bill into the open guitar case. A C note. “Play it!”

One picker eyed the other, neither remembering the song too well. The fiddle player struck it out on her chords, doing her best but all she could remember was the chorus. The pickers followed her lead, the melody recalling only the chorus so they sang that.

Kate rose and followed the council up the path. Camaraderie in her bones. She couldn’t remember the last time all of them had been agreement. It felt good.

Corrigan struck up the tune, adding his voice, bellicose and out of key, to the harmonies of the trio.

Dirty old town!

Dirty old town!

~

Bill Berryhill was not an advocate of the festival. Just the thought of a bunch of tourists plodding around town in their Crocs and yoga pants made him sick. Taking pictures and gawking, driving slow in their SUV’s. And now this, clogging the bar at the Dublin. The damn festival hadn’t even started and they were already here, wasting oxygen in his refuge.

“The hell are you doing, Pudsy?” He elbowed his way in and leaned over the bar. “Giving the drinks away?”

Puddycombe was hustling to keep up, even with Jeanine winging behind the bar with him and two girls on the floor. Smiling through it all, like only Puddy could. Eating it all up, playing the host and ringing the till. “Not bad, huh?”

Bill sneered. “Can’t these rubes go someplace else? Like Gator Bob’s?”

“You be nice, Billy. It all trickles down, son. You’ll see.”

Bill waved a dead pitcher over the bartop. “Well if you’re not too busy, can you see to the regulars who keep you open in the winter months?”

The bar owner hooked the pitcher under the spigot and let it fill while he poured a row of shooters. Berryhill watched the Kahlua and Baileys pour into the shot glasses and shook his head. Christ on a popsicle stick.

He felt an elbow in his ribs and snapped around, ready to lay into some tourist. Hitchens, squeezing his way through the mob. “Bill, where the hell did all these people come from?”

“Dunno but looking at all the faggot-ass hair and stupid clothes, my guess is Toronto.”

“Could be worse, I suppose.” Hitchens winked at Puddycombe. “We may yet get some Quebekers.”

When Puddy set down the fresh pitcher and pint of his usual, Hitchens waved at them to lean in. “You hear what happened down at the fair grounds? About Corrigan’s latest stunt?”

“What’s the bastard done now?”

“According to Thompson, the son of a bitch laid claim to half a dozen properties in town. Says the land used to belong to his family and was sold off illegally or some shit.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Puddycombe shouted back. “You can’t cry foul a hundred years after the fact.”

“He said it’s proof of the conspiracy. The land sold off cheap to the men who killed his family.”

Berryhill dug into a basket of pretzels. “What land is he talking about?”

“McGrath’s hardware. Murdy’s shop. Doug’s car dealership.”

“Doug’s place?” Bill’s employer, Doug Murdoch. Bill spent three days of the week there as an unlicensed mechanic and tow truck driver. Occasional repo man. “Dude’s crazy, thinks he can swindle that horseshit.”

“Ballsy, huh?” Hitchens sipped his pint. “The sonovabitch just keeps upping the ante, cranking us up. I mean, what the hell is he after?”

“Gotta be a payoff,” Puddy said. “He’s extorting us to make him go away.”

Hitchens winked. “I think they tried. On the sly like. Guess it didn’t work.”

“Fuck the town,” Berryhill said. “We need to do what we planned. Only thing that’s gonna work.”

“That’ll have to wait.” Puddycombe set pints down, poured more. “Until the festival’s over. Too many people around.”

“Why? So you can sell more to these stupid rubes?”

“Would you hush your gob?”

“He’s got a point,” Hitchens said.

“That prick ain’t waiting.” Pretzel crumbs flew from Bill’s maw. “He’s doing more of his bullshit tours this weekend. Haven’t you seen the flyers?”

“Leave it. We’ll deal with it Monday.”

Bill dismissed them both as pussies and took his pitcher out to the patio. Combat Kyle sat at a picnic table, blowing smoke out his nose and playing with his Zippo. Flicking it open and snapping his fingers to light it, all in one smooth motion. Something he’d seen Steven Seagal do once in a movie.

“Pour.” Bill set the pitcher down and helped himself to the cigarette pack on the table. Kyle refilled their glasses and took up the Zippo again. Bill watched his mute friend snap the old lighter and stare at the flame like some bewitched Neanderthal.

“Fucking firebug.”

~

Kate steered for home, her eyes flitting between the street ahead of her and the phone in her hand. Scrolling through her contact list for Hugo’s number. His report about Corrigan’s past, added to his crashing her party, had her worried.

Maybe Hugo could help. Effectiveness and discretion were his calling cards. Especially in tricky spots. He could come up here, deal with Corrigan as only Hugo could, and she’d be free of his nonsense.

She hit dial and then panicked and killed the call. Dropping the phone onto the passenger seat. She didn’t need Hugo to come out here to solve her problems for her.

She pulled to the curb and looked out over the street, decorated as it was with flowers and sparkling lights. She’d worked so hard to put all of this together and now this cretin was trying to drag it all down into the gutter. What galled the most was how he’d planned to co-opt her festival to promote his gruesome little sideshow.

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