Buried Dreams (19 page)

"And what did Jon say to that?"

Now Gagnon's face had darkened and his breathing had quickened, like he was reliving the argument he had had with Jon. "He got even more angry, started talking about respecting history, no matter where it takes us. I said, history, you want to talk about history? The Vikings up in Newfoundland, they called the people there skraelings. A term that means disgusting cannibals. Cannibals, that's what they thought about us back then. He said he knew that, and I interrupted him and said, look, you want to know some more history? Here's a part of history I'm real fucking proud of. That those dirty skraelings, my brothers and sisters up north, they were able to kill enough of your Vikings to kick them out of North America, and to give the First Peoples another four hundred years of peace. And I wish that their ancestors up there and their ancestors down here were more on the ball the next time round when Europeans showed up, so they could kick them out as well. That's the history I knew, that I was proud of."

I stopped writing, looking at the anger in his eyes, hearing the anger in Gagnon's voice. At first I thought it was a damn silly thing, for I was of Irish ancestry, as he had so correctly noted. And I didn't lay awake nights or brood through the days, thinking about how the British had essentially starved my ancestors back in the 1800s, how their own land was stolen, and how millions of them were forced to Bee their country to settle elsewhere. But by the time I had gone through this, I knew it was a false analogy. If I wanted to, I could move back to my nation of origin and, save for a few counties in the north, could live in reasonable peace and prosperity. It wasn't like the land of my ancestors was still dominated, ruled, and lorded over by the British, and I couldn't imagine what it must be like to travel across this land, see the buildings, hear the foreign languages being spoken, and say to oneself, over and over again: This was once ours, this was once ours, this was once ours.

"I take it the meeting ended around then," I said.

"You got it. He got all huffed up, and now, I can't blame him, and he left, and he said that he was going to prove his Viking theory, with or without my help, or anybody else's help. And he left, and I sat here, and then I went out to lunch. End of story."

I looked at my notebook, looked back up at him. "Anything else I should know?"

"About Jon? Nope. First and last time I ever met him. Never knew him until that day he stopped by."

"All right," I said. "I appreciate your time, talking to me."

He smiled. "Not a problem. Now, it's time for a couple of questions from me."

"Sure."

"This guy a friend of yours?"

"You could say that."

He tapped his fingers on his desk. "Yeah, I could tell. You see, I've been interviewed by reporters a few times before, and usually they come in with their questions, and it's pretty rote, and once they've got what they need, they're looking for an excuse to get the hell out. But not you. You stuck with it."

"Thanks, I guess."

"A dead friend. I can see why you took the time. The cops getting close to nailing whoever killed him?"

"If they are, they haven't told me."

He got up and so did I, and we shook hands, and he said, "Okay. Next question."

"A couple of weeks."

"Excuse me?" he asked.

I picked up my coat. "Give me time to finish this column, and then I'll be ready to come back for another interview." And I really meant it. The research and questions I was doing about Jon were all about one thing only: finding his killer and taking care of business. But I would need a real column to send south to Shoreline in a little while, and the story of a Native American activist from Porter would do just fine.

That brought another smile from him. "Fair enough, then. A couple of weeks it is. Walk you to the door?"

"No, I'm good," I said, which was not really a lie. I headed out into the storefront, where one could sense the eagerness from the teenage boys and girls working there, and I envied their youth and their energy, and their utmost confidence in themselves that they were making a difference. Outside, a cold and smelly breeze was coming in off the harbor, and as I went through my coat pockets, I couldn't find the keys to my rental car. I always carry a spare key to my Ford in my wallet, but since the Ford was in the process of being fixed up over in Durham, that wasn't going to be any help.

I went back to the storefront, to see if I had dropped them on the Boor, when I found them, nestled in my pants pocket. Idiot, I thought. Next thing you'll be needing is a notebook to tell you how to get through the day.

At the entrance, I looked in through the glass windows, saw William Bear Gagnon standing among the worshipful group of high school students, volunteering their time and energies to helping him out. And from where I was standing, it looked like Gagnon was repaying them by having a temper tantrum. I could barely make out the raised voice, but I could see his eyes bulging out, veins standing out on the side of his neck. In one clenched fist he had a bunch of envelopes' and it just seemed like somebody had misfiled something or misprinted something, for there were a lot of downcast faces in there, as Gagnon yelled and looked at each and everyone of them, and then ripped the envelopes in half.

I turned and headed to my rental, no longer envious of those students.

Chapter Eleven

A half hour later I was back home, the trip being uneventful, save for the cheery wave I gave one of the cousins, guarding the driveway to my home, and a clumsy incident as I was trying to get into my house. I had my keys out and for some reason missed the doorknob and dropped them to the ground. I was just thankful it wasn't January or February; having to root around for keys in the snow was never any fun. Once inside the house I called Paula Quinn and lucked out when I found her in the office, and I said, "Can I dive into the favor jar and pull out a couple?"

She laughed and said, "What do I get in return?"

"A late lunch, place and price of your choosing," I said.

"My, that's the best offer I've had all morning. Okay, go ahead." So I asked her and she said "mmm" a few times, and said,

"Well, second favor will be more of a problem than the first, but I think it won't be a problem."

"You're the best," I said.

"Lewis, do me a favor and spread that around, will you?" And she laughed again.

"Sure. So. Name the price and place."

Which she did. Which caused me to laugh this time, and when I hung up the phone, I saw that I had a couple of hours to kill.

The house was warm, the house was comfortable, and the house was full of distractions, from books to magazines to the television. I didn't want any distractions. I wanted something else. So I went back into the cool cellar, sat on the bottom step, and tried to think for a while, wondering if I was doing the right thing by asking Paula to check up on something. I had met with the three people that Jon had said he was going to talk to, right before his murder. None of them said they offered him something to go on, a lead that would end up with him having his hands on the artifacts, just a few days later. The professor knew William Bear Gagnon. Brian Mulligan knew Jon's brother Ray. And Gagnon had the most confrontational meeting with Jon.

What, then?

Who gains, was the question that kept me coming around, poking and prodding. Who would gain from Jon's death and the disappearance of the artifacts? His brother Ray, a suspect and on the run? A man with a criminal past?

Maybe.

But one of the three I had just talked to, well, if somebody was hiding something ...

Who gains?

I got up from the steps and decided it was time to get to work. But where next?

And then I thought about my keys, and went upstairs. There, I picked up my spoon and bucket and colander, and got dressed again, and went outside. For a moment I thought about my faithful watchers, and what they might think about what I was going to do, and I decided I didn't care. Let the two cousins gossip. It didn't matter. I sat down on the stone steps and looked at the old doorframe to my house. I had just dropped my keys here, something I had done at least a half-dozen times over the years. Now imagine decades upon decades, stretching out to the mid-l800s, when this house was first built for the lifesaving service. Imagine all the men --- and perhaps a few women as well ----coming into the house. Dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands, walking in and out over the years, as the lifeboat crews changed, as the house was taken over for officers' quarters when the Samson Point coast artillery station was set up, and when the house was finally boarded up, a few decades ago.

Imagine all those people, all those people, coming in and out of the doorway.

And what they might have dropped in the meantime.

I got up and knelt on the cold, hard ground, and started digging. And kept on thinking.

Paula looked over at my hands and said, "All right, tell me again why you were playing in dirt this morning?"

Even in the warm interior of her new Camry, my fingers would shake now and again from the cold. I had just barely made it here in time for lunch with Paula, and I hadn't done a very good job in cleaning up when I saw how late it had gotten. Between dropping off the rental and getting a ride back from the pleasant woman from the agency, the rest of the day had melted away. But the digging had gotten away from me, as the amount of dirt piled up to equal the frustration I had been feeling. Nothing. Not a thing, and I wondered how archaeologists could even stand their profession with so much daily disappointment.

"I was looking for something," I said. "Okay. What?"

"Artifacts," I said. "From when my house was first built, and thereafter."

"Lewis, that sounds pretty ---"

"Paula, isn't your lunch getting cold?"

She laughed. "Fine. A nice way of changing the subject. Yeah, let's eat. I'm starving."

We were parked in front of her dream house, which still looked lonely and unoccupied. Unraked leaves littered the front yard, and I kept the engine running and the heater going, while the car was filled with the smells of food. For some reason Paula had insisted on me driving, which was fine. We both had big bowls of lobster stew and packaged salads, and as I was opening up my salad, I saw that Paula had gone straight to the stew.

"I thought the salad was supposed to be eaten first," I said.

"Who says that?" she murmured, bringing up another spoonful of cream and lobster meat.

"Well, the etiquette for ---"

"Screw the etiquette," she said. "If I eat the salad first, I might not have enough appetite to eat the lobster stew. So there."

I put my salad aside, decided she made sense, and started eating the stew as well. And as we ate, Paula brought me up to date with her housing quest. "Believe it or not," she said, "the Tyler Cooperative didn't actually toss me out of their office when I stopped by. They promised a fair and thorough review of my finances."

"Any leads on land?"

"A couple, out on the other side of the county. What I'm trying to do now is to work with a moving crew to get the house up and out of there, and my friend, there aren't that many in the area to work with. With the cost of the land and the moving... well, it's a pricey proposition."

I gently nudged her with my elbow. "At least the house is paid for."

"Mmm," she said, swallowing. "Yeah, thanks for taking that worry away. Now, if I can keep the town happy... "

I looked over at her. "I thought having the town counsel on your side would be helpful."

She grimaced. "Lewis, be real. This is Tyler. A wonderful place to live and work, but a sometimes a small place with small minds. The gossips here are already having the time of their lives with me dating the lawyer for the town. If there's any hint that Mark's doing any favors for me, especially when it comes to something like a house, they'll have him fired and out of here within a week. I don't want that and neither does Mark."

"So what's the deal with the town?"

She sighed. "I've got a week to come to the town with a plan. Or the tax lien gets paid and the wrecking crew comes in here."

"Is a week doable?"

She looked at me and wiggled her nose. "My dear boy, if I'm very lucky, I'll have this project wrapped up in three days. So yes. It's quite doable."

I reached over and squeezed her hand. "Good for you."

We finished our lunch and had room for the salads, and even room enough for dessert --- a slice of chocolate layer cake for her and a piece of key lime pie for me --- and we settled back in the seats of her Camry and she said, "Luck must be with you this morning, because I got lucky."

"Define lucky."

"Well, for you luck is that I have a buddy on the staff of the
Porter Herald
, Connie Slater. Luck is also the fact that she was in this morning, and more luck is that she knows a lot about your friend William Bear Gagnon."

"He's not my friend," I said.

"Hah," she said. "Well, if you do anything with this information, then he's really not going to be your friend."