Killing Down the Roman Line (17 page)

At the moment, it was a disaster. The landscaping crew were still laying sod and setting up planters. The paint crew still had to finish the bandstand and where the hell were the dozen Johnny-on-the-Spots she had ordered?

“They’re late,” said Charlie. Charlie’s wife, Melissa nodded and added: “Their last event ran late so they won’t be delivered until tomorrow. Oh, and there’s only eight now available. Four of the porta-potty things were destroyed at the last venue.”

Charlie and Melissa were Kate’s event planners. Pathologically chipper, their personal mantra could be found on a bumpersticker on their Volvo.
Get ‘er done!

“I was lowballing it an even dozen. Eight won’t be enough.” Kate tried to still the frustration in her voice. Frustration only egged the pair on. The more angry she grew, the more earnest and caring Charlie and Melissa became.

“We’ll figure it out, Kate.” Charlie’s face pouted, as if talking to a toddler. “We’ll talk to Keefe’s Construction, they’ve got two. Maybe we can rent them.”

“Fantastic idea!” Melissa rabbit-punched her husband’s shoulder.

Kate choked back the bile, watching her event planners high-five. “You said there was two bits of bad news. What’s the rest?”

The pair reflexed back into their pensive expressions. Melissa chewed her lip and pulled a flyer from her clipboard. “It’s this. I’m sorry.”

Kate took the sheet of paper, recognizing Corrigan’s latest handbill. She had found one in her mailbox at six-thirty this morning, two hours before the mail arrived. Which meant that Corrigan had hand delivered it himself. The thought of that man creeping onto her doorstep in the middle of the night raised gooseflesh down her arms.

The nerve of it, ramping up his gruesome sideshow during her festival. He’d already been served notice of the new bylaw prohibiting any tourist attraction in his residence. She’d have a violation written up and served before the day was out. If Corrigan went ahead with his tour, she’d slap him with a $3000 fine. Hell, if the man kept it up maybe she could bankrupt him in fines and send him packing.

“What are we going to do about it?” Charles looked at her expectantly.

“I’ll handle it.” Kate handed the flyer back. “Call Joe Keefe about his facilities. And then find out if Gator Bob’s still setting up his corn roast stand. He seemed to dither about it last time we spoke.”

Kate’s phone was ringing inside her bag. She walked back to her car, digging for the damn thing. “Hello?”

“Katie,” the caller said. “how’s life in bumpkinville?”

She smiled at the sound of his voice. “Insane at the moment, Hugo. This festival is going to bury me.”

“I’m sure it will all come together without a hitch. Is that this weekend?”

“Tomorrow. And a million things left to do before we’re ready. What’s up?”

“Been looking up your boyfriend there,” Hugo said. “Found some real dirt on Mr. Corrigan. Katie, I think you should be careful around this creep.”

“What kind of dirt?”

Kate stopped cold, listening to Hugo. The back of her arms prickled up at what she heard. She asked him to repeat it, wanting to get the details right. He told her again to be careful, even offering to send one of his associates to Pennyluck if she wanted.

She said that was unnecessary but thanked him all the same. Before she hung up, she urged him again to come up and visit sometime. She could use the distraction. She ended the call and then scrolled through her contacts. Found Jim’s number and dialled.

~

“Prison?”

“Six years.”

“For what?”

“Manslaughter.”

Jim had been out in the barn when Travis ran out with the phone. It was Kate. She needed to talk to him right away. He climbed into his truck and drove out to the fairgrounds. The two of them sat on a picnic table watching the crew of volunteers string crepe paper over the old bandstand.

Jim felt the blood drain out of his face. “Are you sure your friend’s got his facts right?”

“Hugo’s extremely thorough,” Kate said. “He wouldn’t have called unless he was sure.”

Jim leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “When was this?”

“The incident happened in oh-two. Corrigan was convicted and sent to prison in oh-four.”

“Six years? That means he’s been outta jail a year.”

“Roughly.”

“Christ on a pogo stick.” Jim’s reserved profanity, inherited from his old man. “What the hell did he do?”

“Killed a man in a bar fight,” Kate said. “Corrigan claimed self-defence. Pled down to a manslaughter charge.”

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The same way he claimed self-defence when he scrapped with Bill.”

“That’s what I thought too.” Kate’s phone chirped an alert but she ignored it. “It gets worse. According to Hugo’s sources, Corrigan had ties to organized crime.”

“Christ.”

“I don’t know what we’re dealing with anymore,” said Kate. “And I’m a little concerned.”

“We should call Ray at the police station. He should know about this.”

“I did. He’s going to look into Corrigan’s release but he said that unless he’s breaking probation, there’s nothing he can do.” Her Blackberry chimed again. She dropped it into her bag. “Let me ask you something. Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“I don’t know.” His voice quiet. “To be honest, it’s not him I’m worried about. If Berryhill and the others find out about this, it’s just gonna feed the fire and then somebody’s gonna do something stupid.”

Neither spoke for a moment. They watched a stream of crepe paper flapping loose in the wind. It broke off and slithered away on the breeze.

“I’ve been thinking about your idea,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s do it.”

“Are you sure?”

Kate eased off the picnic table and brushed the flaking paint chips from her pants. “Make the offer to Corrigan. I’ll shift around some budgets so we can use the slush fund for a deposit. If Corrigan bites, then we’ll be rid of him.”

Jim got to his feet. “Done.”

“Just make sure he understands the conditions of the offer. You buy only if he leaves town for good.”

He picked up her bag and held it out for her. The damn phone just kept chirping. “If this blows up in our faces, just how much trouble are we gonna be in?”

“I don’t want to even think about it.”

Another tentacle of crepe paper tore away from the bandstand and tumbled crazily across the grass.

16

THE WINDOWS WERE gone dark in the old house as the pickup trundled up the rutted track. Jim wheeled up before the house and studied the landscape. Dusk, the sunlight burning off behind the treeline. No movement in the windows of the house, no truck parked in the grass. Jim had stewed his guts all afternoon about what he was going to say to Corrigan, rehearsing in his head how the conversation would play out. And now this, the son of a bitch wasn’t even home.

Maybe he’d wait for him to get back, just set there on the veranda like a tax collector waiting on the man. He sure as hell didn’t want to stew over this till tomorrow. He went up the broken steps, banged on the door.

“Will?”

No answer. The door rattled and creaked open. He pushed it back all the way then stepped over the doorsill. “Corrigan, you home? It’s Jim.”

Nothing. Jim ventured in, looking the room over. The walls stripped to the post and beam, the rack of stag antlers over the limestone fireplace. A gun lay on the mantel, the double-barrelled Winchester Corrigan had fired to kick off his first tour. Broken at the hinge, the twin bores empty.

Pushed into a corner, a fragile looking stool under a rolltop desk. Lousy with papers and documents. Pens, a compass and a pearl handled jackknife. Jim sifted through the paperwork, glancing over his shoulder to ensure the room was empty.

A big square of onionskin paper settled atop the mess, showing a finely hewed tree with names and dates spotting the branches. A family tree tracing the Corrigan clan back to the 1850’s, the trail ending with their Irish homeland of Tipperary. James Corrigan, the patriarch. The same man who wound up in prison five years after coming to Canada for killing a man at a drunken logging bee.

Jim pushed it aside and leafed through more pages. He lifted loose a page of names, listed in no particular order. Every name was someone he knew. McGrath, Farrell, Keefe, Berryhill, Puddycombe.

He blinked at the last name on the list.
Hawkshaw
.

“Looking for something?”

Jim flinched and dropped the paper, spun around. Corrigan stood at the top of the stairs.

“Hey,” Jim said, easing the rattle from his nerves. “I called out. Didn’t see you.”

Corrigan stomped down the stairs. “So you thought, ‘what the hell I’ll just snoop around’.”

Busted. “Sorry.”

“Look at your face. Gave you a good spook, didn’t I?” Corrigan went to the sideboard, took up the bottle standing there. “Want a drink?”

“No thanks.”

“Don’t be a pilgrim,” he said but Jim waved off the drink. Corrigan looked him up and down, scrutinizing him. Jim tried for nonchalance. Missed by a country mile. Corrigan’s mouth tilting up into that grin again. “What’s on your mind?”

“Business.”

An eyebrow went up. “What kind of business?”

“Land,” Jim said. “I want to buy your farm.”

A flash of genuine surprise sparked Corrigan’s eyes. “Did some dipshit realtor plant their sign in my lawn?” He leaned toward the front window, then back to Jim. “It’s not for sale.”

“Everything’s for sale. I’ll give you twenty percent above what it was listed for.”

“Twenty percent? My lucky day!” Corrigan mocked up a look of shock. “Why would I want to sell, Jimmy? I love it here.”

“Knock it off.” Jim shrugged off the man’s antics. “You said yourself you wanted restitution. Well, here it is.”

“I see. So the township has acknowledged its collective guilt and sent you as envoy? Is that it?”

The mockery needled under Jim’s skin like a bur. Play it cool. “No. I just want to keep the peace. You don’t fit in here, we both know that. I want your land. The math is easy.”

Corrigan’s grin fell away. He was about to speak but Jim raised a hand for him to wait. “There’s one condition. You have to move out of Pennyluck. For good.”

The man tilted his head like a dog at a puzzling sound. “Well, that is a generous offer.”

“So? Do we have a deal?”

The man teetered on his heels for a moment, then stepped forward and extended his hand to shake. Smiling.

Surprised, to say the least. Jim returned the smile and shook Corrigan’s hand. Easy peasy. “Good.”

Corrigan’s grip crushed his fingers, trying to snap bone. “You trying to fuck me, Jim?” He yanked Jim closer. “Who put you up to this? That bitch Kate?”

Jim snapped his hand away. “What? No. I just want to buy your land.” He flexed his crushed fingers. The man was stronger than he looked. “You’ve made a lot of enemies. Best thing for everyone is if you moved on. Before someone gets hurt.” He rued that last bit. It rang too much like a threat, a gut reaction to having his hand crushed.

Something shifted in Corrigan, his face dropping to a glower. “You want to get rid of me, is that it? Just like you got rid of my family?”

Jim backed off.
What the hell is he talking about?
“I didn’t do anything to your family.”

Corrigan turned his back on him, poured another drink. “You’re a terrible liar. “

Jim waited, unsure of how to play it now. This wasn’t how he’d rehearsed it in his head.

Corrigan took his drink to the fireplace, looking down into the cold hearth. An elbow on the mantel, fingers inches from the shotgun. “You can’t buy me out. You’re up to your eyeballs in debt.”

Jim looked like he’d been bucketed with cold water. Pleased, Corrigan went on. “I’ve done a little snooping of my own. I know you tried to buy this property in the past but couldn’t meet the ticket. And yet voila, here you are offering more than that if I agree to pack up and piss off.”

Jim scrambled his brains for something to say. Anything.

“I’ve been thinking about the future too, Jimmy.” Corrigan drummed his fingers on the mantel. “I think what this place needs is more land, more acreage. Your land, in fact.”

It sounded like a bad joke. Jim didn’t laugh. “I’m not for sale.”

“Everything is for sale, Jimbo. Your words.” A finger extended from the hand clutching the tumbler, aimed square at Jim. “And you will be for sale too when I get through suing you.”

This time Jim did laugh. “Suing me? For what?”

“Trespassing for one. Theft of property, squatting. Whatever else I can think of.” He drained his glass, set it on the mantel. “Do you have any idea how crippling lawsuits can be? Even in this backwater. You’ll be drowning in debt inside of six months. And that, Mr. Hawkshaw, is when I’ll snatch your farm out from under you.”

Jim wanted to hurl something at him. A chair or a grenade. “You’re crazy.”

Corrigan stepped toward him, his voice notching up decibels. “I’ll make an offer to the bank for your farm. Assume its debt. Pay the back taxes, talk to your creditors. Do you think they’ll say no to me?”

Ice crawled his marrow. Jim stepped back until his heel thumped the baseboard.

Corrigan kept coming. “I will own your land outright. But don’t worry. I’ll need someone to work the acreage. You’re gonna work for me, Jimbo.”

Jim spat on the man’s floor. He thought of his father, spinning crazily in his grave. “Never gonna happen. I know these people, Corrigan. They’d never do that to me.”

“Money brings out the worst in people. Every time. And nothing stands in its way. Loyalty, friendship, blood.” The perverse grin was back, all bitters and sting. “I’ve already spoken to the bank. They were very receptive to the idea.”

The room was doing flip flops. Jim steered for the door before he fell over. “You’re out of your fucking mind. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before you take my land.”

His boots rang off the veranda, pounding down the brittle steps. Corrigan chased him out the door, stood on his porch and hollered after him. “Then put your mittens on Jimmy! Because it’s going to get mighty cold!”

~