Dark August

by Katie Tallo

  “First, I’m sorry about your mother, young miss.”

  This is the second time Gus has heard this sentiment in the last twenty-four hours. Dez said almost the same thing. Only coming from Renata, there’s a sweet sting to the words that catches Gus off guard. She pushes against the agonizing pain that racks her chest whenever someone manages to stir that pot so tenderly.

  Renata leans back. Opens the book to the first page. Scans the newspaper clipping glued there then slowly flips pages. There are clippings glued to each page. Oversize articles are folded like origami to fit inside the book. Renata is very still for a moment. She appears to glaze over ever so slightly as her fingers play over the folds of newsprint. Gus can tell the older woman is trying to remember why she’s looking at the book. Then a cog clicks into place and she speaks.

  “My life’s work was the story of that town.”

  Augusta stays quiet. She can see the past lapping at Renata’s eyes, however gingerly. She lets her find her way.

  “I loved Elgin. Her narrow streets lined with shady oak and willow and sumac that turned bright red in fall. I grew up there. Riding my bicycle up and down her sidewalks. Running through the fields at the edge of town. Picking black-eyed Susans for my mother’s supper table. By the time I was your age, I was working at the local library on Main. Dreaming of the big wide world that existed in all those books. Of one day getting out of the stacks and becoming an investigative journalist just like Nellie Bly. Traveling the world. Exposing injustices. Such courageous writing.”

  Renata’s hand rests on her heart like she’s pledging allegiance to the dreams of the young woman she once was.

  Gus reaches into her satchel. She pulls out her notebook and pen. Without taking her eyes off Renata. Doesn’t want to break her flow. Gus makes a note to look up the name Nellie Bly while Renata continues talking.

  “Lord knows I was tenacious. I pitched my ideas. I wrote mock-ups of articles, week in, week out. I handed them in to the local newspaper, trying to get my foot in the door, but I got rejection after rejection. It didn’t matter what I wrote or how well I wrote it. It was just too big a stretch for the gentlemen running the paper. They couldn’t wrap their pea-brains around the notion of a woman doing a job that had always been a man’s. It took seventeen years for those old boys to acquiesce to letting a woman join their ranks. 1979. The year Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom and Renata Corrigan finally became the first female reporter of Elgin, Ontario. The county of Leeds Grenville had entered the twentieth century.”

  Renata flips to the first page of her scrapbook.

  “It was called the Lakes and Islands Times back then. Community news and the like. Chicken dinner stories, they called them. But to the locals they were the stuff of life and death. Weather forecasts mattered to farmers. Who got appointed chair of the local wheat board mattered. Day-to-day life and death mattered. People mattered. That’s what history’s all about, little miss. People and what happens to them when lightning strikes or droughts come or prime ministers appoint senators or county fairs happen to fall on the same day that a fire burns down an entire town.”

  Renata’s eyes drift to a faraway memory. As if it’s painful even thinking about the fire. She clears her throat and picks up her teacup. Then she takes hold of the teaspoon and adds sugar to her tea. She looks in the cup. Then she adds more sugar, stirs, then places the teaspoon in between the seat cushions of the chair she’s sitting in as if to hide it there.

  Gus glances over at the receptionist who happens to be staring at them. The girl shrugs as if to say, Told you so. Maybe this is what she meant by la-la land.

  Renata notices the scrapbook in her lap, as if seeing it for the first time. She touches it, her bony fingers searching for meaning in its pages. She finds it.

  “Everything I ever wrote for that publication is in this scrapbook. Lakes and Islands Times. Heritage Society newsletters. All of it. History. That’s what I was writing. A record of the facts as I saw them. Or at least as they were presented to me. Did the best I could with my God-given talents.”

  Renata’s face glows a little as she remembers. She looks like a woman who lived her life with purpose. Then she turns the book toward Gus so she can see what’s glued on that first page.

  “This is where it all started for me. I had just turned forty-seven. Left the library and got my first job in journalism after years of banging hard on that door. The editor wanted to ease me in slow so he put me on birth and death notices. The Irish comics, they called them.”

  Gus doesn’t get the joke, but she smiles and pretends she does.

  “But, as fate would have it, I didn’t get some old geezer dying in his sleep or a set of triplets born to a dairy farmer. Not Renata Corrigan. I hit the mother lode. A double whammy.”

  She pokes her bony finger at the article.

  “I got the baby girl who was born with a death rattle in her little hand.”

  Gus leans over. Glued side by side are two short articles. A birth announcement and a death notice. Written on the same day. The former announces the coming into the world of June Halladay and the latter marks the departing of Amelia, her mother who died during childbirth.

  In her mind’s eye, Gus can see the dark branches of a tragic family tree. The Halladay women are hanging from this tree. Amelia; her daughter, June; and then June’s daughter, Gracie. Mother, daughter, granddaughter. All dying so young. She remembers Amelia’s gravestone in the Halladay family plot. Dead at age twenty-four, it read. June was dead at twenty-three. Gracie, still younger, at eighteen. Gus feels the sway of these branches against her skin as goose bumps form on her arms. Augusta knows she was meant to come to see Renata the moment she wrote her name in her notebook.

  Renata glances at the tea set on the table beside her. Her brow furrows as if she’s forgotten what she was going to say. Her shoulders sag. Augusta lightly touches Renata’s hand and the woman starts, gets her bearings by referencing the page in front of her.

  “June 17, 1979. A dark day for the town of Elgin. Especially for one of its founding families. The Halladays.”

  Renata falters again. She looks at Gus. Her eyes dim. As if somewhere deep inside the old woman’s brain, a light flickers precariously.

  Renata defaults to her manners.

  “I’m sorry. I’m boring you, Miss Halladay.”

  “Not at all. It’s Monet.”

  “That’s right. Doing some detective work. I remember you. Was it Kep you asked about?”

  Her eyes come alive. Before Gus can answer, Renata is off again. Rolling down memory lane, the wind at her back, Kep in her crosshairs.

  “I went to Elgin Grammar School with Kep Halladay. I was three years ahead of him, but I knew who he was. We all knew the Halladays. They lived on Main Street in the prettiest house you ever saw. Until his parents were killed when he was ten. It was grade five as I recall. Terrible bit of business. They’d just purchased that fancy new Chrysler. It was the talk of the town. They went for a Sunday drive. There was a head-on collision with a combine. A local farmer named Jenkins. He said he pulled out onto the highway and they came out of nowhere. They were going so fast he couldn’t get out of the way. They drove right into the metal teeth of his thresher. Killed them both, instantly.”

  Gus shudders at the thought of how terrible that moment must have been. How horrific the aftermath. A pang of sadness throbs in her chest for the boy who was orphaned so young. She knows the pain of such great and sudden loss. The open wound it leaves that never quite heals.

  “The house in town was sold and young Kep was sent to live with his grandfather just outside town in the mansion on the hill. Jacob Halladay was his name. He made his fortune in the twenties as a bootlegger during Prohibition. He ran a network that stretched clear across the county and down into the States. Elgin was perfectly situated for his business to thrive. Far enough out so as not to attract attention, but close enough to the border to launch boats from Gananoque an
d island hop to Grindstone, stateside. Jacob amassed a fortune rum-running. He bought out the owner of the local feed company with his profits and expanded that legitimate business clear across the province. He built that mansion with his riches. It was his very own castle on the hill. He wanted to show everyone in town how well he was doing. How prosperous he’d become. He named it Halladay House. It was a huge property. Underground he dug a network of tunnels leading from the house to the barn where he operated his distillery. Spidering under his property and beyond. He had an army of men moving crates of moonshine through those tunnels. Paranoid and greedy, old Jacob was. When the law tried to crack down on his operation, he used loopholes in the Dunkin Act to get himself out of hot water. He claimed he was exporting alcohol for medicinal purposes and the local judge always threw out the warrants. Jacob Halladay even paid the county doctor to write prescriptions for medical tonics and elixirs. He had the scrips tied to the bottles. The law backed off and business boomed. That is, until Prohibition was repealed in Ontario in 1927. That’s when Jacob closed up those tunnels and turned his attention to his more legitimate ventures.”

  Augusta is on the edge of her seat, enraptured by Renata’s storytelling, taking notes. Renata likes that. She turns a page in her scrapbook and unfolds another newspaper clipping. She runs her finger across the typeface. Eyes closed as if touching braille. As if the memories live inside the layers of ink and the folds of newsprint. Carefully preserved and glued into place. Yet elusive and fragile.

  “By the late 1980s, I was the resident history expert at the paper. I got my own column. Took almost a decade, mind you. They called it Stepping Back in Time. I wrote about noteworthy moments in the history of the county. People loved it. They used to stop me on the street to ask when the next Stepping Back was coming out.”

  Renata stops once in a while. Sips cold tea to wet her dry lips, but mostly she keeps talking. Going through the chapters of Elgin’s history with each flip of the page. The scrapbook jogging her memories when she falters. She recounts how the town of Elgin flourished after Prohibition and became one of the most prominent communities in South Crosby Township. That’s what it was called back then.

  “A thriving center for farmers, merchants, mining companies, not to mention tourism what with all the surrounding lakes and cottages. Elgin was prospering and for a time it seemed there was enough good fortune to go around. Enough for everyone. Save for one man.”

  Renata’s face darkens. Augusta holds very still. Feeling the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise as if someone has just sent a breath across her nape.

  Renata slowly flips to an article she wrote in August 2006 about Kep Halladay, the week after he went missing at the age of seventy-one from Halladay House. Missing? Gus wonders what happened to him. How he died. Renata turns the scrapbook so that Gus can take a better look at the full color photograph of the man.

  “This was the official portrait taken of Kep Halladay when he became a senator in 1985. He bought that seat with the fortune he inherited when his grandfather died a few years earlier at the ripe old age of ninety-nine. Jacob’s money might have been enough if Kep’s lovely Amelia had lived. But that wasn’t to be.”

  Gus gets her first look at Kep Halladay. His name has been swirling through her life for days. On Shannon’s wall circled in red. On gravestones and police reports and deeds. But this is the first time she’s seen his face. Gus kicks herself. She could have easily found his picture with a simple computer search at a library. She’s no detective. No investigator like Renata.

  “His daughter, June, had those same steely blue eyes.”

  Gus thought there’d be a family resemblance to Gracie. But the thin frame and dark hair of the ballerina in the Polaroid are nowhere to be seen. In fact, he’s quite the opposite. He wears a suit, perfectly tailored to fit his bullish chest and trim waistline. Full head of slicked-back blond hair. Square jaw and deep-set eyes. His expression is unwavering as he stares into the photographer’s lens, a mix of disdain and pride subtly etched across his brow.

  Renata turns the book back to face herself. Stares at Kep before taking a deep breath. Gus sees the old woman is tiring, but she doesn’t stop her. Lets her dip deeply into the past. Into Kep Halladay’s story.

  Augusta senses that it’s now or never.

  19

  Kep

  KEP WAS THE ONLY SON OF THEODORE AND DOROTHY HALLADAY. His father, Theo, was born with a silver spoon firmly clamped in his mouth. Likable fellow, but a flake. Theo dabbled in farming equipment, then in local mining, then in some spring water scheme that went belly-up. Each venture was bankrolled by his father, Jacob Halladay. Old man Jacob hoped his only son would eventually make something of himself. But Theo didn’t have a head for business. He preferred living on a monthly allowance from his father.

  “And Theo and Dottie wanted what they wanted. The latest-model car, weekends in New York, garden parties for their visiting American friends. Theo had little interest in making something of himself. Jacob gave up on the boy. He saw his son as his greatest failing and turned his attention to shaping the character of his young grandson, Kep. When Theo and Dottie were killed on that fateful Sunday drive, Jacob vowed never to indulge Kep as he had his only son.

  “A hard road lay ahead for the young master.

  “At thirteen Kep was shipped off to military school in Connecticut. He’d always been a soft sort of bully in grammar school. Pushing and shoving and shouting. But Kep’s reputation hit new lows at military school. Perhaps it was losing both parents so suddenly. Perhaps it was his grandfather’s iron hand. More likely Kep was just born rotten and boarding school transformed him from bully to sadist in short order. His grandfather had to intervene his sophomore year when a freshman came forward with sexual abuse allegations. Jacob opened his wallet. Kep got a slap on the wrist and the freshman got expelled. The incident was wiped from the school’s records. Until years later when a certain feisty female reporter came along and sweet-talked the retired headmaster into revealing the truth. Off the record. Shame is a terrible gatekeeper.”

  Renata pauses, looks up, and smiles at Gus.

  “You?” Gus asks.

  Renata winks.

  “By his senior year, rumors of Kep’s cruel streak had darkened the back hallways and lower stairwells of the school and instilled terror among the freshman ranks, so much so that an unwritten code was put into place.

  “Stay out of Kep’s way and never get caught alone with him.

  “Kep’s valedictorian speech to his graduating class was likely one of the defining moments of his life. I interviewed a former schoolmate of Kep’s for the article I wrote after he disappeared. He told me all about Kep’s legacy at the school. He remembered Kep standing at the podium, like a god looking down upon his devotees, boys he’d molested, boys he’d ruined, boys who hated him. A look of pure joy on his face.”

  Renata shifts in her armchair. Augusta’s hands are clammy as she listens to Renata. She knows in her gut that Kep Halladay is at the center of everything. The dark center. A nurse comes by to check on the older woman, but Renata shoos her away. She’s deep into her story. Doesn’t want to be interrupted or thrown off track. Gus can see that stories are what make Renata’s heart soar.

  Renata flips back to the first page. The side-by-side birth and death announcements. Gus leans in to look closer. There’s a picture of Amelia on the death announcement. A pretty young woman with chestnut hair and big brown eyes. She’s wearing a wedding dress. Odd considering it’s a death announcement.

  “After attending Harvard Business School, Kep came home and Jacob put him to work in the feed business. His grandfather decided good old-fashioned hard work was what Kep needed to scuff up his polished Ivy League manners.

  “Kep started at the bottom. Sweeping the factory floor. The old man had no problem boxing Kep’s ears in front of the other workers if he slacked off. He even threatened to leave all his inheritance to charity if Kep didn’t live his life as Jac
ob saw fit.

  “For two decades, Kep was at his grandfather’s beck and call. He rose up the ranks of the feed business, sat on the Grain Board, bartered with local farmers, was introduced to his grandfather’s government connections in Ottawa, and finally became Jacob’s right-hand man. He was good at it. A smooth talker. A quick study, but he hated the feed business.

  “It was the late seventies. Jacob was well into his nineties and still a formidable businessman. He was always looking for ways to expand, to cement his reputation and to make more money. As if wealth could ward off death. Jacob wanted to take over his biggest competitor. A successful businessman from Perth. The man wouldn’t sell. Then Jacob stumbled upon a way to remove the thorn from his grandson’s shady reputation and from their family’s good name. Kep would marry the only daughter of his rival in Perth. Her name was Amelia Grace Hillcott. Conveniently, the union would also solidify the Halladay legacy by linking his family to the Perth Hillcott dynasty.

  “Jacob arranged for his grandson to meet the girl. Kep was forty-two. Amelia was just twenty-two.”

  Gus flashes, momentarily, to the cemetery. She sees the gravestone.

  AMELIA GRACE HILLCOTT-HALLADAY

  BELOVED WIFE OF KEP JACOB HALLADAY

  BORN APRIL 22, 1955

  DIED JUNE 17, 1979

  AGE 24

  Gus shivers, knowing the story isn’t going to end well for Amelia. Glances at the obituary. Renata continues.

  “For a man whose heart seemed hardened from years of living as his grandfather’s goat, Amelia was Kep’s salve. Sweet, kind, shy, and utterly lovely. He was smitten from the moment he saw her. No woman had so much as turned his head in his forty-two years until Amelia. A brown-haired beauty with pale skin and big green eyes, she took his breath away. He proposed on their second date. They married and a year later, Kep’s grandfather died of walking pneumonia after refusing to stop working and rest. He died on the factory floor giving orders. Just collapsed in a heap.