by Katie Tallo
I’ll do it.
Dez and Kep both laugh. Dez shoots a look across the room.
You ain’t got the stones, Benchwarmer.
Gracie plunks a cherry into the drink, then turns and takes it over to her grandfather.
’Bout time.
He grabs the glass and waves her away. She doesn’t move. Instead, Gracie leans in and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Kep cringes. Wipes off his cheek. Gracie stands her ground. Nods to his glass.
Okay, okay.
He sips. She smiles and waits. He sips again.
It’s good. Now stop embarrassing yourself. Go make my friend here a drink.
Gracie shuffles back to the drink cart. Her expression blank. She slowly places two cubes of ice into another rock glass. She’s listening. Waiting. Not really paying attention to what she’s doing. Then she hears it and her hands freeze.
Her grandfather coughs lightly.
He downs his drink in one gulp. Trying to clear his throat as he puts his cigar in the ashtray next to him. Coughs again. Then he slowly turns a reddish-purple color. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He drops his empty rock glass and grips the arms of his chair. Tries to cough. He can’t. Can’t speak or catch his breath or make a sound. He thumps one fist into his chest.
Dez slowly rises from his chair, clearly surprised by what’s happening. He backs away from the senator. Kep sputters foam from his mouth. His veiny eyes bulge as he rises from his chair.
Gracie carefully steps away from the bar cart and moves left. Out of frame. A few seconds later, she can be seen skirting the edge of the room, behind the chairs. Behind her grandfather and Dez. She moves as if floating. Light, quick steps. Like a dancer. Only with a limp. No one notices her leave the room.
Gus leans in closer, her nose almost touching her phone. Mesmerized by what’s happening.
Kep suddenly manages to catch his breath. He sucks in a huge gulp of air, then nothing. He can’t exhale. He’s frozen. Then he spits blood. Staggers to the bar cart, grabbing for water. The ice bucket crashes to the carpet. Bottles teeter off the cart. Blood streams from his nostrils and fills his mouth. He’s right in front of Shannon’s lens. He abruptly throws up, bending forward out of frame. Then he rises, lifting his bloodstained chin. He takes a breath. Then another. Throwing up seems to have helped. Cleared his airways. Gotten rid of whatever was poisoning his bloodstream.
Dez hasn’t moved. He’s behind Kep, watching his recovery progress. A look of resolve washes over Desmond Oaks as a decision bubbles up from deep inside his dark pupils. He glances at the other man in the room, then suddenly and swiftly, Dez removes his belt and wraps it around Kep’s throat. Squeezing hard. Kep claws at the belt, but Dez holds tight. Kep flails and scratches, but his strength has been compromised by toxins that continue to rack his body with spasms. Seconds then minutes go by as the life slowly seeps from Kep’s body. Then he goes quiet as his eyes roll back in his head and his limp body slips to the carpet. Dez is panting from the effort. The third man is silent. Dez straightens and loops his belt back into his trousers, then he smooths his hair.
Then it happens. Beep. Beep. Beep. Shannon gasps and whispers, Shit.
Gus gasps too. Shannon’s watch is beeping. Dez freezes. He heard it too. He looks toward the bookcase, leans in, and sticks his finger in the peephole. Gus is right there with her mother. They both hold their breath. Paralyzed. Terrified. Caught.
“Run!”
Gus shouts at the video playing on her phone.
Shannon runs. The camera swings at her side as she races down the passage to the basement stairs. Gus feels like she’s running by her mother’s side. Heart pounding. Sweat forming on her brow. She can smell her mother’s fear. Sense the adrenaline pumping through her body. Shannon flies down the stairs, through the tunnel, up the ladder, and out into the garden. The lens is pointing behind her as she sprints across the wide lawn beside the house. The men are shouting. They’re outside. On the front porch of the house. One of them is coming across the lawn. Shannon is at the ditch, then across the road. A car door swings open, the camera bounces then comes to rest on the seat facing Shannon. She’s fumbling to get her keys in the ignition. The engine roars, she shifts into first. Dirt and rocks can be heard blasting the underside of the car as she speeds away. Her hand reaches for the camera. The video cuts to static and Gus is wrenched from her mother. Sucked out of the tiny screen on her phone and yanked across space and time. Hurled twelve years into the faraway future. Left behind, like a dropped glove on the floor of a shopping mall. Lost, helpless, and alone.
Gus is on her knees. Ears buzzing with the sound of static. Someone touches her shoulder. She jumps and pulls away sharply. It’s a security guard asking if she’s okay. A couple of shoppers are gathered behind him. Gus trembles violently. Her heart’s pounding. She needs to get away from their staring eyes. Gus shoves the phone in her satchel and struggles to stand. Her legs are asleep. She gets up too fast.
Head rush. Stars.
Everything goes black.
43
Mama
SPIDERS CRAWL ACROSS HER SKIN. SCRAMBLE INSIDE HER nostrils. Her body rocks gently. She can’t move. One spider bites her wrist. Her stomach churns as a siren wails.
Augusta opens her eyes. She’s curled under a blanket on the floor. Behind the front seat of a car. The blanket’s coated in dog hair. The car door slams. The engine turns over. She feels the car back up, then drive forward. Fast.
There’s a voice. It’s her mother. She must be talking on her cell phone.
Thank God you picked up. Something awful’s happened.
She sounds scared.
I’m in my car.
Pause.
No, not on the phone. I need your help.
Pause.
You’re the only one I can trust. Please, you have to meet me.
Pause.
Bruce Pit. The parking lot by the lake. Ten minutes.
Pause.
Thank you, Rory. You’re a lifesaver.
She hangs up. Keeps driving.
Augusta tries to call out to her mother. Tries to suck air into her lungs, but she can’t. Her body is jostled as they hit a bump in the road and the past falls away.
She opens her eyes and she’s no longer under the blanket. No longer in the back seat of her mother’s Corolla. No longer eight years old.
She is twenty-year-old Augusta and she’s lying on a stretcher in the back of a moving ambulance. A paramedic sits next to her. A tube runs out of her arm tickling her skin like a spider. Cool oxygen flows from a mask to her mouth.
“Take a deep breath. That’s it. Don’t worry. You passed out in the mall, but you’re gonna be just fine.”
In the ER, a nurse checks her blood pressure and heart rate and gives her a juice box with a straw. A doctor shines a pencil flashlight into her eyes and holds her wrist to check her pulse. Tells her she’s likely dehydrated, but just to be sure they’re running some blood tests so she’s told to sit tight.
Finally, they leave her alone behind the curtain and Gus has a chance to check her satchel. The gun is still there. Hidden in the inside pocket. Phone, check. Memory stick, check. Right where she left them in the bottom of the bag. The nurse pulls back the curtain.
“Do you have someone we can call?”
The nurse is wearing scrubs covered in tiny rabbits. The rabbits remind Gus of Gracie. She knows she should tell the nurse to call Stu.
But she doesn’t.
“My uncle. He’s with the RCMP in Kemptville. Constable Rory Rump.”
HALF AN HOUR LATER, RORY POPS BEHIND THE CURTAIN THAT hangs around Gus’s ER station. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed eating a soda cracker.
“What in the heck? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days. You hurt? You sick?”
He feels her forehead.
“Dehydrated, that’s all. I’m okay.”
“They told me you passed out. Break any bones, hit your head?”
�
�I’m good, Uncle Rory.”
It’s the first time she’s called him Uncle Rory in years. They’re both pretending. He’s playing the doting uncle. She’s playing the helpless little girl.
“You’re coming to stay at my place. No argument, young lady.”
Gus smiles sweetly. Just what she wanted. To be alone with Rory. She picks up her satchel. Rose’s gun is safely tucked out of sight in the zippered pocket inside.
ON THE DRIVE OUT TO RORY’S, GUS FEELS HER EYELIDS GETTING heavy and her plans getting more muddled with each passing mile. She hasn’t slept since the night she spent on Lois Greenaway’s sofa in Thunder Bay. It’s been more than thirty hours. She rolls down the window to wake herself. Sleep can wait.
At Rory’s, Gus curls her feet up underneath her and snuggles under a blanket on the sofa in his den. Rory props a pillow behind her. The teapot whistles in the kitchen. As soon as he leaves the room, she reaches for her satchel, unzips the inside pocket, and pulls out the gun. Places it by her hip under the blanket. Then she grabs her phone. There are a few missed calls from Stu. And Stanton. And a voice message from the animal hospital. She listens holding her breath. The message is short, but sweet. Levi made it through surgery. He’s resting. Not out of the woods yet. They’re keeping him sedated.
Gus ends the call, then opens the voice memo app on her phone and presses record. She places the phone facedown on the coffee table.
A few minutes later they’re sitting next to each other, sipping peppermint tea. Rory tells her the nurse in the ER said peppermint tea helps with dehydration and digestion. Gus sits with her teacup in her lap. Enough chitchat. She dives in.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Did my mom call you the night she died?”
“Say what?”
“If Shannon was in trouble, I think maybe she’d call you. She always said we could count on Uncle Rory.”
Gus sips her tea, hoping that buttering him up will open the floodgates.
“Now you mention it, she did call me.”
Rory said they hadn’t talked in months.
“Why’d she call?”
“Something was bothering her. Wanted to meet. ’Course I went, only she didn’t show and well, you know the rest.”
He casts his eyes down to his tea. He hasn’t touched his.
“I found a video she took that night.”
He looks up too fast.
“Video?”
A wave of fatigue hits Gus. All she can hear is Kep Halladay’s threatening growl.
That bitch needs her balls chopped off. Cop or no cop.
Her mouth is dry. Gus takes a big sip of tea, but it’s more chalky than hydrating.
“People know you raped June Halladay and they think you’re Gracie’s father.”
His jaw drops. She keeps going.
“But I don’t believe it. I think you were set up to take the fall. Desmond Oaks bullied you your whole life and I think he still is.”
Rory hangs his head. She continues. “I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you all these years. Knowing what he did. And you a police officer.”
His eyes well up.
“Uncle Rory, please just tell me what happened to my mother.”
The room lurches. Augusta grips the arm of the sofa. Her vision darkens at the edges, then returns to normal. She reaches out to put her teacup on the coffee table but somehow it drops to the floor. Rory’s face warps. He doesn’t move to help her or to pick up the teacup. Just stares at her. Very still. Too still.
That’s when she knows she’s fucked this whole thing up. Completely underestimated him. Gus searches under the blanket for the gun. Her hands are jelly.
“I’m sorry, Little Monet.”
She finds the gun, pulls it out from under the blanket, and points it in his direction. He easily takes it from her hand and tucks it into the back of his belt. Straightens his uniform as he stands. Her father, Charlie, suddenly flashes across her mind. Wearing the same uniform but with a hole blown through the chest. Only twenty-one. Just a year older than she is right now. Both of them so young. Too young to die. She wonders if she’ll see twenty-one.
Rory grabs her phone off the coffee table, turns it over, and sees the record button flashing. He shakes his head, presses stop, and tosses the phone across the room. It lands under the dining room table. Then he rifles through her satchel and finds the memory stick. Pockets it and then leans over her. She tries to squirm away. He takes her by the shoulders and tips her gently onto her side. She can’t get up.
“You rest awhile. I’m gonna take care of everything. You’ll see. I failed you big-time, kid. And I failed Shan too. But I’ll make things right if it’s the last thing I do.”
Rory heads to the kitchen. She can hear him talking to someone. He’s on the phone. Keys jingle. A screen door slams shut. Gus rolls herself off the sofa and onto the floor. A car engine starts up. Gravel churns under the wheels.
Then nothing. He’s gone.
Augusta doesn’t have much time. She needs to get the drugs out. She grips the edge of the coffee table and pulls herself to a sitting position. She puts her finger down her throat and vomits down the front of her T-shirt. She doesn’t care. Some of it’s out. Augusta drops off the sofa to her knees and crawls to the kitchen. She hauls herself to a standing position in front of the sink. Splashes cold water on her face. Cups the faucet and drinks.
There’s a bottle of pills open on the counter next to the teapot. She tries hard to focus on the label. Zol-something. It rings a bell. Her mother took something beginning with a Z once in a while to help her sleep.
Throwing up into the sink, Gus realizes what Rory’s done. This whole time he’s been making her think her mother was crazy and off balance and suicidal so Gus would stop believing she was onto something. She lifts her head. Woozy. She needs to stay awake. Gus staggers to the fridge. Opens the freezer. Sticks her head into the icy air. The cold starts working. The fog begins to lift. Inside the freezer are two frost-covered pizzas and a bag of french fries. She grabs the fries and brings the cool bag to her forehead, but as she does she gets clocked by something hard inside the bag. Lars used to hide things in the freezer inside the frozen peas. Drugs. Guns. Stolen Rolex watches. She opens the bag, sticks her hand inside, and pulls out a VHS tape bound in cling wrap. She unwraps the plastic. Written on the label of the tape is one word:
Shan.
Gus stares at the four letters. It takes her brain a few seconds to put them in the right order. To register their meaning. But when it does, her sluggish heart skips a beat. She hugs the tape to her chest and staggers to the den. She leans down and puts the tape into Rory’s old VCR. Grabs the remote. Turns on the TV and presses play. At first there’s just static. Then an image comes into focus. It’s stamped, 23:25 August 4, 2006. A little over an hour after Kep’s murder.
The view points toward the roof inside a car. Then it tilts down to the door handle, then swings around to Shannon. She’s sitting in the driver’s seat of her Corolla, holding the camera with both hands. She’s placing it on the passenger side of the dashboard. From the seat next to her, she grabs a sweater and drapes it over the camera, leaving the lens uncovered. The angle is wide. Shows the entire driver’s side.
Headlights cross the back of Shannon’s head. She checks the rearview mirror. She’s got a look in her eyes that says nothing can stop her. Shannon gets out of the car and stands with her back against the open car door, looking toward the car that’s pulling up behind hers. The headlights blast her eyes so she has to shield them.
The car pulls up and stops. A door shuts. Footsteps. Rory comes into frame, his face in shadow.
Augusta’s body begins to shake. She doesn’t want to see this. She sinks to her knees in the middle of Rory’s den. The weight of what’s about to happen is too much.
Rory is going to kill her mother.
There they are. At Bruce Pit. Right where her mother’s car went into
the lake. Where Shannon asked him to come meet her. Gus is right there next to them. She knows it for sure. She can smell the lake.
What the heck’s going on, Shan? Meeting way out here in the middle of the night like criminals.
Shannon takes his hand.
Kep Halladay’s been murdered.
Holy shit. You sure?
I saw it with my own eyes.
You were at his house?
Shannon stares at him. Makes him wait.
I didn’t say it was at his house.
Rory doesn’t speak. Shannon’s face changes.
She lets his hand drop. It flops back to his side. Limp.
I videotaped the whole thing.
Rory steps back and a space opens between them. She holds his gaze. He shakes his head in disbelief. Stammers.
This is, this is good. You got evidence.
It was this guy I’ve seen around Elgin before. I think he does all Halladay’s dirty work. His grease monkey. Dez somebody. It’s all on the video. Kep’s murder. And more. The guy talks about how he took out Henry Neil and June Halladay. All of it.
Rory’s jaw clenches.
What are we doing out here? You gotta turn it in.
She shakes her head.
I was trespassing. It’ll be inadmissible. It’ll get thrown out by any judge. With my history, I’d probably get pegged for the murder. There’s physical evidence. My tire tracks. My footprints in the garden. I was inside the house.
What do you need me to do, Shan?
Shannon moves very close to Rory. Intimately close. Then she whispers, almost mouth to mouth with Rory.
Testify, for fuck’s sake. After all, Rory, you were there.
Rory staggers backward and nearly chokes on his own spit. Shannon doesn’t take her eyes off him.
And even though she’s foggy-headed, that’s the moment Gus is dead certain that Rory was the third man in Kep’s parlor. Up until then, she’d clung by her fingernails to the fragile belief that she might have been wrong. That is wasn’t him. But Shannon knew it all along and now Gus lets go and knows it too. She is overcome by a deep sense of foreboding.
You can do it, Rory. Tell them who he is. What he did to June and Henry and Kep.