Again she swore at Decker. “Fuck, you could help me with this shit!”
34
TRISH—THE GANG MEETS
EDDIE HELD MARINA’S HAND AS they entered Theo’s world—thousands of volumes of fiction, nonfiction and porn stacked to the ceiling in every available crevice of his Junction used books shop.
“Thanks for coming,” Theo said between coughing fits.
“You should have that looked at,” Eddie said.
“Doctors! Blah!” Theo replied. Looking at Marina, he bent forward. “And who is this pretty young lady?”
Marina clutched her father’s hand more tightly and tried to bury her head in Eddie’s side like a five-year-old.
Theo looked at Eddie, who said, “Marina. Marina’s her name, and she’s still a little shy.”
Theo said, “Sure—that’s no problem, young lady. Be as shy as you like. Do you like books?”
“Picture books,” Marina said directly into her father’s side.
Theo took a quick look at Eddie. “How old are you, Marina?”
“She’s fourteen,” Eddie said.
Theo suppressed his surprise.
“She’s on her own path, Theo—her own path.”
Before Theo could question this cryptic statement, Trish strode into the bookshop. At over six feet she often strode rather than walked.
She looked around her at the stacks and stacks of books and had to resist shivering. Her own hoarding instincts had increased exponentially, to the point that there was nowhere to sit anymore in her large three-bedroom condo.
“Something wrong, Trish?” Theo demanded.
“Nope. Love what you’ve done with the place. It has a definite art dreco vibe. Quite the mess-en-scène.” Then she asked without segue, “Where’s Leena?”
“I called her, like you asked,” Theo said.
“Wanna explain what we’re all gathered here for, Trish?” It was Eddie.
“For Decker, I assume.” They all turned to the door where Leena was standing, all five foot nothing of her, her once beautiful face now permanently etched with sorrow.
“Hey, Leena, long time.”
“Yeah, Eddie, long time. Is this—”
“Marina. Yes, it’s Marina.”
“Welcome to the Junction, Marina.”
“So we’re all well met, as the Bard so aptly put it,” Theo said just before another coughing fit took him, through which he managed to ask, “What’s up?”
“Where’s Decker?” Trish demanded.
“He’s off the grid, Trish,” Eddie said.
“But you know where he is, Eddie. You always know where he is.”
“Not this time. No transponder. No cell phone. No contacts.”
“For how long?”
“Sixteen days and counting.”
“And when’s he coming back on the grid like a normal human being?”
“I’ve got no idea, Trish.” Then he added before she could question him further, “None, nada, pas de chose, not a wink.”
Marina giggled.
Eddie smiled at her.
“Is he okay?” Trish demanded.
“He’s Decker. He’s never okay,” Eddie said.
In the silence that followed Eddie’s undeniable truth, Marina said, “I like Mr. Decker.”
“Me too, sweetie, but Mr. Decker is on a path of his own.”
“Like me?” she asked, a surprising brightness in her voice.
“Yeah, kiddo, that’s right—like you.”
35
A BORDER CROSSING
CROSSING THE CANADIAN BORDER AFTER dark on a viciously cold Manitoba night can have its own special difficulties—especially if the people in the car don’t have passports.
A freakishly early storm brought snow that swirled, obscuring the licence plate of their stolen car, which helped a bit, but the young Canadian border guard held out his hand for passports. Viola used her sweetest smile and said, “My dad and I forgot them at home. I’m sorry.”
Martin Armistaad raised his shoulders in a “silly-me” gesture as he reached into his coat pocket and felt the sharp point of the would-be architect’s compass beside the stupid tooth he’d kept. His fingers moved the tooth aside and opened the instrument—its point ready to do damage if needed.
Then Viola reached out and touched the young border guard’s hand. She was surprised to feel the weakness in him. She couldn’t name the disease, but his heart was weak—very weak. She looked into his eyes and said, inside his head, “Don’t worry, it will be over soon. You’ll never get to the forest, let alone the clearing, but you will sleep dreamless sleep until it all starts again. Your family will miss you, but they will be okay—promise.”
The young border guard withdrew his hand and waved them through.
They crossed from North Dakota into Manitoba then turned east—towards the Junction.
Soon after, Hendrick H. Mallory called the young border guard and assured him that he had done the right thing in allowing the car to pass.
The young border guard was surprised when he found himself saying, “I’m sick.”
And I’m sure that meeting number three and number four couldn’t but advance your illness, Mallory thought.
“She said something about a clearing and a forest.”
“And a glass house?”
“No nothing about a house. What’s a glass house?”
“Just a dream some of us have, son, nothing to worry yourself about.”
36
LATER IN THE JUNCTION
LATER THAT NIGHT, BACK IN Theo’s crowded office with Marina safely asleep amidst a pile of picture books, Trish broached her concern. She laid out the whole sordid tale of a young gay man being hung in 1902 outside the library on Annette Street whose death wasn’t even investigated and the Public Broadcaster’s refusal to have it in the documentary that she and Decker and Theo were working on.
“Okay, so the Public Broadcaster is afraid of controversy, so what, big surprise,” said Leena.
“It’s not just that,” Trish said.
“Then what is it—and what do you want from us?” Leena asked.
For one of the first times in her life, Trish really didn’t know what she wanted. She’d been propelled forward by a force that she didn’t really understand. That she actually thought didn’t exist.
“First off, help me find Decker.”
Everyone promised to get in touch with Trish the moment Decker contacted them. Trish thanked them, then asked Theo, “What more have we learned about the boy?”
“The one who was hanged?”
“Who else?”
“Besides the fact that his nails were painted black and he was missing the baby fingers from both hands and that his case magically disappeared when the Junction joined the big bad city in 1902?”
“Yeah, what else?”
“Working at it.”
“And?”
“Well, I may have something.”
“From the archive?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
Theo put a photo onto the pitted table that he used as a desk.
“And this is?”
“A wide-angle shot of the Junction’s potter’s field.”
“The Junction had a pauper’s graveyard?”
“Well, that poor boy didn’t hang on that lamp post until he rotted. Eventually someone cut him down and they threw his body somewhere.”
“You mean buried somewhere?”
“Yeah, I guess I do, but paupers are usually just thrown away.”
“Usually?”
“Yeah. But look at that photograph.”
“Why?”
“There’s a gravestone way in the back.”
“Paupers don’t usually have gravestones.”
“But this one did. How did you find this?”
“I know it sounds weird, but I kinda stumbled on it in the Junction archives in the basement of the library. I’d gone over every inch of that
damned place time and time again and found nothing. Then yesterday, after we spoke, I found it. Shit, I almost stepped on it. It was there right out in the open—in front of my stupid face.”
“When exactly was this?”
“After we met in the archive.”
“Yeah, but what time exactly?”
“Around ten thirty in the morning.”
Right after I left the CPBC office fighting for the inclusion of the hanging boy, she thought.
“Why does the time matter?”
“Maybe it doesn’t. You said paupers don’t usually have gravestones. But this one did?”
“Yeah, look—here’s a blowup of the gravestone, best I could do. The first name and dates are obliterated and I’m having trouble making out the last name. Maybe Barees or Harees or—”
“Or Parees? Theo, could that name be Parees?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Holy shit!”
“What?” Eddie asked.
“The CPBC guy’s last name is Parees.”
37
YSLAN IN OCEANSIDE
OCEANSIDE IS A WORKING-CLASS MARINE town. Camp pendleton is just up the road. It was the kind of place Yslan used to like. Used to feel right at home in. But as she and Emerson made their way to the hospital, she had a strange sense of all this being foreign. Of her being unwelcome here. All those young men with close-cropped haircuts and their already pregnant even younger wives gave her the creeps.
The scene at the hospital was eerily reminiscent of seeing Harrison. How long ago had that been? She was shocked when she realized it was only a few days ago.
The doctors who worked on Dr. Chumley were as baffled as the ones who had treated Harrison.
The prognosis was just as terrifying.
“Why are we here?” Emerson asked as he averted his eyes from Dr. Chumley, who was strapped into a wheelchair.
For a long time Yslan didn’t answer, just stared at the catatonic figure. Finally she said, “Due diligence.”
Emerson shrugged and said, “Okay. So we’ve been duly diligent.”
As if coming out of a trance, Yslan shook her head, then said, “Let’s get back to San Francisco; that’s where the trail leads.”
“Right.”
“Can we get a flight?”
“There’s one from the airport off Palomar Airport Road in twenty minutes. I’ll make a call.”
“Tell Mallory to make the call.”
“Okay,” Emerson said and turned to his phone, although he knew Mallory had already booked them on that flight.
Yslan took a few steps closer to Dr. Petronius Chumley in his wheelchair and whispered in his ear, “I hope to meet you one day, Doctor.” Then the oddest thought shot through her mind: I’m talking to this man the way I address my father’s name carved into the war memorial. The one who loved bacon.
38
TRISH AT POTTER’S FIELD
TRISH HAD NEVER BEEN IN a place like this. Graveyards certainly—she was at the age when funerals of elderly family members and even the odd acquaintance were a somewhat frequent occurrence—but this was not a cemetery the likes of which she’d ever seen.
To one side were tall concrete towers for sand and other building materials. Across the way were the railway tracks. The place screamed that it was of no commercial value.
She got there by driving up Keele Street, then making a sharp right before she got to the big-box stores on what had been slaughterhouse lands.
She noted in the near distance the remains of the Junction railroad station, where the trunk line from the west used to join the lines going into Toronto. It was also the starting place for the tunnel system that ran under much of the Junction. Now what remained of the old depot was rotting—ignored, like the rest of this forgotten patch of land.
Once out of her car she did a quick three-sixty. To the south she saw the spires of three churches—Just far enough away not to be infected by this cesspool, she thought.
She pushed the broken wire gate aside and stepped into the muddy field. To her left was a shed, ahead of her was a rock-strewn field. If there were graves here they were not going to be easy to find.
Then what she had thought was a small boulder in the distance moved, rose and approached her. The boulder proved to be a short stocky man dressed entirely in grey—grey pants, grey shirt, grey shoes, grey hair, almost grey skin, with a wispy grey beard and dancing grey eyes. “Does he know you’re here?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The snarler,” he said, pointing towards the shed.
“No, I guess not. Does he object to visitors?”
“Hates ’em.”
“But he likes you?”
“ ‘Likes’ is the wrong word. ‘Puts up with’ is better.”
“And why does he put up with you?”
The little man reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of herbs. “He makes me split the profit with him.”
“You grow them here?”
“Some will only grow in graveyards.” He reached into the plastic bag he was carrying and withdrew a long plant with a slender root. He told her the Latin name, then said, “Only grows around the oldest of graves and is worth a small fortune to the Chinese medical practitioners.”
“Down on Spadina.”
“And up in Richmond Hill, Thornhill, Aurora and points north, east and west.”
“Only around old graves, you said?”
Suddenly the man was cautious. Trish held up a hand. “I’m not interested in the plants. I’m interested in the old graves. Will you show them to me?”
“Not the herbs? Just the old graves?”
Trish nodded.
“Promise?”
“On a stack of Bibles.”
The man indicated that she should follow him. She did, and around a corner back behind the shed were the graves—if you could call them that. There were only a few gravestones, maybe five or six. The rest was simply unmarked ground. She assumed there were several hundred bodies all told. She checked the photo that Theo had given her and quickly found the headstone. It was, unlike the others, clean and neither chipped nor cracked, though clearly old and weathered to the point that it was very hard to make out the lettering.
She knelt by the headstone and withdrawing some parchment paper from her purse pressed it against the old stone. But as she began to apply pressure against the parchment with a flat stone to get an impression on the paper, she heard a gruff voice shouting at her; “Hey there, missy, what is it that you’re on about?”
The boulder man skittered away, mumbling something about his plants—being careful with his plants.
Trish stood and stepped towards the man who had evidently come out of the shed. Shed Man was as wide as he was tall and wore overalls that clearly had not seen the inside of a washing machine in this millennium.
“Eh? I asked yer what yer doin’ here?”
Trish was happy to see that she was about seven inches taller than he was. “I’m a film producer,” she said, holding out a business card.
The man ignored the proffered card and said, “What are yer doin’ here?”
“Looking at a gravestone.”
“Why?”
“This was the Junction’s potter’s field, wasn’t it?”
“Come again?”
“Potter’s field. Burial ground for the indigent.”
“For poor people, aye.”
“And criminals?”
“I think yer know the answer ta’ that question already.”
“Well, yes. I wonder if you could identify the person buried here,” she said, pointing at the gravestone.
“Don’t it say on the stone itself?”
“It’s weathered so it’s hard to read.”
“Well that happens in Canada. We get some weather in this part of the world. You may have noticed that.”
“Do you have records?”
“O’ what?”
“Of who’s buried here?”
“This ain’t no cemetery lady, it’s a dumping ground.”
“Still . . .”
“Still wha’?”
“There has to be a record of who’s here.”
“Lady, nobody’s here—that’s the point of a place like this. Now take your long legs and your tight ass and hie your way out of—What did you call it?”
“Potter’s field.”
“Yeah, get yourself out of my potter’s field. And don’t come back. This is private property. Didn’t you read the sign? No snooping allowed.”
• • •
Five minutes later a black rotary phone rang on a rectory desk in the church on Annette beside the Masonic Temple.
The old priest took a long time getting to the thing. The weight of the receiver, as usual, was a comfort to him. He listened to the gruff voice on the other end and was not pleased with what he heard.
He barked a command, then hung up.
He wandered into the sanctuary of the church. His church. It was empty and cold. He sat heavily in the front pew. So it hasn’t gone away. After all these years it rises from cold obstruction and the duty falls to me.
He’d been warned about what his predecessor had called “the parish debt,” but he hadn’t thought it would ever come to light, to this.
He got up slowly, heavily, and wondered how long he had before this would literally land on his doorstep.
Then he smiled. He had a role to play, and he’d been trained for just such a role—all his life had led to this. “In harness at last,” he said aloud. The vaulted space echoed his words, and it pleased him.
• • •
“Ouch, that’s my foot!”
“Shhh, Theo!” Eddie said.
“How did we ever let Trish talk us into—”
“No filing cabinets or three by five card files,” Eddie said.
“So?”
“So they must have scanned the records.”
“Or thrown them out.”
Eddie flicked on his flashlight and quickly scanned the interior of the potter’s field shed. He found the electronic hookup and swore softly. “No, they scanned them.”
The Glass House Page 15