“There must have been a small crime to allow the larger crime. The theft was done to entrap us — so as far as my thinking is, the robbery at the house must have been done as a coverup — again and again I come to the same conclusion — the same one. The robbing of money was secondary. Something terrible happened at the house before the robbery to make the robbery necessary, if it was to be blamed on you. The bridge is another matter altogether and came as a complete convenience to those who wish to discredit me.” He paused.
“Still, you were the one they wanted to initially discredit — I wasn’t a worry to them.” He took Elly’s hand. “It was you — it was not to protect Mathew. It had to be someone closer to McVicer — perhaps Rudy Bellanger. Is there something you are not telling me? Did you see Mr. Bellanger do something at the house or store which was unfortunate.”
“Of course not, Sydney.”
“Hm,” he said. “Well, it must have something to do with him — they wanted you gone so Leo would not find out —” He looked at my mother gently and said, “Oh, I know you think I’m silly, but mathematically it works out — Mathew Pit took the money, and Trenton was not really attempting to give it back to me but to Leo — and Cynthia doesn’t know, or want to know, that Mathew is guilty — she used to love me — now she hates me.”
“Hates you,” Autumn said. (I think she believed this to be all very romantic at the moment.)
“At any rate, Mathew Pit knows he has to make me culpable forever — that is why he hates me too — now they are both in turmoil. Strange how it will someday all come together.”
“Sydney — I want you to do something,” Mom said.
“What?”
“I want you to forget what you just said — we have another child coming — I want more than anything no more trouble —”
“Oh, I don’t care about me — it is you I am thinking of.”
“Then don’t do or say another thing — please!”
Sydney shrugged. He continued eating his cooling soup. Finally he said:
“So I know — that’s all I know.”
“Please stop!” Mother shouted, wringing her hands. “Or I will leave you forever — I swear I will go away!”
We all went to bed that night in silence. The wind blew over our house. I could see the light from the stove. I could see my mother’s knicknacks on the mantel. I bet I prayed for her, though I didn’t believe in God. The next morning we went off to school, and Father, taking his smelt nets, went to work.
The new opinion (or the same opinion in a new form) was that my father was not a poor fool from some Bartibog swamp, but a rural Machiavellian, his books and his poor treatment of my mother used against him.
FURY
ONE
A few weeks later there was a full moon, and stars dotted the sky. The snow was hard, and even though the mercury was low, the first scent of spring could be felt in those dry tiny orbs of air. Constable Morris went to Polly’s Restaurant to calm down Mathew Pit, who had just gotten into a fight with a trucker, a fight he attributed to his family’s suffering.
Mathew sat with his hands on a bottle of beer, his jean jacket rolled up showing the sleeves of a frayed white sweater, and complained to Constable Morris about the inequality of the law. Why have a law if the law allowed this? What right did the law have to make his family suffer these indignities? Just because he once had legal troubles was it right for the law to persecute him?
Constable Morris agreed and apologized for the entire case. It was not handled properly at any level, and never since the murder of young Karrie Smith some years before had there been such a debacle.
“Good men suffer all the time because cases are not handled properly,” Morris said. He blamed the prosecution for botching what was essentially an easy conviction.
“What if he confesses?” Mathew said.
“If he confesses, he confesses,” Morris said. “An inquest isn’t a trial — a confession would change it all.”
Morris then whispered something to hearten Mathew. Morris said he was a tough boy himself and came from tough people but there was one thing he knew.
“And what is that?” Mathew asked.
“Murder is always open,” Morris continued. “You think I have given up — I never give up. I won’t give up until that bastard is behind bars — and his wife is free of the torment she has suffered. She shouldn’t be made pregnant by that son of a bitch.”
Mathew flinched at the line:
“Murder is always open.”
He went home later that night and his mother called to him. She had heard about the fight at the bar from a neighbour who phoned. He went to her, kissed her forehead. She was sitting up, propped by two pillows. Her room had the oddly familiar style of faded flowers, and a lingering second scent of the aged within the fragrance of those flowers, caught in the warm pink walls, and the deep Maritime scent of midwinter thaw, which had turned to ice again in the night.
Alvina’s teeth were on the nightstand beside her, along with a box of Kleenex. The television had been brought upstairs, and she kept pointing the remote at it like a gun, her arm straight and her lips pressed tight. She watched Mass for Shut-ins, and The Billy Graham Crusades, and reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. But now her TV with its two-foot-long rabbit ears was off. She looked at her son, and he joked with her. But she was distressed and had prayed at church.
The day before she had asked him to swear to her on a Bible that he knew nothing of Trenton’s death or of the truck driven onto the span or the bolts being cut. She had grown old in the last four months and looked at him tonight with eyes filled with disappointment.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
“Why won’t you swear on the Bible for me? If you have not committed a sin, then why not do this? For Trenton’s sake.”
“It’s not my kind of book,” he said. “Beside, I have bigger fish to fry —” He sniffed. “Talking to a constable tonight an’ everything else.”
She looked at him and plucked the quilt with her fingers. “I could not stand it if you did it. Kiss Saint Jude.” She nervously reached about her neck and held the medallion up with her trembling fingers toward his mouth, in bright hope and expectation. He turned away.
“No, I don’t kiss Saint Jude — I used to — but lately I don’t like him — I used to pray to him when I hunted, and I never had no luck. I used to pray to him when I trapped, and coyotes took the catch. Saint Jude cares more for coyotes than he does for me, I figure.”
She knew Mathew had said in December that he would do exactly what had been done: sabotage the bridge and stop work on it. Now Alvina had to convince herself, as Mathew’s old mother who loved him, that he had not done what was in his mind to do, but that for some insane reason Sydney, who had never bothered her before, had.
Alvina also knew, the moment she had accused Sydney on the bridge, with the boy’s body lying in front of her, the implications of what she was saying: that the mother of a dead child could cause the rancour she did. It was in her heart to wound him. But now she could not take any of it back. She had become, like Rudy and Connie Devlin, an unwilling conspirator in her son’s commission of a horrible crime.
Mathew kissed her cheek as she put the medal of Saint Jude back under her nightdress.
“I love you, Mom,” he said, “and I loved Trenton too.”
Mathew went downstairs and into the back room where Trenton had spent much of his time. Cynthia was sitting alone with a blanket over her considering many things this night.
She looked at Mathew and returned to her binoculars to watch our house. She was aware that there was an immense grace allowed the Pits because of the death of this child, and she and Mathew wanted more.
Still, as Mathew looked at her he worried. Because he could see a future where this grace would not be so easily attained. As each day passed, the suffering of Elly and Sydney would be considered monstrous if the truth came to light.
Worse, every day for the la
st three weeks Connie was at the house asking for his money. The four thousand dollars that Mathew had promised him. He had to do something about that.
Still, Connie was discreet enough never to mention the truth. It was in a way unconscionable that someone would be mean enough to mention the truth to Mathew, after all he’d been through.
Mathew’s thinking was simply the logical progression from illogical circumstance. The truth was an aberration to everyone in our community who believed in my father’s guilt. To tell this truth would be a genuine inconvenience.
For more than two months everyone on the river had believed Mathew was a hero. People from far and wide wrote him letters, sent cards and money. They drew nooses on these cards and letters and called radio programs to talk about the reinstatement of the death penalty.
He received money from Maritimers and Miramichers as far away as Calgary and Edmonton. And many wanted action against my father. Many said they would gladly come home for target practice. My father’s death would be seen as a legitimate form of reprisal. I had heard this myself, and in some terrible way believed it.
But Mathew was not doing as well as he could have. He feared Rudy would break under the pressure very soon. Worse, Connie Devlin could blackmail him.
And recently he had made a fundamental mistake, the same mistake he had been making since he was sixteen. He had taken three gallons of gas without paying for it. The news about this had spread, and people heard that he had used his favourable position to act as his old self. He had tried to make up for it, but the manager of the gas bar wouldn’t take money for the gas and looked disappointed. Both he and Cynthia had felt a coolness toward them since the three gallons of gas.
TWO
Mathew sat on a hard-backed kitchen chair and spoke to his sister. He told her he was preparing to file suit against the McVicer construction company. He said this was suggested to him as a possible avenue to justice by a number of people, and he knew a lawyer to handle it. It was the best thing to do to receive compensation. But what he actually wanted more than anything else was to be talked into it, not only by the lawyer but by Cynthia as well. For if she did not go for it, it would be because she sensed too much danger.
“What kind of compensation would change Trenton’s death?” Cynthia asked quickly. She wanted to hear from his lips the amount he might be seeking.
“I know nothing will ever change his death — as I told Mom — still, we have a good case —” Then he added, “No, never mind it — I’m not going to cheapen his death by no fuckin’ money.” He looked at her under his eyebrows, with his pale blue eyes. Then he shifted his gaze minutely, staring into the corner. Finally she lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and turning her head to blow away the smoke, said: “When?”
“When what?”
“When did you speak to the lawyer?”
“In the bar yesterday — told us to go and see him. But never mind it. I’m done with it. I decided. I want no more to do with it. I decided. I will go and kill Sydney and have done with it. They can take me away in handcuffs.” As he said this, he glanced at the window sill. He rubbed his nose and looked away.
For the last month Mathew had been conferring with Connie Devlin in the hope that Connie would shoot Sydney for him. Mathew’s hope was that it would be looked upon as an internal dispute, that Connie as night watchman would be considered culpable in Sydney’s schemes and was willing to shoot him to keep him silent. That would put Mathew in the clear.
Cynthia looked at him with her clear and brilliant eyes. He glanced at her and glanced away.
“When does he want us to go and see him?” she asked.
“Who?” he said as if distracted.
“The fuckin’ lawyer,” Cynthia said.
“Tomorrow,” he said, as if the very nature of the word “tomorrow” was tormenting him because of its endless pettiness. He looked at the knuckle of his left hand and rubbed it against the fabric of the couch.
But Cynthia, like him in so many ways, understood him better than he knew. She knew they were running out of options. They must sue now or forget the whole thing, and to kill Sydney would prove to the people how tormented her brother was.
In a way it was completely logical. In a way Cynthia realized she must play the cards remaining to her in perfect order. Not to sue or attempt to injure Sydney would be a subtle admission, and people would begin to view them as fraudulent. But what she realized more than anything was Connie Devlin’s reticence in helping them any more; that he wanted payment for everything now, the four thousand he somehow believed he was owed. She told Mathew he had one option.
“To shoot through Sydney’s door and hit the fucker —”
He hesitated. “I know — but still everyone will know it was me.”
“That’s the point,” Cynthia said. “Don’t you turn into a gutless puke on me — he won’t even get the cops — and people will hear about it. More important, Connie Devlin will fear you again — he doesn’t now. And the lawyer will hear of it too, and treat you with more respect. All of this will be in your general favour.”
This plan to Cynthia was both brilliant and ruefully truthful.
“I’m not questioning it,” he said, “but things might get tricky.”
“Of course they’ll get tricky — so tricky — but you don’t really have a choice — damned if you do, maybe, but damned if you don’t. If Devlin ever says he saw you, or that he knew of what you were doing — or if the robbery at Leo’s is investigated and Rudy cracks — it’s all over. You can’t tell me for certain that no one saw you,” Cynthia said, “but if we can keep our cool, things can still turn out. It will get tricky if you kill Sydney — but not if you wound him —”
He realized she was right.
Then she said, “Connie Devlin is a danger to us, so we will have to think of him as well. If he’s lumped in with the company in our lawsuit, he won’t be on our side — he’ll turn against us. The best thing to do is to make it very clear how you feel about him.”
Mathew sat down again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this. We have a window of opportunity, but it could backfire. The company might sue Connie Devlin for breach of responsibility — he should have reported the truck on the span — the lousy rebar pulled up, the bolts hacked off! He will then turn on us in a second.”
Mathew blanched white. “I don’t want to do it then,” he said.
“You silly fuck — you have no choice now,” she said. “You have to act this out in one way or the other. Fear is a good keeper-quieter. And Connie will fear you if you are ruthless.”
The fact that lies had forced him into this was apparent to them both.
Again they were silent. The night was still, and cars passed on the highway. The moon sat over the house, and its light flooded the yard.
Cynthia knew he had robbed Leo McVicer — she had watched him go into the house through the back door. But more worrisome was the possibility that others had seen him near the house that night.
More importantly she knew he had loosened the bolts on the buckled steel. Though she did not see him pull the truck up to the abutment, she knew he had three sticks of dynamite, and now there were two.
But if this information came out, it would break her mother’s heart — and Cynthia had much to lose as well. So she played out her remaining options. One was to take definite action against Connie Devlin — which would tie him and Sydney together.
The other worry was Rudy Bellanger.
She had told Rudy when he came to see her last week that unless he kept quiet, he would lose everything, every hope and dream he ever had entertained in the last ten years. He had smiled and said, “You’re crazy — I want no more to do with either of you — I can go to the police and take my chances with them.”
But then she played her ace. And he realized in her sullen face that she had kept it for just such a moment.
“Why am I crazy?” she said, looking through him. “Remember that n
ight near Christmas when you visited Mat, and I came downstairs after my bath in my nightie — well, you had to have me, didn’t you. I struggled. I tried to protest, remember? And I couldn’t resist. Well, I’m knocked up, and I need payment for the child.”
“It can’t be mine,” Rudy said, his lower lip trembling.
“What do you take me for — can’t be mine? Who in hell’s is it? Some goddamn Indian’s from Burnt Church? Can be mine will land you in court — can’t be mine will land you in prison — ha! You blew your load in ten seconds — can’t be mine, try it — just try it. What will little Gladys think of that!”
Now that Rudy was vulnerable and in too deep to find an avenue to escape she allowed him none. None of this was done with conscious malice. It simply happened, suddenly — like her pregnancy. She would see an opening and dive in. There always came a moment when she thought it better not to continue, but then her eyes would burn like brilliant dark stars, her beauty would turn suddenly vulgar and wanton, and she would tell people to dare her.
She was not overly brave, nor fatalistically ambitious. Yet she played her cards at opportune times and believed that everything she did was thought out beforehand.
Now with Rudy’s ill and sad wife she felt as a woman does who has just made a four non trump bid against an opponent who once ridiculed her play. She remembered how Gladys condescended to her as a girl. Now, she had been knocked up by Gladys’s husband. This gave her a leverage with the rich. She felt powerful. The machinations and worry of men had always given her power.
Because of this pregnancy, she felt equal to every person in town, to self-appointed professor Scone who spoke in the papers and, most important and ominous of all, to Leopold McVicer. The thing that neither Diedre nor Dr. Scone seemed to understand was that anyone could be self-appointed. And Cynthia had thought of grander things than her brother; or even of Diedre and David Scone. Both those people were slaves of public opinion, which in a way was a greater impediment than moral law. The vast number of self-appointed archangels were usually slaves of public opinion. Cynthia did not necessarily have that problem.
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