The Hour of the Fox

by Kurt Palka

  She shut the closet door and at that moment she heard noises on the rock. Quickly she put on her housedress and stepped to the window. But it wasn’t Danny. It was a car she’d never seen before. A city car, clean and new-looking. Two men in trenchcoats were standing next to it and looking around. One of them nodded toward her front door, and a moment later she heard them coming up the stoop. There was a loud knock on the door.

  “Coming,” she called. “Coming.”

  She always had to be careful going down those steep wooden stairs, and by the time she got there they were already in her house. They looked at her and only one of them was smiling. He looked pale to her and he stood with his left hand in his coat pocket.

  “Oh,” said the other. He had reddish hair. “There was no answer and the door was open. We are looking for John Patrick Croft. Is he here?”

  “The skipper. No. Why would he be here? Are you from the police again?”

  “The police,” he said. “Yes.”

  They stood staring at her. City people. Foreign-looking, but maybe from Montreal or Toronto. Close haircuts and suits and white shirts and narrow ties and shined leather shoes like businesspeople. The one with his hand in his coat pocket was still smiling, only now his smile looked frozen and disconnected from his eyes.

  “Dan McInnis, then,” said the other. “Is he here? He works with John Patrick.”

  “Danny isn’t here either. He doesn’t really live here any more. Not all the time. I’m his mother.”

  “Are you. Then please give us his address. And John Patrick’s too.”

  “What’s this about? The other policeman said Danny was in the clear.”

  “In the clear about what? And which policeman was that?” It was beginning to feel all wrong to her then. And she couldn’t help looking at their shined, pointy shoes. The three of them stood on the rug in her little foyer and for a while there was not a sound anywhere.

  “What policeman?” the man said again.

  “I never knew his name. Do you have a card or something?”

  “What policeman, and what did he want?”

  “I think he was looking for John Patrick too.”

  “You think,” said the one with the red hair. “Why was he looking for John Patrick?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know. You aren’t from the police, are you?”

  “Aren’t we?”

  The other one still didn’t say anything. He just stood smiling at her.

  “We’ll have a quick look around,” said the redhead. “You stay here.”

  They shoved her aside and squeezed past in the narrow space, and as they did so, the smiling one bared his teeth, just the upper ones, in a strange thin-lipped curl, and as he pushed past her his trenchcoat and jacket opened and she saw the pistol, large and black in a holster against his shirt.

  She made it to a kitchen chair and sat down. She could hear them up in Danny’s room, talking in a foreign language. Not French. Perhaps Spanish, she thought. Their shoes loud on the wood floor, scraping and banging noises. Next she heard them in her own room and then in the tiny spare room and the bathroom. They came down and looked around in the parlour and then stood in the kitchen doorway.

  “Where do they keep the boat?” said the one with the red hair.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do. You’re his mother. Of course you know. Where?”

  “No, I don’t know. I’m telling you. This is Danny’s busy season and so he’s probably out on the water with it. I don’t think John Patrick even has a boat.”

  “Don’t you? You know what I think? I think you’re lying to us. Why are you lying?”

  “I’m not. I’m telling you the truth.”

  The redhead turned to the smiling one, who was whispering something, and then turned back to her. “What about John Patrick? Do you know where we can find him?”

  “No, I don’t. Honest to God.”

  “You are lying again.”

  “I’m not! Maybe ask around the harbour in the city.”

  “Ask around the harbour in the city.” He stared at her for a long time, as if tempted to do something and thinking about it. She saw it in his eyes. Unwavering, staring. So cold.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” she said again. “I don’t know where John Patrick lives.”

  He moved, and for a moment she thought he might come into the kitchen, but then he didn’t. He turned away and there was just the sound of the door opening and closing. She heard their footsteps on the stoop, then the car, tires crunching on the rock. The engine noise rising and fading away.

  It took her a while to recover.

  She lit a candle like her mother used to do against nightmares and misfortune and let it burn for a while. Then she blew out the flame and waved at the smoke.

  At the sideboard in the living room she poured herself a small glass of blueberry wine. She sat in the green velour chair and looked out the window at the fog blowing in. She sipped the wine and when the glass was empty she poured another splash and sipped that too. Then she went back into the kitchen and called Franklin. She let it ring for a long time, then she hung up and looked for the inspector’s card in the bowl on the credenza. She held it to the window light and reached for the telephone again. While it rang, she thought of that man’s frozen smile. The flash of his teeth and the gun. Their spotless shined city shoes and the cuffs of their suit trousers, all so uncommonly neat.

  Then someone answered the phone.

  * * *

  —

  When Sully arrived he walked with her through the house. Upstairs they’d left some drawers half open, and in Danny’s closet some of his clothes were on the floor.

  She called him Sergeant and he called her Mrs. McInnis. They sat down at the kitchen table, and he took out a notebook and ballpoint pen and asked her to describe the men.

  She would speak a tumbled sentence or two and he would slow her down and ask clarifying questions and then bend over his book and write. It took a long time. He wanted to know details of the men’s clothing: what kinds of shined shoes? Smallish, narrow ones? What about their haircuts and expressions? And what about the smiling man’s gun? Was it a revolver or a pistol?

  He let her see his service pistol. Yes, maybe something like that, said Aileen. In a holster under his arm. Then the car. What make, model, licence plate? About that, Aileen had no idea.

  “I never knew about cars,” she said. “It looked new and shiny. You don’t often see a car like that around here.” “Maybe it was a rental,” said Sullivan. “If we sent a police artist, could you sit with her and describe the men and help her draw a likeness of them?”

  “Surely,” she said. “Yes, of course I can do that.”

  * * *

  —

  When Sully had left she tried Franklin again. This time he answered, and not long after that he came up to the house. He brought dinner, in two paper bags from the Swiss Chalet takeout. She went upstairs to change out of her housedress, and back in the kitchen she put the chicken quarters and the baked potatoes and coleslaw on her good china plates and set out cutlery and linen napkins. The sour cream she put on a little side plate and the sauce she poured from the waxed cardboard container into the gravy boat from her mother. She took two beers from the fridge and opened them and set them on the kitchen table along with two glasses. Her hands were still a bit unsteady.

  He came down the stairs from the bathroom in his sock feet.

  “You tidied up already,” he said. “Upstairs. I would have helped you.”

  “It wasn’t much.”

  “Wasn’t it. But don’t you think you should be calling Margaret again?”

  “Not now, Franklin. Sit down. In the other chair, you like that better. And I just dragged Margaret out here for nothing and then sent her back home. I can’t call her again.”

  “Yes, you can. And you know why. Because these were dangerous people. They know where you live and they were asking for Danny by nam
e.”

  “I know that. Let’s just eat now. Please.”

  They took up their cutlery and ate.

  After a long while she said, “So good. Thank you, Franklin. So very good.”

  * * *

  —

  Later they sat in the parlour, she in the green velour chair, he on the couch. They talked about Danny and John Patrick. About the two men who had come looking for them. Franklin didn’t know what to think of it all.

  He said, “Maybe at least call Margaret and get her advice. Let her decide if she wants to come out. And does that mean that John Patrick and Danny are both using the same boat? Your boat.”

  “It’s not my boat any more. I gave it to Danny.”

  “So is Danny lending it to him? For what? For something shady? Maybe tell the boy to keep away from him for a while. If people like that are looking for him.”

  “I can tell Danny what I want, and he’ll do what he wants. What he thinks is right. He’s a good boy.”

  “I’m not saying he isn’t.”

  “Last time he was here he brought me this from the city.” She opened her cardigan.

  Franklin looked, but she could tell he didn’t know what she meant.

  “The blouse, Franklin! It’s linen, and he knows I like those pale blues.”

  “Oh. Nice, Aillie. Real nice.”

  * * *

  —

  Late that night she woke when she heard a car on the rock. She got out of bed and looked down from the window. Her heart was hammering. So black down there, no moon, no stars. But it looked bigger than a car. Boxier. She hoped it was Danny’s truck. She heard the front door. “Danny!”she called. “Is that you?” She found her slippers under the bed and patted down her hair and went to her bedroom door. She opened it. “Danny, is that you?”

  “Who else, Mom?” He was coming up the stairs in the dark. She flicked on the light on the landing and he covered his eyes with his hand for a moment and put the hand down again. “Too bright, Mom. Don’t. Go back to bed.”

  But she didn’t turn the light off and she didn’t go back to bed.

  “Where have you been all this time?”

  “Some of the south loop. There was wind damage in places and I had to take care of that.”

  “Two suspicious-looking men were here today, asking for you and John Patrick. What’s that all about?”

  “In what way suspicious?”

  “One had a pistol under his coat.”

  “A pistol.”

  “And he never said a word, as if he didn’t speak any English. And the other one never took no for an answer. Foreigners in coats and suits and city shoes like the one you found on the island.”

  She followed him into his room. “They looked in all the drawers. And through the clothes in your closet. What were they looking for?”

  “How should I know? Did you call the police?”

  “I did. Sully came and I made a report. They were asking for you and John Patrick by name. What’s that all about, Danny?”

  “I don’t know. Did they say what they wanted?”

  “They wanted you and John Patrick and the boat. Are you letting him use our boat?”

  He had sat down on the bed. The quilt on it was the one she made for him when he was maybe ten years old.

  “What did you tell them, Mom?”

  “That I didn’t know where you were and that I don’t know where John Patrick lives. What’s this all about, Danny? Look at me.”

  “They were probably more police. Plainclothes, from a different unit.”

  “I don’t think so, and neither did Sully. They were asking where you’re keeping the boat. I was thinking that maybe they went through your pockets to find a marina tag or something. Are you letting him use it?”

  When he didn’t answer, she sat down next to him on the bed. “Are you, Danny?”

  “Mom. I’m really tired. Maybe they were just looking to get a ride somewhere.”

  “A ride somewhere? The way they were dressed? What kind of ride, where? And what’s John Patrick got to do with all that?”

  “I don’t know. He is looking for a job, but no one’s hiring him. He’s a good skipper. Best I ever worked with.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. If I can help him out, I will.”

  “Could it have anything to do with those dead kids on the island, Danny? Could it be John Patrick had anything to do with it?”

  He looked sideways at her. “Mom, what are you asking?”

  “You heard me. Could it be?”

  “No. Never. I have no idea what they wanted. There’s crackpots out there, and if you reported it to the police then that’s all we can do. And I’m really tired. Can we not do this now?”

  “Crackpots is right. You be careful, Danny. Maybe stay away from John Patrick for a while until the police find out what’s going on.”

  “Okay. Just stop it now.” He stood up. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  She watched him walk out of the room, and when she’d heard the bathroom door close she got down on both knees and raised the bedskirt and looked under the bed. But it was too dark in there to see much. She stood up.

  “Night, Danny,” she said on the landing.

  * * *

  —

  She lay awake for a long time. Around two o’clock in the morning she felt her bedroom to be unbearably warm, and she got up and opened the window all the way and put her forehead to the fly screen. The smell of rust on the screen. Darkest night out there.

  Back in bed she lay listening for cars coming down their road. Don’t, she told herself. Do not.

  She tried to listen only to the ocean and to the rocks speaking in the dark. Hear them rumble, Aillie, her father used to say. They’re talking to each other. Telling wise old stories. Thousands of years old. Hear them? What are they saying, girl? Be very quiet inside and listen, and you’ll know. At one point she could hear the owl. Could hear its call and then hear the sound of its slow, powerful wing-beat among the trees of the night. All quiet then, save for the rocks.

  Fifteen

  THE POLICE ARTIST was a young woman in jeans and a denim jacket. With Aileen’s help she worked quickly and well, at first with a kit and then refining the details. Before very long the drawings of the two men lay on the kitchen table and they all stood looking down at them.

  “What do you think, Mrs. McInnis?” said Inspector Sorensen.

  “They’re very good. That smiling one especially. It’s like I can remember him more than the other. But the other one is good too. He had reddish hair. The noses and eyes are good. The chins. They’re good pictures.”

  “All right. Thank you. Danny, have you ever seen these two?”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  “Take a good long look.”

  “I don’t think so. Honestly.”

  “You don’t think so,” said Sorensen. “Have you or haven’t you seen them? I need a firm yes or no. They came to this house asking for you by name.”

  Danny leaned over the table. It was very quiet in the kitchen. He studied the pictures for a while longer. He looked pale and nervous to Aileen. Not himself.

  He shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Why do you keep asking the boy that same question?” said Aileen. “Over and over. When he’s told you five times already that no, he hasn’t seen them.”

  Sorensen ignored her. “Are you, Danny? Sure?”

  “Yes, I am sure. I’ve never seen them before.”

  “Are you in contact with John Patrick Croft? Do you have any dealings with him?”

  “Hardly any.”

  “Hardly any. Meaning some?”

  “Well, I did want to help him out. We’re friends, and I got a boat and paying work, and he doesn’t right now.” “So are you in fact helping him out?”

  “Well, yes. Maybe I am.”

  “Maybe you are. Helping him out how?”

  “Insp
ector, you’re putt’n too much pressure on the boy!” said Aileen, angrily now. “Danny, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I think I’ll call Margaret again, and you don’t say anything until she’s here.”

  “Mom! For heaven’s sake. You aren’t doing me any favours here. I can do this on my own. And yes, I did let John Patrick use the boat to do a few island properties for me while I did some on land in the truck. And I gave him half my fee. It saves me time, with the storms coming any day now.”

  There was a silence, and then the inspector said, “Very interesting, that. We’ll need a list of the properties John Patrick did for you. And I’ll ask you for the last time now, do you have any idea what those men might have wanted from the two of you? What they might have been looking for. Here, in your mother’s house.”

  “None. No idea. I’m telling you.”

  “Have you ever been approached by someone to do a quick run in the dark for them? A little pick-up? What’s the fee for that now, around three thousand?”

  “No. Never. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sorensen studied him, taking his time.

  “Of course you know what I’m talking about, Danny. Has John Patrick Croft been approached, you think? We’ll be asking him. What do you think he’ll say?”

  “About what?”

  Sorensen was still watching him. No emotion to the man, she thought. Just this cold thinking, analysing his hunches. Keeping mental notes.

  Eventually he said, “All right. I’ll let it go for now, Danny. But we’re nowhere near done with this.”

  * * *

  —

  When Sorensen and the artist had left, but their presence like some afterimage was still in the room, Aileen said, “That man is hard as nails, and he suspects something and he won’t let go. Danny, this is very serious now. What’s he saying, stuff that he thinks you know something about? And approached about what?”