He could come to enjoy this.
“Or maybe I’m wrong. I was thinking imbecile, but perhaps the word for you hasn’t been invented yet. Maybe you’re just . . . Willis. Willis. Willis.”
He rejected her refrain and exaggerated enunciation. He warned her, “Stop that. Shut up.”
“Willis.”
“Shut up! Open the door, Tara. I don’t know what game you’re playing but we are not closed to business.”
She laughed. “Seriously? Do you really want the whole world to hear this? Anyway, the cops will be here soon. I suppose we’ll have to open up for them.”
“What cops?” he asked, and the question felt weak on his tongue, he wished he could have it right back. “How do you know that?”
“Ah, Willis, your cops. The ones you’ve been lying to. The ones you’re being sycophantic with. The SQ, asshole.”
He swallowed, which she noticed.
“Willis,” she began, and let the volume of her voice drop several notches, so that it felt conspiratorial, “you’ve screwed everything up. You are single-handedly going to turn the town against you, and by extension against us and this store. You have just driven us straight into the ditch with your lies and distortions. You never saw anybody burn the old covered bridge.”
Somehow, she knew what he was saying to certain people. Her cop boyfriend. He tipped her off. Bastard.
“You’ve got it wrong,” he fought back. “The town won’t be against me. They’ve got this old regime going, don’t talk to outsiders, but it’s time to grow up. To join the world. They’ll thank me, once the story comes out. Everybody knows the loggers did it. What the police are begging for and what this town needs is for someone to say who. I’ll say who. I have the courage to say who.”
“Courage? You think you’re going to be some kind of hero? That’s the idea? You want to call the snivelling, slimy, wormy old grievances you haul around in your rectum your courage? You’re mistaken. You don’t know what’s going on, Willis. To be fair, not many do. But there are plans in place to get the town out of this jam. You prefer war between loggers and tree huggers? Or between loggers and . . . yourself? That’s what this town and this business needs? Think about it. It’s simple. We need the bridge back. It’ll be back if you shut up. But there’ll be no new covered bridge if you lie to the police. You will have prevented that from happening, and everybody will know. They will know who to blame for tearing this town apart. War will ensue. People will get beat up. They will hate you for that, Willis, and hate your store, if you speak your lies in a court of law.”
“I saw what I saw. That’s not lying. Mine was a perfect view of the bridge.”
“You mean you saw a perfect opportunity to pin blame on someone you don’t happen to like. Why? Because I’m going out with his brother? Is that what upsets you?”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” He wanted to break from the ramparts behind the cash, but couldn’t decide on an exit. One opening led straight into Tara, the other would make it appear as though he was on the run out the back way. Trapped, he looked confused, turning this way, then that, undecided.
“Oh, but you do, Willis. Do you know what I did for a living? Before I joined this illustrious enterprise?”
“No, I don’t. I just presumed you were a hit woman for the mob.”
“Ha-ha. Funny. But close enough.”
“Nonsense.”
“I was a lawyer. A litigator. I still am. So talk to me, Willis, or I’ll excoriate you on the witness stand and I promise, once I’m done, not a soul in this town will ever speak to you, let alone cough any morsel of business your way.”
He stood still. Clearly astounded. “A lawyer.”
She scoffed. “I bet you thought I was a whore. Something like that. A high-priced call girl, maybe? Or am I flattering myself? That’s why you never asked. Well, maybe I was a whore, not far off it, but not quite as you imagine. On the witness stand, Willis, I’ll slice into you to a depth you can’t begin to measure. Oh, it’ll be nasty. Not a pretty sight. What was he wearing, Mr. Howard? Oh, don’t be silly, every guy wears a ball cap in this town. How could you tell what he looked like in the dark? You watched him from inside the house? Are there no reflections on your glass windows? You can identify a man’s features, under a baseball cap, in the dark, through reflective glass, not to mention through trees, at seventy yards? Really? Would you care to repeat that performance, Mr. Howard, you with the eagle eyes, under similar conditions? A controlled experiment, Mr. Howard. We’ll parade people you know on the lip of the old bridge, at night, with scant moonlight—hell, we’ll spot you a full moon—and let’s count how many you can pick out that way. Here’s a tip. I won’t play fair. I’ll dress women up as men, and when you name a Linda as being a Mike, I’ll make you the laughingstock of this town, this county, this region, this province, this country. My advice, move to Costa Rica, far enough away from your shame. Hey, know what? You can be an intermediary down there for local artisans. Send me up a few trinkets for the store, which, by the way, I will own outright after you’re forced to sell. And sell cheaply. To me.”
Willis Howard chose not to speak, which may have been wise at that moment. Out the front window he saw the SQ officers drive up and park across the street. Tara followed his gaze, and noticed that her time was short. She needed to wrap this up.
“Or, Willis, you can forgo your conspiracy and keep your store, compound your business even, because that’s part of an overall plan to which you are not privy, as yet, although I will want you to take on a leading administrative role.” She knew to not only threaten him, but to tempt him with an exchange, an arrangement, and never mind that she might regret it later.
“A leading role, in my own store.”
“Not the store. The bridge. The town. We are going to develop this town, Willis. The next fifteen seconds is insufficient for me to give you the details, but the project is large and you will be asked to administer the books. Be a fund-raiser. You’ll be a more significant public figure than you’ve ever been, and you’ll be seen as standing on the side of the angels. So either you are on side, on my side, or you commit perjury on the witness stand and probably do jail time for that, plus receive the enjoyment of being publicly eviscerated. I will rip you apart and steal your store. So decide.”
A policeman found the door to be oddly locked, and so knocked.
“I guess he can’t read,” Tara said, waiting, continuing to stare at him.
“I don’t know,” Willis said. “I’ve already told them—”
“Look feeble. I know you can manage that. Make yourself seem undecided. Baffled. Here’s a tip, Willis. The person who actually did burn the bridge? He confessed. He’s not the one you wanted to see charged. Stick to your story and you’ll look awfully bad and probably bury yourself even before I get the chance. That’s why the cops are here, to find out why you lied to them. So tell the truth. You hate the loggers. The O’Farrell clan. You got carried away. They’ve given you a hard time over the years and you’re probably sitting on a stack of legitimate grievances dating back to kindergarten. But Willis, this is not the time that you get to beat them down. If you try, I pity you.”
“Answer the door, please, Tara.” Willis tried to sound stern.
The cops were knocking.
“They always win,” he complained.
“Decide,” quietly, she commanded him.
III
REDEMPTION
25
On a Saturday morning in midsummer, Dennis Jasper O’Farrell drove his beloved blue Ford down to the riverbank and parked off the community walking path on a grassy slope. He took a few moments to gaze across the water, both hands pressed to the steering wheel. Miniature waves, frolicking in a wily breeze, sparkled in the sunlight, hinting at their power to induce a trance. Momentarily lost to his reflections, Denny studied the vacant space where the
old covered bridge once stood.
After a while he stepped down from the cab, proceeded to the rear of the pickup, and lowered the tailgate. From the truck bed he hauled tools—a cant hook, a crowbar, a peavey, a timber hook, and a pair of log carriers—which he placed in a neat row on the ground. While a poor workman might blame his tools, Denny believed that a good workman granted them exceptional care. Climbing onto the truck bed, he lifted heavy chains that he dropped into a single heap alongside his equipment on the ground. Next, he gathered lengths of rope, stuck his arms through the hoops they formed, and jumped down.
Pairs of pedestrians slowed their progress to observe him. Individuals may have wondered what he was up to, although one elderly gent could not care less, as any diversion to his daily routine was most welcome. Vehicles were not commonly permitted to park on the lawn and a couple of old-timers discussed this aberration as though it mattered. Their debate grew heated for a spell.
Close by, high on the roof of his raft, Gordon “Skootch” Skotcher lowered the financial section of his morning paper to his lap in order to watch Denny lug gear across rough terrain amid the trees to where waves lapped the shoreline, a distance of some thirty feet. He made several trips. Once all the tools and chain were brought down, Denny returned and opened the passenger-side door, pulling out a one-piece fly fisherman’s wading suit, the leggings affixed to the boots, the jacket zipping up the front. More people were watching him now as he squeezed into the cumbersome outfit. He returned to the shore walking with something of a waddle, and without a rod, reel, or hook on a line, stepped into the river.
People discovered straightaway that he wasn’t there to fish.
Instead, he circled a length of chain around a deadhead, pulled the loop taut and flung the bitter end towards the shallows near shore. One end of the log stuck out two feet above the surface, the other sunk in mud at a thirty-degree angle to a depth unknown. He tied rope to the chain and came back ashore to knot it to a stout tree that overhung the waterway. The log hadn’t budged since last winter’s ice broke, but now lay doubly secured. For what reason, no one knew.
Then Denny undertook to float the heavy timber.
He got under it and heaved and used his peavey to try spinning it and pulled and pushed and grunted with considerable exertion. He tried it from one side and then the other. All his efforts seemed in vain. Still, he struggled on.
Over time, his labours elicited advice.
“Denny. Denny. Try a chain saw. Cut the damn thing into sections first.”
“Oh yeah,” a second wag commented. “That’d be smart. Put on scuba gear. Start up a chain saw underwater. Say a prayer for the poor fucking fish.”
“No worse off than what he’s doin’ now.”
“Lease a ’dozer, Denny. That’ll do the trick.”
“Try a crane first. Lift it straight up that way.”
The discussion expanded as the number of onlookers increased.
“My advice, if you asked me, I know you didn’t, but if you did, I’m just saying, if you asked my advice, I’d tell you to just give up. Quit.”
“Listen to the man, Denny. That thing’s waterlogged. The tree won’t float.”
Denny groaned and pushed with his shoulder and wrestled the timber as though it was a creature from another world bent on his destruction.
“Who knows how deep it dug itself in? That could be one mighty trunk.”
“What’s wrong with you, Denny?”
“Why are you doing this again? Anybody asked you that yet?”
Dozens had, and the man knew it, too. Denny paused to take a breather. The day was not that hot and standing to his hips in cool water he was reasonably comfortable despite his toil. But this one log required more than the sum total of his strength, and more help than his tools could muster.
Still, he returned to the labour undeterred. More people were coming by and the growing crowd attracted others. Finally, a logger whom Denny only vaguely knew suggested, “I got a pickup with a front-end winch on it, Den. Want to try that?”
Nothing else would do, and Denny said yes, with thanks. The first words he spoke since entering into combat with this log.
“Hang on. I’ll be back in a few,” the man let him know.
■ ■ ■
Hand in hand, Tara and Ryan strolled along the shore path. They stopped near the scene of Denny’s activity. Tara chose to sit on one of the park’s boulders, positioned as strategically as a landscape architect might locate a sculpture, serving lovers to sit upon, children to play upon, and daydreamers to absently admire or even stroke. During the river’s fire, Tara found Mrs. McCracken seated upon this very rock, having resorted to the stone in her dismay and sorrow, a memory that comforted her now.
Ryan kissed her, then they nudged in closer to each other.
“Look,” he said. He did not mean for her to gaze elsewhere, rather, he was directing her attention upon himself. He did not usually indulge in this sort of preamble.
“What?” she asked him.
“I have a story, too,” he explained.
“So if you tell me yours, I have to tell you mine, is that what this is about?” She smiled and squeezed his knee.
He shrugged. “Look,” he said again. “No deals. I’ll just tell you mine.”
“Okay,” she agreed. She expected little more than a tale of woe about his love life. Bless him, he was a simple man.
“So, my first big crush came early. If I fell for this girl later on in high school, maybe we’d write a different chapter, but that’s something I just like to imagine, I guess. Anyway, kids’ stuff, too early to be anything but hapless. I should have tried again a couple of years later, but the first experience was so fraught with ineptitude and embarrassment that I wasn’t ready to go there. But I never really stopped being attracted either, so I did try again, only this time we were all grown up and in our twenties.”
He intended only a brief pause to organize his story, but Tara seized the chance to offer up her own speculative shorthand. “So she broke your heart.”
He smiled. “She didn’t give me that chance, at least not to be deeply heartbroken. Over before I could blink. Since those innocent days of high school she became what even you might call a complicated girl. In every way. Take that to mean whatever you want because she lived up to the billing. Neurotic in so many ways I couldn’t keep track. And a party animal. Always into the latest thing no matter what it was. Pretty, though. But one date with me and the public attention that that fanned, which wasn’t so sensational, really, warned her not to get involved with a cop. Certainly not this cop. She didn’t want to be in the public eye, or seen as somebody expected to be a do-gooder, like me. I noticed on our first date that the bottom of her purse was littered with twigs and seeds and I said something. Which was dumb. No big deal, but our second date consisted entirely of her explaining to me why there was never going to be a third date. But there was a third, and a few more, I was a bear for punishment, but it kept coming around to the same issue. I was into her, she wasn’t reciprocating, while she was crazy and I wasn’t. So I was getting the message but not acting on it and then she lowered the boom. Not quite a broken heart because early on I’d come to the conclusion that we were impossible. But it was a ride and then, you know, afterward I did feel bruised. I missed her. But the problem was, I came out of it feeling discouraged, in a real way, especially seeing that my job diminished my chances with certain girls. To counter that disappointment, I got involved with someone almost right away, the first girl who would have me, and this time it was with someone I should definitely have left alone.”
“Because it was a rebound?”
His expression was noncommittal on that. “If I took my time, I might’ve figured things out sooner rather than later. By the time I caught on, I was in too deep. Not to be mean, but she was mean. Hard to detect, at first.”
Tara thought to add a lighthearted remark, but a cautionary intuitive notion caught her tongue. He suddenly seemed quite far away.
“Her name was Maria—the girl I had the schoolboy thing for. She was killed in a traffic accident, driving to Hamilton to see a friend.”
Tara leapt to the story that Mrs. McCracken told in the cemetery over a young woman’s grave. She tried to pull up the name on the marker in her mind’s eye. “I’m sorry, Ryan. For her, of course. For you. Did Mrs. McCracken tell me about her? Something about a delayed autopsy?”
Ryan nodded. “Ten years ago. You should have known Mrs. McCracken then. A firebrand. I helped her out a bit. Gave her my counsel on some things she knew nothing about—jurisdiction, protocol, what you could say without being hauled into court for slander, that sort of thing. She thanked me for that, then she thanked me for helping her out the time she cracked her head on ice. I didn’t know what she was talking about, and she thought I was demented for not remembering. But one day I had a flash. I checked with Denny. Sure enough, she was mixing us up. He had helped her, although he said he didn’t know she cracked her head, only hurt her hip. I think that was the first time she mixed us up, but since then she’s never kept us straight.”
Gently, Tara stroked his forearm.
“So what happened with you and your new girl?”
“Never meant to be. We weren’t happy from the get-go. Certainly I wasn’t. We fell apart, as though, after Maria’s death, I had no reason to be with this other woman, since I’d only gotten involved with her on the rebound from Maria in the first place. Stuff surfaced at home. What we kept on the side reared up. Recriminations all around. Antipathy. She said a few things I’d call slander, that’s for sure. I found out what it means to be a compulsive liar. In one sense, it was just a breakup, but in another it was so messy and mad and so damned public that it wrecked me. I still can’t believe I stayed so long with someone so controlling and so basically unkind, to me and to everyone else. I lost confidence in my choices. So that’s all there is to it. Small-town heartstrings. No biggie.”
The River Burns Page 40