The driveway curved again and Camelot was lost to view. The old macadam showed through up here. It was easier to walk now but Sunny panted a bit. She looked a little feverish, clutching her cardboard box to her chest. Dec offered to carry it. She turned away.
“We’re Talking,” said Sunny. “I’m telling Suki what a Great Time she’ll have being a Memory.”
One more year, thought Dec. I’ll be out of here and this whole place will become a memory. But when, through the maples, he finally caught sight of the tower, the peaked roofline, the many gables and chimney stacks — he felt an ache inside.
They rounded the final curve and the big house sprang fully into view. Light glinted off the glass of the conservatory. The newly budding maples shhhhhed in the breeze. There was always wind up here.
Steeple Hall. The words were carved in stone above the entranceway with a shamrock on either side. Sunny broke into a run. Her yellow boots made a galumphing noise on the wide stone pathway.
She waited for him by the door, wiggling like a puppy back from a walk. Dec dug out the long brass key. The tumblers turned. Sunny pushed open the door.
He smelled it before he saw it, a disturbing scent on the dry, old air. The frosted-glass vestibule door was slightly ajar. Sunny slithered out of her boots, pushed open the door and stopped dead.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
A glass-panelled bookcase had fallen. The spacious front hallway was lined with bookcases over three metres high and a metre wide on the eastern wall. One of those cases lay before them. Books were strewn everywhere. A bronze bust of Plato lay at Sunny’s feet. She stepped back into her brother’s arms.
Then they saw the hand.
Their eyes found it at the same moment. It was sticking out from under the massive pile of debris, the fingers curled into a claw. Sunny muttered Dec’s name quietly, like a prayer.
He held his sister close. His eyes darted to the parlour on his left, the drawing room on his right, and down the long passageway to the study. No sound came to him but the steady tock of the grandfather clock and Sunny breathing fast through her mouth. Nothing moved. And when he dared to look again, the hand had not moved, either. It was clutching something. He saw a glint of gold.
Sunny dropped her box of Polly Pockets and Dec was jolted out of his stupor. He lifted his sister up and sat her on the old church pew in the vestibule with her box of toys on her lap. She didn’t argue until he turned to head back into the house.
“Just stay put,” he said.
The bookshelf was solid oak. It took all of his strength to budge it. Books still trapped behind a lattice of wood and broken glass tumbled out. His great-grandfather’s legal books. One of them, as heavy as an anvil, fell on his foot. He cut himself on a shard of glass and pressed his hand hard against his pant leg.
The man was buried in law books, drowning in a green and gold sea. Dec knelt down and pulled away the rubble until he uncovered the man’s face. He had never seen a corpse before, but there was a dullness to the battered face that quickly made him abandon any idea of heroic rescue. You could not attempt mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on lips that blue and swollen.
Then he saw the Chinese letters tattooed on the man’s neck and gasped.
“Mr. Play-Doh.”
He swung around. Sunny was in the doorway again, wide-eyed, clutching one of her dolls and crouching by the bust lying on its side by the door. “Mr. Play-Doh is hurt,” she said.
“He’ll be okay,” said Dec, turning her away and closing the door on the grisly scene. They hurried down the steps and across the drive. Dec turned, half afraid that a dead man might be following them. But what he saw, or thought he saw, stopped him in his tracks.
His mother.
She was standing at an upstairs window, dressed as Wonder Woman, her fingertips resting on the glass, an expectant look on her face. For a few seconds, the sun glinted off her golden tiara. Then she vanished.
“What are you looking at?” asked Sunny, looking at the same window, her hand shielding her eyes.
“Nothing,” he answered, taking Sunny’s hand.
“Not so tight,” she said, as they set off towards Camelot. “Not so fast.”
Neither of them spoke again until they were almost home.
“Who was that man?” she asked at last.
“Nobody we know,” he said.
But that was only half true.
The Water-Haulage Man
IT HAD BEEN three weeks ago. He was not supposed to hitchhike. It had been drummed into Dec since he was a kid. But he was almost sixteen; he wasn’t a kid anymore. Besides, it was an emergency. He had to get home, and when you lived half an hour out of town in deep country, there weren’t that many options.
He hadn’t known about the Art Club meeting to talk about next fall’s trip to New York. He hadn’t known about Dad going to Kingston for the day, either. He only found out when he phoned home for a lift. That’s when he learned that Sunny’s babysitter had a chiropractor’s appointment and could only stay until five. Birdie wouldn’t be finished work until six.
It was that simple.
He had already walked to the western edge of town, when the water-haulage truck pulled over. Dec almost choked as he opened the door. The cab was so filled with smoke it might have been on fire. He started coughing and backed down the step.
“Jesus on life support!” said the driver. “Sorry, man.” He rolled down his window and flicked his cigarette outside. He started making a noise like a fire alarm as he waved his arms at the fug in the cab. “Damn stupid habit, eh?” he said and laughed.
Through the clearing smoke, Dec noticed the man’s teeth. They were movie star teeth, a little yellow but straight and lots of them. He was somewhere in his thirties with a terrible mullet and big sideburns and Chinese letters tattooed the length of his neck. But his smile was infectious. If Dec had second thoughts about accepting a ride in a moving smokehouse, the smile charmed him into the cab. He slammed the door and the water-haulage man worked through the gears to get his rig back on the road. There wasn’t much traffic on County Road 10. There never was.
“Here,” said the driver, reaching into his shirt pocket. He handed Dec a crumpled pack of Players.
“I don’t smoke,” said Dec.
“Me, neither,” said the driver, talking loudly over the drone of the engine. “Do me a favour and get rid of’em.” He burst out laughing again. “Save me from myself, buddy. Save me!“
Dec reluctantly took the package. He felt like the butt of a joke he didn’t get. The driver’s eyes were glittering or maybe just watering from the rush of air coming in through his wide-open window. Now he flashed his movie star teeth again. “If I tossed ’em out the cab, I might get pulled over for littering, right? And I don’t want to give the cops no excuse. No way. Not with my rep.”
Dec nodded. He slipped the mostly empty cigarette package into his breast pocket. For some reason, the driver roared with laughter again. Dec grasped the door handle.
“I’m already breakin’ the law,” the man said. Without taking his eyes off the road, he leaned towards Dec. “And you’re my accomplice.” They were rolling along by now. There was no chance of escape. Dec glanced at the driver, who was smiling through squinty eyes. “You’re in over your head, kiddo,” he added. “You’re in big time.”
Dec stared at the tattoo on his neck. The man turned and flashed another smile. “You’re thinking, ‘Jesus H. Christ, I just hitched myself the ride from hell.’ Am I right or am I right?”
Dec shrugged, and that set the driver chuckling again. “You want to know my crime?” he asked. He didn’t wait for a reply. “‘Course you do, being my accomplice and all. Well, I’m taking this here back road so as not to get weighed.” He glanced at Dec. “I said weighed, boy. W-E-I… whatever. Get it?”
Dec didn’t.
“You see, the Department of Transport up there on Highway 7 got their weigh station open today and I’ve got too much load on.” He poin
ted with his thumb over his shoulder. “Just water,” he said reassuringly.
Dec managed a grin. The guy was harmless. “You sure it’s not bootleg liquor?” he asked.
The driver cocked an eyebrow. “Now, there’s a plan,” he said. “You got any?” Dec chuckled. “We could be a team,” the man continued. “You source things out, ride shotgun, I lug the stuff.”
Dec nodded. They were nearing Cupar. It was only fifteen minutes past Cupar to his place.
“We could start off small. Just water,” the driver said. “We could steal all the water in Lanark County.”
The laughter burst out of Dec before he could stop it.
“Eh?” said the driver. “You up for that?”
Dec nodded. “Count me in.”
“Good stuff.” The driver rolled up his window to block out the noise. Dec watched him reach for his cigarettes before remembering he had given them away. “After we drain the county dry, we could start in on milk. Dawn raids on all the dairy farms.”
Dec laughed again. “Sort of work our way up to the hard stuff?”
“Now you’re talking,” said the driver. “You are just reading my mind, mister. But that’s not the end of it. Hell, no! I’m thinking the big money is in nuclear waste.” Then he lowered his head and peered into his sideview mirror for a good long moment. He let out a showy sigh of relief. “Phewww! Thought we had the fuzz on our tail there for a minute.”
Dec turned to look. The road was dead empty for as far back as he could see.
“I know this secret road up ahead,” he said. It was a foolish comment, just something to say. Just to keep the conversation rolling.
“That’s good to know,” said the driver. “Secret roads come in handy when you’re messin’ with stolen goods. What is it? An old prisoner-of-war camp or something like that?”
They were gearing down to pass through Cupar. Dec checked his watch. He would be home in plenty of time. This had worked out okay, he thought. Not only a ride, but a stand-up comic as well.
“It’s where the county road sort of swerves south,” he said, slouching in his seat.
“I know the spot. A few miles up ahead, right?”
Dec nodded. “The old county road used to follow the river. But there’s this big hill in the way and it gets too narrow for a two-lane. So they built the new road.”
The driver nodded, genuinely interested, and Dec realized he had said too much. The deserted road cut across the back end of the Steeple estate. It wasn’t public knowledge.
“It never hurts to have a hidey-hole or two,” said the water-haulage man, and he flashed Dec an easy grin.
Dec turned to look out his window. The Eden River came into view, turgid and brown, thick with run-off and yet still frozen in places along the banks. His companion was humming now. Everything was fine, Dec told himself, until the truck started to slow down.
At first he thought there was engine trouble. But there was no rattle, no smoke. The driver brought the rig to a stop without even pulling over.
“Is that the road?” he said.
They were at the very point where the two-lane highway started its long slow curve south, directly in front of the entrance to the old road. There was a deep ditch bridged by an overgrown and crumbling culvert. Beyond it the brush closed in.
You would never see it. Never. Not unless you were looking for it. If you were driving, you’d be too busy following the pavement, your gaze drifting southward. If you were a passenger, you’d likely be looking at the view to your right, where the Eden widened and was lined with willows, as pretty as a picture on a calendar.
“It’s completely grown over,” said Dec, backtracking nervously. “I wouldn’t want to take a chance.” He didn’t turn to meet the driver’s eye. He imagined this guy was crazy enough to try it.
But the water-haulage man just laughed. And then he stopped laughing. He wasn’t looking at the old road anymore. His eyes had wandered up to the tree-covered hilltop.
“Will you just look at that,” he whispered.
Dec didn’t need to look. Were it summer, the crest of the hill would have been a sea of green. In fall it was a sea of red. Only in winter or in early spring, like right now, before the leaves had unfurled, could you hope to catch a glimpse of Steeple Hall. Even then it took a keen eye to see it. You had to stare at the exact right place until the tower and chimneys and gables detached themselves from the camouflage of distance and forest and became something solid, something man-made.
Dec grunted. Then he made a point of looking at his watch. Once again the water-haulage man put the truck in gear, but this time without a word. Another couple of minutes and the road curved west and soon enough they came to Camelot. A plain split-level you would never look at twice.
“This one is me,” said Dec.
The driver applied his air brakes and brought the truck to a stop right at Dec’s driveway. “Hey, now ain’t that something!” he said. Dec followed his gaze to the mailbox on the other side of the road. It was a replica of Steeple Hall. His father had built it in his spare time. And since his father had nothing but spare time, it was intricately done, a marvel of craftsmanship. A passerby wasn’t likely to know about the house upon which it was modelled. But when the driver turned to shake Dec’s hand, the boy could see that he had made the connection, all right.
“Adios,” he said. “Nice to meet you.” He pumped Dec’s hand. “Amigo,” he added with a grin, his eyes shining like all get out.
Open and Shut
DEC STEEPLE slouched on a lawn chair wrapped in one of Birdie’s shawls. He was pretending that the thin April sunshine was warmer than it really was. A book about the South Pacific lay open on his lap. It was a birthday present from Birdie. Somewhere in the middle of all this he had turned sixteen. “Isn’t that one of the places you plan to travel?” she had said. And the look in her eye seemed to suggest that she was ready to help him pack any time soon.
But the glossy picture book lay unattended. He was reading the Ladybank Expositor instead.
The story of the intruder’s death had made the front page of the weekly. Sunny sat on the deck happily killing off one of her Barbie dolls, burying her under a deluge of accessories.
“Read it Again,” said Sunny.
Dec didn’t have the energy to argue. “B and E Ends in Fatality,” he read.
“Beundee?”
“Break and entry. Its when you force your way into a place.” He showed her the headline.
“More,” she said.
And so Dec read more.
A local man died last Thursday night after a break-in of a deserted house on County Road 10, west of Cupar. Dennis Runyon, 35, was found crushed to death under a heavy bookcase in Steeple Hall, once the residence of Senator Michael Shaughnessy Steeple, founder of Steeple Enterprises and Member of Parliament for Lanark and Renfrew, in the thirties.
Runyon, who grew up in Ladybank, had not lived in the area for many years. He returned only last fall. He was currently an employee of Eden Mobile Wash and Water Haulage. Ted McHugh, manager of Eden, expressed his sorrow at the news. “He was a lot of fun to have around,” said McHugh. “He’ll be missed.”
Bernard Steeple’s son discovered the corpse of Dennis Runyon.
“Liar!” cried Sunny, her voice hot with indignation. “I discovered him.”
“Well, they can’t say that,” said Dec. “You’re too young.”
Sunny made a face and then proceeded to squash Barbie under a red Ferrari.
“You don’t want to call any case open and shut,” said Constable Dwayne Hannah of the Ontario Provincial Police. “But at the moment it looks as if the death was accidental.” Police believe that in trying to reach a valuable statuette, Runyon brought down the bookcase on himself. Constable Hannah went on to say that a Forensic unit has been brought in from Toronto and the investigation would continue. There will be an inquest.
“But it isn’t valuable,” muttered Dec.
“What?�
�
“The statuette, Plato. It’s not worth all that much.”
“Because he’s got no Brains,” said Sunny, and laughed.
Right, thought Dec. The bust of Plato was heavy, hollow and worthless. It made no sense. He read on.
Runyon had a record of petty thefts and misdemeanours dating back to his youth, but had “cleaned up his act” according to Clarence Mahood, a boyhood friend of the deceased.
The last resident of the Hall was Bernard Steeple, grandson of the senator. He and his family still live nearby. He keeps up the historic property.
He keeps up the historic property, thought Dec. His father: part historian, part janitor. He let the paper fall to his lap, closed his eyes. Began to drift into sleep.
Not a good move.
The nightmare is waiting for him, hiding just beyond his consciousness, a tanker trailer of a nightmare, barrelling across the lawns of Steeple Hall, bearing down on the big house. Dec is at the wheel but nothing works — not the steering, not the brakes. He looks up and sees his mother standing directly in his path. She has her hands on her hips and a grim smile on her face. She isn’t going to move for anyone. She is Wonder Woman, invincible.
“Deckly Speckly?”
Dec’s eyes snapped open. Sunny was tugging on his pant leg.
“You were Snivelling,” she said.
He sat up, wiped his eyes. “Was not,” he said.
“Was, too.”
“I was thinking.”
“Me, too,” said Sunny. “I was thinking how the paper got it All Wrong. Mr. Play-Doh wasn’t On the book case.”
Dec looked at her, a little dim-witted. Sunny was staring at him impatiently.
“’Member? ’Member you put your baseball cap on him?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your Raptors cap,” she said, patting the top of her head.
“You put it on Mr. Play-Doh. You said, ‘Yo, Play-Doh. Wazzup!’” She giggled. “‘Member?”
He did remember. The bust of Plato had been on the side table near the vestibule door. His father had been painting the hall ceiling; there had been a tarp spread over the bookcase. When had that been? Tuesday or Wednesday. He had gone up with Sunny a day or two before the accident.
A Thief in the House of Memory Page 2