The River Burns (32 page)

“Not yet.”

“That bothers me.”

“What do you mean, our flaws?” André asked him.

“Ryan's not on the case. The SQ is taking this one up, because the bridge was so valuable. That makes it a major crime. When the property damage is that high, the SQ has to come in, the local cops bug out.”

Denny drank from his bottle and for the first time that evening, the beer tasted good. He knew that he was figuring something out. He was guessing that he finally had help, and was surprised by the source of that assistance.

“Oh shit,” André said.

“Provincial Police,” Samad said. “I will be a Butterball.”

“You guys don't get it,” Denny stressed. “Ryan showed us what to do.”

“He did not indicate no such thing like that to me,” Samad insisted. “You are the one who does not get this.” For the first time he shouted,
“He spread butter on my ass. Do you get that, Denny?”

Probably Valérie was listening all along. In any case, she poked her head out to say, “You will not raise your voices. My kids are trying to sleep. They will not hear you talking because you're going to be quiet. The next man who raises his voice goes home.” Not waiting around for anyone's acquiescence, she shut the door.

Samad apologized to Denny. “Sorry, man. But he did not help me out.”

Xavier seemed to understand. He drew himself in from his sprawl on the bench and sat up straight. He noted, “He has to cover his own ass.”

“Of course he does,” Denny agreed.

André seemed to draw an understanding as well. “I can handle the SQ, but Samad . . . ?” He let his voice trail off.

Denny and Xavier nodded in concurrence.

“What about Samad?” Samad inquired. “I can handle SQ.”

Denny tapped the base of his beer bottle against Samad's thigh. “You're too nice a guy, Samad. You have no experience at being a lying shit at heart, not like the rest of us. So handle this,” he instructed him. “An SQ cop
interrogates
you, asks you a question, you say, ‘I wanna talk to my lawyer first.'”

Samad looked around at his friends. “We got lawyers now? Who?”

“I don't know who,” Denny fumed. “Do I look like somebody who knows lawyers?”

“So how come Ryan never talked to me?” Xavier wondered.

“He knows you were with us,” added André.

“Thanks to you,” Xavier reiterated.

André got mad but managed to keep his voice down even as his resentment leaked out. “I told him sweet fuck all but it didn't matter. Tell him nothing, it's still like you gave away the password to your online bank account.”

“The point is,” Denny intervened, feeling hopeful for the first time in a couple of days. He was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and hoping that it wasn't a train. “Everybody says sweet fuck all from now on. If the SQ claim that they got us on video, they're lying. Whatever line they string you, it's not live bait, no. Don't fall for it. You had no idea what you were up against before. Now you do.”

“How come?” Samad needed this explained.

“Because my brother gave you a dry run, Samad. He's not investigating the case. It's not his case. He gave you a taste of what it will be like, a chance to do better next time. So do better next time. What will you say?”

Samad thought it over. “I want to talk to my lawyer first. A lawyer I don't have, but maybe I will have one soon.”

“Not that last part. The first part is fine.”

“I don't sound guilty?”

“Do you want your ass barbecued or not?” Denny pressed him.

“Not.”

“Good. If a cop says you sound guilty because you want a lawyer, tell him that people in town are telling lies about you. You need to protect yourself against those rumours and lies.”

“What rumours? What lies?” Xavier asked him, assuming the role of an officer.

“I want only to see my lawyer. First, I want to find one, then I want to go see him.”

“Same goes for everybody,” Denny said. “But look, there's one more mistake you made tonight. Do you know what it is?”

No one had a clue.

“Ryan questioned two of you, and right after that you three came running over here to see me, putting the four of us together. Don't do that, okay? When the SQ calls, and they will, don't call each other up, and for fuck's sakes don't run to me. If it was the SQ who talked to you tonight, and they didn't know who the fourth man was, or the third, or the second, they would know now, just by following one of you here and seeing who else showed up. Remember, we don't know who the SQ will talk to first, second, or third. No contact afterwards, until we see each other on the job, like usual. Okay?”

They agreed that next time they would do things properly.

In close unison, the three visitors polished off their beers and this time each shook Denny's hand. Xavier and André nudged his shoulder, and Samad shared a knuckle bump with him. When it seemed that they might take too long, Valérie came out onto the porch, and they said their final good-byes to her as well and went on their way. Val sat in a chair close to her husband.

The night air was lovely, the darkness pervasive now.

They sat together in silence awhile.

“Kids down?” Denny asked.

“Oh yeah,” she answered. “Denny,” she started, but her impetus stalled, and she waited awhile.

Denny spoke next. He braved the threshold he'd been unwilling to cross, to include her. “I'm sorry about this, you know.”

“Are you? Does it do any good, being sorry?”

He didn't know what to make of the question, and felt his defences rising. So he gave it time to let a visceral reaction pass.

“At this point, Denny,” she went on, “regret doesn't mean much. I might lose my husband to a prison cell. My children will be without their father for who knows how long. With no income, the house will be gone, and then what?”

“Val, I don't think that—” He meant to say that he did not believe that things would come to that, but she stopped him short.

“That's right. You don't think. You believe that everything will work out in the end. Well, you know, I've always loved you for your optimism, Denny. But I never thought I was married to a criminal, and now, apparently, I am.”

“Val.”

“I hate this, Denny.” She spoke quietly. “Do you get that? Are you hearing me? We're in danger now. We're in big fucking trouble. No matter what you intended, or what you expected, it wasn't this, but this, this is what we've got.”

“Val. Listen.”

“No, Denny. I don't want to hear it. I don't care what you want to say. Just fix this. Somehow, some way, before our lives get washed down the drain, fix this. Do what you have to do, but for fuck's sake, fix this.”

A great breath expired from her, and she slumped forward to let it just go, to allow her grievances and pain and worry to slide loose. She just couldn't bear it anymore, this descent into an oblivion that she foresaw as inevitable but which Denny was denying as even remotely possible. In this matter, she knew she was right and that he was misguided. She wanted to get him to face reality or everything they both cared about would be forever lost. All that might be lost anyway.

“Old Mrs. McCracken,” she let him know, “started up a petition today to build a new old bridge.”

“That won't fly.”

“People are angry, Denny. When people are angry, strange things happen. You, more than anyone, should know that.”

Finally, she rose from her seat, leaned across to kiss his forehead, then left him there. Denny stared out into the night, wondering why his body felt so turbulent, how a pain without any physical origin could so intensely gnaw through his arms and torso.

■   ■   ■

As Denny blindly stepped into
the ambient dark of his bedroom an hour later, he came upon Valérie still up, her body curled in the light of a streetlamp and contorted on the small bench seat by the window. Her fingers clutched the toes of one foot. He suspected that he might be in for another scuffle, but her mood had undergone a sea change.

“I'm sorry,” Val said. He stood beside her. She put her feet down on the floor and rested her head against his tummy, and he held her there awhile.

Then he sat down next to her as she slid over. She used a handy tissue to dab an eye, then a nostril.

“I don't mean it,” she said. “You can't fix this. If you can, you will, but saying fix this . . .” She raised and lowered her left arm. “The guys put that kind of pressure on you when they wanted the problem with the bridge fixed. Look where that got you. You did something incredibly dumb, Denny. So I'm not saying fix this.”

“Because you don't know what the hell I'll do.”

He meant to add a dash of levity, and perhaps succeeded, yet she found truth in the statement. “That's right. I don't know what the hell you'll do.”

She reached out a hand, which he clasped.

“I'm guessing you thought this would go away, that nobody would say boo, nothing would happen. Burned bridge. No proof. That's that. Let's move on. Let's build a fancy new one. Maybe that'll happen. Why not? Nobody saw you do it, right?”

“Just out of curiosity,” he asked, “how come you think I did it?”

“You'd've told me by now if you didn't. At least we have that much to rely on. You're not up for a lie of that magnitude. Not with me, anyway. I hope you're up to it with the rest of the world.”

She grew concerned when he did not reply.

“No heroics, Denny, right?”

“No heroics,” he reassured her.

“It's hard to imagine how this will work out well. If it works out badly, I'll have to get a job.”

“Come on.”

“I will. This is what I'm facing, Denny. The kids . . .”

“What about the kids?”

“Never tell them the truth. Promise me that. Right now they're sticking up for you among their friends. They'll be devastated. Boy-Dan's already disturbed. I guess he's heard some things. I mean, I don't want you to lie to him, but you can't let him down right now. You can't ever say to him that you did it. He'll be so disappointed in you. Please, Denny. Promise me.”

“Sshh, shh,” he motioned, and took her back into his embrace.

“It's not just that. Their disappointment. Denny, if they know the truth, they'll say it. If they say it, you're doomed. We'll be wrecked. For sure, Denny.”

“Okay,” he soothed her. “Let me talk to him. I won't lie but I won't tell him anything. I'll come up with something.”

“He's got questions. You're away all day. You don't hear this stuff. But you should hear his questions.”

Denny was avoiding the kids when he got home. In part, because they were looking at him strangely, and were unusually silent. They kept their questions to themselves in his presence, afraid, perhaps, of accusing their father of doing something bad. That just seemed so impossible, so unreal. He didn't know what to say to smooth things over.

“I'll work it out. That much at least, I'll work it out.”

“Denny, you can't. That's the point. You can't work this out. None of it.”

They held each other, and squeezed, until it seemed that one or the other might slip off the padded bench. They undressed with an overt weariness, and managed their ablutions under the bathroom's bright light before they collapsed into bed in the dark. The night seemed especially quiet, a distant raccoon fight the sole interruption. Denny detected the change in his wife's breathing, glad to know that she was able to sleep tonight. She slept only fitfully of late. She was exhausted. He thought that he might be capable of doing the same, but his mind refused to slow down. The night of the fire skimmed through his mind, and Denny sensed that thinking about it might cause the memory to unravel, to twist, turn, and snap undone. What happened could not be reversed. He still couldn't believe how that bridge broke off and fell into the river, staying upright, and how it floated away. What happened to the bridge, he was beginning to fear, just as surprisingly, could happen to him.

19

F
rom the moment he awakened, Ryan was nettled by an urge to go fishing. He supposed the desire was born from a forgotten thread in a dream, or subconsciously he just wanted to be away somewhere, yet the notion persisted and occupied his fantasy life on through the morning. Gazing out his office window, he was indulging in some imaginative casting and feeling disgruntled that that was not going to happen anytime soon, not in the real world anyway, when an American sedan pulled up. Two men stepped out.

“Cops.” He spoke under his breath to the empty room.

They weren't in uniform but he concluded that if those two guys weren't SQ detectives they were hawking broadloom. Since nobody sold carpet door to door these days the investigation of the bridge fire was officially under way.

He regarded the men as they crossed the parking lot and approached the entrance to the police station. Of average height, yet with large frames, he counted one as overweight while the other, equally heavy, struck him as muscular and reasonably fit. The more robust sported either a Mediterranean complexion or a particularly notable tan, but given his profession Ryan didn't believe he put in the necessary hours on a beach or in a tanning salon. This one wanted to move more rapidly, slowing his pace only to suit the other, an indication that the superior rank belonged to the portly cop. Both detectives already looked bored and the day was barely off the ground, which suited Ryan's overall strategy. In his experience, outside cops in a new town with only one case on the docket habitually were undermined by boredom, which in turn led to inertia, which fostered an inevitable carelessness.

A woman in her thirties happened to be departing the premises as the visitors lurched up the walk, which elicited a smile from the detective with the olive skin and brokered one in return. Stepping aside graciously and with some flourish he gave her room to pass, then let his eyes follow her gentle motion. In the wake of that mildly flirtatious exchange, the second man with the higher rank came across as grumpy. He scowled. Before entering the building, he succumbed to an obligation to tuck in his shirt dislodged by the movement of his protuberant belly. A job that clearly irritated him.

Ryan O'Farrell, consciously taking a deep breath to help him relax, pressed a button on the intercom. “Francine, two SQ just arrived. Show them through, please.” A moment later he pressed the button again. “Francine? Are you there?”

Silence.

He stood to fetch them himself from the corridor.

■   ■   ■

Tara came to expect disputes
between herself and her partner at Potpourri that required debating a master of the passive-aggressive repertoire. Yet she failed to catalogue a major sore point between them. She suspected that he was of a mind to be ornery on every issue, to wear down her resources, perhaps, and to lay claim to a perceived notion of dominance. While his insecurities ran amok, she believed that his recent run of prickly opposition to every suggestion she brought forward was part of a larger scheme, and to combat that design she needed to scope out his overall plan. What, oh what on earth could he be up to? He didn't want her gone, she gathered, although she conceded that her confidence in that opinion might be misplaced. As far as she could tell he wanted to remain in business with her. What he might be after, then, was to formally shape and limit her contribution. Or at least position her influence in such a way that it better suited him. To what end remained a mystery.

She dearly hoped that it was not his intention to propose.
Crikes!
Hard to tell with that guy. That was the one possibility that would wreck everything.

In retrospect, she grasped that she ought to have anticipated his attitude to her latest project. As with most of their disputes, she could muddle through the specifics with him, winning lesser contests while still not seeing the broader canvas of what the stakes entailed. Tara took the initiative to encourage local artisans to drop by and pitch their wares, only to hear that Willis Howard carried on a running feud with every craftsperson whom he deemed, with disdain,
local
. She extracted from him that he accepted the necessity of artists in their line of work, but in his estimation no one living within a hundred-kilometre radius of the store could possibly be adequate for their enterprise. Even someone marginally beyond the border of that circumference was cutting the matter too close for comfort.

“Willis, what's up with that? You can't be serious.”

“Why would anyone,” he argued, exhibiting a strapping self-­assurance, previously concealed, “with even a smidgen of talent, live near here?”

“Seriously? Extrapolate that line of thinking throughout the world, Willis, and no artist would live anywhere.”

He was adamant. “If you're a great artist, move somewhere. Anywhere. Somewhere better. You can, you see. You're not tied down.”

“So, it's not that you subscribe to the theory that the only good artist is a dead one—which, you know, has some prevalence in the world—but in your rationale the only good artist is one who's skipped the country.”

“Artists can live anywhere on the planet, that's my point. If they're any good, why live here?”

“I hate to break it to you, Willis. Any craftsperson who can afford to pack up and move to the South Pacific—is that your fantasy? The Gauguin thing? Or does it have to be a New York-London-Paris–type thing? Anyway, that person doesn't sell their stuff here. We don't have the clientele. And nobody, anywhere, is a better artist by mere virtue of living somewhere else.”

“You don't understand,” he complained, and she agreed, she didn't. “Local artists come by.”

“They—come by?” At least he was trying to explain. “Okay. So?”

“To see if I've sold their stuff. Then they want to show me how to present their work. Where to put it and how to light it. They want to rearrange my store and instruct me on what I should say about their wares.”

“They want their work in the window, I suppose,” she said, and she was bending, beginning to detect his point. “Of course, that's one of your gripes against me. I want to rearrange things.”

“This is different. No matter what I do for them, I don't do enough. I'm taking too big a share, I don't appreciate art, I don't know retail, I'm a neophyte, or a troglodyte, I don't understand colour or design or I'm not original enough, or forceful enough, I'm a stick-in-the-mud or I've got one up my rear, I should be shot for merely breathing or for not taking their advice, at the very least I'm forced to listen to an endless litany of grievances followed by a harangue of heavy-handed suggestions. So I banned them from my store. Outright. The exceptions are those who seem timid—although you still have to watch out for those ones, too. They have tricks up their sleeves, I've noticed.”

Tara didn't mean to laugh but she couldn't help it. “Okay. I get it. You
do
have a point. But I can't choose an artist based on his or her level of timidity. I forgot that we discussed this a while back.” She leaned over the counter, content now to further forge their alliance. “I'm to deal with the artists, that's our arrangement. Which is what I'm doing. But you have to let me choose them, and with the exception of a few who might not be worth the trouble, I'll base my judgements on the merit of their work. If they come back through the doors to complain, they will address me, and I'll take care of them. I'm not afraid to spank an artist.”

Willis remained up in arms. “Who decides, I want to know? Who can judge what work is good, what isn't?”

“I can,” she told him. “At least, I will. It's my store—you know what I mean—my section of the store. So I'll choose and after that, either the public will accept them or reject them.”

“It won't be your only problem.”

She was enjoying his endless protestations now. She let herself be amused given that he could be exhausting otherwise. “What else, Willis? What am I missing now?”

“They're drug addicts.”

“Yeah, well, me, too. So there you go.”

At least he possessed the wherewithal to discern that his own chain was being royally yanked. “Fine. Make light. It's your funeral,” Willis pronounced. Despite that, she could tell that he also enjoyed the exchange.

“Maybe so,” she forewarned, “but it'll be yours if you don't get cracking on my lemonade machine.”

“About that,” he intimated.

“Now what?”

“You heard that Mrs. McCracken started selling lemonade at the train station? I was thinking to let the old biddy keep that monopoly to herself.”

“A
,
”
Tara stressed, “this is a business and we are in competition with many other businesses.
B
, she only sells lemonade for an hour before the train leaves.
C
, I will make better lemonade than her and if we put her stand right out of business that's not our concern.
D
, I will also be getting her to bake and sell more pies, so you don't have to take her welfare into consideration. Okay?” She didn't wait for Willis to answer. “Okay,” she confirmed, thereby retiring him from the debate. He was foot-dragging on the lemonade issue and she wanted him to feel her displeasure.

“Fine.” He went off in a quantitative huff. She judged it a seven on the Richter scale.

Tara no sooner returned to her nook, happy with her performance in battle, than her peace was interrupted by Alex O'Farrell coming in with a woman who was, she guessed, approximately his age, perhaps five years older. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Willis was now edging his way back, positioning himself to eavesdrop.

“Alex, hi. How are you?”

He seemed to give the question more than casual consideration. “Not too bad,” he said, as if the conclusion surprised him. “Like an old pair of jeans, that's how I am. Looser through the hips and thighs. Sciatic nerve pain—markedly reduced. Ah, this is a neighbour of mine, Marley Buchanan. Marley, this is who I told you about—Tara.”

“I have a broomstick thicker than you,” the woman said.

“Ah. Okay. Hi,” Tara said. The new arrival's physical demeanour seemed strong and stout enough to intimidate a plough horse. This woman could snap her, she believed, like a cracker. “Do you fly on it?” Only after the words popped out did she realize that she may have issued an insult, but the woman took the comment as intended, laughing along.

Then Marley Buchanan explained, “You fixed him up pretty good.”

Tara looked from one to the other, unaccustomed to being at a loss.

“So we'll pay you, we decided,” Alex told her.

“Excuse me?”

“To start a class,” Marley filled her in. “We need a class.”

Tara hadn't previously considered it, but then, why not? Given Willis Howard's disapproving stance a short distance away, arms folded defiantly across his chest as if this new matter was even remotely his concern, the idea sounded both interesting and viable.

“We have more friends,” Marley assured her. “On our street alone.”

“We'll top the class at five, maybe six,” Tara piped up. “I won't travel. We'll do it upstairs. Okay?”

Shaking his head, his disapproval noted, Willis Howard wandered off to tend to his ongoing inventory assessment. That's the last thing he needed he was going to tell her when he caught an opportune moment. The last thing. People coming over to do
yoga
. Thumping on his ceiling.

■   ■   ■

Every time he spoke he
smiled. Ryan was surprised by how quickly he took a liking to Detective Vega. The man's card proclaimed his first name to be Enrique, but his friends, he said, called him Quique. He asked Ryan to do the same.

“Mexican,” Detective Luc Maltais let him know. “A Mex who's never been to Mexico, if you can believe that.”

“I'm Irish. Never been to Ireland yet. Someday, maybe. You ever been to France?” he asked Maltais.

“My people've been here awhile,” Maltais told him dryly, as though to suggest that the question was not relevant, a sourness to his tone. “But yeah, I been to France.”

“My people have been here awhile, too,” Ryan quipped, “not that that adds up to a mountain of marshmallows.” Ryan judged Maltais as a cop who wore a chip on his shoulder for so long he forgot why. The glum disposition was so comfortable and ingrained that it could no longer be jettisoned without a prefrontal lobotomy.

“I was conceived in Mexico,” Quique mentioned. “Born in Quebec City. So he considers me a transplant.”

“I consider you worse than that,” Maltais lamented, but left it there. Ryan could see where, over time, he might get to enjoy this guy, too. For an old cop he seemed okay, and really only looked a trifle worn. His curmudgeonly disposition, while prevalent, seemed theatrical and not genuinely derisive.