The River Burns (38 page)

“I might be in the market for a lawyer there, Joey. So I thought of you. My old pal. Who else?”

Joe Pavano waved him through to his office from the outer greeting area. His visitor sat in front of the broad desk and looked at pictures of Joey and his wife and kids. The man had more kids than Denny remembered, and he thought to make a joke about turning off the tap:
Holy cow, Joe, how do you get any lawyering done
with all those diapers?
But he held his breath. He sensed that he might sound desperate, and enormously uncomfortable, being here.

“We go back a long way,” Denny reminded him as the man fitted his girth into a black leather high-backed executive chair. He attributed the desk to being an Ikea piece as the fittings were familiar. Maybe he wouldn't cost so much.

“Yeah, we do,” Joe agreed. “We go back to when you pulled my pants down behind the dugout so the girls could laugh at my fat ass.”

“That happened?” Denny asked. He wanted to laugh.

“I don't intend to represent you, Denny.”

Suddenly he did feel desperate, and grasped that he had never felt quite so forlorn before. “Joey, come on, bygones, right? Harmless fun. You don't want to carry a grudge, right?”

“Sure I do. If you have a problem with that, too bad. But Denny. Come on. I do general practise. Family law, estate planning. If you want a divorce, I'm your guy, although I tend to prefer the wife's side. Criminal law I don't do.”

“I didn't tell you why I'm here.”

“You burned the bridge down, Denny, everybody knows that.”

“Everybody knows squat! Fuck you! You're a lawyer! You can't just spit out something like that. What about judge and jury? What about innocent until proven guilty?”

“You'll be charged unless your brother pulls a fast one. And found guilty.”

“Well thanks for nothing anyway.” Denny got to his feet.

“You're welcome. But here.” The lawyer scratched words on a pad, then tore off the sheet and handed it to him.

“What's this?”

“Major crime, Denny. Arson. A financial loss that can't be overstated. You'll need a city lawyer. These people can suggest a choice of names.”

Denny turned the sheet over in his fingers. “Okay. Thanks. Sorry about the, you know, the fat-ass thing. Do you think I can find a good one? Lawyer, I mean. Can a guy like me catch a break, do you think?”

“Depends on what you can afford. You'll probably need to put up your house and truck for collateral.”

Denny stared at him a moment. “I could lose my truck?”

Joe Pavano touched the fingertips of his left hand to those of his right, and nodded. “Not to mention your house. That's if you win. Losing will mean jail time. What do you think that will cost you?”

Denny sensed what Giuseppe Pavano saw, the blood draining from his face, although he felt it leave his body altogether. He entertained negative scenarios in this, but never went this far along or imagined the more frightening ramifications. His wife tried, and failed, to get him to face up to what was happening. Now it was all hitting home like a sledgehammer.

“Joey,” he whispered.

“I prefer Giuseppe, actually, now.”

“You have to help me, man.”

The lawyer indicated the sheet of paper in Denny's hands that listed the relevant agencies to call. “I already have. Good luck with all that, Denny.”

21

T
he movement commenced as imperceptible, developed into a trickle, then evolved into a steady migration. Officer Ryan O'Farrell noticed the early risers on the roadways, but deluded himself, believing that the few motivated to be early were excessively earnest rather than prescient. They proved to be both. A steady flow became a river of human and vehicular traffic into town and he finally got his head around the logistical problem that was rapidly developing. He accepted that assigning a single officer to handle traffic control for the funeral was a mistake.

Out on the highway well beyond the weedy north end of town, a dilapidated but popular service station drew down its broad garage doors and locked up. Scribbled on cardboard, a sign taped to the front window read:
BACK IN 3 HRS
.
Similar signs were stuck on the moribund pumps. The owner, two mechanics, and a gas jockey drove off the premises in a single car. Behind them travelled the beat-up vehicles from the camp down the road operated by Gordon “Skootch” Skotcher, and behind the relics in pickups and company Jeeps drove loggers, both truckers and woodsmen. Mill workers were the last in from that direction, en masse. They travelled into town where government offices remained open but the bakery was shutting for the rest of the morning and where, to the dismay of a few but to the surprise of none, the town's main supermarket posted a sign on the banister at only five minutes after ten to announce that its doors were closed.

Tourist shops awaiting the daily train lowered their blinds.

As the evidence mounted, Ryan reacted to his problem. The rookie assigned to traffic would soon be overwhelmed, so he called others in from their rounds and roused two men off shift to report for duty. He confirmed his predicament driving past an artery already crammed with cottagers and city folk and perhaps a few from farther afield. He put on his revolving lights and used the road's shoulder to squeeze past the jam. By the time Ryan reached the church, the parking lot was already bursting capacity and cars were lining up chockablock down Main Street, some partially on lawns, others slouching into ditches. He noticed that the minister was more attuned to the situation than he'd been, as amplified speakers were set up on the front steps. If not the whole world, then a good measure of this part of the visible world was planning to attend Mrs. McCracken's service.

Ryan didn't guess that the woman of his current dreams, Raine Tara-Anne Cogshill, was safely ensconced inside the sanctuary, driven there by her business partner after locking their shop's doors. At her insistence, she and Willis Howard were on hand early enough. Tara wanted to set up a table for her petition to rebuild the bridge, and assigned a teenager recently hired to work in the store to oversee accumulating signatures. She and Willis were now squashed into a pew about a third of the way down from the narthex, along the aisle. Conversations percolated around them, louder than elsewhere as many in this particular group were hard of hearing. Through no design of their own and in the absence of any planning, the pair was seated smack-dab in the centre of a brigade of elderly ladies, spinsters and widows, many of whom arrived by van from the local nursing home six blocks down. They pealed with commentary, laughter, news, and artful gossip.

Tara giggled to herself a few times. Would she ever be one of these? She could not imagine it—neither the clothing nor the hairstyles nor the chat appealed, never mind the hysteria—yet she pondered also if any of their ilk once lived lives akin to her own.

She looked around her. She could not imagine that either.

They blew in from another culture, from different weather.

She was struck by their attire, as though the fashion style was intended to celebrate a flamboyant old-biddy flare while paying homage to the customs of grief. Small black bonnets denoted a funereal consideration, but these were outnumbered by summer bonnets on the tops of blue- and red-rinsed hair. Gauche broaches and purses and bright print dresses stood against dark colours to coordinate with the transient gloom. Summer gloves were plentiful. So playful and dear were the flaunting colours, ruffles, and tucks that Tara could scarcely differentiate whose voice belonged to whom as her ears surrendered to the maze and squawk, the open doors permitting not only a welter of breezes and perfumed scents to slink inside but also eliciting a tonic of chatty spiels.

“I imply no such thing. You misunderstand me, as is your wont. I said—I repeat myself, dear—I only hope that someone who has something good to say knows how to say it. That's the gist of what I mean to say.”

“Why won't they know good things to say—”

“Stop being such a ninny!” an admirably spry lady of ninety-five chided her younger sibling, a dour-looking woman of eighty-eight. Tara affixed their ages using her best judgement and, she believed, a benevolent benefit of the doubt. They might well be older.

The younger chose not to be bullied. “Why wouldn't they have good—”

“Because people don't know how to talk in public, you silly galoot.”

“Why don't they then?”

“Because they never learned! You have to learn how.”

“I'll tell you something. Alice knew how. Alice could speak in public.”

“Alice,” the senior sister concurred, “knew how.”

A third voice with a cranky trill to her timbre queried, “Wasn't she a teacher? Didn't she teach?”

“Good grief, where've you been for the past fifty years? Of course she taught!”

“Then she can talk.”

“What?”

“She's a teacher. She can talk.”

“Of course she can talk! We
know
she can talk. That's half my point. But she's not going to do any talking today, now is she? I just hope that whoever does do the talking today knows how, that's what I mean to say but I might as well be talking Swahili to this pew!”

“Is she a teacher then, the one?”

“What? Who, dear?”

“The one who'll do the talking? I hope it's not the preacher himself. He's not a good talker, that fellow. Doesn't he just mumble so.”

“I don't know who's going to do the talking. I live in the same home you do, although perhaps you haven't noticed. Nobody tells any of us anything. I only hope that if someone has something nice to say he knows how to say it.”

“It might not be a man,” a friend cautioned her.

A new voice opined, sagely, “Man or woman, I hope I can hear them.”

“Just turn up the volume, dear,” another advised.

“Oh, not yet. Not yet. You're shouting so.”

“I don't understand. Why wouldn't someone have something nice to say? Alice was a nice person.”

“Doesn't matter if she was nice or not,” a new voice interjected. “She's dead. People speak well of the dead at funerals. Most of the time anyway.”

“Listening to that man mumble is like listening to a crow gargle.”

Tara didn't really want to share a glance with Willis Howard, but at a certain point it became inevitable, and sure enough they both muffled giggles into their palms. They need not have bothered with the subterfuge, as the women around them were oblivious.

At the end of the service the women nearby were agreed that the speakers—several presented themselves—spoke well.

“I liked the part about the pies especially.”

“The part about the kindergarten kiddies had me in stitches.”

“I noticed.”

“I liked hearing about the day her young husband died.”

“Oh, you would. You always choose the saddest tales.”

“Not always.”

“Yes. Always.”

Tara was unsure if she did not appreciate the saddest stories herself. She found that she was less complimentary towards the speeches that washed over them for an hour than were the other women, but she chose not to be critical either. She did find in each talk a snippet or two that conveyed the spirit of the woman she grew so fond of in a short time. She particularly enjoyed the logger who related how the old lady ran over his toes one time on her motorbike. When he objected, Mrs. McCracken retorted that since he was wearing steel-toed boots, what did it matter? “Just watch your step,” she warned him, “the day you wear sandals. And sandals and socks, you'll rue the day.”

At least she warned her victims beforehand.

The group collectively known as tree huggers, Tara noticed, were not represented by a speaker, yet their presence was acknowledged and they were thanked for the homemade wreaths created partly of wildflowers. On the way out, she overheard a remark suggesting that at least a few of the flowers might not have been so wild, snipped, perhaps, from local gardens. “To think I first blamed the squirrels.” Tara smiled. She was here to commemorate Mrs. McCracken's life and to honour her passing, and did that, but the community in which she landed was making an impression on her once again. Among others, she questioned whether the town might never fully recover without the grand old dame.

By the parking lot, Willis Howard fell into a conversation with a group of men while Tara visited the petition table. She didn't notice Ryan O'Farrell slip into the space next to her, until he spoke.

“This is really not fair.” He seemed cross.

Catching his meaning, she stood her ground. “The Alice B. McCracken Memorial Bridge idea is taking hold.”

“Are you the one behind this?”

Tara did not recognize the woman's voice addressing her, and turned. “Yes,” she admitted.

The woman confronting her was approximately her age, and quite attractive, although her gaze seemed overtly combative, her brow in a crunch.

“Tara,” Ryan said, “this is my sister-in-law, Valérie O'Farrell. Val, this is Tara Cogshill.”

The woman was obviously steeling herself for battle, although the formal introduction stymied her offensive somewhat. Tara wondered if Ryan was intentionally stepping in for that purpose.

“Oh,” Val said. “So you two are dating.”

“Hi,” Tara said, conspicuously friendly. She saw Val give her a full-body scan but refrained from returning the favour.

Val was momentarily tongue-tied and started in with less intensity than she might prefer. “You're new here. So maybe you don't understand everything, but something like this,” she argued, “it has complications.”

“I've tried to tell her that.” Ryan shook his head. While he agreed with Valérie's side in the matter, he didn't want her going off half cocked, which he feared she could do with some drama and little persuasion. The evident tightness around her eyes and the clenched jaw reflected Val's inner temper. She was managing to control herself. Several times she looked from Ryan to Tara.

“Do a better job of it,” she warned him quietly, essentially warning them both. She let that settle as her only parry for the day and brushed past them.

Briefly, Tara raised her eyebrows, a private, and intimate, communication with Ryan, which acknowledged the close call. She then followed Val's trajectory, seeing Ryan's brother for the first time that day in the midst of his children where they waited in the parking lot. The view subdued her, and she said, “Handsome dad, isn't he?” She recalled the night he gave her a lift in the rain, how striking he looked then, how sexy. “Good-looking family. I guess this isn't the best time to tell your sister-in-law that I'm anticipating the complications she's worrying about. I'm counting on them. She should, too.”

“Please don't get into that with her. She won't know what you're talking about any more than I do, but she'll have a lot less patience than me.”

Inexplicably, Tara smiled. “Patience,” she asked. “Is that what you call it?”

“What do you mean?”

“What you feel for me. Patience?”

Caught out, he permitted a chuckle to escape, pleased that she was willing to flirt. “What do you want me to call it?”

She started this but wasn't willing to be drawn in any further.

“Ry, I'm going up to the cemetery for the internment—”

“Why?” he asked point-blank, too quickly, as though he questioned her right to go there.

Now Tara, too, was confrontational. Her expression changed. “Remember the day you so gallantly stopped Mrs. McCracken for speeding just so you could chat me up? Incidentally, that's still in your favour. We were coming back from the cemetery. She brought me up there.” She softened, and felt herself softening, as though the memory of Mrs. McCracken returned her to the events of the day. “I don't know why, really. But who else did she bring to the gravesite specifically to visit her husband's grave and her own future plot? You? The old ladies inside? I'm betting no. For whatever reason, she chose to bring me there, Ry, me, the outsider, so I'm going up there now. I was about to suggest that we see each other afterwards—”

“Okay. I'm up for that.” Ryan clasped the proffered straw.

On the one hand, she wanted to curtail the offer, now that she was miffed, yet she also wanted to repeat his choice of word,
up
, and considered it, until she felt a blush coming on. Any innuendo could easily travel beyond the flirtatious and signal, possibly, the collapse of her will in their mutual joust, but in any case be more than she was willing to express in a chaotic parking lot after a funeral. She still wanted to round up Willis Howard to get him in line for the solemn drive up the mountainside. So instead she said, “You know where to find me,” and cordially touched his wrist, and they both returned to their tasks.