“Prison?”
“Six years.”
“For what?”
“Manslaughter.”
Jim had been out in the barn when Travis ran out with the phone. It was Kate. She needed to talk to him right away. He climbed into his truck and drove out to the fairgrounds. The two of them sat on a picnic table watching the crew of volunteers string crepe paper over the old bandstand.
Jim felt the blood drain out of his face. “Are you sure your friend’s got his facts right?”
“Hugo’s extremely thorough,” Kate said. “He wouldn’t have called unless he was sure.”
Jim leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “When was this?”
“The incident happened in oh-two. Corrigan was convicted and sent to prison in oh-four.”
“Six years? That means he’s been outta jail a year.”
“Roughly.”
“Christ on a pogo stick.” Jim’s reserved profanity, inherited from his old man. “What the hell did he do?”
“Killed a man in a bar fight,” Kate said. “Corrigan claimed self-defence. Pled down to a manslaughter charge.”
“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The same way he claimed self-defence when he scrapped with Bill.”
“That’s what I thought too.” Kate’s phone chirped an alert but she ignored it. “It gets worse. According to Hugo’s sources, Corrigan had ties to organized crime.”
“Christ.”
“I don’t know what we’re dealing with anymore,” said Kate. “And I’m a little concerned.”
“We should call Ray at the police station. He should know about this.”
“I did. He’s going to look into Corrigan’s release but he said that unless he’s breaking probation, there’s nothing he can do.” Her Blackberry chimed again. She dropped it into her bag. “Let me ask you something. Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“I don’t know.” His voice quiet. “To be honest, it’s not him I’m worried about. If Berryhill and the others find out about this, it’s just gonna feed the fire and then somebody’s gonna do something stupid.”
Neither spoke for a moment. They watched a stream of crepe paper flapping loose in the wind. It broke off and slithered away on the breeze.
“I’ve been thinking about your idea,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Are you sure?”
Kate eased off the picnic table and brushed the flaking paint chips from her pants. “Make the offer to Corrigan. I’ll shift around some budgets so we can use the slush fund for a deposit. If Corrigan bites, then we’ll be rid of him.”
Jim got to his feet. “Done.”
“Just make sure he understands the conditions of the offer. You buy only if he leaves town for good.”
He picked up her bag and held it out for her. The damn phone just kept chirping. “If this blows up in our faces, just how much trouble are we gonna be in?”
“I don’t want to even think about it.”
Another tentacle of crepe paper tore away from the bandstand and tumbled crazily across the grass.
16
THE WINDOWS WERE gone dark in the old house as the pickup trundled up the rutted track. Jim wheeled up before the house and studied the landscape. Dusk, the sunlight burning off behind the treeline. No movement in the windows of the house, no truck parked in the grass. Jim had stewed his guts all afternoon about what he was going to say to Corrigan, rehearsing in his head how the conversation would play out. And now this, the son of a bitch wasn’t even home.
Maybe he’d wait for him to get back, just set there on the veranda like a tax collector waiting on the man. He sure as hell didn’t want to stew over this till tomorrow. He went up the broken steps, banged on the door.
“Will?”
No answer. The door rattled and creaked open. He pushed it back all the way then stepped over the doorsill. “Corrigan, you home? It’s Jim.”
Nothing. Jim ventured in, looking the room over. The walls stripped to the post and beam, the rack of stag antlers over the limestone fireplace. A gun lay on the mantel, the double-barrelled Winchester Corrigan had fired to kick off his first tour. Broken at the hinge, the twin bores empty.
Pushed into a corner, a fragile looking stool under a rolltop desk. Lousy with papers and documents. Pens, a compass and a pearl handled jackknife. Jim sifted through the paperwork, glancing over his shoulder to ensure the room was empty.
A big square of onionskin paper settled atop the mess, showing a finely hewed tree with names and dates spotting the branches. A family tree tracing the Corrigan clan back to the 1850’s, the trail ending with their Irish homeland of Tipperary. James Corrigan, the patriarch. The same man who wound up in prison five years after coming to Canada for killing a man at a drunken logging bee.
Jim pushed it aside and leafed through more pages. He lifted loose a page of names, listed in no particular order. Every name was someone he knew. McGrath, Farrell, Keefe, Berryhill, Puddycombe.
He blinked at the last name on the list. Hawkshaw.
“Looking for something?”
Jim flinched and dropped the paper, spun around. Corrigan stood at the top of the stairs.
“Hey,” Jim said, easing the rattle from his nerves. “I called out. Didn’t see you.”
Corrigan stomped down the stairs. “So you thought, ‘what the hell I’ll just snoop around’.”
Busted. “Sorry.”
“Look at your face. Gave you a good spook, didn’t I?” Corrigan went to the sideboard, took up the bottle standing there. “Want a drink?”
“No thanks.”
“Don’t be a pilgrim,” he said but Jim waved off the drink. Corrigan looked him up and down, scrutinizing him. Jim tried for nonchalance. Missed by a country mile. Corrigan’s mouth tilting up into that grin again. “What’s on your mind?”
“Business.”
An eyebrow went up. “What kind of business?”
“Land,” Jim said. “I want to buy your farm.”
A flash of genuine surprise sparked Corrigan’s eyes. “Did some dipshit realtor plant their sign in my lawn?” He leaned toward the front window, then back to Jim. “It’s not for sale.”
“Everything’s for sale. I’ll give you twenty percent above what it was listed for.”
“Twenty percent? My lucky day!” Corrigan mocked up a look of shock. “Why would I want to sell, Jimmy? I love it here.”
“Knock it off.” Jim shrugged off the man’s antics. “You said yourself you wanted restitution. Well, here it is.”
“I see. So the township has acknowledged its collective guilt and sent you as envoy? Is that it?”
The mockery needled under Jim’s skin like a bur. Play it cool. “No. I just want to keep the peace. You don’t fit in here, we both know that. I want your land. The math is easy.”
Corrigan’s grin fell away. He was about to speak but Jim raised a hand for him to wait. “There’s one condition. You have to move out of Pennyluck. For good.”
The man tilted his head like a dog at a puzzling sound. “Well, that is a generous offer.”
“So? Do we have a deal?”
The man teetered on his heels for a moment, then stepped forward and extended his hand to shake. Smiling.
Surprised, to say the least. Jim returned the smile and shook Corrigan’s hand. Easy peasy. “Good.”
Corrigan’s grip crushed his fingers, trying to snap bone. “You trying to fuck me, Jim?” He yanked Jim closer. “Who put you up to this? That bitch Kate?”
Jim snapped his hand away. “What? No. I just want to buy your land.” He flexed his crushed fingers. The man was stronger than he looked. “You’ve made a lot of enemies. Best thing for everyone is if you moved on. Before someone gets hurt.” He rued that last bit. It rang too much like a threat, a gut reaction to having his hand crushed.