Kate pushed the thing further down the pew. It smelled awful.
ASSHOLE. LIAR.
The words gouged deep into the paint with something big. Bigger than a set of keys at least. A screwdriver maybe. The letters tall and fairly straight. Someone had taken their time to do it right, not some passerby scoring paint. They had smashed out the right tail light and driver’s side window too.
Corrigan had parked his truck well away from the fair ground parking lot for exactly this reason. Not far enough. Someone had spotted it hiding under the maple tree and came calling. The list of suspects was narrow and he was surprised the vandal could spell. Perhaps he had some help.
He loaded his treasures into the back. The shattered bone bundled into a gingham cloth and tied off, like some hobo’s lunch. Unlatching a side panel, he reached past the bungee cords and jumper cables and slipped out the black nightstick. A police truncheon, solid and lethal. A Paddy whacker, as they used to call it.
The party had thinned to all but the most earnest of drinkers but the humidity rolling out from under the beer tent hit like a sauna as Corrigan stepped out of the rain. He ducked under the drooping flap and surveyed the tables. Dripping from the rain, the nightstick slick in his hand. The truncheon was an equalizer, him being alone, and a warning to any resident Paddies looking for a fight. The volume dropped a decibel as eyeball after eyeball swung around to see what the fuss was.
Perfect, he thought, watching every face turn his way. The guilty paint-gouger would, upon seeing him, turn away quickly. No one did and big Bill Berryhill was nowhere among the picnic tables. The faces regarded him and his fuckstick and then drifted back to their conversations. Only one set of eyes lingered and when Corrigan hawked them out, the eyes turned away. Guilty. If not of trashing his truck then of something else.
The boozers parted before him. Corrigan ordered and leaned against the makeshift rail beside those guilty eyes now shunning him. The bartender slid his plastic cup across and Corrigan drank but said nothing. He simply stared down at the old reprobate until a bead of sweat ran down Gallagher’s leathery neck.
“Ye want something?”
“Yes. The cocksucker who keyed my truck.”
“Wasn’t me.”
“I didn’t say it was.” Corrigan sipped, soured at the swill in his cup. “But the guilty man still averts his eyes. So tell me, Mister Gallagher, what are you guilty of?”
Gallagher laughed. “What am I not guilty of is the short answer. Like all of us. You do what you can to abide the rest.”
“That’s true. But you’ve yet to look me in the eye. Why is that? Some guilty worm of a secret in your petrified little heart. So what is it? Tell me.”
“Piss off.”
Corrigan warmed to the cantankerous lecher and leaned in, elbow to elbow. “You know something and it’s written all over that craggy face of yours. So how about I just stare at you until you fess up.”
Gallagher shooed him away as if he were a mosquito in his ear. “Do us a favour, mister Corrigan. Fuck off back to whatever rock you crawled out from.”
“This must be a juicy one.” Corrigan flagged the bartender and twirled a finger over their cheap plastic cups. “Whiskey for my friend here! A tall one.”
Gallagher watched the bartender pour and slide the cup under his nose. Corrigan bounced the nightstick off his knee. “Bottoms up, granddad. I got all night.”
The old man shuddered. The devil’s punch under his nose, the fiend at his elbow. He was tired. Too bone weary to endure those eyes glaring at him. Who could? His calcified heart muscle banging against his ribs. One, two, three.
Martin Gallagher lifted the cup and told the devil what he had done.
24
RAIN DRUMMED OVER the metal roof of the pickup. Water sluice down the windshield, blurring the world in shimmery distortion. Jim’s clothes were sopped and the rainwater dripping from his hair rinsed away the grimed sweat of his neck.
He didn’t see the rain, just the cramped script of the confessions. The illegible cursive signature of his predecessor. The scrawls of the other confessed men, names he knew by their descendants. Friends and enemies, school chums and hockey mates. His family’s prosperity built on a bonepile of ash and blood. Murder and secrecy. Denial and collusion. All those lessons scolded into him by his parents about right and wrong, respect and worth. The same ones he had drilled into his own son. All of it a joke. A house of bricks built over festering swampland.
It was like that time he almost drowned. Sixteen years old, swimming the creek with friends on a humid July night. Down past the bend where there were no lights, hurtling themselves off the broken pier into the black water. Hitting the river at an odd angle, Jim had plunged and lost his bearings. Nothing but blackness, no lights to guide him back to the surface. Disoriented, he had swum in the wrong direction. Straight down. Panic ulcering his belly and his eyes screaming for help, Jim swallowed half the river before bursting the surface. Sobs masked under the coughing, the night hiding the shame on his cheeks. The other boys laughed at him. The panic was acute, the terror of not knowing which way to swim. Which way was up.
He had forgotten that sickening feeling but seeing the awful truth written on the old parchment brought it all back. Was he swimming for the surface or clawing his way to the cold bottom?
Jim shook his head and pulled away from the curb, driving on autopilot into the rain. All he wanted was to get home and see Emma and Travis. They would orient him, show him which way was up.
He didn’t see the other vehicle until it hit him.
The sideview mirror lit white. A sudden flash that something was very wrong. The other vehicle smashed the front end and his head knocked against the window. Jim stomped the brakes and the tires locked on the wet pavement. The nose spun one way, the tail end swinging the other way. The pickup hurtled ass first into the gravel.
White-knuckled on the steering wheel, Jim gasped for air. What had he done? Driving off into the rain, his mind somewhere else like a fucking idiot. Where was the other vehicle?
Headlights pierced the rainfall. An SUV rolling to a stop. Jim swung out from under the wheel, hollering to the other driver, asking if they were okay. Squinting against the raindrops, he recognized the black Toyota FJ. Corrigan was already marching across the puddles.
“Corrigan?” Jim didn’t understand. “What the hell happened?”
Corrigan hit him full freight, slamming him back against the truck. Shaking him by the collar, like his dad used to when drunk. “Where is it?” Hot whiskey breath on his face. “Where is the fucking confession?”
This wasn’t an accident. The crazy son of a bitch had run him off the road. He shoved him off but Corrigan would not let go. They tussled and shoved and punched in the rainfall, slipping in the puddles. Cursing one other to hell. Jim felt his knee buckle and Corrigan dove after him, swinging to box his ears. He ducked and Corrigan slipped, his own momentum sprawling him to the road.
Jim hobbled away, wanting enough room to swing. “Are you outta your fucking mind?!”
Corrigan kicked out and hobbled the bad knee. Timber. A heartbeat and they had reversed positions. Jim scrambled to get up but the vertigo rushed back, spinning his head. Which way was up?
Corrigan towered over him, bellowing through the rain. “The old drunk told me everything. The confessions of the guilty men. The proof! Where is it?” The man’s eyes bansheed with murder, teeth snapping like a wild dog.
Jim held up a hand. Time-out. “I don’t have it.”
“Where is it?”
His knee on fire, Jim cried uncle. “Help me up for Christ’s sakes.”
Corrigan didn’t move, steam smoking up around him. He cursed and then gripped the proffered hand, pivoting back to pull his neighbour to his feet.