Grave Concern, page 29
“I’ve heard that before. That’s what I say,” said Kate.
“What? Combining businesses? Did I float this by you before?”
“Nope. The win-win thing. I hate that phrase.”
“Sorry.” Leonard made an exaggerated zipping-lip gesture. “I swear it’ll never pass my lips again.”
The truth was, Kate was floored. Nothing even approaching Leonard’s suggestion had ever even crossed her mind. Why hadn’t it? she wondered. Although, to be sure, it was hard to imagine how computers and grave-tending would mix. But then again, isn’t that exactly what Krebs Life Passage Services had done with their fancy audiovisuals? Maybe she and Leonard, putting their brains together, could find a more tasteful approach.
“Leonard,” said Kate. “You’re brilliant. I accept.”
“My hand in marriage?” joked Leonard.
“Cut it out,” said Kate. “I mean moving into Ho Lam. So what about your parents? Don’t they have a say? In fact, isn’t it their business?”
“Not anymore,” said Leonard. “As of last week. I bought them out. Mom hasn’t had too much to do with it for ages, and Dad’s ecstatic. That place was causing him nothing but grief. Now he can get on to what he really wants to do, which is fly his remote-controlled biplanes in the afternoons with the other geeks down at River Park. Now, maybe I can start making some real money.”
“We can start making some real money, you mean.”
“Sorry, you’re right. We.”
“Don’t forget, we’re partners, now,” said Kate.
“I wouldn’t dare,” Leonard said.
“By the way,” said Kate. “The song. You had that on tap for a while?”
“Nah. Made it up on my way down here,” Leonard said.
“Ah,” said Kate, trying not to smile.
Early September. Afternoons still held the summer’s heat, but the crisp mornings and soft, golden evenings could be counted on for relief. On a whim one Tuesday, Kate packed up a lunch and her laptop and jumped in the car. Her first stop was the office, where she hung a sign on the door: “SORRY, CLOSED TODAY ONLY. DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE TOMORROW.” She continued across town to a little-used gravel road. In her day, the road had serviced two or three small cottages out of sight down by the river. Since then, more cottages, permanent homes, even a holiday mansion or two had sprung up along the old road. Still, most were tucked back in the woods, maintaining the illusion of a quiet country lane. The road dead-ended, and Kate parked, not at all sure she would find what she had come for. But the path was still there, wider than ever, obviously well known.
A ten-minute hike through the woods took Kate to the rocky point she used to visit with friends on long, lazy, summer afternoons. Here, well downstream of the dam with its furious tailrace, the river’s true, light-hearted nature was revealed. Deep, gently swirling pools near shore were perfect for swimming. The surrounding rocks, heated up in the sun all those years ago, had warmed their shivering young bodies only to urge them to jump in again.
When she came out of the trees, Kate was almost afraid to look, for fear it would all have changed. What if the pools were gone? And the rocks … But it was all still there, much as she’d remembered it, if not quite as idyllic. Kate picked up an unsightly beer can and climbed up on her favourite rock — a smooth, sloping hunk of granite near the water. She opened her laptop and booted it up, only to find the bright outdoor light made it nearly impossible to read anything on screen. Kate looked up. The river was beaten silver. Along the bank, tall poplars rustled yellow-tinged leaves as though restless.
Kate threw a shirt over her head and the laptop, creating a dark space in which to do nothing but think. She would lay it all bare on the screen and get her own restlessness out.
THE PROBLEM OF J.P.
Knowns
He went into the burning hotel for something, which could have been a) Raw-Raw, b) the strongbox, c) to phone 911 or d) all or some of the above.
J.P. was being beaten while he lived here.
But apparently not, or not always, by his dad, John Marcotte.
Which leaves his brother, whose angry face he depicted in the poster.
Unknowns
What was his brother’s problem?
THE PROBLEM OF RAW-RAW
Knowns
He lives and is one and the same as Gronk.
He knows words: “grand” and “ten grand.”
Which suggests he heard people, likely J.P., referring to such a sum.
Which suggests the strongbox was important and real.
Ravens in general like to bring larger carnivores into the picture, to make their dining easier. They do this by calling them from afar, alerting them to a kill or carcass.
Ravens like shiny things.
Ravens are playful and take people’s windshield wipers and drop them on other cars.
Unknowns
What is Raw-Raw on about with the ten grand? Does he know other words that might be helpful?
Was it Raw-Raw who originally moved J.P.’s grave marker stake?
THE PROBLEM OF THE BIKERS
Knowns
They wanted a cut of J.P.’s business.
They wanted to give him a stern warning. Hence the fire.
Unknowns
Why would they burn his place down if they wanted him to keep doing well so as to (1) above?
Was the hotel burning a mistake? Was the original plan to just burn the shed?
Did they have any knowledge of the strongbox and the amount of money in it? Was there any motive there for the fire?
THE PROBLEM OF THE STRONGBOX
Knowns
It existed. Likely metal and somewhat fireproof.
Metal is shiny. See Raw-Raw above.
Unknowns
What happened to the strongbox? Did it survive the fire?
If so, what happened to it? Does family know?
Is it buried with J.P.? And if so, why?
The presence of a strongbox would strongly suggest the reason for the diggings at the fake grave.
Who was digging at the grave? Most likely: John Marcotte (who obviously could do with some money); Nicholas (who knew about it from J.P. and who left town awfully fast after the cougar was found).
Is there some collusion between John Marcotte and Nicholas? Or competition? Perhaps re the strongbox?
THE PROBLEM OF NICHOLAS
Knowns
Nicholas is a straight-ahead guy, and wouldn’t lie to me.
Nicholas seemed very stressed while he was here.
Unknowns
Would he? (refer to no. 1 previous)
Was N’s stress to do with the cougar/MNR work, J.P.’s legacy, or something else?
Did N have an agreement with J.P. over something — say, what should happen to J.P.’s belongings if something should happen to him?
What did they really talk about that day behind the shed?
Did Nicholas hang around when the Angels came for altruistic reasons, or to get his hands on the strongbox?
Could Nicholas have changed so much morally that he could do the above?
How happy is Nicholas’s family life? Could impending divorce provide motivation for N needing some quick money?
THE PROBLEM OF JOHN MARCOTTE
Knowns
He’s living off not very much, and has obviously had to downsize and down-market his life.
He was pissed off with J.P.’s shady past.
He seemed genuinely upset when he saw J.P.’s grave.
Which suggests he did have some feelings still for his son.
All this has aged him quickly and obviously caused him much stress.
Yet he recently bought a car, and probably not too cheaply, at Croker’s Motors.
Unknowns
Why the change of heart about knowing the grave’s whereabouts? Genuine remorse or a desperate need for money he knew/believed/guessed might be buried there? Or both?
What was his relationship with J.P.’s older brother, Guy? What was the family dynamic that led Guy to beat on his brother?
Freudian slip: Was the “John” on Adele’s tongue John Marcotte?
Where did M. get the cash for a new car?
THE PROBLEM OF ADELE NIEDMEYER
Knowns
Adele knew Mom well in their early years, but the friendship fell off.
Adele was Madama Della (I’m almost sure) at the summer fair. She seemed to know something she wasn’t saying even then. She knew I would come back.
Same as when we had our day out at the grave. She knows something.
Unknowns
But what does she know? And why keep it back?
Why did her friendship with Mom falter? Was it as she said, just being busy with kids? Or something else?
THE PROBLEM OF GRETA
Knowns
Greta’s words months ago at the graveyard as I was pulling out: “You liked him, didn’t you … I mean, a lot.” There was something in Greta’s voice I’ve never heard before …
Unknowns
… a tiny pulse of Greta’s heart? Metaphorically speaking. A clue to where Greta’s interests lay? Lie. Not with Foxy, subject of our mutual prepubescent desire and now her husband. Could our taste in boys, once similar, have remained so into adulthood? When Greta insisted to Annabel that day behind the school that she hated J.P. for riding her bike into the river, I, Kate Smithers, supreme idiot, took her at her word. But suppose Greta loved J.P. too?
Kate needed air. She flipped the shirt off her sweltering head. All of this was either good work or totally useless and exhausting. She closed the laptop and put it with the empty beer can in her pack, stood up on her rock, and looked around.
A pair of mallards, the male colourful and confident, the female determined and drab, chose that moment to swim by. Kate stood very still. The female slowed and dipped her beak in some floating muck. Then, as though suddenly irritated, she screwed her neck around and poked at her back feathers. Apparently oblivious, the male slowed his pace as well and swam aimlessly about. Where had Kate seen this before? Of course! At Mega-Mall out west: the bored husband and window-shopping wife. Kate laughed aloud, and the pair squawked into sudden flight.
Was it the avian connection? Kate felt a sudden urge to tweet. She pulled out her phone. “@graveconcerninc Nothing in the world could induce me to leave this place.”
Kate poked about in the shallows in bare feet. The water was cool but comfortable, still far from the bone-chilling cold that would presage freeze-up. She stepped carefully, wary of freshwater clams that lurked in the sand, ready to cut her feet. Reeds caught her toes and then wrapped them up like packages, forcing her to patiently unwind the long grasses strand by strand. As giant Kate wandered this tiny world — inciting sleeping minnows to mass panic, stirring up miniature mud volcanoes — a story, a possible scenario, began to write itself in her head:
When the bikers arrived at King’s Hotel, they’d gone straight for the shed, easily setting alight the old wooden structure. J.P., alerted by the commotion, ran out and straight into the hotel, thinking if more was coming, he was damned if he was going to let his life savings go up in smoke. If Raw-Raw was around, he’d rescue her, too. But by the time he retrieved the strongbox from its hiding place in his bedroom, the place was on fire. Miscommunication among the bikers themselves, perhaps, as to what they were supposed to be doing. The bikers, having done what they came to do, had disappeared already, and J.P. believed he was alone.
The front door was blocked by a fallen beam. He ran to the side. But that entrance was even worse, being nearest the shed, now pretty much destroyed, and surrounded by the dry summer grasses that grew unchecked and uncut along the beaten path between the two. Now he really was scared. His only hope for escape was a window. Pure fear drove him to yell for help, and this was the yelling Nicholas heard. Nicholas yelled back, and hearing him, J.P.’s hopes surged.
The old windows were small, as Adele had said. Made up of four panes, divided by thick wooden mullions.
“Watch out!” J.P. screamed, and heaved the heavy strongbox through the window.
But it took out just a single pane, and the mullions remained undisturbed. The box was outside. J.P., now engulfed in smoke, staggered away from the window’s puff of fresh air, back into the bar’s interior, and grabbed a stool. He came back, bashed the remaining panes out with the stool, but the mullions refused to budge. He would need a tool of some kind. An axe. Where was the axe? In the shed.
By this time, he was heaving, gasping, seriously weakened. Smoke billowed throughout the tavern — from both front and side. It seemed as anxious as he was to get out the window — by rolling right over him. He flopped to the floor, looking for fresher air. He found a bit, but then hadn’t the strength to rise and fight. He laid his head down — his warm brown curls blending seamlessly with the maple planking, his smoker’s lungs doing their best, the flames working their way toward him — and passed out.
The volunteer firefighters hacked out an opening with their axes. It was the young fellow no one knew well, the one who had arrived from several miles up the highway, who, in his smoke blindness, literally tripped over the victim and called out. J.P. was carried out the new opening and loaded into the just-arrived ambulance. This same young volunteer, on his way back from delivering the victim to work a hose, noticed the metal box lying on its side in the dirt. He noted the surrounding broken glass, and guessed what had occurred. He tucked the box under his firefighter gear, with a mental note to get it back to the victim, or if worse came to worst, to the family — and gave it little thought after that.
Sometime later, but well before the fire’s cause was known to be arson, this firefighter, having discovered the victim’s identity, and having had a passing acquaintance with the older brother, Guy, took it upon himself to personally deliver the strongbox, the sole effect not destroyed by the fire, to the family home. J.P.’s own home, of course, had been the hotel itself, and so the Marcotte home was the next best thing.
Wasn’t this young man surprised, when right there at their front door, the grateful tears he was expecting failed to materialize. Instead, an ugly scene played out, old man Marcotte and his wife slagging each other off. It was downright embarrassing. By the time he extricated himself, the firefighter had gathered three things: one — the contents of the box were somehow tainted; two — John, the husband and father, was ready to dispose of the box then and there, while Rita, the wife and mother, wanted to save it; and three — Rita appeared to be gaining the upper hand.
By the time the matter came to trial, this young firefighter had perhaps gone off to college in the city. There was no particular reason anyone could divine to bring him back for the proceedings. A few details of the rescue and J.P.’s vital signs were nailed down over the phone; otherwise, everything seemed straightforward. The strongbox never came up. That left just the family, sworn to secrecy by Rita, and Nicholas, who knew of its existence.
Days later, after delivering the ultimatum regarding his burial (despite — or because of — the Catholic background, he insisted on cremation), J.P. died. In a cruelly ironic twist, the ashes were delivered to the door (by Greta Krebs’s father, Heinrich) in much the same manner as the strongbox. This was the moment John Marcotte repudiated his son once and for all. Having struggled through the agony of hospital visits, having wrestled with the guilt and anger the strongbox had evoked, John senior simply could not carry on. He could not live with his son when he was alive. He could not live without him, dead and gone. The pain would only subside if he washed his hands of everything. Everything. He did not want to bury the ashes. He did not want to know where someone else buried them. He did not want to speak or think of this most infuriating offspring to be visited on a man. The one who might, if he’d had any guts or sense, have taken what John and Rita gave him and made himself into something. Something more than his old man rotting among his rotten old antiques, by the side of a highway to nowhere.
The dam in Kate’s head gave way completely, and a flood of detail poured from her frantic fingers:
Raw-Raw had escaped the fire, hadn’t even been there, playing instead with the local children at the park. Plucking shiny things dropped from their upside-down pockets, gathering, building her treasury of delights. When she had her fill and returned to the hotel, she sensed a dark change in the world. She flew around and around — could, in fact, fly perfectly well — cawing out her distress. By now, only a handful of firemen and cops were left, standing firm in a storm of whirling ash. The place had burnt to the ground, leaving only a surprising foundation. Someone looked up at the raven’s calling, recognized Raw-Raw and said as much, but no one replied or paid much attention. The historic building gone, the proprietor as good as, nothing much to be done. Who cared about that mangy bird?
To soothe herself, Raw-Raw headed for the other place associated with Jaypee: the house over town where his Old Ones lived. She hung out in the lane behind the Marcotte home, pecking desultorily at this and that, unnerved and uncertain.
One morning, perched high in a tall poplar, Raw-Raw noticed a gathering of Walking Ones. Jaypee’s Old One, the female, was among them, carrying a shiny. Two shinies. Cradled carefully, protected in the Old One’s wings. The Walking Ones entered the great shiny nest that growled and stank and moved them about. Raw-Raw followed the moving nest to a place on the edge of the forest, where the nest stopped. The Walking Ones were regurgitated. From high above, Raw-Raw spied the two shinies still tucked in the Old One’s wingtips.
