The Carpenter Page 2

  The dream had come frequently to Lee through much of his childhood, through his years in prison. It troubled him. It always had.

  A little later, he gave up on the idea of sleep. He got up from the pullout couch and walked around the apartment. Eventually he put on his jeans and undershirt, and he went outside and stood on the sidewalk. The street was deserted. A stoplight blinked overhead. Nothing was quite believable yet.

  Judy Lacroix was dead inside a car, parked on the gravel patch where the drive-in cinema had burned down. When Stan Maitland found her, he had a feeling of all his long years as a cop dilating on him. He knew who Judy was. He knew her family. This was a particular burden he held entirely to himself. That it was he who should find the girl dead in the car was proof of what could not be outstripped by the passing of time alone.

  Earlier that evening, Stan had been fishing with his granddaughter Louise. They’d taken Stan’s boat north across Lake Kissinaw to a shoal in one of the back bays. Stan had brought along a carton of earthworms. Louise sat on the skiff’s middle seat. Her rubber boots did not touch the floor.

  They conferred between long stretches of affable quiet. He loved how she would ply him with questions as to the nature of things.

  — Grandpa, what do the fish do when the ice comes?

  — Different fish do different things under the ice. I don’t know all of them, but bass-I told you how to tell which ones are bass-slow down and don’t do much. They just kind of hang around till it gets warm again. Sometimes my friends and I used to ice-fish, and on a nicer day we might think we could catch bass, but we never could.

  Over an hour and a half they caught two pickerel and a small-mouth bass. When it was time to go he pulled the stringer of catch up into the skiff. In his tackle box he had a hatchet-handle, which he used to crack each fish across the skull. Louise sat primly, studying his every motion. Stan laid the dead fish on the bottom of the boat and rinsed his hands in the lake water. He stood, feeling his back pop, and heaved the pull-cord on the motor.

  It was two days past the new moon, and by the time they returned to Echo Point the dark had fully settled. He’d left a light on in the front window of the house.

  A dark form appeared on the dock while Stan was tying up. It was Cassius coming to greet them. Stan pushed the old black dog’s muzzle away from the fish. Louise trailed her hand along Cassius’s back.

  — Can I see you clean the fish?

  — I have to take you home now. It’s getting on to bedtime.

  — Grandpa …

  He knelt down beside her.

  — You’ll get Grandpa in trouble, said Stan. Come on, let’s get your things. You can ride in the middle seat.

  Stan told Cassius to stay in the yard. Louise climbed up into the cab of Stan’s pickup and Stan got into the driver’s seat and drove them out along Echo Point Road.

  They talked about Louise’s first day of grade three. She wanted to know if he remembered when he’d been in grade three. He told her it had been in a one-room schoolhouse. He’d had to light the woodstove in winter. The building was gone now, long gone. It had been on the edge of the piece of land where the town had put up a golf course fifteen years ago.

  Stan drove them out of the bush and they passed through open country. Ahead of them dust rose in the headlights. Then they were coming up to the drive-in. A screen stood out against the horizon. The box office and the concession stand and one of the other screens had burned down the year before. Some people around town whispered about a collection on insurance. Stan had been able to see the glow of the fire from the second floor of his house. He’d gone in his truck. The town fire department and the volunteer firefighters had already had the burning screen and the concession stand cordoned off when he arrived, but he’d come ahead of the police. The cops, when they finally showed up, were young. He hadn’t recognized them and they didn’t know who he was.

  Now, passing the drive-in with Louise beside him, Stan saw how the thin new moon shone on the windshield of a car. The car was parked halfway to where the burned movie screen stood in deeper black against the stars. The car was dark. He thought about it and did not think about it.

  Then the drive-in disappeared behind them.

  Before long he merged onto the highway. The lights of town lay ahead. Louise put her head on Stan’s arm.

  Mary and Frank Casey had a modern split-level house east of downtown. The windows were lit. Parked in the driveway were Mary’s Volvo and a provincial patrol car. Mary opened the front door as Stan came up the walk, carrying Louise, who had fallen asleep.

  He took her upstairs and put her into her bed, and then he stood back and spent a moment looking at her. He wondered, vaguely, how many more years he would get to see her grow up.

  He followed Mary back down to the living room.

  — I hope I didn’t get her home too late.

  — No, Dad, it’s fine. Thanks. She loves it.

  Mary sat in the loveseat and Stan sat down on the couch. Next to it, against the wall, was a Clarendon upright piano. Stan put his hand out and dallied his fingers over the keys but did not press them. Frank came out of the kitchen. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and his uniform trousers.

  — Thanks for taking Louise, Stan.

  — It’s never any trouble. Where’s Emily?

  Frank sat on the arm of the loveseat and said: She’s seventeen. You can guess where she’s at.

  — A new boyfriend?

  — A boy. I don’t know that I’d call him more than that. With her, it’s the stray cats.

  — She has good sense, Frank, said Mary, putting her hand on his knee.

  — How’s the detachment? said Stan.

  — Labour Day is over. All the kids are back in school, let’s put it that way. That makes me happy.

  — Fall was always a quiet time, said Stan. A lot of people were too busy on the farms to mess around.

  — Well, if things didn’t change like they do, I wouldn’t need half the cops I have now, fall or not. But that’s how it goes.

  — That’s how it goes, said Stan.

  Stan was back on the road a short while later. He was only eight years retired from the local detachment, despite what it had meant for his pension. At one time he’d known every street in town. He turned off the highway and five minutes later he passed the drive-in again. His headlights caught the same car he’d seen earlier.

  Stan drove by. Then he pulled off to the side of the road. Gravel snarled against the underside of his truck as he moved from the hardtop to the shoulder. He brought the vehicle to a stop and sat holding the steering wheel. Then he got out of the truck and took out a D-cell flashlight that he kept under the seat. He didn’t turn it on just yet. There was enough light from the stars and the moon to bring everything out in halftones. He walked into the drive-in lot.

  The silhouette of the car resolved itself. Stan looked to see whether it was rocking and he listened for the creaking of springs. He sniffed the air for dope smoke. This would be better, he thought, if Cassius was with him.

  He turned on the flashlight, at first pointing it at the ground. He waited for something to happen and when nothing did he brought the flashlight up and shone it on the windshield. He moved the light along the side of the car.

  One of the back windows was rolled down a few inches. The space at the top had been stuffed with a towel. Stan could see a garden hose tucked through. The hose was looped down through the wheel well and around to the rear of the car. He moved up.

  The flashlight cast a yellow glow into the back seat. The girl’s face was slack, dismayed. Her eyes were marbled.

  Stan stepped backward. He looked at the dark shapes of the drive-in, black against the stars and the frame of the old screen. When he looked again he knew who she was. Her name was Judy Lacroix. Recognition was a hand pulling at his shirt sleeve.

  Not that he’d ever forgotten it, how it was his arrest and testimony that had hanged the dead girl’s uncle.

  A
t six o’clock in the morning on Thursday, Lee went into a diner called the Owl Cafe, a block away from his apartment. He took a stool at the counter. He was wearing his new work boots, carrying his new tool belt. These he’d purchased the day before. He’d also purchased a measuring tape and a hammer and a retractable knife and a small collection of pencils, which he’d carefully sharpened. He put the tool belt on the stool beside him. There was a colour television behind the counter playing a morning news broadcast. The picture was coming in and out. A waitress passing the set reached up and adjusted the antenna before she came over to Lee. Her face was warm and the name Helen was embroidered on her shirt. Her hips and breasts were round and full.

  — Morning, hon.

  — Morning yourself, said Lee.

  — Anything catch your eye?

  — You mean on the menu?

  She grinned: Come on. You just got here.

  He ordered eggs and home fries and extra bacon. She brought him a cup of coffee and then she moved away and passed his order through a wicket into a steaming kitchen. Lee lit a cigarette. Seated around him were a few other patrons. He didn’t think he recognized any of them. There were a couple of truckers and a nurse along the counter, and four old men in a booth. A man with long dark hair and sharp features, wearing a down-filled vest and sitting near the window, might have been studying Lee if he allowed himself to think so. Lee tapped his cigarette into an ashtray. He flexed his toes inside his new work boots.

  Helen came with his breakfast and refilled his coffee.

  — Enjoy, Brown Eyes.

  He slathered ketchup on his food and he hunched forward and dug into his breakfast. He sensed that Helen was watching him, amused. He looked at her.

  — I don’t know where you usually eat, said Helen, but nobody’s going to steal your food here.

  Before Lee could reply, she went back down the counter to take someone else’s order. The man in the down-filled vest raised a hand at her, snapped his fingers, but Helen ignored him. It was a different waitress who went to refill the man’s coffee.

  Lee finished his breakfast. He got up and collected his tool belt and went into the washroom. When he came out, he saw Pete in a small car outside. The long-haired man with the sharp features was gone. Helen came over and Lee asked what he owed. After he’d paid, Helen said she hoped he’d come again.

  He left the diner, feeling good and loose-limbed. Pete popped the trunk open and Lee dropped his tool belt beside the spare tire. He closed the trunk and got into the car.

  — Morning, said Pete.

  — Top of the morning to you.

  — Ready for your first day?

  — You bet, buck.

  — I asked Barry to ask Clifton Murray where we’re going, said Pete. It’s out at the lake. Where all the new places are going up. My mom packed you a lunch. It’s on the back seat.

  They went south out of town and followed a road along the bottom edge of Lake Kissinaw. Lee remembered the geography of it, the aspect of the trees, a certain house. A sign advertised a lakeside subdivision to be built in the next year.

  — I hear you don’t go to school no more, said Lee.

  — I … No, that’s true. I quit.

  — Wasn’t to your liking?

  — You could say that. I don’t know how to explain it.

  — So you work at a gas station all the time?

  — Pretty much, said Pete. I’m saving some money. Before Grandma got sick, I was planning to leave.

  — Is that right? Where were you going to go?

  — West, said Pete. Out to the ocean. I thought I would figure it out from there. For now I just have to keep focused.

  Lee felt an immense sense of strangeness with Pete, now that he’d met him and put a face to the name. It was not entirely comfortable but it was not as bad as Lee had expected it might be. Overall, it was just hard to believe that they were sitting side by side in a car all these years later.

  — Was it sort of the same way for you? said Pete.

  — Say what?

  The kid was giving him a sidelong look, trying mostly to keep his eyes on the road as he drove.

  — Staying focused. When you were … inside.

  Lee thought about the question, and about the strange feeling he had sitting next to this kid. Nobody had ever asked him how he’d kept focused in prison. After a moment, he said: Well, there was this and that, I guess. The first couple of years it was all the wrong things. But later on I started looking in different places. I thought the Bible was okay. All that talk about lands of milk and honey sounded good. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me. That’s one of the Psalms.

  — Yeah, I think I’ve heard that one, said Pete.

  — I also had some dirty magazines. Those helped too.

  They both laughed.

  — There really wasn’t all that much, said Lee. You’ve got to get along with what you have. There was TV, which a lot of guys looked at, but I never cared for it. I thought a lot of the programs were bullshit.

  — They mostly are.

  Lee studied Pete’s profile. He never would have believed it, but this was alright, riding along with Donna’s son. This was alright. He had a fondness for the kid already.

  — I haven’t known you real long, said Lee. But I can see you’re one of the good guys.

  The job site was on the south shore of the lake, which was screened by a long, rocky point from the town waterfront. An orchard used to grow here and some of the apple trees remained yet, untended and straggling. A large cottage, four thousand square feet, was being built on the property. When Pete and Lee arrived, the building was just the framing and the roof and some sheathing. The ground was trampled mud. There were stacks of building material and a tall heap of half-inch crushed stone. A BobCat and two cars and two pickup trucks all stood in the driveway. Lee counted five men unloading tools. A wooden sign read MURRAY CUSTOM BLDG, CALL FOR ESTIMATE’S.

  Pete parked behind the trucks. Lee got out and retrieved his tool belt from the trunk. From the back seat he took the lunch pail Donna had packed for him. Pete watched him.

  — Do you know when you’ll be done?

  — No, said Lee. Anyhow I’ll see if someone here can give me a lift back into town. Don’t sweat it.

  — Okay. Have a good day, Uncle Lee.

  Lee’s face quirked.

  — Something wrong? said Pete.

  Lee laughed. He said: How about, I’ll call you Pete, and you call me Lee. There’s no need for formal shit between the good guys.

  — Okay. Lee.

  Lee thumped his fist on the roof of the car. Pete gave him a little salute, rolled up his window, and drove away. Lee headed over to a man tying his bootlaces beside a truck.

  — Are you Mr. Murray?

  The man pointed to someone else, twenty feet away. He said: That’s Clifton.

  Clifton Murray was short and bowlegged, with curly red hair going grey. He held a pencil in his mouth and was frowning over an invoice. Lee crossed over and Clifton looked up, fixed him with a gnomish squint.

  — Morning, Mr. Murray, said Lee. I’m Leland King.

  Lee offered his hand. Clifton shook it once. He took the pencil, chamfered and moist, out of his mouth and said: Oh. Right.

  — Thank you for the job. I’ve been looking forward to it since Barry told me.

  — That’s good. Pastor Barry might of told you this one: You will eat the labour of your hands, and happy will you be. So if hard work is something you like …

  The man who’d been tying his bootlaces ambled by and said: Morning, Clifton.

  — Good day, Jeff, said Clifton.

  — Anyhow, said Lee. I got my trade. Cabinets, doors, all kinds of joining. You name it.

  — Well, you can give Bud a hand getting the shingles up to the roof. I got 150 bundles that have to go up.

  Fifty feet away was a gangly chap perhaps five years older than Pete. His hair was cut in a severe crewcut. He was hoisting a
bundle of shingles from a stack onto his shoulder.

  Clifton squinted at Lee.

  — There a problem, mister man?

  — No, said Lee. Just thought you needed a carpenter is all.

  — I’ve got a carpenter. A darn good one. I subcontract out to him when I need to. Now what I need is those shingles on the roof.

  — Okay.

  Clifton spread his hands: Not five minutes you’re here. I’m taking you on Pastor Barry’s good word but I don’t need any headache.

  — No, sir. I’ll get them shingles moving double-quick.

  — That’s better. Now. I don’t allow profane language or idleness on my job site. You can smoke once an hour. Lunch is at noontime.

  — Okay, Mr. Murray.

  Lee started in the direction of the stack of shingles.

  — Leland King!

  Lee turned.

  — A good thing to think about, said Clifton. Redeeming yourself doesn’t happen all at once. One day at a time. Deeds, thoughts, prayer. That’s from Pastor Barry and I believe it, every word.

  Lee looked at the mud on the ground. He fingered the buckle of the tool belt on his shoulder. He found himself coming up against a depth of religious faith that he’d not expected. Clifton now, but also with his mother and with Barry and Donna. He should have expected it, he knew, given the letters Barry had written to him over the years. But knowing it from written letters, and finding it now in the world of free men, were two different things and he couldn’t yet figure out what that difference might mean. There had been religion in prison, and it was on Barry’s urging that Lee had sought guidance from the chaplain and had taken up reading the Bible. The chaplain, in turn, had spoken on Lee’s behalf when his parole hearings eventually came around. But behind the cinder-block walls and the iron bars, the ideas of spiritual deliverance and a Kingdom of God had a much more basic appeal. Out here, it seemed somehow different. Less tangible. His mind coursed through a number of the bible verses he’d learned, but he couldn’t seem to fix on one that might fit as a response to Clifton’s comments. Clifton, for his part, had already gone back to examining the invoice.