I’ll go see.”
“I want to come.” Travis, already on his feet.
“Stay here.”
Jim climbed under the wheel and rumbled down the driveway to the road. A fly bounced inside the windshield before being sucked out the open window. Trespassers weren’t uncommon on the old property, usually antique hunters from the city. Sometimes just kids looking to explore. The old Corrigan house was big and spooky-looking, a natural draw for any curious eyes driving past. Two years ago it was some college kids with a bunch of weird gear. Said they were ghost hunters searching for signs of paranormal activity. Jim had chased them off, telling them they were trespassing and he’d call the cops if they didn’t pack up and skedaddle.
The driveway to the old place was nothing more than two rutted tracks of hard packed clay. Overgrown crabgrass trailed beneath the pickup’s undercarriage. Jim could already see a vehicle parked in the front yard. A new Toyota FJ, tricked out with floodlights on the roof and a heavy grille guard. Long way from home too. Nova Scotia plates. Another antique hunter.
An ambitious one at that, Jim thought. There was a tidy pile of trash and debris just off the veranda, hauled from inside and pitched out. Jim went up the rotted plank steps and stopped outside the open door.
“Hello?”
No response. A dull crash deep inside the house.
The interior was dark and musty smelling. An overturned chair to his left, the spindles splayed and broken. A table against the wall with a yellowing calendar hung over it, forever frozen to June 1973. A rack of stag antlers over a wide stone hearth. The floorboards warped and filthy with the dry bones of mice and other small creatures. The staircase and the hallway to the back. He hollered again.
Noise thudding through the floor. A shatter of glass and the tinkling of shards. Jim passed under the staircase to the hallway, the light brightening into what was once the kitchen.
A silhouette in the room, the man a blur against the sunlight squaring the grimy windows. His back to Jim. Rubble at his feet and dust frosting the air. An iron poker in his hand.
“Hello.”
The voice was low and unfamiliar. He didn’t turn around.
Jim’s back went up, wary. He reminded himself the man was a trespasser. And a vandal, judging by the damage he’d wrought with the poker. Jim dropped an octave, injecting authority into his tone. “Can I help you with something? This is private property.”
“Private?” The man finally turned. Jim ballparked his age at forty or so, the features deeply etched. Eyes that bored into Jim’s and wouldn’t let go. Big shoulders and raw looking hands. “It looks like it’s been used as a public toilet,” he said.
“It’s been empty a long time. You scavenging for antiques or something?”
The stranger sized Jim up and down but said nothing. Locking that weird stare onto him. Creepy was the word that sprang to mind. “Couple places in town for antiques. Regular shops instead of trespassing.” Jim stressed the trespassing part, impatient to hustle this weirdo on his way.
“No trespasser here, sir.” The man grinned wide, like someone clutching a flush. “Except you maybe.”
“Beg your pardon?”
The man passed the iron rod from his right hand to his left and stepped closer. “You live next door, yeah? What’s your name?” He thrust his hand out to shake.
“Jim. Jim Hawkshaw.” Without thinking, taking the hand and shaking.
“Will Corrigan.” The man pumped Jim’s hand. Watched his face for a reaction.
Jim creased his brow, the name bouncing around inside his head but not making any sense.
“Corrigan?” Jim stumbled over the name, saying it aloud. “No, that’s the name of this place. Or it used to be—”
Will Corrigan squeezed Jim’s hand. “The very same. Pleased to meet you, Jim.”
Jim pulled his hand away. Something didn’t add up, he thought. There are no Corrigans.
“I’ve come to claim the family homestead. Or at least what’s left of the fucking place.” Corrigan tossed the poker to the floor where it crashed against a mess of broken plates. “Guess that makes us neighbours.”
“Get outta here! Shoo!”
The damn goats. Emma chased the pair of them from her vegetable garden, where they had devoured the tomato shoots and the flowering bell peppers. The slat fence Jim had put up to keep them out lay trampled in the dirt. Unlike horses, goats didn’t spook and bolt. The goats, whom Jim had named It and Shit, just worked their jaws and watched her bellow with their slit eyes. A swift kick to the hind end and the animals brayed and meandered off slowly. Plodding to the weed border of the yard and nipping at the clover, looking back at her with what Emma could only read as resentment.
“You two can be sold,” she scolded them. “In a heartbeat.”
The goats lowered their heads and chewed, turning their behinds towards her.
Emma kneeled down to inspect the damage. The tomatoes might survive but the peppers would never bear fruit now, the stalks devoured up along with the buds. She brushed her hands off and straightened up, catching sight of the pickup roaring onto the road and pluming dust as it steered towards town.
Where the hell was Jim going?
She dug her phone from a back pocket and hit the number for Jim’s cell.
“Yeah.” His voice crackly down the line.
“Where are you going?” Emma strode out of the rows, angling the phone for a better reception. “Is everything okay?”
“I gotta talk to Kate. Somebody just screwed us over.”
Click. The line gone dead. She hated it when he got cryptic. Was she supposed to guess what that meant?
To hell with it. Emma knelt back down to uproot the mangled pepper plants.
5
THE OAK STEM Diner was the place where business was conducted over eggs and bottomless cups of coffee, had been since the sixties. Business had slackened the last few years when the new Tim Hortons coffee shop landed further out on the strip, siphoning off customers but the Oak Stem held its own with its booths and swivel stools. A universal truth; you couldn’t negotiate a deal under a sign declaring a twenty minute minimum.
The bell over the door rang as Jim entered but staff and patrons alike were deaf to it now. Jim scanned the tables and spotted Kate in the last booth. Sitting across from her were Hitchens and Tom Carswell, the manager of the Pennyluck Savings and Loan. All three looked up when Jim approached.
Jim nodded to the two men before squaring his eyes on the mayor. “We need to talk.”
“Jimmy, sit down,” said Hitchens. “We were just talking about you. And your new neighbour.”
“Is that so? You know about this guy?”
“Sit down.” Kate’s tone was conciliatory although her eyes seemed troubled.
Hitchens slid over and Jim sat. “He said his name’s Corrigan. Where the hell did he come from?”
“No idea,” said Kate. “John found him on the steps of the county office this morning, waiting for it to open. He filed a claim on the property.”
“So some yahoo walks in and makes a claim? If I knew it was that easy, I woulda done it ages ago.”
Tom Carswell clinked his cup back onto the saucer. He had that puffy faced, worn out look some men get sliding down the other side of forty. Swollen looking hands that were oddly dainty holding a cup. Jim had never liked the man, disliking his air of superiority. He guessed that handling other people’s money did that to a person.
