“Let’s go.”
Again I lifted the unwieldy sack onto my shoulder. We resumed the climb along a devious path that, after several minutes, opened to a wide area bordered by a wire fence. Through a ragged opening we climbed up onto a bluff overlooking the graveyard. Here we stood on the tomb of the Molsons, their crypt a tall lighthouse with the clan’s crest carved on the stone. The ground from here sloped down to the south, studded with headstones, draped urns, and obelisks leaning off-true. A light peacefulness reigned as a wind stirred scattered autumn leaves. Enough light remained to lead us up a rise to a far and quiet corner. Then the sky went black and through frazzled clouds I saw the first stars come out. Smiler followed me, not smiling now.
There it was, just over there, a neat hole in the ground. We stopped. Three open graves waited, with pyramids of dirt piled by each. Two were untouched since their original excavation. The third site had been disturbed.
“Here,” I said.
I set down the bag and sat, drained and sweating. Smiler said nothing and rubbed his hands to keep them warm. I summoned a little strength and with as much care as I could muster went down into the first hole and gently settled Laura into it. I said no prayer but climbed out of the pit and told Smiler: “Bury her.”
He looked around for a spade and then at me.
“Fill it,” I said.
“How?”
“Get your hands dirty.”
Smiler began to protest, then sighed and started pushing dirt into the hole. He kicked with his feet then got on his knees to shovel and scrape. In twenty minutes the earth was level again. I lit a cigaret and stepped back.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“Not bad.”
He turned to me.
“Now you,” I said.
“What?”
“Get in the next one.”
“What? Why me?”
Smiler noticed the gun in my hand.
“Mick?”
“Get into that hole, you lousy son of a bitch.”
I pointed the Webley at him. For reasons of his own, Smiler raised his hands. His mouth opened.
“Mick, please, please no.”
“Do it or by God I’ll shoot you down like the fucking dog you are. You did it.”
“I did?”
“You killed her.”
“Mick, you’re, you’re mad! Why would I kill her?”
“I caught you.”
“No! Mick, I, I swear!”
I cocked the hammer. Smiler moved crabwise to the middle grave and slowly inched his way into it. He stood, his hands still held high, white lab coat dirtied.
“Mick, it wasn’t me.”
“Yup, that’s true,” I said.
“Then, why this?”
“‘Who will help the widow’s son?’” I teased.
Smiler’s voice filled with relief. It was as black as the ace of spades now. Only the faintness of his coat was visible.
“I’m on the level,” Smiler said.
I looked down at him in his hole. “You sure are.”
“The square.” Smiler then said something that was probably the Mason Word and put down his arms. Houdini, Jack, Sir Lionel Dunphy, they were all the same. I was outside looking in.
“Mick, Mick, you know! You know I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill her. Laura.”
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“Then who did?” asked Smiler.
“Me.”
There was a moment of silence. Smiler broke it by blurting in terror: “I come from the East!”
“Well, I’m from out West,” I said, and shot him in the chest.
He fell back into the pit and I fired again, a brief flash illuminating the red on his coat. His body twitched with the third shot and I stopped. My ears were ringing again with the noise and my nose was filled with the stink of gunpowder residue. My right hand was tensed, the flesh throbbing with the phantom echo of the Webley’s action. Smiler was still and dead. I breathed in and out and felt a black, almost Satanic holiness well up within me. The next half an hour saw me grimed burying the man. I walked up and away through the darkness, invisible and free.
IN THE GLOAMING near to night was when she came to me. A victoria pulled by geldings brought her to the mountaintop. I waited as she stepped down and paid the driver, who took her paper money and tipped his hat. The letter I’d mailed her Sunday had hit home, though if I’d signed it with my own name I would’ve waited in vain. As it was, a forged request for a rendezvous proved my point: she’d acquiesced and had appeared right place, right time. This was my favourite hour, the dying day.
On the lookout side lingered a few sightseers and one or two folks strolled by Beaver Lake, but for the most part the park was empty with night falling fast. I stood on a stone in a thicket with a view all directions and watched the horses guide the ’cab back down the promenade road. Soon the sound of hooves on gravel faded and a deep stillness fell. Laura waited composedly by a weathered plinth and gazed out over the city, a faint shimmer on the indigo river and a low fluttering pulse of electric lights coming to life on the part-finished harbour bridge to the east. Soon Laura was alone, and then I went to her, chilled. She turned and saw me smiling.
“Michael,” she said.
“Expecting somebody else?”
“Frankly yes.”
“Well, he couldn’t make it. He sends his regrets and asked me to take his place.”
“I see.”
“How are you?”
“I’m well.”
“Beautiful night, ain’t it?”
“Michael.”
“Seen any good movies lately?”
“No.”
“Shame.”
“Michael, I really haven’t the time for this.”
“Is that so? Well then, the least I can do is walk you over to the road. You’ll never get a taxi up here, not at this hour. Not safe for you to be alone in the dark.”
Laura had no answer to that, wrapped in her still reserve. I made careful not to get too close. It was like coaxing a wild animal out of the woods.
“Just over there,” I gestured vaguely.
She looked back and forth. I was right. The park was empty. At last she said: “Very well.”
We walked down the path.
“You look fine, Laura.”
“Michael.”
“I mean it. Really.”
She was silent, strange to me.
