Salvage (6 page)

Before he could say anything she was taking off her top, then her skirt, so that she stood in front of him in her black bra and panties.

He stuttered and tried to tell her she was too drunk.

“Shut the fuck up,” she said and pulled off her bra. “I don't want your fucking opinion. I want your cock,” and she grabbed him through his jeans.

She picked up the cocaine and poured a pinch on her left nipple. She stood, careful not to spill, and put it under his nose.

Scarnum snorted it, and when he was finished he sucked on her nipple. The coke made his head sing, and he felt the blood in his eyes throbbing in time with his heart. She pulled his head up and kissed him, and she took off his shirt. He snorted coke off her other nipple, then she undressed him, and did a line off his hard penis. Then she sucked it.

She closed her eyes while he moved in her — stretched back naked below him on the settee, with her legs spread wide, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her arm covering her face. It was as if she was trying to hide, Scarnum thought. She wanted an orgasm, but she was so full of vodka and cocaine that it was hard for her to get there. He moved urgently, and roughly rubbed at her, while she encouraged him with grunts. When she finished with a spasm, it came as a relief to him, and he let himself go and collapsed on top of her.

When he regained his breath, he asked her, “What Mexicans?”

She grunted.

“You asked me if I was mixed up with the Mexicans,” he said. “What Mexicans? Was Jimmy involved with some Mexicans?”

But she ignored his question and started crying again, and again covered her face with her arm.

“Oh, Phillip,” she said. “I'm a bad person. Oh, oh, oh. A very bad person.”

She made it into a little song. “
I'm a very bad person
.” And she started to cry again.

He pulled her head onto his chest and cradled her again, comforting her. “You're not a bad person, Angela,” he said. “You just needed to get fucked up, then you needed to get fucked, that's all. It's understandable. You just found out your man was murdered.”

She laughed bitterly. “Phillip, I'm pregnant. I'm three months pregnant and I'm drunk and coked up, and I don't even know if the baby is Jimmy's or yours, and Jimmy's fucking dead and I just came over here to fuck you.”

Scarnum absorbed that for a minute. “Yuh,” he finally said. “I guess you are a bad person.”

She laughed then, and looked at him through all her tears. She had cried so much and so hard that the heavy mascara around her beautiful green eyes was smeared like a raccoon's mask, and mucous dripped from the end of her perfect ski-slope nose. He wiped her face and she hugged him and he told her it would be all right, and this time she seemed to believe him.

He lit smokes for them and asked her again about the Mexicans.

“I don't really know,” she said. “Just after Christmas Jimmy started to have a lot more money. I mean, he always made pretty good money from the fishing, but he spent it as fast as he earned it. You know what he was like. Always had to have a new truck, new TV, new clothes, coke, liquor. He'd go in to town and blow a few grand on the strippers. Then he suddenly had a lot more money, and a lot more coke. He wouldn't tell me where he got it.

“One night when he come home drunk, I went at him, asking him over and over again. Drunk as he was, he wouldn't say nothing. Finally, I asked him why he wouldn't tell me. He said, ‘I tell anyone and the Mexicans find out, I'll be fucking dead as a doughnut.' When he realized what he'd said, he got right scared-looking and made me promise I'd keep my mouth shut. I never told nobody until tonight.”

Scarnum asked her how come he was fishing alone on the night he was killed.

“I've been wondering that,” she said. “It's weird, isn't it? He never fished alone. It's not safe.”

She told Scarnum that Jimmy usually fished with a guy named Doug Amos, who lived in a trailer in the woods behind Western Shore.

Scarnum cut up two thin lines of Angela's coke, and they each snorted one, and they each took a drink of vodka.

“Angela,” said Scarnum. “If you want, I'll try to find out who killed Jimmy. I'll do that for you, but I want you to do something for me. I want you to stop drinking and snorting coke until you have the baby.”

She started crying then and called him a fucking jerk, and said of course she wasn't going to drink or get coked up while she was pregnant, but not because he said so.

“And you can't come around here anymore,” he said. “So far as I know, nobody knows that you and I have been fucking. The cops already think I might have had something to do with Jimmy getting killed. If they knew I was fucking you, they might just lock me up. So you got to stay away from me until I figure this shit out. Find someone else to fuck if you have to.”

She cried again and slapped him and called him a prick.

“I'm sorry,” he said and hugged her again. “But that's the situation we're in. If you really need to see me, call Charlie and leave a message.”

He made her get dressed then and leave, so nobody would see her car parked next to his boat in the morning.

He kissed her and hugged her and told her that he loved her, and told her everything was going to be OK.

As she walked to the car, he called to her from the deck of his boat. “Angela,” he said.

She stopped to look at him. Her beautiful face was in the darkness, but the light from a street lamp shone through her dark curls.

“Do you think the baby's Jimmy's?”

She laughed at him. “Phillip, I don't have a fucking clue.”

And she got in her car and drove away, tires spinning gravel.

DOUG AMOS'S TRAILER WAS
the nicest one on the dirt road that ran from Gold River into the pine and hardwoods inland.

It had a built-on porch covered with vinyl siding, a big painted deck with the footings hidden behind a trellis. There was a big new Ford truck and a rusted Hyundai sedan in the driveway. A little pink bicycle lay on its side next to the driveway. Between the trailer and the woods behind, there was a vegetable garden.

A clothesline ran from the trailer to a post near the garden. A chain was attached to the clothesline, and a big German shepherd was attached to the chain. It barked at Scarnum's truck and lunged, yanking the clothesline so it rattled.

Scarnum sat in the truck and waited. He saw a curtain move and a woman's face peek out. Then a man's face came to the window.

Doug Amos didn't look too friendly when he eventually came out. He had a black moustache and was wearing a red and black lumberjack coat, track pants, rubber boots, a plastic ball cap, and a scowl.

Scarnum rolled down his window. The dog kept barking and lunging.

“What can I do for you?” the man called from the deck.

Scarnum got out of the truck. “I come to talk to you about Jimmy,” he said. “Angela sent me.”

Amos just stared at him for a minute, then turned to the dog and yelled, “King! Shut the fuck up.”

He lifted a broken hockey stick from the porch and walked toward the dog, raising it in the air over his head. “King! Shut the fuck up!”

Seeing the stick, the dog whimpered and its tail went down. It slunk away toward the garden, looking back over its shoulder.

Amos walked down off the porch, still holding the hockey stick. Scarnum didn't reach out to shake his hand.

“My name's Phillip Scarnum,” he said. “I'm a friend of Angela's. She's awful upset about Jimmy.”

He stopped there, and the two men stood silently in the driveway, each looking in different directions.

“Terrible thing,” said Amos.

“Yuh,” said Scarnum, and he waited a minute. “She's carrying his baby,” he said and he looked at Amos full-on. “Kid's going to grow up without a daddy.”

Amos kept looking away, off down the dirt road, as if he was expecting someone. “Yuh,” he said. “Terrible thing.”

“What Angela wants to know,” said Scarnum. “Is why Jimmy was out on that goddamned boat by himself. She wants to know why you weren't with him. You two usually fished together.”

Amos turned to him and Scarnum could see he was very angry.

“Well,” he said. “You can tell her he was alone because that's the way he goddamn well wanted it. Tell her he asked me to call in sick so's he could go out alone.”

The dog sat up and started barking again, tentatively this time. Amos turned and brandished the stick. “King! I told you to shut the fuck up!”

The dog fell silent.

Scarnum said, “Why'd you suppose he wanted to go out alone? Who wants to go out fishing alone?”

Amos shook his head. “I didn't ask him,” he said. “Wasn't my business to ask him, I thought.”

Scarnum looked at him. “Did he pay you to call in sick?”

Amos nodded his head. “Said he'd pay me like normal if I stayed home,” he said and smiled. “I laughed at him. Told him I'd be glad to stay home and make the same money I'd make on the boat. Told me to keep my mouth shut about it, tell anyone who asked that I called in sick. I did. Wasn't my business. Anyone would take that deal.”

Amos's smile went away as quickly as it had appeared. “You can tell Angela I wouldn't mind paying the money back,” he said. “Seeing as how things ended up. It would take me a while to get it together, though. I got another one of my own on the way, but we could work it out. I don't feel too good about the money now.”

Scarnum shook his head. “I'll tell Angela what you said, but I don't think she'd want that. I guess you held up your end of the deal. It's not your fault that Jimmy … was the way he was. Angela don't blame you for nothing. She knows he must have been in some kind of trouble. She just wants to know what happened, and the cops aren't saying nothing.”

“Well, I don't know any more than what I told you,” said Amos. “He wanted me to call in sick, so I did.”

“How many times?” said Scarnum.

Amos looked at him. “Five times, I think. First time was just before Christmas.”

“Did he ever give you any kind of clue what he was doing out there on his own?” asked Scarnum.

“Nope,” said Amos, and he looked down at his feet. “They say some fellows, I won't say who, now, but they say there are some fellows who steal lobsters from other fellows' traps. Coulda been something like that, I suppose. I didn't think it was any of my business.”

Scarnum held out his hand now and Amos shook it.

“You got no cause to blame yourself for this,” said Scarnum. “I don't know what Jimmy was into but whatever it was, you didn't tell him to do it.”

When Scarnum got in the truck, Amos said, “I want you to tell Angela that if she wants for anything — some wood for the winter, some groceries, whatever — we'd be proud to help out.”

Scarnum put the truck in reverse. “I'll tell her,” he said. “Thank you.”

On the way down the dirt road, a Mountie car passed him going the other way. Léger was behind the wheel. Scarnum looked out the passenger window as he drove by, but he was pretty sure the Mountie saw him.

H
enri Castonguay had just put a pot of seafood stock on to boil when Scarnum stuck his head through the back door of the kitchen of Henri's Bistro, a restaurant in an old wooden house overlooking Marriot's Cove, not far from Chester.

“
Salut, mon gars,
” he said. “
Qu'est que tu cuisines
?
Ça pue
!”

Castonguay, immaculate in kitchen whites, holding a wooden spoon, turned away from the stove and squinted. His face lit up when he saw it was Scarnum.

“Hey!” he said. “
Mon ami
. Come in. I'm making
un bouillon de poisson
, not that an uncultured Canadian like you would appreciate it.” He went to the door of the dining room and called for his wife.

“Henri,
mon vieux
,” said Scarnum. “
J'ai un petit problème et j'ai besoin de ton aide
.”
He pulled out the flask.

“But that doesn't look like a problem,” said Henri. “That looks like a flask. If your problem is that your flask is too full, I'm sure I can help you.”

Mary Murphy came into the kitchen. Her freckled face lit up with pleasure and she clapped her hands. She kissed Scarnum on both cheeks.

Scarnum laughed and hugged her. “You're a sight for sore eyes, you,” he said.

“We never see you anymore, Phillip,” she said. “How are you?”

“Not bad, b'y, but I've got a mystery for you. Here's the thing,” he said, unscrewing the top of the flask. “Don't ask me why, but I want to know who owns this flask. I might be able to figure it out if I knew what was in it.”

He passed the flask to Castonguay, who pressed the lid against his grey moustache and inhaled deeply.

“Scotch,” he said. He took a tiny sip and frowned. “Good Scotch,” he said. “Mary has a better palate than I do.” He passed it to her.

“Mmm,” she said. “Islay Scotch, I think.”

Mary led them into the dining room and took some brandy snifters down from the rack above the little bar. She poured a finger of Scotch from the flask into a glass, mixed a little spring water, and they all tasted it again.

Then she took down a bottle of Laphroaig and a bottle of Lagavulin. She poured a finger from each, added a little water, and lined them up on the bar — each glass in front of its bottle. They tasted them in turn.

“It is Laphroaig,” she said. She sipped it again and pushed two of the glasses toward Scarnum. “Taste these two. This one is from our bottle of Laphroaig. This one is from your flask.”

“They taste exactly the same to me,” said Scarnum.

“The one from the flask is older,” she said. “We carry the ten-year-old Laphroaig, but they sell older stuff, fifteen-year-old, thirty-year-old. I think this might be the thirty-year-old stuff.”

She sipped it again. “Taste how smooth it is, but how it hasn't lost that wild flavour of peat and iodine.”

She looked up at the two men, who were watching her silently. “This is good fucking whisky,” she said, and they all laughed.

“So, who drinks thirty-year-old Laphroaig?” asked Scarnum.

“Someone with good taste and a lot of money,” said Castonguay. “It's what? Two hundred and fifty dollars a bottle?”

Mary nodded. She pursed her lips and looked up at Scarnum. “I can only remember one person ever asking for it here,” she said. “I remember because I thought he was a big-feeling arsehole to ask, since he could see we didn't have it behind the bar. You can't even buy it at the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission.”

“Who was that?” said Scarnum.

She looked at him for a long moment, and he knew it was coming.

“Bobby Falkenham,” she said, and she took another drink of whisky.

So did Scarnum.

S
carnum drove north, along the winding, two-lane paved road that led to New Ross, through the woods. After half an hour, he turned right onto a dirt road and drove past a sign that said
WELCOME TO THE PENNAL FIRST NATION
.

A bit farther down the road was a much bigger sign:
CIGARETTES, FIREWORKS, GAS, COFFEE
. Scarnum pulled up in front of the Mi'kmaq Treaty Gas Bar — a set of pumps in front of a little plywood shed on a concrete pad — and went in and bought a carton of duty-free cigarettes from two middle-aged Mi'kmaq women who sat behind the counter listening to country music on the radio and smoking.

A sad-looking old white couple sat in the back, feeding quarters into video lottery machines.

“You know where I can find Donald Christmas's place?” Scarnum asked the Mi'kmaq women, smiling.

“I dunno,” said the older of the two women. “I'm not sure he's in town. What do you want him for?”

“I'm an old friend,” said Scarnum. “Phillip Scarnum. Just wanna see how he's doing.”

“I dunno,” she said. “Wait a minute. I'll call his cousin, see if he's in town.”

She picked up a telephone, dialed, and spoke in Mi'kmaq. She looked Scarnum up and down as she talked.

“What you say your name was again?” she said.

“Phillip Scarnum,” he said.

She repeated the name into the phone, listened, and then asked him, “Why you want to see him?”

Scarnum thought for a minute. “Angela sent me,” he said.

The woman hung up. “His cousin is going to come and get you.”

Scarnum thanked her and went out to sit in his truck, smoking and looking at the trailers and tumbledown houses of the reserve.

After fifteen minutes, a teenager drove up on a four-wheeler, his long black hair blowing in the wind behind him.

He skidded to a stop in the gravel next to the truck. “Scarnum?” he asked.

“You should wear a helmet,” said Scarnum. “Them things is dangerous.”

The kid laughed. “Follow me,” he said.

Scarnum followed in his wake of dust down a series of potholed dirt roads. Donald Christmas's house — a 1970s split-level — sat at the top of a meadow hundreds of yards back from the road. There was a huge garage built onto the side of the house. The flag of the Mi'kmaq Warriors — a red flag with the profile of a brave in the middle — flew from a pole in front.

The kid got off the four-wheeler and unlocked the padlock on the steel gate at the bottom of the long lane, waited until Scarnum drove through, then locked it behind him.

Donald was waiting for him, sitting on the front stoop. He wore work boots, jeans, and a Tupac sweatshirt.