Cadillac Cathedral (4 page)

Returning to the cab, he opened the backwards-opening half-door, brushed leaves and twigs from the seat, then slipped in behind the wheel. The engine turned over once, twice, a third time — then rumbled and ticked, sputtered a bit, and finally idled into a comfortable hum.

This was not just someone’s tractor or Hudson’s old butcher wagon; it was the hearse that Thomas Birdsong had driven at the head of any number of parades from church to cemetery through the city of Arvo’s childhood. Before his family moved north to Portuguese Creek, he’d seen those funeral processions moving down the street — probably quite often, since he had such a vivid memory of Birdsong’s daughter sitting where her father ought to be. She’d waved to those she passed by as though she believed herself to be driving a float in the First of July parade. Her father beamed with pride, or possibly with the pleasure of defying the police. But if the police had noticed this flouting of the law they’d done nothing about it. Maybe they were unwilling to interfere with a funeral. Even as a ten- or eleven- or twelve-year-old boy, he had been aware that he was seeing something astonishing, a vehicle more beautiful than any he’d seen before.

He was not aware of the woman until she was nearly upon him. “What do you think you’re doing? Get away from there
you
!”

Arvo stepped onto the running board with both arms high, as he might if she’d confronted him with a gun. But he couldn’t keep the grin from his face. He had found himself a beauty here, in need of very little attention. Martin would be pleased.

The woman stooped to take up a long slice of broken lumber off the ground and came at him as though ready to swat him with it. “Get down off of there right now!” Her large hips and powerful thighs were encased in faded jeans worn through at the knees. Her yellow woolly slippers were no strangers to this dirt.

“I meant no harm,” he said. “Any damage I can see has been done already by someone else.”

She came still closer and put a hand against the hood. “My boys don’t like strangers poking around.”

“I can understand that.”

“So you can get back in your truck and leave.”

Peterson and Herbie Brewer had got out of the Henry J and were now doing their own inspection of the hearse.

“You take good care of this vehicle?” Arvo asked. Still standing on the running board, he kept a hand on the steering wheel. “Somebody’s kept her motor in pretty good shape, though that rear corner looks as though you might’ve backed into a tree.”

“My boys depend on it,” she admitted, nodding her head more times than was necessary. “It hauls the smaller logs, and sometimes drags the hand plough through my garden when I need it. And the harrows.”

Herbie Brewer opened the door at the rear. “There’s a sleeping bag in here,” he said.

The woman seemed to find this an additional indignity. “You see the two-bit shack I got to live in? I got three sons, all big noisy louts.
Sometimes they snore so bad the windows rattle. A person can’t
sleep
. You see a guest house anywhere, or even a tool shed? This has to be my bedroom now and then if I’m to get any rest at all.” Perhaps sensing she had a good audience here, she allowed herself to grin. “I figure if I die in my sleep it’ll be a convenience for the boys.”

Herbie snickered. Peterson cleared his throat and turned away to examine the ground behind him. Arvo buttoned up the top button on his shirt and then unbuttoned it. It was not possible to know whether she was joking, though her scowl did seem to be daring them to laugh.

“It makes a pretty good tractor,” she added. “If you came to make me an offer it better be a good one. The boys depend on this thing and would need to find another.”

“Madam,” Arvo said. “You and your sons have committed something like a sacrilege here! But we will forgive you if you’ll let us borrow this hearse for a day or two.”

“Can’t,” she said. “The boys’ll kill me if they find her gone.” She cocked her head to one side to add: “Especially since I know you’re lying and won’t never bring ’er back.”

Peterson said, “We’ll return it just as soon as we’ve done the best we can for a good friend of ours who died.”

We will return it, Arvo did not say, but not to you or your sons. He was imagining the look on Myrtle Birdsong’s face when she discovered he’d driven her father’s hearse up to her door. “But in order to return it we have to borrow it first,” he said. “And before we borrow it with the intention of returning it, we will need to see your ownership papers.”

“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “We
found
this thing where somebody ditched it in the bush. There weren’t no papers in it. We never take it near a public road.”

“My friend Herbie here is good friends with the
RCMP
.”

Though obviously a little startled by Arvo’s way of putting it, Herbie Brewer grimly nodded his head. It was true that he spent a little time in the police station in town now and then, though only when he’d forgotten where he was supposed to meet up with Peterson for a ride home.

“Suppose we drive away right now and Herbie gets in touch with his pals and his pals are able to tell him who’s the legal owner of this hearse. Unless you have a gun in your apron pocket and use it right now to shoot all three of us, I’ll turn this machine around and we’ll be on our way.”

“You’ll have to drive it over me first,” the woman said. She moved in front of the hearse and spread her arms.

“It’s a pleasure to see such determination,” Arvo said. “But I’ll tell you what we’ll do.” He stepped down and crossed the dirt to the Fargo and removed the portable license plate and carried it back through his own raised dust to the hearse and hung it off the door handle at the rear. “I have no intention of stealing the hearse, or even borrowing it. I came prepared to make a trade if I had to. I’ll take this old hearse that was never meant for heavy labour off your hands in exchange for my three-ton Fargo in good working order — far better for the sort of work your sons are doing here. And, since you’ve obviously been getting away without a license or ownership papers up here in the bush, you’ll be able to do the same with the Fargo. There’s no sleeping compartment on the back but I’m sure your sons will be so pleased to see the trade you made they’ll offer to build you one.” He removed the sleeping bag and handed it to the woman.

Once he’d got into the hearse and started moving ahead, she lost interest in risking her life and stepped aside to shower him with curses.

Peterson waited until they’d got a hundred metres down the first slope to bring the Henry J to a stop, roll down his window, and wave
for Arvo to pull up beside him. “You had that trade in mind from the start?”

Arvo grinned. “Did you think we were driving two vehicles all the way up here just to turn around and drive three vehicles back?”

“Sonofagun,” Peterson said. Then he said, “Now that I seen that thing, I’m having second thoughts. It may be a little crazy to think you’ll drive her all the way down to the city for Martin.”

“She looks in pretty good shape to me,” Arvo said. “I’ll tune her up a bit before I go.”

“And what if she breaks down on the road? What if the cops catch sight of you and decide to confiscate that hearse and throw you in the can?”

It was a legitimate concern, but Arvo chose to shrug it off. “So, it will be an adventure either way.”

“It’ll be an adventure once the undertakers in town get wind of what you’re up to — horning in on their business. If you’re stopped by the cops it will be Henderson or one of the others have put them up to it. They’ll sue your skinny ass off.”

Arvo narrowed his eyes. “Is this your way of saying you don’t want to come along?”

“Sonofabitch.” Peterson grinned. “You got any more surprises up your sleeve?”

“What I’ve got up my sleeve will have to stay up my sleeve for a while. Let’s get moving. We’ll need to stop somewhere to fill ’er up and give ’er a bit of a wash.”

“Wash or no wash, we still don’t know why that hospital should hand Martin over to us. I hope you’ve got
that
bit of information up your sleeve as well.”

“I’ve got those papers Martin had me sign,” Arvo said. “I just have to remember where I put them.”

CHAPTER 3

FOR THE REST OF THAT
afternoon he kept the doors to his workshop closed and barred. If anyone were to see him tinkering with a vintage hearse, phones would soon be ringing all over the district. Matt Foreman would cross the road to bombard him with questions he was not prepared to answer.
Was he sure it was legal to be doing this? Who did he think would want this old thing once he had it back in good running order?
Before long, half the district would be standing in his doorway to watch, everyone with an opinion.

He wasn’t about to forget the way they’d reacted when he’d been spotted hauling in an orange Renault he’d found behind Cougar Lake. No one could recall ever having seen a Renault before, orange or otherwise. Everyone wanted to have a look, everyone wanted to sit
behind the wheel and discover what it felt like to drive a French automobile. A French
voiture
! Minnie Lewis swore she could smell Parisian perfume in the upholstery, though Arvo’s nose could recognize only mould. Brian Lundy closed his eyes and imagined, aloud, that he was cruising down the Champs Elysées, circling the Arc de Triomphe. But Arvo began to suspect the car might have been offended by this excessive attention, since no matter how much he tinkered, the damn thing rabbit-hopped across intersections as though it were trying to throw him through the windshield.

When he’d realized there was no hope the others would allow him to establish a private relationship with the unruly foreign car, he removed all re-usable parts and stored them in the loft on the slim chance that another needy Renault might show up during his lifetime. The chassis quickly disappeared beneath the weeds and vines behind his house.

It was possible that someone had seen him drive the Cathedral hearse onto his property, but they would have to be content with imagining what he was up to. The workshop’s windows were too high for anyone to see without going to the trouble of bringing an extension ladder.

Not even Peterson and Herbie Brewer were welcome to watch. Once the hearse was safely inside his shop, he’d suggested they leave. “I never worked on a hearse before. I don’t want to think about anything else.”

“You forget who found this thing?” Herbie said.

“He knows who found her,” Peterson said. “He knows we showed him the way to get to her, too, so he could bring her back and act like he found her himself.”

“Dammit,” Arvo said. “I’d like to get this out on the road first thing tomorrow. You think Martin can wait much longer?”

Peterson was not happy about this, but Herbie reminded him that they’d promised Cynthia they would stop by to fix the catch on her gate. “She’s scared Glover’s bull will get into her yard and ambush her when she goes out to pull her carrots.”

It wasn’t easy for Arvo to imagine a bull fierce enough to scare Cynthia Howard. She might be small — “wiry” was the word she used for herself — but she could be as “fierce” as any bull if she needed to be. He’d been told that even the tallest toughest student would cower when she gave them a certain side-long look, though he had never seen this for himself.

As soon as he’d barred the pair of doors, and drawn the bolt across the inset door as well, he started up the hearse in order to listen closely to its engine. Only the slightest adjustment was needed in order to get it idling as smoothly as he knew it should. “She’s sounding hopeful,” he said. He turned the engine off and leaned in to test the fan belt with his fingers. Still strong enough. “We’ll soon be on our way, Martin, though I don’t suppose you’re any more interested in motors now than when you were alive.”

The shed was narrower than his house but high enough for spare parts to be stored in the loft. The corrugated metal roof was laid over ten-inch beams that rested on rows of twelve-inch posts. His tools — hacksaw, pipe cutter, pliers, grease gun, socket wrench, grease gun — hung on the wall above his workbench, which ran the full length of one wall, with a powerful vise-grip mounted at one end and a coffee maker at the other, beneath a coloured magazine photo of Elizabeth Taylor in her Cleopatra costume. Sunlight came in through the row of small windows just below the roof-line.

Beside the coffee maker and a goose-neck lamp was a kitchen chair where he could sit to read his mechanics magazines for a break without having to clean himself up and return to the house. Cans of motor oil and rolls of paper towelling sat next to the tower of James
Lee Burke crime novels, most of them set in New Orleans. If the stories were to be believed, every minute he’d wandered those streets his innocent tourist life had been in danger — from gunshots, speeding cars, escaped convicts, vicious drug runners, and carloads of demented killers. It was a miracle he’d survived.

As he worked, he was aware of traffic racing by on the Old Highway. Occasionally an automobile turned onto the side road to pass by in front of his workshop. Tires on pavement hummed today, though sometimes after a light rain they could sound like adhesive bandages being ripped from skin. Whenever someone turned too wide, tires crackled in shoulder gravel.