Fifth Son. Barbara Fradkin

      His face was growing red as the pent-up anger spilled out. “But then last week, out of the blue he calls me and freaks out when I tell him I sold the house. He hasn’t been back to visit or help out, but suddenly he’s swearing at me and saying I had no right to sell it, and he had important stuff in the basement there, and...” He broke off as a thought occurred to him, and he waved at the dead man’s photo in disgust. “That’s probably Tom, coming up to get his important stuff and being so goddamn drunk he fell off the church.”

      “What was the important stuff?” Green asked.

      “Who the hell knows? I told him there wasn’t a goddamn thing worth having in that house when I sold it. Just a bunch of old boxes full of junk.”

      Green removed the crucifix from his pocket and held it out. “Do you recognize this?”

      Robbie checked himself, as if embarrassed that he had lost control, and he took the chain with a puzzled frown. “Did you find this on the body?”

      “No, but it was found in the vicinity. Derek is an unusual name, and the engraving looks old.”

      “I don’t recognize it, but I hardly remember Derek, let alone what he wore.”

      When Green asked if any of the rest of them had been given crucifixes by their parents, Robbie shook his head. “I believe my parents used to be very religious, but they weren’t much for jewellery, especially expensive stuff like that. We had no money to spare. I know Derek had to work two jobs and win a scholarship to go to university.”

      Sullivan had already closed his notebook and was edging toward the door, but Green took the photo album out again and began to examine the photos of Derek with his magnifying glass. No sign of a crucifix. Perhaps it was under his shirt, rather than being worn as a fashion statement, as they were today. He felt vaguely dissatisfied that he couldn’t connect this loose end, but he was still convinced that it connected somewhere. Patience, he told himself as he rose to join Sullivan at the door. When Hannah found out from Kyle where Derek had lost his crucifix, that might shed some light on what had led him from his childhood farm house to his death in the church yard. It was only once they were back in the car heading across Billings Bridge towards downtown, that Green remembered.

      “Jesus, Brian. There was another son. We forgot the fifth son!”

      Five

      For the first time since her impetuous decision to purchase the Pettigrew farm, Isabelle Boisvert felt overwhelmed. A surly Jacques had gone into the village for supplies, and she was sitting on the front porch with her mid-morning coffee, taking advantage of the rare October warmth to contemplate the bounty of her land. But all she could see was work. The porch sagged beneath her feet, its wood planks rotting away, and across the expanse of barren weedy yard, the two wooden outbuildings were collapsing beneath the weight of time. And inside its spectacular red brick exterior, the house was just as bad. The plaster walls were crumbling, and all the beautiful oak woodwork had been painted over with cheap white paint that had cracked and flaked.

      In the distance, the maple trees by the river shone crimson and gold. She tried to remind herself that this was why she’d bought the property. She’d known it would be a labour of love, but owning a hundred acres of land and forest with over a thousand feet of wooded river frontage had seemed like a dream worth labouring for. Jacques had been reluctantly persuaded by its investment value, but she hoped to raise horses, perhaps one day have an equestrian school and make enough money that they could both quit their civil service jobs and dispense with the frustrating commute to the city altogether.

      For now, to pay for all the repairs, they needed their jobs more than ever. To save money, she and Jacques were trying to do much of the work themselves. Unlike Jacques, she had grown up in the country and hoped that working with her hands would somehow return her to her roots. But today she didn’t know where to start. Jacques wanted to attack the interior of the house, where they would be confined for most of the long, upcoming winter months.

      But the warm weather would soon be over, and with it all chance to tackle the outside. They hoped to have a professional builder restore the main barn in the spring, so she could use it for her horses. But the little tool shed looked beyond repair, and even worse was the eyesore of bushes and burnt planking that sat at the edge of the yard. Jacques was anxious to bulldoze it over and build a garage for the cars before winter struck, but that cost money that was sorely needed for other things. It looked as if no one had spent a penny on the place in years.

      She didn’t know how Mr. Pettigrew had earned his money once he no longer farmed the land, but the man had managed to consume an astonishing quantity of booze. They had found closets full of empty bottles everywhere and had spent a whole day simply carting bottles to the local dump.

      Once, long ago, someone with skill and devotion had ministered to the house, for beneath the flaking paint, the woodwork was intricately hand-carved and the hardwood cabinetry bore an expert craftsman’s touch. But then, quite abruptly, it seemed as if the family had stopped caring. The basement had been abandoned in a half-finished state with pine planking erected on half the walls, but only two-by-four framing on the rest. It was all dried and warped now, and someday she would have to rip it all out and start from scratch.

      But not today. Today she would tackle the charred, overgrown eyesore in the front yard that was ruining her view from the porch. That way she could have a huge autumn bonfire like the ones she remembered from her childhood.

      She stretched, tossed the dregs of her coffee on the ground and headed for the tool shed, where she’d seen a number of battered tools, perhaps among them the axe and crowbar she would need for the job. However, inside she found a small scythe, a hammer, and a handful of rusty saws, but no axe or sledgehammer big enough to do the job. She searched the barn and house to no avail. Making a note to buy a decent axe, she set to work with a shovel, hacking away at the woody stems and prying loose the roots. In less than an hour, she had a pile of branches and planking ready to burn.

      She was just getting down on her hands and knees to wrench out a stubborn root when a flash of turquoise caught her eye, and she saw Jacques’ Cavalier speeding down their lane in a plume of dust. She felt an odd mix of feelings. Frustration that he persisted in driving on the country roads as if he were on the Queensway, delight at the prospect of his company, and apprehension that she might be in for another hour’s worth of bitching about country life. He’d left that morning in a foul humour, threatening to move in with his brother Jean Marc in Orleans.

      When he leaped from the car, however, his eyes were wide, and he chattered in staccato French as he removed grocery bags from the car.

      “This house, Isabelle! Everyone in the village is talking about it! That man who died at the church was one of the Pettigrews. A hundred years ago they owned all the land from here to the village, and they used to be big leaders. In the church, in the town. That little church the man died in, that was a major one in town, but there was a split in the movement when a new priest came. They talk like it was yesterday, but it was twenty-five years ago. Some went to the Anglican Church and some—”

      She took some bags from him, set them on the counter and silenced him with a kiss. When Jacques began to talk religion, he lost her. “Is this important?”

      He was not to be deterred, and his tone acquired an urgency. “What’s important is that this family, the Pettigrews, they helped build that church, but they left it too, and everyone says that’s when things started to get really bizarre. One of the sons went so crazy they had to lock him up. The mother was afraid he was possessed, and this house—”

      Isabelle looked at him with alarm. Jacques had a deeply religious core and had not totally shaken off the strong Catholic indoctrination of his childhood among the priests. If he started believing that the house was haunted—or worse, possessed—she might never be able to persuade him to feel at home.

      She slipped into his arms and took his face in her hands. “Chéri, this is our home now. We’ll take it apart, every board and wall, and we’ll make it ours.”

      A frisson