at all. It’s hard to tell, of course, but I don’t think he’s from around here, at least in my tenure. However, if you want someone who knows just about everyone who ever lived here, Reverend Taylor is your man. But—” Again that ghost of a smile. “If you’re planning on going up to Kars to speak to him, you’d better have the afternoon to spare.”
Three
Unlike Ashford Landing, which had so far managed to evade the spreading tentacles of modern Ottawa, the village of Kars had been overtaken by well-to-do urbanites seeking the privilege of green space and tranquillity at the end of a long day. Reverend Taylor’s nursing home predated this gentrification, however, and squatted unadorned beneath scraggly, overgrown cedars at the edge of the highway. A few greying Muskoka chairs sat on the front veranda, but in the chill of October, none were occupied.
The two detectives found Reginald Taylor holding court in what the nurse euphemistically called the games room. The air was hot, stale and smelled faintly of urine. Most of the occupants lined the walls in wheelchairs and turned blank, disinterested stares towards the door when the two walked in. Four men were grouped around a table near the window, playing cards.
“Reggie,” the nurse chirped. “You have visitors.”
Four faces swivelled towards the door, eager for the diversion, but Green had no trouble distinguishing the object of their quest. Reverend Taylor was a bony, shrunken bird of a man with liver-spotted skin and a tangle of white eyebrows. He was impeccably dressed in black with a white clerical collar, and his pale blue eyes danced as if amused by some private joke.
The merriment died as soon as Sullivan explained to him the reason for their visit.
“A body? In my church? Great Jiminy Cricket!”
“Not inside, Reverend. Outside. It appears he may have jumped.”
“Oh dear, oh dear. I always tried to make it a sanctuary. There is so much pain and hardship in the world as it is, don’t you think, Sergeant? Sullivan, is it? Catholic, I suppose. No matter, my son. We’re all God’s children, and the divisions we make are not the Lord’s. Suffer the children and all that... One of my flock, you say?”
“Reverend, we don’t know if it was one of your flock,” Sullivan began. “That’s—”
“No matter, they were all my flock. Everyone was welcome to hear the Lord’s word, that was always my belief, and—” The lilt of Newfoundland still clung to his vowels, and his grin held a hint of mischief. Green had never met a Newfoundlander without a rebel’s sense of humour. “If it made some of the families uncomfortable, well, they just had to adjust. Tried to drive me out once before, too. Lucky for me the pastor at Rideau Church of God was a fool—”
Green laid Ident’s digitally doctored photo of the dead man down on the card table. “Is this one of your flock?”
Taylor picked up the photo and gazed at it in a distracted way. His tangled brows knit further. “Well, of course, I haven’t had a flock in several years. How many, Nancy? Three?”
“Eighteen.”
Taylor looked shocked. “Nonsense. They drove me out, see, said I was too old, couldn’t handle the demands. Nonsense. That pastor at Rideau Church of God wanted the crowd. He’d been driving away congregants with his thundering about brimstone and hellfire, so he thought he’d better steal mine—”
“Reverend, do you know this man?” Green repeated.
Taylor shifted his gaze back to the photo and eyed it with surprise. “This man’s dead!”
“Yes, he jumped off the tower.”
“Now why would he do that? I always welcomed people, even the sick, the poor, the deranged. There but for the grace of—”
Green swore a silent prayer of his own for patience. But before he could speak, Nancy jumped in. “Reggie! The police haven’t got all day! Look at the picture.”
Meekly, Taylor peered at the photo and slowly wrinkled up his nose, as if he could smell the man. “Seen better days, I’d say.”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“Never known them to be so dirty. Always a particular family. The mother kept them all well-scrubbed behind the ears, father wouldn’t allow so much as a fart indoors. Hard to imagine it could be one of them.”
“One of whom?”
“Could be, mind you. But with that beard and all that blood, well...” As if sensing Nancy’s imminent tongue-lashing, he nodded at the photo with some vigour. “Could be one of the Pettigrews. Don’t know which one. They all looked alike, and they were mere lads the last time I saw them.”
“Were the Pettigrews a family in Ashford Landing?”
“Oh, not in Ashford Landing. They had a farm just north of town off Number 2. Nice spread, backed on the river.”
Green glanced at Sullivan, who discreetly put his notebook away and slipped outside to verify the address. With any luck, they could stop by the farm on their return to Ashford Landing. Green took out his own notebook and returned to the brighteyed old man. “Did the Pettigrew family attend your church?”
“Pettigrews helped build it, every limestone block of it, back in 1896. Before my time, of course, but there have always been Pettigrews at Ashford Methodist Church, until that pastor at Rideau Church of God started his hellfire and damnation. What did you say your name was, my son?”
“Michael Green. Inspector Green.”
Taylor glanced at Nancy with twinkling eyes. “They make them younger every year, don’t they, Nan. All except you and me.”
Green smiled. He was over forty, and a little grey had just begun to pepper his fine brown hair, but his skin was still unlined, and a spray of freckles across his nose gave him a deceptively innocent air. Which came in handy when he wanted to go unnoticed.
“Irish too, are you?” Taylor persisted. “Mind, I’ve nothing against the Irish. Worked side by side with us to build up this country, and I’ve no patience for those who say otherwise.”
Green hesitated. In the city, his Semitic nose sometimes gave him away, but out in the country, Green suspected few of the old-timers would have ever met a Jew. Moreover, the reverend’s concept of religious diversity seemed to be more than a century out of date, and Green wasn’t sure the man’s welcoming attitude would extend that far. Instead of responding, he plucked the photo from the Reverend’s reluctant fingers, thanked the man for his help and headed gratefully towards the fresh outside air.
Sullivan was just coming back from the car. Across the road behind him, a solitary tractor was chugging slowly along an open field, and the smell of manure wafted over the road. Green wrinkled up his nose. “Let’s hope this Pettigrew family grows corn, not cows.”
Sullivan laughed. “That’s fertilizer, Green. Great stuff! The Pettigrew farm will be knee-deep in it, no matter what they grow.”
* * *
Fortunately, when Green and Sullivan turned down the long lane leading up to the Pettigrew
