LITMIR.BIZ

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he went back to her again. Crazy — just plain crazy. She’d been happy thinking he was dead. Now she had to worry about him all over again. That’s when I came to work for them. He thought it might help him get better if he had me around, at least part-time, puttering around the grounds, though he was still pretending to be what she wanted him to be. I think it made things worse for him, though. It was harder for him to have me there and not be with me.”

      “And she didn’t suspect you?”

      “I think she knew something was up. That’s why she concocted that story about him attacking her and claiming he was mentally unstable.”

      “It wasn’t true?”

      “Nah, it’s a lie. They were arguing and she started to beat him with her fists. He put up his hand to stop her from hitting him. She called it assault.”

      “He told you that?”

      “I was there. I saw it! Right after that, she fired me.”

      Dan flashed on the OPP report stating Magnus had been fired by Craig Killingworth. “Did you tell this to the police?”

      “I tried. They didn’t care. I think that was when she decided to kill him. She vowed that if she couldn’t have him, no one would. ‘If I can’t have you, nobody will!’ She actually said those words to his face. That’s when Craig got suspicious and started taping her phone conversations. He got her on tape asking a friend how she could drive him to suicide. He’d tried it once — she knew it wouldn’t take much to make him try again.”

      “Why didn’t he go to his family for help?”

      “Oh, she was right tricky. When he was in the hospital recovering from the car crash, Lucille told Craig his family had turned against him because he was gay. And then she phoned his family and said Craig didn’t want to hear from them any more because they’d caused the trauma he was going through. Anyway, they all believed her stories.” He clucked his tongue. “She was a monster!”

      Dan thought of Trevor’s story about how his mother had stopped talking to her brother when he first left home.

      “This was back in the eighties. It was all AIDS-this and AIDS-that. They were pointing fingers, blaming us for the epidemic. ‘God’s wrath on queers’ and all that rot. Nothing but ignorance and superstition.”

      “The old man — Nathaniel Macaulay. Did he know what was going on?”

      “He surely did. He hated the fact that his son-in-law was a hell-bound faggot. Worried himself sick one of the grandsons might catch it. Never stopped nagging his daughter about it.”

      Which explained the will, Dan realized. “What happened the last time you saw Craig?”

      “We spoke on the phone that morning. He sounded moody and went on for a long time about not wanting to leave his sons. It was killing him, I could tell. Craig was living in Bloomfield by then. Because of the assault charges, he wasn’t allowed to see his sons at all. The court had stayed that verdict the day before we were to leave. He’d also been suspended from his job as principal at the high school. Shocked them all, too — everybody loved Craig.” His voice caught again. “Anyway, I convinced him that leaving was for the best. I told him there was no telling what else she might do. Better to get away and deal with it from a distance. We’d talked about it a million times already. I was just repeating myself.”

      “When did you last see him?”

      “Around noon. I went over and helped him get ready. I remember we had a little fight over it, because I was in a hurry and he was terribly fussy about packing his clothes, so I did it for him. He was always a very smart dresser, and it was the only thing I’ve known him to get cranky about.”

      “How were you going to leave?”

      “By car. I was supposed to do all the driving, take our time to get here. He still couldn’t drive after his accident.”

      And thus the bicycle, Dan thought. “Then what?”

      “I called him again in the afternoon, maybe five o’clock. I just had a feeling he might change his mind. But he didn’t answer.”

      Because by then he’d been spotted on the ferry to Adolphustown, Dan thought. Maybe he was already scouting out a place to throw himself under the ice. Only he couldn’t do it in the light of day with everyone watching. He’d have waited till it was dark, when no one would see. “What then?”

      “I went and waited for him up at Lake on the Mountain as we’d planned. He was supposed to be there by eight. I got there an hour early, I was so nervous. I sat in the parking lot and waited for nearly five hours, but he never showed. It was cold that night. I kept running the engine then turning it off again to save gas to make sure we had enough to leave.”

      “Did you see anything while you were waiting?”

      Magnus shook his head. “The place was deserted. It was eerie and dark. It was past season and there were no lights on at the resort. A couple of cars drove past. One pulled into the parking lot and stopped for a second, then drove away again when they saw me. Probably lovers looking for a make-out place. Then nothing for almost an hour. I was ready to give up. Then a kid came by on a bike and I split. It was nearly midnight by then and I figured Craig had changed his mind. I was crying and pretty confused. I couldn’t believe he’d decided not to come with me. There was a couple walking up the hill. I passed them on the way down. I didn’t recognize them. I don’t think they were townies. Not sure who they were. It was odd to see people out walking at that time of year.”

      And by then Craig Killingworth had succeeded in killing himself, Dan calculated. “And after that?”

      “After that I drove by his place in Bloomfield, but all the lights were off and I just kept heading west. Didn’t stop till I hit the Sault thirteen hours later. I pulled into a motel, cried for an hour and then slept. I made it out here a little over two weeks later. I didn’t even know he was missing till I got here and found his letter. Then I knew what he’d done.”

      Twilight had come and gone. The sky was black outside the trailer, as dark as Dan remembered from his time on Mayne Island. Magnus lit a lamp — the power hadn’t been reconnected. Their faces were orange moons in the dark. Moths batted themselves senseless against the screen outside.

      “You see what I’m saying. No one looked for him. No one cared. No one wanted him found but me. And who was I? Just some faggot gardener who got involved with a man and tried to help him understand himself. I wouldn’t do it today, let me tell you.”

      Craig Killingworth’s suicide note lay on the table before them. Dan fingered it. “This diary he mentions. Do you know where it is now?”

      Magnus pondered this. “Probably still in a locked box in the Bloomfield bank where he left it. I opened the account for him in my name, but only Craig used it. He was documenting evidence of Lucille’s campaign against him. I think he put the tapes in there too. He didn’t want anything to be associated with him. He thought they might come looking for it and he was still pretty scared of her. But they didn’t know him in Bloomfield, so he’d go in with his key and forge my signature whenever he wanted access to the box. He sent me the key in the letter.”

      “You never opened the box?”

      Magnus sat back and sighed heavily. “Even now, after all these years, I still haven’t the heart.”

      “Do you think it might still be there?”

      Magnus squinted at Dan in the false light. “Hard to say. I paid the account up until about five years ago, then I got sick and moved and the bank lost track of where I was. I’ve thought of it many’s a time, but never did a thing about it.”

      “Would you agree to help me get it out? For Craig? Maybe to help his sons understand what happened to their father?”

      Magnus regarded him for a second. “I’ll do anything I can to help him, and if it hurts her, even better. I could write

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