The Suspect

by L. R. Wright

  George hobbled into the kitchen to make coffee. He had spooned decaffeinated granules into a cup and was sitting in his chair, hands on his knees, waiting for the kettle to boil, when he became aware of faint shouts.

  From his window he saw the R.C.M.P. boat out on the water, about a hundred feet offshore. There were two men on board who appeared to be staring down at the sea. Then a black shiny figure popped out of the water slick as a seal, and George knew the divers were at work.

  The clothes he had worn last night were still in a heap on his bedroom floor.

  It was cloudy today, as he had expected.

  He took the kettle off the stove, put on an old hat, and went painfully out into his garden. He watered the flowers and the vegetables. He did some weeding.

  The R.C.M.P. boat moved slightly farther out, stopping somewhat north of George’s beach.

  He mixed up a batch of insecticidal soap and washed the aphids from his rosebushes. He thought he ought to mow his small lawn, and the one in front, too, but his shoulders hurt too much.

  After an hour or so the boat moved slowly southward, past his beach, and anchored there; meanwhile George got a small pair of clippers from his toolshed and deadheaded the roses and the marigolds. Then he picked some peas and took them into the kitchen. While he was inside, he took three aspirin.

  When he went out again he saw the divers climb aboard the R.C.M.P. boat and watched it move quickly across the water and disappear around the spit.

  George sat down heavily in his canvas chair. It was still hot, despite the cloud cover.

  He heard it long before he saw it. He didn’t recognize the sound of it, but knew before it hove into view what it must be. And then it appeared, cutting a frothy swath through the steel-gray sea, a twenty-five-foot aluminum boat with a peculiar radarlike structure mounted on its deck. George watched it come to a stop about two hundred feet from shore, almost directly out from his beach. There were two men on board. He watched them fiddling with something; then he thought he saw them lower something overboard.

  George stood up quickly. He had to bend over, pressing his hands against his thighs, until the pain there diminished.

  He went almost blindly through his house and out the front door and, once on the road, turned himself toward Sechelt. He began to walk along the dusty shoulder. He was shuddering, despite the warmth of the day, and in his chest was a great lump which he banged at with an ineffectual fist.

  “You have been seen,” said Phyllis Dempter, “on the beach, with a Mountie. Practically holding hands, I’m told.” She was lounging against the counter, behind which Cassandra sat labeling books for the reserve shelf. “When did all this begin? Did you get yourself arrested? Is that how it started?”

  “Nothing has started, Phyllis,” said Cassandra. She taped a label marked VANDERBERG on a copy of James Michener’s Space. “We’ve had lunch, and we went for a walk on the beach. No big deal, believe me.”

  “Then why is your face pink?” said Phyllis. She began to laugh.

  “My face is pink because you’re embarrassing me. This is no place for a discussion of my personal life.” Stephen King’s Pet Sematary was put aside for Mrs. Callihoo, a widow who operated a day-care center in the basement of the United Church. “Besides,” said Cassandra, “I blush easily.”

  “No, really,” said Phyllis, leaning farther across the counter. “Tell me. How did you meet him? It couldn’t have been your ad. Could it?” She looked intently at Cassandra. “You mean to say it was? It was the ad?”

  “Shut up, Phyllis. We’re not alone in here.” Behind the partition separating the counter from a large work area, a volunteer was sorting returned books.

  “I told you,” said Phyllis complacently. She stood up and tucked her bright red shirt smoothly into her jeans. “My dad’s having a hell of a good time through the ads. I told you something would come of it eventually. When do I get to meet him?”

  Cassandra wrote FRATINO on a label and affixed it to Cold Heaven, by Brian Moore. “I don’t even know whether I’m going to see him again,” she said. “I’m thinking about putting in another ad.”

  “Liar,” said Phyllis. She picked up her purse and the two books she’d checked out. “But that’s okay. Be closemouthed. It’s typical. You jabber away a mile a minute, but never about anything important. You give yourself away, you know, Cassie.” She reached over to pat Cassandra’s hand. “But I love you anyway.”

  As she left the library, George Wilcox came in. Cassandra’s smile faded. She got up quickly and went to him. “Mr. Wilcox. What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

  He looked at her vacantly. He was wearing earth-stained pants held up by suspenders, a white shirt, soiled and rumpled, and a shapeless felt hat, gray, with a drooping brim. On his feet were tattered old running shoes. His face was crumpled and weary. “I forgot my books,” he said, and she saw panic in his eyes.

  She asked the volunteer to take over, grabbed her purse from under the counter, and ushered George gently out the door, down the sidewalk, and into a small coffee shop.

  It was lunchtime. Most of the stools at the counter were filled, and many of the tables. Cassandra stood just inside the door, her arm around George protectively, and willed the couple at the table in the corner to leave. George stood quietly, his head bowed; every once in a while he pounded his chest, almost tentatively.

  “Do you hurt somewhere?” she said, bending to speak directly into his ear. “Does your chest hurt?”

  He shook his head, slowly.

  The people at the corner table stood up. The man left a tip while the woman started for the door. Cassandra led George over and sat him down; she exchanged a nod with the departing customers, whom she saw sometimes in the library. She and George sat without speaking as the waitress, who to Cassandra’s relief was a stranger to her, cleared the table and gave them menus.

  “What have you eaten today?” said Cassandra.

  George lifted his head and pondered this. “Nothing, I think.”

  She ordered for them both: coffee for her; beef barley soup and a glass of milk for George.

  “I’ve been working in my garden,” said George. “Forgot to change my clothes. Forgot my books, forgot to change—I’m getting senile, that’s what it is.”

  “That’s not what it is,” said Cassandra.

  “Oh, yeah? What then?” He seemed genuinely curious.

  “I don’t know. You don’t look well. You keep putting your hand on your chest. Doesn’t it feel right, in there? Should I take you to your doctor?”

  “Doesn’t feel right at all, no,” George agreed. “No doctor, though. I don’t think so. No.”

  He looked with interest at his soup, which had just been placed in front of him. He took a sip of milk. “Don’t care much for milk,” he said. “But it’s good for you, I admit it.” His shaky fingers struggled with the small package of crackers that had come with the soup. Cassandra took it from him and opened it. He ate one of the crackers, slowly, and drank some more milk.

  “Eat some soup,” said Cassandra.

  George picked up his spoon. “You and that Mountie; coming up from my beach like that; it gave me quite a turn.”

  “I should have called and asked if it would be all right. It was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry.”

  “I like showing off my garden, though. It’s just that…” He put his hand over his eyes.

  Cassandra gripped his other hand, which lay on the table. “Mr. Wilcox,” she said. “What is it? Please, what is it? What can I do for you?” She heard laughter from the counter, and the waitress taking orders from the table nearest theirs, a few feet away.

  George lowered his hand and put down the soupspoon. “I remembered on my way here,” he said thickly. “I was trying and trying to remember when I’d seen it before, his fear. And on my way here, I remembered.” He looked at Cassandra intently. “Did I ever tell you about my sister?”

  The waitress approached with a coffeepot. Cassandra wave
d her away. “No, you didn’t,” she said to George.

  He was straighter in his chair, now, and he’d stopped touching his chest. His hands were in his lap. Cassandra wondered if he had any grandchildren, and if he’d ever told them stories.

  “Her name was Audrey,” he said. “I won’t tell you about her. It would take too long. Maybe another day. But she got married to Carlyle, do you see, that’s the thing, and I was there, at the wedding. But I couldn’t remember it, couldn’t remember anything about it, whether she got married in a church or a registry office or somebody’s house or what.” He leaned toward Cassandra. “I gave her away, for Christ’s sake, and I couldn’t remember anything about it.” He slumped back in his chair and looked away from her, over her shoulder, unfocused. “It’s because we were angry with each other about it, I think. And we stayed angry.” He looked again at Cassandra. “I still don’t remember where it happened or what her dress looked like, or Myra’s, or whether there were flowers all around, or what. But just today, on my way here… I remember this, now. When the time came I got up from where I was sitting and went to stand beside her, to give her away, and…Carlyle was on the other side of her. I turned my head, very slowly—it was as if the whole thing was happening in slow motion—and out of the corner of my eye I saw Carlyle’s head turning, too. I wanted to look straight ahead, then, at the minister or whatever the hell he was, but I couldn’t; my head went right on turning and then we were staring at each other, Carlyle and I, over the top of Audrey’s head; I looked right at his eyes, couldn’t help myself, and I don’t know what I expected to see; I probably expected he’d grin at me or maybe even wink, the son-of-a-bitch—but he didn’t. His face was white as marble and his eyes were full of fear. Terror. The man was terrified.” He looked out toward the window. “I should have stopped it, do you see,” he said dully. “Right then and there. I should have stopped it regardless.’’

  “Is the soup all right?” said the waitress, standing over them.

  “It’s fine,” said Cassandra. “He’s just letting it cool.” The waitress left, and Cassandra turned back to George. “I think everybody gets nervous when they get married. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.” She was prattling, and told herself to stop it. “I know my mother was. And my father.”

  “I couldn’t remember when I’d seen it before,” he said, nodding at his soup. “It bothered me a lot, because it was the only thing that really shook me up, when the other thing happened. I shouldn’t say it, but it’s true, that fear in his eyes, it was the only thing that shook me up about that whole business the other day. And I knew I’d seen it before, but I couldn’t remember. But I’ve got it now. That’s when it was, all right. At first when I was thinking about it I thought maybe it was at the funeral. That would make sense, I thought. But it wasn’t the funeral; Christ, no, it wasn’t the funeral.” He grasped the table, as if he were about to overturn it. “Christ, no, nothing but tears at the funeral, all the tears you’d care to see, all that Christly weeping and grieving, the great big soppy lying tears of a crocodile.” He held on to the table, breathing heavily.

  Cassandra sat tense, ready to restrain him, or comfort him. After a while she saw his hands relax. He fumbled a paper napkin from the container on the table and wiped his face. Then he looked up at her, and she was greatly relieved to see that he was calm.

  “I don’t deserve your attention, Cassandra. But I appreciate it more than I can say.”

  He’d gotten his dignity back, she didn’t know how.

  She smiled unsteadily. “You’re my friend, Mr. Wilcox.”

  She insisted on driving him home.

  Back at the library, she sat by the rest of the books awaiting reserve labels but did no more work.

  She was trying to determine where her duty lay.

  She heard it clearly: “that fear in his eyes, it was the only thing that shook me up about that whole business the other day.”

  What whole business?

  She was sure, convinced, that she had misunderstood him.

  Yet her hands, clutched in the lap of her full-skirted yellow dress, were cold.

  Through the window, she saw the cloud-covered sky and wondered when the rain would begin to fall.

  22

  HE HAD HAD NO FOOD TODAY, except for a cracker and half a glass of milk, and he knew food was important to a body his age. But he didn’t want to eat. Even the peas on his kitchen counter, fresh picked that morning, didn’t appeal to him.

  He shuffled into his bedroom and got a large manila envelope from the bottom of a drawer. In the kitchen he closed the curtains so as not to see the search vessel doggedly combing the bottom of the bay, putting all its gizmos to work in its relentless search for Carlyle’s shell casings. He figured the staff sergeant was probably out there on that boat. Maybe he’d fall overboard and drown.

  George sat in his old leather chair and unwound the red string that secured the flap of the big brown envelope. He turned it upside down and shook it and the letters tumbled onto his lap, letters written in a small neat hand on onionskin, which the years had tinged with ocher and caused to become slightly brittle. He arranged them chronologically, and as he handled them was faintly surprised that they produced in him no immediate turbulence.

  From the day of her marriage in May until August, when George and his family left for Germany, he spoke not a word to Carlyle and saw his sister only three times. This upset Myra and Carol greatly, and he knew they were extremely disapproving of him, but he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t bear to see Audrey and Carlyle together. It wasn’t a great deal easier to see her alone, either, knowing when they said goodbye she would return to that man. Besides, on the few occasions they did get together, usually arranged by Myra, they invariably quarreled.

  So it wasn’t surprising that in the thirteen months she lived after George’s departure, she wrote them only eight letters.

  He looked at them now, such a pitifully small pile, sitting in his lap, and wondered why he was doing this to himself, torturing himself in a useless search for affirmation of something he had believed with all his heart until the moment he had hit Carlyle on the head, cutting off his vicious ramblings forever.

  Her letters were at first filled with bright chatter about her piano students, her garden, learning to run Carlyle’s house the way he liked it run. She didn’t speak about her private thoughts; for all they knew, she didn’t have any. It was frustrating to read these letters, which to George described a cardboard-cutout world, a stage set occupied by marionettes. Yet he couldn’t blame her for not stretching her hand across the rift that separated them; it was up to him to try to repair the damage he had inflicted upon their relationship.

  Eventually, he did so. He wrote to her at Christmas, when he and Myra and Carol had been away four months, and tried in his clumsy way to make things right. “Just tell her you love her,” Myra had said. “That’s the most important thing.” And so he had done that.

  She wrote back to him immediately. His letter of conciliation had obviously made her happy, and he clung to that thought desperately ten months later, when she was dead.

  She continued to avoid mentioning Carlyle, but he understood that. She talked a great deal about plants, and about books she had read. Her letters were brief and infrequent, but at least now they were warm and confidently affectionate.

  He read them all, now, pored over them with the greatest possible concentration, and he asked himself the same questions he asked every time he read them. Why had she stopped talking about the piano lessons she taught, which had for years given her so much pleasure? Why did she never mention seeing any movies, or going to parties, or having people to dinner? Was it because then she would have had to refer to “we” and “us”? Did she really believe George would be enraged by even an oblique reference to the fact that she was sharing a house, a life, a bed, with Carlyle?

  He sat back and closed his eyes. He should have let Carlyle talk. It wouldn’t have done him irrep
arable damage to hear Carlyle speak of those things which Audrey had apparently told him. And if only he’d let him finish, he might finally have had answers to his questions, answers which, as hard as he looked, he could never find, incontrovertible, in the letters.

  He turned to Audrey’s shortest letter. It hurt him even to look at it, because it was the last one, and because he had learned later that it must have caused her physical pain to set down even these few paragraphs.

  Her handwriting was a clumsy, childish scrawl. The letter made no reference to this.

  Dear George, she had written.

  I’m addressing this only to you, because I know there are things you still haven’t told Myra.

  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, these past few weeks. Carlyle has been away. He’s coming back tomorrow.

  I know you love me and have tried to protect me, and I’ve trusted you all my life. You’ve been my rock, for as long as I can remember, and before that, too, I know.

  I know you think Carlyle is wrong for me. But I can do something about it, George, if I’ve made a mistake. It hurts me to think you don’t believe I can do something about it, on my own. But times have changed, George, and I can, truly I can.

  We went through so much together, you and I. I think about it often, these days.

  None of it was your fault. None of it. You’ve never been able to see how much good you did. You’ve always only blamed yourself for the way it ended. And now you’re all set to blame yourself for whatever happens to me, without giving me credit for having sense enough to get out of it myself, if I have to.