The Suspect

by L. R. Wright

  “Try, though, will you?” said Alberg, turning from the window.

  “That Burke fellow, I do remember he was the second one to buy. And the last. I pulled over, crossed the street, went through a hedge and down a path. The door was open. I looked around but there wasn’t any bell, so I just banged on the door. I remember thinking I ought to holler something, since the door was open, but I couldn’t think of anything. So I just waited, and in a minute a voice says, ‘Coming.’ So I just stood there on the step, holding the salmon, and eventually this tall old man came down the hall toward me.”

  “What happened then?” said Alberg, after a minute during which Farley frowned at his knees.

  “Well, he said, ‘Ah, a peddler of fish.’ It was obvious; I was standing there holding it. ‘I used to catch my own,’ he said, ‘but not any more,’ or something like that. Then he told me he’d buy it because a friend was coming over for lunch and it would be a nice treat.” He looked at them and shrugged. “That’s it. He gave me a couple of bucks and I gave him the fish, and then I went back to the van. I was getting hungry by this time, so I headed straight for the cafe.” He shook his head resignedly. “A lot of people around here catch their own fish. The tourists are your best bet. My wife keeps telling me that, and she’s right.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the inside of Mr. Burke’s house?” said Alberg. “Did you notice anything special about it? Anything valuable? Anything worth stealing?”

  Farley smiled, slowly. “What are you trying to suggest? That I spotted something interesting and came back and killed the old guy for it?” He looked at Alberg reproachfully. “I never got past his front step. Besides, I am not a thief. Also, I am a pacifist.”

  “Just one more thing,” said Alberg. “This friend he was expecting. Did he say anything more about him? Like, was it a man or a woman, or what time he or she was supposed to arrive?”

  “No. Nothing more than I’ve told you.”

  “By the way,” said Sokolowski. “You left here after lunch last Tuesday, right?”

  “Right. Headed back up to Garden Bay.”

  “How come you’re still around today, at this time of night?”

  Farley grinned. “I don’t keep to a rigid schedule, like most folks. Today I didn’t have any fish. Today I was peddling my wife’s ponchos. Didn’t leave home until noon or so. Had to deal with the place in Garden Bay, then drive all the way down to Gibsons.”

  “Okay, Mr. Farley,” said Alberg. “Thanks very much for your cooperation. Would you leave your address with the sergeant, please? Just in case we have to get in touch with you. And you’d better give him the names of the stores you deal with in Gibsons and Garden Bay, too.”

  Sokolowski saw him out and returned to Alberg’s office, where the staff sergeant sat behind his desk with his chin in his hands. “I guess we’ve got to check him out, Sid.” He touched his nose, gingerly, and tried to remember if he’d brought Cassandra’s ointment with him.

  Sokolowski slumped in the black chair. “He could have done it,” he said wearily. “He could have. But why didn’t he take some of that stuff with him? The silver, stuff like that?”

  “If he did it,” said Alberg, who had found the tube of ointment in his shirt pocket and was unscrewing the top, “it was damn smart of him to wander in here and tell us this tale, before we found him.” He dabbed the clear gel on his nose and closed his eyes as his skin immediately cooled; he wished Cassandra was there to do it for him. He sighed and opened his eyes. “Check him out, Sid. I don’t think he did it. But it’s possible.”

  “You still want to search the victim’s house again?”

  “You’re damn right I do.”

  “Sanducci will be at the house at eight.”

  “Tell him to start without me,” said Alberg. “I’ve got some paperwork to do. I keep trying to forget there’s more going on around here than this damn homicide, but Isabella won’t let me.”

  There was a knock on the door, and Freddie Gainer stuck his head in.

  “Look at that face,” said Alberg to Sokolowski. “He was out on that boat all afternoon too, and is he burned? No. What have you got to report, Constable? It can’t be good. You would have radioed ahead.”

  “Right, Staff,” said Gainer. “They’ve packed it in. No luck. All they found was this.” He came into the office.

  “What the hell is it?” said Sokolowski.

  Gainer held it out. It was still dripping. “It’s a burlap bag, Sarge.”

  “Jesus holy Christ,” said Alberg, staring.

  “It could have been from anything, Karl,” said Sokolowski, also staring at it. “There’s probably dozens of them out there. You can’t trace those things. You can find them in anybody’s garage, or barn, or back porch—”

  “Or toolshed,” said Alberg, numbly. He looked at Sokolowski. “They’re out there, all right, Sid. They’re out there. We’re just never going to find them, that’s all.”

  Gainer backed out of the office, still holding the burlap bag. “I’ll tag it anyway, Staff.”

  Sokolowski rested his forearms on his knees and stared at the floor. “You know, Karl, I think you may be right. I finally think you may be right about that old guy. I think he was the guy supposed to turn up for lunch. And I think he did it. But you know what else?” he said heavily, looking up at Alberg. “I also think you’re not going to get him on it.”

  “I’ve got no witnesses,” said Alberg, almost cheerfully. “No evidence. And up to now, no motive. It doesn’t look good, does it?” He smiled. “Unless I get a confession.”

  Sokolowski looked doubtful. “He’s a pretty tough old bird. And you’d still need corroboration.”

  “Yeah, I know. But let’s worry about one thing at a time. If I can find the motive, let him know I know why he did it—then maybe he’ll crack. He’s not the kind of guy who goes around doing homicide whenever he loses his temper. He’s going to want to talk to somebody about it.” He stood up, stretched, and turned off the desk lamp.

  “Seems a shame,” said Sokolowski with a sigh, hauling himself to his feet. “A nice old guy like that.”

  “A nice old guy,” said Alberg, “who snuffed his ex-brother-in law. You really want him to get away with that, Sergeant? I don’t.”

  26

  GEORGE HEARD THE RAIN FALL throughout the restless night, a soft absentminded rain that would bathe his garden and feed it and not pummel it into the ground. He couldn’t sleep and found the sound of the rain soothing. At some point he must have slept, though, because he opened his eyes and the night was gone and the rain, too, and through his curtained windows some sunlight was filtering.

  He got dressed and went to the back door. He put his gnarled hand around the worn round knob and looked fixedly at the door, not seeing its yellow paint, slightly greasy from six months’ accumulation of grime, not able to move, trying hard not to let the moment overwhelm him. Then he turned the knob, pushed the door open, and walked out for the last time into his garden. He saw that the clouds were fleeing quickly. Those too close to the sun were shriveling into nothing, burning away, and soon the sky would be quite clear again.

  George stood on his still-damp grass and watched steam rise from his garden. He touched the marigolds and stroked the petals of the roses and laid his cheek against a hydrangea blossom and cut a big bunch of sweet peas and wished he could pick a zucchini, but there weren’t any yet.

  He spent considerable time outdoors, inspecting, admiring, approving. He was aware of stirrings and rustlings, fragrances, glorious splashes of color. He heard birds arguing in the arbutus tree, and noticed a new influx of aphids on the roses, and saw that the tide had left new driftwood on his beach.

  He didn’t know how to say goodbye to his garden, or to tell it that he had loved it.

  He went back into his kitchen, put the sweet peas in water, and made himself some coffee. He got a notepad and a pen from his desk in the den—a room he had used scarcely at all since Myra’s de
ath—and sat down in his leather chair with his coffee to make a list.

  He had a lot to do today. It took him half an hour to make the list. As soon as it was complete, he looked at the first item: library books. He would work his way down from the top. That was the sensible way of going about things.

  “Wilcox here.”

  She was ridiculously relieved to hear his voice, even though it was curiously dry and remote.

  “Mr. Wilcox? It’s Cassandra. I’m calling to check up on you—I hope you don’t mind. How’s your chest? Did you sleep well? Are you feeling better today?” She got it all out in a rush and waited anxiously for him to reply.

  “Cassandra?” He sounded amazed. “Where are you calling me from? The library?”

  “Yes. How are you? May I come to see you? I was worried about you yesterday. I’d like to make sure you’re all right.”

  “You were the first thing on my list,” he said. “It must be an omen. There are some books I have to return, you see. The only thing is, I don’t think I’m up to making the walk into town today, and my car’s still in the garage.”

  “Then I’ll come by and get them,” said Cassandra. “All right? May I come?”

  “Sure. Fine. That would be grand. I want to see you anyway.”

  Cassandra drove to his house preoccupied and uneasy. When he opened the door she looked at him intently. He appeared calm, and looked back at her steadily. He was tidily dressed and his hair was combed and she smelled fresh coffee. She relaxed somewhat, and smiled, but he didn’t smile back.

  He led her into the kitchen and insisted she sit in the leather chair. The library books—the two mysteries and the Mozart biography—were in a neat pile on the footstool. He poured coffee, fussed with sugar and milk, and finally settled in a straight-backed chair opposite her.

  “I got you here under false pretenses, Cassandra, which until lately hasn’t been my nature.”

  “You mean the books? But I was going to come anyway.”

  He got up stiffly and picked up from the kitchen counter the crystal pitcher, which was overflowing with sweet peas. “I want you to take these with you when you go,” he said. “And the pitcher too.”

  “I can’t take the pitcher, Mr. Wilcox. But I’ll take the flowers, with pleasure.”

  “I want you to have the pitcher.” He sat down again. “It’s important to me. It was my sister who gave it to Myra and me, for our wedding.” He put his hand on her arm, impatiently shaking his head. “Please don’t argue with me, Cassandra. I’m trying to get my life in order, here. I need your help for that, and in exchange I want to give you something.” He looked at her slyly. “I’m getting rid of everything. I could have offered you my house, or my car.”

  She spluttered, horrified.

  “See?” he said, grinning at her. “You’re getting off lightly. Will you take it?”

  She hesitated, and watched his smile disappear. “Yes, all right. I’ll take it. It’s beautiful, and of course I’ll take it, if you want me to.”

  He let go of her arm and sat back. “I’m moving away. Going to live with my daughter, Carol, in Vancouver.” He frowned and reached for a notepad which lay on the footstool next to the library books. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and laboriously added something to a lengthy list. “Haven’t told her yet,” he muttered. “Better give her a call.”

  “But when?” said Cassandra. “When are you going?”

  George put the pen back in his pocket but he held on to the pad, as though it might occur to him to write something else there. “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Tomorrow?” said Cassandra, incredulous.

  “That’s why I had to get these books back to you today, you see.”

  “Tomorrow? But why? You mean, forever? You’re never coming back?”

  He shook his head.

  “But why? I thought you were happy here. What about your garden? What about the hospital? What about me?” Her voice had risen, and tears were pushing at the backs of her eyes.

  “I was happy here,” said George, taking no notice of her distress. “For a long time. And then Carlyle arrived, and then Myra died, and now I’m not happy any more.” He glanced through the window. “What about my garden? That depends on who moves in here, I guess.” He turned back to her. “As for the hospital, there are lots of people who can do what I do there. It’s just half a day a week. I don’t do much. Got good eyesight, so I read to people. Anybody can do that. You could do it yourself, if you wanted to.”

  “Do you think you’ll be happier in Vancouver?” It was a question she knew she shouldn’t have asked.

  “I doubt it.” He leaned toward her, his hands grasping his knees. “The thing I can’t stand the thought of, Cassandra, is dying where Carlyle died, and being buried where he’s buried. That’s the whole thing of it, in a nutshell.” He sat back.

  “But isn’t your wife buried there too?” She needn’t have asked that either, she thought; she knew the answer well enough.

  He sat unmoving for a moment. His eyes were dry. “Yes. She is.”

  I could get up and leave now, thought Cassandra. I could get up gracefully and kiss him on the cheek and take the pitcher and the sweet peas and the library books and warmly wish him well and just leave, walk right out to my car and drive away. And he wouldn’t think less of me for doing it, either.

  They were silent for what seemed to Cassandra a very long time, and in that whole time she never took her eyes from his face.

  “Why do you hate him so much,” she said finally, quietly, “even though he’s dead now?”

  “Because I killed him,” said George.

  Cassandra felt very strange. She heard herself breathing, patiently, and finally realized she was still waiting for him to answer her, although he already had. Maybe she was waiting for him to change his mind, or tell her he’d been joking. But looking at him, at his face the color of cement, at his brown eyes looking steadily back at her, she knew he had told her the truth.

  “It’s a bad thing I’m doing now, I know it,” said George. “I’m using up all our friendship, grown so slow and strong, right now, in this single minute.”

  “But I’m letting you do it,” said Cassandra, numbly.

  “I’m not asking you to keep this a secret,” he said. “I don’t care if you tell anybody or not, or who it is you tell. But I had to say it to somebody, and I knew I’d only be able to say it once, and you’re the only person came to my mind.”

  “Why did you do it?” she said after a minute.

  “I don’t think I can tell you that part,” said George wearily. “It’s too long a story. It goes back too far. I thought it was because of Audrey, my sister.” He closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “But it turns out it’s more complicated than that. I didn’t have any idea, when I did it, how complicated it was going to turn out to be.” He looked at her and tried to smile. “It’s all bound up with responsibility, you see. It’s a good thing, in the main—responsibility. But I’ve a feeling, now, that you can carry it too far, or get it all wrong. And that brings me to awful uncertainties about myself.”

  He squeezed his eyes tight shut, fiercely rejecting the comfort of tears.

  “Ah,” he said a little later, “you’d think by the time a man gets to my age he’d have accumulated some wisdom around him, wouldn’t you?” He looked out again at his garden. “I guess Myra was my wisdom.”

  Cassandra stood up quickly. He struggled to his feet. She put her arms around him and held him close to her, his thick white hair pressed against the curve of her chin. She looked over his shoulder through the window at his garden, glowing exuberant and abundant against the backdrop of the sea and the summer sky. She had no tears for him, but she held him to her with a fierce protectiveness, patting his back and saying into his ear murmured things meant to be soothing.

  27

  IT WAS AFTERNOON by the time Alberg arrived at Carlyle Burke’s house. The sun was as bright and hot as it had been before t
he single day and night of cloud. He thought of the waitress in the diner, as he waited for Sanducci to let him into the house; she had seemed so certain of her predictions, and he had accepted them unquestioningly.

  Sanducci had taken off his hat and his jacket, but his shirt looked crisp and the creases in his pants were still sharp. “No luck so far, Staff,” he said, as he followed Alberg into the living room. “I’ve done this room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. There’s only the bedroom left, and the room with the piano in it.”

  Alberg, his hands in his pockets, had wandered over to the window to stand in front of the rocking chair, looking outside. “And that toolshed,” he said.

  “There’s one thing, Staff, before I get back to work.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “I wanted to speak to you for a minute.”

  Alberg turned around. “Go ahead.”

  Sanducci was standing very straight. His black hair gleamed. His eyes were the color of the sea out there. At least his dimple wasn’t showing.

  “It’s about the other night,” said the corporal.

  “Go on.”

  “I have to tell you, Staff, that I’ve been overextending myself a bit lately.”

  “Overextending yourself? What the hell does that mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve been indulging myself in too many what you might call extracurricular activities.”

  Alberg walked closer to him. Sanducci stared straight ahead, over Alberg’s right shoulder. “Extracurricular activities?”

  “Yes, Staff.”

  “I take it that’s a euphemism for…women.”

  “Yes, Staff, I’m afraid it is.”

  “And what are you trying to tell me, precisely?”

  “That I fell asleep, Staff. On the front porch, here. I guess that’s why I didn’t hear the old guy out in back. I’m truly sorry, Staff.”

  Alberg stared at the corporal. There was, he realized, considerable envy in his stare. He went back to the window. “I’ll do the toolshed,” he said.