The Suspect - L R Wright

by L. R. Wright

  "Listen, Staff,” said the sergeant. "Could be the old fellow was doing just what he said, taking a little row. People do funny things, sometimes."

  Alberg opened a drawer in his tiling cabinet and immediately clanged it closed. "He was dumping those shell casings. He did it, the crafty old son-of-a-bitch. He smashed that guy's head. I know it. And he knows I know it."

  "But why? Where's the motive? Unless he really did know he was in the will. But even if he did, there just isn't enough there to make it worth his while to waste the guy." Sokolowski was getting exasperated. "Jesus, Staff, you've got no motive, no physical evidence, not even anything circumstantial to tie him to the thing."

  "I've got that Erlandson, who saw him going into the victim's house during the period the coroner says he died."

  "Come on, Staff. With his sister there contradicting him every time he opens his mouth?"

  "And,” Alberg went on stubbornly, "I saw the shell casings on his windowsill, Sid, and they aren't there now, and meanwhile the stupid old bugger's practically killed himself rowing out into the bay. If that's not circumstantial evidence, I don't know what is.”

  "Karl,” said Sokolowski, "you're the only one who saw them on his windowsill.”

  "So what?" snapped Alberg.

  "And you don't know they were the victim's. You're just speculating.”

  "I am not speculating, Sergeant,” said Alberg furiously.

  "Maybe they were his own," Sokolowski protested gently. "Like you said before, those things are a dime a dozen.”

  "Not with flower: or some damn thing all over them. If we could find them, the cleaning woman would identify them.”

  The sergeant sighed. "Okay. Say we find them. And one of them turns out to be the murder weapon. You're still not a whole lot further ahead. You can't use Erlandson's testimony, you know that; it just won't stand up. We haven't found anybody who saw the old guy out on the bay last night. And why would he wait almost a week before getting rid of the damn things, if he used one of them to kill somebody with? I'm not saying he didn't do it, Staff. But I'm not convinced. Not without a motive.”

  Alberg's weariness was catching up with him. His face and arms were burning. "It's got something to do with his sister,” he said, and sank back into his chair. "Car accident or no car accident, he blamed Burke for her death.”

  "That was a long time ago, Staff,” said Sokolowski. He hesitated. "He seems like a nice old guy. I kind of like him.”

  "So do I,” said Alberg. "What the hell's that got to do with anything?"

  "Hard to believe he'd have the strength for it,” said the sergeant. "Knocking the guy on the head, hauling the shell casings home, then rowing far enough out to dump them where they're never going to be found.”

  "It's the gardening,” said Alberg grimly. "Keeps him in shape.” He shuffled listlessly through a pile of phone messages Isabella had placed on his desk and pushed them aside. "I want the house searched again.” He looked at Sokolowski. "First thing tomorrow. I'll do it, but I need one man to help me."

  There was a pause. Then, "How about Sanducci?” said the sergeant.

  Alberg gave him a cold stare. "All right. Sanducci. But first I want to know what Corporal Sanducci was up to last night.”

  Sokolowski got up to leave. "Oh," he said at the door. "I checked the victim out on the computer, like you said. Nothing." After he'd left, Alberg sat brooding. Then he pulled the phone closer to him and called Cassandra.

  CHAPTER 24

  Cassandra Mitchell lived in a small house set back from a narrow gravel road above the highway. In her from yard was a prickly, crazily configurated growth called a monkey puzzle tree.

  Her living room and kitchen windows looked out across the gravel road and the highway to the brush that bordered the Indian cemetery. In leafless seasons rows of white crosses were visible, and a tall white statue which stood in the middle of the graveyard, and the white fence that surrounded it. Behind the cemetery, the forested land sloped steeply down to the sea. On clear days she could see beyond the tops of the trees and across the Strait of Georgia to a faraway point on Vancouver Island slightly north of the city of Nanaimo.

  Her house had two bedrooms. She kept the smaller one as a spare room for friends who often visited from Vancouver, especially in summer. Her own room was so filled with book shelves, a small desk and chair, and a chaise lounge that there was hardly room for her double bed. The chaise sat by a window that looked out over her neighbors' garden. She spent a lot of time in it, reading and watching her neighbors' flowers grow.

  The living room had a fireplace and a large glass-and-chrome coffee table and a white leather sofa that was Cassandra's pride and joy. There were prints on the walls—some Emily Carr, and a Paul Klee, and two Matisses. At the end of the living room was a dining area with patio doors leading outside.

  The phone was ringing as she came into the house after work on Tuesday. It was Alberg, asking if they might have dinner together.

  Cassandra didn't want to see him. He was a policeman. It took enormous effort, as she listened to him, to think of him as anything but a policeman. And she had absolutely no desire to have dinner with a cop: not today. Not after George.

  Gradually she became aware that he sounded hoarse and dispirited.

  "'What's the matter?” she asked, despite herself. "Just tired. Not a good day. That's all.”

  She had a quick mind; she could have thought up all sorts of excuses. But in the end she didn't. She invited him to have dinner at her house.

  * * *

  She set the table with candles and a low bowl of flowers. For dinner they would have a stew from her small freezer. It was already in the oven and she was tearing romaine into a bowl when Alberg drove up.

  She went to the door to greet him. "What did you do," she said, as he appeared in his jeans and rubber boots, "take the day off and go fishing?"

  He came onto her porch carrying a bottle of wine in a brown paper bag. "Sort of," he said. He glanced at the monkey tree. "I hate those things. They look like they've been put together by somebody who's deranged."

  "Don't be rude,” said Cassandra. "I presume this is for me," she said, taking the bag from his hands. "I might be very fond of that tree, for all you know."

  Inside, he pulled off his boots and left them on the mat. "I hope I'm not making myself too much at home, but they'd leave marks all over your floor."

  She looked uneasily at his sock feet. "A shoeless policeman in my house.” She took the wine into the kitchen. "Does this have to breathe or anything?"

  "Yeah. Let me know when it's half an hour before dinner. I'll open it then.” He went restlessly into the living room and looked at the prints on the walls.

  "I have to finish the salad," said Cassandra from the kitchen.

  "Why don't you go out back and have a look around?" She heard the patio doors open and relaxed a bit. She hadn't realized she was nervous. Maybe I'm even frightened, she thought, chopping tomatoes and throwing them into the bowl. She would have to be very careful what she said to him, and she wasn't a practiced equivocator.

  The door to the patio closed and he joined her in the kitchen. "No garden out there. Only grass. How come?"

  "I don't like digging around in the dirt much. I get to look at my neighbors' garden. Sometimes they give me flowers."

  He went over to the kitchen door and looked through its window.

  The garden next door was terraced up the incline all the way to the woods, which also backed onto Cassandra's property and extended around it to meet the gravel road. Next door there were bushes covered with blossoms, and vegetables growing in neat rows, and banks of flowers near the house.

  "Yeah, I see what you mean,” said Alberg. "Nice.” He wandered over to the counter and ate a slice of cucumber.

  "Not too good living back-to-back with a forest, though.”

  "Why on earth not?” said Cassandra, the paring knife poised over an avocado.

  "Hard to keep the
place secure.”

  "Good God,” said Cassandra. "Secure from what? The deer? They're the only things that come down from those woods. They ate my neighbors' scarlet runners last year. Well, not the beans. They ate every leaf on every stalk, and left all the beans. I guess deer don't like beans." She had peeled the avocado and was now slicing it into the bowl. "Would you like a drink?”

  "Oh, God,” said Alberg gratefully. "I would.”

  "Help yourself. There's a cabinet in the living room."

  "Can I fix one for you?"

  "A small scotch, please, lots of water. There's ice in the top of the fridge."

  "I'm serious, you know, Cassandra," he called from the living room.

  "About what?” she said, slicing. She wasn't nervous any more. There was no earthly reason why the topic of George Wilcox should even come up. It was herself she had to watch, she thought—not Karl. She was the one who couldn't get George out of her mind, and part of her wanted very badly to talk about him, to someone. But this man was absolutely the wrong person.

  He came into the kitchen and rummaged around for ice.

  "You don't even lock your door when you go out, do you? I noticed that when I brought you home on Sunday.”

  "All right, all right, I'll lock my door if it's so important to you. But there's nothing you can do about the woods. I'll never be safe from the deer." She washed her hands, dried them, and took her drink from him.

  In the living room he sat on the white sofa and she sat in a chair by the window.

  "Your face,” said Cassandra, "is as red as a lobster.”

  "It's painful as hell,” he said modestly.

  She got some ointment from the bathroom and tried to give it to him. He wouldn't take it, protesting feebly. Cassandra took the top off the tube and began applying it gently to his sunburn. He closed his eyes and moaned. She jerked her hand away. "Am I hurting you?”

  "No, it feels wonderful. Cool.”

  "It won't last. But it'll help for a while.” She smoothed it over his high wide forehead, his long straight nose, across his cheeks, around his mouth; it was a generous mouth, and there was a slight cleft in his chin. She screwed the top on the tube. He opened his eyes. They were wintry blue, and probably specially trained to spot a lie or an evasion a mile away. She thrust the tube into his hand. "Here. Take it with you. Put some more on tonight, before you go to bed.”

  "Maybe you'd do it for me," he said, looking up at her. "Before I go to bed.”

  Cassandra ignored this and sat down again. She picked up her glass. "How did you get that burn, anyway?”

  "I was out in a boat all day.”

  "Playing? Or working?”

  "Working.” He drained his glass. "May I get myself another one?"

  "Of course. I heard there was some kind of search going on,” she said casually as he got more scotch and went into the kitchen for ice. "What were you looking for?”

  He put his glass on the coffee table and dropped onto the sofa. "Oh, we took it into our heads there might be a murder weapon out there. "

  "And was there?"

  "Don't know yet. They're still looking. Doesn't look very encouraging, though.”

  'Has this—uh, got to do with Mr. Burke?”

  He looked at her curiously. "Yeah, as a matter of fact.”

  "Well he's the only person I know of who's been murdered around here lately," said Cassandra defensively. "If you don't want to talk about it, just say so.”

  "Sorry. I can't talk about it, really. I shouldn't, anyway.”

  Cassandra got up to freshen her drink.

  "How's your friend George?” said Alberg.

  She turned quickly from the fridge; he was-out of sight, in the living room. For a moment she couldn't think of a single thing to say.

  "Not very well, I think,” she said at last, and was surprised at how calm she sounded.

  She went back to her chair. She couldn't have denied seeing him. They had been observed by all sorts of people.

  "He came to the library today," she said. "He seemed very tired. I drove him home. " Stop, Cassandra, she told herself; stop right there.

  "Tired," said Alberg.

  Cassandra's heart was thudding. This man had her ointment all over his face, his sock feet on her carpet; this man had come to her for food and, presumably, affection; this man worried about her unlocked doors and burglars creeping down on her from the woods: He was not her enemy, after all, she told herself.

  But she had to keep her loyalties straight, because that's what duty was, after all, wasn't it? Loyalty. She had known George Wilcox for years, and an affectionate regard had grown between them; she had met this policeman less than a week ago.

  "Yeah," said Alberg, looking at the glass in his hands. "I imagine he's pretty tired, all right.”

  Cassandra didn't respond. He didn't seem to expect her to.

  "It's half an hour until dinner, now," she said.

  In the kitchen he opened the wine and Cassandra put rolls in the oven to warm. They were standing back to back, almost touching. She felt the heat from his body, and smelled the sea, and sunburn ointment, and sweat.

  "There's no dessert, I'm afraid," she said.

  "You warned me I'd be taking pot luck.”

  He was observing her thoughtfully, standing only a couple of feet away. She slipped past him into the living room.

  "Don't you ever wear a uniform?” she said, sitting again in the chair by the window.

  "Sure." He was looking beyond her, out toward the highway.

  "When?”

  He sat on the sofa, holding his glass between his knees, where the denim of his jeans looked thin enough to fray. "I wear it when I go to talk to kids in the schools, or to service club meetings, or when somebody from Vancouver's coming over to inspect. Gotta look shipshape for the brass." He took a drink.

  "What about the red one? Do you ever wear that?"

  "You mean boots and breeks?"

  Cassandra laughed. "Is that what you call it?"

  "The red tunic, the boots, the Sam Browne, the breeches—yeah, that's what we call it. Review Order. It's only worn for ceremonial things. I look pretty good in mine,” he said comfortably.

  She laughed again.

  "Well, most people do, I guess," said Alberg with a grin.

  "Not so much the women. They don't get to wear the Stetson or the breeks—just skirts and a kind of a pillbox hat."

  "What a chauvinistic bunch,” said Cassandra. "You're undoubtedly a chauvinistic man."

  "We're a paramilitary outfit," said Alberg. "What the hell do you expect?" He put his glass down and fell back into the sofa, stretching his arms along the top. "I feel better.”

  "Three scotches," said Cassandra dryly. "That'll do it.”

  He sat up. "Two. I don't think it's the booze. I just like it here.”

  The timer on the stove began to ring, and Cassandra got up to serve dinner.

  She lit the candles.

  He complimented her cooking, and she complimented his choice of wine.

  "What are you doing here, anyway?" said Alberg suddenly. "In Sechelt?"

  "Why don't you tell me what you're doing here, first,” said Cassandra. "I know you people get moved around. But by the time you're a staff sergeant, surely you have something to say about where you're going to go next."

  "I don't know how much to tell you." He looked at the candles and the flowers. "What the hell." He put down his fork and leaned his elbows on the table. "In Kamloops it got to be time for my annual review. Personnel evaluation. I was a sergeant there, in charge of my first detachment. And it was also time for promotion to staff sergeant. There were several places I could have gone. Sechelt was one of them.”

  He picked up his fork and started pushing salad around on his plate. "Sechelt's what we call a 'jammy' posting. Nothing heavy, a nice place to live, nice people to deal with, for the most part. A quiet place, not much happening. And yet it's close to Vancouver.”

  He looked up
at Cassandra. "My wife and l had decided to separate. I didn't tell the review team. They'd have wanted me to stay in Kamloops, try to work things out. The force gets uneasy about divorce. They feel guilty. And it's true that in a lot of cases it's the job that does it."

  "Was it the job in your case?"

  He started to rub his forehead, winced from the pain of the sunburn, and drank some more wine instead. "I thought it was, yeah. Maura thought so too, I think. But now—lately—I don't know. Anyway. I was feeling a bit—well, low, and battered." He laughed a little. "A jammy posting sounded like just the thing. And it was on the water, too. So I asked for Sechelt.” He spread his hands. "And here I am.”

  "How long will you be here?"

  He looked directly at her. His eyes looked warmer in candlelight, and his hair was the color of wheat. "It's up to me. If I don't screw up, I could probably stay until I retire. I don't think I'm going to screw up. I usually don't.”

  "Would you want to stay, though?” She made herself take a sip of wine, slowly. "It's pretty dull around here. Especially for a policeman.”

  "I don't know yet,” he said reflectively. "Sometimes I think if I stay in a place like this, a little place, with a lot of ordinary people in it and not a whole lot of—well, hardcore creeps, let's say . . . maybe in a place like this, where most people don't feel uneasy around police officers, some of my cynicism will wear off. Eventually."

  "I hadn't really thought of you as a cynic,” said Cassandra gently.

  "Thank you, ma'am." He smiled. "But you don't know me very well. Yet." There were hollows beneath his eyes—but maybe that was the candlelight, she thought. "Also," he went on, "I think I'm tired of change. I think I want things in my life to stay pretty much the same, for a while.”

  "You like your job though, don't you.”

  "Yeah, I do. I sure as hell wouldn't want to do anything else.”

  "What do you like about it, exactly?”

  "Figuring things out," he said promptly. "Talking to people, thinking, finding out what happened, who did it, why they did it—that kind of thing.”

  "What about. . . justice?” said Cassandra tentatively.

  He looked at her quizzically, not quite amused. 'justice isn't up to me. Getting the answers, that's my job. And making sure the Crown prosecutor has enough to go ahead with. And that,” he said grimly, "is the toughest part of it all."