The Suspect (8 page)

She went back to putting books away. "This is the slowest part of the day. The old people come in the morning, usually. The kids come in after school. And working people come in the evenings, or on Saturdays. I'm surprised to see you again so soon. I thought you had a funeral to go to."

He watched her shelve a biography of Churchill. "I did. I went. It's over. Doesn't anybody else work here?”

"I've got a couple of volunteers. That's all. But from two until four every day, I'm usually on my own. Whose funeral was it?"

"Carlyle Burke's. Did he come here in the mornings?”

She looked puzzled.

"You said the old people usually come to the library in the mornings.” He took from the shelf a book entitled
The Life of Catherine the Great
and hefted it in his hand as if trying to determine its weight.

"Oh. Yes." She reached down to get two more books from the cart. "But not him. I don't remember ever seeing him in here."

"You didn't know him, then." He noticed that as she shelved the books she pulled some slightly farther out and pushed some farther in, to even them out, and then, unthinking, ran her fingers along the spines as if playing a harp.

"No, I never met him," said Cassandra. "I think my mother knew him, though. She knows everybody.”

"How about George Wilcox? Does he come in the mornings?"

She pushed the cart across an open space furnished with easy chairs and low tables to a row marked SOCIOLOGY. "Mostly in the mornings,” she said, "but evenings, too, and sometimes afternoons. It depends on the weather. He spends a lot of time in his garden.”

Alberg walked aimlessly to the window. A tall plant stood there, in a big white pot. Its huge wide leaves looked glossy, almost wet; he touched one of them curiously.

"I can't imagine,” said Cassandra, "finding a body. Well, I can imagine it .... "

He rejoined her just as she was ready to move the cart again. He got out of the way and followed her to the fiction section.

"I can't understand why anybody would kill an old man," said Cassandra, looking up at him from her crouched position on the floor by a lower shelf. "What reason could anybody possibly have for doing a thing like that?"
 
"Same reasons people have for killing anyone."

"It wasn't robbery, was it," she said, and added quickly, "that's what I heard, anyway." She was standing, shelving books rapidly, confidently. The cart was almost emptied. "Might have been attempted robbery," said Alberg. "All we know is nothing seems to be missing."

"That means somebody might have gone to his house meaning to do it, doesn't it?"

"Could be. Right now," said Alberg grimly, "anything's possible."

She reached for the last two books on the cart and put them away. Then she pushed the empty cart back to the front desk. Again Alberg followed, feeling inexplicably exasperated.

"He used to be a teacher," said Cassandra, lifting the hinged section in the U—shaped counter and pushing the cart through. "So did George Wilcox. He's the one who told me. They'd known each other for years. Since long before they came here. But I assume you know all that."

"No," said Alberg. "I didn't know they'd known each other for years. Not until today."

She adjusted some tall purple flowers that stood in a vase on the counter. "They taught in the same school in Vancouver for a while. A long time ago. That's how they met. Then they must have lost touch, because I don't think they'd seen each other for years when Mr. Burke came here to live."

"Did they become friends again, then?" Alberg wondered if she knew they had been brothers-in-law. If so, she wasn't telling him. He found this mildly depressing, even though he hadn't convinced himself yet that the old relationship between the two men had anything to do with Burke's death.

Cassandra looked at the irises. Some of them were beginning to wilt. She heard it again:
He got exactly what was coming to him
. She had never before heard George Wilcox say anything so unfeeling. It must have been the shock, she thought. The poor man, he was probably still in shock.

"Well?" said Alberg. "Were they friends, here in Sechelt?"

She smiled at him. "Are you poking around for information? Is this an interrogation?" She clasped her hands on the countertop and put an eager look on her face. "Anything I can do, Officer, to assist you in your inquiries—anything at all.”

Alberg was slightly flustered. "I'm just curious, that's all. And I'm trying to find out who's committed a homicide around here. Yeah, I'm poking around for information, of course I am. That's not why I came in here, but—" He shrugged.

"To answer your question," said Cassandra carefully, "no, I don't think they became friends again. George didn't mention Mr. Burke often. At least, not to me."

She touched an iris, and the light stroke of her finger against the petal of the flower suggested to Alberg his own gesture to brush closed Carlyle Burke's eyelid; there was great gentleness in it.

"He brought me these flowers," said Cassandra. "George Wilcox did." She turned to Alberg. "He's a very interesting man. He taught history. He's still curious and impatient. Until his wife died a couple of months ago, they traveled a lot." She smiled suddenly. "Only in winter, though. He doesn't like to be away from his garden." She looked at Alberg curiously. "Lf you didn't come here to ask me questions, why did you come?”

Safe behind the counter, she seemed amused.

He had passed the library on his way to Wilcox's house. He was driving slowly, not wanting to arrive early, and when he saw the empty parking spaces, he drove in. He sat there for a few minutes admiring the building. It had lots of windows, and greenery, and he could see the low shelves filled with books, and this pleased him. He didn't go to church, either, he told himself, but he liked the fact that there were a few of them around.

"I came for a library card," he told her. He watched her push her dark hair away from her neck. It curled a little, where it sprang away from her face. He noticed several gray hairs. The skin next to her eyes was crinkled, and there were two horizontal lines in her forehead. Character, he thought, with satisfaction. Her eyes were wide and hazel. Her mouth was wide, too, but her nose was small. He saw her face become pink and realized that he'd been staring at her. He looked away, up at the clock on the wall. "I've just got time, before I get back to work.”

She got a blank card from a desk drawer and sat down at a manual typewriter. "Full name, please," she said briskly.

"Alberg, Martin Karl." He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned over to watch her type. She was wearing a blue and white pinstriped dress. There was a gold chain around her neck and a gold watch on her wrist; gifts, he wondered? No rings, and her nails were short; she used colorless polish on them. She was tall, about five feet nine, and weighed about 140 pounds. He didn't know why he said it. He didn't often act on his more mischievous impulses. "Are you looking for a husband?"

He watched her face, knowing that his own was smooth, expressionless.

She looked up at him quickly, and although her face burned with embarrassment she didn't look away. Her hands were poised over the typewriter keys. "Are you looking for another wife?"

He shook his head.

"Then you have come," she said coldly, "to precisely the right place." She turned back to the card in the typewriter.

"Address, please."

"The directors' house, Gibsons."

"And is this the book you wish to take out?" She pointed to
The Life of Catherine the Great
, which lay on the counter between them.

He looked at it in astonishment, unable to remember how it had gotten there. "Yes," he said humbly. "I'll start with this one. Has it got anything about pruning in it, do you know?” She gave him not the glimmer of a smile.
 

CHAPTER 10

He went from the library to George Wilcox's house and parked his car on the verge of the road twenty feet from the gate leading to the old man's front yard. It was his own car, a 1979 four-door Oldsmobile, nothing splashy, nothing special, except for the police radio.

Alberg crunched along the gravel shoulder toward the gate. The fence was sturdy, but in need of painting. There was a well-trimmed evergreen hedge behind it, and between the hedge and the front of the house was five feet of neatly clipped lawn. The house itself was short and squat, with small windows and a small square porch; it, too, could have used a few coats of paint. And who am I, thought Alberg gloomily, to talk about decrepit-looking houses. At least this one had a neat border of flowers in front of it, instead of a tropical thicket.

He turned into the yard, closing the gate behind him, and went up a cracked concrete walk to the porch. The door was opened before he could knock. George Wilcox peered up at him. He didn't say anything.

"Hi," said Alberg, finally.

"Why don't you ever wear a uniform?"

"It's distracting.”

"No uniform, no police car. How am I supposed to take you seriously?”

Alberg thought about it. "I've got my badge," he said, and showed it to him. "Does that help?”

"What about a gun? You got a gun?”

"Not with me. Why, do you think I'll need one?"

"No need for sarcasm, sonny. The badge will do." He stepped back and opened the door wide.

Alberg squeezed through the tiny hall and into a narrow living room. The high small windows admitted very little light. An oatmeal-colored sofa and a matching armchair, and two occasional chairs upholstered in red wool, sat on the dark brown wall-to-wall carpeting. The windowsills were cluttered with objects: two fat-cheeked Toby mugs; a brass candle snuffer and two brass candlesticks, empty; what appeared to be a wooden salt shaker and pepper mill; a pair of shell casings—standard mementos of the Second World War, except for some unusual decorative work; a pipe holder containing no pipes; two china figurines, possibly Hummel; three china roses in a marble base. There was a television set in one comer, and a collapsed card table leaned against a wall. Everything seemed very dusty.

"Don't use this room much,” said George Wilcox. "Come on into the kitchen.” He waved Alberg on toward the back of the house.

The kitchen was a bright, sunny square, painted yellow. A worn leather chair sat at an angle to the large window, which looked out upon a small garden and the sea. Next to the chair stood an old-fashioned tobacco cabinet. There was a footstool in front of the chair, piled with magazines and a section of newspaper folded to the crossword puzzle. A TV tray stood nearby. There was no table in the kitchen. The yellow walls were grimy with accumulated dust and splotched with grease near the four-burner electric stove.

"You might as well see the rest of the place, now you're here," said George. He opened a door and Alberg followed him into a small beige-carpeted room. Two walls were lined with bookcases, a desk and chair sat by the window, several comfortable chairs were scattered around, and there was a fireplace.

"This is where you live,” said Alberg.

"Here and in the kitchen.” George went through a doorway in the corner of the room, into a short hall. "Here's the bathroom," he said, waving to the right, "and straight on here is the bedroom."

Alberg stood in the doorway and looked around. Small windows again, almost as though the room were in a basement. A large four-poster bed, two dressers, a half-open closet door. On one of the dressers was a framed photograph of a woman. It was angled slightly away from him, and Alberg couldn't see it clearly.

"That's it,” said George, reaching in front of Alberg to close the door. "The grand tour." He went back down the hall and through another doorway which led into the living room, then turned left back into the kitchen. "Fellow who built this place," he said, "was awfully fond of doors. I took some of them down, you probably noticed. Doorways is one thing, doors is another. Take up too much room. Sit down there, by the window. I'll make some coffee. Eight of them, there were, when we bought this place. Not counting the outside ones, or closets. Eight doors, in a house this size."

He filled a percolator with water, poured coffee into the basket, and set the pot on the stove. Then he went into the study and hauled out the desk chair. Alberg, standing by the window, made a move to help. "Sit down, sit down,” said George Wilcox. "No, not here—in the leather chair, there. Sit.” I

Alberg sat. George took the straight-backed chair.

"Now,” said George. "What questions?"

He was alert and unruffled. Alberg glanced wistfully at his thick white hair. He himself was sure to be bald, eventually. All the men in his family had gone bald. He checked once or twice a week, and his hairline had already begun to recede. It had started about twenty years ago.

"What do you know about Carlyle Burke?" he said.

George Wilcox sighed. "What's this in aid of, anyway? I can't figure it."

"When you're trying to find out who killed somebody, you've got to poke around in his life a bit.”

"Is that so?” said George. "Is that the way it's done, then." He rubbed one scuffed slipper against the linoleum. "Got any suspects?"

Alberg hesitated. "Not really. Not yet."

"You're pretty damn calm about it," said George? "If I were a cop, and I had me a murdered body and no suspects, I don't think I'd be so damn calm about it."

"I'm not calm,” said Alberg. "I just look calm. Actually I'm irritated. And extremely curious."

"Curious." George chortled. "I'm curious, too." He leaned forward. "I supposed you've looked at the obvious. You know, milkman, postman, paperboy—that kind of thing. And of course the most obvious thing of all, your basic hoodlum, possibly drug-crazed." He sat back, complacent.

"Yes, Mr. Wilcox," said Alberg. "We've looked at the obvious."

"How?” said George. The water in the coffeepot began to burp. He got up and turned down the burner.

He had wide, strong shoulders, Alberg noticed. Probably all that gardening. His own shoulders were still stiff and sore, from Tuesday's efforts.

"What have you done, exactly?" said George, sitting down again. "Besides take the fingerprints of innocent bystanders, I mean. Did you photograph the corpse? Query people up and down the street?"