The Suspect (22 page)

"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."
 

CHAPTER 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 death—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 book:. 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, tight 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 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 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 it 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.
 

CHAPTER 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 the 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 wasn't showing.

"It's about the other night,” said the corporal.

"Go on.”

"I have to tell you, Staff, that I've been overextended 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.

"Yes, okay, Staff. I'll finish up in here."

"And Sanducci," said Alberg, without turning around. "You don't want to get busted down to constable, do you?"

"No, Staff."

"Then I suggest you start taking a lot of cold showers."

"Yes, Staff.” Without looking at him, he handed Alberg the key to the toolshed.

Christ, thought Alberg, trudging out the side door from the kitchen. Where the hell did he find them all? Better he didn't know, he thought; the guy might have a harem of sixteen-year-olds.

The toolshed was much like George Wilcox's, except that it was bigger, dirtier, and less tidy. Carlyle Burke had himself a power mower, instead of a push-it model, and his ladder was an extendable aluminum job instead of a wooden six-footer, and he had a lot of expensive, little-used lawn furniture stacked away in a corner, instead of three threadbare canvas chairs with slivery wooden arms. But his gardening tools were piled in a heap on a counter and looked as rusty as those in Alberg's garage, and bags of fertilizer and grass seed had been thrown in carelessly, to slump against the wall.

The obvious place to start, thought Alberg, sighing, was with the four cardboard cartons on the highest of several shelves lining one wall. They had been marked on the outside with black felt pen: XMAS DECORATIONS. But what the hell, you never know, he thought, and dragged them down.

The place was clotted with spiderwebs. The beam of sunlight which struggled through the single dirty window was choked with dust. Alberg carried the boxes out onto the lawn and sat on the bench there while he went through them.

There were boxes of tinsel, some unopened, some half emptied, with silver strings seeping from them. There were gaudy garlands of orange and blue-odd colors, he thought, with which to bedeck a Christmas tree. There were boxes and boxes of ornaments, and string after string of lights, ranging from tiny blinking ones to the large kind used to decorate the outdoors. Three cartons he opened, emptied, sifted through, refilled, and replaced on the shelf in the filthy toolshed.

But the fourth carton didn't contain anything having to do with Christmas. It was filled with women's underclothes—panties and bras and slips and garter belts—and with nylon hose, and negligees, and lace-trimmed pajamas. And it was at the bottom of this carton that he found an ebony box about six inches by eight, bearing on its lid, in gold, the initials AMW.

This, thought Alberg, is why Carlyle Burke willed George all his possessions; he wanted him to find whatever's in this small black box. He thought it inexpressibly tasteless, or perhaps simply malevolent, that it should have been buried under a pile of what must have been Audrey's underthings.