The Suspect - L R Wright (13 page)

Erlandson reached for a glass of iced tea sitting on
a wicker table, took a slow sip, and carefully replaced the glass.
"As you suggested, Mr. Alberg, I'm going to retrace my day for
you; last Tuesday, that is, the fifth day of June." He dabbed at
his lips with a tissue from the pocket of a light sweater he wore
over a white shirt.

"It's my usual habit to have lunch with Molly,
here, at noon precisely. We have lunch at the kitchen table and we
listen to the twelve o'clock news. This has become routine.
Immediately after lunch, which lasts about half an hour, it is my
custom to go out into the back garden while Molly does up the dishes.
I walk around making mental notes of the things that need to be done
out there; this usually takes me about twenty minutes, or perhaps
half an hour, if I should happen to sit down in one of the patio
chairs for a few minutes.”

Alberg nodded soberly. He was fervently grateful for
the large cedar tree that stood in Erlandson's front yard, spreading
shade over the end of the porch where the three of them sat. Mrs.
Newell dropped the completed square into a basket at her feet which
contained several similar squares, some brown and some rust-colored,
and began casting on stitches for another one. Alberg thought of his
grandfather, who had provided his entire family with afghans, over
the years.

"
Now on this particular day," said
Erlandson, "my normal routine was shot to ribbons." He
spread his hands on the broad arms of the chair and recrossed his
legs, slowly. "Usually, after my walk around the garden, I go
indoors and rest for an hour or so, and when the hottest part of the
afternoon has passed I go back outside to do some chores. But on this
particular day—” He looked coolly at his sister. "And I
remember it quite, quite well," he said. She ignored him, bent
over her knitting. "On Tuesday I had my usual one fifteen P.M.
doctor's appointment, and"—he looked unhappily at Alberg—"I
knew what he was going to say. He was going to tell me I had to go
into the hospital for tests. So I found it quite impossible to follow
my regular routine. Right after lunch I came out onto the porch and
sat here, just thinking. A few minutes—no more—after I sat down,
I saw George coming up the road, heading in my direction." He
nodded to himself. "I like George. He's a bit gruff, but I like
him. I know he goes to the hospital regularly, once a week, to read
to some of the patients, visit them, that sort of thing.”

Molly Newell interrupted to agree with him. "He's
a good man, George. Ever since his Myra died—no, before that,"
she said to Alberg. "Ever since she got sick in the first
place,  he's been spending time at the hospital. Go on, Frank.
Get on I with it."

"
As I said, I saw George coming up the road. I
assumed he was walking into the village, and I decided to hail him as
he passed me." He rested his head against the wide, curving back
of his chair. "I think I wanted some reassurance. I think I
wanted him to tell me the hospital wouldn't be so bad after all."
He lifted his head and focused again on Alberg. "But I didn't
get a chance to call out to him. He went through the gate in
Carlyle's hedge.”

"How long did you sit out here, Mr. Erlandson?”

"
Not long. Maybe fifteen minutes or so. Then
Molly came out and told me I'd better get ready for my doctor's
appointment.”

"
So you didn't see George come back out through
the gate?”

"
No.”

"Did he often visit Mr. Burke, do you know?”

"
He and Myra used to drop by sometimes, I think,
before she took ill. But I haven't noticed him going there since. He
comes here, fo us, every now and then."

"
Not often, though," said Mrs. Newell, her
hands motionless in her lap. "He keeps to himself, now that
Myra's gone. Except for visiting the hospital, once a week like
clockwork, I'm told.” She shook her head and resumed her knitting.
"It's a sad thing. All he lives for now is his garden, it seems
to me.”

"
True," said Erlandson sorrowfully.

The ice in his tea had melted, but Alberg drank it
anyway. "Now, Mrs. Newell," he said, "in what way does
your memory of that day differ from your brother's?”

"
He's got the time wrong," she said
immediately. She dropped her knitting into the basket and pushed her
glasses farther up on her nose. "His doctor's appointment on
Tuesday was at three thirty, not one fifteen. He's been going every
week, recently, and usually it's at one fifteen, but this week it was
three thirty.” She turned to her brother and spoke gently. "That's
what's gotten you confused, Frank, as I keep telling you. They
changed your time this week, that's all."

"
So, you mean. . .” said Alberg.

"
I mean that, yes, he was sitting out on the
porch on Tuesday, and, yes, he probably saw George go through the
hedge, but he's got his times mixed up. After lunch on Tuesday he
went out into the back garden as usual, and then he lay down for a
while as usual, and then he got up, at about two fifteen, and I
reminded him about the doctor's appointment at three thirty, and tben
he came out here onto the porch." She reached over to pat
Erlandson's hand. "It was the next day, Frank, Wednaday, that
you were sitting out here early, right after lunch, thinking about
your tests. The day the policeman came to talk to us in the moming.
And then at four o'clock I drove you to the hospital. Don't you
remember?”

Alberg noticed that his heart hadn't sunk. Did that
mean he'd stopped thinking seriously of George Wilcox as a suspect?
Or maybe he didn't want the old man to have done it ....

Erlandson wore an expression of great stubbornncss.
"Then I must have come out here twice on Tuesday,” he said
crossly. "It was right after lunch when I saw him. 'How would
you know, anyway? You have a rest after lunch too, same as I do.”
 
Mrs. Newell sighed and glanced
apologetically at Alberg.

"
What does George say about all this?” said
Erlandson, irritably. It didn't seem to have occurred to him that, if
accepted as truth, his account of things might get his friend in
trouble.

"Mr. Wilcox says he found the body,” said
Molly Newell quietly. "At about two thirty." She turned to
Alberg. "Isn't that right, Sergeant?"

Alberg agreed.

For the first time, Erlandson seemed bewildered.

"
What was he wearing when you saw him, Mr.
Erlandson?”

He concentrated. "Gray pants and a sweater.
Dark. I don't remember exactly what color, but dark.”

"
What kind of 'dark?"' said Alberg. "Dark
red? Dark green? Dark brown?”

Erlandson was shaking his head. "No, no, no.
Dark blue, I think. I'm not sure.”

"
Could it have been gray?”

He thought about it. "Maybe. It it was a very
dark gray. But I think more likely blue."

Alberg put away his notebook and stood up. "Thank
you both very much indeed," he said.

"
What do you think of cremation?" said
Erlandson suddenly, looking up at him.

"
Frank, really, for goodness' sake,” said
Molly Newell in horror.'

Alberg stuck his hands in his pockets and watched a
loud-mouthed bluejay chase a sparrow away from a birdfeeder that hung
from the corner of the porch roof. "I think it's fine," he
said, "for dead people.”

Their laughter followed
him to his car.

* * *

He found Cassandra next to one of the potted plants.
Her nose and forehead glistened, and the hair around her face was
damp and more curly than usual.

"You're going to roast yourself," he said.

She turned, a cloth in her hand, and he was happy
when she smiled at him. She wiped the back of her hand across her
forehead.

"
What are you doing, anyway?” said Alberg.

She gestured to a pail of water on the floor. "I'm
sponging their leaves.”

"
Do you have to do it when the sun's pouring
right through the windows at you?”

"
I have to do it while there's somebody else
here to take care of the customers," she said. He'd noticed when
he came in that a teenage girl was busy behind the counter, checking
books in and out. There were a dozen or so people in the library.
This gave Alberg an illogical pleasure.

"
Can you have dinner today?" he said. "Or
tomorrow?”

"Good heavens. Wasn't it just yesterday that we
had lunch?"

He ignored this, waiting. "Not today," she
said. "Tomorrow I spend the afternoon with my mother. I have
dinner there, too. Every Sunday.”

His disappointment was intense. He hadn't thought
beyond tomorrow. What was she doing tonight, to make her unavailable?
He didn't know what to say next.

She hesitated, the cloth in her hand. There was a
trickle of sweat on her left temple. l·le reached over and flicked
it away.

"
G0d. l must look a mess," said Cassandra
cheerfully. "I'll tell you what. How about you pick me up at
Golden Arms-say, about six thirty—and we'll go for a walk on the
beach."

"
Okay,” said Alberg, slightly cheered. "Golden
Arms. Christ."

"How's the—uh, the investigation going?"
she asked, as she walked with him to the door.

"Which one?" said Alberg. "The log
thefts? The vandalism? The stolen four-by-four? The tourist yacht
that got crunched by a fishing boat?"

"
Actually," said Cassandra, "I was
thinking of the murder. Remember the murder? Or have you handed that
over to someone else?"

He stopped and leaned against the end of one of the
shelves in the BIOGRAPHIES section. "Your friend George is
Carlyle Burke's heir," he said. "That's the news from that
particular investigation."

She was astonished, of course, but he was surprised
to see that she was also uneasy. She stared at him for several
seconds.

"Does that make him a suspect?" she said
finally.

Alberg pretended to think this over. "Not
really," he said. He moved out of the way of a young man in
jeans and a David Bowie T-shirt. "It seemed to come as a big
shock to him, as a matter of fact."

Cassandra pushed her hair away from her face and then
realized she'd done this with the cloth she had been using on the
plants. She stared at it uncomprehendingly. Alberg began to laugh.
She looked at him, blank-faced, and seemed to be come agitated.

He put his hand on her bare arm. "What is it? ls
something wrong?"

Cassandra tried to laugh. "No, nothing. It's
just the heat.”

She gently dislodged his hand. "I'll see you
tomorrow."

He watched her go through the hinged section in the
counter, speak to the volunteer, and disappear into an office behind
the shelves of reserved books.

"Okay," he said finally, out loud. He
looked around him. "Okay," he said again, and wandered out
of the library into the heat of the late afternoon, and decided he
might as well go home.
 

CHAPTER 14

Alberg lived in Gibsons, at the southern end of the
Sunshine Coast, about fourteen miles down the narrow winding highway
from Sechelt. He preferred to have a little distance between himself
and the detachment office.

His house was known as the directors' house because
for several years it had been rented by the C.B.C., for use by
television directors in town briefly to shoot episodes in a series
called The Beachcombers. The place had about it an air of
preoccupation, of distraction. Alberg had marveled when he moved in
at the things abandoned there by harassed people to whom the house
had been mere shelter, less than a hotel. They had spent very little
time there, and yet some had managed to leave things behind.

There was a single serving size box of Rice Krispies
in the kitchen cupboard, open but empty, the knocked-over box
surrounded by mouse turds. On the floor of the bedroom closet in
furry gray globs of dust, Alberg found a gold Cross ballpoint pen.
Under the bed huddled a threadbare pair of white jockey shorts. ln
the bathroom medicine chest sat a lonely, sticky bottle of cough
medicine and a half-used roll of antacid tablets. On the small table
next to the lumpy bed someone had left a paperback copy of
Worlds
in Collision
.

Alberg had been in a hurry to move in and told the
owner not to bother having the place cleaned, he would see to it
himself. It took him several evenings but he was glad, later, that he
hadn't hired someone else to do the job.

He found nothing in the house that would identify its
former occupants as practitioners of the art of television, yet the
things he found caused him to create people in his mind as he swept
and polished. There wasn't enough evidence for legitimate deduction,
so he just made them up, and he became fond of these people, so that
in the end he didn't throw away anything but the cereal box. He put
the cough medicine and the antacid tablets and the jockey shorts and
the Cross ballpoint pen and Worlds in Collision into a small
cardboard box, which he then kept on the shelf in his bedroom closet.