The Suspect - L R Wright (2 page)

Nothing had changed. The sea still slurped from
behind the house, the bees still buzzed around the marguerites and
marigolds filling the flower beds beneath the windows on either side
of Carlyle's front door. He wondered how long he'd been in there and
decided it wasn't nearly as long as it felt.

He went out onto the concrete step and turned to shut
the door. As he turned, he brushed against the geranium in one of the
terra-cotta pots, which released from its leaves the scent of lemon.
It seemed to accompany him up the gravel path, through the laurel
hedge, along the road, and into his own house, half a mile from
Carlyle's.
 
It wasn't until he had
washed off the shell casing and put it on his living room windowsill
with its mate, changed his clothes, and put the kettle on for tea
that he suddenly remembered Carlyle's goddamn parrot.
 

CHAPTER 2

Just north of Vancouver, there is a wide blue crack
in the continent called Howe Sound, 10 miles wide. Across it, the
province of British Columbia juts abruptly west and then extends
northward for almost a thousand miles. Its intricate coastline is
fissured by innumerable inlets and channels, cluttered by countless
small islands, and is at first sheltered from the open Pacific by
Vancouver Island, 285 miles long. Highway l, the Trans-Canada, comes
to a halt on the shores of Howe Sound, at Horseshoe Bay. Ferries
leaving from here provide the only access to the Sechelt Peninsula,
otherwise known as the Sunshine Coast.

This is the southernmost forty-five miles of that
long, long coastline. Along its seaside are towns and villages called
Langdale, Granthams Landing, Gibsons, Roberts Creek, Wilson Creek,
Selma Park, Sechelt, Halfmoon Bay, Secret Cove, Madeira Park, Garden
Bay, Irvines Landing, Earls Cove.

Gibsons, at the southern end, has a population of
3,000 and was named for the first white settler there. Only about
1,000 people live in the village of Sechelt, which is a native Indian
word that some people say means "a place of
shelter from the sea." But Sechelt is in the middle of the
Sunshine Coast and is a service center for several thousand more
people who live and work nearby.

This part of British Columbia gets more hours of
sunshine every year than most places in Canada—five hundred more
hours, on the average, than Vancouver. Because its winters are also
very mild, things grow here that will not grow anywhere else in the
country—apricot and fig trees, even palm trees, it is said.

There is only one major road, a two-lane highway that
follows the coastline for eighty miles and then ends.
 
In the summer the area is clogged with tourists,
even though it is not a quickly accessible place. Getting there
depends upon ferry schedules, and once you've arrived, traversing the
coastline takes time because the narrow highway is winding and hilly.

The tempo of life on the Sunshine Coast is markedly
slower than that of Vancouver, and its people, for the most part
strung out along the shoreline, have a more direct and personal
interest in the sea.

The coastal forests are tall and thick with
undergrowth, but they come gently down to the water and are sometimes
met there by wide, curving beaches. The land cleared for gardens is
fertile, and the things growing there tempt wild creatures from the
woods. In the sea there are salmon, and oysters, and clams; there are
also otters, and thousands of gulls, and cormorants. There are Indian
legends, and tales of smugglers, and the stories of the pioneers.

The resident police force is the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, with detachments in Gibsons and Sechelt. There are
traffic accidents to deal with, and occasional vandalism, and petty
theft, and some drunkenness now and then.

There is very seldom a murder.
 

CHAPTER 3

George waited for his tea to steep, and as he waited
he struggled with an image which thrust itself at him again and
again: Carlyle's corpse, rotting, little by little, while somewhere
nearby a raucous green bird slowly starved to death in its cage.

It was ridiculous, he knew that. Nobody could rot,
undisturbed, in his own house; not in Sechelt. People paid too much
attention to one another, in Sechelt.

But what if, just this once, they didn't? He couldn't
dislodge this possibility from his mind.

George contemplated his situation with profound
reluctance. It was early June, and the Sunshine Coast was dry and
warm. It didn't seem unreasonable to wait until the sky clouded over
before going off to jail. This was probably the last dry sunny spell
he'd know as a free man. He had no delusions on that score. He knew
they'd catch up with him sooner or later. He had begun to hope,
though, that he might first enjoy another season in his garden.

He poured his tea and lowered himself into his
leather chair and addressed himself to the problem of Carlyle's pet.
He had seen very little of Carlyle in the last while and as little as
possible before that. But Sechelt was a small place and he hadn't
been able to avoid him entirely. Therefore he knew all about the
bird. Its name was Tom, and Carlyle had doted on it. Since it had
made no sound, neither word nor squawk, during George's time inside
the house, its cage must have been covered; this, he had been told,
was the only way to shut the bird up. And since George hadn't noticed
a cloth-covered cage while he was there, Carlyle must have had the
creature stashed away in another room. But the damn bird would be
there somewhere, all right, and although George disliked parrots,
that seemed a poor reason for letting it die for lack of food. It
wouldn't die, he told himself firmly, sipping his tea. Someone was
bound to find Carlyle soon. Maybe he had an appointment with somebody
that very afternoon. When he didn't show up, he'd be checked on, all
right. Somebody was always checking on you, once you got into your
eighties. And you often couldn't tell from their voices or their
faces whether they were relieved or disappointed to find you still
alive. He knew this from his visits to the old folks in the hospital.

How long could a parrot live without having its food
and water replenished? he wondered. Carlyle might have filled up its
dishes the minute before George arrived. Or he might not. It might be
time for its next meal right now. Surely it wasn't stupid enough to
remain silent through hunger and thirst, just because a cloth blocked
its view of the world outside its cage.

George stared out the window toward his garden and
the sea and concentrated. He'd have to go back there, unless he was
willing to let the damn parrot die. He'd have to remove the cover
from the cage and sneak away, hoping the bird's shrill cries would
penetrate the walls of the house, and the laurel hedge, and catch the
ears of the couple who lived closest to Carlyle.

Even if he added water and food to the cage himself,
assuming he could find whatever it was the damned bird ate, he'd
still have to rely eventually on the parrot's making its condition
known to the neighbors. And if it didn't, then when the Mounties
finally showed up they'd find one dead man and one dead bird.

After a while he got up and phoned Carlyle's house,
hoping to find that the police were already there, but nobody
answered. For a moment he almost expected Carlyle, dead, to pick up
the phone, and laugh at him, or wheeze curses into his ear. The phone
rang and rang and he imagined Carlyle's open eyes focusing, his
battered head lifting, his limp white hands flexing, pushing his body
to its knees; George could almost hear his breathing begin again, and
the grunting sounds he would make as he dragged himself off the rug
onto the bare wood floor and crawled toward the kitchen, heading for
the telephone to complete their interrupted conversation.

He hung up abruptly. Eighteen rings, and no answer.

There was, of course, another alternative. He could
go back to Carlyle's house and pretend to find the body. This would
involve lying to the police, which he hadn't intended to do, but it
was stupid to balk at lying when he'd just done murder. He didn't
think his eventual punishment would be any more severe if he
concealed as long as possible the fact that he'd committed the crime.

Finding the body seemed the most sensible way out of
his dilemma.

He would have to put off his nap for an hour or so.

All for the sake of a smelly, mangy, pop-eyed parrot
he was going back there.

George went into the bedroom and stuffed his
blood-marked sweater and his handkerchief, which he had left lying on
the floor, into a green plastic garbage bag, dumped his kitchen
garbage on top of it, and closed the bag with a twist tie. He went
into the bathroom to scrub is hands and comb his hair. He put on
another V-necked cardigan, a gray one, and rubbed a brush over his
shoes, which had gotten dusty on the walk to and from Carlyle's
house. He washed out his teapot and his cup and saucer and dried them
and put them away. Then he looked at his big, round gold wristwatch.

"Two o'clock," he said aloud. "I think
I'll wander down to the library, maybe stop in on old Carlyle on the
way.” This rang false, but he persevered. He picked up two books
that were lying on the footstool in the kitchen, pushed the garbage
bag out onto the front porch, left the house, and locked the door
behind him. He put the garbage bag out in front of his gate, ready
for collection, and set off down the road, along the gravel shoulder,
making an effort to lift his weary legs so as not to shuffle. The sun
was warm on his sweatered back, and his hand was soon sweaty on the
library books he carried. He liked the sun very much.

As he went along he kept an eye on the traffic but
saw no car he recognized. There were already a lot of out-of-province
license plates, tourists looking hard for God knew what. George tried
to keep his shoulders back and his knees high. He walked into Sechelt
whenever he could, a mile there and a mile back, because the exercise
was good for him. He took his car only when the weather was bad. It
was in the garage this week anyway, getting its clutch repaired.

He came to the laurel hedge, and then the gate, and
went through and down the gravel path to Carlyle's front door. He was
full of admiration for himself as he rapped on the door and stood
back, attempting a wavery whistle as he waited for Carlyle. Passed up
a hell of a career on the stage, I did, he thought, glancing casually
through the kitchen window as if to spot Carlyle in there.

He simulated annoyance as he waited, and still nobody
came to the door. He was lapsing naturally into his role as crotchety
old man, a role he found came in handy, now and then.
 
George stopped whistling and banged again on the
door, harder this time. No response. He hesitated on the broad front
steps, between the geraniums. He started back up the path toward the
gate in the hedge, stopped, turned around, retraced his steps, and
followed the path around to the back of the house, where he peered
into the small yard there, and onto the rocky beach, but saw nobody.
He went back to the front steps, and knocked again, and then tried
the door, which was unlocked.

"Carlyle," he called out irritably, but
there was no reply, and he didn't hear anything from the parrot,
either.

He went down the shadowed hall, calling, and emerged
into the brilliance of the sun-flooded living room. It looks just the
same, he thought, as when I was last here, and he blinked rapidly
against the sunlight, and then he saw Carlyle's body sprawled on the
braided rug next to the rocking chair. George cried out and flung up
his hands. The library books flew to the floor. His heart made a
commotion in his chest.

He couldn't move. "Carlyle!" he said.
"Carlyle, what the hell's the matter with you?" But Carlyle
didn't stir.

(He told himself he was carrying this much too far.
Did he think there were Mounties hidden behind the door, for Christ's
sake? But he wasn't acting at all, any more.)

"Carlyle," he said again, angry. "What
are you doing down there? Get up, man, for God's sake." He
shuffled toward him and got close enough to see the open empty eyes
and the dark red puddle on the rug in which Carlyle's head was
resting.

"Oh, Christ, he's dead; the man's dead, all
right," said George. There was some relief in this. At least he
wouldn't be called upon to try to administer first aid, about which
he knew virtually nothing.

(He was appalled at himself; on whom was he
practicing these inane deceptions?)

He stumbled backward into the hall, turned, and
blundered toward the kitchen, his hands trying to grip the wall. He
grabbed the telephone and attempted to dial, but he couldn't get his
fingers to work. He put down the receiver and clung to the sink,
looking out the kitchen window at the lawn that swept gently up to
the laurel hedge. He took several deep breaths, then dialed again. He
couldn't remember the emergency number so he dialed the operator. She
didn't seem to mind and connected him quickly with the police.

"
My name is George Wilcox," he said. "I
live about a mile south of Sechelt. I came here to see—he's
eighty-five—he's dead. On 'his floor, dead.”

"Who's dead, Mr. Wilcox?"

"Carlyle. He lives halfway along the road
between my house and the village. Burke, his name is. Was. Behind a
laurel hedge." His teeth were chattering. He had to get outside
and stand in the sun.