The Suspect - L R Wright (29 page)

"
Where is he?” said Cassandra, who was in her
nightclothes. "At home.”

"
What's the matter with him?”

Alberg looked beyond her, into her house. "He's
very tired.”

He leaned against the doorframe. "Why didn't you
tell me he was moving?"

"
Why should I have told you?”

Alberg sighed. "May I come in? just for a
minute? I won't stay long. I've got to get home .... ”

They went into the living room, where a crystal
pitcher filled with sweet peas sat on the glass coffee table.
Cassandra noticed that he looked at this for a long time. He would
recognize the pitcher, she knew.

"
He's very fond of you," he said.

"
Yes," said Cassandra. "And I'm very
fond of him." Her eyes were filling with tears. She clenched her
fists. '

"He did it, you know," said Alberg, still
looking at the flowers in the crystal pitcher.

"
Did what?" said Cassandra.

He turned slowly to look at her. She watched his face
as the thought first skittered across his mind, then skittered back,
grew still, and took root there.

"
You knew,” he said.

"Knew what?" said Cassandra, desperately.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Cassandra, stop playing
games with me. He did it. He killed him. How long have you known?"

They were still standing, and he seemed to tower
above her, his eyes icy and his face pale. "When did he tell
you? Did he run to you that same afternoon, weeping on your shoulder.
. because you remind him so much of his sister? How long have you
known?”

"
Stop shouting at me," said Cassandra,
suddenly strong. "If you want to speak to me in my own house you
will sit down and speak to me like a civilized human being, not a
frustrated damn cop."

He opened his mouth, closed it. "Tell me,” he
said grimly, and he didn't sit down.

"
Tell you what? I have nothing to tell you.”

"
For Christ's sake, Cassandra—" With an
effort, he lowered his voice. "We're talking about a homicide."

"
I know what we're talking about,” said
Cassandra. "You don't have any evidence, do you? And he hasn't
told you anything, has he?"

"He told you,” said Alberg bitterly. "I
know he did."

Her anger drained away. She was regretful and
heavy-hearted, looking at him. She wanted to embrace him, as she had
embraced George, and try to comfort him, as she had tried to comfort
George.

"Karl. Listen to me." He turned hostile
eyes on her. "I can't help you. Even if he had told me he did
it, and I reported this to you, it wouldn't help you much. If,” she
said carefully, "if he had told me he committed a crime, I would
have rummaged around in my library. And I would have found out that a
confession like that isn't admissible evidence, it's hearsay. "
She looked away from him. "You'd have to get corroboration even
if he confessed to you directly. Which he hasn't." She looked up
at him. "And which he won't."

He moved toward the door.

"
No, please.”

He waited, not looking at her.

"
He's a miserably unhappy old man,” said
Cassandra. "He's giving up everything he loves—his garden, his
life here. He is not in any way a danger to anyone. And he's my
friend.”

Alberg looked at her with contempt. He went to the
door.

"Is your job so simple, Karl? Is your job really
so damned cut and dried?"

She had to raise her voice and speak very quickly to
get the last words out before the door slammed behind him.
 

CHAPTER 31

The next day Sid Sokolowski was standing by the
counter making conversation with the duty constable when he heard the
front door open. He turned, casually, and saw George Wilcox.

"Who's in charge around here?" said George.
He was dressed in a brown suit Sokolowski figured must be almost as
old as he was, and a brown tie, and was wearing a brown hat with a
narrow brim from which sprang a small green and red feather.

"Staff Sergeant Alberg is in charge, sir,"
said Isabella, looking him over. "What's the nature of your
business?"

"That parrot is the nature of my business,
madam,” said George, waving toward the bird. "It's my
property, and I've come to claim it."

Sokolowski had disappeared down the hall. He now
hurried back into the reception area, followed by Alberg.

"
Good morning, Mr. Alberg," said George.

"
Good morning, Mr. Wilcox," said Alberg.

"
May I have a word with you in private?"

"
Sure. Come to my office.”

George didn't sit down, when offered a chair. He
wandered curiously about, looking out the window, sticking a finger
in the soil of the ivy that still sat on top of the filing cabinet,
finally coming to rest behind Alberg's desk, facing the wall on which
hung the photograph of the staff sergeant's daughters. He studied the
photograph absorbedly for several seconds while Alberg, moored
awkwardly in the center of his office, watched him and grew
increasingly irritable.

"Well?" he said finally. "What is it
that you want, Mr. Wilcox? Have you changed you mind? Want to sign a
statement?"

The bitterness in his voice startled him, and it
seemed to startle George Wilcox, too. He turned from the photograph
and looked at Alberg.

"They're beautiful young women, Mr. Alberg,"
he said. "I envy you. I understand you're divorced. Divorce
won't hurt them. At least, not for long."

He walked around to sit in the black chair, allowing
Alberg access to his own swivel chair and the comforting
paraphernalia that cluttered the surface of his desk.

"
I came to tell you something," said
George. He took off his hat and held it in his lap, stroking its
feather. "There's life," he said, "and there's
conscience, and there's fate, and then there's law, Mr. Alberg. I've
struggled with three of them, and I've decided to avoid a struggle
with the fourth.”

Alberg felt unutterably depressed.

"
And it's not as though the struggling's over
with," said George, so softly that Alberg had to strain to hear
him. "I don't even know if I had reasons for some of the wrong
things I've done. I don't even know if things are really as
complicated as they seem to be or if—if it's just that I was plain
wrong.”

He put on his hat, adjusting it with fumbling
fingers. "I thought it might give you some satisfaction, if I
told you that."

The white waves of his hair swept out beneath the
brim of his hat, echoing its curve. As he got unsteadily to his feet,
it struck Alberg for the first time that an eighty-year-old man
probably didn't have much longer to live.

"I meant it about the parrot," said George,
as they went slowly down the hall. "I have to take it with me."
He stopped out of hearing range of Isabella. "The other stuff.
If it turns out that it has to come to me, like the will says, I've
made arrangements to have it all sold."

"Planning another trip on the proceeds?"
said Alberg.

George looked up at him. Defeated, he shrugged. "I've
got to take the damn bird, though," he said obstinately.

Back in the reception area, Alberg grasped the handle
of the cage, through the cloth, picked it up, and handed it to him.

"Be my guest," he said.

The parrot shrieked.

"
We'll miss him,” said Isabella.

"
I'm sure he'll miss you, too,” said George.

"
Give him some cheese now and then,” said
Isabella. "It seems to keep him calm.”

"Does it, now," said George.

"
How are you going to get him home? Have you got
a car? Where do you live?" said Isabella.

"I have my own personal taxi, madam,” said
George, "which is right now waiting to deliver me to the bus
station. " He went out the door without another glance around
him.

Alberg, through the window
above the green-cushioned bench, saw Cassandra's yellow Hornet
waiting at the curb. Before he turned away he saw her reach across
the front seat to open the passenger door for George.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, George and Cassandra were
sitting side by side in the waiting room of the small bus station.
They were surrounded by three large suitcases, a cardboard carton
tied with heavy string, and the parrot's cage, cloaked in its
red-and-white checked cloth.

Alberg came through the door and walked directly over
to George. He didn't acknowledge Cassandra's presence.

"I have something for you," he said,
handing George a brown paper bag. "Don't open it until you're on
the bus."

He turned and walked away before George could say a
word. Cassandra reminded herself that he was just a cop, a stubborn,
coldhearted cop whom she'd known for precisely six days.

When the bus came, the driver loaded George's three
suitcases and the cardboard carton into the bottom of the bus. He
expressed dismay about the parrot but was finally persuaded to let
George carry it on his lap.

Cassandra tried to embrace him but it was difficult
because he wouldn't let go of the cage, from which issued a series of
ever more piercing cries, or the brown paper bag. She contented
herself with kissing his cheek and patting his shoulder and making
him promise to write to her.

George, as the bus left, waved until Cassandra was
out of sight.

He had managed to get a seat by a window and the bus
wasn't full so he stashed the parrot on the seat next to him, where
it gradually quieted.

He wiped his eyes and pushed his handkerchief back in
the pocket of his suit jacket and undid the jacket buttons and sat
for some time, looking out the window, with the brown paper bag in
his lap. He had felt the outlines of its contents through the paper
and thought he knew what it was.

Eventually he took it out, and as soon as he saw it
he was stabbed with love, and grief, and a terrible sense of things
having gone wrong. AMW—Audrey Marion Wilcox. He and Myra had given
it to her, on her twenty-first birthday, which had fallen two days
before the birth of Carol.

He held it tightly for a while, before he lifted the
lid and saw the jewelry, all of it familiar, all of it gifts from
him: the bracelet, for her eighteenth birthday; the necklace, for
Christmas the year after he and Myra were married; the ring, for her
thirtieth birthday, shortly after they had moved from Saskatchewan to
Vancouver; and the cameo, sent to her from Germany after he and Myra
and Carol had taken a trip to Italy in the spring of 1956, just a few
months before her death. He had seen the letters beneath the pile of
jewelry, of course, as soon as he'd opened the box.

But he closed the lid and contented himself with
caressing the initials, embossed in gold, until the bus had reached
Langdale and been loaded onto the ferry and disgorged the driver and
most of the passengers to seek refreshment in the cafeteria or the
sea wind on the sun deck or the spectacular views from the
glass-enclosed lounges.

Then he opened the box again, and took out the
letters, and unfolded the top one.

You bring it on yourself Audrey, you know you do.
 

CHAPTER 32

July 29, 1984
Dear
Mr. Alberg:
I think I'm dying. I say
this with some astonishment but with little dismay. I've been very
lucky. No awful disease has claimed the last months of my life; as it
did Myra. I don't even feel any real symptoms, just a gradual seeping
away of something important.

If you get this letter—WHEN you get this
letter—you'll know I'm right. I'll be dead. It's a peculiar
feeling, I'll tell you, writing this, imagining you in my head and
not knowing when you'll get to read it. It could be you'll be all
gray-haired and stooped over then, though I doubt it. Could be you'll
be dead yourself before it ever gets sent, though I doubt that even
more.

I wonder if Cassandra has told you by now about my
talk to her. My "confession. ” She asked me to write to her
from Vancouver but I couldn't. She's written to me (those librarians,
they're worse than policemen or reporters, the things they know about
getting information), but I haven't answered her. I couldn't. It
didn't seem right, somehow.

Anyway, if she hasn't told you I'm telling you
now. I don't think I would have bothered, except that you gave me
those letters. I think you did it because you wanted to help me a
little. It was a compassionate gesture, and for that I thank you.

I've done a lot of not good things in my life.
I've done some terrible things in my life. But you know, Mr. Alberg,
what the worst one of them all might have been? I've been giving it a
lot of thought.

I stopped writing, there, for a minute, just to
think it over again, it's such a peculiar idea. But I think I'm
right. I think the worst thing I ever did was not to let Carlyle be
my friend.