A Chill Rain in January (19 page)

Alberg was instantly irate. “Speaking of Helen Mitchell, what the hell do you think you're doing, foisting her off on Cassandra?”

“‘Foisting her off'? Cassandra's her daughter, for God's sake.”

“We were supposed to go away,” said Alberg sullenly.

Gillingham started to grin. “Oh, my. To Victoria, I bet.”

“Yeah. That's right. Thanks a hell of a lot.” He took another bite of hamburger. “Marjorie's probably getting married again. To an accountant.”

“Your mind is going, Karl,” the doctor said calmly. “Marjorie would never in a million years marry an accountant.” He brushed fastidiously at some grains of salt sprinkled on the oilcloth that covered the table. “You can't keep Zoe Strachan from burying her brother, you know, just because there's a kid in her house that you don't think ought to be there.”

Alberg put the hamburger down. “I've got a real uneasy feeling.”

Gillingham snickered. “What is that, a cop's instinct? Kind of your gut reaction sort of thing?”

Alberg leaned his elbows on the table. “When I talked to you this morning, you said something about Strachan not being drunk after all.”

“That's right. He'd been drinking, all right. But he wasn't drunk.”

Alberg sighed and pushed his plate aside. “I've got a serious problem here. I think you're full of crap about the wounds. ‘Not the right kind of wounds.' What the hell does that mean?” He held up his hand. “Just shut up, okay? Until I'm finished. Okay. The guy falls down the stairs. He breaks his neck. He dies. These things happen. She tells us he was drunk. That makes sense. But now you tell me he wasn't drunk.” He shrugged. “Okay, so she was wrong. He'd been drinking and he fell down her stairs, so she assumed he must have been drunk. I can accept that, too.” He leaned forward. “But that kid really bugs me. What the hell is that kid doing there? She doesn't like him. He doesn't like her.”

“Okay, said Gillingham agreeably, “so she doesn't like kids. Lots of people don't like kids.”

“But why did she haul him home with her, instead of parking him with a friend? A nine-year-old boy, he's bound to have friends he could stay with, people he knows. I just can't figure out why she brought him home with her.”

Gillingham looked at him curiously. “I don't know, Karl.”

“She's got a hell of a temper,” said Alberg softly.

“Are you worried about this kid?” said the doctor after a minute. “I mean, do you think she might hurt him?”

“I don't know,” said Alberg slowly. “But I do know that he's scared of her.”

“He is?”

“Yeah.”

The doctor grunted. “Me, too.”

Alberg pulled his plate back in front of him. He picked up his hamburger and immediately put it down again. “What do you mean, you, too?”

“She's colder than a dead fish, that one. Standing at the top of the stairs and laughing like she did.” Gillingham shivered.

“She was nervous,” said Alberg irritably. “People react strangely in crises. Jesus, you of all people should know that.” He picked up his hamburger again, and this time he took a large bite.

Gillingham, munching on spinach, watched his friend closely.

Alberg ate a French fry, but it tasted like cardboard. “We don't have grounds for an inquest, do we?”

Surprised, Gillingham shook his head. “Nope.”

“I didn't think so.” Alberg slumped back in his chair. “I sure wish I could keep things on hold for a few days. See if I could get a few answers.”

Gillingham thought for a while. “She's a foxy lady, isn't she,” he said.

Alberg raised his eyebrows. “What? Who?”

“Colder than a dead fish, like I said. But sexy,” said the doctor. “Very very sexy.”

“What are you getting at, Alex?”

“Maybe you're overreacting.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Gillingham pointed at him. “That's what I'm talking about. You getting all agitated.” He shrugged. “So you want to jump on her bones. So what. So does Sanducci. So did the ambulance guys. You can feel carnal urges and still be a policeman, you know. That's all I meant.”

Alberg glowered at him.

“You need a couple of days,” Gillingham said thoughtfully, “to sniff around. Satisfy your cop's curiosity. Convince yourself you've done your job.” He nodded to himself. “We can get you that. Sure we can.”

“How?” said Alberg suspiciously.

Gillingham beamed at him. “We bluff,” he said.

“This is not sounding good.”

“You go back out there,” said the doctor, “and tell her there's some inconclusive findings. Yeah.” He leaned forward, all business now. “Okay. Here's my official word, Karl. Are you ready?”

“Go ahead.”

“Okay. There's been some inconclusive findings, Staff Sergeant, in the autopsy I performed on the body of the poor soul who plummeted down that Strachan woman's basement steps. I need some more time, to…to firm things up, to…let's see…”

“To complete your work,” said Alberg helpfully, “which lies in the area of medical jurisprudence, necessary to the right and proper establishment of the cause and circumstances of the death.”

“I couldn't have put it better myself.” Gillingham sat back and folded his arms. “That oughta give you a day or two. She might be a tad upset, but what the hell, tell her I'm gonna make sure the process of decay don't get a good grip on him.”

W
HEN
Alberg left her house that morning, Zoe went into her bedroom and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. She hung up her black skirt and put the green sweater, carefully folded, in a drawer in one of her bedroom closets. Then she went next door, to the spare room.

“I'm going out for a run,” she said to the boy, who watched her, big-eyed, from the bed. “I'll be gone for twenty-five minutes.”

“How long do I have to stay here?”

“Why did you turn this off?” Zoe switched on the TV set that stood on a low chest of drawers facing the bed. “I don't know how long you have to stay here,” she said, and left the room.

It was still raining, but Zoe didn't mind the rain.

She walked briskly down the driveway, in lieu of warming up, and when she reached the highway she began to run.

For the moment I shall put that child from my mind, she thought; and when I've finished my run, then I'll decide what to do about him.

Cherniak, the family lawyer, would have called the grandparents by now. They could be expected to show up in Sechelt, eventually. But there wasn't anything she could do about that.

She told herself that it wasn't anger she felt. She had gotten her anger under control years before. She was frustrated, that was all. And who could blame her? No wonder she felt frustrated, with that Mountie poking around, disguised as an ordinary person, asking all kinds of questions that were none of his business and then having the monumental effrontery to prevent her from burying her own brother. She wondered if he was going to continue to be a problem, that Mountie.

She was running much faster than usual, virtually pelting along the highway. With an effort she slowed to a jog. Wearing herself out wouldn't accomplish anything, except to give her a stitch in the side which would just make her more irritated.

If she'd been able to follow her plan, she wouldn't be in this mess. If things had gone according to plan, she'd have her scribblers now, and Benjamin would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the cliff. This way, though…what a mess, thought Zoe, disgusted, what a blunder, his death half accident and half not. Things had to be planned in order to be made to work. If she'd learned anything in her life by now she'd learned that. Yet in only a minute—no, less than a minute—in seconds, mere seconds of reckless impulse, she'd endangered everything that was important to her. She was extremely frustrated; extremely irritated with herself. But that, she told herself, was wasted energy. Time spent in regret was always time spent inefficiently.

Zoe ran, slowly, steadily, and she thought about her life, and how to protect it.

She had driven into Sechelt on Monday to call Edward Cherniak. It was the first time she'd wished she had a phone of her own. There wasn't a single pay phone in town that was housed in a booth, with a closing door. Most were stuck starkly on the walls of squalid restaurants. She finally found one in the middle of the shopping mall that at least offered a curved sheet of Plexiglas as partial defense against eavesdroppers.

The mall was full of teenagers who ought to have been in school. They lounged against the walls of the mall, bleak eyes staring from pale faces, smoking God knows what and kissing each other. This, she thought grimly, was where that staff sergeant ought to be making himself busy.

“I'm afraid Benjamin is dead,” she told Cherniak the lawyer, and waited while he gasped and murmured. “It was an accident. He was drunk, and he fell down my basement stairs.” She waited again, through the lawyer's expressions of shock and sorrow. She noticed that several of the teenagers slumped around the vicinity of the telephone wore sharp-toed black boots that looked to be at least three feet long.

“Where's the boy?” said Edward Cherniak. “How is he?”

“He's with me. Has Benjamin got a burial plot?”

Cherniak said, “Yes. Right next to Lorraine.”

“Good. I'll let you know as soon as they release the body, so you can make the arrangements.”

The lawyer began to protest.

“Oh for heaven's sake, Edward, surely it's one of the things a lawyer does. I have absolutely no wish to get involved in it myself.”

A lot of the teenagers, even the boys, had two, three, or more rings in their ears. Zoe thought they looked like people who had been purchased. She shivered with disgust.

“Have you got his will?” she said.

“Yes, of course.”

“What's in it?”

“You know I can't tell you that, Zoe. I can't remember anyway. Except that he wanted Peter and Flora Quenneville to have custody of the boy.”

“That's fine with me,” said Zoe. “I've got another question for you, Edward.”

“Of course.”

“Did Benjamin ever leave anything with you? A package? Something he wanted you to keep for him?” Portions of the teenagers' heads were shaven, and the hair that remained was dyed bizarre colors, like fuchsia, and lime green, and lifeless black.

“A package,” said the lawyer. “No. I don't think so. No, I'm sure of it. Why?”

“Has he got a safe-deposit box somewhere?”

“I have no idea, Zoe. Why?”

“He had something of mine. I want it back.”

She'd hung up, then, and placed another call, this time to Benjamin's West Vancouver bank, where her brother had a safe-deposit box, all right. But there was no way they were going to let her see what was in it.

Furious, she'd crashed the receiver down onto the hook and whirled away from the phone.

“Hey, lady,” said a lethargic young male person wearing faded jeans stuffed into black boots, and a worn black leather jacket over a black T-shirt with lettering on it, Zoe could read only two words: “suck blood.” She stopped and stared at him. “Hey, can you give me some money?”

Zoe gazed at him, incredulous. “Are you out of your mind?” she said. “Get out of my way, or I'll have you arrested.”

“For what?” he said, plaintively, to her retreating back.

Now, the next day, she ran, and ran, in the hope that physical activity would wear off some of her frustration and prevent anger from happening.

She had built herself a refuge. It had been her father's idea.

Zoe ran easily, her legs pumping, her heart beating fast. It was gratifying to have confidence in your body, she thought.

She liked the Douglas fir trees that clustered around the guest cottage and lined the edge of her property, because they protected her privacy. She liked the arbutus because the bark peeled away to reveal shiny red skin, and their leaves didn't fall, even though they looked like the leaves of deciduous trees.