Fall from Grace (13 page)

“Take it easy,” said Alberg.

“So I get down there right next to him,” said Joe. “ ‘It's okay,' I tell him. Okay, shit, the guy's dying, I know it, he's a totally broken person. But I tell him it's okay. ‘You're gonna be okay,' I say. He doesn't move anymore. But he says, ‘Help me.' Oh Jesus.”

Alberg reached over and gripped his shoulder.

“ ‘Sure I'll help you,' ” said Joe, rushing it now. “And then he says, ‘Hold my head. Help me.' And I know what he means, see? That's the thing. He doesn't mean, ‘Help me,' he means, ‘Help me die.' ” Joe swiped at his face, at the tears there. “So I put my hand on the back of his neck and in a minute he was dead.”

Alberg gave his shoulder a hard squeeze, and let go. He looked out into the bay, where his rented sloop was anchored, and saw Cassandra leaning on the stern pulpit.

“Is that all he said? Are you sure?” He lifted his hand, and Cassandra waved back.

Joe nodded. “Positive.”

There was nobody left on the beach. They were all on their boats, watching Alberg and Joe and the orange tarp. The sun was very hot, and the water had begun to rise.

“You did good,” said Alberg to Joe.

T
HE SIGNS READ “WARNING: Do not climb on these sand banks. The cliffs above are eroding and can fall at any time.”

The forest on top leaned over the edge as if to stare down at the body on the sand. North Thormanby Island was swathed in forest, except for this high cliff at its southern end, which bore the striations of sandstone. The beach below it would be swept clean by the tide, made new for morning: no trace of the young man's blood would be found, no trace of his dying would remain there.

Alberg squinted upward, looking for something by which to orient himself. He saw a log he had spotted earlier, a tree trunk bare of branches extending perhaps forty feet straight out from the top of the cliff. He remembered noticing it from the boat. When Cassandra had said, “Karl, the cliff,” he had turned and looked at the top of the cliff, and had seen a perfectly horizontal line stretching out into space.

Alberg looked up at the tree trunk, trying to estimate how far it was from the eastern edge of the cliff. Above him a flock of crows was curiously circling, circling.

The sea had reasserted itself between the Thormanby Islands and was slowly, steadily, devouring the beach. Alberg turned and called out to Sid Sokolowski, and the two of them walked eastward, around the corner to Grassy Point. Wild grass grew upon the sand here, among the driftwood, and as the tide encroached upon the island Alberg and Sokolowski found a path that led inland, steeply upward, along the floor of a deep fissure.

Trees had fallen across the path, some completely uprooted, and they had to climb over them, or under them. Alberg's sunburn was throbbing; every tree branch he encountered seemed to scrape against him; the whine of mosquitoes stung his ears; even the whirring of bird wings unsettled him.

“Christ,” he said, sweat stinging his face as he vaulted clumsily over a huge, rotting log.

“It'll be easier on the way back,” said Sokolowski behind him, panting. The sergeant wore the RCMP summer uniform of navy pants with a yellow stripe down the leg, and a short-sleeved tan shirt.

The greenery was thick on either side of the so-called path, and trees loomed inward from the top of the chasm; Alberg kept expecting one of them to crash down upon them.

Finally the trail leveled out, and its boundaries became less steep, and then very suddenly they were at the top, looking across the gap at South Thormanby Island.

“Christ,” said Alberg, grabbing at a tree trunk. “If we'd been doing anything faster than a plod, we'd have gone right over.”

Cautiously, he shuffled through the brush. He leaned forward a little, looking through the trees along the edge of the cliff, and spotted the log that extended out over the brink; it was about fifty feet away.

Alberg and the sergeant trudged through the brush, keeping well away from the cliff top, until they reached the log. It was a Douglas fir, at least a hundred feet long and more than six feet in diameter. Two-thirds of it soared out into space; the remainder lay upon the ground, swathed in ferns and climbing plants that Alberg couldn't identify, pressed in upon by the restless, verdant forest.

“No sign of anything on this side,” said Sokolowski. “You want to go around? Or over?”

Alberg went to the edge of the woods. The recumbent tree trunk disappeared into greenery so thick that he figured he'd need at least a machete and maybe a bulldozer to find the end of it.

“Over,” he said, eyeing the log gloomily. “Hoist me up.” Sokolowski leaned against the dead tree and bent to make a stirrup with his hands.

Alberg was propelled firmly upward. He clutched at the decaying bark, got hold of the jagged end of what had once been a branch, and pulled, and found himself spread-eagled on top of the log.

It had lain there for years. The wind had blown at it, and the rain had pelted it, and the wind and the rain hadn't budged it. There wasn't any reason to think that two hundred pounds of Karl Alberg was going to send it flying over the edge—yet he thought it probably would. He pictured it in his head, the damn tree shooting out into the sky with him riding it, riding it, all the way down to the ocean. He wondered how deep the water was out there between the islands; maybe not deep enough, yet, to drown in. And then he saw himself jumping clear of the log in midair. Which would land first, Alberg or the log? He peered down the long, long length of the dead tree and it was like peering down the barrel of a rifle. He was afraid to move. He hung on to the rough dead bark and stared straight ahead of him and saw the tree extending for what seemed miles, and across the sea-flooded gap stretched the shaggy green roof of South Thormanby Island.

“Are you okay, Karl?” said Sokolowski.

Alberg nodded, and coughed. “Yeah. Fine.”

Slowly, he relaxed his grip upon the tree. Warily, he wriggled a few feet closer to the root end. Then he pushed himself around and dropped to the ground. He looked down at himself and saw that his thighs and knees were scraped and bleeding.

“See anything?” Sokolowski called out.

“I just got here,” Alberg snapped. He looked around and, almost at once, saw where the young man had gone over.

The brush was crushed and broken, here, and a fresh chunk of the cliff top had fallen away. A breeze rippled the gray-gold field of tall grass that lay between the brush at the edge of the cliff and the beginning of the forest. Alberg saw that a pathway had been trampled through the grass. He followed it, creating a parallel trail, and was led to the mouth of a path that went steeply down, probably to the beach on the western side of the island. He made his way slowly back toward the place where the body had fallen, scrutinizing the ground.

“Karl?” said Sokolowski, from the other side of the massive log.

“Yeah,” said Alberg. Something glinted in the broken grass. He got down on his knees, thinking that the grass looked like some kind of crop—hay, or wheat, or something. “Just a minute,” he said.

Carefully, he separated the dry grass with his hands.

It was a lens cap that lay there, gleaming dully in the sun.

“I
T'S VELMA GRAYSON'S kid,” said Gillingham, looking down at the young man lying dead on the sand at his feet. “Jesus, what a shame.”

The Thormanby Islands floated, separate, in a placid sea. All that remained of the sandy connector was a small beach at the foot of the cliff, and the tide was still advancing.

“Hurry it up, Alex, will you?” said Alberg.

The flotilla of pleasure boats remained at anchor but it looked as if they'd retreated, because there was so much more water, now, between the boats and the body. Alberg imagined himself back on board his rented boat, where Cassandra continued to wait. He would be standing next to her, looking at what was left of the beach. He saw himself and Gillingham and Sokolowski and Carrington and the body: a lonely huddle of the dead and the dying.

“Hurry up,” he said again, more gently.

It was late evening, now, and everything was silver-blue—the sky, the water, the islands that rose from the ocean like a tranquil pod of sleepy whales. Everywhere Alberg looked, the world was serene, slumberous, luxuriating in the comparative coolness of evening. There were no clouds in the sky, only the bright sun low on the horizon, blanching the heat from the sky as it descended; there were no waves in the sea, only small silver ripples created by the incoming tide. Alberg's skin burned but the cooler air of evening eased the pain.

He looked down at the body of what had turned out to be Velma Grayson's son, and at Alex Gillingham kneeling next to it.

“Alex,” said Alberg.

Gillingham slowly shook his head. “Yeah, well, he's dead, isn't he,” said the doctor heavily.

Alberg told Constable Carrington to row the dinghy out to Alberg's boat and motor back to the marina at Secret Cove, then see that Cassandra got home.

He returned to the mainland on the police boat, with Gillingham and the corpse. Sokolowski remained behind with a corporal to finish taking statements; the boat would return later, to pick them up.

The moon was high in the sky when Alberg left Buccaneer Bay. The water was black and silky, except for a long splash of moonlight. Alberg stood by the rail and watched the sea, and let the wind cool his sunburned skin.

Sechelt didn't have a proper morgue. No discreet window wall separated the dead from the bereaved. It would be a face-to-face confrontation, and Alberg hated those.

Velma Grayson's porch light was on. And she must have been waiting up for her son. The door opened right away, and as she looked up into his face Alberg wished that when he'd gone home to hastily wash and change he'd put on the uniform. She wasn't expecting anything bad. The sight of Alberg standing on her porch hadn't alerted her, even though she knew perfectly well who he was. Yeah, he wished he'd put on the uniform, for once.

She worked in his bank, as a teller. But he didn't know her well enough to call her Velma.

“Mrs. Grayson,” he said. “I'm afraid I have bad news.”

They drove to the hospital in silence. Alberg was impressed with her calmness. She had listened to him quietly, asked him to wait, and disappeared into what he took to be her bedroom. She came out wearing fresh lipstick, having combed her hair. She was carrying a handbag. She held it on her lap as they drove.

Alberg parked near the emergency entrance and ushered her into the hospital, through an empty waiting room, down the hall and into an elevator. As the elevator took them into the basement he watched Velma Grayson's face, which remained calm, and hoped Gillingham would know somebody they could call to come and be with her, once she'd seen the body, and begun her grieving. The elevator doors opened and she stepped out into the hall, and waited for Alberg to lead the way.