Fall from Grace (22 page)

“I'm gonna replace my car,” Bobby said abruptly.

“Oh yeah?” It's damn hot in here, thought Warren, reaching for a package of black lozenges. I've gotta get out of here, he thought, before I drown in my own sweat.

“Yeah,” said Bobby, picking up a box of Vicks. “Gonna be on the road. Gotta get a reliable set of wheels.”

“You got the money for that?”

“Why? Aren't ex-cons supposed to have money, Warren?”

“Oh, hey, sure, Bob, I'm sorry, I just thought—”

“I don't have it yet, as it happens,” said Bobby. “But I'm gettin' it.”

“Good, good,” said Warren.

“So I thought maybe you could advise me,” said Bobby. He put the cough drops back. “You know. The make, the model, the year.”

“Yeah, I could do that, Bob,” said Warren, easing past him in the narrow aisle.

“Good,” said Bobby, following him to the cashier.

Warren looked blindly into his wallet. He felt himself flushing, and fumbled in his pants pocket for change.

“I forgot to go to the bank,” he said to the cashier, who shrugged.

She was chewing gum and wore a lot of makeup.

Bobby reached in front of him and slapped a Loonie down on the counter. “My treat,” he said, and Warren watched as he left the drugstore.

“I need another quarter,” said the cashier, snapping her gum.

Warren dug again into his pocket and came up with a quarter. He picked up his cough drops and started for the door, walking slow, but when he went through it onto the sidewalk Bobby was still there, leaning against a blue '79 Datsun.

“I'll stop by, then,” said Bobby. “About the car.”

V
ELMA GRAYSON OPENED her front door. When she saw Alberg, she said, “Did you arrest somebody?”

He shook his head.

“It's the only thing I can think of that might make me feel better.”

“May I talk to you for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” said Velma, and held the door open.

Alberg hesitated. He couldn't hear the furnace. But he didn't want to take any chances. “Do you think we could talk out here?”

They sat on the veranda, in a pair of green-and-white-striped lawn chairs.

“I should offer you some tea,” she said.

“No, really. I don't need anything.” He opened his notebook. “I've spoken to his friend Natalie,” he said, and told her what he'd learned.

“But what did he have to feel guilty about?” said Steven's mother, bewildered.

“He wouldn't tell her.”

Velma looked perplexed. “But he's been gone for ten years.”

“I know. Maybe it happened before he left.”

She got up and went to the edge of the veranda, and leaned on the railing. “I don't have any idea what it could be,” she said dully, staring at the willow tree that grew between the house and the street.

“You might have the key to it, though,” said Alberg.

She turned to face him, her back to the railing. “What do you mean?”

“It looks like he made up his mind to come home during his phone conversation with you on June seventeenth. Because he didn't start shuffling around his work load until the next day. I'd like you to think back very hard to that conversation. What he said to you—but especially what you said to him.”

“It was just like all our conversations. He called home regularly. To make sure I was well. To keep in touch. And to hear what was going on in Sechelt.”

Alberg waited. Her front lawn was brown. So was the one across the street. Everybody's lawn was brown.

“Bank tellers,” said Velma, “we hear just about all the news there is. And Steven wanted me to pass it all on to him. And I did so, with pleasure.” She sat down again, her hands resting on her thighs. “I liked it that he still had an interest in the town.”

“What news did you have for him that day?” said Alberg.

She'd told him that Mr. McMurtry, the high school principal, was retiring after this year. And about Wendell Simpkins getting fined for dumping his restaurant trash into the ocean. And Gloria Jang, who had gone to school with Steven, was pregnant again for the fifth time. And Joe Borovsky got drunk at the Legion Hall and drove through a stop sign near the Old Age Pensioners' Hall and nearly hit a child on a bike. And Bobby Ransome who'd gone to jail years ago was back in town, because his father was sick. And Peter Jenkins had left his wife, Maude. And the Glasscos' house had been robbed.

“That's it?” said Alberg, and Velma said it was.

“Okay,” said Alberg. “That's very good. I appreciate it.”

“I don't see how it can help you, though.”

“Well that's because we're not quite finished yet. We're going to go over it again, now. And I want you to tell me everything you know about these people. Will you do that?”

“Of course,” said Steven's mother.

I
T WAS LATE AFTERNOON and Hetty was preparing to go out on her bicycle, to patrol the northwest quadrant of the village, when her nephew arrived, unexpected but welcome.

She offered him tea or coffee but he didn't want any.

They sat down at her kitchen table, and silence moved into place between them. He rested his elbows on the table and picked up the salt shaker and poured some salt into the palm of his left hand; then he didn't seem to know what to do with it. He got up and brushed it into the sink. And sat down again. Trouble was written all over his face.

“Aunt Hetty?”

She looked at him inquiringly and nodded, showing him reassurance instead of the alarm she felt.

“Ah, I gotta move on, I think.”

Hetty couldn't hide her dismay. She reached over to put a protesting hand on his arm…and from among her memories came an image of Bobby squatting next to a parked car, fumbling with a valve cap.

“I know,” he said, patting her hand. “But I gotta.”

He'd collected a whole jar of them, from cars all over Sechelt. “Henry's better. My mom's stopped worryin' about him so much, anyway.”

And his dad had made him put them all back.

“So—uh, I'm gonna be on my way.”

Nobody saw him, when he was collecting them. But a lot of people saw him the second time around. And not many were prepared to believe that he was putting their valve caps back.

“The thing is…” He got up and pulled something from his jeans pocket, and handed it to her.

It was the note she'd given him, folded twice: it said, “You're in my will. The house. And money.” She looked up at him, puzzled.

“I was wondering—” He was shifting around uneasily. “See, Aunt Hetty, I kinda need something right now. New wheels. A car. Because I gotta do some traveling.”

Hetty began nodding her head. “Isee. Isee.”

“Could you? Is it possible?”

She was thinking rapidly. She'd have to summon her lawyer. Arrange to sell something. Or cash in a bond. “When?”

“When do I need it? Fast. Real fast, Aunt Hetty.”

She could deliver a letter to her lawyer in the morning. “Dontknow. Try. Come—” She gave up the struggle and reached for a notepad. “I'll find out,” she wrote. “How much?”

“A couple of thousand?” He hesitated. “Five, maybe?”

“I'll try,” Hetty scrawled.

“S
OMEBODY TOLD ME today that he was murdered, Karl, that young man on the beach; is that true?” She had come to his house in Gibsons straight from work; the library stayed open until nine o'clock in the summertime, and although it was usually staffed by volunteers in the evenings, someone had called in sick and Cassandra had filled in for him.

“Come inside,” said Alberg. He closed the screen door behind her but left the other door open. It was still very hot in the house, but beginning to get cooler outdoors. “We don't know yet. Maybe.”

She sat down in the wingback chair by the window and put her big denim handbag on the floor. “My God. I can't believe it.”

“Hey, I'm about to have a beer and a sandwich. How about you?”

“No, thanks. I just—it's terribly upsetting. What've you found out?”

“Not much,” said Alberg vaguely, hands in the pockets of his faded jeans.

“Oh you're so damned annoying.” Cassandra felt rattled. Spooked. And not at all calmed by Alberg's large, solid, noncommittal presence. She sank back in the chair and stared moodily out the window.

“Well,” said Alberg after a minute, “I'm going to get you a beer and a sandwich anyway.”

“Not tuna,” said Cassandra. “I hate tuna.”

“Okay,” said Alberg, and disappeared into the kitchen.

The younger of his two cats came slinking around the corner of the long chesterfield that divided the room into living room and dining area. She was a spayed female, black, with a white smudge on her nose, white front paws, and a white chest. Cassandra looked around for one of the scrunched-up balls of foil that usually lay about for the cats to play with, but she couldn't spot any. “Sorry, cat,” she said.

Through the open door and windows she heard a car pull up in front of Alberg's house. It'll be Diana, she thought. She tried to make her gaze casual and disinterested as she peered through the twilight.

But it wasn't Diana.

Cassandra watched with growing alarm as she approached the door, a young woman in walking shorts and a T-shirt, wearing sandals, a leather bag slung over her shoulder. She was dark-haired and really very young.

“Karl,” Cassandra called out, getting to her feet, “someone's coming to your house.” Maybe it's one of Diana's friends, she thought. Of course it is. Who else could it be? On the other hand, she thought, moving reluctantly toward the door, he was about to be fifty and due for a midlife crisis, and maybe she, this young person out there on his porch, maybe she was it.

He emerged from the kitchen just as Cassandra opened the door.

“Mrs. Alberg?” said the young woman.

Cassandra, disoriented, muttered something unintelligible, and thought of Hetty Willis.

“Natalie,” said Karl, coming up behind Cassandra, who noticed that he didn't sound surprised to see her.

The girl held up a large manila envelope. “I decided not to wait till morning.”

Alberg reached around Cassandra and pushed open the screen door.

They sat down in the living room, and Alberg made introductions.

Natalie, on the chesterfield, clutched the envelope. “I went to your office first,” she said, “and they told me how to find you.”

“I know. They called me.”

Cassandra picked up her denim bag. “I should go, Karl.”

“No, don't go,” he said quickly. “Really. Stay. I'll get us some coffee.”

But when Cassandra offered to do that for him, he didn't object.

“How are you doing?” said Alberg to Natalie. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “Not really.” She placed the envelope flat on her lap and stroked it, smoothing it.

Alberg heard sounds from the kitchen. He wondered if Natalie liked cats. Did she have a boyfriend? A lover? Where did her parents live? Had she told them about Steven?

“He told me once,” she said suddenly, “—he said his earliest memory was his father's arms. He said they were brown, and very strong.” She looked over at Alberg, sitting in the wingback chair. “His father was a logger.”

Alberg nodded.

“He was standing and his father was crouched behind him, with his arms around him. Steven said he remembered seeing his dad's arms, and the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up past his elbows, and his hands. The hair on his arms and hands was bleached by the sun, he said. It looked like gold flecks. Sparkles. He said it was a good memory.” She dug in her leather bag for a package of tissues. “Shit.”

Cassandra came in with a tray, and Alberg helped unload mugs, cream, sugar, spoons, and the coffeepot. By the time the coffee had been poured and served, Natalie had collected herself.

“You graduated this year?” said Alberg, and Natalie nodded. “What's your degree?”

“Education.”

“Education,” he repeated approvingly. “Have you got a job in September?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I'm one of the lucky ones.”

“Where?”

“Prince George.”

Alberg thought about Janey, wherever the hell she was, and Diana; Bachelors of Arts, the both of them. He often felt glum and fearful, contemplating his daughters' futures. You could do a lot worse, he thought, than teach school in Prince George.

“Okay,” he said. “Let's have a look.” Natalie handed him the envelope and he pulled out the photographs.

A younger Hugh McMurtry in a school hallway, looking patiently at the camera, obviously wanting to be on his way.

Two women in a parking lot, at night. One was laughing, with her head thrown back.

A chunk of rain forest. It could have been anywhere on the B.C. coast. Huge trees, ferns, logs, brush—all surrounding a clearing through which a small stream flowed.

Alex Gillingham, perched on the end of his examining table, hands folded on his thighs, wearing his stethoscope, a white coat, and an indulgent smile.

A young man lounging on a bench in the corner of a locker room. Wearing sweats and running shoes; his feet drawn up. He gazed at the camera impassively; a chunk of blond hair hung over his forehead.

The same young man with his arms around a dark-haired girl; he was kissing her neck.

Hetty Willis. Younger. Another outside shot; night. It looked like the same parking lot. She was peering around a tall man whose back was to the camera.

Finally, an old man wearing overalls, a cap, and round glasses with wire frames. He was sitting on a bench against a brick wall. His breast pockets were full of ballpoint pens. He looked very happy.

As Alberg looked at each one, he passed it on to Cassandra.