The Suspect - L R Wright (23 page)

The living room had a fireplace and a large
glass-and-chrome coffee table and a white leather sofa that was
Cassandra's pride and joy. There were prints on the walls—some
Emily Carr, and a Paul Klee, and two Matisses. At the end of the
living room was a dining area with patio doors leading outside.

The phone was ringing as she came into the house
after work on Tuesday. It was Alberg, asking if they might have
dinner together.

Cassandra didn't want to see him. He was a policeman.
It took enormous effort, as she listened to him, to think of him as
anything but a policeman. And she had absolutely no desire to have
dinner with a cop: not today. Not after George.

Gradually she became aware that he sounded hoarse and
dispirited.

"'What's the matter?” she asked, despite
herself. "Just tired. Not a good day. That's all.”

She had a quick mind; she
could have thought up all sorts of excuses. But in the end she
didn't. She invited him to have dinner at her house.

* * *

She set the table with candles and a low bowl of
flowers. For dinner they would have a stew from her small freezer. It
was already in the oven and she was tearing romaine into a bowl when
Alberg drove up.

She went to the door to greet him. "What did you
do," she said, as he appeared in his jeans and rubber boots,
"take the day off and go fishing?"

He came onto her porch carrying a bottle of wine in a
brown paper bag. "Sort of," he said. He glanced at the
monkey tree. "I hate those things. They look like they've been
put together by somebody who's deranged."

"Don't be rude,” said Cassandra. "I
presume this is for me," she said, taking the bag from his
hands. "I might be very fond of that tree, for all you know."

Inside, he pulled off his boots and left them on the
mat. "I hope I'm not making myself too much at home, but they'd
leave marks all over your floor."

She looked uneasily at his sock feet. "A
shoeless policeman in my house.” She took the wine into the
kitchen. "Does this have to breathe or anything?"

"Yeah. Let me know when it's half an hour before
dinner. I'll open it then.” He went restlessly into the living room
and looked at the prints on the walls.

"I have to finish the salad," said
Cassandra from the kitchen.

"Why don't you go out back and have a look
around?" She heard the patio doors open and relaxed a bit. She
hadn't realized she was nervous. Maybe I'm even frightened, she
thought, chopping tomatoes and throwing them into the bowl. She would
have to be very careful what she said to him, and she wasn't a
practiced equivocator.

The door to the patio closed and he joined her in the
kitchen. "No garden out there. Only grass. How come?"

"I don't like digging around in the dirt much. I
get to look at my neighbors' garden. Sometimes they give me flowers."

He went over to the kitchen door and looked through
its window.

The garden next door was terraced up the incline all
the way to the woods, which also backed onto Cassandra's property and
extended around it to meet the gravel road. Next door there were
bushes covered with blossoms, and vegetables growing in neat rows,
and banks of flowers near the house.

"Yeah, I see what you mean,” said Alberg.
"Nice.” He wandered over to the counter and ate a slice of
cucumber.

"Not too good living back-to-back with a forest,
though.”

"Why on earth not?” said Cassandra, the paring
knife poised over an avocado.

"
Hard to keep the place secure.”

"
Good God,” said Cassandra. "Secure from
what? The deer? They're the only things that come down from those
woods. They ate my neighbors' scarlet runners last year. Well, not
the beans. They ate every leaf on every stalk, and left all the
beans. I guess deer don't like beans." She had peeled the
avocado and was now slicing it into the bowl. "Would you like a
drink?”

"Oh, God,” said Alberg gratefully. "I
would.”

"
Help yourself. There's a cabinet in the living
room."

"
Can I fix one for you?"

"
A small scotch, please, lots of water. There's
ice in the top of the fridge."

"
I'm serious, you know, Cassandra," he
called from the living room.

"
About what?” she said, slicing. She wasn't
nervous any more. There was no earthly reason why the topic of George
Wilcox should even come up. It was herself she had to watch, she
thought—not Karl. She was the one who couldn't get George out of
her mind, and part of her wanted very badly to talk about him, to
someone. But this man was absolutely the wrong person.

He came into the kitchen and rummaged around for ice.

"
You don't even lock your door when you go out,
do you? I noticed that when I brought you home on Sunday.”

"
All right, all right, I'll lock my door if it's
so important to you. But there's nothing you can do about the woods.
I'll never be safe from the deer." She washed her hands, dried
them, and took her drink from him.

In the living room he sat on the white sofa and she
sat in a chair by the window.

"
Your face,” said Cassandra, "is as red
as a lobster.”

"
It's painful as hell,” he said modestly.

She got some ointment from the bathroom and tried to
give it to him. He wouldn't take it, protesting feebly. Cassandra
took the top off the tube and began applying it gently to his
sunburn. He closed his eyes and moaned. She jerked her hand away. "Am
I hurting you?”

"
No, it feels wonderful. Cool.”

"
It won't last. But it'll help for a while.”
She smoothed it over his high wide forehead, his long straight nose,
across his cheeks, around his mouth; it was a generous mouth, and
there was a slight cleft in his chin. She screwed the top on the
tube. He opened his eyes. They were wintry blue, and probably
specially trained to spot a lie or an evasion a mile away. She thrust
the tube into his hand. "Here. Take it with you. Put some more
on tonight, before you go to bed.”

"
Maybe you'd do it for me," he said,
looking up at her. "Before I go to bed.”

Cassandra ignored this and sat down again. She picked
up her glass. "How did you get that burn, anyway?”

"
I was out in a boat all day.”

"
Playing? Or working?”

"Working.” He drained his glass. "May I
get myself another one?"

"
Of course. I heard there was some kind of
search going on,” she said casually as he got more scotch and went
into the kitchen for ice. "What were you looking for?”

He put his glass on the coffee table and dropped onto
the sofa. "Oh, we took it into our heads there might be a murder
weapon out there. "

"
And was there?"

"Don't know yet. They're still looking. Doesn't
look very encouraging, though.”

'
Has this—uh, got to do with Mr. Burke?”

He looked at her curiously. "Yeah, as a matter
of fact.”

"
Well he's the only person I know of who's been
murdered around here lately," said Cassandra defensively. "If
you don't want to talk about it, just say so.”

"
Sorry. I can't talk about it, really. I
shouldn't, anyway.”

Cassandra got up to freshen her drink.

"
How's your friend George?” said Alberg.

She turned quickly from the fridge; he was-out of
sight, in the living room. For a moment she couldn't think of a
single thing to say.

"Not very well, I think,” she said at last,
and was surprised at how calm she sounded.

She went back to her chair. She couldn't have denied
seeing him. They had been observed by all sorts of people.

"He came to the library today," she said.
"He seemed very tired. I drove him home. " Stop, Cassandra,
she told herself; stop right there.

"Tired," said Alberg.

Cassandra's heart was thudding. This man had her
ointment all over his face, his sock feet on her carpet; this man had
come to her for food and, presumably, affection; this man worried
about her unlocked doors and burglars creeping down on her from the
woods: He was not her enemy, after all, she told herself.

But she had to keep her loyalties straight, because
that's what duty was, after all, wasn't it? Loyalty. She had known
George Wilcox for years, and an affectionate regard had grown between
them; she had met this policeman less than a week ago.

"Yeah," said Alberg, looking at the glass
in his hands. "I imagine he's pretty tired, all right.”

Cassandra didn't respond. He didn't seem to expect
her to.

"
It's half an hour until dinner, now," she
said.

In the kitchen he opened the wine and Cassandra put
rolls in the oven to warm. They were standing back to back, almost
touching. She felt the heat from his body, and smelled the sea, and
sunburn ointment, and sweat.

"
There's no dessert, I'm afraid," she said.

"You warned me I'd be taking pot luck.”

He was observing her thoughtfully, standing only a
couple of feet away. She slipped past him into the living room.

"
Don't you ever wear a uniform?” she said,
sitting again in the chair by the window.

"Sure." He was looking beyond her, out
toward the highway.

"When?”

He sat on the sofa, holding his glass between his
knees, where the denim of his jeans looked thin enough to fray. "I
wear it when I go to talk to kids in the schools, or to service club
meetings, or when somebody from Vancouver's coming over to inspect.
Gotta look shipshape for the brass." He took a drink.

"
What about the red one? Do you ever wear that?"

"You mean boots and breeks?"

Cassandra laughed. "Is that what you call it?"

"
The red tunic, the boots, the Sam Browne, the
breeches—yeah, that's what we call it. Review Order. It's only worn
for ceremonial things. I look pretty good in mine,” he said
comfortably.

She laughed again.

"Well, most people do, I guess," said
Alberg with a grin.

"
Not so much the women. They don't get to wear
the Stetson or the breeks—just skirts and a kind of a pillbox hat."

"
What a chauvinistic bunch,” said Cassandra.
"You're undoubtedly a chauvinistic man."

"
We're a paramilitary outfit," said Alberg.
"What the hell do you expect?" He put his glass down and
fell back into the sofa, stretching his arms along the top. "I
feel better.”

"
Three scotches," said Cassandra dryly.
"That'll do it.”

He sat up. "Two. I don't think it's the booze. I
just like it here.”

The timer on the stove began to ring, and Cassandra
got up to serve dinner.

She lit the candles.

He complimented her cooking, and she complimented his
choice of wine.

"
What are you doing here, anyway?" said
Alberg suddenly. "In Sechelt?"

"
Why don't you tell me what you're doing here,
first,” said Cassandra. "I know you people get moved around.
But by the time you're a staff sergeant, surely you have something to
say about where you're going to go next."

"
I don't know how much to tell you." He
looked at the candles and the flowers. "What the hell." He
put down his fork and leaned his elbows on the table. "In
Kamloops it got to be time for my annual review. Personnel
evaluation. I was a sergeant there, in charge of my first detachment.
And it was also time for promotion to staff sergeant. There were
several places I could have gone. Sechelt was one of them.”

He picked up his fork and started pushing salad
around on his plate. "Sechelt's what we call a 'jammy' posting.
Nothing heavy, a nice place to live, nice people to deal with, for
the most part. A quiet place, not much happening. And yet it's close
to Vancouver.”

He looked up at Cassandra. "My wife and l had
decided to separate. I didn't tell the review team. They'd have
wanted me to stay in Kamloops, try to work things out. The force gets
uneasy about divorce. They feel guilty. And it's true that in a lot
of cases it's the job that does it."

"Was it the job in your case?"

He started to rub his forehead, winced from the pain
of the sunburn, and drank some more wine instead. "I thought it
was, yeah. Maura thought so too, I think. But now—lately—I don't
know. Anyway. I was feeling a bit—well, low, and battered." He
laughed a little. "A jammy posting sounded like just the thing.
And it was on the water, too. So I asked for Sechelt.” He spread
his hands. "And here I am.”

"How long will you be here?"

He looked directly at her. His eyes looked warmer in
candlelight, and his hair was the color of wheat. "It's up to
me. If I don't screw up, I could probably stay until I retire. I
don't think I'm going to screw up. I usually don't.”