A Chill Rain in January Read online

Cautiously, she moved from the shelter of the trees onto the driveway, and headed toward the house.

  She was very nervous as she crept along. It was possible that she was wrong. The Strachan woman might be perfectly healthy, and inhabiting her house as usual. If that was the case, she was apt to appear right in front of Ramona at any second, out for another jog, or ready to drive into town for groceries or whatever. Well if that happened Ramona would pretend to be lost, that’s all.

  She shifted the shopping bag from her right hand to her left and pushed her hair away from her forehead; her hair was a mess, far too long, and sloppy-looking, with the perm clinging just to the ends of it. She knew she looked a sight. She had been scrupulous about rinsing out her underwear and her knee-highs every night, so what she wore next to her skin was always clean. But her dress was grimy, and her socks, and the sweaters she’d borrowed from Marcia, they were all badly in need of a wash.

  The shopping bag was getting heavy.

  She crunched reluctantly along the gravel, wishing that the sun were shining. It wasn’t the friendliest place around, this promontory, sticking out into the sea like a great rude thumb. She could do with a bit of bright sunshine to perk up her spirits, give her some courage.

  The ocean was doing a lot of crashing around, out behind the house; there would be rocks there, then, instead of sand.

  Ramona ambled along more and more slowly, but she was only putting off the inevitable; unless she started walking backward, she was going to get there sooner or later.

  And then there she was, standing right beside the house, looking at the door.

  The ocean was making a whole lot of noise, and the arbutus trees that were clustered around the house scrabbled at the roof like fingernails against a blackboard.

  As she lifted her hand she had a sense that she hadn’t thought this through…she wasn’t altogether sure what she was doing there…why she was feeling so nervous?…but she rang the bell.

  Who lived here, anyway? thought Ramona, her heart starting to pound.

  Nobody. Or else they were out.

  The Strachan woman, that’s who lived here.

  In a rush, clarity returned: Thank you, God, thought Ramona; but she kept on being frightened, feeling threatened.

  I’ll pretend to be lost, she thought, if she comes to the door. There’s absolutely nothing to be nervous about, nothing at all, she told herself, but her heart was going a mile a minute, which she knew wasn’t good for it, and there was a shaking in her knees that was making it harder and harder for her to stand up.

  She realized that nobody was responding to the bell. With somewhat more boldness, she rang it again. And again.

  Nobody home. Definitely.

  Hopefully, she tried the door. But it was locked.

  She decided to go around the house and see if she could get in through a window.

  But first she had a look in the garage…and the garage was empty.

  Ramona realized there was no point in trying to get into the house, because if the Strachan woman was out somewhere in her car, then she certainly wasn’t laid up in the hospital.

  And she was liable to come driving up her driveway here any minute now.

  Ramona scurried away from the house, the shopping bag banging against her ankle.

  She was about halfway to the road when she heard the sound of whistling and saw a figure turn into the driveway. She straightaway flung herself into the brush and hid behind a tree and watched as Sandy McAllister traipsed past, his mailbag slung over his shoulder. She had to clamp her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from calling out to him; she’d been on his route, when she lived in her house, and he’d often had coffee with her on cold winter mornings. She watched while he delivered the mail, passed her again, and disappeared around the corner where the driveway met the road.

  Ramona, hiding in the woods, considered her situation. Things weren’t going well anymore. She didn’t feel good in her body. And she was uncertain, depressed; her mind felt all cobwebby.

  Maybe she ought to call Isabella. Or Rosie. Or even Dr. Gillingham.

  This was a bleak prospect, but comforting, too. People would look after her. Wash her clothes. Arrange for her to get a perm. Talk to her.

  And put her back in the hospital.

  Ramona realized she was looking directly at what appeared to be a tiny house. It was tucked among the trees about thirty feet in from the driveway, on the opposite side. There was a small window to the right of the door, but the curtains were drawn. It had a forlorn, abandoned look. She almost hadn’t seen it, it was so hidden by trees and brush.

  Ramona hobbled across the driveway. She tried the door, but it was locked. She began to be annoyed with that Strachan woman, where did she think she was living, anyway, New York City? All her damn doors locked.

  Ramona made her way around the little house, which was encircled by a well-worn path, and at the back was another door. This one had a window in the top half of it.

  And the window was broken. Shreds of bark stuck to the broken glass, and a tree branch sprawled beneath it, on the porch. Ramona looked up into the thick, dense branches of a cedar tree. It was making soft, whispering sounds.

  She put down the shopping bag. Carefully, she reached through the window and down, and fumbled around until she found the doorknob, which turned easily, and the little lock thing in the middle popped right out. There was a chain lock, too, so she had to slide the bolt out, and she did that, and then the door was open.

  Ramona stepped back, amazed.

  She felt positively merry, all of a sudden.

  God’s in his heaven, Ramona chortled to herself. All’s right with the world.

  Then she picked up the shopping bag and went through the door and into Zoe Strachan’s cottage.

  Chapter 26

  IN WEST Vancouver, Zoe parked her car in a small paved lot that served three or four houses located below the road. She noticed that a fence had been erected, but it wasn’t a tall one. She could have toppled him over it, all right. She took hold of the top railing and looked down. The cliff was about fifty feet high; the house was built halfway down, wedged into sheer rock. There was a steep flight of steps down to the front door, and another, which couldn’t be seen from the road, that led from the back of the house all the way down to a rocky beach. Zoe’s father had kept a small boat there, for puttering about in. Benjamin used to like to go fishing in it.

  There was also an elevator, installed after Zoe left home. It was a cage with a locked door. She got Benjamin’s key ring from her purse and found the key that fit. The elevator delivered her slowly, smoothly, but noisily to the house. She got out, closed the cage door, and found the house keys. She unlocked the door and stepped inside.

  There was a strange hush upon the place. Zoe stood still and listened intently to the silence, which was like sudden silence after clamor; it had an echo affixed to it.

  She was in a wide foyer bathed in filtered light from a translucent skylight and panels of stained glass on either side of the front door. It looked different from when she had lived in the house. Eventually she remembered that the floor had been made of oak and kept highly polished, with a few small rugs scattered about in deference to wet shoes. Now there was tile beneath her feet, in a Mediterranean pattern of some kind; Zoe wondered with distaste if the whole house had been redone in ersatz Spanish.

  She moved from the foyer toward the living room…and stopped in the hallway, frowning. She heard nothing. But she fancied that she felt something, a current of something, somewhere in the house. She shook her head impatiently. This was no time to start imagining things.

  In the living room she was astonished to find no furniture at all, just bunches of huge pillows in various brilliant colors stacked here and there. The floor in this room was still oak, but it was scratched and dull. She crossed to the windows that looked out and down, down, down toward the beach, hidden from view by an outcrop of rock. At the sides of the house arbutus trees clung
to the cliffside, their branches brushing the roof. Zoe threw open the windows and heard the muffled soughing of the sea and the idle scribbling of the arbutus branches against shingles; the same sounds she heard at home, but different.

  She didn’t want to be in this house. She wanted to be back in her own living room, looking out upon her own austere patio.

  She pulled the windows closed and locked them.

  Where on earth can the furniture be? she wondered, staring at the bare room. Bare floors, bare walls—she decided that Benjamin must have stripped the place, sold everything.

  Now she did hear something. A soft shuffling sound. She was certain of it.

  She tried to think what could possibly have caused it. Perhaps Benjamin owned some kind of pet, a dog or a cat. She listened hard, concentrating, hardly breathing.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps it was only the sound of the sea, made more distant now that she’d closed the window. She moved as silently as possible from the living room, trying to prevent her boots from clicking on the wooden floor.

  At the end of the hall she found the master bedroom, once occupied by her parents. Beneath a pair of uncurtained corner windows that looked through arbutus branches at the sky was a huge bathtub. Astonished, Zoe gazed at it, remembering the small desk that used to be tucked into that comer. Her mother had sat there to do the household accounts. The bathtub was enormous, with a wide ledge. There were jets installed inside it.

  The bedroom floor was carpeted, except for a tiled area around the tub, and there was a tacky white wicker shelf unit stacked with towels leaning against the wall. The bed was immense, at least king-sized, and unmade, the bedspread tossed to the floor, the sheets, the quilt, and four outsize pillows rumpled; Zoe crinkled her nose and sniffed the air. She wondered how long it had been since the sheets were changed. She wondered what Benjamin had done about sex, when he no longer had a wife handy. She tried to imagine him prowling the bars, making his mind up, taking his pick; she tried to imagine him anonymous and predatory, but she couldn’t; it was preposterous. She laughed, thinking about this—and heard a scurrying sound from the hall.

  She strode to the door and looked out, but saw nothing. Everything was quiet. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” she said irritably. Zoe loathed cats. They made her skin crawl. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.” But no cat appeared. Zoe heard nothing more.

  She stood there indecisively. The house was making her uneasy. She was positively rattled. She didn’t care for this at all.

  Cautiously she pushed open the door to the room next to the master bedroom, the room that had once been hers. From the hallway she peered inside. Benjamin had obviously been using it as an office. She looked in at filing cabinets and bookcases and a large desk; and she was absolutely certain that somewhere in this room he had hidden the scribblers.

  She had just stepped into the room when she heard a noise so indisputably real that the hair stood up on the back of her neck. She whirled around, heart pounding.

  “My God,” said Zoe. “Who are you?”

  He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. His eyes were wild and his knees were drawn up and his small hands, in fists, were pressed against his mouth.

  “I said, who are you?” said Zoe, loudly.

  His clothes were a mess. He’d been crying. His face was filthy.

  “What are you doing here, you wretched little trespasser?” said Zoe.

  He scuttled along the floor like a crab, toward the door.

  “Oh no you don’t, young man,” said Zoe, and reached out to slam the door shut. “You aren’t going anywhere, until you tell me what you’re doing in this house.”

  “I live here!” cried the boy.

  Chapter 27

  ALBERG rented a car at the Calgary airport. Maura had said she would pick him up and squire him around, but he wanted none of that: he needed to have his own transportation.

  Diana had made reservations for him at a motel near the campus, and Janey had written him a letter with meticulous directions as to how to get there.

  It was a frigid, sullen day, he noticed, making his way along Sixteenth Avenue. The sky looked as though it were made of cast iron. And there was a wind cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

  In his motel room he found everything he wanted: a queen-sized bed, a big television set, and a bathroom with a tub and a shower. He put down the bag and checked out the TV. Not perfect, but it would do. He left it on and had just stretched out on the bed, hands behind his head, when the phone rang.

  “Pops, you’re there!” said Diana. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “I just got here,” he protested. “I practically just walked in the door.”

  “Well, is it okay? The place?”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” he said, turning off the television set with the remote control device. “Perfect. Everything I need.”

  “Good. Listen. The three of us are spending tomorrow together, right? You, me, and Janey?”

  “Right,” said Alberg, smiling.

  “So we thought that tonight, maybe we could all of us go out for dinner. We figured to get as many free meals out of you as possible, while you’re here.”

  “Sounds good to me,” he said. “But I’d better call your mom first, just to say hello. How about if I pick you up in an hour? Give me directions,” he said, switching the phone to his left hand so he could fumble in his jacket pocket for pen and paper. “And then we’ll go get Janey. I better call her, too.”

  “Pop. Stop making decisions. Listen.”

  “Yeah. What?”

  “I’m calling from Grandma and Grandpa’s place. Janey’s here, too. So is Mom. I meant how about if we all go out for dinner?”

  “You mean your mom, too?”

  “And Grandma and Grandpa. Everybody. Please?”

  “Shit.”

  “Pop.”

  “Yeah. Shit. Okay.”

  “Thanks, Pop. I love you.”

  “Yeah. I know it.”

  He hung up the phone and stared at his suitcase. He’d brought one good jacket and one good pair of pants. They were for Monday. And some cords and a polo shirt. They were for tomorrow. What the hell was he going to wear tonight?

  He unzipped the case and hauled out his good clothes and hung them up. There were a few creases, but he thought they’d probably disappear overnight. He also hung up the polo shirt and the cords and put his good shoes on the floor of the closet. He put his shaving kit in the bathroom and a paperback copy of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities on one of the bedside tables. The presents he’d brought for his daughters went on top of the desk. He left his clean underwear and socks in the suitcase and set it on one of the room’s two chairs.

  He looked at his watch, and placed a call to Sechelt.

  “Just checking in,” he said to Sid Sokolowski.

  “You’ve only been gone about four hours, Staff.”

  “Yeah, well, I wondered if Gillingham’s sent over his report yet. On the Strachan guy’s death.”

  “Not yet. I gotta tell you, though, now I’m talking to you. Isabella was right.”

  “About what?”

  “I go back to the old lady’s house, where she used to live. I go back there with Reba McLean. And Reba looks around, lets out a squeak, says somebody’s been there.”

  Alberg sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah? How’d she know?”

  “Stuff moved around. A chair belongs in the bedroom, it’s in the living room now. And listen, I know it for a fact, the damn chair was in the bedroom the first time I checked the place out.”

  Alberg grinned. “So maybe she was hiding under the bed.”

  Sokolowski made no response.

  “Just kidding, Sid. Probably she hadn’t gotten there yet.”

  “That’s the way I figure it anyway,” said the sergeant. “She likely sneaked in there later in the day. Musta had a key.”

  “You went through the place pretty thoroughly, I g
uess,” said Alberg, still grinning. “Today, I mean.”

  “Yeah. She wasn’t there. But I borrowed Reba’s key and gave it to Sanducci. He’s going to check the place during his shift.”

  “Good.”

  “Another thing. I talked to the neighbors again. They didn’t see her, didn’t hear anything. But the old couple with the dog, they figure they had a break-in. Didn’t report it because the stuff that went missing, it was food, plus a bottle of gin.”

  Alberg laughed.

  “Yeah,” said Sokolowski. “I’m kinda glad she picked herself up some gin.”

  It was six o’clock when Alberg left the motel. There was a cold wind blowing, and he shivered as he hurried to his rented car. He was getting soft in his old age; too accustomed to the balmy winters of the Sunshine Coast.

  On his way to the house of his former in-laws, it occurred to him that he should be bringing some kind of token gift—flowers, or chocolates, or something. Probably he should have something for Maura, too.

  Somebody had probably written a book about it. More than one somebody, probably. And he’d bet his bottom dollar that they were all female, all these people who had written books about the etiquette of divorce which he’d never seen, never even looked for in the bookstore or in Cassandra’s library. He’d ask her, when he got back. Got any books about forming altered but still meaningful relationships with your ex-in-laws?

  He wondered where Zoe Strachan was at that moment.

  Dressed in jeans and boots and a denim jacket. He thought that in summer she probably wore sunglasses a lot.

  Were there men in her life? Had there ever been a husband in her life? There was no sign of one now. Maybe she was divorced, like him.

  Alberg no longer found it painful to see his ex-wife. In fact, he looked forward to it. Their meetings created confusion in him but it was a shy kind of confusion, not unpleasant, and there was this strong familiarity, too, and a strangeness at the same time, and the mixture of the familiarity and the strangeness always made him tense and excited, as though anything could happen.