A Chill Rain in January Page 13

  When it was late enough to phone Calgary he decided to phone Cassandra instead. He needed sympathy. Kindness. Tenderness. Of course in order to get these things he’d have to tell her he needed them; she wasn’t a mind reader, after all. And then she’d want to know why he needed them. He didn’t know how she’d react when he told her he was suffering because his ex-wife was getting married again.

  In the end it was all academic, because Cassandra’s mother was out of the hospital and staying with her daughter. He could hear in Cassandra’s voice that her teeth were clenched, figuratively at least, probably literally as well. Alberg heaved a sigh and suggested lunch, but of course she had to go home at noon to make lunch for her mother. They were at cross-purposes, Alberg with his preoccupation and Cassandra with hers, and when he hung up he felt sad and achy.

  At the detachment, things weren’t much better. Isabella informed him that Sid Sokolowski’s wife’s cousin, whose name was Ludmilla, wanted to apply for the job as his cleaning woman. Alberg didn’t want to hire a relative of Sid Sokolowski’s as his cleaning woman. But she was there, in person, waiting, so of course he had to see her. She was a young, strong, brawny, intelligent woman with big red hands and a lot of thick yellow hair. He looked at her and quailed inside. He gave her a weak smile, asked a few questions, heard her out, and sent her courteously on her way. God only knew what possible reason he could give Sid for not hiring her, but he wasn’t going to hire her, and that was that. I don’t think I’ll hire anybody, he decided, and said it aloud to himself, in his office, looking at the phone, imagining the conversation he was about to have with Janey and Diana.

  For he had to call them. He was pretty sure they already knew about Maura and the accountant, and he had to let them know that he was okay, that he was happy for her and all that shit. Then maybe he’d get some sympathy from them. He sure as hell needed to get some from somebody.

  And then the phone rang, and it was Gillingham.

  “All right, all right. I’m releasing the Strachan fellow for burial,” said the doctor.

  “Good,” said Alberg. “It’s about time.”

  “That woman doesn’t have a phone, for Christ’s sake. I’ve got better things to do than trundle all over town delivering corpses. How about if you dispatch one of your guys over to her house. Tell her she can have him picked up anytime.”

  “I’m glad you changed your mind,” said Alberg.

  “I haven’t damn changed my mind. I do not like that wound on his head. I do not like the bruise in his gut. I do not like his damn sister, who as much as said he was sloshed to the gills, and he wasn’t.” He sighed. “But the head wound didn’t kill him. Falling down the stairs killed him.”

  “And he could have—”

  “Yeah yeah yeah. You’re right. He could have gotten the smack on the head when he fell. So I owe you an apology. I guess I’ve been wasting my time.”

  “It happens to all of us,” said Alberg.

  He hung up the phone and stretched. He linked his hands behind his head and surveyed the ceiling. After a while, “I’ll do it myself,” he muttered. “I could do with a break.”

  He told Isabella where he was going, and headed off to see Zoe Strachan.

  A few minutes later he pulled up in front of her house, walked up to the heavy double doors, and rang the bell. He heard it echo faintly through the house. He rubbed his feet on the mat and lifted first one shoe, then the other, to polish the tops of them on his pantlegs.

  It had begun to rain, very lightly; Alberg heard raindrops landing among the boughs of the arbutus trees, and splitting on the overhang above the door, and on the driveway. But they were falling slowly, dreamily. A gust of wind came up and set the arbutus chattering. He rang the doorbell again. Apparently she wasn’t home.

  He pressed his ear to the door and heard nothing from within the house. He rang the bell again, just to make some sound happen in there.

  Alberg shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around at Zoe Strachan’s property. After a minute he decided to circle the house.

  There were two windows in the side wall that faced southeast, toward the easternmost of the Trail Islands and beyond to Mission Point. Alberg glanced through them as he plodded past upon grass slippery with rain that was quickening, and thickening. When he turned the corner the grass ended and the patio began, chunks of flat, rough stone placed side by side and glued together with cement. At the back of the patio was a jumble of enormous boulders. Behind them Alberg saw the gunmetal sea and the Trail Islands.

  The rain was falling hard now, rippling the ocean, and Alberg crossed the patio quickly with his shoulders hunched, pulling up the collar of his jacket. He couldn’t see much anyway, even though this side of the house was almost all glass, because venetian blinds shuttered out his curious glances; he knew without trying them that the French doors would be locked, and why would he try them anyway? He had no right to be poking around Zoe Strachan’s house.

  Alberg waited for a minute in the shelter of the overhang, before turning to head back to his car.

  Then, for no good reason, he stopped, and stepped around behind the house again. With the wind pushing at his back and the rain plastering his hair to his head, he saw the blind covering the nearer set of French doors move slightly. The space between two of the narrow horizontal slats widened, widened; and Alberg thought he saw a face. The blind returned slowly to its original position. Alberg waited, quizzical, disbelieving; and there it was again—a pale face, small and young, with enormous eyes. Definitely not Zoe Strachan’s face. Alberg didn’t move, but he smiled, and lifted his hand, slowly, and gave the small face a salute; he tried to put into his smile, into the salute, whatever there was in him that was warm and unthreatening. The face continued to look out at him; then Alberg heard a car approaching over the gravel driveway, and the blind dropped, the face disappeared.

  Chapter 33

  ZOE Strachan signaled and turned across the highway into her driveway, and made her way slowly along the promontory, thinking about the boy, wondering if he had remained in the house, as she’d instructed him.

  But where could he go, for heaven’s sake?

  He might have taken it into his head to hitchhike to the ferry. Except that he had no money for the ferry.

  Maybe he’d hitchhiked into Sechelt, then, to telephone a friend. He probably did have one or two friends.

  These things had been going through her mind as she shopped, and now she was impatient to get inside and make sure that he was in fact still there.

  She saw a white car parked near her front door, and the staff sergeant standing on her doorstep.

  She opened the garage door with the automatic gadget and drove inside. She was out of the car, carrying her handbag and her shopping, before the door had descended.

  “What do you want?” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Could we go inside?” Alberg hunched his shoulders.

  He was a big man, which she liked, but he was a little flabby around the waist; he didn’t drive a police car, he didn’t wear a uniform—he wasn’t Zoe’s idea of a policeman at all. He was a dissembler, that’s what he was. People ought to be what they appeared to be, not to go around trying to look like something else.

  “I’d like to get out of the rain,” he said.

  “You can get out of the rain by climbing into your car and driving away.”

  Alberg smiled at her. She watched the raindrops tumble down his face and saw that he wanted to touch her.

  “I have business with you, Miss Strachan,” he said. “Could we please go inside?”

  There seem to be an awful lot of people cluttering up my life these days, Zoe thought irritably.

  She walked through the rain to the door and unlocked it. “Come in, then,” she said.

  Alberg followed her across the threshold and into the small tiled entryway, empty except for an umbrella stand in the corner by the door and a library table against one wall.

&nbs
p; Zoe Strachan set down her purse and her plastic shopping bag on the library table, opened a closet door, and hung up her raincoat. As she turned back to face him she ran her hands over her hips, smoothing her black skirt, smoothing it again. It wasn’t a flirtatious gesture; he thought she wasn’t even aware of it; she looked too preoccupied. Alberg heard the whisper of her hands against the fabric of the skirt and saw again the strange blankness in her eyes and wondered if she spoke aloud while making love.

  He waited for her to call out to the child, but she didn’t.

  “What business do you have with me?” she said, closing the closet door. She tugged at the cuffs of her sweater, an emerald-green pullover, until they covered her wrists. “I presume it’s about my brother.”

  Her eyes were blue but they looked green today, because of the sweater. They were very beautiful eyes. Maybe they weren’t empty after all, he thought. Maybe they only seemed empty because she wasn’t interested in him. He knew from the way she looked at him that she wasn’t interested in him.

  “Who’s the child?” he said, more roughly than he had intended.

  Zoe Strachan blinked. “What child?” She said it automatically.

  “The one I saw staring at me from between the slats of the venetian blinds.”

  She gazed at him for a moment. He could see that she was interested now, all right. He was incongruously pleased with himself, as if he’d conjured up the boy who’d peeked at him from behind the blinds, created him from nothing, then presented him to Zoe Strachan as a surprise. His face felt open and eager; he tried to close it off from her.

  “Apparently,” said Zoe Strachan slowly, “he’s Benjamin’s son.”

  “I thought you said your brother had no family. Except you.”

  She nodded, studying him. “I know what I said.” She picked up her purse and the plastic bag and walked slowly down the hall. He watched her body move under the black skirt and heard again the swish of silk, or nylon, or whatever the hell they used in the making of stockings. When she reached the kitchen she turned and said, “Sit down in here. I’ll be back in a minute. I have to take him these clothes.”

  Alberg watched from the kitchen doorway as she went into the living room, then out again. She opened a door at the end of the hall and disappeared for a moment to put away her purse. She opened the next door. “There you are,” she said, and went inside. Alberg heard murmurings but no words. She emerged almost immediately, without the shopping bag, and joined Alberg in the kitchen. “I’m going to make coffee,” she said. “Will you have some?”

  “Thank you. Yes.”

  “Sit down,” said Zoe.

  Alberg sat down at the table. “What’s his name? I’d like to meet him,” he said.

  She turned from the cupboard, the coffee canister in her hand. “You would?” she said, and looked astonished.

  “Sure,” said Alberg. “I like kids.”

  “Really,” said Zoe. She shook her head and began measuring coffee into the pot.

  “Why do you think your brother never told you about him?”

  “Benjamin was a curious person,” she said vaguely. “It was difficult to know why he did anything.”

  “How did you find out about him? Your nephew.”

  She hesitated. “I went to the house,” she said, leaning against the counter. She crossed her arms. “I thought I’d better get some of Benjamin’s clothes. To bury him in.”

  “Ah,” said Alberg. He was gazing intently into her face, trying not to look at her breasts.

  “I have his keys,” she added.

  “Oh, yes,” said Alberg. “That’s right.”

  “It was a very good thing that I went, too,” she said, nodding. “Because there he was. The boy. All by himself. Heaven knows what would have become of him.”

  “How old is he?”

  She looked thoughtful. “Ten, I think he said.”

  “Then he goes to school.”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “He has friends; teachers. He would have called someone.”

  “Oh, yes. I see what you mean. I suppose he would have.” She poured water into the coffeepot and turned it on. He wished she’d sit down at the table with him.

  “But it’s much better that a relative happened along,” said Alberg.

  She gave him a glance that was almost amused. Then she got two cups and saucers from a cupboard and put them on the table. As she leaned across him he could smell her perfume.

  “He’s adopted,” said Zoe. “So I’m not actually his relative.”

  “She’s my dad’s relative,” said a voice, and Alberg turned to see a child in the doorway.

  He was small and wiry, with brown hair and large brown eyes. He looked pale and tired.

  Alberg smiled at him. “I hope I didn’t scare you,” he said. “When I was looking at the house, and you were looking out.”

  The boy’s eyes flickered to Zoe, and back to Alberg. “No,” he said.

  “I told you to stay in your room,” said Zoe pleasantly.

  The boy looked at her, and then at Alberg. “My name’s Kenny. Kenneth. I’m nine. I’ll be ten in seven weeks.”

  “So you’re—let me work this out—you’re in grade four, right?”

  “Right.” The boy eased into the room, his back pressed against the wall. “Who’re you?”

  “My name is Karl. I’m a policeman. A Mountie,” he added, just in case the kid was still young enough to be favorably impressed.

  “I think you should go back to your room,” said Zoe.

  “I will,” said Kenny, looking at Alberg. “My dad died,” he said.

  Alberg nodded. “I know. I’m very sorry.”

  “He fell down some stairs.”

  “I know. You must miss him a lot.”

  “Where?” said Kenny.

  Alberg leaned forward slightly. “Pardon?”

  “What stairs?”

  Alberg looked at Zoe.

  “I don’t think we should talk about it,” she said to the child. “I want you to go back to your room now. You can watch television.” As she approached him, Alberg saw him shrink back. “Come,” she said. She reached out to touch him, or take his hand, but Kenny pulled quickly away—and Zoe made a sudden, savage grab at the boy’s shoulder.

  “Hey,” said Alberg, his hand outstretched in protest. He scraped back his chair, intending to stand up.

  But just as suddenly as she had taken hold of the boy she let him go, and straightened. Kenny ducked under her arm and skittered off toward his room.

  Zoe turned to Alberg. “Excuse me,” she said graciously. Alberg watched, attentive, as she followed the boy down the hall.

  “What are you going to do with him?” he said when she returned.

  “I’m going to keep him for a while,” said Zoe.

  She smiled at him, and Alberg felt his mouth go dry. She was thinking about him. He knew there was nothing at all on her mind except him. It was like staring into a searchlight.

  “He has grandparents,” Zoe went on. “His mother’s parents. He’ll go to live with them, I expect. After the funeral.”

  He nodded, smiling a little, looking into her eyes. He wondered if she could see inside his mind.

  “Perhaps you can tell me, Staff Sergeant—when is that doctor going to release the body?”

  He felt his smile become fixed and heard himself say, “Soon. I’m sure it’ll be soon.” She looked startled, and he realized that he’d stood up. He turned and headed quickly for the front door.

  “Aren’t you going to have coffee?” she said, following him.

  “I’ll check back with Dr. Gillingham right away,” he said over his shoulder, “and find out when you can claim the body.”

  “But I thought—why did you come here, then?” she said, annoyed.

  On her front step he peered worriedly up into the sky. “Still raining. Doesn’t look like it’s about to quit, either.” He pulled up the collar of his jacket. “I’ll be back soon,�
� he said to her.

  He trotted off into the rain, and Zoe, baffled, watched him go. Perhaps he’ll get pneumonia, she thought crossly, and cough himself to death.

  Chapter 34

  CASSANDRA sat in her living room watching television, acutely mindful of her mother’s supine presence on the white leather sofa. The sound of Mrs. Mitchell’s chortling response to Bill Cosby rasped in Cassandra’s ears. The sight of her mother pursing her lips to drink tea caused Cassandra to blink rapidly, as though it were a mote in her eye. The fragrance of Helen Mitchell’s lavender bath salts, bath powder, and body cream created an unpleasant tickling at the back of Cassandra’s nose.

  When “The Cosby Show” was over, Mrs. Mitchell switched over to “Matlock.” “I’ve always liked Andy Griffith,” she said approvingly.

  “How come you never got married again?” said Cassandra abruptly.

  “You know why,” said her mother comfortably. “I never met a man who could hold a candle to your father.”

  Cassandra’s father had died when she was eight. When she thought of him, which wasn’t often, she recalled a distant benevolence that seemed always to have been attired in a gray suit. He’d died in 1951, and Cassandra’s mother had embraced widowhood as if she’d been born to it.

  “I know, Mom,” said Cassandra. “But you must have met some who would have made a pretty decent second choice.”

  “I had children to bring up,” said Mrs. Mitchell. “You and Graham. You were my first responsibility.”

  Cassandra’s brother, Graham, was seven years older than she. His memories of their father were sharp and clear and legion. Sometimes when the three of them got together and started reminiscing, Cassandra tried to chime in with some memories of her own. But the other two always corrected her, and added things, and soon whatever it was she’d thought she remembered was unrecognizable. Defunct.