A Chill Rain in January Read online

  Cassandra stood up. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “Can I get you anything first?”

  “It’s not even nine o’clock,”’ said her mother. “Do you always go to bed so early?”

  “No,” said Cassandra. “I’m just tired today, that’s all. Can I get you something?”

  “Well, it’s a bit early, but I suppose I could have my hot milk now, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Cassandra slept badly that night.

  When she awoke Tuesday morning she heard her mother talking to someone. She dressed hurriedly and found Mrs. Mitchell in the kitchen, sitting at the table talking on the phone to Graham.

  Cassandra made her bed, washed, combed her hair, and put on some makeup. Her mother was still talking. She sounded cheerful and happy. When Cassandra went back to the kitchen to start making breakfast, her mother said, “Here, dear, say hello to your brother,” and held out the phone.

  “I don’t want to say hello to my brother,” said Cassandra, opening a cupboard.

  “I’d better go now, Graham,” said Mrs. Mitchell. When she’d hung up she said, “I always call him early in the morning. The rates are cheaper before eight.”

  Cassandra, making coffee, didn’t reply.

  “Make sure you let me know, when the bill comes, how much I owe you for long-distance calls,” said her mother.

  The phone rang, and it was Karl. He sounded plaintive and depressed. He invited her out to lunch; Cassandra said no, she’d have to make lunch for her mother.

  She got orange juice out of the fridge and poured herself a glass.

  “None for me, dear,” said her mother. “It’s too acidic for my stomach. I’ll just have some milk and cereal. What’s more,” she said, standing up, slowly, “I think I can get it for myself this morning.”

  “Sit down,” said Cassandra. “I’ll get it.”

  “No, no,” said Mrs. Mitchell, shuffling across the room toward the pantry. “I’m going to do it.”

  “Mother. If you’re well enough to fix your own breakfast, you’re probably well enough to go home. Are you well enough to go home?”

  Tears quivered in Mrs. Mitchell’s eyes, but Cassandra could tell she was becoming angry. “Why are you being unkind?” said her mother.

  Cassandra sat down at the table. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Her mother was too short to reach the cereal, which was on the top shelf, so Cassandra got it for her. She sat down again and watched as Mrs. Mitchell carefully poured cereal into a bowl, and added milk, and got a spoon from the silverware drawer.

  Her mother had to pass behind Cassandra in order to return to her place at the table, and as she did so, Cassandra automatically flinched.

  When he left Zoe Strachan, Alberg went to Cassandra’s house; it was Tuesday, and he knew the library didn’t open until one o’clock on Tuesdays, so he was pretty sure she’d be home. He drove past the hospital, up the hill, onto the gravel access road that paralleled the highway. Cassandra’s garage door was open, and her fourteen-year-old Hornet was parked inside.

  He went up the walk and was surprised to hear an argument going on inside. He knocked on the door. After a minute he heard angry whispering, and a door slamming, and quick footsteps approaching. The door opened. Cassandra stood there, looking feverish.

  “Do you know,” said Alberg solemnly, “that a domestic dispute is the thing us police dread most?”

  Cassandra’s face flushed crimson. “Did somebody call you?” she said, appalled.

  Alberg laughed. “No. I was just passing by.” He glanced over her shoulder into the house, but he couldn’t see Mrs. Mitchell. “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine,” said Cassandra. “What do you want?” He watched affectionately as she brushed some stray strands of hair from her forehead. He loved the way it got curlier when it got damp.

  “Oh,” he said softly, “I just needed to get my lust in perspective.” Her skin looked very warm; there was a thin blaze of sweat on her face.

  “What are you talking about?” she said impatiently.

  “Actually, I thought I’d wait while you make lunch for your mom, and then take you to Earl’s. So we can plan our trip.”

  “Trip? What trip?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what trip’?” he said indignantly. “We’re going to Victoria. This weekend.”

  She shook her head wearily. “I can’t go away this weekend, Karl.”

  “You mean…your mother?” He lowered his voice. “But I thought you said there wasn’t anything wrong with her.”

  “Talk to your friend Gillingham,” she snapped. “It was his idea.”

  “Shit.”

  “Thirteen years this has been going on. For thirteen years I’ve lived in this godforsaken town, watching over my damn mother, who might or might not have a damn heart condition.”

  “Cassandra. Calm down.”

  “Oh calm down yourself for God’s sake. Why are you standing there; anyway? Go away. Go find somebody else to go to Victoria with.” She slammed the door.

  Chapter 35

  WHEN Alberg got to the detachment a few minutes later, Sandy McAllister, the mailman, was there talking to Isabella, and Sid Sokolowski was helping himself over at the coffee machine.

  “Look at that rain,” said Isabella. “I think we need a few flowers in here, to brighten the place up.”

  “Forget it,” said Alberg.

  “I’ll get some tomorrow,” said Isabella. “Maybe a pot of hyacinths. Wait a minute before you disappear down your hallway there. You’ve got another chance to see Bernie Peters. She can squeeze you in tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ve changed my mind, Isabella,” said Alberg, with a furtive glance at the reproachful back of Sid Sokolowski, whose wife’s cousin Ludmilla he had turned down for the job. “I’m not going to hire anybody after all.” He scurried into his office and shut the door before she could come after him.

  Then he called Gillingham. “I need to talk to you,” he said, and they arranged to meet at Earl’s for lunch.

  Gillingham ordered a spinach salad and some soda water.

  Alberg asked for a hamburger platter and coffee.

  “I went out to see Zoe Strachan,” Alberg told the doctor. “I didn’t tell her she can have the body.”

  Gillingham stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “I changed my mind,” said Alberg defensively.

  Gillingham held up his hand. “Wait. Let me guess. There’s another dead guy in her basement.”

  “No. But there’s a kid in her spare room.”

  “What kind of a kid?”

  “Small. Male. In seven weeks he’ll be ten years old.”

  Earl, the Chinese owner of the cafe, delivered Alberg’s coffee in a large mug.

  “Jesus, Earl,” said the doctor, “what are you trying to do, kill him?”

  “He likes his coffee,” said Earl, setting down Gillingham’s soda water. “What can I do? If I don’t supply him, somebody else will.”

  “It’s her brother’s kid,” said Alberg, when Earl had retreated.

  “The dead guy? I thought you told me he didn’t have any kids.”

  “Yeah. She says she didn’t know about him. He’s adopted. Kenny, his name is.”

  Gillingham sat back and watched approvingly as Earl put down a large bowl of spinach salad, dressing on the side. “I’m not going to say a word about that crap you’re feeding to my overweight friend, there.”

  “My burgers are extra-lean ground beef,” said Earl. “My French fries are homemade. That sauce in there, it’s a family secret.”

  “Don’t let him get to you, Earl,” said Alberg, picking up a French fry.

  “I make a pretty good spinach salad,” said Earl, “but it’s nothing compared to my hamburger.”

  “Where the hell did you get that thing you’re wearing?” said Gillingham.

  Proudly, Earl looked down at himself. He was enveloped in a huge white baker’s apron. “Par
is. Mrs. Eddersley brought it back for me.” He returned to the kitchen, tenderly smoothing the apron down over his hips.

  Alberg cut his hamburger in half and lifted up the bun so he could sprinkle salt inside. “She went to Strachan’s house the day after he died. Said she had to pick up some clothes to bury him in. Found the kid there.”

  “He’d been there alone all night?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t call anybody.”

  “Probably kept thinking his dad would be home any minute.”

  “So the next day this aunt shows up and tells him his old man’s dead. Must have been a hell of a shock.”

  “Yeah,” said Alberg. He took a bite of his hamburger, leaning over so that his plate would catch the drips.

  “This is delicious,” said Gillingham, slowly and solemnly, looking into his spinach salad. Then he sighed, and sat back. “Helen Mitchell saw my wife, Marjorie, the other day. My ex-wife, I mean. She says she’s lost thirty pounds and dyed her hair. Blond.”

  Alberg was instantly irate. “Speaking of Helen Mitchell, what the hell do you think you’re doing, foisting her off on Cassandra?”

  “‘Foisting her off’? Cassandra’s her daughter, for God’s sake.”

  “We were supposed to go away,” said Alberg sullenly.

  Gillingham started to grin. “Oh, my. To Victoria, I bet.”

  “Yeah. That’s right. Thanks a hell of a lot.” He took another bite of hamburger. “Marjorie’s probably getting married again. To an accountant.”

  “Your mind is going, Karl,” the doctor said calmly. “Marjorie would never in a million years marry an accountant.” He brushed fastidiously at some grains of salt sprinkled on the oilcloth that covered the table. “You can’t keep Zoe Strachan from burying her brother, you know, just because there’s a kid in her house that you don’t think ought to be there.”

  Alberg put the hamburger down. “I’ve got a real uneasy feeling.”

  Gillingham snickered. “What is that, a cop’s instinct? Kind of your gut reaction sort of thing?”

  Alberg leaned his elbows on the table. “When I talked to you this morning, you said something about Strachan not being drunk after all.”

  “That’s right. He’d been drinking, all right. But he wasn’t drunk.”

  Alberg sighed and pushed his plate aside. “I’ve got a serious problem here. I think you’re full of crap about the wounds. ‘Not the right kind of wounds.’ What the hell does that mean?” He held up his hand. “Just shut up, okay? Until I’m finished. Okay. The guy falls down the stairs. He breaks his neck. He dies. These things happen. She tells us he was drunk. That makes sense. But now you tell me he wasn’t drunk.” He shrugged. “Okay, so she was wrong. He’d been drinking and he fell down her stairs, so she assumed he must have been drunk. I can accept that, too.” He leaned forward. “But that kid really bugs me. What the hell is that kid doing there? She doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like her.”

  “Okay, said Gillingham agreeably, “so she doesn’t like kids. Lots of people don’t like kids.”

  “But why did she haul him home with her, instead of parking him with a friend? A nine-year-old boy, he’s bound to have friends he could stay with, people he knows. I just can’t figure out why she brought him home with her.”

  Gillingham looked at him curiously. “I don’t know, Karl.”

  “She’s got a hell of a temper,” said Alberg softly.

  “Are you worried about this kid?” said the doctor after a minute. “I mean, do you think she might hurt him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Alberg slowly. “But I do know that he’s scared of her.”

  “He is?”

  “Yeah.”

  The doctor grunted. “Me, too.”

  Alberg pulled his plate back in front of him. He picked up his hamburger and immediately put it down again. “What do you mean, you, too?”

  “She’s colder than a dead fish, that one. Standing at the top of the stairs and laughing like she did.” Gillingham shivered.

  “She was nervous,” said Alberg irritably. “People react strangely in crises. Jesus, you of all people should know that.” He picked up his hamburger again, and this time he took a large bite.

  Gillingham, munching on spinach, watched his friend closely.

  Alberg ate a French fry, but it tasted like cardboard. “We don’t have grounds for an inquest, do we?”

  Surprised, Gillingham shook his head. “Nope.”

  “I didn’t think so.” Alberg slumped back in his chair. “I sure wish I could keep things on hold for a few days. See if I could get a few answers.”

  Gillingham thought for a while. “She’s a foxy lady, isn’t she,” he said.

  Alberg raised his eyebrows. “What? Who?”

  “Colder than a dead fish, like I said. But sexy,” said the doctor. “Very very sexy.”

  “What are you getting at, Alex?”

  “Maybe you’re overreacting.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Gillingham pointed at him. “That’s what I’m talking about. You getting all agitated.” He shrugged. “So you want to jump on her bones. So what. So does Sanducci. So did the ambulance guys. You can feel carnal urges and still be a policeman, you know. That’s all I meant.”

  Alberg glowered at him.

  “You need a couple of days,” Gillingham said thoughtfully, “to sniff around. Satisfy your cop’s curiosity. Convince yourself you’ve done your job.” He nodded to himself. “We can get you that. Sure we can.”

  “How?” said Alberg suspiciously.

  Gillingham beamed at him. “We bluff,” he said.

  “This is not sounding good.”

  “You go back out there,” said the doctor, “and tell her there’s some inconclusive findings. Yeah.” He leaned forward, all business now. “Okay. Here’s my official word, Karl. Are you ready?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Okay. There’s been some inconclusive findings, Staff Sergeant, in the autopsy I performed on the body of the poor soul who plummeted down that Strachan woman’s basement steps. I need some more time, to…to firm things up, to…let’s see…”

  “To complete your work,” said Alberg helpfully, “which lies in the area of medical jurisprudence, necessary to the right and proper establishment of the cause and circumstances of the death.”

  “I couldn’t have put it better myself.” Gillingham sat back and folded his arms. “That oughta give you a day or two. She might be a tad upset, but what the hell, tell her I’m gonna make sure the process of decay don’t get a good grip on him.”

  Chapter 36

  WHEN Alberg left her house that morning, Zoe went into her bedroom and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. She hung up her black skirt and put the green sweater, carefully folded, in a drawer in one of her bedroom closets. Then she went next door, to the spare room.

  “I’m going out for a run,” she said to the boy, who watched her, big-eyed, from the bed. “I’ll be gone for twenty-five minutes.”

  “How long do I have to stay here?”

  “Why did you turn this off?” Zoe switched on the TV set that stood on a low chest of drawers facing the bed. “I don’t know how long you have to stay here,” she said, and left the room.

  It was still raining, but Zoe didn’t mind the rain.

  She walked briskly down the driveway, in lieu of warming up, and when she reached the highway she began to run.

  For the moment I shall put that child from my mind, she thought; and when I’ve finished my run, then I’ll decide what to do about him.

  Cherniak, the family lawyer, would have called the grandparents by now. They could be expected to show up in Sechelt, eventually. But there wasn’t anything she could do about that.

  She told herself that it wasn’t anger she felt. She had gotten her anger under control years before. She was frustrated, that was all. And who could blame her? No wonder she felt frustrated, with
that Mountie poking around, disguised as an ordinary person, asking all kinds of questions that were none of his business and then having the monumental effrontery to prevent her from burying her own brother. She wondered if he was going to continue to be a problem, that Mountie.

  She was running much faster than usual, virtually pelting along the highway. With an effort she slowed to a jog. Wearing herself out wouldn’t accomplish anything, except to give her a stitch in the side which would just make her more irritated.

  If she’d been able to follow her plan, she wouldn’t be in this mess. If things had gone according to plan, she’d have her scribblers now, and Benjamin would be lying in pieces at the bottom of the cliff. This way, though…what a mess, thought Zoe, disgusted, what a blunder, his death half accident and half not. Things had to be planned in order to be made to work. If she’d learned anything in her life by now she’d learned that. Yet in only a minute—no, less than a minute—in seconds, mere seconds of reckless impulse, she’d endangered everything that was important to her. She was extremely frustrated; extremely irritated with herself. But that, she told herself, was wasted energy. Time spent in regret was always time spent inefficiently.

  Zoe ran, slowly, steadily, and she thought about her life, and how to protect it.

  She had driven into Sechelt on Monday to call Edward Cherniak. It was the first time she’d wished she had a phone of her own. There wasn’t a single pay phone in town that was housed in a booth, with a closing door. Most were stuck starkly on the walls of squalid restaurants. She finally found one in the middle of the shopping mall that at least offered a curved sheet of Plexiglas as partial defense against eavesdroppers.

  The mall was full of teenagers who ought to have been in school. They lounged against the walls of the mall, bleak eyes staring from pale faces, smoking God knows what and kissing each other. This, she thought grimly, was where that staff sergeant ought to be making himself busy.