A Chill Rain in January Page 16

  “This isn’t a social occasion,” she snapped. “And I’m not anybody’s waitress.”

  This won’t do, thought Zoe, horrified. Where was her self-control? She couldn’t afford to lose control.

  She inhaled, slowly, deeply, and told her body to relax. “I beg your pardon,” she said quietly. “That wasn’t very hospitable.”

  Alberg smiled at her. She let his smile penetrate her skin. “It’s all right,” he said. “I drink too much coffee anyway.”

  He moved to the end of the sofa so as to be closer to the boy. “I want to ask you some questions, Kenny. Okay?”

  “About my dad?” The boy’s glance flickered around the room; Zoe felt it bounce off her face like a bird against a windowpane. “People don’t know he’s dead yet, do they?” he said.

  “What do you mean?” said Alberg.

  “Roddy doesn’t know it. Roddy’s my best friend.” He was picking at the fabric of the chair with thin, nervous fingers. “I could stay with him, I bet. He probably wonders where I am.”

  “Maybe you could phone him,” said Alberg.

  “She doesn’t have a phone,” said Kenny. “And I don’t think Grandma and Grandpa know, either,” he said, picking away.

  Zoe bit the inside of her mouth to prevent herself from telling him to leave the damn chair alone. It was exceedingly difficult to concentrate on the policeman with this wretched child in the room.

  “Your grandma and grandpa—where do they live?” said Alberg, getting a notebook and pen from his inside jacket pocket.

  “In Winnipeg,” said Kenny. He tucked his hands into his armpits. “We went to see them once. But usually they come to see us.”

  “What’s their last name, Kenny, do you know?”

  “Sure I know. It’s Quenneville. Grandpa’s first name is Peter, and Grandma’s first name is…I forget.”

  “I’ll phone them from the police station,” said Alberg. “I’ll phone Roddy, too, if you like.”

  “Yeah, that’d be good. I know his number. I phone him all the time.”

  Alberg wrote down the number in his notebook. “I’ll do it right away,” he said. “And I’ll come back tomorrow to give you a report.”

  Kenny stood up. “I could go and stay with him. Maybe his dad would come and get me.”

  “Maybe you can do that after the funeral,” said Zoe. She turned to Alberg and offered him a faint smile—but she felt awkward, uncertain; she was furious with the boy for somehow robbing her of grace and confidence.

  “Flora,” said Kenny. “Grandma’s name is Flora.”

  “Okay,” said Alberg. “Got it.” He stood up to leave.

  “Can I come with you?” said the boy.

  “You’d better stay with me, I think,” said Zoe, making her voice soft, “until your grandparents come for you.” She got up and went over to stand behind him, one hand on his head in what she hoped looked like a gesture of affection. “I’m quite sure they’ll come for you, once the staff sergeant has spoken to them. Aren’t you, Staff Sergeant?”

  His face was suddenly closed to her. She felt a spasm of irritation. Then he winked, and she was dumbfounded, then furious.

  “I’ll be back,” he said to the boy. “Tomorrow.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” said Alberg, his eyes on Zoe.

  Chapter 38

  ALBERG returned to the detachment, to find the place reeking of vinegar and the waiting room choked with elderly persons, some of whom appeared hostile.

  “You should use the back door sometimes,” said Isabella.

  “What the hell’s all this?” muttered Alberg. “Who’re these people?”

  “They’re here to see you. If you’d use the back door sometimes,” she said again, as a few of the visitors began ominously shuffling their feet, “I could deal with this kind of thing better.”

  “Where’s Sid?” said Alberg. “I can’t handle this now. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  “One of them is Horace Orlitzki,” said Isabella. “Ramona’s boy. Come all the way from Cache Creek.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Excuse me, sir.” A man of about seventy-five approached the counter. He was white-haired and elegant, and reminded Alberg of the late Duke of Windsor. “These ladies and gentlemen are a delegation from the Seniors. I’m their spokesman. Bernard Rundle.” He held out his hand. “It’s about Mrs. Orlitzki.”

  “Good to meet you, Mr. Rundle,” said. Alberg, shaking hands. “Excuse me for a minute. Isabella?”

  She followed him into his office.

  “Isabella. Dammit. You’re supposed to have gone home by now. Instead of that, you’ve been doing the damn blinds again. The whole place stinks of vinegar.”

  “That’s right. And the windows. I also gave your desk a good polish.”

  “But we have somebody else to do the cleaning around here. You weren’t hired as a damn cleaning lady.”

  “It seems to me,” she said sharply, “you ought to put your mind to those folks out there, instead of to who’s a cleaning lady and who’s not. They’re worried about Ramona, just like I am. So they come to find out from you what’s going on. What do you plan to tell them, anyway?”

  “I told you, for God’s sake, I can’t deal with this now. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  Isabella hesitated. “It’s better when I’m here,” she said quietly. “Right on top of things. Keeping myself busy.”

  Alberg sighed. “I know, Isabella. I know. How long have they been waiting?”

  “The old people just got here not ten minutes ago. Horace Orlitzki’s been in and out for the past hour.”

  “Okay. Send him in. And then Mr. Rundle. If Sid shows up, I want to see him, too.”

  Horace Orlitzki was a tall, balding man in his early forties, with a cherubic face and soft, puffy hands. He wore a plaid blazer over navy-blue trousers.

  “My sister Martha and I, we’re going to hire us a PI,” he told Alberg.

  “A what?”

  “A PI. Private investigator. We want to get this thing settled, once and for all.”

  “What thing is that, Mr. Orlitzki?”

  “It’s my understanding, a body could be swept away by the tide, buried by a mudslide, any number of things, you’re not going to come across it in the normal course of events.”

  “Excuse me. Are you talking about your mother?”

  Orlitzki nodded. “She can’t be declared legally dead, it’s my understanding, until a certain amount of time has passed.”

  “Right.”

  “So we’re going to hire us a PI, and he’s going to find the body. Put our minds to rest. Who can you recommend?”

  “Who can I recommend?”

  “Money. It’ll cost us. We know that.”

  “Let me get this straight. You want to hire a private cop to find your mother’s body.”

  “That’s it. You got it.”

  “What if he finds her alive?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What if she isn’t dead?”

  Orlitzki shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”

  Alberg stood up, went to his door, and opened it.

  “Isabella!” he hollered. He turned to Horace Orlitzki. “I don’t know any PIs,” he said. “Try the Vancouver yellow pages.”

  “But—”

  “Mr. Orlitzki. You look for your mother dead. We’ll go on looking for her alive. Isabella!”

  Orlitzki scooted off, muttering imprecations, and Isabella appeared, with Bernard Rundle in tow and Sid Sokolowski trundling along behind.

  “Sid,” said Alberg. “Good. Mr. Rundle, I tell you what, you’ll be better off talking to Sergeant Sokolowski, here. He’s in charge of the case. Sid, this is Mr. Rundle. He represents some of Ramona’s friends. They’re anxious to know how things are progressing. Would you fill him in?”

  Alone in his office, he closed the door and called Gillingham.

  “Those wounds on Strachan,” he said to the do
ctor. “The head, the gut. Could either of them have been inflicted by a bottle? A wine bottle?”

  Chapter 39

  “I’VE got some business to do today,” his dad had told him, “and I might be late getting home.”

  “Is it your new job?” said Kenny.

  His dad put on that big smile that Kenny loved. “No,” he said, reaching over to mess up Kenny’s hair. “It’s something else.”

  His dad had said he’d be back by dinnertime, and he was.

  He was feeling really good when he got home, too. For supper he made Kenny’s favorite thing, macaroni and cheese, and a salad, and he sent Kenny to the store on his bike to get some buns.

  His dad got kind of drunk on the wine he drank with his dinner, but not a lot drunk, and he stayed happy and boisterous, which made Kenny feel good.

  After Kenny had been in bed for a while he heard a tap on his door. It opened a little bit, and his dad said, “Ken? You awake?” He came in and sat on the edge of Kenny’s bed.

  “Things are going to be a lot better from now on,” he said, pulling awkwardly at the comforter, trying to get it up over Kenny’s shoulders. “I’ve been worried about money, you know?”

  Kenny nodded. He knew, all right.

  “But everything’s going to be okay now.” His dad patted Kenny’s cheek. “We’re going to be rich again.” He got up and sort of staggered, and held on to the edge of the doorway and laughed. “Been too deep into the old vino,” he said. “But that’s going to be okay, too, Ken,” he said, sounding serious, churchlike. He put his finger across his lips. “Shhh. I want to show you something. Don’t go away.” He went down the hall toward his bedroom.

  Kenny put his hands behind his head and waited.

  After a while his dad came back, and he was carrying something. He sat down on Kenny’s bed again. “See these?” Kenny watched his dad pull three small, dog-eared exercise books, one yellow, and one red, and one blue, out of a brown envelope. The covers had faded, and the corners were scrunched.

  “They don’t look like much,” said his dad, “but they’re worth a lot of money, Ken. A whole lot of money.” He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and his mouth, too, and his whole body shook for a while, trying to hold in his laughter. After a minute he kind of relaxed, and sighed, and opened his eyes. “I want you to look after them for me for a while. A few days.” He stood up, groping for the wall. He leaned against it and looked around Kenny’s room. “Where’s a good hiding place, Ken?”

  “Why do you need to hide them?” said Kenny.

  His dad frowned up at the ceiling. “I probably don’t. But I’m going to do it anyway. So where’s a good place?”

  Kenny had shown him the hole in his closet where the wall was a little bit bashed in. His dad put the exercise books back in the brown envelope and put the envelope in the hole.

  “Good,” he’d said, scrambling unsteadily to his feet. “Good.” He took Kenny by the shoulders. “Don’t tell anybody they’re in there,” he said, sounding solemn and mysterious. “Not anybody. Promise?” And Kenny had promised.

  Two days later his dad went away on business again. This time he didn’t get home for supper. Kenny waited and waited. He waited all night long. And into the next day. And his dad didn’t come home, and he didn’t phone, nobody phoned, and Kenny was scared to use the telephone, in case his dad tried to call, and he was scared to leave the house, and scared to stay, but he stayed anyway, waiting for his dad, and his dad didn’t come but then his Aunt Zoe did, and she told him that his dad was dead.

  At first Kenny didn’t believe her. But then he did.

  When she told him to pack his pajamas he did, he packed them in his gym bag, along with some other stuff, and he looked around for a photograph of his dad to take with him, but he couldn’t find one.

  He put on his oversize ski jacket with all the big pockets, and into one of the inside pockets he put the brown envelope, because he couldn’t leave it behind in case somebody—a prowler or a thief or just somebody like a bad kid—got into the empty house and found it.

  That had been days ago.

  Kenny didn’t know why he hadn’t told his Aunt Zoe right away at lunchtime that he had what she was looking for.

  Because she scared him, that was why. Partly why.

  He waited long into the night, until he was absolutely sure there wasn’t a single sound happening anywhere in the house. Then he got the flashlight from his gym bag, and the brown envelope from his pocket, and he climbed into bed, pulled the covers over his head and slid out the exercise books. He opened the one on top and the first thing he saw, printed in big letters, was his aunt’s name. Kenny began to read.

  Chapter 40

  EARLY Wednesday morning, Ramona pulled the curtain back and looked outside into fog. It swirled lazily around vague, dark, vertical shapes that she knew were the trunks of the fir trees that surrounded the cottage. Her heart gladdened as she peered out into the fog; there was brightness behind it, and when it lifted she knew there would be sunshine. She couldn’t see the branches of the trees, or the ferns and salal that grew close to the ground; only the dark poles of the trunks, which seemed to emerge out of fog and vanish into fog, as though the trees had no branches, and were not rooted in the earth. Ramona heard a vibrant, insistent birdcall, one note, sweeping upward, repeated again and again, one voice calling into the fog, maybe seeing beyond it, to the sun.

  She turned from the window and got herself dressed.

  In the kitchen she made a small pencil mark on the cupboard door, next to three similar marks; in this way she was keeping track of the length of her stay. Then she ate two crackers and a handful of macadamia nuts, and drank a small bottle of an Australian substance that was apparently watered-down fruit juice.

  Ramona, desperately craved real juice, real fruit. She had even started dreaming about fruit, about Golden Delicious apples with a pink flush on them; huge navel oranges, thick skinned, dripping with sweetness like nectar; bananas, cool and yielding; not pineapple, too much acid, but nectarines… peaches…strawberries…she clutched the countertop and gave a little moan. She was going to have to get herself some fruit somehow, somewhere, no two ways about it.

  When she’d finished her breakfast she crept out of the cottage, closing the door softly, after making sure it wasn’t going to lock behind her.

  The air was moist and sticky, and it smelled like spring. Ramona waded through fog into the shelter of the trees. She felt wonderfully joyous, and tried to give one of the trees a hug, but she couldn’t get her arms all the way around its trunk. She rubbed her cheek gently against the rough bark and smelled the spicy fragrance of the branches rustling up there above her. She saw a flash of bright blue and heard the indignant, raucous cry of a Stellar’s jay and wondered what had happened to her bird book: she kept it handy by the window all the time, with a pair of binoculars right next to it; she used the binoculars mostly for looking at things out on the water, various kinds of boats and so forth, but it was useful for birds, too. My goodness, she thought, dazed, clinging to the fir tree, I don’t know where the ocean is.

  Ramona hung on tight, waiting. The fog was dense, and suffocating. It was malevolent; it seemed to mock her. She felt threatened, panicky, but she kept on waiting, waiting, not knowing what she was waiting for, obeying some instruction she couldn’t remember getting…and then, abruptly, she knew again where she was. Who she was.

  It was like having somebody stop sitting on your chest, she thought, as she hung on to the tree, panting slightly. It was like pushing with all your might against an immovable object, which suddenly gives way. Losing yourself, then finding you again.

  She felt a flood of terror that made her start to sweat.

  She thought about going into town for fruit, and library books, and having lunch with Isabella, and at the end of the day going to bed in the hospital.

  Ramona pushed herself slowly away from the fir tree and rubbed her arms. She’d had a week. And it was a week she
’d never expected to have. She was very glad she’d taken it.

  She wondered how the nurses would react, when she walked back in there, bold as brass.

  She fastened the top button of her coat, shook her head wearily, and headed toward the driveway.

  When she got there she stood still, uncertain because of the fog which way to start walking, and then she realized that she had changed her mind.

  She wasn’t ready to go back, after all. Not just yet.

  She left the driveway and sat down on the damp ground, leaning against a tree. What’s the worst thing that could happen to me? she asked herself.

  She could forget she’d put something on the stove to heat and end up setting fire to the place.

  She flinched, thinking about it; she’d done it twice now. She hadn’t set fire to the place, but she’d completely forgotten the pot on the stove, until it boiled over. She had been certain that such a thing couldn’t happen again, but it had happened again, the very next day.

  All right, she told herself, what to do about that is easy. I’ll stop using the stove, that’s all. I’ll unplug it from the wall, is what I’ll do.

  Now, what else bad could happen?

  She felt a sickening lurch of dread and tried to turn away from it but couldn’t, and finally she said, out loud, “I could forget what I’m doing and where I am. And this time not ever get myself back again.”

  Ramona leaned back against the treetrunk. Obviously she’d be a lot better off in the hospital, when that happened, if it happened, than out wandering around the world on her own. All right, she thought, what would I want to happen, if I forgot who I was when I was out in the world on my own?

  She would want somebody to take her back to the hospital, to Dr. Gillingham.

  She thought, what can I do to make sure that what I want to happen happens?

  She could write a note explaining her situation and pin it to the front of her coat.