Strangers Among Us Read online

  “It might be all right,” said Isabella. “I guess. I’m just afraid he’ll get depressed, or something.” She turned to Alberg with a sigh. “I’m thinking of getting my hair cut.” Her graying hair fell almost to the middle of her back. She usually wore it down, and loose, but had recently begun braiding it and pinning it in a coil on top of her head. She patted this coil now, cautiously. “It makes my head ache.” Alberg liked her hair. He also liked her eyes, which were golden brown—topaz—and gave her an exotic look.

  “Has he got any hobbies?” he said, leaning back in his chair. He opened the bottom desk drawer and rested his foot on it. “Has he got a boat, for instance?”

  She looked at him with pity. “No, Karl. He doesn’t have a boat. The world is filled with people who don’t have boats. Who don’t want boats.” She looked around the room. “This is better. You were right. All you need now is a plant in here.”

  “No, Isabella. No plants.” She was disappearing down the hall now, pretending not to have heard him. Alberg realized that he was smiling. Thank god, he thought, for Isabella.

  He reached for the phone and called Eliot’s Legal Aid lawyer. He had discovered that he couldn’t put the whole damn thing behind him after all. At least not yet.

  A few minutes later he was saying, “Just ask the kid if he’ll see me, will you?”

  “Why? Are you offering to help him?” said the lawyer.

  Alberg sighed, drawing a parade of stick figures on the notepad in front of him. “I don’t know. Maybe. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what he says.” He linked their wrists with pairs of handcuffs.

  “He’s not saying anything, Staff Sergeant. He’s not talking to anybody. What makes you think he’ll talk to you?”

  Isabella reappeared in his doorway.

  “He probably won’t,” Alberg said irritably. “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?” He beckoned to Isabella, tossing the notepad aside. “I did something for him. Maybe he trusts me a little.”

  “I’ll ask him,” said the lawyer wearily.

  “What is it?” said Alberg to Isabella, as he hung up the phone.

  “There’s a person out there who wants to see you,” she told him. “He says you know him. Jack Coutts?”

  Alberg didn’t move. Into his head came an image of Jack Coutts standing in a doorway, daylight behind him, wearing an overcoat; he held an overnight bag in one hand, and a battered briefcase in the other.

  He realized that he was slightly hunched, over his desk. He straightened himself. He looked at the notepad and pen in front of him and couldn’t for a moment recall whom he’d been talking to on the phone, or why. He slid the pad and pen with care into the desk’s top drawer.

  “Karl? Should I bring him in?”

  Slowly, Alberg stood up. “Yeah. Okay.” He moved from behind his desk into the middle of his small office, and there he waited.

  Isabella ushered him in. Jack Coutts was about Alberg’s age, tall and slightly stooped, with hair that had become mostly gray. He was paunchy, now, instead of lean. His eyes were very bright. Alberg looked at him and tasted dirt. They were both standing perfectly still, and Alberg was aware of the multitudinous sounds that constituted their silence.

  “She’s dead,” said Coutts flatly.

  It was what Alberg had known he would say. It was an event long expected—and the only thing that could have brought Jack here.

  “I’m sorry, Jack.”

  She had been a slim pale child with yellow hair that was long and often stringy-looking.

  “Sure you are.” Jack’s eyes flickered around the office, settling on the photograph of Alberg’s daughters that hung on the wall.

  “When?” Alberg asked him.

  One summer evening long ago he’d been hurrying from his house to his car, late for work, and she’d called out to him. He’d looked up to see her leaning out from behind a tree, holding on to the tree and leaning far out, so that her hair hung almost low enough to touch the ground. “What is it?” he’d said, and maybe he’d sounded impatient, because she shook her head and disappeared behind the treetrunk. And he’d driven away.

  “When?” he asked Jack now.

  It was the only time he could remember speaking to her.

  “Ten days ago,” said Jack, studying the photograph. He was wearing a heavy wool jacket of red plaid, a pair of jeans, and hiking boots. He looked different, more comfortable in these clothes than in the suits and ties he’d worn as a salesman.

  Alberg reached for his jacket. “Can I buy you a coffee?”

  Jack turned, and looked at the mug on Alberg’s desk. “There’s no coffee here? In a cop shop?”

  “I’m on my way out,” said Alberg. “How about it?”

  Jack followed him to Earl’s in a brown Chevy pickup. As he drove Alberg thought about the last time he’d seen him, twelve years earlier, in Kamloops.

  “I’ve got no reason to stay in Kamloops now,” said Jack, as Earl put down two big white porcelain mugs full of coffee. “I’ll probably move.” He massaged his face. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

  “You’ve got a lot of seniority with the company, though, haven’t you?”

  Jack looked him in the eyes long enough for Alberg to feel challenged. “Yeah,” he said finally. “But you probably know, that means fuck-all to me now.”

  “Yeah,” said Alberg. “I know.” He watched him for a moment, fixing up his coffee. He remembered that Jack had no family—no parents, no brothers or sisters. He realized that he was trying not to feel too much sympathy for the guy. “So are you taking some time off?”

  Jack nodded. “Some time off. Yeah.” He added more sugar to his coffee. “I was going to go right back to work. But then—” His face creased in a baffled frown. “I decided to come here.”

  “Not much to do around here this time of year,” said Alberg.

  Jack rubbed his face again, moving it around, sculpting transitory grotesqueries with his own flesh. He didn’t respond.

  Alberg glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go.” He started to get up.

  But Jack grabbed his wrist. He looked at Alberg questioningly.

  Alberg forced himself to remain relaxed; not to pull free.

  “I’ve come a long way,” said Jack.

  The urge to resist, to clout the sonofabitch, was exceedingly strong. But Alberg gazed steadily at Jack, into his eyes, presenting him with a fabricated calmness.

  And Jack let go.

  “Yeah, you have come a long way,” said Alberg. “You wanted to let me know in person. Is that it?”

  Jack sat back in his chair. “How’re your kids, Alberg?”

  Alberg stood up. “I told you I was sorry, Jack,” he said quietly. “I told you then and I told you today. What more do you want from me?”

  Jack looked at him with his bright eyes. “I don’t know yet.”

  Jack remained sitting at the table after Alberg left. Several people in the restaurant threw curious glances at him. Jack looked back at them, pleasantly, one after another, and they all turned away. All except for a man in mechanic’s overalls sitting at the counter, who tipped a nonexistent hat to Jack before returning to his meal.

  Earl hustled over with the coffeepot. “Warm it up for you?”

  “Sure,” said Jack. “Warm it up.”

  “You want something to eat?” said Earl.

  Jack looked at him, then at the clock on the wall. “Yeah. Maybe. What’ve you got?”

  “I got a whole menu full of stuff. But the specialty of the house is spaghetti with marinara sauce.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It comes with a green salad and garlic bread.”

  “Okay. Good. I’ll have it.”

  Jack sat quietly, his hands folded on the tabletop, looking out at the street.

  A while later Earl delivered a plate of spaghetti, a green salad in a glass bowl, and a basket of foil-wrapped garlic bread. “You want a beer with that?” he aske
d. “A glass of wine?”

  “Yeah. Wine, please. Red wine.” When the waiter came back with it Jack raised the glass. “To the chef.”

  “Chef. Owner. Bottle-washer,” said Earl.

  “Earl?”

  “That’s me. Enjoy,” he said, and went back behind the counter.

  Jack cleaned his plate, ate all the salad and the garlic bread, and had another glass of wine.

  “What kind of work do you do?” said Earl as Jack paid the bill.

  “Sales. I’m in sales.”

  “On the road?”

  “Used to be. Now I’m part of management.”

  “You gonna be in Sechelt long?”

  “Not sure. What time do you open?”

  “Six o’clock.”

  “Might see you for breakfast.” He gave Earl a wave and went through the café’s squeaky door onto the street. He climbed into his pickup, which was parked halfway down the opposite side of the block, and sat there for a few minutes, his hands on the steering wheel.

  They had lived in a succession of houses but it was the last one that Jack would remember forever, because of the things that happened there.

  The last time he’d gone home to that house, the very last time…

  …He had seen when he was halfway along the walk that the door was standing open, in spite of the cold, and he’d known then, instantly, that something was wrong. But he stepped inside, carrying his suitcase and his briefcase, as he always did, and called out, as he always did, “It’s me. I’m home.”

  And then, in the archway between the hall and the living room, Alberg had appeared.

  Jack stared out through the windshield at Alberg’s town, hunkered down in the gray drizzle, and shuddered.

  After a while he fired up the truck and drove along the street until he got to a mini-mall, where he parked and went inside to buy a copy of the local paper. He had another coffee at a little place that sold hamburgers and hotdogs, and looked through the paper, circling several ads. Then he went back to the place where he’d bought the paper and got himself a map of the town.

  It was five o’clock now and almost dark. Jack drove down several streets, slowly, looking for addresses, peering at the various houses but not stopping at any of them. Until he got to the third place on the list of four he’d made. It was a well-maintained house, with a neat fence around it. Lights were on inside.

  Jack parked and went through the gate and climbed the steep steps to the veranda.

  Enid Hargreaves was having a light supper in front of the television set when she heard the knock on her door. She put aside the TV table, pushed herself out of her easy chair, and went down the hall and opened it. “Yes?” she said to the man on her porch.

  “It just struck me now, ma’am, that I should have called you first, and not just dropped in like this.” He held up the paper. “I’m here in response to your ad. Do you want me to come back another time?”

  Enid hesitated. She couldn’t see him well. “No, that’s all right,” she said finally. “You want to see the suite, then?”

  “If it’s no trouble, ma’am.”

  She glanced behind her. “That’s all right,” she said again. “But let me get a sweater.” She pulled one from the closet, a heavy cardigan, and put it over her shoulders. “The entrance is in the back,” she told him, stepping out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Enid led him around the house and unlocked the door to the suite. “You go in and have a look around,” she said, pushing the door open. “The light switch is on the left.”

  She stood outside on the patio as he explored the apartment. He was the first person to respond to her ad. She’d expected a flurry of calls, but had had none. Of course it was early days. And she was in no hurry.

  He cast a large shadow in her basement suite.

  She had never considered having a male tenant. The idea made her uneasy. But she probably couldn’t refuse him because of his gender. There was probably a law against it.

  “It might smell of paint,” she called out to him. “It’s just been newly painted.” Why did I say that? she scolded herself. She ought to be telling him there were mice in the house. Or fleas.

  He emerged outside. “It seems fine. I’d like to take it. On a week-to-week basis.”

  “Really,” said Enid, slightly dazed.

  “If that’s okay.”

  He had lovely eyes, she noticed. Brown, she thought they were, with specks of gold. Kind eyes, she thought they were.

  “Oh yes, of course,” she said. “Good.”

  Jack introduced himself, arranged to move in the following day, and shook her hand warmly.

  Enid, standing on the front porch, watching him drive away, was filled with a delicious curiosity.

  Chapter 7

  Tuesday, November 22

  JACK CRIED OUT, AND awakened.

  Quickly he sat up, his hands pressed hard on the mattress on either side of him—he was sweating; blinking—there were tears on his face. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, where for a long time he scoured his body in the shower.

  Half an hour later he was ordering breakfast at Earl’s.

  The mechanic, a youngish man with a mustache, sat at the counter looking at one of the Vancouver papers and checking his watch every couple of minutes. Over by the window was a big, burly, unpleasant-looking fellow with gray hair partly covered by a woolen cap, and a black beard that was also going gray. Under his table lay a big brown dog.

  “Does that dog bite?” Jack asked Earl, when he arrived with a mug of coffee and a glass of juice.

  “Fred? Nah. Wouldn’t let a dog in here that bit.”

  The mechanic, after a final look at his watch, left money on the counter for Earl and picked up the paper. As he turned around he noticed Jack. “You want The Province ?” he said, waving it.

  “Yeah, sure,” said Jack. “Thanks.”

  “Bye, Earl,” the guy called out, heading for the door.

  “Bye, Warren.”

  The door creaked open, slammed shut. Jack paged through the newspaper. A radio was playing from behind the counter— CBC-AM. The café was warm: Jack took off his jacket.

  “Here you go,” said Earl, delivering bacon and eggs and a plate of brown toast.

  “Smells good,” said Jack.

  Earl stood back and watched him for a minute, his hands clasped, brown against the enormous white apron that was wrapped around him. Beneath it he wore a blue-and-white-checked flannel shirt, a pair of jeans, and neat black loafers, very shiny. “Are you a friend of Karl’s?” he said.

  Jack wiped the edges of his mouth with a paper napkin. He looked up at Earl. “We knew each other in Kamloops.” Earl nodded. Jack picked up his knife and fork and went back to his breakfast. “Are you?” he asked. “A friend of his?”

  “We’re friendly, sure,” said Earl.

  “I’m done over here, Earl,” said the man at the window table.

  When Earl had taken his money and the man and his dog had left, Jack said, “He gotten himself married again?”

  “Lives with his girlfriend,” said Earl. “She works over at the library.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Jack. He forked up a mouthful of scrambled eggs, chewed, swallowed. “They live here in Sechelt, I guess, do they?”

  Earl, who was cleaning the window table, threw him a curious glance. But he said, “Uh-uh. Gibsons.”

  Jack drank some coffee. “He can be a hard man to get to know,” he said. “I seem to remember.”

  “He’s not gonna get close to a lot of people, though, is he?” said Earl, wiping the chair seats, one by one. “Not in his job. Can’t afford to.” He went back behind the counter, whistling, rinsed the cloth in the sink, and put on another pot of coffee.

  Jack layered strips of bacon between pieces of toast. “Can’t be much going on around here, is there?” he said. “Not in a place this small. Must be a hell of a boring place to be a cop.” He too
k a big bite of his sandwich.

  Earl shuddered. “Oh, you’d be surprised,” he said. He nodded to a couple who’d just come in, and handed them menus.

  Jack finished his breakfast and had more coffee, reading the paper and watching the people coming and going. When the café had gotten full, he paid the bill and left with a wave in Earl’s direction.

  He drove back to the little mall and steered a cart down the aisles of the supermarket, buying coffee, bread, margarine, cans of tuna and soup, salt and pepper. Then he wandered through the mall until it was time.

  It was ten-fifteen when he rapped on Enid’s door. “Come in,” she said, smiling. “Will you have coffee? I’ve just made a fresh pot.”

  “Sure,” said Jack Coutts, smiling back.

  She took him into the living room and looked around, trying to see her belongings through the eyes of this male stranger. There was a small wooden chair with an oval back, the seat covered in a petit point design. A big easy chair with a matching footstool. A table made from a burl from a redwood tree. There was a brocaded love seat, and a fireplace with wood piled on the hearth and ashes in the firebox. Bookcases. In the adjoining dining room sat a table and a china cabinet with a glass front. He would like the easy chair, she thought, appraising him with a sideways glance. And the table. Maybe the bookcases. Does he like to read? she wondered. But wouldn’t ask him. Not yet.

  “Sit down,” she said, indicating the easy chair. “I’ll be back in a minute,” and she hurried down the hall to the kitchen.

  He stood up as she came into the room bearing a wooden tray with two cups and saucers on it, and cream and sugar. The china was light blue with a white ring half an inch from the mouth of each piece.

  She put down the tray and handed him a cup and saucer. “And here’s your key,” she said, taking it from the pocket of the gray cardigan she wore over sweatpants and a T-shirt. She saw him notice what she was wearing.

  “Do you, uh, jog, or something?” he asked clumsily.

  “I walk,” she said. “And I work in my garden.”

  They sipped coffee in what Enid took to be a pleasantly stress-free silence. And then, “I’ll need a couple of references,” she said. She absolutely had to get references or she’d never hear the last of it from Bernie.