A Chill Rain in January Page 8

  Chapter 20

  “I’VE BEEN thinking,” said Alberg, pulling on his jacket. “You know what’s good about the Ramona situation, Isabella?” He sat on the edge of her desk.

  “She’s been gone almost three days,” Isabella said dismally.

  “I know that. What’s good about it is, we haven’t got a body.”

  Isabella nodded. “That’s true. We don’t. Not yet anyway.”

  “I was afraid she might have gone off somewhere to do herself in.”

  Isabella nodded again. “I have to admit it, that occurred to me, too.”

  “But I don’t think she’s done that. Her body would have been found by now.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, but where do you think she is, then?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” said Alberg. “But I bet you a month’s salary she’s still alive, wherever she is. People wander away all the time, Isabella. You know that.”

  “The trouble with Ramona is,” said Isabella, “that if she doesn’t want to be found, you might not ever find her. Ramona’s old; but she’s smart. She forgets a thing or two; but she’s smart.”

  Alberg shoved a new notebook into his inside pocket. “Yeah. But maybe we’re smarter.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said Isabella.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky, then. Or maybe she’ll decide she wants to come back.” He got up and started for the door. “Get hold of Gillingham, will you? Tell him to go out to the place at the end of Mills Road. Name’s Strachan. Report of an accidental death.”

  “That dishy woman’s dead?” said Isabella, horrified. She reached for the phone.

  “I don’t know about any dishy woman,” said Alberg. “It’s a man who’s supposed to be dead.”

  Sanducci’s patrol car and an ambulance were parked next to a late-model Chevrolet in the driveway behind the house. It was Sanducci who answered the door when Alberg knocked.

  “The guy’s her brother,” he said. “He’s dead, all right. Pissed out of his mind, I guess. Fell down the basement stairs.”

  Two ambulance attendants lounged against the wall. “Go wait in your wagon,” said Alberg. “We’ll call you when we need you.” He said to Sanducci, “Where’s the sister? Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. She’s in the kitchen,” said Sanducci, leading the way down the hall.

  She sat at the kitchen table, looking out the small, uncurtained window, her chin in her hand. She was wearing a black suit: a straight skirt, a short jacket, a white blouse with a big floppy bow at her throat.

  “Miss Strachan,” said Sanducci, with unusual formality, “I’d like you to meet Staff Sergeant Alberg. Staff, this is Miss Zoe Strachan.”

  She turned her head slightly, to look at him. Her eyes, set wide apart, were a very dark blue. She had a high, broad forehead. Her hair was black and wavy, parted at the side. Her skin was pale, and appeared to be unlined; but he knew she wasn’t young. She was the most beautiful thing he’d seen since coming to Sechelt, six years before.

  “Thank you, Sanducci,” said Alberg.

  Why hadn’t he ever seen her around town?

  He forced himself to look away from her, at the window. He remembered that he hadn’t seen any windows to speak of in the front of the house; only a small, frosted pane that was probably a bathroom. The woman certainly liked her privacy.

  “May I sit down?” he said, and Zoe Strachan nodded.

  “Would you give me his full name, please.” He pulled out his notebook and a pen.

  “Benjamin Henry Strachan,” she said.

  “And he’s your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  He wrote these things in his notebook. His hands felt cold. Again he looked at the small kitchen window, through which he could see only the darkening sky. There was a lot to be said for views, he thought distractedly. He liked the one from his sunporch, for instance—down the hill to Gibsons and the harbor. But the most important thing about windows was that they let in light. He couldn’t imagine living in a house that didn’t let in any light down one whole side of it.

  Zoe Strachan was waiting patiently, expecting more questions.

  “Did he live here? On the peninsula?”

  “He lived in West Vancouver.”

  “Was he married? Did he have a family?”

  “He used to be married. Twice. The first one divorced him. The second one died.”

  “Any children?”

  “No.”

  “She’s his only living relative, Staff,” said Sanducci. Alberg jumped slightly; he’d forgotten the corporal was there.

  Zoe raised her eyes to Sanducci and gave him a tremulous smile. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “I am.”

  “Corporal,” said Alberg. “Let me know when Dr. Gillingham gets here.” He waited until Sanducci had left the room. “Your parents are dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to them?”

  She looked annoyed. Alberg didn’t blame her. What the hell difference did it make, what had happened to her parents? “My father died of a heart attack,” she said, “when I was twenty-three. My mother got cancer seven years later. She was ill for a year or so and then died.”

  “Were you and your brother close?”

  “Heavens no. We had nothing in common. Absolutely nothing at all.”

  “Except your parents,” said Alberg.

  She looked at him straight on then, and he realized that she hadn’t done so before. Her head had always been turned away, or at least slightly averted. He didn’t think he’d been consciously aware of that. Until now. Her gaze struck him with an almost physical force.

  “Do you want to see him?” she said. “My brother?”

  “Uh, yes,” said Alberg. “In a minute.”

  “We can’t just leave him there,” she said thoughtfully.

  “No. When the doctor’s been here, your brother will be taken to—well, he’ll be taken wherever you like.”

  He thought she smiled a little.

  “I guess a funeral home,” she said.

  He glanced around the kitchen. In the corner, a television set sat on a small table. A large number of electric appliances were lined up, gleaming, on the countertops. An unopened bottle of red wine sat next to a toaster oven. The room was meticulously clean. Even the stainless-steel sink shone.

  Zoe Strachan swiveled around on her chair and crossed her legs. Alberg couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard that sound: the slithery, silken sound of stockinged legs, stroking. Women hardly ever wore stockings anymore. Even when they did, it wasn’t stockings they wore but pantyhose. They hardly ever wore skirts anymore, for that matter. And they practically never wore suits. It was possible, he thought, that since she was wearing a skirt, a whole suit, in fact, and stockings, too, that possibly, just possibly, they were real stockings, not pantyhose, which meant that she’d be wearing something to hold them up, too, something like a black garter belt, maybe.

  He cleared his throat and fumbled with his notebook, attempting to turn the page. His pen fell to the floor. Zoe Strachan didn’t move when he reached down to retrieve it, even though it had landed right next to her foot. Alberg felt the smooth leather of her black shoe against the side of his hand as he picked up the pen.

  She was looking at him curiously. He had absolutely no idea how old she was. He could see, now, that there were shimmerings of silver in her black hair. But her face was unlined, and her body was slim, even athletic.

  “Corporal Sanducci suggested that your brother might have been drinking,” he said.

  “I’m afraid he was,” said Zoe. “I think that Benjamin probably drank rather a lot.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “We were in the living room,” she said, and stood up. Automatically, Alberg stood up, too. She was about the same height as Cassandra, he thought. No, shorter, because she was wearing high heels. “I’ll show you,” said Zoe, and he followed her
out of the kitchen.

  In the living room, she pointed to a black leather chair. “He was sitting there. I was on the sofa, there. He said he wanted to catch the three-thirty ferry, but I told him he was too drunk and that he’d better stay and have dinner with me.” She looked toward Alberg, standing next to the archway leading to the hall. “He didn’t get drunk here, Staff Sergeant. He was drunk when he arrived.” She waited while Alberg scribbled dutifully in his notebook.

  “I hadn’t done my shopping for the week, though,” she went on. “I told Benjamin to lie down and sleep while I went out to get something for us to eat.” She sat on the sofa, resting her left arm along its low back and crossing her legs. “He agreed. But first, he said, he’d go downstairs and fetch a bottle of wine to have with dinner.” She shrugged. “There’s no point arguing with people when they’re in that condition. So I just sat here and waited for him to come back. A few minutes later, I heard a yelp, and a crash.”

  She got up and walked toward Alberg. “I went to the basement door,” she said, passing him, going along the hall. “It was open, just as you see it now.” She stood in the doorway, looking down. “I think I called him a couple of times. It was very dark down there. I switched on the light, and, there he was.” She turned to Alberg with a smile. “And there he still is,” she said, gesturing.

  Alberg peered into the basement.

  “Poor Benjamin,” said Zoe.

  “Why had he come to see you?”

  “To borrow money,” she said, continuing to gaze down the stairs.

  “A lot of money?”

  “I have no idea.” She leaned against the doorframe, looking up at Alberg. “There wasn’t any point in discussing how much he wanted, when I wasn’t about to give him anything at all.”

  “Was he in some kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t think so. He didn’t have enough money, that’s all. Benjamin never had enough money.”

  “Did he have a job?”

  She sighed and went back down the hall toward the kitchen, talking to Alberg over her shoulder. “Apparently he did, yes. I don’t know where. As I told you, we weren’t close, Benjamin and I. The only times I saw him were when he needed money.” She took a coffee canister from the cupboard. “I don’t know why he kept trying. I never gave him anything, and he must have known that I never would.”

  “Dr. Gillingham’s here,” said Sanducci from the doorway.

  “Why don’t you stay here, Miss Strachan,” said Alberg.

  “Yes,” said Zoe, smiling. She gestured with the canister. “I’ll make some coffee.”

  Alberg found the doctor at the bottom of the basement stairs, black bag in hand, gazing with satisfaction upon the inert form of Benjamin Henry Strachan. “Here’s another one that age’ll never wither, then,” he said approvingly.

  “Good Christ, Alex, keep your voice down,” said Alberg. “His sister’s upstairs.”

  The doctor, a swarthy man in his fifties, tried to squat down next to the corpse. “Shit, forgot the damn knee,” he said. “Bring me a damn chair, will you?”

  Alberg looked around the basement. He saw three doors, all closed, and opened the first one; the small room that was revealed apparently functioned as a wine cellar. In the corner was a small stool. He carried it over to Alex Gillingham. “What’s wrong with your knee?”

  “I twisted it. Mountain climbing.”

  “Christ,” said Alberg.

  “You oughtn’t to scoff,” said the doctor reproachfully. He bent over Benjamin Strachan. “You’re putting on weight; I notice it more every time I see you, Karl. A little mountain climbing wouldn’t do you any harm.”

  “Get a move on, will you? His sister wants to get the body out of here.”

  “Yes. I do,” said Zoe from the top of the stairs.

  The men looked up. She stood, motionless, with one hand on either side of the doorway, a little higher than her shoulders. One knee was flexed, the other straight. Her face was in shadow. She seemed to fill the doorway, although Alberg knew this was a trick of perspective.

  He waited anxiously for her to speak again.

  He wanted to move, to say something to encourage her, but he was transfixed.

  “Well,” said the doctor. He nudged Alberg. “I can certainly understand that, ma’am. And you can be assured that I’m going to get this matter dealt with just as quickly as I can.” He nudged Alberg again. “Get up there, Staff Sergeant, and keep the lady amused.”

  At the top of the stairs, Zoe laughed.

  Chapter 21

  RAMONA had looked around her on Thursday afternoon and seen the plants and known that left alone for three weeks, some of them were going to die. She knew then that Marcia must have left her key with someone who’d agreed to come in and water them. That somebody was bound to be Marcia’s mother, Reba McLean. Ramona figured that was how the policeman had gotten in; he’d borrowed the key from Reba McLean.

  So she could expect Reba to come clattering up to the door any old time now, driving that beat-up white Beetle she tootled around in. Ramona knew she couldn’t be here when that happened. Reba knew the house too well. She’d spot the slightest thing that looked different, out of place. And she’d poke around, too, making herself right at home, maybe even peering into the back of the closet.

  Ramona tried and tried, that night and during the next day, to think of where she might go. She was very worried, very anxious.

  And she didn’t like to admit it to herself, but there wasn’t any point in trying to deny it: sometime Friday afternoon she lost some more time. When she “came to,” she was huddled in the back of the bedroom closet again. That relieved her mind somewhat to know that she apparently had the wit, even while witless, to remember that she was in hiding.

  She’d lost time while she was in the hospital, too; but it hadn’t mattered so much there.

  Now it was Saturday morning. Ramona once more checked the soil in the plant pots. None was completely dried out yet, but most of them were due for a watering, all right.

  She wondered what Anton would have had to say about her predicament, and that brought a smile to her face, which made her feel a little better. She sat down at the rickety kitchen table with a pencil and a pad of lined yellow paper, and she started making lists.

  First she put down the good things about her situation. Although her mind certainly did meander off somewhere periodically, she thought that when in attendance, it was brighter and brisker than it had been for some time. Physically, she was feeling a whole lot better than she had any right to feel.

  But on the other side of the ledger, she had to leave her house, and that was a sorry blow. Today she had to do a reconnaissance, try to find a house farther along the beach that was unlocked and temporarily unoccupied.

  Another minus—she had to admit it—she was going to get bored and restless, eventually. At the moment she was entirely enjoying the freedom to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted to do it. But she knew that after a certain number of days—she had no idea how many—her craving for companionship would reassert itself. Would she have to go back to the hospital, then?

  Ramona knew Dr. Gillingham hadn’t persuaded her into that place because he wanted her to be miserable. He’d truly believed that she wasn’t capable of looking after herself properly.

  Maybe not permanently, she thought. But temporarily, at least, I can do it. Temporarily, at least, I want to be on my own again.

  She wrote these things down, and studied them.

  Well, her way was plainly laid out for her. She was going to enjoy every second of her freedom, however long it lasted.

  She might have to confide in a friend, eventually. When she ran out of clothes, or of books to read, or got sick of her own company.

  But she wasn’t ready to do that yet.

  First order of business—locate another burrow. And find another food supply.

  She pushed her chair away from the table and got up, stiffly. She’d better decide what
to take with her.

  Into the shopping bag she loaded some extra pairs of socks, from Robbie’s bureau drawer. A pair of Marcia’s slacks. A roll of toilet paper. The bottle of gin. The pad of paper on which she’d made her lists. And the pencil.

  That was about as much as she could comfortably lug around, she figured.

  While she struggled to get the tweed coat on over her three sweaters, she recalled the commotion she’d observed the day before at the Strachan woman’s place. Ramona had seen at least one police car head up the driveway, and then an ambulance had arrived. She wondered if the poor woman had been taken ill.

  She’d just put her hand on the doorknob when she heard a car pull up on the gravel verge of the road, in front of the house.

  She turned swiftly around and grabbed the shopping bag, to take it into the closet with her.

  She heard a car door slam shut. Two people were coming. She heard them talking, she heard a woman talking to a man, and the man saying “Uh huh.”

  Reba.

  Ramona looked frantically around the house.

  Then she opened the door and fled through a break in the hedge into the Ferrises’ yard, and from there she hightailed it up to the road, and eventually down again, onto the beach. She lurched furtively along the beach, feeling like that convict—she couldn’t remember his name—feeling like that convict in Great Expectations.

  She’d forgotten to bring the tuque she’d been using.

  She’d forgotten her gloves, too; and her scarf.

  Ramona stumbled along the sand, dazed and anxious, clutching her shopping bag.

  Chapter 22

  ZOE didn’t want to move. She was vehement about this. But in the end she had no choice.

  She put up an awful fuss. She cried and screamed and banged her heels. She knew she was behaving like an infant, but she didn’t know what else to do. She was horrified, full of dread; she could not believe that it was actually going to happen.