A Chill Rain in January (10 page)

“I'm going to have to give you a ticket,” he said with a smile, showing her his teeth, which didn't interest her in the slightest.

“My brother's had an accident,” she said. She turned away to fumble in her handbag for a Kleenex. “I think—I'm afraid he's dead.” She buried her nose in the tissue and permitted herself to weep.

“What kind of an accident? Where? Miss Strachan?”

Zoe felt his hand on her shoulder and sobbed harder. His dismay was almost palpable. Before he could pull himself together and become decisive, she turned her wet face to him and said, “He's fallen down my basement stairs. There's blood…” and began again to weep.

The policeman gave her shoulder a hasty squeeze. “I'll call for an ambulance,” he said, and hurried back to his car.

Zoe sat stony and sullen, staring out the windshield.

After a while she heard him crunching across the gravel shoulder toward her, and she sighed, and straightened, and dabbed delicately at her cheeks with the sodden Kleenex.

“They're going to meet us at your house,” he said.

“Oh, good,” whispered Zoe. “Thank you.”

“Why didn't you phone somebody?” he said, leaning against her car.

“I don't have a telephone,” said Zoe. “I hate telephones,” she explained, giving him a smile. She started her car, and he drew back quickly. “You can give me the ticket when we get to my house.” She put the engine in drive, signaled, and pulled out onto Sechelt's main street. In the mirror she saw the police officer trotting hastily back to his vehicle.

“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.”