A Chill Rain in January (26 page)

“I'm going to be pretty late, Cassandra.”

“That's okay. Really.” She sounded wistful. Subdued.

“If I can,” said Alberg softly.

“What's going on down there anyway? How come you're still at work?”

“I'll tell you after.”

“After what?”

“After it's all over.”

Sokolowski knocked, and stuck his head in. “We got it, Karl.”

“I've gotta go, Cassandra.” He said goodbye and hung up. “Did they call?” he said to Sokolowski.

“Yeah. It happened, Karl. Just like she wrote it down.”

A siren sounded, starting small, building loud and clamorous, summoning members of the volunteer fire department.

Alberg went to the window and pulled up the blind. “I can't see a thing in this damn fog.”

They hurried down the hall to the reception area, where Frieda Listad waited. The duty officer was just hanging up the phone. “Staff?” he said. “The fire. It's down at the Strachan place.”

Alberg and Sokolowski stared at one another.

“Let's go, Sid,” said Alberg quietly.

T
HE COTTAGE
had two doors. The back door led directly into the kitchen. There was a tiny hall closet between the front door and the bedroom. When Ramona let the boy in, he was so frightened that to soothe him she barricaded both the doors. With his help she wrestled a tall chest of drawers from the bedroom into the hall and wedged it up against the front door. There wasn't much they could do in the kitchen except put the table in the way of the door, so that's what they did.

The boy said his name was Kenny.

She forgot at first that she knew him.

“What did you do with them?” he said urgently, looking around the cottage, once they'd done the barricading.

“With what?” she said.

“It—with the thing I gave you. You know. The brown envelope.”

She gazed at him, uncomprehending.

“I gave it to you,” he said, beginning to cry. “This morning.”

“Are you sure it was me?” she said, feeling panicky.

“I gave it to you. In the fog,” said Kenny, sobbing “I did.”

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “Oh yes. I'm sorry. I remember now.” She gave him a hug. “Don't you worry, they're in good hands. I got them delivered straight to the police.”

“I—you mean you opened it up? You read them?”

“Of course I did,” said Ramona. She leaned close to him. “I don't blame you one bit for being scared. I was scared, too, reading that stuff.”

“What'll happen now?” said Kenny.

“First I'm going to make you something hot to eat,” said Ramona. She got one of the fancy packages of chicken noodle soup down from the cupboard. “Too bad I don't have any milk. I'll have to make it with water.”

“And then what?” said the boy, and Ramona told him that just as soon as it was light enough, she would take him out of the cottage and down the driveway and along the beach to the first of the houses there, and they would call the police and tell them where to come and get him.

After he'd eaten, they sat on the bed and watched late-night TV.

“Did you hear something?” he said, for the third time since he'd gotten there.

Dutifully, Ramona turned the sound down on the television and listened. “No.”

“I thought I heard something.”

“I don't think so.” She smoothed some hair away from his forehead. It was like having her own children back—she'd always liked Horace and Martha, when they were children.

Ramona turned the sound back up. “Just as soon as it's light, we'll skedaddle on out of here.”

“Yeah. Good.”

“Can you bring me some fruit, do you think?”

“You mean, afterwards?” said Kenny.

“Yes. Before you go home.”

“Yeah. Sure. Sure I will. You're gonna stay here, then, right?”

“For a little while longer, anyway. Until the people come back.”

He looked at her quizzically, and was about to say something, but changed his mind.

A commercial break interrupted the movie, and Ramona, chuckling with pleasure, triumphantly used the remote control device to turn off the sound.

“Shhh!” said the boy. “I heard something,” he whispered. He shuffled himself over closer to Ramona, who put her bony arm around his shoulder and strained to hear whatever he had heard.

Suddenly a great pounding began. It took Ramona a minute to figure out that it was coming from the front door.

“It's her!” said the boy, and he shot out of bed, looking around him wildly.

The noise was thunderous, implacable.

“My lord,” said Ramona, thrusting her bare feet into slippers. She grabbed the boy and hustled him into the kitchen.

The hammering stopped, they heard quick footsteps at the side of the house, and it started again, this time at the back door, bang! bang! bang! rhythmic and horrifying.

“Who are you! What do you want!” Ramona shouted. She pushed the boy behind her.

“Get out of my house!” bellowed a female voice.

Ramona shook her head and leaned against the fridge. She was intensely agitated. She couldn't remember what she'd done with the remote control device. She kept clicking it and clicking it, but there was nothing in her hand: she could see that it was empty.

“What are we gonna do!” cried the boy.

Ramona turned around to stare at him. The pounding on the kitchen door continued. It was apparently real sound—the door was shuddering on its hinges…

Ramona said calmly to the boy, “She's going to get tired of banging like that. She's just doing it to scare us. Pretty soon she's going to break that window there, that kitchen window, or maybe the one in the living room, and climb right in here.”

She hurried into the living room and picked up the poker from beside the Franklin stove. “Turn off that lamp in the bedroom. Turn off the TV, too,” she said to him. “Go on! Do it!” And he did.

Ramona crouched by the kitchen window, just beside it, and sure enough, the banging on the door stopped. For a moment nothing happened. “Please God please God,” said Ramona, over and over again, and then the window glass crashed into the kitchen. Ramona screamed and shut her eyes as the glass showered around and upon her. Then she lashed out with the poker, and heard a shriek of pain.

The woman went away then. The boy said, “She's gonna come back! Let's get out of here, let's get out of here!” Ramona didn't want to move. Her heart was all panicky and no wonder either, and her legs were too shaky to stand on. She told him to go without her, to pull out the pieces of broken glass and climb out the window and run and run and run, but he said he wasn't going without her. He was crying a lot, and Ramona felt very sorry for him.

“Oh please, please,” he said, “let's go, please!”

Ramona was dizzy, and she hurt in a lot of places, she couldn't figure out just where, or why; she thought she could smell gasoline; she could see some blood, and realized that she must have fallen down in the broken glass, or maybe been hit by it when it fell into the house; but the worst thing was the hurricane that was going on inside her. It was a hurricane of confusion, of profound disorder; it bordered on anarchy, maybe even derangement. She wanted to know where Anton was when she needed him, and how Horace had ever grown up to be such an unpleasant person, and why she had ever agreed to that third operation—she oughtn't ever to have done that; it was the third operation that had caused all her troubles, she knew it…

Ramona became aware of smoke, and heat, and the boy screaming.

“Where the hell have I gotten myself to?” she said. “Where on earth did this fire come from?”

She struggled to her feet and tottered into the bedroom. She flung open the cedar chest and hauled out a blanket.

The boy was screaming louder, and there were flames in the cottage as well as smoke, and the noise of fire was deafening. Ramona thought about the chicken noodle soup she'd made, and she couldn't remember if she'd turned off the stove; and she began to sob.

She dragged the blanket into the bathroom. “Here, come in here with me,” she called, and Kenny ran after her.

“What are we gonna do! We're gonna burn to death!” he said.

“No,” said Ramona, “no.” She turned on the water taps full blast and dumped the blanket into the tub. “Wait,” she said, grabbing at his sleeve. “Don't go out there.”

“The window's too small!” he yelled, staring up at the bathroom window.

“Yes, yes,” said Ramona.

She dragged the blanket from the tub and wrapped it around him. She pushed him out of the bathroom and through the cottage. Her eyes and throat stung from the smoke. She heard the fire crackling and thought about fat melting, flesh melting; she felt the fire on her skin, but it didn't hurt.

“Go!” she said, and shoved the boy through the flames, through the broken kitchen window. She was going to go back and get another blanket but it was too hot, too smoky. I wonder if I'm going to get rescued? she thought, sinking onto the kitchen floor.

P
EOPLE
ran up from the houses along the beach to watch, to help if they could. The first of them to arrive saw Kenny stumbling along the driveway, half caught in a sodden blanket, his hair singed, his face smudged with smoke. The man from the house down the beach caught the boy in his arms and said, “It's all right, you're safe now. The fire engines are coming—can you hear them?”

Kenny gestured frantically at the burning cottage. “She's still in there!” he said, and then the fire engine arrived and the man told the firefighters, “This boy was in the fire. I'm taking him to my place. But he says there's somebody else in there; a woman.”

“Is it Miss Strachan?” the fireman asked Kenny.

“No no, it's an old lady, an old lady!” said the boy, and the fireman said they'd try to get her out, and the man, a big strong man with gray hair, carried Kenny off along the driveway and down to the beach and over the sand to the house where he lived with his wife.

The cottage fell in on itself, all fire and noise, and nobody could go in there to get the old lady out.

Alberg arrived, with Frieda Listad and Sid Sokolowski. The firefighters were shouting at one another as they hosed down the fir trees surrounding the burning building. Alberg asked one of them if anyone had been inside.

And the firefighter replied, “Yeah. A kid. Said his name's Kenny. He's okay. Brian Forbes took him to his place. The kid said there was a woman, too.” He shook his head. He was smoke-smeared, already exhausted. “But there was nothing we could do.”

“I'll see to the boy,” said Frieda Listad. “I know where Brian Forbes lives.”

“Good,” said Sid Sokolowski. “Give us a call later, okay?”

When she'd gone, Alberg said, “It's Ramona.” He was staring at the fire. “Ramona's in there.” He glanced across the circle of spectators and saw Zoe Strachan standing motionless, apart from the others. “Come on,” he said to Sokolowski. He started walking toward her. She saw him and turned away, heading for the house.

They followed her. Zoe Strachan walked not slowly, not quickly, and they kept pace behind her, three pairs of feet scrunching on the gravel. Alberg, uneasy in the fog, was anxious not to lose sight of her, yet it seemed he couldn't hurry. It was a dreamlike experience, following her up the gravel driveway as if he'd been summoned. The shouts of the firefighters grew fainter. The fog seemed to grow thicker. The sea talked to the night, to the fog, in a restless, broody mutter. Alberg walked, and Sid trailed quietly in his wake, and Alberg watched Zoe Strachan's arms swinging, her hips swaying, and he remembered having had all those lustful thoughts about her, and he realized that he had them still.

As they approached her house he saw her car parked askew in the driveway, the driver's door open. She reached the doorstep and turned to face them.

“I have here two warrants,” said Alberg.

Zoe looked behind him, at Sid Sokolowski. She seemed very calm.

“One of them,” said Alberg, “permits me to retain possession of three exercise books apparently belonging to you, which were delivered anonymously to the Sechelt detachment, RCMP—”

Zoe Strachan smiled, very faintly.

“The other,” said Alberg, “is a warrant to seize known samples of your handwriting.”

“Such a lot of fuss,” said Zoe Strachan. “What was the age,” she said carefully, “of the person who wrote in those scribblers?”

“Twelve,” said Alberg.

“Twelve,” said Zoe. She shook her head. “That's very young.”

“Yeah,” said Alberg. “But old enough to know what she was doing. And old enough to be charged for it.” He leaned slightly closer to her. “Have you been at it again, Ms. Strachan?”

There was no response.

“I think you have.”

He heard through the drifting fog only the sound of the sea “We need the samples, now,” he said, holding out the warrant.

She looked at it for a moment. Then she raised her eyes to Alberg's face and gave him a smile of such warmth and charm that he was sure she must have misunderstood him. “Of course,” she said. “I'll be happy to cooperate.”

T
HE FOG
was poking and prodding around the house, so as soon as the policemen left, Zoe locked all the doors and windows and turned the heat up high.

It was such a relief, having her house all to herself again.

Her shoulder was very sore, where it had been struck, so she ran a hot bath, poured in several handfuls of Yardley's bath salts, undressed, and soaked for almost an hour, sipping white wine. She added more hot water whenever she began cooling off.

Eventually the pain in her shoulder dulled, and she felt herself relaxing. She closed her eyes, enjoying the fragrance of the bath salts, running her hands slowly across her body, feeling sleepy and voluptuous.