The Suspect - L R Wright (28 page)

He sat back. "At least you weren't, until last
Tuesday."

"I don't have to listen to this." George
was pulling at the tufts of stuffing that protruded from a break in
the seam of the leather chair. Alberg remembered sitting in that
chair and doing the same thing.

"No, you don't," he said quietly.

George said nothing.

"
You went into the house and Carlyle, for
whatever reason, maybe just because he was a spiteful old bastard,
talked to you about things you'd just as soon never have heard. And
finally you couldn't stand it any more, and you hit him on the head."
He looked at the old man closely. "Is it too hot for you,
George, sitting in the sun?”

George said nothing. His face was crumpled and still.

"
You probably didn't mean to kill him, even when
you hit him,” said Alberg. "Sometimes it's harder than you'd
believe, to kill a man. Sometimes you have to stab and bash away at
him until you're both soaked in his blood and the other guy's still
yelling, still crying out, maybe praying, or calling for his mother
and yet he won't die, he just won't die."

"
You speaking from personal experience?” said
George. "Is that your police brutality kind of thing you're
talking about?”

"
And other times," said Alberg, unruffled,
"one little smack seems to do it, and the guy stands there
bewildered, looking down at this dead person and wondering how the
hell he got that way."

He took a final drag on his cigarette and stubbed it
out. "That's the way I figure it happened with you. One little
smack, probably didn't feel like much to you, just enough to shut him
up, that's probably what you thought. And then there's the man lying
there dead."

"With his eyes open,” said George,
involuntarily. He pulled himself upright, flinched from a twinge
somewhere, and let himself sink back into the chair. "I know
that," he said carefully, "because I found the body. His
eyes were open. I remember that."

"Then," said Alberg, "you realized
what you'd done. Not much you could do about it. You could have
called us, of course. Maybe that didn't occur to you. Maybe you
thought you'd do it later, after you'd watered your roses. Or maybe I
you decided you could get away with it. Anyway, you found something
that would hold the shell casings—probably in the kitchen, since
that's the only place you left any prints—and you dumped them into
it and lugged them home." He shook his head admiringly. "It
was clever to take them both. We wouldn't ever have known they were
missing, if it hadn't been for his cleaning woman.”

The color had seeped from George's face. He wasn't
moving at all.

"
Now what I do not understand,” said Alberg,
leaning forward, elbows on his knees, studying George intently, "what
I simply cannot comprehend, George, is why, when you got those things
home, you didn't get rid of them right away. You could have buried
them in your garden or put them out with the trash. But what do you
do? You put them up on your windowsill, bold as brass, if you'll
forgive the pun.”

George looked back at him, silent and gray.

"
Of course you were lucky, too," said
Alberg. "Damn lucky. You were seen going into Carlyle's gate by
three people. Two of them saw you at two thirty, when you found the
body. One of them—unfortunately, he's what we call an unreliable
witness—one man says he saw you a lot earlier. That fits with the
time of death. It also fits the story of the man who sold Carlyle the
salmon. Oh, yes, we found him, George; or, rather, he found us. He
says Carlyle was expecting a guest for lunch. And I figure that guest
must have been you.”

He lit another cigarette and crossed an ankle over
his knee. He wondered why he wasn't enjoying himself.

"So here's the other thing I don't understand,
George," he said. "Why the hell did you go back there? Did
you start wondering if he was really dead, and decide you'd better
hie yourself back on up to the house and finish the job?"

"
Watch yourself, policeman," said George,
struggling with exhaustion.

"
Or did you just want to sneak another peek at
him lying there, dead as a doornail, eyes staring at nothing, his
head resting in a pool of his own brains and blood? Was that it,
George?" said Alberg, with contempt. "Did you really hate
him that much?"

"
You stupid miserable cop,” said George. He
looked completely drained. He had barely enough strength to push
himself out of his chair. On his feet he glared down at Alberg,
almost swaying. Slowly he bent close to him. "Okay, policeman,”
he said. He jabbed him in his chest. "Now you just sit there and
keep your goddamn mouth shut and let me tell you a story."

Painfully, awkwardly, he paced the small room. "He
went into the war," he said. "I was ten years old. Up to
then it wasn't so bad. He had a barbershop. Drank some, got into a
temper now and then, threw things around sometimes. Scared the piss
out of me, but he never hurt anyone. Then he went into the war. Gone
four years, he was. When he came back ...."God help us, I don't
know what happened to him over there. Maybe nothing. Maybe he'd have
worked himself into it anyway. He was no saint before, that's for
sure. It turned me into a pacifist, him coming back from the war like
that, but maybe it wasn't the war's fault, who knows?"

He went to the window and stood, still and stooped,
looking out. He seemed calmer, now.

"
I was fourteen when he came home. He went back
to the barbershop. Drank more. A lot more. Threw things around more.
Then he started to hit her." He looked over his shoulder at
Alberg. He looked extremely old. "They've got a name for it
now," he said. "Battered wives, they call them. There are
places they can run to. But not then.”

He turned back to the window. "Not then. No
relatives, either. We lived up in Yale, right where the Fraser Canyon
begins. You think Yale's a small town now, you should have seen it
back then. Dirt roads, wooden sidewalks."

He stopped talking. Alberg heard no birds, no wind,
no sea.

"
And no help,” said George, despairingly.
"There was no help.” He stopped again, then went on. "l
couldn't believe it, at first. The first couple of times I saw 'it
happen, it was like my eyes were bugging out of my head and my tongue
was frozen in my mouth and my feet were permanently attached to the
floor. She'd scream at me to get out, go, run, and the first couple
of times I did.”

He turned slowly to Alberg. "And then one day I
stopped running. He came at her and I yelled at him. 'Don't touch
her,' I said. 'Hit me,'I said.” He shrugged. "So he did.
Knocked me flying. And then he went at her. It was pretty bad,"
he said, nodding at the floor. "Pretty bad. Then I got to be
sixteen, and Audrey was born."

He sat down again, slowly, stiffly, his knees
together, his hands clenched in his lap. "I'd been thinking
before about my dilemma. I just wanted to get the hell out of there,
just get the hell right out, as soon'as I finished high school. Make
my way down to Vancouver, live a life of my own, and forget all about
him." He looked up at Alberg. "Trouble was, of course, how
could I leave my mother? He was going to kill her one day, I knew it.
And then Audrey was born ....

"
I hated them both," he said, striking the
arm of the chair with his fist. "How could they do it, sleep
together, have another child, for Christ's sake!" He wiped his
eyes with his hands.

"And this one was a girl,” he said dully.
"Right from the start, he couldn't stand her. He wasn't so fond
of knocking me around, any more. I was as big as he was, by then, and
he knew I wasn't afraid of him any more. He used to wait until I was
out before he'd beat up my mother. But when that little girl
arrived.. .” He leaned back and closed his eyes. "Ah, I just
knew that was it. I couldn't leave. I could never leave the two of
them. He'd kill them both."

Alberg waited.

Finally George sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I'm
not going to go on and on about it. I stayed there for ten more
years. He drank more and more. I loathed him and lost all respect for
my mother. But I loved my sister, and I was goddamned if I was going
to leave her with him.

"I thought about sneaking away with her. I
should have done it. If we'd been able to get to Vancouver, nobody
would have found us.

"
But I didn't do it. I just got crummy wretched
jobs around town and lived at home and kept her with me all the time
she wasn't at school. I even dragged her bed into my room,
eventually, because—he'd go in there at night, and I'd hear her
scream and my mother and I would get to him at the same time and
she'd be screaming too and I'd pound at him with I whatever was handy
and he'd try to fight me back but he was too old by then, too old and
too drunk.”

He stopped. "It's a lovely tale, isn't it, Mr.
Alberg? I'm sure you've heard it before, a man of your experience, a
man who knows how long it takes some people to die."

He looked away, out at his garden.

"One day,” he said, "I don't know why,
but I was out, for some reason, and Audrey wasn't with me. She was
ten. I came home and I could hear it from outside the house: her
screaming, my father roaring, my mother screaming? He gave Alberg a
distorted smile. "Lucky we didn't have neighbors living close
by, huh? Do you think that's why he got the place? Because nobody
could hear what was going on inside?"

He got up again and went to the window. "I
practically broke the door down, getting in,” he said bleakly. "He
was beating her with a stick. Her face was bleeding, her hair was
matted with blood. Her hands and arms were bleeding, too, because
she'd stretched them out, see, to ward him off. My mother was clawing
at his back. She was a small woman. I don't even think he felt her.

"
I ran right through the house to the mudroom in
the back and got the shotgun and loaded it and ran back into the room
where they were and shot out all the windows. That stopped him, all
right.”

He looked around the kitchen, but Alberg didn't think
he saw it.

"I pointed the shotgun right at him," said
George, detached. "I told him to get the hell out and never come
back or I'd blow his goddamn head off. He stood there, lurching
around the room, waving his hands and swearing at me. He wouldn't
come close—I think he knew how badly I wanted to do it blow his
head to kingdom come.”

He turned to look at Alberg. "But he wouldn't
go, either. I think he was so drunk he couldn't quite figure out what
I was yelling at him. Meanwhile there's Audrey on the floor, bleeding
and crying, and my mother looking wildly around, not knowing what to
do."

George shuffled around behind the leather chair and
hung onto its high back. "I dropped the shotgun and shoved him
out of the house. The car was sitting out there. An old,Model T. I
pushed him into it—he stank of booze and he could hardly stand up,
but I shoved him into the driver's seat and got the car going.
'Drive,' I said to him. 'Drive, you son-of-a-bitch. Get the hell out
of here.' Then I ran back into the house, to see to Audrey. "

He pushed a hand through his hair and looked almost
bewildered, for a moment. Then he let himself lean heavily upon the
back of the chair. "My mother was with her, by then. I'll give
her that. She was crooning at her, looking over the injuries. I came
charging in and I said, 'The bastard's in the car, it's pointed up
the canyon road, if there's a Christ in heaven he'll drive himself
over the cliff.' I was shouting and shaking all over."

He looked directly at Alberg. "But then my
mother heard the car rev up and start to move away, all
jerky-sounding. Her head came up and she scrambled to her feet and
she ran out after him. She was screaming at him, telling him she was
sorry."

He leaned forward a little, looking at the staff
sergeant intently. "Did you get that, Mr. Alberg? She was
telling him she was sorry."

"
I got it, Mr. Wilcox," said Alberg
quietly.

George gave a shuddery sigh. He had aged, shockingly,
since Alberg had come into the house. "I went outside," he
said. "I saw her running after the car. It wasn't going very
fast. I watched her, didn't even yell at her, and I saw her get
herself onto the running board, and open the door, and climb into the
car." Alberg watched him carefully.

"I fixed up Audrey as best I could. Had to take
her to the doctor, though, for stitches."

Alberg waited.

"
It was such a long time ago," said George.
He was ancient, now, his skin the color of parchment. "Sometime
that night, or maybe it was early in the morning, I can't remember,
they came to tell us the car had gone over the cliff."

He looked up. "It was a minister and a Mountie,
as a matter of fact," he said, "who came to tell us that.”

He came around the chair, holding on to it, and sat
down. "That's it, Mr. Alberg,” he said. "I killed my
parents. I killed them both. That's what it comes down to. And I've
got absolutely nothing more to say to you."

After a while, Alberg got up and left.
 

CHAPTER 30

"
You might want to look in on your friend
George," said Alberg when she opened the door. He looked haggard
and depressed.