Fall from Grace

by L. R. Wright

  The Thormanby Islands floated, separate, in a placid sea. All that remained of the sandy connector was a small beach at the foot of the cliff, and the tide was still advancing.

  “Hurry it up, Alex, will you?” said Alberg.

  The flotilla of pleasure boats remained at anchor but it looked as if they’d retreated, because there was so much more water, now, between the boats and the body. Alberg imagined himself back on board his rented boat, where Cassandra continued to wait. He would be standing next to her, looking at what was left of the beach. He saw himself and Gillingham and Sokolowski and Carrington and the body: a lonely huddle of the dead and the dying.

  “Hurry up,” he said again, more gently.

  It was late evening, now, and everything was silver-blue—the sky, the water, the islands that rose from the ocean like a tranquil pod of sleepy whales. Everywhere Alberg looked, the world was serene, slumberous, luxuriating in the comparative coolness of evening. There were no clouds in the sky, only the bright sun low on the horizon, blanching the heat from the sky as it descended; there were no waves in the sea, only small silver ripples created by the incoming tide. Alberg’s skin burned but the cooler air of evening eased the pain.

  He looked down at the body of what had turned out to be Velma Grayson’s son, and at Alex Gillingham kneeling next to it.

  “Alex,” said Alberg.

  Gillingham slowly shook his head. “Yeah, well, he’s dead, isn’t he,” said the doctor heavily.

  Alberg told Constable Carrington to row the dinghy out to Alberg’s boat and motor back to the marina at Secret Cove, then see that Cassandra got home.

  He returned to the mainland on the police boat, with Gillingham and the corpse. Sokolowski remained behind with a corporal to finish taking statements; the boat would return later, to pick them up.

  The moon was high in the sky when Alberg left Buccaneer Bay. The water was black and silky, except for a long splash of moonlight. Alberg stood by the rail and watched the sea, and let the wind cool his sunburned skin.

  Sechelt didn’t have a proper morgue. No discreet window wall separated the dead from the bereaved. It would be a face-to-face confrontation, and Alberg hated those.

  Velma Grayson’s porch light was on. And she must have been waiting up for her son. The door opened right away, and as she looked up into his face Alberg wished that when he’d gone home to hastily wash and change he’d put on the uniform. She wasn’t expecting anything bad. The sight of Alberg standing on her porch hadn’t alerted her, even though she knew perfectly well who he was. Yeah, he wished he’d put on the uniform, for once.

  She worked in his bank, as a teller. But he didn’t know her well enough to call her Velma.

  “Mrs. Grayson,” he said. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  They drove to the hospital in silence. Alberg was impressed with her calmness. She had listened to him quietly, asked him to wait, and disappeared into what he took to be her bedroom. She came out wearing fresh lipstick, having combed her hair. She was carrying a handbag. She held it on her lap as they drove.

  Alberg parked near the emergency entrance and ushered her into the hospital, through an empty waiting room, down the hall and into an elevator. As the elevator took them into the basement he watched Velma Grayson’s face, which remained calm, and hoped Gillingham would know somebody they could call to come and be with her, once she’d seen the body, and begun her grieving. The elevator doors opened and she stepped out into the hall, and waited for Alberg to lead the way.

  When they entered the anteroom Gillingham was there, and a ripple of dread disturbed Velma Grayson’s composure: Alberg saw it pass across her face, a small gray shudder.

  “Velma,” said Gillingham. He tried to take her hands, but they were both clasping her purse.

  She didn’t seem to have any interest in Gillingham. She looked around the room, frowning a little. There was a counter next to the door, and several metal chairs were set against the wall.

  “Alex,” said Alberg.

  Gillingham stared at Velma Grayson with an expression Alberg couldn’t decipher.

  “Alex,” Alberg said more loudly.

  Finally Gillingham looked at him, then back at Velma. “You’ll have to hold the door open for me,” he said to Alberg. “I don’t want her going in there.” Alberg nodded.

  Gillingham went through the door that led to the autopsy room. Alberg held it slightly open, watching Gillingham, and when the doctor approached, wheeling a gurney, Alberg opened the door wide to allow it to pass through. Gillingham deposited the gurney in the middle of the anteroom. He stood back and clasped his hands in front of him and stared at the inert, white-draped form.

  Alberg was conscious of the room’s thunderous silence. It swept around the three of them and the gurney, filling up every unoccupied crevice, and it was so loud that when Velma Grayson spoke, Alberg almost didn’t hear her.

  “What happens now?” she said.

  “I have to ask you to make a formal identification,” said Alberg, moving to the head of the gurney. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s necessary.” Gently, he pulled the sheet down. “Is this your son, Mrs. Grayson?”

  She moved closer to the gurney. She reached out, as if to touch Steven’s face, then drew back. Alberg saw her calmness stiffen, become brittle, and begin to crack. He stepped closer to her and glanced at Gillingham, who was looking, anguished, at the corpse. Then Velma Grayson stood back from the gurney and slowly shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “That is not my son.”

  Gillingham raised his eyes to her face, then looked quickly back at the body, and again at Velma Grayson. “Velma,” he said.

  She shook her head again. “I know my son. That’s definitely not him. That’s definitely not Steven.” She glanced at her watch. “Can I go home now?”

  Alberg looked at her for a long moment. He put an arm around her shoulders. “Mrs. Grayson. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not him.”

  “It’s a terrible, terrible thing.” He led her to a chair. “Sit down, Mrs. Grayson.” He sat next to her and put his hands over hers; she was still clutching her handbag firmly, as if she was afraid somebody would take it from her.

  “It’s not him,” she said.

  “He was a very handsome young man,” said Alberg.

  “Not him.”

  “Alex said he was a photographer.”

  She sat rigid in the chair, her feet together, looking intently at the floor.

  “You must have been very proud of him.”

  She raised her right hand to her mouth, and bit down on the knuckle of the first finger.

  “It isn’t right, is it, that he should die first,” said Alberg quietly.

  She sagged. Alberg held her close, rocking her. She let go of her handbag and clung with both hands to the sleeve of his jacket. She was gasping. There were no tears.

  Finally, she shivered, and pulled herself upright on the chair. “What happened?” she said to Alberg.

  “He fell from the top of the cliff,” said Alberg.

  Her eyes searched his face. “But what was he doing there?”

  “I thought maybe you could tell us that,” said Alberg.

  She shook her head, still staring at him.

  “He had a lot of money with him,” said Alberg.

  “Karl,” said Gillingham. “It’s very late.”

  Tears began spilling from her eyes, down her cheeks.

  “Can’t this wait?” said Gillingham.

  Velma Grayson clutched herself around the waist and began to moan.

  “Tomorrow, then,” said Alberg. “I’ll come to your house tomorrow morning.”

  Chapter 20

  ALBERG MADE HIS way along the corridors and out into the parking lot, relieved to be getting free of the hospital. He had been hospitalized three times in his life and had hated every minute of it. He was determined that when he died, it wasn’t going to happen in a hospital.

  He got into his c
ar and opened the two front windows and just sat there for a while. There were four other cars in the lot—three that probably belonged to doctors, and a battered Volkswagen Beetle, painted yellow. The VW made him recall the birth of his elder daughter. Against all odds, he had been home when Maura went into labor. They drove to the hospital about midnight, and Janey was born eight hours later, and Alberg was with his wife the whole time. It was, he privately believed, one of the more heroic acts of his life. He’d seen other women in labor, he’d even seen one other woman giving birth, but it wasn’t at all the same thing as watching Maura do it.

  Eventually, he fired up the Oldsmobile and drove away. He would stop in to see Cassandra for a minute, before going home to Diana.

  Such an ordinary-looking guy, he thought. Well-dressed, healthy, young. Apparently happy. Apparently successful. Just an everyday, normal person.

  Who climbed to the top of a cliff, carrying a hell of a lot of money, and then fell off, to die on the beach.

  Or was pushed off, to die on the beach.

  Cassandra lived just up the road from the hospital and there were lights on in her house. When he pulled into her driveway it was after one o’clock in the morning, but she heard his car, and opened the door before he had a chance to knock. She was still wearing her sailing clothes; it had been a long day for Cassandra, too, he thought: she probably hadn’t encountered a hell of a lot of dead people in her time.

  “You’re all burned,” she said.

  He put a hand to his face, which felt tight and sore. “Yeah.”

  “Come in and have a drink,” said Cassandra.

  “Coffee, I think. I’ve got to drive home.” He put his arms around her. At least they were finally going to bed together. Not tonight—but at least there was finally something real between them.

  It had started six months ago, when they went to Victoria for the weekend. Alberg hadn’t known whether to ask for two rooms or one. He’d felt like an idiot standing at the reservations desk stammering and stuttering. He’d been pretty sure they were going to sleep together, for the first time. It was pretty damn clear, after all, he told himself. But when it came right down to it he found himself unable to assume anything; he didn’t want to take anything for granted. She must have been amazed, watching his performance. But she hadn’t said anything. Not then, and not since.

  He’d gotten two rooms. And he was standing in the middle of his room smoldering, furious with himself, when there was a knock on the door. He opened it and Cassandra came in. Without a word, she reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt. He’d felt immense relief, that was his first reaction.

  Now Cassandra moved her hands up and down his back, beneath his jacket, and held him close to her. After a minute she pulled away and studied his face, which was as smooth and enigmatic as always. As soon as they’d realized something was wrong on that beach, Alberg had instantly become a cop: detached, dispassionate, concentrated.

  “How about a sandwich?” she said.

  “Cassandra, I would love a sandwich.”

  “Come into the kitchen and talk to me while I make it.”

  He peeled off his jacket and draped it over the back of the leather sofa, and followed her into the kitchen. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go back with you. Did Carrington manage the boat all right?”

  “I think so,” said Cassandra.

  “How’s the boy’s mother?” Alberg took a drink and shook his head. “Gillingham’s taking her to a friend’s house for the night.”

  Cassandra left the sandwich fixings on the counter and went close to him, frowning. She put a finger under his chin and turned his face toward the light. “That’s a bad burn.” She got a tube of ointment from the bathroom cabinet. “Put this stuff on it,” she said, and went back to making his sandwich. “I guess you have to do that a lot, don’t you? Give people bad news, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” said Alberg, slathering ointment cautiously on the tenderest parts of his face. “I wish I could spend the night,” he said wistfully.

  “I do, too.” Cassandra slapped a piece of buttered whole-wheat bread on top of ham, cheese, lettuce and plenty of mustard. She sliced the sandwich into halves and put it on a plate. “Here,” she said, setting down the plate in front of him.

  “Thanks,” he said gratefully, and began to eat.

  Cassandra poured two mugs of coffee from a pot sitting on a warmer and sat down at the kitchen table with him. “You know, Karl, Diana would probably be okay on her own. She isn’t a kid anymore.”

  “Of course she is,” he said, amazed.

  “Karl. She’s twenty-two years old.”

  “Right,” he said, and took another bite of sandwich. “Twenty-two. A kid.”

  “And how old is that Constable Carrington?”

  “That’s beside the point, Cassandra.”

  Twenty minutes later, at the door, he took her in his arms. “One of the things I like about you,” he said, “is that you’ve never asked me if I’ve ever killed anyone.”

  Cassandra pulled away, so that she could look into his face. She really was extremely fond of this man, she thought. “Well,” she said, “you’ve never asked me if I’ve ever killed anyone, either.”

  Chapter 21

  ANNABELLE AWOKE SUNDAY morning feeling restless and exalted.

  “It’s getting near the end of the month, Ma,” said Rose-Iris when Annabelle got up. She followed her mother down the hall. “Maybe you should pay the bills today.”

  Annabelle did the family finances—she was very good at it. But she had a forgetful temperament. It was Rose-Iris who kept track of things, and Rose-Iris who made sure everybody’s chores got done, too.

  Annabelle wasn’t much good at ordinary housework but she worked magic in the garden, and with the potted indoor plants, and with illnesses and injuries. She was an excellent cleaner of glass, of windows and mirrors. She would have been a good silver cleaner, too, if there had been any silver for her to clean.

  Annabelle stretched, standing on her toes, her bare feet soft and dusty on the bare boards of the living room floor. She stretched high and slow like a cat, arching her back, yawning a big yawn. She put her hands on her hips and a smile on her face, and from the look of Rose-Iris, there, she knew that Rose-Iris didn’t recall seeing that particular smile before. And Annabelle thought to herself in wonder that it seemed a very long time since last she’d smiled it. She considered it with affection, this smile she felt on her lips, and realized that she’d be smiling it a lot, now, and that maybe she’d better try not to do it in public.

  She shivered a little, and wrapped her arms around her. “I’m going up the road to Erna’s,” she told Rose-Iris. “I’ll pay the bills later.”

  “Are you going now?”

  “As soon as I’ve watered my garden.”

  “When will you be home?”

  “Oh,” said Annabelle vaguely, “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll stay there for lunch.” She gave Rose-Iris a smile that was reassuringly mother-like and said, “Would you do my hair in a French braid?” She stroked the cheek of her oldest child, who was a dreamy, worried little thing. “Please?” said Annabelle.

  She sat on a chair in the kitchen, cuddling Camellia, while Rose-Iris brushed out her hair, long and thick and tawny-colored.

  Annabelle’s skin where the sun had gotten to it was the color of coffee with lots of milk in it. She had a high, high forehead, and eyes like amber. She liked to stand in front of her mirror, twisting from side to side, frowning at herself and saying she was fat. She didn’t mean by this that her plump breasts were too big, and she didn’t mean that her ample hips were too broad; she was referring only to the extra flesh around her waist. And when she stood straight and held in her stomach, like a person was supposed to, it pretty well disappeared. There was an abundance of Annabelle; but there was not too much of her. That, at any rate, was Annabelle’s opinion.

  She cradled Camellia and hummed a tune that neither of her daughters could recognize because An
nabelle could not hum or sing or whistle in key. Rose-Iris brushed out her hair, and carefully braided it.

  “You should tie a ribbon on the end of your braid,” said Camellia. Annabelle’s youngest child was staunch and reliable, and although she complained about it a lot, she did her fair share of the housework. When she was released, she would spring out the door and head for the woods with the dog belonging to Erna Remple, Annabelle’s friend who raised chickens at the top of the road. The dog was a mangy-looking thing. He vaguely resembled a collie. He was always out there waiting for Camellia, but always at a safe distance from the house, since the day Herman had seen him and yelled and thrown rocks until the dog loped away: Herman didn’t want any damn dog near his cages.

  “Or I could braid a ribbon right into it,” said Rose-Iris, “right down the whole length of it.”

  “Next time,” said Annabelle, giving Camellia a hug. She stood up and hugged Rose-Iris, too. “Thank you, sweetie,” she said. “I’m going to make you French toast, now.”

  Camellia grinned at Rose-Iris. The two girls habitually got up early, and Rose-Iris made breakfast for Herman and Arnold and Camellia and herself, before Herman, who almost never took a day off, left to work on his carpentry jobs, taking Arnold along as a helper; Annabelle, in the summer, was a person who slept in.

  “We’ve already had our breakfast, Ma,” said Rose-Iris.

  “You can have another, then,” said Annabelle, swooping and swirling in the kitchen, snatching eggs and milk from the refrigerator, seizing a frying pan from the cupboard.

  Rose-Iris sighed and sat down at the table with her chin in her hands, revising the day’s schedule in her head.

  Annabelle made two pieces of French toast for each of her daughters and poured them big glasses of milk. She sat at the table and watched them eat, smiling, sipping coffee; a nurturer. And when they’d finished, she even did the dishes.

  She left the house an hour later. Rose-Iris was singing to herself as she washed the kitchen floor, and Camellia, energetically scouring the bathtub, considered letting her hair grow, so that she could wear it in a French braid.