A Chill Rain in January Read Free Page A

“When you get angry go away where nobody can see you and hit things that won’t break. And if your angriness still won’t go away, figure out a way to get back at the person you’re angry with so that nobody knows you did anything to her. Or him.”
    She made up an outside Zoe who was able to live by these rules. This was Zoe Number Two.
    Zoe Number One lived safe inside her head, and came out only when she was alone, and spoke aloud only in the scribblers.

Chapter 5
    â€œT HERE’S a car parked out by the Strachan woman’s place,” said Sandy McAllister, tossing the day’s mail on the counter. He was a small, wiry man of about forty who wore the postal worker’s summer uniform of shorts and knee socks all year round. Today he had also donned the winter cape, hooded and waterproof.
    â€œSo what?” said Isabella Harbud from her desk.
    â€œTook her some mail today.” He leaned over the counter, to watch Isabella type.
    â€œThat’s your job, isn’t it?”
    â€œYou’re sure fast on that thing,” he said admiringly, scratching the back of his calf with the front of his other foot. “She’s one of the few people in town, most days they don’t get any. Makes you wonder.”
    â€œYou ought to mind your own business, Mr. Sandy McAllister, that’s what you ought to do.” She whipped the paper from her typewriter and scrutinized it critically.
    â€œNice car it is, too. Not many people visit that one, I’ll tell you,” said Sandy, hoisting the mailbag farther onto his shoulder.
    â€œYou stop your gossip and get on about your business,” said Isabella. She slapped the letter on top of a pile of completed correspondence and cranked another sheet of paper into the typewriter.
    Sandy shrugged, hurt. “I’m just trying to make conversation. You got time for a coffee?”
    Isabella shot him a disapproving look. “Of course I don’t. What would my hubby think, if I were to go off for a coffee with the likes of you?”
    â€œHoo hoo hoo, he’d be plenty worried, all right.” He gave her a wink and headed for the door.
    A small, furtive-looking woman darted into the reception area from the hall. She shook her head vigorously at Isabella and rushed outside, one step ahead of the mailman. Isabella looked after her and sighed. She glanced doubtfully over the counter at the woman who sat in the waiting area. “You’re next,” she said, getting to her feet.

    Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg of the Sechelt detachment, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, studied a list that lay upon the desk in front of him. He picked up a pencil and laboriously stroked through the first name that appeared on it. “Come,” he said when Isabella knocked on the door. She ushered the candidate in without looking at Alberg, and left quickly.
    Alberg stared at the woman who had planted herself firmly in the middle of his office. She stood five feet one inch tall, weighed over two hundred pounds, and had very little hair.
    â€œSo,” he said finally, glancing down at his list. “Mrs.—Stratidakis, is it?”
    â€œIt’s a good Greek name.”
    â€œGreek, yes, that’s what I thought it was. Tell me about yourself, Mrs. Stratidakis.”
    â€œI brought up eight kids, looked after all their wants, and my man’s, too.” Her small black eyes darted uneasily around the office. “I’ve never been in a police station before in my life. I’m a decent woman.”
    â€œDo you do any cooking? Or just cleaning?”
    â€œI do it for none, now, but my man and me. And I would do no cooking, no, sir.” Alberg noticed that the small amount of hair she possessed clung to her scalp in sparse outcroppings that looked rather like feathers. “And I would charge you considerable,” she said darkly, “for coming in here every day, to this police