The Suspect Read Free Page B

matter with you?" But Carlyle didn't stir.
    (He told himself he was carrying this much too far. Did he think there were Mounties hidden behind the door, for Christ's sake? But he wasn't acting at all, any more.)
    "Carlyle," he said again, angry. "What are you doing down there? Get up, man, for God's sake." He shuffled toward him and got close enough to see the open empty eyes and the dark red puddle on the rug in which Carlyle's head was resting.
    "Oh, Christ, he's dead; the man's dead, all right," said George. There was some relief in this. At least he wouldn't be called upon to try to administer first aid, about which he knew virtually nothing.
    (He was appalled at himself; on whom was he practicing these inane deceptions?)
    He stumbled backward into the hall, turned, and blundered toward the kitchen, his hands trying to grip the wall. He grabbed the telephone and attempted to dial, but he couldn't get his fingers to work. He put down the receiver and clung to the sink, looking out the kitchen window at the lawn that swept gently up to the laurel hedge. He took several deep breaths, then dialed again. He couldn't remember the emergency number so he dialed the operator. She didn't seem to mind and connected him quickly with the police.
    "My name is George Wilcox," he said. "I live about a mile south of Sechelt. I came here to see—he's eighty-five—he's dead. On 'his floor, dead.”
    "Who's dead, Mr. Wilcox?"
    "Carlyle. He lives halfway along the road between my house and the village. Burke, his name is. Was. Behind a laurel hedge." His teeth were chattering. He had to get outside and stand in the sun.
    "Are you sure he's dead, Mr. Wilcox? Do you want an ambulance?”
    "What? What? His head's bashed in, man, am I sure he's dead? This is no natural causes you've got here, somebody's bashed the man's head in!"
    They took some information and asked him to wait there, and he did. But he couldn't go back into the living room and sit around near the body. He went outside, but the front yard was partly in shade now and his teeth were still clattering in his mouth.
    When the police arrived about ten minutes later, two of them, they found him in Carlyle's small back yard, hunched over on a bench, his hands between his knees, looking out at the sea.
    "It was too cold in there," he said when he saw them. One of them sat down next to him. "We're going to have a few questions, Mr. Wilcox," he said, quite gently. "If you don't mind.”
    "Don't mind at all," said George. "Not a bit."
 
    CHAPTER 4
    Karl Alberg was attacking his back yard with a pair of hedge clippers. All pretensions to cultivation, to horticulture, had been abandoned. It had come down to simple assault, of the armed variety.
    He hadn't intended this. He had bought a book, just the day before, determined to do it right. He had rejected several he'd seen in the Sechelt bookstore; they had titles like The Art of Pruning and Pruning for Bigger and Better Blooms . Then, on a rack in a Gibsons grocery store, he saw exactly what he needed. It had lots of photographs and explanatory drawings, it was written in simple language, and it was bracketed by All About Meatloaf and How to Knit . Alberg took heart from this. He himself made an excellent meatloaf and had been taught how to knit when he was eight, by his taciturn grandfather, an Ontario farmer. So he bought the book, which was called All About Pruning . Last night he'd sat in his living room with his feet up, a glass of scotch at his elbow, and studied. He went to bed confident that by the end of the next day, which he had off this week, his yard would be tamed.
    He should have known better. It was amazing how naive a forty-four-year-old man could be.
    Poking among the rose canes in search of "outward-facing nodes," he managed only to get his hands and face and arms seared with scratches.
    Peering into the massive hydrangea bushes looking for the "main branches," he only succeeded in making the bees angry. Climbing