The Suspect by L. R. Wright

back into the bedroom and got dressed. His fingers were numb as he worked buttons into buttonholes and pulled up the zipper in his pants and thrust his feet into socks and slippers; he didn't want to fumble helplessly with the laces in his shoes.
    He went straight outside to his garden and sat in his canvas chair.
    It would be nice to have a greenhouse again, he thought, but there was no room for one, not even a small one. Maybe he should sell this house and get another one, smaller inside but with a bigger yard, away from the sea. His proximity to the sea limited what he could grow in his garden. And it was almost blinding sometimes, the sunlight on blue rippled water.
    He would miss the sounds the ocean made, though, and the smell of it, and the things it left on his beach: nice pieces of wood and interesting shells.
    A four-foot-high stone wall protected his garden from the strong breezes that sometimes blew in from the water. George got up to inspect the things that grew behind the wall. The peas were five feet tall and covered with swelling pods, their stalks twining around thick white cord strung tepee fashion from the top of a long pole. The beans were up high, too, and his single zucchini was thriving. His vegetable garden was much smaller than last year's. There was no point in growing a lot of stuff he'd never eat. And it was hard to give vegetables away. Almost everyone had a garden. He could keep up with the zucchini, though; he'd eat it every day and be sorry when it was gone. He liked peas, too. The beans he grew only because they had been Myra's favorite.
    He looked out to sea, bewildered. He seemed to recall having talked to that Mountie about his garden. He seemed to recall telling him he had broccoli in his garden. He was astounded at himself; he hated broccoli. Why on earth had he told such a stupid lie?
    George brushed his hand over his thick white hair and realized that he hadn't even combed it, yet, or brushed his teeth, either, or even gone to the bathroom, though his bladder had been full from the minute he'd awakened. He went slowly into the house to take care of these things. Later, he sat in his leather chair sipping coffee and trying to get his mind working right. It's that damn pill, he thought; it's made me logy.
    He had to get rid of the shell casings. They were shriveling up the whole house, sitting there. Which one of them had he hit Carlyle with? he wondered. He tried to remember bringing them home and putting them up there but he couldn't quite do it, couldn't quite remember. He knew he'd done it; put them in a paper bag he'd found in Carlyle's kitchen and lugged them home and set them up on the windowsill. He could see himself doing it. But he couldn't remember what it had felt like, or what he had thought while he did it.
    He drank his coffee and tried to take stock. He had struck Carlyle on the head, and Carlyle had died. Then Carlyle was buried. Then the policeman came and told him that Carlyle had left him all his belongings—and some money too, he thought, but he wasn't sure.
    George felt cold sweat under his arms. He must have been in shock. Doing a thing like that—it would be enough to put anybody in a state of shock. But for four days?
    What he ought to do was get up right now and find the telephone and call that Mountie and confess to his crime. That was the right and proper thing to do.
    He looked out the window and blinked at the sunlight and didn't move. How would he explain keeping his mouth shut for four whole days? The man's going to think I'm a nutter, he thought. But that wasn't what bothered him, not really, not if he was going to be absolutely honest with himself. What bothered him was the humiliation he would feel, capitulating to a remorse which he still didn't fully accept, four days after the fact.
    He tried to work out what he'd say. "I'm your man, Staff Sergeant. Can't stand the guilt any longer ” Lord, there was no dignity in that. It he'd confessed promptly,