The Suspect by L. R. Wright Page B

do it that night, and the next night was Sunday, which although he was not religious was still not appropriate. He would do it on Monday. Yet he couldn't stand the thought of those shell casings sitting in his house one more second. He might be unrepentant about his act, but he wasn't proud of it, and he didn't want to be reminded of it every time he went through his own living room. He went inside to fetch them. He would bury them in his garden until Monday night. It wouldn't hurt the zucchini to be uprooted for a while. Not if he made sure to water it as soon as he planted it again.
    But when he got into his kitchen, his life in its entirety was waiting for him, and it toppled upon him—he put up his hands to ward it off, and stumbled to his leather chair to hide and huddle there, but it swept implacably upon him, his entire life. It was a lie, of course, that Carlyle was the only blight upon it; a lie that Carlyle was his only guilt. With his face in his hands he sat, rocking himself back and forth under the pain that stretched back over so many years. All his attempts to make things right had failed; worse, they had brought death, and more death, and finally this death, Carlyle's, and all that was left for him now was his own.
    George sat for a long time. When he finally lifted his head, his face was dry again.
    Had he misjudged his duty, throughout his life? Or had he simply been unequal to it?
    It was midafternoon when he finally dragged himself from his chair and went to get the shell casings.
 
    CHAPTER 13
    "We should question the bird," said Freddie Gainer that same morning as he peered into the cage. "Parrots talk. Could be he saw something.”
    "Good idea,” said Sokolowski. "Go ahead, Freddie. You want to take him into an interview room, or what?"
    "He didn't see anything,” said Isabella, over the clackety-clack of her typewriter. She worked Saturday mornings and took Wednesday afternoons off. She said it suited her. She took karate lessons in Gibsons on Wednesday afternoons. "How do you know?" said Freddie.
    "He'd be upset. Disturbed. Something. He's a feeling creature.”
    The parrot sat silently on his perch. Alberg was over at the duty corporal's counter, getting the name and address of the man who'd said he'd seen George Wilcox enter Burke's front yard at twelve thirty. He glanced at the bird uneasily.; He didn't like the way it cocked its head at him, staring at him through eyes like tiny black marbles.
    "Does it ever say anything interesting?" said Gainer.
    "I think it's very interesting that he says anything at all,” said Isabella. She whipped a sheet of paper from her machine and inserted a clean one. "But I admit, his vocabulary is limited.”
    The parrot gave a sudden squawk. It was a loud, shrill sound. '
    "There,” said Isabella proudly.
    "There what?" said Sokolowski. "What did it say?”
    "He said 'Tom.' I think that must be his name.”
    "Sid," said Alberg. "It you can drag yourself away from that damn bird for a minute .... " He went down the hall to his office.
    The parrot was Isabella's latest self-assumed responsibility. When Gainer had delivered it to the detachment office Tuesday afternoon, Isabella had snatched the cage from his hand and plunked it on her desk. She then picked up her purse and hurried off to the pet supply store, where she had a conference with the owner and purchased from him sufficient quantities of food and vitamin supplements to last several weeks.
    Next, in Alberg's-absence, she whisked away his coffee table and spread upon it a white cloth she had picked up from her house. She put the table next to her desk, and the cage on the white cloth.
    Alberg retrieved his coffee table that evening, leaving the cage on the floor. The parrot shrieked when he did this, even though the cage was covered.
    Sometime Wednesday morning he ventured out into Isabella's domain and saw that the cage was now sitting upon Sokolowki's table. The sergeant kept his table against the wall