The Suspect - L R Wright by L. R. Wright Page A

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, as soon as he'd
done the deed, that would have been different; that would have been
all right.
    The point is, though, he told himself, you killed
somebody, and you can't remain unpunished.
    He sat very still, thinking about it. It was
perfectly true. But it wasn't all there was to say about the
situation. It wasn't as though he was a danger to anybody, sitting
here free. He probably wouldn't live long enough to get to trial
anyway, the way they dragged those things out.
    Yet he knew he was rationalizing. The plain truth was
that he didn't want to make a public spectacle of himself, and he
didn't want to go to jail. They'd catch him eventually; that
pale-haired Mountie would catch him for sure, somehow. There was no
need to force upon himself today something that was going to happen
anyway, in the impartial fullness of time. And he knew already that
he didn't need the R.C.M.R, or the Canadian justice system, to ensure
his punishment. George put down his coffee mug and rubbed his head.
His arm felt heavy as iron.
    He deeply regretted having committed murder. He
didn't believe in it, and he never would have believed himself
capable of it. But it didn't surprise him that Carlyle had been
murdered. Carlyle had deserved it. He straightened a little in his
chair and looked calmly out through the window at his garden. It was
true. Carlyle had deserved it.
    He got up, and went back outside, and looked this
time at the flowers that grew in the bed against his house. He'd put
out his bedding plants more than three months ago, as if
subconsciously predicting the unusual warmth and dryness of the
spring. He had accepted the weather with pleasure and equanimity.
Perhaps it was his last summer; perhaps it was nature's final gift to
him. Except that he didn't deserve any gifts from nature. Not now.
    It occurred to him, however, as he bent over his
marigolds, that a vengeful God might well give him a present for
getting rid of Carlyle.
    George had to brace himself against the side of the
house for a minute, to catch his breath and let some dizziness pass.
And he closed his eyes, then, and thought of Audrey. A great surge of
relief swept through him that he could still remember her, holding an
armful of deep purple lilacs and laughing her pleasure. She had been
the real gardener in the family. It was only after her death that he
took it up, grimly at first, in deliberate homage and apology to her,
then gradually finding in it his own personal joy.
    He remembered toiling in the vegetable garden in
California, after she died. He had dug up far too much of the lawn.
It was a gigantic garden. And of course he'd had no idea how quickly
things grew down there. Myra would come out to him, bringing him iced
tea or lemonade, never scolding him although she worried. She would
wipe his dripping forehead with a cloth carried from the kitchen and
put her arm around his shoulders and kiss him.
    He shivered, leaning against his house, as the sea
breeze stroked the side of his face, and he thought how lucky he had
been to have had Audrey in his life, and then Myra, who had never
resented his devotion to his sister, even though he knew she had
never quite understood it.
    George opened his eyes and shoved himself away from
the house. Marigolds smoldered at his feet, and sweet peas draped
themselves along his fence, and the rosebushes along the fence on the
other side of the yard were laden with blooms. The only blight upon
his entire life had been Carlyle. It I may have been a desperate,
bloody, brutal, and uncivilized thing to do, but at least he'd done
something, finally, about Carlyle. He decided he would row out into
the bay and dump the shell casings overboard. He would have to use
Carlyle's boat, since he had none of his own and didn't want to call
attention to himself by renting one; it was