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

this room much,” said George
Wilcox. "Come on into the kitchen.” He waved Alberg on toward
the back of the house.
    The kitchen was a bright, sunny square, painted
yellow. A worn leather chair sat at an angle to the large window,
which looked out upon a small garden and the sea. Next to the chair
stood an old-fashioned tobacco cabinet. There was a footstool in
front of the chair, piled with magazines and a section of newspaper
folded to the crossword puzzle. A TV tray stood nearby. There was no
table in the kitchen. The yellow walls were grimy with accumulated
dust and splotched with grease near the four-burner electric stove.
    " You might as well see the rest of the place,
now you're here," said George. He opened a door and Alberg
followed him into a small beige-carpeted room. Two walls were lined
with bookcases, a desk and chair sat by the window, several
comfortable chairs were scattered around, and there was a fireplace.
    " This is where you live,” said Alberg.
    " Here and in the kitchen.” George went through
a doorway in the corner of the room, into a short hall. "Here's
the bathroom," he said, waving to the right, "and straight
on here is the bedroom."
    Alberg stood in the doorway and looked around. Small
windows again, almost as though the room were in a basement. A large
four-poster bed, two dressers, a half-open closet door. On one of the
dressers was a framed photograph of a woman. It was angled slightly
away from him, and Alberg couldn't see it clearly.
    "That's it,” said George, reaching in front of
Alberg to close the door. "The grand tour." He went back
down the hall and through another doorway which led into the living
room, then turned left back into the kitchen. "Fellow who built
this place," he said, "was awfully fond of doors. I took
some of them down, you probably noticed. Doorways is one thing, doors
is another. Take up too much room. Sit down there, by the window.
I'll make some coffee. Eight of them, there were, when we bought this
place. Not counting the outside ones, or closets. Eight doors, in a
house this size."
    He filled a percolator with water, poured coffee into
the basket, and set the pot on the stove. Then he went into the study
and hauled out the desk chair. Alberg, standing by the window, made a
move to help. "Sit down, sit down,” said George Wilcox. "No,
not here—in the leather chair, there. Sit.” I
    Alberg sat. George took the straight-backed chair.
    "Now,” said George. "What questions?"
    He was alert and unruffled. Alberg glanced wistfully
at his thick white hair. He himself was sure to be bald, eventually.
All the men in his family had gone bald. He checked once or twice a
week, and his hairline had already begun to recede. It had started
about twenty years ago.
    "What do you know about Carlyle Burke?" he
said.
    George Wilcox sighed. "What's this in aid of,
anyway? I can't figure it."
    " When you're trying to find out who killed
somebody, you've got to poke around in his life a bit.”
    "Is that so?” said George. "Is that the
way it's done, then." He rubbed one scuffed slipper against the
linoleum. "Got any suspects?"
    Alberg hesitated. "Not really. Not yet."
    " You're pretty damn calm about it," said
George? "If I were a cop, and I had me a murdered body and no
suspects, I don't think I'd be so damn calm about it."
    "I'm not calm,” said Alberg. "I just look
calm. Actually I'm irritated. And extremely curious."
    " Curious." George chortled. "I'm
curious, too." He leaned forward. "I supposed you've looked
at the obvious. You know, milkman, postman, paperboy—that kind of
thing. And of course the most obvious thing of all, your basic
hoodlum, possibly drug-crazed." He sat back, complacent.
    "Yes, Mr. Wilcox," said Alberg. "We've
looked at the obvious."
    "How?” said George. The water in the coffeepot
began to burp. He got up and turned down the burner.
    He had wide, strong shoulders, Alberg noticed.
Probably all that gardening. His own shoulders were still stiff