Fall from Grace Read Online Free Page A

second day, and people weren’t wasting it on their lawns, which were rapidly becoming brown.
    Roses thrived in the heat. So did marigolds. All sorts of flowers thrived in it. Some people did, too.
    That summer was an aberration. Impatiens, fuchsia, begonias both fibrous and tuberous—all were wilted, weakened, disabled by the relentless heat of the astonishingly tropical sun.
    Some people were, too.

    On a Monday in early July, Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg pulled his white Oldsmobile into the fenced lot behind the Sechelt Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment. He left the windows open when he climbed out of the car. He moved slowly and cautiously, but the heat pounced on him anyway, and swept over his body in a suffocating wave. As he plodded across the gravel and around to the front of the building he felt like he was wearing entirely too many clothes. A pair of pants, a shirt, underwear, socks and shoes: it didn’t sound like much. The pants were made of cotton. The saleswoman had told him they’d be cool because cotton was a fabric that breathed. Alberg had never conceived of clothes as breathing.
    The pants might be cool but they wrinkled awfully fast. The shirt was cotton, too; everything he had on today was breathing. If he listened carefully he could probably hear it. The shirt he wore had long sleeves. Alberg hated short-sleeved shirts, except for T-shirts. There was something unseemly about the way the sleeves flapped around. He didn’t mind T-shirts because their sleeves gripped his biceps firmly. But T-shirts weren’t appropriate for work, he felt. So he wore long-sleeved shirts to work, and rolled up the cuffs a couple of times, casually.
    Isabella had found a fan somewhere, the kind that rotates, and Alberg got a whoosh of cool air in his face as he opened the door. The fan sat on the counter in front of Isabella’s desk.
    â€œGood morning to you,” she sang.
    Isabella Harbud, the detachment’s middle-aged receptionist and secretary, was the only person Alberg knew who was actually relishing the weather. For once she was coming to work wearing only one layer of clothing. Her mane of graying auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her face glowed with goodwill.
    â€œLookee here,” she said, pointing to a bunch of flowers on the end of the counter.
    â€œVery nice,” said Alberg. “Are they from your garden?” He hoped it wasn’t her intention to try to put them in his office. Isabella frequently thought of things to do for him that he didn’t want done.
    â€œThey’re from Mavis Furley,” said Isabella.
    Alberg looked at the flowers for edification.
    â€œShe got her car stolen,” said Isabella. “Remember? We found it for her. Corporal Sanducci found it. Abandoned on a logging road. None the worse for wear. Remember?”
    â€œI remember,” said Alberg.
    â€œThis bouquet,” said Isabella, “is an expression of her gratitude.” She waited. “My lord,” she cried, exasperated, “hasn’t anybody ever given you flowers before?”
    Alberg stared at the flowers. He noticed a card, and took his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket. He put on the glasses and read the message on the card. Nodding to himself, he put the card back. “Very nice,” he said, and leaned close to the flowers so he could sniff their fragrance. “Very nice.” He put his glasses away, gave the counter a brisk slap, and ambled down the hall, smiling at nothing.
    The smile faded when he opened the door to his office. It was stifling in there, and upon his desk sat a pile of personnel forms that he’d managed to put out of his mind overnight.
    He pulled up the venetian blinds and shoved the window open as wide as it would go. He left his office door open and sat behind his desk, staring gloomily at the paperwork that awaited him.
    After a while he called Cassandra Mitchell and they arranged to meet