Lethal

Chapter 7

Honor retrieved the sealed rubber box from under her bed.

Coburn replaced the mattress, then, without ceremony, dumped the contents of the storage box onto her snowy white comforter and began pawing through Eddie’s personal effects.

First to attract his attention were Eddie’s diplomas from high school, LSU, and the police academy. He removed the first from its leather folder and searched the folder itself. But when he ripped away the moire lining, Honor protested, “There’s no need to do that!”

“I think there is.”

“I’m saving those documents for Emily.”

“I’m not doing anything to the documents.”

“Nothing’s hidden behind the lining.”

“Not in this one.” He tossed the first aside and reached for another, subjecting it to the same vandalism. When he was done with them, he examined Eddie’s wristwatch.

“Pretty tricked-out watch.”

“I gave it to him for Christmas.”

“Where’d you buy it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“A local store?”

“I ordered it online. It’s a knockoff of a fancy one.”

“How much did it cost?”

“Around three hundred dollars.”

“Not thousands?”

“Do you want to see the receipt?”

“No, but you’ve contradicted yourself. You said you didn’t use the computer for personal business.”

Wearily she sighed. “I’ve ordered things.”

“Did Eddie?”

“I never knew him to.”

He held her stare, then let it go and moved on to Eddie’s death certificate. “Broken neck?”

“He died instantly. Or so I was told.”

She hoped he’d died immediately and hadn’t suffered. The medical examiner had told Stan and her that even if he had survived the neck injury, he probably would have died of his extensive internal injuries before reaching the hospital.

After perusing the death certificate, Coburn thumbed through the guest book for the funeral service.

“Whatever you’re looking for isn’t in there.” It was breaking her heart to see items that were precious only to her handled by a man with blood on his hands, literally and figuratively.

She was especially incensed when he picked up Eddie’s wedding ring. It had been on Eddie’s finger from the day they’d stood at the altar and exchanged their vows until she’d been called to the morgue to identify his body.

Holding the ring close, Coburn read the inscription inside. “Ah. What’s this?”

“Our wedding date and initials.”

He read the engraving again, then bounced the ring in his palm as he regarded it thoughtfully. Finally he looked up at her and, after a moment, extended his hand. She held out hers. He dropped the ring into her palm and her fingers closed around it.

“Thank you.”

“I don’t need it anymore. I memorized the engraving.”

He went through Eddie’s wallet several times, then actually turned the leather inside out. It produced nothing except expired credit cards, Eddie’s driver’s license—he examined the laminate to make sure it was sealed all the way around—and Social Security card. There were pictures of her and Emily that had been trimmed to fit the clear plastic sleeves.

He picked up the empty key ring and dangled it in front of her face. “A key ring without keys?”

“I took off the house key and hid it outside in case I ever lock us out. The keys to the squad car and Eddie’s locker were returned to the police department.”

“Do you have a safe deposit box?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“If it guaranteed Emily’s safety, I’d drive you to the bank. But I don’t have a safe deposit box.”

He continued to examine and question her about each article arrayed on her comforter, which he’d soiled with his muddy clothes. But it was an exercise in futility as she’d known it would be. “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Coburn. Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here.”

“It’s here. I just haven’t found it yet. And you can drop the ‘mister.’ Just plain Coburn will do.”

He came off the bed, planted his hands on his hips, and made a tight circle as he looked around the room. She had hoped he would quickly find whatever it was he was after, then leave without harming either Emily or her. But the fruitlessness of his search was beginning to frustrate him, and that didn’t bode well. She feared that she and Emily would become the scapegoats for his mounting frustration.

“Bank statements, tax records. Where’s all that?”

Afraid not to cooperate, she pointed overhead. “Storage boxes in the attic.”

“Where’s the access?”

“In the hall.”

He dragged her along behind him as he left the bedroom. Reaching high above his head for the slender rope, he pulled down the trapdoor, then unfolded the sectioned ladder and motioned to her. “Up you go.”

“Me?”

“I’m not leaving you down here alone with your daughter.”

“I’m not going to run away.”

“That’s right. I’m going to see that you don’t.”

To protest his logic would be futile, so she started up the ladder, acutely aware of her exposed legs and the view he was getting of her backside. She climbed as quickly as possible and was actually glad to be stepping up into the attic, when it had always been a place she would rather avoid. She associated attics with cobwebs and rodents. And attics were sad places, dark depositories where the cast-off articles of one’s life were sent to molder.

She yanked the string on the bare bulb in the ceiling. The file storage boxes were right where she knew they would be. She picked up the first one by the open slots in its sides. Coburn waited in the narrow opening to take it from her and carry it down. They repeated the procedure until all had been removed from the attic.

“This is pointless,” she said as she dusted her hands and reached for the string to turn off the light.

“Wait a minute. What about those?” He’d poked his head up through the opening and had taken a look around, spying the boxes that Honor had hoped would escape his notice. They were standard packing boxes sealed with tape. “What’s in those?”

“Christmas decorations.”

“Ho-ho-ho.”

“There’s nothing in them that you’ve asked to see.”

“Hand them down.”

She didn’t immediately obey. Looking down at him, she wondered if she could jam her foot into his face hard enough to break his nose. Possibly. But if she missed, he might trap her up here in the attic, leaving him alone with Emily. As galling as it was to take the coward’s way, Emily’s safety demanded it.

One by one, she handed the other three boxes down to him.

By the time she had descended the ladder and raised the trapdoor back flush with the ceiling, he was stripping the sealing tape off one of the boxes. When he pulled back the flaps, it wasn’t tinsel that blossomed out, but a man’s shirt.

He looked up at her, the obvious question in his eyes.

She remained stubbornly silent.

Finally he said, “He’s been dead how long?”

His implication smarted because she’d asked herself many times how long she was going to keep perfectly good clothing boxed in her attic when needy people could use it.

“I gave away most of his clothes,” she said defensively. “Stan asked if he could have Eddie’s police uniforms, and I let him keep those. Some things I just couldn’t…”

She left the statement unfinished, refusing to explain to a criminal that some articles of Eddie’s clothing brought back distinctively happy memories. Giving away those items would be tantamount to letting go of the memories themselves. As it was, they were inexorably dimming without any help from her.

Time marched on, and recollections, no matter how dear, faded with its passage. She could now spend an entire day, or even several, without thinking about Eddie within the context of a specific memory.

His death had left a hole in her life that had seemed bottomless. Gradually that void had been filled with the busyness of rearing a child, with the busyness of life itself, until, over time, she had learned how to enjoy life without him.

But the enjoyment of living came with a large dose of guilt. She couldn’t escape feeling that even the smallest grain of happiness was a monumental betrayal. How dare she relish anything ever again, when Eddie was dead and buried?

So she had saved articles of his clothing that held special memories for her, and by keeping them, kept her survivor’s guilt at bay.

But she wasn’t about to discuss any of this psychology with Coburn. She was spared from having to say anything when Emily appeared.

“Dora’s over and so’s Barney, and I’m hungry. Can we have lunch?”

The kid’s question reminded Coburn that he hadn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours except the two rich cupcakes. A search through the boxes from the attic would take time. He would eat before tackling them. He motioned the widow into the kitchen.

After clearing the cupcakes and bowl of frosting off the table, she fixed the kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He asked for one for himself and watched as she made it, afraid she might slip something into his. Ground-up sleeping pills, rat poison. He was short on trust.

“You gotta wash your hands this time.” The kid placed a step stool with her name painted on it in front of the kitchen sink. She climbed onto it. Even standing on tiptoe, she was barely able to reach the taps, but somehow she managed to turn them on. “You can use my Elmo soap.”

She picked up a plastic bottle with a bug-eyed red character grinning from the label. She squirted some liquid soap into her palm, then handed the bottle to him. He glanced at Honor and saw that she was watching them with apprehension. He figured that as long as she was nervous about his being close to the kid, she wasn’t going to try anything stupid.

He and the kid washed their hands, then held them beneath the faucet to rinse.

She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “Do you have an Elmo?”

He shook the water off his hands and took the towel she passed him. “No, I don’t have a… an Elmo.”

“Who do you sleep with?”

Involuntarily, his gaze darted to Honor and made a connection that was almost audible, like the clack of two magnets. “Nobody.”

“You don’t sleep with a friend?”

“Not lately.”

“How come?”

“Just don’t.”

“Where’s your bed? Does your mommy read you stories before you go to sleep?”

He dragged his attention off Honor and back to the kid. “Stories? No, my mom, she’s… gone.”

“So’s my daddy. He lives in heaven.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe he knows your mommy in heaven!”

Coburn snorted a laugh. “I doubt it.”

“Are you scared of the dark?”

“Emily,” Honor interrupted. “Stop asking so many questions. It’s rude. Come sit down and have your lunch.”

They gathered around the table. The widow looked ready to jump out of her skin if he so much as said boo. She didn’t eat. Truth be told, he was as discomfited by this domestic scene as she was. Since being a kid, he’d never talked to one. It was weird, carrying on a conversation with such a little person.

He scarfed the sandwich, then took an apple from the basket of fruit on the table. The kid dawdled over her food.

“Emily, you said you were hungry,” her mother admonished. “Eat your lunch.”

But he was a distraction. The kid never took her eyes off him. She studied everything he did. When he took the first crunching bite of the apple, she said, “I don’t like the peel.”

He shrugged and said through a mouthful, “I don’t mind it.”

“I don’t like green apples, either. Only red.”

“Green’s okay.”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“My grandpa can peel an apple from the top to the bottom without it breaking. He says he likes to make a long curl of the peel, just like my hair. And guess what else.”

“What?”

“Mommy can’t do it because she’s a girl, and Grandpa says boys do it best. And Mommy doesn’t have a special magic knife like Grandpa’s.”

“You don’t say.” He glanced across at Honor, who’d rolled her lips inward. “What kind of special magic knife does your grandpa have?”

“Big. He carries it in a belt around his ankle, but I can’t ever touch it ’cause it’s sharp and I could get hurt.”

“Huh.”

Honor scraped back her chair and shot to her feet. “Time for your nap, Em.”

Her face puckered into a frown of rebellion. “I’m not sleepy.”

“It’s rest time. Come on.”

Honor’s voice brooked no argument. The child’s expression was still mutinous, but she climbed down from her chair and headed out of the kitchen. Coburn left the remainder of the apple on his plate and followed them.

In the frilly pink bedroom, the kid got up onto the bed and extended her feet over the edge of it. Her mother removed her sandals and set them on the floor, then said, “Down you go. Sleepy time.”

The little girl laid her head on the pillow and reached for a cotton quilt so faded and frayed that it looked out of place in the room. She tucked it beneath her chin. “Would you hand me my Elmo, please?” She addressed this request to Coburn.

He followed the direction of her gaze and saw a red stuffed toy lying on the floor near his mud-caked boot. He recognized the grinning face from the bottle of hand soap. He bent down and picked it up. The thing began to sing, startling him. He quickly handed it to the kid.

“Thank you.” She cradled it against her chest and sighed happily.

It occurred to Coburn that he didn’t recall a time in his life when he’d experienced that kind of contentment. He wondered what it was like to fall asleep without having to worry over whether or not you’d wake up.

Honor bent down and kissed her child’s forehead. The kid’s eyes were already closed. He noticed that her eyelids looked almost transparent. They had tiny purple veins crisscrossing them. He’d never noticed anyone’s eyelids before, unless it was seconds before they drew a gun on him. Then that person usually had died with that telltale squint intact.

As they left the bedroom, the toy was still singing a silly little song about friends. Honor pulled the door shut behind them. He glanced at the boxes lined up along the wall, then took her cell phone from his jeans pocket and handed it to her. She looked at him curiously.

“Call your father-in-law. You know, the one who works at staying fit. The one with the big magic knife strapped to his ankle. Tell him the party’s off.”