Lethal(14)

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.