by AR Simmons
Jill tried to make her delayed laugh believable. The sudden question brought home the current state of their sex life. Jill shook off the thought by insisting to herself that it was only a temporary thing, which they would overcome. Sometimes things were quite normal in that regard. Not often enough, but sometimes.
“Not yet,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so.”
Marta picked up on the tone of her reply. “Something is wrong?” she asked.
Jill recovered quickly, but Marta was nothing if not intuitive.
“I haven’t told Richard about the application yet. You know how he is. I’m afraid he’ll take it the wrong way when he discovers that I am not continuing with the doctorate just now.”
“He will think you have no confidence in his ability to support the family,” said Marta with certainty. “Yes. That is the way a good man thinks. But women know what is best sometimes, no? How will you tell him?”
“I must convince him that it is what I want to do. I’m just afraid he will think that I’m being forced to do it.”
“Yes. That is a problem.”
It wasn’t the only problem.
“I have also applied for a job for him,” said Jill, wincing. “He doesn’t know that either.”
Silence told her what Marta thought of the confession.
“Marta, all he wants to do is be in law enforcement. You know that was always his dream. He won’t apply because he thinks he has no chance. So I had to take the initiative.”
“Hija mía,” said Marta with a sigh. “Ojalá que … I just hope that your man is not so … I hope this does not hurt his pride too much.”
“He will thank me if he gets the job,” insisted Jill. “He may be angry at first, but … I think he will be glad later.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said Marta dubiously.
•••
By the time she finished speaking with Marta, Jill had resolved to tell Richard about the applications as soon as he got home. She wavered, hesitated, and lost her nerve again. It had been a pleasant day, and she didn’t want to end it with an argument. Richard’s mood when he came home reinforced her decision to delay telling him.
They had just gone to bed when the phone rang. Jill answered it, frowned, and handed it to Richard.
“Carter,” said Rafferty. “I thought I’d give you a heads up on McComb. I don’t think he’s at the cabin in Blue Creek. His car isn’t anywhere around there, and he hasn’t picked up his mail.”
“I get it. You don’t want me blowing your surveillance,” he said testily.
“Well, I don’t. But I’m telling you the truth.”
He didn’t respond.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll turn up. Tell you what. If I see him over here, I’ll let you know.”
“Right,” he said sarcastically.
“Maybe I won’t bother.”
“I appreciate the information,” he said before handing Jill the phone to hang up.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you today,” she said.
“Well, maybe McComb will turn up like Rafferty says.”
Chapter 10
November 15
Two days later Bobby McComb turned up at a motel in James Mill. For some reason known only to the mercurial policeman himself, Adams gave Richard the essence of the scene: Clad in underwear, and with slits running parallel to the bones of his wrists, McComb sat in a tub of bloody water. There was no note. Adams refused to say more.
Shocked, Richard tried to fathom McComb killing himself. He knew depression firsthand, but the temptation to not be had never entered his mind. He’d always supposed that people killed themselves to escape something they thought worse than death. The timing suggested that McComb had done so because the soon-to-be-financially-independent Lyla was pulling the plug on him. Maybe she had told him that she no longer needed him as a manager or in any other capacity. Or perhaps a cocktail of reasons made further existence intolerable: business failure, romantic disappointment, gambling, even drug dependence. Who really knew anyone else’s personal demons?
Call us Legion, for we are many, he thought.
Richard considered his own chief demon. Could remorse for his part in whatever happened to Mancie have been McComb’s reason?
If so, then Richard was left with a literal dead end.
Bobby McComb has checked out and will not be returning, he thought. Why didn’t I talk to him when I had a chance?
Was there no end to his incompetence? Richard wanted to wash his hands of the affair, and just walk away—not that he could. Molly had set her hook. It was an unkind way of putting it, but accurate. Her distress, coupled with her misplaced confidence, obligated him. Richard was nothing if not a promise keeper.
•••
Kirsten Lance looked none too happy to see him.
“I came to inquire about—” he began.
“Bobby McComb is dead,” interrupted the realtor. “I don’t know anything about him. I didn’t even know him actually. Besides I’m busy.”
“I came to ask about a house actually.”
“You’re in the market?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes. I presume that Mr. McComb’s house is still for sale.”
“Not now. It’ll be in probate,” she said. “I have several others in the price range. Maybe I could show you one of those.”
Her manner had changed now that a fish had risen to the bait.
“I’d really like to see that one.”
“It will be withdrawn until after the estate is settled,” she said.
“It’s still got to sell sometime,” he said. “Someone has to buy it, and someone has to make a commission on it. Since he assigned that job to you, won’t the court let you sell it?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then why don’t you show it to me?”
“I haven’t been officially notified,” she muttered, weighing the possibility of a sale. “Frank!” she called out.
A young man in his very early twenties came eagerly from the back. Although immaculately attired in an expensive suit, he looked unsure of himself in the way people new to a job often do.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Lance rummaged through a drawer and extracted a key with a large tag attached.
“I want you to take Mr. Carter out and show him the McComb property.”
•••
Richard had the young man go out to the listing, telling him that he would be along within a few minutes. On his way, he quickly swung by home to get what he needed. Adams would throw him in jail if he found out what he was about to do. Technically, McComb’s house was not a crime scene, but it should be treated as one. Suicides are by definition homicides, and should never be taken at face value. They are all suspicious deaths, especially in the absence of an explanatory note.
He was relieved to see no tape or official seal on the door when he arrived. Frank was still waiting in his car, but got out when he pulled up.
“Good neighborhood,” observed the novice salesman.
It was “Real Estate 101.”
“There’s an excellent school two blocks away,” he continued.
“No kids,” said Richard.
Frank nodded uncertainly. “Small yards, both front and back,” he pointed out. “Not much maintenance needed. Just the thing for a single man.”
“Married,” said Richard, looking up and down the street, pretending to admire the neighborhood of small track houses and equally small lots. There wasn’t a tree in sight.
“Let’s take a look inside,” he suggested.
“Oh … uh sure,” said Frank, fishing in his pocket. Giving Richard a chagrined look, he shrugged. “Left the key in the car.”
He went back to retrieve them, and then trotted back across the yard. He opened the door after some difficulty getting the key to work.
“What was that?” asked Richard.
“What?”
“I thought I heard someone. T
here’s no one living here, is there?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Frank.
“Go check. I’ll wait here.”
Frank hesitated, obviously faced with a situation he had never encountered and hadn’t anticipated.
“Go on,” encouraged Richard. “If there is someone here, you can explain. After all, you’re the owner’s representative. I’m a stranger.”
“Is there anyone here?” called Frank, moving obediently, but reluctantly into the living room. “I’m from the real estate agency. I’m here to show the house. Hello?”
While Frank was occupied checking out the phantom noise, Richard slapped a piece of duct tape over the latch before easing the door closed.
“There’s no one here,” said Frank, coming back into the living room.
“Sorry. I could have sworn I heard someone,” said Richard.
The small house was still furnished, and although an undercurrent of stale smoke suffused the air, it was clean, ready for showing. Personal items had been removed to packing boxes stacked neatly in the bedroom closet. Beside the bed was a box of music and game CD’s. A bulky monitor with a keyboard atop sat on the floor of the closet below a few remaining clothes on the rack.
“What’s the asking price, Frank?”
“Only seventy-eight … thousand. That’s a real bargain considering the location.”
Richard wandered through the remainder of the rooms trailed by intermittent effusions from the young agent trying valiantly to wax enthusiastic. The superficial tidying up suggested a hasty departure. On the other hand, it could have been a typical male swipe at cleaning.
“Did someone from the agency clean the place up?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Frank uncertainly. “That’s the seller’s responsibility.”
Richard wondered if someone bent on suicide would bother to list his house, much less tidy it up for showing. Maybe McComb’s life had come apart after he listed the house, or maybe the accumulated weight of whatever disasters had overtaken him just gradually brought him to the ultimate impasse.
“Frank, do you think there’s any wiggle room on the price now that the courts are involved?”
“Man, I don’t know. I’ve never been involved in a sale like that. You better ask Mrs. Lance.”
“I’ll do that, Frank. I like the place, but the price is a little steep,” he said, looking at his watch.
“I think I’ve seen enough for now,” he said, leading the way through the living room briskly to be sure of arriving at the door first. He opened it quickly, shielding the edge from view with his body.
“What are the closing costs going to run me?” he asked, giving Frank something to wrestle with as he motioned him through the door.
“I … could give you a ball park figure, but it would be best to go through it at the office where we can get all the figures together. I wouldn’t want to tell you wrong.”
Turning the latch on the inside, Richard stepped outside, pulled the door closed, and rattled the knob to demonstrate that it was secure.
“No hurry,” he said. “My wife needs to see it first anyway.”
Frank took a card from his wallet.
“Here. Just call me any time you want to see it again. I’ll be ready. Any time at all, Mr. Carter.”
“I won’t ask for anyone else, Frank.”
Richard followed the young agent to the corner, waving as they turned in opposite directions. Two blocks away he pulled into a small city park and left his truck near the entrance. The day was clear, but cool and windy, and the park was deserted. He pulled on his jacket, got out, and locked the doors. The receding sun told him he had about two hours of bright daylight, which should be all the time he would need.
•••
He balled up the duct tape and put it in his pocket as he stood surveying the living room. He took a deep breath, wondering again what the sentence for breaking and entering was. On the far side of the room stood some sort of table thing with dual shallow drawers at waist level. The left drawer came open about two inches, and jammed on faulty slides. He coaxed it open enough to get at the contents, a jumble of papers, mostly receipts that had been either thrown in carelessly or dug through and left disorganized. He examined enough to determine they were common household (rather than business) expenses: lube jobs, convenience store purchases, credit card stubs from service stations. The other drawer contained more of the same along with a collection of loose batteries of various sizes and, incongruously, a pair of mismatched socks.
He moved on to a closer inspection of the living room. Between the television and the window sat a closed roll-top cabinet that he expected to be locked down. It wasn’t, but every cubbyhole and niche was empty. An ample layer of dust, absent from some places, showed where items had been removed. He wondered what they were and if McComb had taken them with him when he vacated the place, or if they were packed in the boxes in the bedroom.
“Probably in a storage shed somewhere,” he mumbled aloud. “What do you expect to find anyway, Richard? A suicide note? A receipt for Valium? Maybe a bill of sale for a baby?”
What he hoped to find, of course, was something to explain the suicide.
Just let me know if it was because you did something to Mancie, or because Lyla was dumping you. It’s got to be one or the other. A Bohemian guy like you doesn’t kill himself just because his business tanks.
Richard found no sign of the items that had been removed from the roll top. One packing box contained a jumble of CD’s, the other, only the meager household accoutrements bachelors tend to accrete: a few dishes, cheap flatware, and two clocks. He took the box of CD’s to the kitchen table where he could stand and where the light was better. Bending over had awakened his back spasms.
The disks were mostly country music, although there were a few games along with a tutorial on music notation, and three unlabeled writeable CD’s.
He took the box back to the closet and set it on the floor. The top shelf was bare. He pawed through the clothes, a mixture of summer and winter shirts, pants, jackets, and an expensive suite in a dry cleaner’s bag. The dressers had been cleaned out, making him wonder how many suitcases McComb had taken with him to the motel and what he had taken with him. The chances of Adams telling him more were iffy at best.
“Why in the world have you shared as much with me as you have?” he mumbled. Had their roles been reversed, Richard would have shared nothing.
Richard looked out the window. The light had faded more quickly than he had expected.
How long have I been here? He glanced nervously at his watch. It was only four. Going to the window and looking west, he noted that the sun had gone behind a cloud bank. Staying much longer would require turning on the lights, which he couldn’t do, lest he be observed. He was ready to write it off as a bust because he didn’t want to be seen leaving after dark. Then he remembered the computer. Kicking himself for not considering it earlier, he took it to the only place where the light from the monitor wouldn’t be seen from outside should he stay past dusk—a good bet now.
As he waited for the old computer to boot up, he sat cross-legged with the keyboard in his lap. The Monitor balanced on the curved seat of the commode, and the tower sat on the side opposite the bathtub next to the box of CD’s. Luckily, there were two outlets in the tiny bathroom, although both were near the door, behind him. Consequently, wires snaked on both sides, enclosing him in an electronic spider web. Any careless movement could knock the monitor from its precarious perch.
The Windows logo finally finished its promo, and the desktop icons blinked into existence over Bobby McComb’s wallpaper. Lyla-slash-Honeybunch-slash-Charity looked with intense eyes from the screen, an almost perfectly alluring smile on her smooth, high-cheeked, face.
You weren’t just her agent, Bobby. That’s for sure.
The picture was an extreme close-up, cropped so that not all of her voluminous hair showed. It was a good edit. In person, t
he elaborate coiffure miniaturized her features, lending them an unflattering but apt shrewish appearance. McComb had apparently seen something else.
Maybe you thought you had tamed her, he thought as he checked the log of recent documents.
To his surprise, the whole list consisted of eight-digit numbers which it took him a few seconds to realize stood for dates. Of the fifteen, the last was dated only a week ago. He clicked on it. “INSERT TUNEPRO,” popped up.
He was about to close it out, but changed his mind. Careful not to snag a wire, he crawled from the bathroom and went to get the music tutorial he had left on the bed with the game disks before taking the box to the bathroom. It was nearly dark outside. Back in the bathroom, he carefully closed the door and inserted the disk, figuring all the while that he was wasting his time. The drive whirred, and the screen went through a convulsion of changes that some programmer must have visualized as a light show. When the scales began sounding loudly, he winced and quickly clicked the sound icon to turn it down. No one outside could have heard, but the sound jangled his nerves.
Thoroughly confusing instructions for retrieving previous “sessions” scrolled across the screen. It would clearly take more time than he had to understand how to use the program, and longer still to look through the files. Richard shut it down, wondering why he had wasted his time with it in the first place. What he really wanted was to examine the e-mails, and any financial data McComb might have kept. Finding both, he popped in a writeable disk and clicked on the CD icon.
Fifteen minutes later he thought he finally understood how to create a CD copy. Selecting the most inclusive folder he could find, he gave it a go. The program informed him that the file was too large. Deleting a subfolder seemed to satisfy the program. When the monitor informed him that the task had been achieved, he put in a second blank disk and copied the subfolder he had removed. When the tray slid open again, he reached for the disk. Suddenly, the monitor slid sideways. He lurched forward to steady it, inadvertently hooking a wire with his thumb. Before he could reach it, the monitor tumbled into the bathtub with a horrendous crash, the keyboard flew from his lap, and everything went dark. He heard the tower, fall to the floor and CD’s skittering across the tiles.