Catherine Coulter - Split Second

She leaned against the corridor wall and forced herself to breathe slowly, to shut the horror out, until her heartbeat slowed. She would deal with this; she really had no choice.

There were so many ways to identify the body, it wouldn’t be hard. The suitcases filled with men’s clothes would help. She’d known way down deep where fear and knowledge mingled that the clothes had to be her grandfather’s, but the logical grounded part of her brain hadn’t wanted to accept it yet, not until she’d opened the steamer trunk.

Step away from it. And so she did. She watched herself get her breathing to slow, to banish the fright and panic back up to the attic and the steamer trunk, her grandfather’s body inside. It took a long time, but when her fear was gone, she was left with pain, and with anger. Her grandfather. He’d been in that steamer trunk for all the years she’d lived here, moldering, his flesh rotting away, leaving only that skeleton. There’d never been any justice for him, and no matter her anger now, there wouldn’t ever be any, because her grandmother was dead. Her father had been part of it, and he was dead, too, and he’d kept the secret until the very end.

She was still breathing hard when she reached the front door. She couldn’t stay inside the house any longer. No brandy for her; the mere thought of it made her want to throw up.

She saw Coop’s Gloria pull into the driveway on screeching tires.

Coop slammed out of Gloria and ran to her. He took one look at her white face and without hesitation pulled her against him. “It will be all right. I spoke to Savich, and he told me you’d found your grandfather’s skeleton, that you’d said your grandmother had murdered him. He and Detective Horne will be here soon. I’m so sorry, Lucy, so very sorry.” They stood beneath the porch light, silent, Coop simply holding her. She didn’t cry. All her tears were frozen deep inside her.

He said against her hair, “You don’t have to tell me what happened—we can wait until everyone arrives. Breathe deeply; that’s right. Get yourself together. I’m here now, and we’ll deal with this. Are you cold?”

She shook her head against his neck. “My dad helped her, Coop. After she murdered her husband, they carried him up to the attic and put him in a steamer trunk. My dad lived in this house twelve years, knowing his father was lying with a white towel spread over him in a trunk in the attic. And they spread lots of cake deodorizers on top to keep the smell down. How could he bear it? Do you know they locked the attic? I was never allowed to go up there. Come to think of it, I can’t ever remember wanting to.”

“I know, Lucy, I know. We’ll get this all figured out. You’ll see. Do you want to go inside? You’re freezing.”

“No, no, please, I don’t want to, not yet, not until I have to.”

Coop shrugged out of his shearling coat and wrapped it around her.

She hugged the big coat close. She was freezing. “I keep thinking that knowing all those years his own father was in the attic, murdered by his own mother—it must have driven my dad mad. But he protected her, kept quiet until the end. Do you think keeping this ghastly secret all these years, knowing what he’d done, feeling the guilt, the stress, the need to protect his mother—do you think it made him die too soon?” She didn’t wait for him to say anything, which was good, since he had no idea what to say. “But why did he keep the body there after my grandmother died? Why didn’t he move it, give his own father his own private burial?”

“We’ll figure it all out, Lucy. Now, here’s a cavalcade of cars coming, Savich’s Porsche leading them in. Can you deal with this now?”

She raised her face. “Of course.”

Detective Horne was new to the job, but he knew what to do. He was pleased Special Agent Savich didn’t grind him under—indeed, deferred to him. He introduced himself to Lucy Carlyle and Cooper McKnight. He asked a female officer to stay with Lucy while the rest of them trooped up to the attic. When Lucy shook her head and got to her feet, Detective Horne pointed a cop finger at her. “Stay.”

Ten minutes later, Coop walked back into the library to see Lucy standing by a big burgundy leather easy chair, her hands clenched at her sides, the female officer in the kitchen, making coffee. She still had his shearling coat wrapped around her. He walked to her, took her hands. “We’ve seen everything. It will be all right, Lucy. We’ll figure all this out.”

“What’s to figure?”

“Sorry, dumb question. Do you want me to call your aunt and uncle? Anyone else?”

She thought of Uncle Alan, Aunt Jennifer, Court, and Miranda. She thought of her closest friends, all of them hanging back for the past week because she’d asked them to. No, she couldn’t call them; they’d been overburdened already, what with seeing her through her father’s funeral. She shook her head. “No, I’ll call my uncle in the morning. You want some coffee, Coop?” Uncle Alan, did you know what happened?

He shook his head. “Lucy? Ah, crap, come here,” and again he pulled her and his shearling coat against him.

He saw tears snake down her cheeks. She wasn’t making a sound. He flicked them away with his fingers. “I’m very sorry, Lucy. Listen, did you find or remove any ID from the body to prove it was your grandfather?”

“No.”

He said against her hair, “Savich has asked the autopsy be performed at Quantico. Detective Horne called his lieutenant, and she agreed but said they’d be sending along one of their medical examiners. The attic is a crime scene, of course, and the forensic team will be up there a good couple of days. There was dried blood on his shirt, over his chest, so we’re probably talking a gun or a knife. That’s all I can tell you right now. We won’t know any more until the autopsy.”

“It was a knife. Maybe it’s still in one of those steamer trunks I didn’t open.”

How could she be so sure it was a knife? Coop would get to that in a minute. She was speaking calmly, logically, and that was a relief.

“You know, Coop, there’s no reason to expend all this manpower. It’s my grandfather. I know his wife murdered him. It’s over, case solved and closed.”

He said, “I know, but there’s a protocol that has to be followed, you know that. And you’ll explain everything to us in a little while. It would be good to find the knife. I saw those suitcases full of men’s clothing. We might find ID there.”

Lucy felt herself finally getting back in control. “Coop, I want to go back outside now.”

They walked side by side out of the house to stand on the top porch steps, watching two techs bring out a green body bag for her grandfather’s remains. She said, “I can give them a swab from my cheek to check DNA, if they need it.”

“They will,” Coop said.

It was a dark night, only a sliver of moon and a long blaze of stars shining through the lowlying clouds. They heard techs talking by the van, heard voices from inside the house.

Lucy said, “Maybe it was too painful for Dad to think about touching his father’s body again, stealing away with it. I can understand that, sure I can. Can you imagine, Coop, trying desperately to continue your routine, treating your little daughter—namely, me—calmly and naturally? And his own mother, being civil to her, not wanting to kill her for what she’d done. It always seemed to me he loved her, treated her courteously. But how could he? Did he ever find out why she killed him?”

He hugged her and his shearling coat, and realized he was getting a bit cold himself.

Savich came up, lightly placed his hand on her shoulder. “You’re coming home with me, Lucy.”