CHAPTER forty-two
I tried to convince the police officers that there was no need for me to go back in the house but they insisted.
I had pointed wordlessly to the front door when they got out of the cruiser. One officer headed for the front door and one approached me.
"You made the 911 call, ma’am?" I nodded.
"You want to tell me what happened?"
I tried to speak but something was caught in my throat. I swallowed furiously a few times and still nothing came out.
He carefully took me by the arm and led me back up the walkway to the front of the house. I followed alongside him meekly. When we got to the front porch, my voice returned.
"I really don’t want to go back in there," I told him.
"We understand that ma’am," he said. I wished he’d stop calling me ma’am. I looked up at his face and realized that anyone who looked as young as he did probably called everyone over 25, ma’am. I wondered if he’d started shaving yet. His lips were moving and I willed my brain to pay attention.
"I’d just like you to walk us through what you found," he was telling me.
I couldn’t look at the body again so I mutely pointed at the open door of the den and ran.
It was getting dark when Detective Leech showed up and knocked on my car window. I was huddled inside in a fog of cigarette smoke. His knock scared me and I jumped an inch off my seat before I rolled down the window. He waved his hand in front of his face when the smoke wafted out.
"It won’t be much longer now, Miss Monahan," he told me.
"How come you’re here?" I asked him. "Mr. Cox killed himself. It was a suicide. You’re a homicide detective. Why are you here?" I was starting to feel hysterical and my breath was coming in short gasps.
I had been left sitting here, cooling my heels for an eternity. The body was still in the house and official-looking vehicles had been arriving in a steady stream. I had been watching everything through my rear-view mirror and knew that even if they said I could go, there was no way I could move my car.
"Why don’t you come out of there and get some fresh air," the detective asked me as he pulled the door open. I had my skirt hiked up around my waist and was sitting cross-legged with my knees touching the steering wheel. I had been hugging myself and smoking.
I stumbled out of the car and tried to stretch the kinks out of my knees. Leech put his hand on my shoulder and looked down at me.
"Is there someone you want to call? Someone to come and take you home?"
"I look that bad?"
He nodded. "These situations are rough for the toughest types. You’ve had a shock. I’ve got a few questions for you but you could call someone in the meantime," he said and offered me a cell phone he had pulled out of his coat pocket. When I didn’t take the phone he put it in my hand and wandered off.
Who would I call? I couldn’t bother Vanessa because I knew she had Ashley this weekend. I tried Jay’s number knowing that the answering machine would pick up. This time I left a message.
"It’s me. Friday night about eight. I, um, I’m at Rick Cox’s house. He’s dead." I stopped talking and started feeling angry. I pushed the power off button on the phone. What a lovely situation. I had no one to call because I had no friends. My family didn't live in the city and my pathetic life was catching up with me. I went looking for Detective Leech determined to get this over with and get the hell out of here.
I was lying on the sofa, shivering under my quilt. When the Detective had finished with me I drove the short distance home in a trance where I tried warming up in the hot shower. I finally gave up when the water started to turn cool. I put the kettle on to boil and found a box of teabags at the back of my cupboard. Comfort and warmth were needed and whenever I was sick as a child my mother gave me tea.
The living room was dark and the soft light from the streetlights washed over me where I huddled on the sofa clutching the hot mug in my hands, trying to get the image of Rick’s face out of my mind. The hot tea burned the back of my throat as I gulped it down.
I slid down on the sofa and pulled the quilt over my head. I couldn’t shake the ice-cold feeling in my bones so I breathed hard under the blanket hoping my hot breath would warm me. When the phone started ringing I willed it to stop. Even though I had been trying to reach Jay I couldn't bring myself to talk to anyone.
When the phone stopped ringing I tried some relaxation exercises to calm myself down. I knew I’d had a shock. But I never thought my body would react like this. My mind was fully cognizant of everything around me and in fact, the sounds of the street from outside seemed sharper and clearer.
I talked to my body starting at my toes. Relax. Then the feet and the ankles. Relax. My body parts and I had a great conversation but I realized the technique wasn’t working when I reached my shoulders. I still felt tense and cold.
A hard knocking on my door scared the shit out of me and I yelped. I reached an arm out from under my quilt and felt around on the coffee table in front of me for my watch. I held it up in front of my face and turned it slightly to let the light from outside show me the time. Eleven o’clock. There was another knock, this time softer. I reluctantly crawled out from under the quilt and went to the door.
"Who’s there?" I asked through the door.
"It’s Jay," came the muffled reply.
I undid the chain lock and opened the door a crack and saw that it certainly was the long-lost Jay. I pulled the door wide open and turned on my heel and walked back to the living room. Jay followed me and he stood and watched as I sat down on the sofa and pulled the quilt around me. I stared at him and didn’t speak.
He looked like a giant from my vantage point and I craned my neck up.
"Are you okay?" he asked me kindly.
"Do you know how many times in the last week people have asked me if I was okay?" I barked at him.
"Well, you just answered my question," he said. "Can I sit down?"
I shrugged and he sat anyway.
"I got your message," he said quietly.
"Which one of the fifteen?" I asked snidely. My mouth was working but the rest of my body was still on standby, I realized, as I started to shiver again. I pulled the quilt tighter around me.
Jay looked at me without expression and I chastised myself for biting at him. He didn’t owe me anything and it was probably time I started to realize it. A few rolls in the hay and a few terms of endearment whispered in my ear had started me down the relationship road. I felt like a fool for getting sucked-in to the love whirlpool.
"I got your message about Rick Cox. Can you tell me what happened?"
I was about to tell him to go down to the police station and read the police report but stopped myself.
"I was supposed to deliver some documents to his house."
"And?"
"I found him dead in his chair at his desk."
"My God. How did he die?"
"Shot."
Jay took a deep breath. "Kathleen. Work with me here. Am I going to get one word answers out of you for the rest of the night?"
"I don’t think you’ll be here for the rest of the night, Mr. Harmon. You got my message because I didn’t have anyone else to call. I felt sorry myself at the time because I realized I had no one else to call. But I’m over that now. I don’t need friends. And I certainly don’t need you. So you can just fuck off and die."
I felt my body warming up with rage and felt better. I was about to add Jay Harmon to my miserable-shit list.
Jay stood up. "Coffee?" he asked me.
I pulled the quilt over my head and felt tears fill my eyes. I told myself they were tears of rage and vowed I wasn’t going to cry. I had done enough of that to last a lifetime in the last week. Rick Cox was nothing to cry about.
The sounds of water running in the kitchen told me that he was making coffee. I heard cupboard doors open and close and I counted to ten. The man
had nerve. He disappears from my life for forty-eight hours. He doesn’t call. And then he comes over as casual as you please and offers to make coffee. I threw the quilt off and stormed into the kitchen. He was leaning. With his hands in his jeans pockets. Shit.
"You," I said as I pointed my index finger at him. "You piss me off." I took a couple of steps closer to him as the rage built. I poked him in the chest with my finger and repeated myself. "You piss me off. You disappear for two days and then think you can casually walk back in here? You think everything’ll be fine?"
I took a step back and looked up at him. He made me so mad, just standing there, running his hand through his hair.
"Where the hell have you been?" I demanded.
"Around."
"Around?"
Jay shrugged and turned around to the coffee machine. He pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard above him and put them on the counter. I tugged at the back of his T-shirt.
"Doing what?"
Jay impatiently pushed my hand away from the back of his shirt.
"Some thinking," was all he said. He picked up the two cups of coffee he had poured and led the way back into the living room.