Lethal (12 page)

I
t was well past the dinner hour when Tom returned home. He found Janice in Lanny’s room giving him his sponge bath, which they performed each evening before changing him into pajamas. In the morning, they dressed him in a track suit. Of course it made no difference what he wore, but changing his clothes was a much-needed nod toward normalcy.

Tom set his briefcase on the floor and began rolling up his shirtsleeves. “Honey, why didn’t you wait on me?”

“I didn’t know when you’d be home, and I wanted to get him settled for the night so I could put my feet up.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to get some paperwork done on Tambour before tomorrow, because tomorrow will be crazy. It always is after a holiday. And now with this crisis, it’ll be doubly nuts.”

When he reached the bed, he elbowed her aside. “Sit down. I’ll finish.” Before dipping the sponge into the tub of
warm water, Tom bent over his son and kissed his forehead. “Hi, Lanny.”

Lanny’s eyes remained fixed. The lack of response filled Tom with a familiar despair. He dipped the sponge in the water and, after squeezing out the excess, applied it to Lanny’s arm.

“How’s that going?” Janice asked.

“What?”

“The crisis in Tambour?”

Lanny’s arm was dead weight when Tom lifted it to wash his armpit. “The suspect is still at large. I think he’d be a fool to hang around here. It seems to me that he’d hitch a ride with a truck-driving pal and get as far away from southern Louisiana as possible.”

“Is there such a person as a truck-driving pal?” She had settled herself into the La-Z-Boy recliner and tucked her feet beneath her. The large chair served as a bed for one of them if Lanny was having a rough night.

“None identified as yet, but we’re checking with companies that do business with Royale. Fred Hawkins thinks it’s a waste of time. He thinks Coburn is still in the area.” He smiled across at her. “He feels him like standing hairs on the back of his neck.”

“Good Lord,” she scoffed. “What’s next? Reading chicken innards? I hope he’s not relying on a sixth sense to find a mass murderer.”

“It’ll take some smarts.”

“Is Fred Hawkins up to the task?”

Tom began washing Lanny’s legs and feet. “He’s certainly motivated. Mrs. Marset made a personal call to the superintendent of police and put the squeeze on him, which he passed along through the rank and file. Marset’s church is conducting a candlelight prayer vigil tonight.
Heat is coming from God and government, and Fred is beginning to feel it.”

“He sounded pretty confident a while ago.”

She motioned toward the TV sitting on a dresser opposite the bed, which remained on around the clock in the hope that some programming might stimulate a reaction from Lanny. The picture was on now, but the audio had been muted.

“Fred fielded questions from reporters live on the evening news,” Janice said. “He seemed convinced that the footprint and blood spatters you found this afternoon were a major boon.”

It pleased Tom that she seemed suitably impressed by his contribution, which he had exaggerated slightly.

Taking advantage of her attention, he expanded the story. “Did I tell you about Mrs. Arleeta Thibadoux?” His anecdote about the colorful and semi-toothless woman actually coaxed a laugh from Janice. He detected a trace of the woman he’d fallen in love with and proposed marriage to.

He remembered that day as one of the happiest of his life, rivaling even their wedding day in his memory. After he’d slipped the solitaire diamond ring on her finger, they’d made love on the sagging bed in his stuffy, cramped apartment. It had been ardent, sweaty, and athletic, and afterward they’d celebrated their engagement by sharing a bottle of beer.

He wished he could turn back the clock to that afternoon and once again see Janice’s cheeks flushed, her lips soft and smiling, her eyes lambent with satiation and happiness.

But if he turned back the clock to that day, they wouldn’t have Lanny.

The next thought that flashed through his mind was involuntary but treacherous, and he was instantly shamed by it.

He dropped the sponge into the plastic tub and looked over at Janice. Judging from her expression, her thoughts were moving along a similar track, or one close enough to make her feel equally guilty.

She came out of the chair as though trying to outrun her own thoughts. “I’ll go fix dinner while you’re finishing up here. Omelets okay?” Without waiting for him to reply, she left the room as though the devil was after her.

Ten minutes later they sat down to their omelets and ate in virtual silence, exchanging only brief snippets of forced conversation. Tom remembered times when they couldn’t say enough, when they would talk over each other relating the events of the day.

When he finished his meal, he carried his plate to the sink and ran water over it, then mentally braced himself and turned to his wife.

“Janice, let’s talk.”

She set her fork on the rim of her plate and placed her hands in her lap. “About what?”

“Lanny.”

“Specifically?”

“It may be time to readjust our thinking about his care.”

There, he’d said it.

Lightning didn’t strike him, nor did the statement spark a reaction from his wife. She just stared up at him with an expression as closed as a storm shutter.

He pressed on. “I think we should revisit the possibility—just the possibility—of placing him in a facility.”

She looked away from him and rolled her lips inward. Giving her a moment, he cleared the remainder of the
dishes and utensils from the table and carried them to the sink.

Finally she broke the tense silence. “We made promises to him, and to each other, Tom.”

“We did,” he said somberly. “But when we pledged to keep him with us always, I think we nursed a kernel of hope that he would develop to some extent, acquire some capabilities. True?”

She neither denied nor admitted having held out such a feeble hope.

“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.” That was something both of them knew, but had never acknowledged out loud. Saying it had caused Tom’s voice to crack with emotion.

Tight-lipped, Janice said, “All the more reason why he needs the best of care.”

“That’s just it. I’m not sure we’re providing it.” She took immediate offense, but he spoke before she could. “That’s not a criticism of you. Your patience and endurance amaze me. Truly. But caring for him is killing you.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Am I? It’s shredding you, body and soul. I see evidence of it daily.”

“You can look into my soul?”

Her sarcasm was more effective than a flat-out rebuke would have been. He rubbed his eyes, the activities of the day catching up with him, and then some. “Please don’t make this subject even more difficult than it already is. It hurts me even to suggest moving him to a facility. Don’t you know that?”

“Then why bring it up?”

“Because one of us had to. We’re eroding as human beings, Janice. And I’m not just thinking about us. I’m
thinking about Lanny. How do we know that we’re doing what’s best for him?”

“We’re his parents.”

“Loving parents, yes, but untrained in how to care for him. There are specialists for patients like Lanny.”

She stood up and wandered the kitchen as though looking for a means of escape. “This is a pointless conversation. Even if we agreed that it would be best, we can’t afford the private facilities. As for some modern-day Bedlam operated by the state, forget it. I would never put him in a place like that.”

The implied suggestion that he would bothered him, but he didn’t let himself be drawn into an argument. He stuck to the core of the matter. “We owe it to ourselves, and to him, to visit some of the better places and see what they’re like.” He hesitated, then asked, “Would you be open to doing that if finances weren’t a consideration?”

“But they are.”

“If they weren’t,” he said insistently.

“Are you planning on winning the lottery?”

Again, he felt the sting of her sarcasm, but he let it pass. He’d said enough for one night. He’d given her food for thought. He’d known that broaching this subject would automatically make him out to be the bad guy, but one of them had to be, and it wasn’t going to be Janice.

She’d been valedictorian of her high school class, an honor graduate from Vanderbilt, a rising star in an investments firm. Then fate cruelly interrupted not only her promising career path but the sum total of her life.

She’d had to sacrifice everything for Lanny, which made admitting defeat untenable to her. In her mind, placing Lanny in a facility was full-scale surrender, as good as
an admission that—yet again—she had been denied the opportunity to finish something she’d started.

He sighed. “I’d better get to bed and sleep while I can. I won’t be surprised if I get a call in the middle of the night.”

“What for?”

“The agents I left in Tambour know to call me with any developments.” He paused at the door. “You look done in, too. Coming?”

“Not yet. I’m tired but not sleepy. I think I’ll stay up for a while.”

“Playing your word game with your cell phone friend in Japan?”

“Singapore.”

He smiled. Playing the games were her one form of recreation, and it had become almost an addiction. “I hope you win.”

“I’m leading by forty-three points, but I’ve got a
j
that’s challenging me.”

“You’ll come up with a word for it,” he said with confidence. “But don’t stay up too late.”

Two hours later, Tom was still alone in their bed. He got up and padded barefoot down the hall. After looking in on Lanny, he found Janice in the den, staring raptly into the screen of her cell phone, totally engrossed in a pastime that apparently was much more enjoyable to her than sleeping with him.

Without her ever knowing that he’d been watching her, he turned away and retraced his steps to their bedroom.

C
oburn gradually withdrew his hands from Honor’s shoulders. He got off her and retrieved the pistol, tucking it back into his waistband. She continued to lie there staring up at him.

“That was a damn stupid thing to do,” he said. “If you’d accidentally pulled the trigger, one of us could be dead, and if it turned out to be you, I’d be stuck with your kid.”

It was a harsh thing to say, which is why he’d said it. Her daughter was the button to push when he wanted something from her, and right now he wanted her to stop gaping like a beached perch.

He knew she heard him, because she blinked. But she remained perfectly still, and for one panicked moment he wondered if she’d been seriously injured during their struggle.

He wondered why he cared.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded.

Relieved of that worry, he turned away and looked at the mess he’d made of her house. When he’d arrived this morning, everything had been in its place. Lived in, but tidy and neat. Homey. Smelling of fresh cake.

Now the place was in shambles, and he had nothing to show for his ransacking.

Dead end.

Which more or less summarized the life and times of Lee Coburn, who would leave the world with seven brutal murders as his only legacy. Seven victims who hadn’t been given a chance, who’d died before they knew what had hit them.

Swearing beneath his breath, he rubbed his temples. He was tired. No, more than tired. Weary. Weary of loading and unloading those goddamn trucks. Weary of the sad, one-room apartment that he’d been living in for the past thirteen months. Weary of life in general, and of
his
life in particular. As he’d told Gillette’s widow, if he died, which he probably would soon, he’d be dead, and none of it would matter.

But hell if it didn’t matter
now
. As he lowered his hands from his forehead, he realized he wasn’t quite ready to let the devil take him.

“Get up.”

She stirred, rolled to her side, and pushed herself into a sitting position. He reached down. She studied his hand for several seconds, then clasped it and let him pull her up.