Nudging Honor along with him, Coburn skirted the green belt, then walked into a yard that backed up to it. Honor looked around nervously. “What if a homeowner comes out and asks what we’re doing?”
“Our dog ran off before we could get his leash on. Something like that. But no one will ask.”
“Why not?”
“Because if they see us, they will in all likelihood recognize us and immediately notify the police. I’m armed and dangerous, remember?”
“Okay, so what happens if we hear sirens coming this way?”
“I run like hell.”
“What do I do?”
“You collapse to the ground, and cry, and thank them for saving you from me.”
But the point was moot because no one accosted them, and they reached the back corner of Stan’s house without mishap. Honor raised the cover on the keypad and pecked in the code. Coburn waited to hear the metallic nick, then turned the knob and pushed open the door.
They slipped into the garage, and he pulled the door shut behind them. Daylight coming through three high windows enabled them to see their way to the kitchen door. Honor stepped inside and disarmed the alarm system. Its warning chirp fell silent.
But when she would have moved farther into the kitchen, he placed his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. He mistrusted the ease with which they’d breached the house. So he remained on the threshold, muscles tensed, ready to bolt.
Silences weren’t all the same. They had qualities that he’d been trained to distinguish. For sixty long seconds he listened, until, finally, he determined that the house was truly empty. Then he removed his hand from Honor’s shoulder. “I think we’re okay.”
Most operating rooms weren’t as sterile as Stan Gillette’s kitchen. Coburn figured the sterility was a reflection of the man himself. Cold, impersonal, unyielding, no areas that could become cluttered with emotional junk.
Which, he realized, was also an accurate description of himself.
Shoving that thought aside, he asked Honor where Eddie’s stuff was.
“All over the house, really. Where do you want to start?”
She led him into what had been Eddie’s bedroom when he was growing up. “It hasn’t changed much since the first time I came here. Eddie brought me to meet Stan. I was so nervous.”
Coburn didn’t give a shit, and his indifference must have been apparent because she ended the stroll down memory lane and stood in the center of the room, her hands awkwardly clasped in front of her.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s strange being in this house, in this room with…”
“Without Eddie?”
“I was going to say with you.”
Several responses sprang to mind, but all of them were either vulgar or otherwise inappropriate, and he didn’t have time to deal with the bickering that a lewd comment would inevitably spark. Keeping the comebacks to himself, he pointed her toward a bureau. “Empty the drawers. I’ll start on the closet.”
He gave it the same thorough treatment that he had the closets in Honor’s house. It seemed that Gillette hadn’t disposed of anything belonging to his son. Resisting the temptation to rush, Coburn tried not to overlook anything or to dismiss an item until he’d searched it.
Thinking that Eddie’s police uniforms would be a logical hiding place, Coburn examined each seam, lining, and pocket of every garment, looking for something sewn inside. He didn’t find anything except lint.
When an hour had passed and he had nothing to show for it, he began to feel the pressure of time. “Is Gillette usually away from the house during the day?” he asked Honor.
“He has his various activities, but I don’t keep close tabs on his schedule.”
“Do you think he’s out doing one of his various activities?”
“No. I think he’s out looking for Emily and me.”
“So do I.”
Another hour went by, increasing his frustration. He was on borrowed time and it was getting away from him. He glanced over at Honor to ask her another question about her father-in-law’s daily routine, but the question died before he asked it.
She was sitting on the double bed, going through a box of keepsakes, most of which were medals and ribbons Eddie had won for sporting contests throughout his schooling. She was crying silently.
“What’s the matter?”
Her head came up. Tears spilled from her eyes. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter? This is the matter, Coburn. This!” She dropped the medal that she’d been rubbing between her fingers and shoved the box away from her with such force that it slid off the edge of the bed and landed bottom side up on the floor. “I feel like a grave robber.”
What did she want him to say? I’m sorry, you’re right, let’s leave. Well, he wasn’t going to say that, was he? So he didn’t say anything. A moment passed while they just looked at one another.
Eventually she made a resigned sound and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “Never mind. I don’t expect you to understand.”
She was right. He didn’t understand why this was so upsetting to her. Because he had robbed a grave once. After thoroughly searching for survivors in the decimated village, where even the pathetic livestock hadn’t been spared, he’d plunged down into a pit where body was heaped upon body.
He’d plowed through the rotting corpses of dead babies and naked old ladies, strong men and pregnant women, looking for clues as to which of the warring tribes was responsible for this particular massacre. He’d been under orders to find out. Not that the answer mattered all that much, because the guilty faction soon would be subjected to retaliation that was just as horrific.
He’d failed to gather any intel. All his search had produced was a canteen of water that miraculously had escaped the hail of bullets fired into the pit from automatic weapons. His own canteen had been running low, so he’d slid the strap of the canteen off the shoulder of a dead man, a boy really, no more than twelve or thirteen by the looks of him, and had slipped the strap onto his own shoulder as he climbed out of the mass grave.
That had been a lot worse than this. But Honor didn’t need to know about it.
“Where’s Stan’s room?”
Two hours later, Stan Gillette’s house was in a state similar to Honor’s when Coburn had finished with it. The yield was also the same. Nothing.
He’d thought perhaps Stan’s computer would contain incriminating information, but getting into it didn’t even require a password. Coburn had searched through his documents file and found little beyond letters to the editor, which Stan had composed either in support of or opposition to political editorials.
His emails were mostly exchanges with former Marines, relating to upcoming or past reunions. There was a progress report on one former comrade’s prostate cancer, the death notice of another.
Likewise the websites Gillette routinely visited were devoted to the Corps, veterans’ organizations, and world news, certainly nothing pornographic or relating to the trafficking of illegal substances.
The hoped-for treasure trove turned out to be a big fat bust.
Finally, the only place that hadn’t been searched was the garage. Coburn had never lived in a place with a garage, but he knew what they were supposed to look like, and this one was fairly typical, except for one major difference: its extraordinary organization.
In the extra bay, a spick-and-span bass fishing boat sat on its trailer. Hunting and fishing gear was so nicely arranged it looked like a store display. Along the back of a work table, carefully labeled paint cans had been perfectly lined up. Hand tools were neatly arrayed on a pegboard wall. A power lawnmower and edger, along with a red gas can, were sitting on a pallet of bricks.