Page 60 of The Devil's Advocate

It wasn’t like this was something Lomax hadn’t done before. He’d killed people in the past. During his tour in Desert Storm. It had never bothered him much. He was doing it for his country. That’s what he told himself, but really he knew it was for a paycheck. The first time he’d shot someone on US soil was much different, but it paid better. Lucy didn’t know half of what he had done. Shit, she didn’t know any of it.

He should have been home hours ago. He’d called Lucy. She said she felt better today. She could think. She’d almost finished knitting her cushion. Not much vomiting today. The pain was tolerable. She would wait up for him. He could bring some cocoa to bed when he got in.

Since she had stopped taking her meds, Lucy had regained much of her old personality. She smiled easily, watched her soaps and read her magazines.

‘There’s warm cocoa on the stove,’ she said, from upstairs.

Lomax toed his slippers on, went to the kitchen. There, on a low heat, a pot of cocoa blowing steam around the kitchen. He used a kitchen towel to take the pot off the heat, and poured two cups of cocoa and took them, carefully, upstairs on a tray with some cookies. Lucy was in bed already, reading a paperback Janet Evanovich novel. She loved the Stephanie Plum books.

He put her cocoa down on the nightstand, offered her a cookie.

‘No thank you. I’ll be sick if I eat at this time. So tell me, how was your day? Did you do some good?’

She used to ask him that question a lot when he first joined the force –Did you do some good today?

In the beginning, he was usually able to find something to say without much difficulty. Then the answers started becoming thin on the ground. Eventually, she stopped asking. She must have sensed that the question shamed him so. The only thing he could remember today was how difficult it had been to move Cody Warren’s body from the chest freezer to the car. The beating he’d given the gas station clerk was almost completely forgotten.

‘One of those days, huh?’ she said.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he undressed, brushed his teeth and washed his face and hands. Looking at his shirt on the bathroom floor he saw specks of blood: back spatter, either from Warren’s body or, more likely, the gas station clerk. He took his uniform downstairs with the rest of the clothes he’d worn that day, put them in the washing machine and got the thing going. One consequence of Lucy’s illness that had been useful was that he now knew how to do laundry, how to work the tumble dryer, wash dishes and all the rest of the chores she had performed. It was hard work. But Lucy told him he would be glad he learned now, when she was here to give him instructions. It would be no good him trying to learn it all after she’d gone.

He went back upstairs, put on his pajamas and got into bed. The cocoa had cooled. He couldn’t bring himself to drink it, and the thought of the cookie made him feel nauseous.

‘Don’t fret,’ she said.

‘I’m fine. I had a long day is all,’ he said.

‘Did you see Korn today?’ she asked.

‘I did,’ he said, with a knowing sigh.

‘I don’t like that man. I don’t like the thought of you being around him. I told you that time he came for dinner, there’s something missing in there. He’s just a big hollow tube of meat, if you ask me.’

Lomax said nothing.

‘No heart. No soul. Be careful with him, Colt. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘I know,’ said Lomax.

‘I curse the day he came to this town,’ she said.

‘We’ve put a lot of bad people away, you know. The place is a lot safer since he became district attorney.’

‘He doesn’t care who he puts away. Sometimes I figure he just wants to watch some folks suffer. I think he gets a kick out of it, you know that?’

He rolled over, put an arm around Lucy, who was still sitting up in bed.

‘You told me that a hundred times. I’ll keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t do anything wrong.’

He felt her hand on his arm, squeezing. It was reassuring in a way that little else was in his world. Lucy still had strength.

‘You’re a good man, Colt Lomax,’ she said, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. He still had hold of her when he fell asleep.

Lomax woke with a bad taste in his mouth. He was still holding Lucy. He opened his eyes, looked up. She must’ve read all night. She was still sitting up in bed, but now her head had slumped forward, and her eyes had closed. Her arm had fallen on the bed covers, but the book remained open in front of her.

‘Hey, you should lie down. You’ll get a crick in your neck,’ he said.

Lucy didn’t answer. He looked up into her face once more. This time he was alert, that tiny seed of panic in his chest.