Page 61 of The Devil's Advocate

‘Hey, lie down I said.’

She didn’t answer. He touched her cheek, brushing hair away from her face, and then leapt backwards out of bed.

Lucy was cold to the touch. She’d died in the night, in his arms, quite peacefully, it seemed. The cup of cocoa was still on the nightstand. Untouched. Lomax grabbed at his face and hair, and a sound escaped his chest. It was the same kind of noise made by people the world over. It sounds the same no matter what language is spoken.

It was a wail. A cry and a scream from a throat strangled by a crushing wave of sudden grief.

Lomax went outside, to the porch. Sun was coming up. He sat in his rocking chair and he rocked and cried and held himself and cried some more as the hot red sun rose over a dark land.

She was gone. And the pain couldn’t touch her now. Not the cancer, nor the pain of finding out what he had really become. She would be spared that, at least.

Despite his grief, he smiled with bitter relief. Lucy died believing him to be a good man. She would never know the kind of man Korn had helped him become. For that, he was thankful. Thankful that she had died before she found out.

Her last words played through this mind on an endless, bitter loop.

You’re a good man, Colt Lomax.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

EDDIE

Neither Harry nor I were trained investigators, and we didn’t want to go any closer without a professional.

It didn’t take Bloch long to get out to the Dubois place. She took a torch from the car, then held it in her mouth as she wrapped plastic bags over her shoes and put on a pair of latex gloves. A terrible smell was coming from Cody’s SUV, but Bloch didn’t seem to mind. She approached the vehicle slowly, took pictures with her phone from all sides, and especially of the footprints, and then opened the doors of the car and had a good look at the bodies and the interior. There was a pink slip in the glove box confirming the car belonged to Cody Warren, but there were no files in the trunk.

And no photos of Farnesworth’s autopsy.

Cody Warren looked wet, like there was a thin layer of slime on his cheeks. He wore a business suit that clung to his body – it too looked wet but there was no blood on him anywhere. A knife protruded from the side of his neck. It looked as though someone could have stabbed him through the rolled-down window. Bloch took a long time examining the knife and especially the hilt. Betty’s dress and body were dry except for her face and neck, which were covered in blood. She slumped down in the front passenger seat, beside Cody.

Bloch asked, ‘Did either of you touch anything?’

‘Not a thing,’ I said.

She nodded, said, ‘I need to take pictures of your shoes.’

Harry and I turned our backs, lifted our heels so Block could get a good picture of the treads.

‘What does this look like to you?’ I asked.

‘It’s strange,’ said Bloch.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘It’s half-assed. And there’s a mistake,’ said Bloch.

Harry and I exchanged puzzled glances. Sometimes Bloch spoke under the pretension that we were all on her wavelength. The truth is she was often way ahead of all of us.

She sighed, said, ‘Betty has been beaten, and shot in the head and chest with a .22. There’s some blood on the passenger door from the chest shot, judging by height, but I don’t see any from the head shot. Cody Warren didn’t die from the knife wound. There’s a bullet hole behind his ear. Small caliber again. There’s a gun in the foot well under the brake pedal.’

Bloch paused, waiting for us to catch up. I was a little clearer, but not all the way there yet.

‘The gun in the foot well,’ I said, ‘is it a .22?’

Bloch nodded.

‘So you think it looks like Cody Warren beat Betty, then shot her twice and killed himself?’

‘That’s what it’s made to look like, apart from the knife.’