Page 3 of Not a Word

“Nobody answered. That made me, I don’t know, a little anxious. I mean, my parents, it’s not like they’re at death’s door or anything. They’re still active, travel, do things, but they’re at an age where things can happen unexpectedly. A sudden heart attack, a stroke, you know.” I shrugged.

“But so far as you knew, their health was okay.”

I nodded.

“No bad news from the doctor? For either of them? Something that might have precipitated an event like this?”

I knew what she was getting at. I’d heard of older couples, one of them gets a terminal diagnosis, they decide to check out early. Maybe the person’s spouse doesn’t want to go on living, either, if they’re going to be alone.

“If there was, they hadn’t shared it with me.”

I was starting to feel overwhelmed again, the enormity of what had transpired starting to sink in. You know you’re going to lose your parents one day. But not like this. Not both of them at once.

“I just can’t . . . I can’t believe they’re . . .”

“You need a minute?” the detective asked.

I nodded, but managed to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“Detective McCabe. Janice McCabe.”

I tried to commit it to memory. Said it to myself three times.

“Coffee’s here,” she said.

McCabe had sent someone to fetch it. A uniformed officer approached bearing two red paper cups from the country’s most popular coffee place. Although their outlets were everywhere, there wasn’t one close to my parents’ house.

“Black, right?” the cop said to me.

I nodded. I pried open the small opening on the plastic lid and took a sip to test how hot it was. It was lukewarm, evidently having cooled down on the trip here. I gulped a mouthful.

“It’s a lot to process,” McCabe said, putting down her notebook and taking a sip of her own coffee. She gave me another few seconds, then said, “When did you decide to go into the bedroom?”

I put the coffee down next to me. “I walked through the ground floor first, called down to the basement, and when I got no response I went upstairs. Their room’s at the end of the hall and the door was partly closed and I thought, did I pick a bad time to come? Were they having a nap, or, you know, something else?”

McCabe got the drift.

“I start deliberately making noise, clearing my throat, saying things like, hey, I’m here, you guys okay? Stuff like that.”

“Go on.”

I was starting to get the shakes again, picked up the coffee and took a sip. Maybe caffeine wasn’t what I needed right now.

“Even before I got to the door, there was some kind of . . . there was a smell. I don’t know how to describe it. It was almost like metal, like copper or something. I’m never going to forget it.”

“You pushed open the door.”

“They’re both in the bed, the covers kind of pulled up halfway, although I could see they weren’t wearing anything, and my mom . . .”

“Take your time.”

“She’s sort of turned away, her back to me, and there’s blood all over the back of her head. And Dad, he’s just sitting in the bed, up against the . . . the . . .” I was losing my words.

“Headboard?” McCabe said.

“Yeah. Headboard. And his arm is hanging down the side of the bed, and there’s a gun on the floor there, a few inches down from his fingers. The top of his head, it’s all . . . there’s this painting hanging on the wall over the bed, a seaside thing, with a lighthouse, they bought it years ago when they were in Cape Cod, and there’s . . .”

“Okay,” McCabe said.