Coulson's Secret

by McIntyre, Anna J

  Kim couldn’t help but wonder if her father knew about Carol’s death and if he would come to her funeral. Growing up, she’d only seen one picture of the man who had abandoned his pregnant wife. While Kim could not clearly recall how her father looked, since she’d only had one glimpse at the photograph, many years earlier, she remembered he was very handsome.

  It was a wedding photograph of the groom alone, taken by the wedding photographer. Her mother had thrown away all her wedding pictures, yet kept one lone photograph of the husband who had deserted her. He was an exceptionally handsome man, which was a surprise to Kim. While Kim would never voice her question, she wondered why such a handsome man had ever married someone who looked like Carol.

  Kim was not proud of herself for feeling embarrassed by her mother. Yet, it wasn’t just the weight; it was the fact that her mother had no desire to improve her appearance. Carol never styled her hair; she wore it straight and short. She never wore makeup or attempted to find flattering clothes. Perhaps her mother’s appearance would have been overlooked by her daughter if Carol had been a happier or more loving person. If anything, Carol seemed to resent her pretty daughter.

  Once, when she was about 13-years-old, Kim had asked, “Mom, can I fix your hair and put some makeup on you? It will be fun.” Instead of playing along with her daughter, Carol had gotten angry and thrown away the makeup Kim had purchased with babysitting money.

  When Adam had failed to marry Kim after she lost the baby, the relationship between mother and daughter became so unbearable that Kim had left home after turning eighteen, never to return. Over the years, they had exchanged letters and occasionally talked on the phone, and a few times, her mother had come to visit.

  It was dark when Kim pulled into Coulson. She hadn’t stopped along the way to get anything to eat, wanting to get to Coulson before it was too late in the evening. Several hours earlier, she had eaten a peanut butter sandwich she had prepared at home, but now she was ravenous. Not sure if her mother had any food at the house, Kim thought it would be prudent to stop at the local grocery store and pick up a few things. Eating at a restaurant wasn’t an option. Jake had been in the cat carrier long enough. Briefly, she considered driving through a fast food restaurant but quickly dismissed the idea.

  Kim found a parking spot close to the grocery store’s entrance. After she turned off the engine, Jake began meowing pitifully.

  “Soon, buddy, we’re almost there,” Kim whispered to the cat carrier before grabbing her purse and exiting the vehicle. Pressing the button on her keychain, she locked the Tahoe and then rushed toward the grocery store’s entrance.

  Just as she was about to enter the market, she turned around to face her car and pushed the lock button on the keychain one more time to make sure Jake was locked safely in the vehicle. She heard the Tahoe’s horn honk briefly, and then she turned back to the store and started to rush through the entrance without paying close attention to where she was going.

  Kim slammed into a man who had just stepped onto the sidewalk from the market. She hit him so hard she almost fell. However, he reached out and took hold of her shoulders, steadying her. Kim looked up into a pair of dark brown eyes. A wave of embarrassment washed over her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Kim blushed. She felt like an idiot for not watching where she was going and crashing into the stranger. He smiled down at her and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move his hands from her shoulders. When he didn’t immediately release her, she started to say something but then got a better look of the man’s face and was momentarily distracted. He was perhaps one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, and the moment the thought popped into her head, she knew instinctively her blush was deepening.

  “You must be a very busy girl to be in such a hurry,” the man said with a smile and then moved his hands from her shoulders but not before giving them a gentle squeeze. Kim thought the gesture inappropriate, yet she reminded herself that she was the one who initially plowed into him.

  “I’m sorry,” Kim repeated. She started to say something else, yet paused because there was something oddly familiar about him. What is it? she wondered.

  “Do we know each other?” he asked as if reading her mind.

  “I don’t know. Did you go to school in Coulson?” Kim guessed he was probably about her age, yet she couldn’t recall any of her male classmates ever looking like him. His wavy, thick dark hair was neatly trimmed, and his style of dress was almost preppy—hardly a Coulson look. He could easily be a male model. From her experience, men who looked like he did inevitably were gay, yet the expression he fixed on her was undoubtedly heterosexual.

  “No, I didn’t. Why don’t you have a drink with me, and we can figure out where we know each other from.” He smiled mischievously, then lifted his right hand and brushed it familiarly over her left shoulder. His forwardness startled Kim, and she jumped back as if insulted by his touch. Her belly did a nervous little flip-flop, and she was blushing again.

  What irritated Kim the most was her body’s reaction to the jerk. She couldn’t recall the last time—if ever—she felt such an immediate and intense physical attraction toward a man. Annoyed with herself as much as with him, Kim muttered, “I don’t think so.” Then she pushed past the stranger and entered the grocery store, leaving him alone on the sidewalk.

  She didn’t look back, and therefore, she didn’t know he stood there several moments, watching her. While his spontaneous invitation was sincere, so was his comment that inferred there was something familiar about her.

  “Good looking but tightly strung,” he muttered to himself with a chuckle, yet he was still perplexed. He continued to stare into the grocery store, looking through the closed glass doors, although Kim was no longer in sight. He frowned, trying to figure out why she looked so damned familiar. Then it hit him.

  “Idiot,” he muttered, then turned from the store and headed to his car. Damn good thing she didn’t take my offer, he told himself.

  Kim pulled into her mother’s driveway. She hoped the old house key still worked, because if not, she would have to call a locksmith. While she never expected to return to the house, she couldn’t get herself to throw away the key. Throwing it away seemed to represent abandoning all hope of ever having a relationship with her mother. Of course, now it was too late for that to happen.

  Jake hadn’t stopped meowing since Kim had stopped at the grocery store. She suspected her furry friend needed to visit the litter box. First, she would unlock the house and turn the lights on.

  Kim turned off the engine and pulled the key from the ignition. It shared a key ring with several other keys, including one to her mother’s house. She took it with her as she exited the vehicle, along with a flashlight she had placed in the back seat before leaving home. Walking closer to her mother’s Victorian house, she wondered how it would look in the morning when she could see it better. Thinking like a real estate agent, Kim began to wonder about the condition of the home and how much work she needed to do before listing the property.

  Walking up the front steps to the house, she began fumbling with the key ring in her hand, looking for her mother’s house key. When she found it, she said a quick prayer, hoping the key still worked. It unlocked the door. Kim was home.

  Less than an hour later, Kim stood in her mother’s kitchen making a sandwich while Jake explored the house. There was something a bit eerie about being alone in her mother’s home, she thought. If she didn’t know better, Kim almost expected Carol to come walking through the front door at any minute.

  It was obvious Carol had stepped out of the house, assuming she would be returning shortly. When Kim had first arrived, there were several dirty dishes sitting in the sink, a stack of recently opened mail on the kitchen counter, and an unpleasant odor coming from the garbage in the trashcan under the kitchen sink. Before making her sandwich, Kim had cleaned out the refrigerator and taken out the trash. She was able to salvage some of the food, but the produce and a package of me
at was beginning to smell.

  Kim took a bite of her ham sandwich and walked from the kitchen, heading to the bedrooms. She had taken a quick walk through when she had first arrived and turned on all the lights. She had spent the last hour unloading the car, setting up the litter box, and giving Jake food and water before cleaning out the refrigerator.

  As she walked up the stairs, she could almost hear her mother scolding her for not holding a napkin under the sandwich. Kim felt a little guilty.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Kim said aloud as she reached the top of the staircase and took another bite of her sandwich. She wondered if her mother’s spirit was in the house and if she could see her.

  The first doorway Kim entered led to her childhood bedroom. Kim glanced around the room, surprised that it looked exactly as she’d left it. While she’d taken most of her personal belongings with her when she moved sixteen years earlier, all the old bedroom furniture remained. Her twin bed wore the same old bedspread. She noticed that the items she didn’t take, such as a few books, games, and dolls, remained where she had left them. It looked as if her mother had never touched the room since the day Kim moved. That wasn’t entirely accurate; the room was clean and almost dust free.

  Kim turned off the bedroom light and walked into the hallway, making her way to the other bedrooms. She had turned on all the bedroom lights during her first walk through, an hour earlier. For some reason, lighting up the house made it seem more alive. Carol’s bedroom was at the far end of the hallway, and Kim had already decided to stay there while in Coulson. If asked, she would say it was because of the king-size bed. The real reason, she wanted to be closer to her mother.

  Kim popped the last bite of sandwich in her mouth and walked into the spare bedroom. It had never been set up as a bedroom; there was no reason for one. Carol never had houseguests. As far as Kim knew, her mother had no close friends, no siblings, and Carol’s parents died long before Kim’s birth.

  Furnished as a study, the spare room looked exactly as Kim remembered. On one wall, a small couch sat under the window, with a desk and bookshelf along an adjacent wall. Kim noticed a shoebox, its lid ajar, sitting on the center of the desk. She wondered if her mother had been looking through the box the day she died.

  Kim walked to the desk and lifted the lid from the cardboard box. It contained a stack of old letters and cards, still in their envelopes. She immediately recognized the handwriting; it was her own. Taking the top half of the envelopes from the box, Kim flipped through the small stack and noticed they were in chronological order. Apparently, her mother had saved all the cards and letters Kim had sent over the last sixteen years. Kim was surprised. Carol had never been a sentimental woman.

  The envelopes had not been ripped open but neatly cut with a knife or letter opener, leaving behind a narrow slit across the top of each one. Kim wondered if Carol had been looking through the old letters the day she died, and if so, why?

  Just as Kim was putting the letters and cards back in the box, she noticed the edge of a photograph poking out from under the box. Kim moved the cardboard container to one side and discovered an old photograph sitting on the desk.

  She immediately recognized the picture. It was the wedding photograph of her father. Kim picked up the photograph by one corner and turned on the desk lamp so she could get a better look at the man in the picture. It had been such a long time since she’d seen it. While she remembered her father was handsome, how he looked exactly was a faint memory.

  “Holy shit!” Kim exclaimed, looking at the picture. The man in the photograph looked exactly like the person she had collided with several hours earlier. While the man at the market was obviously not her father, she had a good idea who he was.

  “I believe my half-brother tried to hit on me,” Kim told the empty room.

  Chapter 3

  The following morning, the sound of grinding gears and metal trashcans hitting the sidewalk woke Kim. Sleepily, she opened her eyes and was briefly startled to find herself in her mother’s bedroom in Coulson. It took her just an instant to remember. Her mother was dead, murdered.

  Sitting up in the bed, Kim cursed the disposal company for waking her and then cursed herself for not remembering Monday morning was trash pickup day in her old neighborhood. While Kim had emptied the household trashcans the previous evening, she hadn’t hauled the outside cans to the curb for pickup. By the sounds that woke her, it was obvious the neighbors had remembered to put out their trash.

  “Damn,” Kim muttered as she rolled over and glanced at the alarm clock sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. It was almost 6:00 a.m. She had a full day ahead of her. First, she wanted to stop at the Coulson Police Department and find out what was going on regarding the murder investigation. After the police department, the next stop was to the funeral home to arrange for Carol’s burial.

  Kim rolled over onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. Snuggling under the blankets, she contemplated what she needed to do. She felt Jake jump onto the bed and wondered briefly where he had spent the evening; he hadn’t come in to sleep with her as was his normal custom. He was probably exploring, Kim told herself.

  Jake moved panther-like toward Kim, his purr loud. He stepped onto her stomach and strolled up her body, apparently not concerned that his weight might be uncomfortable for Kim. He quickly settled on her chest, lying atop her upper body with his nose next to her chin, as he continued to purr.

  “Damn, Jake, you weigh a ton. You know that?” Kim chuckled as she pet his head. He responded by rubbing his forehead against her hand. The contented feline closed his eyes and drooled, leaving a few drops of spittle on the blanket.

  “Well, buddy, while I appreciate all this attention, I really have a busy day ahead of me.” Kim gave Jake’s head a quick pat and then gently pushed him off her body. Disgusted with the dismissal, Jake leapt to the floor and strolled from the room without looking back.

  After a quick shower, Kim dressed in designer denims, an emerald-green turtleneck sweater, and stylish black boots. The color of the sweater brought out the green in her eyes, while the shoes’ four-inch heels gave her small frame additional height. She wore her auburn-hued hair just below her shoulders. It had been styled the week before, so it took her just a few minutes with the curling iron to get ready.

  While Carol had not prevented the teenage Kim from wearing makeup, she had restricted how much the young girl could wear. However, she had never provided any guidance on how to apply it. Worried her mother might forbid the practice of wearing makeup all together, especially after Carol threw Kim’s makeup away during a fit of rage, the young girl had been careful not to wear it in such a way that might attract her mother’s attention. As Kim grew older, she learned to apply makeup so that it enhanced her looks, without looking as if she was wearing any. Blessed with flawless skin with just a faint sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, she looked attractive even when her face was freshly scrubbed and makeup free.

  Kim wanted to get to the police station by 8:00 a.m. After dressing and eating a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and wheat toast, she decided to look for her mother’s will and other vital documents before heading out.

  She poured herself a second cup of coffee and was about to head upstairs to the study when she spied the stack of opened mail on the kitchen counter. She hadn’t looked through the mail the night before, yet now she wondered what utility bills might be due. Kim didn’t want the electricity or water shut off unexpectedly while staying at her mother’s house.

  Setting the coffee mug on the counter for a moment, Kim picked up the stack of mail and began looking through it. It was mostly junk mail, but there was one utility bill. She peeked in the envelope and noted the bill was due, yet not past due. Setting the stack of mail back on the counter, she intentionally placed the electric bill on the top of the stack as a reminder to pay it.

  Picking up her coffee, she walked upstairs to her mother’s study. The shoebox, filled with her old letters
and cards, was still sitting on the desk, and next to it was the photograph of Kim’s father.

  Pulling out the desk chair, Kim sat down and set her mug on the desktop. She picked up the photograph of her father, placed it in the box with the letters and cards, replaced the lid, and pushed the box to the back of the desk, giving her more room.

  The bottom drawer held files, and she suspected that was where her mother might keep important papers. She pulled out the drawer and began rifling through the file folders, setting the ones that looked important on the desktop. Sorting through the pile, she pulled out what appeared to be a copy of her mother’s will, a copy of the homeowner’s insurance policy, and a bill from her mother’s attorney. Kim had wondered if her mother had an attorney, and if so, who he was. The bill answered her question. Kim and Carol had never discussed such things.

  Glancing through the will, she wasn’t surprised at the contents. Carol had left everything to Kim. Gathering up a few of the documents to take with her, including her mother’s will, Kim placed the remaining papers back in their respective folders and returned the files to the drawer.

  It was almost 8:00 a.m. Kim walked down the hallway to her mother’s room, grabbed the handbag she had left on the dresser the night before, and tucked the retrieved documents in the purse. Five minutes later, as she backed the Tahoe from the driveway, she noticed Jake sitting on the living room windowsill, looking out the glass pane with the curtain at his back. Kim smiled at the sight, glad that she had Jake.

  Kim hadn’t expected to feel so anxious as she pulled up to the police station. After parking the Tahoe, she got out of the vehicle and took a deep breath. Her heart was beating at an accelerated rate, her stomach felt queasy. It suddenly hit her. She felt incredibly alone.

  Trying to steady herself so she wouldn’t start shaking, she walked up to the entrance of the police department. She noticed it was a little warm for November in Coulson. Typically, the temperatures would be in the high sixties or low seventies this time of year, yet Kim guessed it was pushing eighty. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn this damn turtleneck sweater, Kim told herself as she opened the glass door to the police station and walked in.