remake itself. I swear if one day I woke up in a castle, I’d probably piddle on the floor. And not because I sneezed too hard.
Geoff tried to shoo my cat from the counter. “Down.”
“Leave him alone. He’s fine.” To me, Grisou was a member of my family who didn’t deserve to live solely on the floor.
“It’s not fine, Mom. It’s gross. We eat here.”
“And? It’s just hair, Geoff.” The words that came out of my mouth were so opposite to what I’d said to my kids growing up. I’d not put plastic on the couches, but it came close.
Grisou nosed the box as I read the label addressed to Mrs. Naomi Rousseaux. It came from some kind of legal office in the United States.
“What is it?” Geoff asked, drying his hands on a towel.
“I’m not sure.” A frown pulled my features as I palmed a knife to slice at the tape.
As I pulled apart the cardboard flaps, Grisou let out a hiss then a low growl.
Even Geoff recoiled. “What’s that smell?”
“Smells like something died.” Looking inside the box, I saw a few things. Paper. Some clothing. Trinkets. A letter on top that started out, Dear Mrs. Dunrobin, as the beneficiary of your late husband’s estate…
I didn’t close the flaps quick enough. Geoff saw, but rather than address it, he left the kitchen and returned to his cave. It didn’t surprise me. He didn’t talk about his father.
My very dead ex-husband.
Martin’s body had been found on the other side of the lake. No one knew how he managed to escape jail then travel undetected from the States to Canada and the small town I now called home. The autopsy noted that he died of exposure caused by living in the woods as winter started.
Utter bullshit. Martin didn’t have a single outdoorsy bone in his body. Not to mention, dying of the cold didn’t explain the terror forever frozen on his face.
There was no sign of foul play. Officer Murphy couldn’t pin it on me. I should have been ecstatic Martin was out of my life. That he could no longer follow through with his threats to kill me.
But something about the situation unsettled me.
With Geoff gone, I eyed the package. What use did I have for an ex-husband’s things? I should toss it into the firepit out back and set it on fire.
Or should I hold on to it for Winnie or Geoff? While they weren’t fond of their late father, they might eventually want something to remember him by.
Given Geoff’s reaction, maybe I’d offer it to Winnie first. She’d hated him the least, and this in spite of how Martin treated her. Only as I held the package did I pause and second-guess my decision. What was inside?
What if it was full of porn magazines? A shiv? Maybe more of Martin’s crazy manifesto that basically amounted to “kill that bitch.” That bitch being me, of course. A smell still lingered around it. Death and something else. I wanted to say evil, but I didn’t think it had a specific aroma.
“Meow.”
My cat twined around my legs, a sinuous gray shape that had grown so much since I’d adopted his orphaned butt months ago.
“What do you think, Grisou?” I asked, shaking the package. “Maybe I should make sure there’s nothing in there that might upset Winnie.”
Better if it upset me. I could handle it.
Setting the box back on the counter, I started with the letter from the lawyer, a generic thing that basically amounted to the fact that Martin was dead and they didn’t know who else to send his shit too. By the way, as his beneficiary in his will and testament, you’ll have to settle his estate. In other words, find some money to pay their bill.
At that I snorted. Figured those vultures would want their piece.
I put the letter aside and pulled out the suit. His trial clothes that his lawyer arranged so he wouldn’t appear in a prison jumpsuit.
In a manila envelope was his wallet with his identification and an invalid bank card. His reading glasses. Under that, evidence bags full of books. Notebooks both glue-spined and spiral bound. On the covers, dates. January 3rd, 2003 to August 14th, 2005.
Journals? Work ledgers? I was kind of curious. As I shifted the first bag, the smell erupted in all its rancid glory.
A glance within showed the culprit. A dead rodent. Barf. I didn’t know how it got inside the box, but I knew it had to go.