The Attic

The attic smelled like sour cabbage, as if the odours of the summer kitchen below the floor had drifted through the ceiling and were trapped beneath the roof. The smell hit me first and I wanted to shove my tie up my nose. It was the kind of lingering odour that I knew I'd be smelling long after I left, and I'd never quite wash it out. I've smelled worse, far worse, but there was something about this particular decaying scent that made me grimace.

It wasn't death. That is an entirely unforgettable odour that burns into the back of your brain, the forceful slap of death that is a relentless reminder of its permanence. The attic smelled like the dying. Not quite permanent. Yet.

The attic itself was about what you'd expect from a quasi-hoarder in his seventies. Jerry was his name, and he was round and squat with no neck and perpetual sweat on his forehead. Lips and ears tinged with purple told me he had heart problems. Bandages on his fingers told me he was diabetic. So, not in good shape. He called the department asking for a detective to look into something he'd found - well, to be honest, his niece found it when she was looking in the attic for a certain record that he hadn't seen in 20 years - and considering I didn't have any open cases at the moment, I was sent to Jerry. He had gripped my hand and shaken it vigorously when I came to the door, relieved that someone had taken his concerns seriously. He babbled a little, flustered by my existence, and then promptly showed me to the attic. He couldn't climb up the old stairs himself - bad hip, he said - but his niece, his niece was the one who found it, stuck in with the records, and insisted he call the police.

Jerry was a nervous fellow. He waited at the bottom of the steps, the kind you pull down from the ceiling, and gripped the rail.

Sure, the unexpected presence of a firearm in your home is somewhat perplexing, and I struggled with the assumption that Jerry just was a naturally sweaty guy. Or just very, very nervous.

I stood at the top of the steps and snapped on my gloves, then reached up for the pull string for the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.

Once the light was on, my eyes caught something - somethings, there was more than one - black and small scurrying under the boxes along the west wall.

I bristled. "You have roaches up here, Jerry," I called to the man, and he sputtered a curse.

"Guess my next call will be to an exterminator," Jerry grumbled.

Not many things grossed me out, but the bugs combined with the not-quite-dead smell pushed me over the edge. I stifled a gag, eyes watering slightly. I breathed through my mouth but I could still taste the sour cabbage smell.

"Just point me in the right direction, Jerry," I said.

"It's in the records. That's what Lisa said. In the records next to the radios."

I glanced around, my eyes scrambling over mountains of boxes.

Make it quick, Detective, my captain had said. I fully intended to make this very quick.

I found the boxes of records underneath the boxes of newspapers. I shuffled them around as quickly as I dared, not wanting to be startled by more roaches or the surprise firearm.

I found it easily enough. It wasn't buried too deep, as if someone had quickly shoved it into the nearest box, eager to be rid of it. It was a snub-nosed pocket revolver, no bigger than my hand. Smith & Wesson Model 36. It was popular in the seventies as a personal defence weapon. It was small but could pack a mean punch. It fit my budding theory that it's been in the records for a very long time. The stock was rusted, some of it transferred onto the paper covers of the records. The grip was still raised, as if it had only been used for a day and then discarded.

Oh, shit.

I forced open the rusted chamber and found two live rounds stuck inside. Grimacing, I shook out the .38 special ammunition into my palm. Who hides a loaded weapon in an attic? I doubted anyone would have been able to pull back the hammer in order to discharge the weapon, but it still made me pause.

Why the attic? Because no one went up here. Why not empty it? Why keep it loaded?

Someone must have wanted to hide it quickly. And then it was promptly left behind and forgotten.

"You find the records?" Jerry called.

"Yeah. Got the gun, too," I replied. I heard Jerry groan.

"Hey, Jerry. How long have you lived here?" I asked.

"I moved in '83. Why?"

"Is all this stuff yours? Or was there stuff here when you moved in?"

"Some of it isn't mine. I just left it, you know? Figured no one would go up there. Hell, I haven't been up there in ten years. Ten years, I haven't been up there."

"Jerry, I'm going to need the name of the previous owner," I said flatly.

Something in his voice tugged at my brain. Tug, tug.

"Have you ever owned a weapon?" I asked him, the answer to which I already knew. I just wanted to see how he'd react.

"No, not one. Never," he said immediately. Emphatically.

I placed the small revolver and the ammunition in an evidence bag and looked around a little more, but not finding anything else hidden away in the stacks.

Someone just wedged it into a box and left.

"Anyone ever live with you?" I asked as I descended the steps. Jerry was sweating, his ping pong ball eyes glued into the evidence bag in my hand.

"My uncle lived here for a stretch in the nineties," Jerry replied, running a gummy hand over his slick face.

"Where is he now?"

"Dead. Died in '98."

"Were you close?"

"Close enough to live together. We weren't blood brothers or nothing."

"I see," I said, and I watched his demeanour.

Either he was fifteen seconds away from a heart attack or he was really, really bad at hiding something. I silently wished for the former. A lot of people have skeletons in their closets that they don't want their nieces to find.

"Have you ever been married?" I asked him, and the question caught him off guard.

"No, not married."

Which was a lie. I did a preliminary background check on Jerry and the house before I arrived. He was married briefly in the eighties.

Why lie, Jerry? Oh, you bumbling sweaty man, what are you hiding?

"Never?" I asked. "Not even a partner living with you?"

"No, no partner, no wife."

Reinforcing the lie. Sweaty idiot.

"No one at all?"

For a fraction of a second I thought he'd fess up. He wanted to. The way his mouth worked, the truth was right at the surface, but he struggled to bury it. He wanted to say something. I held his eye, watching him squirm, until he blathered out, "No one." His gaze broke, flitting to the side.

I could have shaken my head at him. Lying was always, always a bad idea. I didn't care if it was to cover an affair or drugs. A lot of people were just worried those things would make them look bad, but lying always looked worse.

"Jerry, I'll take care of this for you," I offered coolly, with a slight smile, the smell of the attic still lingering in my nose. I fished for my card and handed it to him, and he immediately sagged with relief.

"Thank you, Detective," he said breathlessly.

The gun was going away. He was relieved it was going away. He turned over my card in his hand and I moved towards the front door.

"You find anything else, you call me, alright?" I said with a smile.

His brow furrowed and he wiped away some sweat with fat fingers.

"What will you do with it?" He asked hesitantly.

"Oh this?" I stopped and lifted the evidence bag, the ammunition clanking against the revolver. "Don't you worry, Jerry. I'll look it over and then it will probably be disposed of."

"Disposed?"

"Or we'll keep it and use it in firearms training with the cadets. Either way, you don't have to worry about a thing."

He didn't seem convinced. He was tense again, something occurring to him that he didn't think of before. "It's not mine. I don't know if I've said it before, but it's not mine."

"Whose could it be?" I asked him.

"I don't know, but it's not mine." His eyes flitted to the side.

According to the file I had on him, he was telling the truth. He's never registered a weapon before. Doesn't mean he's never owned one, though.

He strung his next words carefully, like paper dolls on a Christmas tree. His voice was a little steadier, but his eyes betrayed him. "I don't know whose it is."

"Jerry, you know I've been trained to know when someone's lying, right?" I said, watching his reaction. His red face paled.

"Why don't we sit down for a moment?" I offered, gesturing to the living room. The carpet was faded and worn down to the subfloor in some spots. A paisley couch ripped right from the seventies sat under the only window, and a matching chair across from it, and a low coffee table with weathered corners in between. I took the couch, he took the chair. I put the evidence bag on the coffee table. He stared at it, gulped, wiped away sweat from his brow.

"What does this weapon mean to you?"

Jerry didn't respond. His jaw worked, his hands trembled.

"Was it a promise for a friend?" I prodded.

He involuntarily scoffed in disdain. I thought he would try to cover it, but his shoulders hunched with resignation.

"So it wasn't a friend. I believe you when you say this gun isn't yours. So whose is it?" I asked.

Jerry didn't meet my eye. He stared at the evidence bag, running his mind over everything. Maybe second guessing every decision he made. I stayed quiet, letting him ruminate.

"I don't want her to get into trouble," he said quietly.

I paused, letting him fill the silence. When I didn't immediately ask whom he meant, he assumed I already knew. It was a bluff, even though I had an idea.

"I can guarantee that things will go much smoother if you tell the truth, Jerry," I assured.

He took a shaking breath, still unable to meet my eye. "I think I need a lawyer," he said.

"Ok." I got up, scooped up the bag, and left.

The revolver in the evidence bag would never be traced to any crime. Jerry's ex wife would never be found. I assumed she was living under a false name, if she was still alive. There would never be enough evidence to connect the dots, to ease Jerry's conscience. He got close to talking, but under the pressure of his lawyer, he would never admit to anything, other than knowingly hiding the weapon in the attic. He forgot about it until his niece stumbled onto it while flipping through records. The attic held onto its secrets, left to rot in putrid silence.