Re: carriage house - michael and atticus
Atticus leaned and opened the sidetable door. Inside, his Walkmans sat. One, the one he carried more often, was a CD player. The other, was a cassette player. Beside them were stacks of cassettes, CDs, and 8-tracks. "Like the old sounds better. Have fond memories of the crackle of an 8-track, and the sound it made going into the car radio." Atticus didn't see the point in being shy about things like that, even if they gave away more about the man than he normally divulged. "Place in Bronx was a clutter of old things." This place was not.
He listened to Michael talk about funerals. Was surprised that none of them would be in the town's warring churches. Surprised, but not. Carver would be upset he didn't get to eulogized. Atticus assumed that Carver eulogized long and often. "Surprised they're keeping the project going. Not related to what happened?" Figured that was the only way the thing could stay afloat. Regardless, he knew the dead were plentiful out at the facility. His haunts got possessive when there was an influx.
Michael asked if the journal was hard to read, and Atticus shook his messy curls. "No. Barely remember my parents. Not hard." That was true. "Strangers, really. Have no idea why they would ever come here and buy this place, for example." He looked at the ceiling, and then he returned his attention to Michael as Michael spoke about his dead wife.
He let the other man read.
When Michael asked for the photos, Atticus handed them over in a pile, still turned over. Michael would need to turn them over himself, when he was ready.
There were three of them. The first illustrated why his mother had likened the woman to Evelyn McHale. The woman, Michael's wife, was lying upon the crashed trellis, and it looked like she was napping. Ankles crossed, one hand bent back behind her ear. Only the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth indicated there was anything wrong. The other two images weren't as pretty. One showed the crashed trellis, a puddle of blood from the back of the woman's head deep and red, and a pair of man's shoes, a watch, nearby. The last image showed the body in a black bag being zipped, the ambulance visible in the blurry background.
"Have the coroner's report, if you want it." Didn't know if Michael would.