Deep Night

by Ambrose Ibsen

  Ulrich felt an overwhelming desire to take her advice. He would have loved to open his door, cast the painting into a dumpster and just wash his hands of it. The death of Gloria Ramos was a tragedy, no doubt, but the risks in uncovering the truth were enormous. Someday, William Villefort would make a misstep. The bones would be found by someone else, the authorities would manage to tie him to the scene in some clever way, like they always did on television, and justice would be served, however late.

  But then, even as he saw the sense in throwing in the towel to save his own skin, he couldn't do it. It was hard to believe, looking at him now, but Harlan Ulrich had become a private eye because he'd wished to help other people. These days he worked to keep himself clothed and fed—to keep himself in coffee—but once upon a time, when he'd been younger and more naive, he'd done it for the pursuit of justice. One too many Raymond Chandler novels will do that to a man.

  He couldn't shrink from this challenge, not now. He'd gone too deep, discovered an injustice that would go unpunished unless he persevered. His relationship with the spirit of Gloria Ramos was not one of great emotional investiture; she scared the piss out of him and that was about the length of it. But she needed help, and Ulrich was the one she'd turned to. Even if he abandoned the case that very moment, he'd never be able to live with himself, knowing that her spirit still walked the Earth in search of aid, and that her killer had evaded justice.

  “I don't plan to get killed over it,” he said after a time. “But que será, será. This girl was murdered. She was dealt a terrible hand in this life. It simply won't do for her to suffer in the next one, too. I'm the only one who can do anything about this. The cops will cooperate—but the only way I'll get them on board is with a smoking gun. And, so...”

  “What can I do to help?” asked Nancy. “If you're going to do this, then...”

  “You can stay away,” insisted the detective. “I'll have enough trouble protecting my own hide!”

  “I just hope this ends well. I mean, do you have any way to defend yourself? I never asked before, but do you carry a gun? We have some at the shop—I'd be more than willing to give you one if you'd like.”

  “Oh, my, no,” replied Ulrich with a laugh. “I don't carry guns.”

  “But why not? In a case like this you need to be able to defend yourself!”

  “I'm too clumsy to be trusted with a firearm,” he explained. “I'd shoot myself in the foot—or worse. No, I'll be better off keeping my eyes peeled and fleeing if Villefort shows up. If push comes to shove, I've got a pretty mean right hook, too.”

  “Throwing punches isn't going to help you if he's throwing lead,” she said matter-of-factly. “Whatever. Have it your way, then. Just please don't get yourself killed. I'm going to get some sleep, but I'll head back early this morning. I'll give you a call when I'm heading back to town.”

  “Sounds good. I'll talk to you then.” He paused. “Oh, Nancy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I've thought of something you could do to help me.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “If I make it through this, I'd love a batch of those raspberry thumbprint cookies.”

  She ended the call, but not before muttering a string of curses under her breath.

  As he pocketed his phone, the lights in his apartment dimmed very slightly. This momentary fade came on the heels of a sharp rapping outside his window. Ulrich glanced at the blinds, knowing all too well who stood outside.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  At hearing this, the cat bolted out of view. Strange, uncharacteristic noises welled up in Beardsley's throat as he took shelter behind the bedskirt. His animal instincts had picked up on something unnatural in the environment. There'd be no hope of drawing him out from his hiding spot till the spirit had wandered off—not without risking armfuls of scratches, anyhow.

  “Settle down,” said the detective. He stared at the window, able to make out a hazy human-shaped silhouette through the dusty white blinds. “Are you ready to wrap this up, Gloria? I'd rather be asleep right now, but time is of the essence.” He stepped back into his shoes, fetched his keys, wallet and flashlight. All the while, the figure remained stationed outside the window.

  Peeking at the shuddering cat under the bed, Ulrich grinned. “I'm setting off now. Wish me luck, will you?”

  Beardsley's eyes glowed eerily in the darkness. His hackles went up and he gave another rumbling growl.

  “Well, if I don't make it back, you're gonna have a hell of a time finding a new owner, acting like that!” Ulrich picked up the painting and switched off most of the lights in his apartment. Then, he stepped outside. He glanced at once to his right, expecting to find the sentinel apparition outside his window, but nothing remained in that space save for a queer, disquieting chill in the air. Locking the door, the detective struck out into the parking lot.

  In his backseat, visible for the sparse glow of a nearby streetlight, was the spirit. Gloria sat hunched in the middle of the seat, her head hanging low and her tangled locks keeping the bulk of her cadaverous face from view. The umbrella sat in her lap, and her thin, white arms quivered as she held it.

  He was never going to get used to carpooling with ghosts, but after a brief hesitation, he slipped inside and propped up the painting in the passenger's seat. “OK,” he said, starting the engine and adjusting his rearview mirror. “Let's see what we can dig up, yes? I don't know where he buried you, but unless he's tried to move your body in the past few hours you're somewhere on that lot. I'm going to find you—I promise.”

  Dark eyes studied him in the mirror. Ulrich averted his gaze, focused on the road ahead as he pulled out of his spot.

  22

  He was going to have to be more careful this time.

  It remained to be seen whether William Villefort was going to turn up again. Rather than risk a confrontation, Ulrich would need to do his best to stay out of sight. As the night wore on and his odometer continued its upward climb he pictured the distant property and considered potential angles of attack. His goal was to make it onto the property and seek out Gloria's final resting place. This was simple enough in theory; he just needed to wait for the spirit to guide him there, or else find some hint of recent soil disturbance in the sprawling lawn.

  But it would only go smoothly if he didn't have a killer breathing down his neck.

  During his last visit, Ulrich had noticed an abandoned barn up the road from the Villefort place. This would make an ideal place to hide his car. From there, he'd be able to set out on foot. The way onto the property would be clear enough then, and in order to stay out of view he'd merely have to approach from the house's rear, near the pond. The house was bordered by dense clusters of trees on multiple sides, too—he'd make use of the cover they afforded in his advance.

  Still, he knew he was rolling the dice. If he made a wrong move or telegraphed his position, he was liable to get shot. What's more, there was no guarantee he'd find what he was looking for. William knew someone was onto him. Had he left town altogether, or would he attempt to cover his tracks? The idea that the killer might exhume the body and relocate it to some different dumping ground wasn't too far-fetched, and if this proved to be the case Ulrich would have a hell of a time moving things forward. If he arrived on the property and found only an empty hole in the yard, the authorities would dismiss him outright.

  He kept to the country roads, white knuckling the wheel and seldom letting up on the accelerator. When finally the barn entered into view on his right, Ulrich tapped the brake and coasted up onto a dusty drive whose unevenness and tangles of weeds told him it hadn't been used by anyone in ages. He turned on his high beams for a moment, scoping out the inside of the barn and then slowly maneuvering the vehicle into it. Only one door remained attached to the structure, and it hung lopsidedly on a single rusted hinge. The depths of the space were padded out with lumps of festering hay and the air was rich with dust. Against the far wall there stood the hulk of a broken
tractor—there were so many cobwebs clinging to the thing that one would probably need eight limbs to operate it anymore—but there remained ample room in the structure for his rickety sedan.

  Cutting the lights and throwing the car into park, Ulrich stepped out at once and shut the door. He wasted no time in exiting the barn, his lungs and eyes burning for the clouds of dust his tires had kicked up, and kept his flashlight at his side in case he encountered a darker patch in the oncoming scenery. He didn't want to give away his location by keeping it on; rather, it seemed wiser under the circumstances to make limited use of the light.

  When he'd walked a circuit around the barn and gotten his bearings, he struck out in the direction of the Villefort place, keeping as he did so in line with the lofty oaks and the blotches of shade they cast across the overgrown field. Night insects sang their discordant hymns as he trudged through the swaying grass. His advance stirred up buzzing insects—mosquitos—that trailed him relentlessly, and not a few times he felt minute legs touch down on his sweaty neck, his forearms.

  He turned now and then to gauge his distance from the barn. It had receded into the background now, its tottering outline hardly visible between the crowded trunks at his back. Walking on, the choir of insects was complimented by a new soloist; from somewhere in the darkness ahead, a frog bellowed a lonesome tune, and with it there came a whiff of moisture on the meandering breeze. He was getting close to the pond.

  It was after he'd navigated a dozen copses and covered a stretch of half a mile or more that the moonlit edge of the Villefort house came into focus. Through a break in the night-colored foliage above he could make out one of the solemn house's neat corners—a few steps more saw the emergence of a moon-bright window. For the past minute or two he'd been using his light in trying to pick out the borders of the pond ahead and keep himself from falling in. Now, confident that he could skirt its muddy borders without going for a swim, he strode silently from thicket to thicket, scanning the perimeter of the house for signs of life. Except for the veil of night that'd settled around it, the entire rear of the property appeared much the same as it had before. The surface of the pond was still as glass, the white cobblestones of the patio gleamed in the moonlight and the windows he could see from there all remained unlit.

  He was pleased. Maybe I lucked out. Maybe he isn't here after all.

  Ulrich had come up to the side of the house and was covertly making his way to the front of the property when he realized his relief had been premature.

  Pressing his back to the side of the building and attempting to blend in with the stony walls, he studied the front lawn narrowly. Some distance ahead, perhaps fifteen or so feet from the road, he could make out a disturbance in the soil. A big one. More than that, it was recent. A breathless glimpse around the corner yielded a still more distressing sight.

  There was a white SUV in the driveway.

  “Shit...” The detective took a deep, steadying breath. Villefort was there, and by the looks of it he'd come to do a little digging. But where was he? A few glances to the drive, to the pit he'd opened up across the lawn, showed no sign of him. Did he go inside the house? Is he in the SUV, maybe?

  From somewhere nearby—far too close for comfort—there came the deafening report of a gun.

  Five shots in total pierced the night, and in their wake even the insects seemed to shut up. Ulrich jerked at every one, crouching down and covering himself with his arms. As the final shot rang out, he patted his body, half-expecting to find himself wounded. It was clear, though, that the shots had come from further off. Dazed with fear, he regained his feet and listened for any further blasts. Maybe it hadn't been a gun at all, but a car backfiring in the distance? Or perhaps some neighbor was up late, shooting varmints in his back yard? People in the country do that sort of thing, right? It was as good a guess as any.

  Still, the effect that the gunshots had on him was profound. They'd spurred him to action not unlike the starting pistol at the beginning of a footrace. Ulrich made sure the way was clear and then rushed across the lawn, his panting form clearly visible in the moonlight, to the disturbance in the soil. A shovel had been left sticking out of the earth like a signpost, and a small heap of extricated dirt and grass sat beside it.

  This had to be it—Gloria's final resting place.

  Had Villefort managed to move the body already, or would Ulrich find her still resting in her shallow grave?

  He made it to the edge of the aperture, the heels of his dress shoes biting into the lawn as he skidded to a stop. Already he'd fished his phone out of his pocket, his trembling thumb ready to pound out a 9-1-1 call.

  But upon looking into that shallow ditch, the device slipped out of his grasp and his legs went weak. Woozy, it was all he could do not to tumble down into it. “W-What in the...” The moon brightened as a cottony cloud drifted away from its shining face.

  This wasn't what he'd been expecting at all.

  23

  He was looking into a grave. It was not a particularly deep one—something like two feet of soil had been dug out, at most. It wasn't especially wide, either, but it'd been wide enough to serve its purpose.

  With a roiling stomach, Ulrich stared down at the bodies within it.

  Bodies—plural.

  The detective had expected to find one corpse in this hole, but discovering a second threw him into paroxysms of terror. It was all he could do not to groan, and he clasped a hand around his mouth to stifle his surprise and keep himself from inhaling the deathly aroma emanating from the pit with an open mouth.

  Both bodies were badly degraded—one could hardly expect otherwise of corpses buried in a moist, shallow grave—but they were not so warped that he couldn't find something to recognize in both of them. He knelt down at the edge of the opening and studied them as closely as he could bear.

  The first, bent into a semi-fetal position, was familiar enough. It was a woman, her thin body draped in muddy tatters that had once constituted a cotton dress. Her black hair was draped over her emaciated face—and the detective was mighty thankful for it, for he could tell that her features were hideously sunken now and that the papery skin had come to cling gruesomely to the bones beneath. Held almost lovingly between her arms was a red umbrella, badly torn.

  “Gloria...” This was the woman he'd come looking for—the one he'd expected to find buried on this property. So, who was her grave-mate, then?

  He turned his attention now to the other body—this one comparably decayed, but male. Laying flat on his back, jaw slack and sunken eyes pointing up at the heavens, this body was clothed in a yellow polo shirt and grass-stained khakis. One of his loafers was missing, and the bare foot that stuck up from the ground was bloated and odorous. Despite only having seen the man in a photo, Ulrich knew at a glance that this was William Villefort.

  His throat closed around a knot of dread as he beheld the two cadavers.

  What had seemed only moments ago to be airtight theories were now a shambles. He loosed a hard exhalation, fearing that he might be sick, and regained his feet. Who had done this, and why? And what about all of the evidence he'd found in and around the house? His head spun almost as wildly as the contents of his stomach.

  His questions were soon to be answered. From the rightmost border of the property, from the copses he himself had only recently emerged form, there was a fury of rustling. From this there stalked a single figure into the moonlit yard, clad in black. They could be seen to pause and scan the lot slowly. Then, when their eyes had picked out the shuddering detective, they approached with swiftness. There was a flash of steel in the moonlight as the figure took aim and let loose a blast from a rifle at roughly fifty yards.

  The shot came within ten feet of him, sank into the carpet of grass and kicked up a powder-fine mist of earth. Ulrich staggered back, nearly slipping into the grave and landing on the two corpses. He had only enough time to regain his footing and step around the far edge of the hole before another shot sounded. This
one came closer, whipped past him by a margin of arm's length before disappearing into the ground like the other had done.

  The gunman was getting closer. They wore dark pants and a dark hooded sweatshirt. Some sort of dark covering on the face. Tight black gloves, too. A human shadow. They'd managed to close the gap considerably; the assailant was fifteen yards and now, panting, slowed to a walk.

  How many cartridges are in that thing? It would be easiest to stage a counterattack while the gunman tried to reload. The detective was no firearm expert, but in his quick study of the rifle he didn't notice any large-capacity magazine. Probably this thing had a max capacity of ten cartridges—eleven if there was one in the chamber. The assailant had rattled off something like five in the distance earlier and another two on the lawn. In total, Ulrich guessed he'd fired seven rounds. That left another three or four—and even then, he couldn't be certain.

  At this range, he was sure to get hit. It was only a matter of time. Squeezing the flashlight in his fist, he thought to rush his attacker—to bludgeon them with the thing before they could get another shot off. If he kept moving, proved a difficult target, then maybe the gunman would exhaust his ammo and Ulrich could go for the jugular.

  He was too slow, though.

  The rifle popped, and this time the round found its mark. He felt a tug on his lower leg as the bullet ate into the side of his calf. He lunged to one side and barely stayed on his feet, wincing as a fiery pain spread throughout the wounded limb. The gunman had caught his breath and now took more care in aiming—he loosed yet another shot. This one missed, but Ulrich heard it buzzing through the air as it cleared his head.

  The detective gauged the distance between himself and the attacker.