A Noise Downstairs

by Linwood Barclay

  Josh was very quiet during the part where young Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered in the alley behind a theater.

  “I don’t think we should ever go out to a movie,” he said, leaning into his father on the couch as the final credits rolled.

  “It’s okay,” Paul said, mentally kicking himself for forgetting that central part of the crime fighter’s backstory. “We don’t live in Gotham City. We live in Milford.”

  “Bad things happen here,” he said. “A bad thing happened to you.”

  He gave his son a squeeze. “I know.”

  “I hope I don’t get nightmares,” he said.

  Paul grinned. “You and me both, pal.”

  Charlotte texted to report that she’d be late. Her clients had decided to put in an offer. Paul said he would say good night for her when he put Josh to bed. As he sat on the edge, about to turn off Josh’s bedside table lamp, the boy said, “I’m sorry about tomorrow.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I don’t even care that much about basketball. But a lot of my friends do, and I wanted to be able to tell them I went to a game.”

  “It’s okay. The next weekend, when you’re here longer, we’ll do something special.”

  Josh reached for an iPhone and earbuds next to the bed.

  “What are you listening to these days to help you get to sleep?” Paul asked.

  “The Beatles.”

  “Seriously?”

  Josh nodded. “They’re pretty good. One of them’s about a walrus.”

  “Don’t strangle yourself on the cords after you fall asleep.”

  Josh put a bud into each ear, tapped the phone’s screen. Paul leaned in, kissed his son’s forehead, turned off the light, slipped out of the room, and closed the door.

  As he came down the stairs to the kitchen he heard the front door open. Seconds later, a weary Charlotte appeared.

  “Nightcap?” he said, opening the fridge.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I just want to go to bed.”

  “Was the offer accepted?”

  She shook her head, exhausted. “We spent nearly two hours on it, sorting out a closing date, inclusions, everything. And then, at the last minute, they got cold feet.”

  He smiled sympathetically. “Run you a tub?”

  She shook her head. “The second my head hits that pillow, I’m dead. How’s Josh?”

  “We watched Batman.” He grimaced. “The part where Bruce Wayne’s parents die hit a little too close to home.” He hesitated. “A weird thing happened.”

  “What?”

  “We went out to the ice cream truck. Kenneth Hoffman’s son was driving it.”

  “That’s Hoffman’s son? I’ve bought ice cream for Josh from him, too.”

  “It just felt . . . strange. I don’t think he had any idea it was me. Not that he necessarily should have.” He looked down. “I tell myself I want to face this business head-on, but then I see Hoffman’s son and I can’t look him in the eye.”

  “Coming to terms with what Kenneth did doesn’t mean you have to confront his boy. What do they say about the sins of the father shall not be visited upon the son?”

  Paul grinned. “Actually, I think it’s the other way around.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. “You get my point.”

  “I do.”

  Charlotte sighed, then trudged upstairs. By the time Paul had tidied the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the bedroom, Charlotte was under the covers making soft breathing noises.

  Paul slipped under the covers stealthily, taking care not to wake Charlotte. He reached over to the lamp and plunged the room into darkness.

  In seconds, he was asleep.

  _________________

  IT WAS JUST AFTER TWO IN THE MORNING WHEN HE HEARD THE sounds.

  He became aware of them while he was still asleep, so when he first opened his eyes, and heard nothing, he thought he must have been dreaming.

  There was nothing.

  But then he heard it again.

  Chit chit. Chit chit chit. Chit. Chit chit.

  He immediately knew the sound. It was a new one to the household but instantly recognizable. One floor down, someone was playing with the antique typewriter in his cramped office.

  He gently ran his hand across the sheet until he felt Charlotte there. So, it wasn’t her. As if that would have made any sense, her getting up in the middle of the night to mess about with her gift to him.

  That left Josh.

  Paul squinted at the clock radio on the table beside him. It was 2:03 A.M. Why the hell would Josh go down and play with the typewriter now? Or at all, given that he’d hurt himself on it and professed to hate the thing.

  Paul gently pulled back the covers, put his feet down to the floor, and stood. Wearing only his boxers, he walked out of the bedroom and into the hall, not turning on any lights.

  Chit chit.

  He went straight past Josh’s closed door and down the stairs, keeping his hand on the railing. It wasn’t just because of the dark; he was not fully awake and slightly woozy. When he reached the kitchen, the various digital lights on the stove, microwave, and toaster cast enough light that he could see where he was going.

  The door to his small study was closed, and there was no sliver of light at the base. He turned the knob, pushed open the door far enough to reach around and flip the light switch, then pushed the door open all the way.

  Josh was not there.

  No one was there. The chair was empty.

  But the typewriter was there.

  There was no paper in it. The single sheet with Josh typed on it remained on the desk.

  Paul stared at the scene for several seconds, then glanced back into the kitchen. The way he figured it, Josh must have heard him coming, ducked out, hid behind the kitchen island, then scooted back upstairs the second Paul stepped into his office.

  Sure enough, when Paul went back upstairs and peeked into Josh’s room, the boy was under the covers, eyes closed, buds tucked into his ears.

  The little bugger.

  Paul smiled to himself. He’d conduct a proper interrogation in the morning.

  Eleven

  Paul had been in his office for an hour, on his third cup of coffee and researching online what made supposedly good people do bad things, when Josh, still in his pajamas, came padding down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Paul closed the laptop, came out, went to the fridge, and got out a container of milk. “Cheerios?” he asked his son.

  Josh muttered something that sounded like a yes and sat at the table. Paul put a bowl of cereal in front of him, splashed on some milk, and grabbed a spoon from the cutlery drawer. Josh stared sleepily into the bowl as he scooped a spoonful of cereal and shoved it into his mouth.

  “How are you this morning?” Paul asked, glancing at the wall clock. It was half past ten.

  Josh made a noise that was little more than a soft grunt.

  “You really slept in,” his father said.

  Josh glanced for a second at his father. Paul noticed there was still some sleep in the corner of his eyes. “It’s Sunday.”

  “True enough. But you seem a little more tired than usual.”

  “I had bad dreams,” Josh said, going back to his cereal. “We shouldn’t have watched that movie.”

  “Sorry. I should have picked something else, but the thing is, almost any movie can remind us of something bad that’s happened to us.”

  Charlotte appeared, both hands to one ear, attaching an earring. “Hey, you two,” she said.

  “Heading out already?” Paul said. “I thought your open house was at two.”

  “It is. But I have to make sure the house is presentable. Last time I was there the master bedroom floor was littered with laundry and there were half a dozen dog turds in the yard. And I want to pick up some frozen bread, put it in the oven.”

  Josh perked up. “Why?”

  “Old real estate trick. Make the house smell nice.”

/>   She pulled out the glass carafe from the coffeemaker and frowned when she found it nearly empty.

  “Sorry,” Paul said. “I already went through a pot. I was up kind of early. Couldn’t sleep.” He tipped his head toward the study. “Thought I’d get back to it.”

  “How’s it going?”

  Paul shrugged. He slipped into a chair across from his son. Josh yawned, looked at the wall clock, and rested his spoon in the bowl. “I gotta get ready. Mom and Walter will be here soon.”

  He started to push back his chair but was stopped when Paul reached out and gently grabbed his wrist.

  “So you want to tell me what you were up to in the middle of the night?”

  “Huh?” Josh said.

  “I heard you. Around two in the morning.”

  “What’s this?” Charlotte said, putting a new filter into the coffeemaker and spooning in some ground coffee.

  Paul said, “I thought you hated that typewriter, but you got up in the middle of the night to play with it.”

  “What?”

  “I know what I heard,” Paul said. “I know it wasn’t Charlotte, because she was in the bed right next to me.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Josh said. “Why would I play with that stupid typewriter?”

  “Come on, pal. You’re not in trouble, except maybe for not being truthful with me now.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said.

  Paul gave him a look of disappointment. “Okay, Josh.”

  Charlotte, pouring water into the coffee machine, said, “I don’t understand. You heard the typewriter in the night?”

  “Yup,” Paul said.

  Charlotte gave him a quizzical look. “And it’s somehow a big deal if Josh was messing around with it? It’s built like a tank. He can’t break it.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Josh said again. “I’m glad Mom is coming.” He got up from the table and fled up the stairs to his room.

  Charlotte gave her husband a look.

  “What?” Paul said.

  “Has it occurred to you that maybe you dreamed it? You heard some tap tap tapping in your sleep?”

  Doubt crept across Paul’s face.

  “Okay, the first time I heard it, I was in bed, probably half-asleep.”

  “There you go.”

  Hesitantly, he added, “But then I got up and heard it again when I was going down the hall.”

  Charlotte slowly shook her head. “Your mind plays funny tricks on you when you’re half-awake, or half-asleep, that time of night. Maybe you heard something else. Some kind of house noise. A ticking radiator or something.”

  “This house doesn’t have rads.”

  “Whatever.” While the coffee brewed she took a seat at the table. “Look, you’ve been under an enormous strain lately. Don’t take it out on Josh.”

  Paul ran a hand over his mouth and shook his head.

  The doorbell rang.

  Paul tipped his head back and shouted to the upper floor, “Josh! Your mom’s here!”

  “Early, as always,” Charlotte said, returning to the coffee machine. “Walter’s always in a hurry.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Hold your horses,” Paul said under his breath.

  Then, from the front door one floor below: “Hello?”

  Paul and Charlotte exchanged glances. “Did you lock the door when you came in last night?” Paul asked her quietly.

  Charlotte grimaced. “I thought I had. Does Hailey have a key?”

  Paul shook his head. “Josh does. Maybe she made a copy.” He got out of the chair and reached the top of the stairs as Hailey appeared. Five-ten, short blond hair, jeans with artfully arranged threadbare patches, bracelets jangling from each wrist, hoop earrings the size of coasters. She gave Paul’s wife a cold stare and said, “Charlotte.”

  “Hailey.”

  Paul nodded a silent hello to his ex, then called a second time for Josh. “Coming!” the boy shouted.

  Outside, a horn honked.

  “Jesus,” Hailey said.

  “Walter in a bit of a hurry?” Paul asked.

  “When isn’t he? There’s not a damn thing he doesn’t do in a hurry.”

  Charlotte snickered. Hailey, realizing her comment invited more than one interpretation, tried to recover. “Just getting out of the city was a nightmare. Even on a Sunday morning. We were stuck on the FDR for forty minutes. You know Walter and traffic. He totally loses it. And 95 was no picnic, either.”

  Hailey sighed then regarded her former husband with what seemed genuine concern. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Back to a hundred percent?”

  “Getting there.”

  Hailey smiled. “That’s good.”

  Josh came thumping down the steps, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He was heading straight for the stairs.

  “Hey,” Hailey said, “you gonna say good-bye to your dad?”

  Josh mumbled a “bye” without turning around.

  “That was a bit lame,” his mother said.

  “Dad says I’m a liar,” he said, holding his position at the top of the stairs to the first floor.

  “What?” Hailey asked. “And what happened to your finger?”

  “It’s nothing,” Paul said. “Josh, I never said you were a liar.” Josh glared at him without comment. “I just—look, come here.”

  The boy moved his way as though his running shoes had lead soles. Paul said, “Maybe I was wrong.”

  “Maybe?” Josh said, then spinning on his heels and disappearing down the stairs.

  Hailey gave her ex-husband a reproachful look but voiced no criticism. “Good-bye, Paul,” she said, then, almost as an afterthought, glanced at his wife. “Charlotte.”

  Charlotte nodded.

  Once they’d heard the front door close, Paul shook his head and said, “Shit.”

  Twelve

  While Charlotte hosted her open house, Paul spent much of the afternoon cloistered in his office. He read more articles online about Kenneth Hoffman, and when he thought he’d found pretty much everything on the subject, including several video segments from local news stations, and an item on that NBC show Dateline, he broadened his search to include think pieces on why people do bad things.

  That covered a lot of territory. Why do people lie? Why do they steal? Why do they have affairs? And, most important, why do they kill?

  He scanned articles until he felt he would go blind, and by the end of it, he had no clearer sense of why Hoffman murdered those two women. Paul found Hoffman’s motivation to kill him the simplest to explain. Paul was a witness. He had seen those two women in the back of the Volvo. Hoffman had to kill Paul if he was to have any chance of getting away with his crime.

  Paul thought he would like to talk to him about it.

  Face-to-face.

  He thought he was up to it. His reaction to unexpectedly seeing Kenneth’s son, Leonard, was not, Paul believed, an indicator of how he’d react to sitting down with the killer of two women, if that could be arranged. For one thing, he’d be prepared.

  He was about to do a search on how one arranged a visit with an inmate when his thoughts turned to Josh.

  He’d really botched things with his son that morning. There really was no reason for Josh to lie about tapping away at the typewriter in the middle of the night. And it didn’t make much sense for him to have done it in the first place. He hadn’t gone near the thing since catching his finger in it.

  He had to accept that there was only one logical explanation: he’d dreamed it.

  Yes, he’d told Charlotte he’d continued to hear the chit chit chit as he went down the hallway, but maybe he hadn’t shaken the dream by that point. Maybe he was half sleepwalking.

  What pained him was that he and Josh had had such a nice— albeit short—time together, aside from the troubling aspects of the Batman movie. And Paul had sabotaged it at the end.

  Damn it.

  But Paul was pre
tty sure he could fix things with Josh. He’d make this right. The next time Josh came out from the city, they’d do something really special. Maybe go for a drive to Mystic, check out the aquarium.

  Maybe Charlotte would even want to come.

  Things definitely seemed better with her. They’d hit a few bumps in the road, but if there was any upside to his nearly getting killed, it was that it had made Charlotte reassess not just their marriage, but also the expectations she had for herself. As she’d told him more than once since the incident, she’d been questioning where she was in her life. Was she where she’d hoped she’d be ten years ago?

  While she was doing respectably as a real estate agent, it had never been her goal. She’d entertained, at one time, the idea of a career in, well, entertainment. Living in New York, she’d done off-off-Broadway, even had three lines one time as a day care operator in a Law & Order episode. (Paul suspected Charlotte had actually gone on a date or two with one of the stars, on the Law side, but she would never confirm nor deny.) Sadly, she never got the big break she’d strived for and reached the point where she had to make an actual living. She’d held sales jobs, worked hotel reception. When Paul met her, she was the early-morning manager of a Days Inn. So, where her career was concerned, she had settled.

  If there was little glamour in being a real estate agent, there was even less in being married to a West Haven College professor. Yes, it was a decent place to teach, but it wasn’t Harvard, and it lived in the shadows of nearby Yale and University of New Haven. If Charlotte had ever viewed what he did as a noble calling— molding young minds into leaders of tomorrow, ha!—Paul doubted she did anymore. Before the attempt on his life, she’d rarely asked him about his work, and why would she? It was boring. What was there for him to aspire to now? Where did one go next? The dizzying heights of department head?

  So this was what Charlotte’s life had become. Selling houses in a drab Connecticut town, married to a man of limited ambition.