A Noise Downstairs

by Linwood Barclay

  “I don’t think I said that exactly.”

  Anna smiled. “You’re right, I may have paraphrased slightly.”

  “I don’t get where you’re going with all this, Dr. White.”

  “Let me be clear, I’m not absolving myself of any blame,” she stated. “But I don’t understand why you talked your best friend out of getting more intensive psychiatric care when, from everything you’ve told me, you believed he was suicidal and carrying out actions his conscious mind was unaware of.”

  “It’s not like the way you’re making it sound,” Bill said. “He was my friend. And a lot of it’s Monday morning quarterbacking, you know? You didn’t realize you were seeing the signs until it was too late.”

  “Right,” she said. “I totally understand.”

  There was a silence between them.

  Bill broke it by saying, “I don’t know what else to say.” He stood, signaling it was time for Anna to go.

  “What worked?” Anna asked, still seated, looking up.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “In the church, as we were walking out, you said to Charlotte, ‘It worked.’ I wondered what you were referring to. What was it that worked?”

  He stared at her for two seconds and said, “I don’t remember saying that. You must have misheard me.” Bill smiled weakly as he moved toward the door. Then the lightbulb went off. “Oh, I remember. I did say that. I was referring to my little speech. I had it all written up at the office, did it on the computer there, and I couldn’t get it to print out. There wasn’t a soul there, because everyone else was on the way to the funeral, so I actually called Charlotte about it—like she had nothing more serious to worry about at a time like this—and she said the office printer had been acting up, that it was probably jammed, so I opened the printer up and sure enough she was right. So I cleared it, and then I was able to print out the eulogy. So that was the reference. To the printer. That I got it to work.”

  Anna nodded. “That makes sense.”

  He smiled as he opened the door. “You have a nice day.”

  “You, too,” Anna said. She stood, left the house, and headed for her car.

  Bill needed to know—right fucking now—what Anna White had said when she’d visited Charlotte. If Charlotte declined his call, he’d show up on her doorstep.

  I hope we don’t have a problem.

  Fifty-Four

  Once Anna White was back behind the wheel of her car, and before she turned on the engine, she lightly drove the heel of her hand into her forehead.

  “Idiot,” she said.

  It was as simple as that. A printer that would not print.

  And then, with advice from Charlotte, it became a printer that did print.

  “It worked.”

  There you had it.

  How she’d let her imagination run away with her. She’d gone from zero to sixty in under three seconds. Two simple words and suddenly she had Bill Myers and Charlotte Davis plotting to drive Paul crazy.

  Next thing, Anna thought, she’d be believing 9/11 was an inside job, that doctors had a cure for cancer but were keeping it hidden, that there really were aliens at Roswell.

  Didn’t that kind of prejudging go against everything she’d learned in her professional life? You don’t size up your patients in three seconds. You listen to all the facts. You talk to them. You dig below the surface and look for clues that are not immediately evident. What she had done was reach her conclusion first, then look only for evidence that would support it.

  “Stupid stupid stupid,” she said, and started the engine.

  Realizing how seriously she had misjudged the situation made her feel more than just foolish. Ashamed, for sure. But not in any way relieved. If Bill and Charlotte had been in cahoots—boy, there was a word she hadn’t thought of in years—then some of the responsibility would have been lifted from her shoulders. Her failure to accurately predict Paul’s self-destructive behavior would be mitigated.

  As she continued driving back toward her house, she thought that if she’d tipped her hand with Bill Myers, if she’d really let it slip that she suspected something monstrous of him, she’d have felt obliged to write him a letter of apology.

  It would be the only decent thing to— Anna slammed on the brakes.

  Behind her, a horn blared.

  She swerved the car over to the side of the road. Her heart was racing as she threw the SUV into park.

  Write him a letter of apology.

  She thought back to the service when Bill Myers was making his remarks about his good friend Paul.

  How when he got lost and had to search through his notes, how he’d turned the pages over.

  From where she sat, Anna could clearly see pages covered with scribbling.

  Handwriting.

  He had not printed out his speech.

  Bill Myers had lied to her.

  Fifty-Five

  Back during the planning stages, Charlotte had agreed Bill was right. There was no guarantee, no matter how much they nudged him in that direction, that Paul would kill himself.

  “You may have to help him with that,” Charlotte said.

  Bill and Charlotte weren’t in the hot tub for this conversation. They were simply sitting in his car, parked behind a furniture store. He was in the driver’s seat, hands gripped tightly on the wheel, even though they were not moving.

  “Charlotte,” he said.

  “You’ve had to know this was a possibility.”

  Of course he did. But he’d been trying to fool himself, thinking they could actually accomplish this without getting their hands dirty. Well, really dirty.

  “Look, maybe he’ll actually do it,” Charlotte said, looking for a silver lining. “But at some point, we have to—what did my father always like to say?—shit or get off the pot.”

  Once they’d planted the notes, and Charlotte had spoken with Dr. White and visited Hailey in Manhattan, and Bill had managed to get that typewriter placed on the bedside table right next to Paul, well, fuck, if that didn’t send him over the edge, what then?

  When Dr. White came over in the night and suggested to Paul that he go to the hospital, Charlotte had panicked. She’d called Bill and told him to talk Paul out of it. They were hardly going to be able to move forward if Paul was in a locked ward.

  So Bill had talked him out of it.

  The question had always been how to do it. If Paul’s suicide was going to need a little help, what was the most convincing way for it to happen? Once Bill got over his initial squeamishness, he actually came up with a few good ideas. His best was to have Paul “jump” from the second-floor balcony, or the one off the master bedroom, one floor higher. But was it enough of a drop? Charlotte wondered. What if Paul survived, and told the police what Bill had done? (It would have to be Bill; Charlotte didn’t have the physical strength to heave him over.)

  Bill was confident it would work. If Paul survived the fall, Bill would twist his neck.

  So when Charlotte learned that Paul had drowned, she didn’t have to feign shock when Detective Arnwright gave her the news. Why hadn’t Bill told her he’d had a change of plan?

  Maybe because then she really would look shocked.

  She couldn’t bring herself to talk to Bill those first few days. Their first conversation had been at the funeral. Play it safe, she kept thinking. Give it time.

  Soon, they’d reconnect.

  Soon, he could tell her why he’d decided to drown Paul. She wondered how he’d done it. Dropped by after dark, invited him for a walk on the beach? Then suddenly grabbed him, pushed him down into the water, held his head under?

  Anyway, it was done.

  She and Bill could get on with a life together. She was aching for him as much as he was for her. She hoped she would always want him the way she wanted him right now.

  God, I hope I don’t get bored with him, too.

  No, no, that would not happen. They had a bond that was unlike any other.

  I
t had been an interesting experience, all this. Charlotte had learned a lot about herself, what she was capable of. And she’d learned a lot about Bill, too.

  She knew he had more of a troubled conscience than she did. She hoped that would not be a problem down the road.

  What had he said to her one night?

  “What we’re doing, you know it’s wrong.”

  Right. And she’d taken only a second to fire back with:

  “If you were going to worry about that you should have said something a long time ago.”

  Fifty-Six

  Detective Joe Arnwright’s desk phone rang.

  “Arnwright,” he said.

  It was the front desk. “Got a Dr. White wants to see you.”

  “Sure, send her in.”

  It struck Arnwright as oddly fortuitous that Dr. White would choose to drop by at this particular moment. He had, on his desk, and his screen, the report on the death of Paul Davis. Everything about the investigation appeared in order. It was still impossible to say, definitively, that Davis had committed suicide. He had gone into the water, and he had drowned. Had he intended that to happen? In the absence of a suicide note, there was no way to know his state of mind.

  One thing seemed certain. He had not gone for a swim. People did not generally go swimming in jeans, shirt, and shoes.

  It was possible he’d fallen off a nearby pier and washed up onshore. There was a dock over by the bottom of Elaine Road. And there was that outcropping of rock at Pond Point to the west. Maybe he’d gone for a walk out there and lost his footing.

  But the interviews Arnwright had conducted with the man’s current and former wives, friends, and therapist painted a picture of a deeply troubled man.

  And yet, there was one small detail that bothered Arnwright. In all likelihood, it didn’t mean anything. But it nagged at him just the same. Maybe one more visit with Charlotte Davis was in order. Arnwright would have to think about that. He didn’t want to bother a woman who’d recently lost her husband with what might be a totally trivial question.

  Anna White appeared at the door to the detectives’ room. Arnwright stood and gave her a wave. Anna threaded her way between some desks until she was at Arnwright’s.

  “I know I should have called, but—”

  “That’s okay. Sit. Can I get you something?”

  Anna declined. They both sat. Arnwright closed the folder that was on his desk and minimized the program on his screen.

  “Hitchens giving you more trouble?” Joe Arnwright asked. “Because we’ve got him good on this dognapping thing.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that,” Anna said. “But that’s not why I’m here.” She sighed. “I’m not even sure that I should be here.”

  Joe waited.

  “You know, when you came to see me the other day, I told you how responsible I felt about what happened to Paul.”

  Joe nodded.

  “I told you I felt I failed him, and I still do feel that way, so this thing that’s been on my mind, I have to question my own motives. I may be looking subconsciously for a way to lessen the guilt I feel.”

  “Can’t be all that subconscious if you’re aware of it,” the detective said.

  “Yes, well, you make a good point there.”

  “So what’s on your mind?”

  Anna took a second to compose herself, and said, “I don’t think Paul was having delusions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t think there was anything wrong with him. Yes, he’d been depressed. But I don’t think he was imagining the things he claimed to be hearing in the night. I think he heard something, but I don’t know what. And I don’t think he wrote the messages he was finding in the typewriter. Not consciously, or subconsciously. I don’t think he was having hallucinations. I don’t think he was mentally ill in any way whatsoever.”

  Arnwright leaned back in his chair and took in what Anna White had said. “Okay.”

  “I do concede that Paul was, during these last few days, extremely agitated because of what was going on at home. And that last night I saw him, he was incredibly distressed.”

  “So, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying you don’t think he committed suicide?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “So you think he did.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Joe Arnwright smiled. “Dr. White, I—”

  “I think he might have done it. But, then again, I think he might not.”

  “So you’re leaning toward this being an accident? Because that’s still within the realm of possibility.”

  Anna White bit her lower lip. “I shouldn’t have come in. I’m making a fool of myself.”

  “No, you’re not. What I do, Dr. White, is often based on a hunch, a feeling. Do you have a feeling about what happened?”

  “I do.”

  “And what is that feeling?”

  “That if Paul did kill himself, he was driven to it.”

  “Driven to it?”

  Anna nodded. It took everything she had to force out the next few words. “And if he didn’t take his own life, someone took it for him.” She put her hands in her lap decisively, as though she had just gotten the toughest word at the spelling bee.

  “You’re saying you think someone might have murdered Mr. Davis?”

  Anna White swallowed. “I think it’s a possibility.”

  “What makes you say that?” Arnwright asked.

  “Because of what he said,” she blurted.

  “Something Paul said?”

  “No, not Paul. His friend. Bill Myers. I heard him whisper ‘It worked’ to Charlotte.”

  “That’s it,” Arnwright said. “Just those two words.”

  Anna nodded sheepishly. “When I asked him what he meant by that, he came up with a story about how he got a printer to work so he could have a copy of the eulogy he gave. But he didn’t read a printed speech. It was handwritten. I saw it. He lied to me.”

  “Okay,” Arnwright said, doing his best to tamp down the skepticism in his voice.

  “I also asked Mr. Myers about talking Paul out of going to the hospital.” She paused. “It’s like he wanted to make sure Paul was where he could get to him. Almost like he didn’t want Paul to get away, to get help.”

  Arnwright frowned. “Okay, so all these things that happened with the typewriter, you’re suggesting it was a setup?”

  Anna nodded.

  “Why?”

  Again, Anna struggled to get the words out. “I think Bill Myers and Charlotte Davis might be having an affair.”

  “You have any evidence of that?”

  Anna hesitated. “Not really.”

  “So that’s just a feeling, too, then.”

  “It was the way . . . they held hands. And . . . I guess that’s all. Body language, I suppose.” Another anxious swallow. “I’ve learned to read that kind of thing over the years.”

  “Body language,” Arnwright said.

  “I know. I must sound ridiculous.”

  “You said you think Mr. Davis was set up. How on earth would they do that?” the detective asked.

  “I . . . have no idea.” She shook her head. “There’s something else.”

  “Yes?”

  “The boxes.”

  “Boxes?”

  “When I visited his wife, after his death, she had all these empty boxes.”

  Arnwright looked at her, waiting.

  “She’d gone out and gotten all these empty boxes to start packing his things. Who does that so fast after someone dies? It’s like, it’s like she couldn’t wait to get at it.”

  Joe Arnwright took a long breath, put both palms on the desk and said, “Anything else?”

  Anna sat there, feeling increasingly ridiculous. “No,” she said.

  “Well, I want to thank you for coming in. It’s all very helpful.” He stood, implying the therapist should do the same.

  Anna got up. “I
know what you’re thinking.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That I’m trying to get myself off the hook. That I’ve come up with this elaborate fantasy so that I won’t feel Paul’s death was my fault.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do but come and see you.”

  “And I’m glad you did. If I need to talk to you again about this, I know how to get in touch.”

  Dr. White knew she’d been dismissed. She stood and said, “Just about every meeting I’ve had lately I’ve regretted immediately afterward. I guess I’ll add this one to the list.” She nodded her good-bye and walked out of the detectives’ room.

  Arnwright sat back down and reopened the folder on his desk, as well as the report that had been on his screen.

  He read, for maybe the fifth time, what had been found on Paul Davis’s body.

  There had been the wallet, of course. Despite his body having been tossed about by the waves after he had—presumably—walked out into the waters of Long Island Sound, and then subsequently washed back onto the beach, the wallet had not been dislodged from the back pocket of his jeans. It was solidly in there, and it had taken some effort for the police first on the scene to extricate it from the tight, wet clothing.

  His watch, an inexpensive Timex, remained attached to his left wrist. It was still working. His tightly laced Rockport walking shoes remained on his feet. Retrieved from the front pocket of his jeans were a gas station receipt, wadded tissues, three nickels, four quarters, one dime, and a dollar bill.

  That was it. None of those things had been washed out of Paul Davis’s pockets during his time in the water.

  Arnwright had been troubled not by what was in his pockets, but by what was not.

  He thought back to that night, when Paul Davis’s wife got out of her car and went to the front door of her house.

  It was locked. She had her keys in her hand, and used one to open the front door.

  How had the door been locked in the first place? Presumably, Paul Davis had locked it as he exited the house, on his way to the beach or to a pier or wherever.

  So where was the key?

  Why was there no key in his pocket?