Hard Aground

by Brendan DuBois

  I didn’t like it.

  I kept on not liking it up until I heard the door open downstairs.

  I was going to call out but I kept my mouth shut. Enough was enough.

  I kept the lights off, kept everything off.

  I just listened.

  The sound of footsteps down there, once more.

  The phone was nearby but it was going to stay right there.

  It was time for me to take care of things.

  I slowly got off the bed, gritting my teeth from the pain, and I reached under the mattress and pulled out my Beretta. I forced myself up and reached for the flashlight on the nightstand. I was now standing, flashlight in my left hand, pistol in my right.

  Okay, then.

  I slowly walked across the bedroom floor, hoping the creaking wasn’t warning whoever was down there.

  At the upstairs landing, office just ahead and to the left, bathroom to the right.

  I took a step and then lost my balance for a moment, and I almost dropped everything as I grabbed the railing to the right.

  Damn.

  That was close.

  Movement downstairs for sure.

  My legs started trembling.

  Maybe there was enough time to go back to the bedroom and make that phone call …

  And face the impassive faces of either Felix or whatever Tyler patrolman was on duty at this hour?

  No.

  I managed to keep myself upright by using my right hand—still holding the pistol—to guide myself down the stairs. Now all I heard was the ocean. Ambient light from the outside and from the few electronic devices gave me some visibility.

  Two more steps.

  I paused.

  My legs were really trembling now.

  From fear or from still being a recently discharged patient?

  I took two more steps and reached the kitchen, with the living room visible to my left. My foot slipped again, making a very loud thump, and with all surprise being lost, I switched on the flashlight, yelled, “Freeze, whoever you are!” and swept the wide room with my light.

  Nobody was there.

  My heart was thumping loud enough to make a nice counterpoint to my shaking legs, and I stepped forward, breathing hard, swinging the light back and forth, back and forth. “Just so you know,” I called out, “I’ve got a pistol here.”

  Nobody jumped up and surrendered.

  I moved slowly through the living room, past the boxes and the shelves, flashing the light behind the couch and the two chairs. I slowly made my way back to the kitchen. Nothing seemed amiss.

  What the hell?

  I retraced my steps. Flashed the light again, even pointed it up at the ceiling, just in case my visitor was pretending to be Spiderman.

  No joy.

  The sliding glass door leading out to my first-floor deck was locked, and the length of wood I put in the runners to jam it from any potential burglar was still in place.

  All right.

  I moved back through the living room, my back screaming at me that it was time to wrap up this nonsense, go back to bed, and when it comes time to ask the good doctor to remove the drains, perhaps she could also recommend a nice head doc to find out why I was hallucinating.

  I checked the front door.

  Locked.

  I shrugged, felt desperately tired all of a sudden, and turned and looked at the two other doors tucked away near the stairs going up.

  One door belonged to my closet.

  The other led downstairs, to my oil furnace and a dirt crawl space that marked my cellar.

  That door was ajar.

  I took another deep breath, leaning back as best as I could against the locked front door.

  Hold on, hold on, just hold on, I thought.

  Four days ago, a technician had come in to give my oil furnace its annual spring cleaning. She had spent a couple of hours down there, cheerfully banging away and swearing and making the whole house smell of #2 fuel oil for the rest of the day.

  But had she closed the door behind her when she was done?

  Or had I closed the door at some point?

  Or, it being an old house, still settling, still getting used to the repair work after the arson last year, maybe the door just popped open by itself?

  I could close the door and jam something up against it, I thought, and then call Felix. Or the cops.

  Sure. And wouldn’t they really be in a mood when the door was opened and the cellar was empty.

  “Man up, buttercup,” I whispered to myself.

  I switched off the flashlight.

  Just inside the door to the cellar was a light switch, right above the fuse box that controlled the power for the house. I could open the door, take a step down, flip on the switch, and surprise the hell out of whoever was down there. And with Beretta in hand, I’d make sure he stayed there, while I closed the door, blocked it, and called the cops.

  Not Felix. Based on the times I had called Felix and had woken him up, he would probably shoot my intruder, yawn, announce he was going back to bed, and leave me to clean up the mess.

  I got to the cellar door, opened it wider with my right foot. Stepping down into the darkness, I was ready to pause, switch on the light, and see what was what down there in the dark cellar.

  Instead, my foot slipped, and I fell down the stairs in one long, loud, magnificent, and painful tumble.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When I gathered my scattered senses and rolled over on my side, the funny thing was that the pain wasn’t bothering me as much as the mouthful of dirt I had picked up while plowing into the cellar floor. Like a lot of the old houses in this part of the state, this home had never taken up with that newfangled trend of cement floors. In my case, that turned out to be a blessing.

  I moved about, got up on my hands and knees, spit and spit, and then wiped my hand across my mouth. Blech. Besides the taste of centuries-old dirt, there was also just the faintest taste of Saudi Arabia’s most famous refined export.

  I swiveled, sat down.

  It was dark as hell. I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but after a couple of minutes, I figured my eyes had adjusted as much as they could.

  Sure was dark.

  I moved my hands through the dirt, feeling dirt and nothing else. Somewhere around here was a 9mm Beretta pistol, along with my flashlight. I was hoping to find either one, no rush to find one before the other.

  Then I changed my mind.

  The floorboards above me were creaking. My intruder was on the move.

  Time to find the pistol first, especially if he heard me go ass over teakettle down the stairs, and knew I’d be in rotten shape to put up any resistance if he decided to come down and check me out.

  I groaned and got back on my hands and knees, started spreading my hands through the dirt, looking for the pistol.

  No joy.

  This was nuts, I thought. My cellar was just a crawl space. You couldn’t even stand up without hitting your head. How come it felt as large as a ballroom down here?

  No lights, that’s why. My active mind was expanding the little space.

  Okay, maybe finding the flashlight first would be something. The only light switch for the cellar was at the top of the stairs, which I knew was a lousy design—I always said that one of these days I would have to get someone to come in and install another switch here. Yeah. Funny how “one of these days” always manages to arrive at the wrong time and bite you in the ass.

  My hand felt something metallic.

  About time.

  I grasped it, picked it up, put it down.

  A wrench.

  I caught my breath, tried to ease the trembling in my arms and legs, and the creaking noise continued over my head. I moved my hand again and this time, I had found my prize.

  My Beretta.

  I slowly got up, hunched over, pistol in hand. Now it was time to find the stairs.

  Okay. Where are the stairs?

  I rotated
slowly and then a little bit of light caught my eye. Some of the ambient light up on the first floor was seeping through the gap between the door and the cellar stair landing, or as it should really be called, the cellar stair falling.

  I moved up one step, then another, staying to the side, pistol out, breathing hard, my incisions back there screaming at me to stop climbing the stairs, stop bumping into the railing, stop moving, damn it. But I gritted my teeth, got to the top.

  There you go.

  I grasped the doorknob, turned, and tugged.

  The door didn’t move.

  One more time.

  Wouldn’t move.

  Was it blocked? Did my intruder jam something on the doorknob on the other side, trapping me?

  One more tug.

  Then I felt like taking the Beretta and rapping it on the side of my very thick skull.

  I turned the doorknob and pushed, and the door moved easily enough.

  “Nice going, dopey,” I whispered. “Forgetting which way the door opened.”

  I got out and flicked on some lights, then turned on some more lights, and went to the kitchen and washed my face, took a glass of water and got a healthy swig, and spat it into the sink.

  The water was gray.

  Ugh.

  I checked everything out, went to the front door that was—surprise!—still locked, and then I came back to the cellar, opened the door, turned on the light. The cellar from my mind’s eye shrunk dramatically, and I spotted the flashlight up against the first step. Good. It was going to stay there. I switched off the light, closed the door, then looked to the stairs going up to the second floor. They looked steep, and they also looked like they stretched about a hundred feet above me.

  Not going to happen.

  I went back to the living room and kitchen, switched off most of the lights, then went to the couch, stretched out, and pulled a blanket over me. I only yelped twice as my wounds and drains rubbed up against the couch, and then I closed my eyes. I drifted off to sleep, occasionally reassuring myself by touching the nearby metal of my Beretta.

  The morning sunlight was blasting right in when my front door was unlocked and Paula Quinn stepped in. She had a black knapsack over one shoulder, along with her purse, and she was also carrying yet another black bag that held her laptop.

  She stopped. “What are you doing on the couch?”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “And why aren’t you in bed?”

  “My secret lover Greta kicked me out, that’s why.”

  My little joke went unnoticed. She said, “Did I wake you?”

  My first lie of the morning. “No, not really.”

  She closed the door, dropped her stuff. Her face was red and her eyes were swollen.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Had a rough night.”

  “Come over here and tell me about it.”

  I shifted on the couch. She sat down and then started weeping. I moved some more and put my arm around her and said, “When you’re ready … go ahead.”

  She wiped at her eyes. “Oh, I’ll be okay. And when it’s over, you think, maybe you were overreacting.”

  “Knowing you, I doubt it. What happened last night?”

  Paula took a deep breath. “Busy day, getting the latest out about Maggie Branch’s murder. Not much more was released at the press conference the Tyler cops held, and then I had a quick take-out sub for dinner, and then went to the regular scheduled Tyler selectmen’s meeting.”

  I squeezed her and she patted my other arm. “Meeting went on, blah blah blah, and then I heard the Tyler cops and Diane Woods are going to have another press conference later today. Okay? So I had a bind of getting my copy in today to make deadline, and making sure I could have the time to get to the press conference.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You went back to the Tyler Chronicle offices to write your selectmen’s story.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It was past midnight when I got the story wrapped up and done. Then I slipped to the front office to grab a drink of water, and then I heard the rear door bang open.”

  “Oh.”

  “You bet,” she said. “There were voices, and some guy swore, and … I panicked. There are two conference rooms by there, and I ducked into the smallest one, locked the door behind me. Then—my cell phone was back at my desk, and there was no phone in the conference room.”

  “Paula …”

  She snuggled into me, took another breath. “I stayed there, under the conference room table, for hours. I could hear them moving around.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. Two at least. Maybe three.”

  “Could you hear what they were doing?”

  “They went through the office upstairs, and then I heard someone shout that he had found it, and they went downstairs to the cellar. Spent at least an hour down there, I could hear them tossing things around.”

  “The cellar?”

  “Yeah, pretty weird, right? You’d think they’d go through the desks on the ground floor, break them open, looking for laptops or some petty cash, but no, they stayed mostly in the cellar.”

  “When did they leave?”

  I could feel her head shake. “I don’t know. I … was under the conference room table, curled up, and I know it sounds strange, but I actually dozed off for a bit—until I heard a door slam.”

  “Them leaving.”

  “That’s right. But I was so scared that, oh, I don’t know, that one of them had stayed behind. So I waited, and waited, and when it started lightening up from the sunrise, well, I felt brave enough to get out. I ran out the front door and went over to the Common Grill & Grill to make a call. The cops got there in about five minutes, thank God.”

  “What was taken?”

  She turned, smiled, which was nice to see. “Hard to tell, because they left the basement a mess. Filing cabinets with old clips, bound back issues, that was all tossed around. But I told the cops I was sure I knew what might have been taken. The sludge.”

  “The what?”

  Paula smiled and I could feel her tension easing. “For decades, the Chronicle has had a darkroom down there in the cellar, processing film, before digital cameras came on the scene. Don’t ask me the ins and outs of everything, but the chemicals and papers used in photography back in the day had silver in them. A year or two … big deal. But years after years, if certain sludge was collected, well, I told the cops the silver there could be worth a bit.”

  “How much?”

  “No idea,” she said. “But the containers with the sludge were gone. What else could it be?”

  “Must have scared you something awful,” I said.

  “It did.” Paula moved and looked up at me. “All right if I crash here for a day or two?”

  “Stay as long as you want,” I said, which earned me a kiss, and then a wrinkle of her nose.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “No offense,” she said. “But you taste like dirt.”

  Despite her offering to do so, I made us both a quick breakfast as she set up her laptop on the kitchen counter, and when we were finished with our instant coffee, scrambled eggs, and English muffins, she said, “Good. Two more hours before I have to head to the cop shop.”

  Paula yawned and I said, “I need to go upstairs for a second. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I won’t.”

  So I took my time going upstairs, did some morning business, and when I came back downstairs, Paula was stretched on the couch, fast asleep.

  Well.

  This now posed a problem, because I was counting on Paula to help me with my two drains, but she was sleeping and I wasn’t going to wake her up, not after the night she’d had at the Chronicle. So what to do?

  Adapt and overcome.

  I walked away from the couch, made my way to the stairs.

  In the bathroom I got my oversize T-shirt off, looked at the situation in the mirror. Situation approaching
extreme. Both bladders were full, and needed to get emptied. Okay, then.

  The near bladder looked like it was reachable, as before. I moved my arm, my fingers brushed against it. Close.

  I forced myself again. Almost.

  “One more time,” I whispered. I used my other arm to push my right arm and—

  Snagged the little bastard. I pulled it out of the pouch, the bladder warm and obscene-looking in my hand. I gently tugged it away from the tube, emptied it in the measuring cup. Eight ounces. I washed out the bladder, popped the tube back in, and then grunted one more time and …

  Success. The empty bladder was back in the pouch.

  Okay. I took a few more breaths. Leaned over the bathroom counter. My head was light. That was some effort.

  I calmed myself down and turned back once more.

  The second bladder …

  It could have been in Concord for all the good it was doing me.

  All right.

  As someone I greatly admired once said, work the problem.

  I slowly walked out of the bathroom, went into my office, still in disarray. Desk, shelves, computer, printer, and monitor, plus cartons of books and shelves and other clutter.

  Including a toolbox, overflowing with tools. I got down on my knees and went through, seeing what was there. Hammer, screwdrivers, hex tools, nuts, bolts, and a plier set.

  Yes. A nice set of 11-inch-long needle-nose pliers.

  I went back to the bathroom, struggled, swore, dropped the pliers four times, but by the time I was breathing hard and sweating, I had gotten the bladder out, drained, washed, and put back in place.

  Then I blundered my way out of the bathroom and fell on the bed.

  The smell of coffee and a woman’s voice woke me up, and I got out of bed, made my way downstairs with Uncle Paulie’s cane in hand to see a pretty sight indeed: Paula Quinn sitting at my kitchen counter, working on her laptop, cup of coffee at her elbow. I poured myself a cup and sat across from her, as she typed furiously along, her blonde hair cascading, her cute ears sticking out. I just sipped and watched her work and admired the way … well, the way everything was just working for her.

  Paula looked up, smiled. “Have a good nap?”