The Night Visitors

by Carol Goodman

  “What the fuck is this?”

  For a second I think Davis has seen what Mattie did, but when I look at him I see he’s training the flashlight on a plastic figurine standing beside the matches on the kitchen table. It’s an Ewok with a Post-it note stuck to it.

  “Oren left that there before,” I say, even though I am sure that it wasn’t there before. “He was playing a game.”

  Davis rips the note off the Ewok and reads it aloud. “‘Don’t worry. The rebel alliance is on the way to help. May the Force be with you!’ ” He crumples the note up and throws it on the floor, his mouth twisted with disgust. “More of that Star Wars fantasy shit you’ve been encouraging him to believe. It’s time the boy grew up and learned the way the world really works. DO YOU HEAR THAT, OREN? THERE’S NO REBEL ALLIANCE ON THE WAY SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL COME OUT AND KEEP YOUR OLD MAN COMPANY.” He pauses, waiting for an answer, then tosses the matches at Mattie. “Get that stove going.”

  Mattie catches the matches handily and turns toward the stove, but Davis barks, “Wait, light these lamps first so I can see what you’re doing over there.”

  I can see by the slump in her shoulders that Mattie is disappointed. I bet she’d been counting on being able to work in the dark. But she comes back to the table and lights the three kerosene lamps that she’d put there earlier. They’re real old-fashioned lamps that cast a surprising amount of light. One’s a square hurricane lamp with metal reflectors that sends out a beam like a lighthouse.

  “Take that one over to the stove,” Davis says, pointing at the hurricane lamp, “and put it on the top so I can see what you’re doing over there.”

  Mattie gives Davis a look like he’s a simpleton but quickly washes that expression off her face. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave kerosene on top of a lit woodstove,” she says tentatively. She’s treading carefully around Davis’s temper, as I have learned to do over the last two years, and though it makes me feel sick to watch her do it—and to realize how second nature it’s become to me—it works. Although a muscle twitches in Davis’s eye, he waves her away as if such details are beneath him.

  “Yeah, whatever, you women always worry about shit like that.”

  I catch the hint of a smile before Mattie turns away with the lantern. She places it carefully on a counter two feet from the woodstove, then kneels beside the basket of wood and begins putting logs, paper, and kindling into the stove. Travis and Lisa had a woodstove and it was always a bitch to light, but Mattie’s got a real nice fire going in a few minutes.

  “I could get the chili from the stove,” I offer, itching to move around.

  “That’s nice of you, Allie,” Davis says, “but I feel better with only one of you gals up and about.”

  “I’ll get it,” Mattie says, standing up and brushing wood shavings from her pants. “Is that okay with you, Davis? Can I go to the stove and get the chili?”

  “Knock yourself out,” Davis says, grinning. He’s enjoying ordering around one woman while I sit captive beside him. He leans back, tipping the chair off its front two legs, resting his hand with the gun on the table.

  “So,” Mattie says as she puts the chili on top of the woodstove and stirs it. “You certainly made good time getting here.”

  “Ha!” Davis barks. “I was already on the Thruway when I got Allie’s call. I figured she’d head upstate. She was always yammering about the crap foster homes she lived in up here, so I figured she must have some connections. When I got into town I spotted that charity place on Main Street right off the bat and figured she’d have gone there. I went in, pretending to be shopping at the free store, and overheard a couple of college kids talking about Mattie Lane taking a DV case home. Did you know you can google a person and find their address on the internet?” He taps his forehead. “Smart, huh?”

  Mattie nods. “I can certainly see where Oren gets his brains. He’s such a bright, sweet boy. I hated to see him land in a shelter.”

  “You’re right there,” Davis says, thumping his chest with his hand. He’s left the gun lying on the table. “He sure as hell didn’t get his smarts from his idiot meth-head mother, who didn’t have enough brains to keep herself from OD’ing.”

  “Oren mentioned his mother was away a lot. Rehab, I guessed. It must have been tough being left with a kid on your own like that.”

  “Tough?” Davis slaps the table, the two front legs of his chair hitting the floor, the gun jumping a few inches in my direction. “You don’t know the half of it. Your lot were no help. When I signed up for the food bank I got a lot of nosy questions about bruises on Oren’s arms, like kids aren’t always getting themselves scraped up.”

  “That must have been painful,” Mattie says gently, “to feel suspected of hurting your own child when you were only trying to do your best by him.”

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Davis says, leaning back again. “You social worker types, you don’t trust men. A single mother, you’re all over her trying to help, but a single dad? You look at him like he’s a pervert.”

  “I always tell my volunteers and interns to check their biases at the door, to give everyone who comes to us the benefit of the doubt. But it can be hard—seeing all the things we do—not to sometimes suspect the worst in people.”

  “I get that,” Davis says, nodding his head. “Hey, you got any beer?”

  Mattie turns from the stove and smiles. “I think I’ve got a couple of Coors stashed in the back of the fridge.”

  “No kidding? I would have figured you for a white wine kind of gal.”

  “Nah,” Mattie says, walking to the refrigerator and opening it. It’s dark inside and I’m hoping that she has a gun stashed there with all the bottles she’s rattling around. “I like a cold beer in summer and a snort of whiskey in winter. Here—” She pulls out a bottle and brings it into the light of the table, twisting the cap open and handing the bottle to Davis. While Davis leans forward to take it from her, Mattie cuts her eyes over to where the gun lies on the table and then to me. “I bet that chili’s real hot now,” she says to Davis, still looking at me. “Are you ready for a bowl?”

  “Damn yes,” he says, leaning back in his chair, the front legs coming off the floor again. I always tell Oren not to do that because the chair could slip out from underneath him.

  I look back at Mattie. She’s ladling chili into a bowl, steam rising up from it. It is hot. She’s going to throw the chili in Davis’s face to give me a chance to grab the gun. As she turns from the stove I nod at her to let her know I understand and that I’m on board.

  “You know, Mattie,” Davis says as she approaches. “You’re not so bad—”

  I lay my hand on the table and tense, ready to grab the gun.

  “—it’s too bad your father was such a corrupt asshole.”

  “What?” I say, and then curse myself for saying anything.

  Davis looks at me and then at my hand. He rocks forward and snatches up the gun. “Your new friend didn’t tell you about that, Allie?” he says. “Her father was a corrupt judge. I found out while I was poking around his office before. He was being investigated for taking kickbacks to put juvies in a private detention center owned by one of his cronies.” Davis laughs. “Ironic, huh? He could have been one of the judges who locked you up, Allie. Only he killed himself and his family before the scandal could come out.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, turning to Mattie, but I can see on her face right away that it is.

  Davis laughs. “You were always too naive, Allie.” He waves the gun at Mattie. “Let’s eat and then we’ll go have a look at those papers in your daddy’s study. Wait’ll you see, Allie. I think you’ll be surprised at what your new friend has been hiding from you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Mattie

  STUPID. STUPID TO care what this asshole has to say about my father. Stupid to care about my father after all these years. After the things he did.

  And we were so close. Alice definitely got my
signal. All I had to do was throw the chili in Davis’s face and she’d have gotten the gun. Now we’re all sitting around the table eating chili—well, Davis is eating while the bowls in front of me and Alice go cold—and Alice is looking at me as if I’m the enemy.

  They’ll drag his name through the mud and yours and Caleb’s along with it. It will bring up all that old business about your time at Hudson. That’s how people will see you, Mattie, like you’re tainted by your father’s deeds. Do you want that?

  No, I hadn’t, and I don’t now. I’d rather Davis shot me right now and got it over with, but I’ve got Alice and Oren to think about, and anything that uses up time until Frank gets here is useful. “Would you like another bowl?” I ask after Davis has finished his second and is on his third beer. “Another beer?”

  “Nah. I’d better keep my wits about me. Don’t think I don’t see you two ladies giving each other the side-eye. I had kinda hoped Oren would’ve joined us by now, though. HOW ABOUT IT, SON? JOIN US FOR SOME CHILI?”

  Davis’s booming voice echoes in the house, which feels bigger and emptier outside the circle of our lamplight. Is Oren even still here? I hope he hasn’t tried to go outside. I think of Caleb’s frozen body and reflexively check the window that faces the barn, but the snow has mounded so high on the sill that I can’t see anything except that it’s still snowing.

  “Expecting someone?” Davis asks.

  “No one’s getting out here,” I say, shaking my head. “Or out of here, for that matter. We could be snowed in for days. Where did you leave your car?”

  “Never you mind,” he snaps.

  I shrug. “I was just wondering what your exit plan was. Do you have four-wheel drive? A plow?”

  “What would I need those for?”

  “To get out before the police come checking on me. I’m friends with the chief of police. He’ll come out once the snow stops tomorrow to see if I need help digging out.” This last part is true even though Frank and I haven’t exactly been friends for years; he still checks up on me after snowstorms and hurricanes. “Jason’s truck has a plow. You might want to check his pocket for keys. Do you know how to operate a plow?”

  “Of course I do!” he says in an angry voice that tells me he absolutely doesn’t. “I’m surprised you do.”

  I shrug. “Living out in the woods all alone like I do, you pick up these things.”

  “Well, then you can help drive when we’re ready to go. And we’ll worry about that key later.” He smiles slyly. “I think you’re just trying to put off our little trip down memory lane in your daddy’s study. But I suspect Allie here is looking forward to it, aren’t you, Allie?”

  Alice shrugs. “Why should I care? I already know her folks died here in a gas leak.” She takes out a bit of newsprint from her jeans pocket and unfolds it on the table. As Davis leans forward to read it I recognize my father’s picture. Seeing his face makes me go cold all over, as if he were here, sitting in judgment of us all.

  “This doesn’t say nothing about him being under investigation,” Davis says. “You got it hushed up, eh? Figures. Rich judge’s daughter living in a big fancy house, you probably had your daddy’s cronies sweep all the nastiness under the rug.”

  I raise one eyebrow. “Does the state of this house look like I have a lot of money?”

  “That’s true,” Alice says. “Everything’s falling apart here. Even the clothes she’s wearing have holes in them. I don’t think she’s got two dimes to rub together, Davis.”

  Davis gives Alice a condescending smirk. “That just shows how you don’t understand rich people, Allie. Least not the snooty old-money kind. They love to look like they don’t care. Like your buddy Scott, the way he dressed in raggedy jeans and faded old T-shirts.” Alice blanches at the mention of Scott. “And this bitch . . . well, one look through her daddy’s papers will show you how rich he was. He owned half the real estate in town, not to mention farmland all over the county and interest in some surprising ventures. She probably has bags of money stowed away—and she’s gonna give us some to keep quiet about her daddy’s secrets.” Davis tilts back the last of his beer while Alice looks at me as if she’s considering how much I’m worth. As if she’s considering which side she’s on. Then Davis slams the empty beer bottle to the table. “Let’s go have a look, Allie. You might’ve made our fortune by landing here!”

  DAVIS GIVES ME the hurricane lamp to hold and has me walk ahead to the study while he follows behind, his arm linked with Alice’s, the gun pointing at my back. I could crash the lamp to the floor and start a fire, but I can’t risk that with Oren hidden somewhere. If I were sure of Alice’s cooperation, I could kill the wick, plunging us into darkness, and whack Davis with it, but I’m no longer so sure she’s on my side.

  When I shine the light on the study door, I see it’s closed. “That’s funny,” Davis says. “I left it open.”

  “It’s a drafty old house,” I say. “Doors swing shut on their own all the time. Sometimes they swing shut when there’s no draft at all.”

  “Are you saying a ghost closed the door?” he says with heavy irony that fails to hide the tremor in his voice.

  “There is something creepy going on in this house,” Alice says. “I saw something down in that crawl space.”

  Did she? I wonder as Davis snaps, “Shut up, Allie. You’re always imagining shit like that, like the poltergeist you and Oren dreamed up to mess with me.”

  I look back at Alice to see that she’s white around the mouth. She’s genuinely scared and not just of Davis. What did she see in the crawl space?

  “Well, there must be a fucking key, Mattie.” Davis jabs me in the back with the gun. “Where the hell is it?”

  I consider for a moment pretending not to have the key, but I have a feeling that Davis is about to snap. He really doesn’t like the idea of a ghost. There might be a way to use that to our advantage, and if it’s ghosts I need, the best place to look is my father’s study.

  “It’s over here on the sideboard.” I swing the hurricane lamp toward the cut-glass bowl, which refracts the light into a kaleidoscope of prisms that dance over the wall and ceiling. It’s an unnerving effect and Alice gasps.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Davis says, his voice high and nervous, “that’s a good trick. Cut it out and get the key.”

  I obey, shifting the beam so that it doesn’t touch the glass as I withdraw the key with a shaking hand. For a moment I thought I’d seen something forming in the play of light too. When I put the key in the lock, something occurs to me. If the door slammed shut after Davis it shouldn’t be locked. It’s the kind of lock that needs to be turned with a key on either side of the door. But it is locked.

  As I turn the key to unlock the door I feel an icy chill. I pause in the doorway, reluctant to cross the threshold, but Davis gives me a nudge with the barrel of his gun. I hold the lamp up, suddenly terrified that I’ll see my father sitting at the desk . . . but what I see is the broken window. Of course. This is how Davis got into the house in the first place. “We’ll freeze to death in here with that broken window,” I say.

  “Draw the curtain over it and light that kerosene heater I noticed when I was in here earlier,” Davis says. “Here, I even brought the kerosene.” He draws a bottle out of his jacket pocket and gives it to me. While I pour kerosene into the heater, he nudges Alice into one of the straight-backed chairs in front of the desk. Again I think of how easy it would be to start a fire. Throw some kerosene on Davis, light him up. Burn the whole place down to the ground. But that would leave Alice, Oren, and me out in the snow, and we don’t even know where Oren is. If he’s holed up in the attic he could get trapped in the burning house.

  When I’ve adjusted the flame on the heater I turn around. Davis is ensconced in my father’s chair behind the desk, his gun lying on the blotter in front of him. It makes me sick to see him sitting there, but whether it’s because of the insult to my father’s memory or that Davis is beginning to remind me of my father
, I’m not sure.

  “Have a seat, Mattie.” Davis gestures to the other straight-backed chair. “The show’s about to begin.”

  I do not want to sit in that chair. It is where I sat when my father called me in, and I have not sat there again in all the years since my family died. “I don’t mind standing,” I say.

  “SIT DOWN!” Davis bellows, pointing the gun at me.

  I sit. Instantly I become the frightened little girl who’s done something wrong. When I wasn’t in trouble, my father would pat his knee and beckon me to sit on his lap while he read to me or showed me the constellations in the star globe. I knew I was in trouble when he motioned to the chair as if seating a witness in the dock.

  I notice that I’ve folded my hands in my lap, the way I was supposed to when I awaited my father’s judgment. I am digging my nails into my palms as I used to. I pry my hands apart and spread them on my knees and look at Davis. His face is framed by the figurines of Lady Justice and Lady Liberty that stand on either side of the pen set, just as my father’s face used to be when I sat here.

  “You two look like you’ve been called into the principal’s office for . . . hmm . . . let me see . . .” He strokes his goatee. “Oooh, I know! Diddling each other in the little girls’ room. Well, I’m gonna have to think of an appropriate punishment for that. But first, let’s look at these files I found in your daddy’s drawers . . .” He slaps his knee. “Ha! Get it? Your daddy’s drawers?” When neither of us laughs he frowns. “You’re right. This is a very serious business.” He picks up a file. “I was just looking for some credit card numbers, loose cash, et cetera, and of course the first place I think to look is the locked drawer in the desk. Luckily the key to it was sitting right there in that little statue.” He wags his finger at me. “You really ought to be more careful of your valuables, Mattie. I mean, sure, they look like just a bunch of old papers—I was kinda disappointed at first—but then I recognized the gold seal on them from my own judicial dealings with the great state of New York.” He turns the file folder around to show us the front. It’s stamped with the great seal of New York: Lady Liberty and Lady Justice holding up a shield containing mountains and a river, an eagle on top. The same image that is depicted in my father’s pen set, the same image—