A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay
“Does that surprise you?” she asked. “I think, at some level, Leonard can’t believe it’s true. That there must be some sort of extenuating circumstances. His father couldn’t have done what they said he’s done.”
Paul nodded. “Thank you for your time, Gabriella.”
_________________
IT WAS NEARLY TEN WHEN PAUL GOT HOME.
He locked the front door once he was inside. As he was about to climb the steps upward, his gaze was drawn to the door to the garage.
Paul reached out for the doorknob, but then pulled his hand back.
There’s no need to check, he told himself.
But the longer he stood in that spot, the more he knew he was going to have to prove it to himself. It was like going back into the house to make sure you’d turned off the stove. You knew you’d done it, you knew it was off, but you had to know.
He turned back the bolt on the door, opened it, and reached his hand around to flick on the light. He stepped around the various boxes and pieces of furniture until he was in the far corner of the garage, where the cartons of books were piled atop the wooden blanket box.
This is crazy, he told himself. Of course it’s in there.
He held his breath, listening. If the keys were tapping away in that box, he’d surely hear them.
And he was hearing nothing.
Which was a good sign, right?
And even if there had been anything going on in that box since Paul put the typewriter in there, he had not left any paper in it. So the machine wouldn’t be able to do any communicating.
No, wait.
Not true.
What about those sheets of paper scattered all over the kitchen? How in the fuck had that happened?
How did countless sheets get rolled into the typewriter? And how the hell did they get pulled out?
Paul began moving the cartons of books off the blanket box. Once he had it cleared off, he knelt down, slipped his hand into the groove under the lid to allow him to lift it up easily.
Just do it.
Lift it up and look inside.
Paul took a deep breath, and brought the lid up.
“Paul!”
“Jesus!” he shouted, dropping the lid and whirling around. His heart jackhammered in his chest.
The interior door to the garage was open about a foot, Charlotte’s head poking in.
“What are you doing?” she said. “I thought I heard you come in, but then you didn’t come upstairs.”
“You scared me half to death,” he said, still kneeling.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I was . . . checking. That’s all.”
He turned back to the blanket box and lifted the lid, casting light down into it.
The typewriter was there. There was no paper rolled into it, no other paper to be found, not counting the stacks of old magazines.
Paul swallowed, lowered the lid, and stood.
“Well?” Charlotte asked.
“It’s here,” he said.
“Well, of course it is. For God’s sake, come to bed.”
He nodded sheepishly and walked across the garage, hit the light, and closed the door as he went back into the house.
Thirty-Seven
Paul was in front of his laptop when his cell phone rang shortly after noon the following day. It was Gabriella Hoffman.
“It’s set up for tomorrow,” she told him. “For both of you.”
“I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “He’s willing to see me?”
“He is.”
Then he called Anna White and told her they were set for a prison visit with Kenneth Hoffman, if she was still interested in coming.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She would have to clear her schedule for the day, and make sure that she could get Rosie, a retired nurse who lived next door who often checked in on her father whenever Anna had to be away for any length of time.
“Why don’t I drive,” she said.
Paul was going to ask why, then figured, if he were dealing with someone who’d suffered a head injury and from all indications was borderline delusional, he’d want to be the one behind the wheel, too.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come to your place, then we’ll head up in your car.”
_________________
“WAS THERE EVER ANY TALK OF CHARLOTTE COMING WITH US?” ANNA asked as they backed out of her driveway. The prison facility where Kenneth Hoffman was serving his time was near Waterbury. Anna figured it would take the better part of an hour to get there. She entered its address into the in-dash GPS system on her Lincoln SUV. They’d start out by taking Derby-Milford Road up to Highway 34, jogging west, then heading north on 8.
“She knew I was trying to arrange a visit with Kenneth, but when she knew you’d agreed to go with me, she thought that was best. She told me she came to see you.”
Anna glanced over. “I told her she should. There was no reason to keep it a secret. She’s worried about you.”
Paul nodded. “More now than ever.”
“Well, you are going through more now than you were before.”
“It’s not just that,” he said. “She just seems . . . more caring. In between moments where she thinks I’m totally nuts. Anyway, she decided to take a day herself and get out of town. Her mother’s in Tribeca, and she hasn’t been into the city to visit her in weeks. They’re not that close, actually, so I was a little surprised, but anyway, I dropped her off at the station this morning. Knowing Charlotte, she’ll also make time to hit Bloomingdale’s before catching the train home. I don’t know when we’ll be back so I told her to take a cab home from the station.”
Anna swerved too late to miss a pothole. A loud, metallic rattle came from the rear cargo area. It sounded like it was inside the vehicle. Before Paul could ask, Anna said, “Golf clubs.”
“Oh. You play?”
“Some. Every time I play there’s at least one club missing. My dad keeps taking them so he can hit some balls in the backyard and never puts them back.” She changed topics. “What are you really hoping to get out of this? Seeing Kenneth?”
“I’m not going in with any expectations. I guess I’ll see how it goes.”
She noticed a manila envelope on his lap. “What’s in there?”
“Something I want to show him, if they’ll let me.”
“You want to show me?”
He slid several pages out of the envelope. They were the messages he had found in the typewriter and scattered across the floor.
Anna glanced over several times as Paul leafed through them for her. “I simply don’t know what to make of them, Paul.”
“They’re proof,” he said.
“Of what, exactly?”
He glanced at her. “Maybe you think they’re proof that I’ve gone mad. I think they’re proof that Jill and Catherine Lamb are trying to reach me.”
Anna decided not to respond.
They drove a few more miles in silence until Paul said, “Tell me about Frank, about your father.”
“Well, he’s a wonderful man. A retired animator. Worked for Warner Bros., actually knew Walt Disney. Still watches cartoons every single day. He’s been living with me since my mother passed away. The last year or so, things have . . . started to happen. Confusion. Sometimes he thinks I’m my mom, his wife. Other times he wants me to take him to visit her. I fear we’re on a slippery slope.”
“It happens,” Paul said.
Her lips compressed before she spoke. “He’s been a great help to me for so long. He’s been telling me I need to find a place for him. Like he’s worried about being a burden to me.” The lips pressed tightly together again, as if somehow that would ward off tears. “Says there’s no reason for me to be keeping him around.”
“Is he laying a guilt trip on you?”
“It’s not like that at all. He’s genuinely worried about me.” She let out a short laugh. “Wants me to get out there. You know wha
Paul laughed.
Anna was silent for a moment. Then, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, eventually. We’re managing okay now, but in six months? Hard to say. That visit from the SWAT team shook him up badly.” She looked his way and smiled. “You would be amazed at how many therapists’ lives are a complete mess. We offer advice to others on how to get their shit together when our own is a total disaster.” She laughed self-deprecatingly. “We’re the evangelists who get caught with a prostitute while preaching morality to the masses.”
Paul smiled.
Anna continued, “We’re just people. We’re just people like anyone else, with a fancy piece of paper on the wall. At the end of the day, we have the same doubts as anyone else. Are we making any progress? Are we making a difference? Are we really any help to anyone at all?”
“You’ve helped me,” he said.
Her mouth formed a jagged smile. “I hope so. And yet here we are, driving off to meet with a murderer. For the life of me, I don’t know that this is going to do you an ounce of good.”
“It’s a journey into the unknown for us both.”
“Yeah, well, I wish this GPS could tell us if we’re doing the right thing.”
Paul looked at her hands gripping the steering wheel. He didn’t see any bandage.
“How’s the finger?” he asked.
She flashed him a smile. “It healed up nicely, thank you.”
A warm feeling washed over Paul. He wanted to touch Anna, rest his hand on her arm ever so slightly. Make a physical connection, no matter how small. He recalled holding her hand under the running water, their shoulders touching.
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THEY BARELY SAID A WORD THE NEXT HALF AN HOUR. NOT UNTIL THE GPS voice advised Anna to take the next exit off the highway. A few more miles, and a few more turns later, they spotted a facility in the distance surrounded by an unusually tall metal fence with thick coils of barbed wire strung along the top.
“Doesn’t look much like a day care center,” Anna said.
“No,” Paul said. He turned and looked at her as the car approached the gate. “All of a sudden, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Anna said. “I can turn around and take us back.”
Paul pressed his lips tightly together. “We’re here,” he said. “Might as well check the place out. If they send me here for what I did to Hitchens, maybe Kenneth and I will end up as roommates.”
Thirty-Eight
Charlotte had not lied to Paul about going into Manhattan. She hadn’t even lied about going to visit her mother. She intended to do that, if she had time. And Paul was right when he had joked as he’d dropped her off at the Milford station that she would try to find time to visit Bloomingdale’s.
But she was not going into New York for either of those reasons.
When she got off the train and entered Grand Central Terminal, she exited through the market and flagged down a cab almost immediately on Lexington.
“Sixty-Third and Park,” she said as she closed the door.
The taxi moved south, the unshaven, overweight man behind the wheel steering over to the left lane to make a turn onto Forty-First Street. One long block later, he went north on Third while Charlotte struggled with muting the annoying mini–TV screen bolted to the partition in front of her.
“Nice day,” the driver said.
Charlotte was not interested in small talk.
Traffic, as always, was heavy, but fifteen minutes later the taxi was slowing on Sixty-Third with Park only half a block away. “Where ’bouts?” the driver asked.
“Anywhere here,” she said. “Just pull over.”
The cab aimed for the left side of the street. Charlotte slid a ten and two ones into the tray below the Plexiglas divider and got out. As she hit the sidewalk she glanced up to check the numbers. She had never actually been to this address before, but she knew, from checking Google Maps early that morning, that her destination had to be practically right in front of her.
Then she saw the sign.
BENJAMIN MARKETING
It was a subtle bronze marker, not much bigger than a license plate, affixed to the side of a building at eye level, next to a set of revolving doors. Charlotte pushed through and found herself in a small, marble foyer. A security guard at the front desk looked up.
“Help you?”
“Here to see Hailey Benjamin,” she said, knowing there was probably no need to add the name of the firm.
“A moment,” he said, picking up a phone.
Charlotte had figured this would happen. She was waiting for the question.
“Name?” the guard asked, looking at her.
“Charlotte Davis.”
The guard repeated the name into the phone, hung up, and said, “Go on up. Sixteenth floor.”
Charlotte got onto the elevator, imagining what Hailey’s reaction must have been when she was told who was here to see her. She’d be so dumbfounded the wife of her ex-husband was in the building that she’d hardly refuse to see her just because she didn’t have an appointment.
As the elevator passed the fourth floor, Charlotte wondered whether Hailey would notify her husband, Walter, that she was here. Walter Benjamin was the president of Benjamin Marketing, and while his wife technically worked for him, it was, from everything Charlotte had heard, more of a partnership.
When the elevator doors parted on the sixteenth floor, Hailey was standing there in front of the wall with the firm’s name stretched out over twenty feet in big blue letters.
“Charlotte,” she said, saying the word as a half welcome, half question.
“Hailey,” she said.
“Taking a day off to see the city?” Hailey said, forcing a smile.
“Something like that. Is there someplace we could talk?”
“Uh, sure. What’s this about? Has something happened? Is everything okay?”
“Let’s get settled first.”
Hailey said something quietly to the man on the reception desk before leading Charlotte down a glass hallway to a door labeled CONFERENCE ROOM B.
Inside was a rectangular glass table big enough to sit a dozen people. Hailey pulled out a chrome-and-black-leather chair for Charlotte before sitting herself in the one next to her.
“Can I get you something? Sparkling water? A cappuccino?”
“No,” Charlotte said. “Hailey, I know you and I have not exactly been best friends over the years.”
Hailey said nothing, waited.
“But this isn’t about me. This is about Paul. I know there’s got to be some part of you that still cares about him, and—”
“Of course I care about Paul,” Hailey said. “Just because things didn’t work out between us doesn’t mean I have no feelings for him. We had a child together, for God’s sake. What’s going on? Is he okay? Is he sick? Is this about what happened?”
“Yes . . . and no. He’s not himself. He’s—he’s believing in things that don’t make any sense.”
“Like?”
“First of all, he’s hearing things.”
“What do you mean? Do you mean voices? Paul’s hearing voices?”
“Not exactly,” Charlotte said. “But—”
The door opened. A tall, gray-haired man in a dark blue suit, open-collared white shirt, and no tie stepped in.
“Charlotte?”
“Walter,” Charlotte said.
She started to stand, but he raised two palms, as though he could keep her in her seat through some invisible force. “Please, don’t get up. How nice to see you. Is something wrong with Paul?”
“Why would you ask that?” Charlotte asked, her voice tinged with suspicion.
“I just—” He cut himself off, looked at Hailey.
“I told Walter you were heading up in the elevator,” Hailey said, “and all we could think was that Paul was in some sort of trouble. Has he
“He hasn’t,” Charlotte said. “It’s a different issue than that. I came here because, I think you need to know that Paul is going through a very difficult time, and I don’t know that I can handle it all alone.”
Hailey shrugged hopelessly. “Tell me about these voices he’s hearing.”
“Jesus, hearing voices?” Walter said.
“I never said voices,” Charlotte said. “More like sounds, in the night, sounds I don’t hear.”
“It’s a good thing you’re telling us this,” Walter said. “Thank you.”
Charlotte shot him a look. “Thank you?”
“Well, it’s good to know,” he said. “Because of Josh.” Walter glanced at his wife. “Right? If there’s something wrong with Paul, we need to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlotte asked.
Hailey looked apologetically at Charlotte. “It’s just, well, if Paul is unstable, I mean, that’s something we’d have to take into account when it’s your turn to have Josh.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Charlotte said. “And I’m not suggesting Paul’s dangerous.”
“Of course not,” Hailey said earnestly. “But I can’t help but be concerned about the environment Josh is in. It could be very troubling to him, to be there if his father is having . . . episodes. He was very upset after his last visit to your house.”
Charlotte slowly shook her head.
Walter was nodding, as though he’d seen this coming all along. “We know that what’s happened with Paul isn’t his fault. He didn’t ask that man to attack him. It’s a terrible tragedy, all the way around. But we have to deal with the fallout from that, whether it’s fair or not.”
“I don’t believe this,” Charlotte said.
“Well, if he’s delusional,” Walter said, “it’s simply out of the question that Josh can be spending any unsupervised time with him.”
“I have to agree with Walter,” Hailey said.
Charlotte pushed her chair back and stood.
“Nice to know you’re all so very concerned,” she said.
“No, Charlotte, please,” Hailey protested, placing a hand on Charlotte’s arm. Charlotte shook it off.