Night of the Ice Storm

by Stout, David;

  Nothing.

  Nigel again, not so much a bark this time as an inquisitive chortle. Oh, God, Nigel, I wish you were here next to me.

  Marlee shifted her position under the window. She tried to think, but her mind was racing too fast, too fast, like her heart. Should she dial 911? Do it, Marlee! Pick up the phone. That’s why you have a phone dial that glows in the dark, for God’s sake! It must be behind the lamp.…

  No glow, no glow, just darkness. Oh! She had left the phone plugged into the living-room jack. To get to it, she would have to go out there, into the dark. He might be there! There might be more than one!

  This can’t be happening to me, can’t, can’t …

  Could she jam a chair under the bedroom door? She had thought occasionally how quick, how easy that would be. Now, as she trembled in the fear-filled dark, it seemed a hopeless task.

  She thought of the exercise dumbbells, the set of five-pounders she often played with after jogging. They were on the floor next to the dresser. They could smash a man’s hand if he tried to come in the bedroom window. Her fingers found the dumbbells, but her sweat made them slippery to the touch. They were useless; she could never …

  Should she scream? If she did, Nigel would bark his head off so that whoever was out there—if there was somebody—would almost certainly run away. Unless he …

  Marlee told herself that any moment she would hear the clang of the garbage-can lid hitting the ground. Instead, she thought she heard a rustle on the grass a few feet from her window.

  This had never happened to her before; she had never been awakened in the middle of the night by a prowler. Now she understood the fear.

  The rustle again, just outside. Please, God; let it be an animal.

  Nigel growled and barked. I love you, Nigel.

  Marlee fumbled with a dumbbell. God, don’t let it come to that. Please.

  Another bark, medium fierce, then the annoyed and inquisitive chortle.

  Silence outside. Oh, it must just have been an animal. Must have, must have.

  Marlee listened as hard as she could. Would she be able to tell an animal noise from a human sound?

  Maybe she had imagined the creak on the porch. Or maybe it had just been a raccoon. They were known to be very bold in the suburbs, getting into garbage cans. In the country, they even snuck into kitchens sometimes. Marlee had had to put ammonia in her cans to keep them away from chicken scraps in the garbage.

  All right, all right. Get it together, Marlee. Probably an animal. Probably.

  In the dark, she tiptoed to where she knew the straight chair was, against a wall near the door. She fumbled with the chair, her sweaty hands slipping on the wood, but she managed to wedge it under the doorknob with very little noise.

  She was relieved, but only for a moment. Because she heard the rustling again outside her window, and this time there was no doubt.

  Feet. A man’s feet.

  He was just under the window now. Oh, God. The dumbbell shook in her hand. She could never …

  She heard a metallic click, recognized it at once as the sound of a small stepladder’s legs being locked into place. Her stepladder! He had found it on the porch, where she kept it lying against the railing. Oh, God, how could she have been such a fool. He had taken her own ladder and—

  Marlee heard the scrape of a foot on the ladder step. Her earlier fear had been nothing compared to what she felt now.

  Another foot scrape, louder.

  Nigel barked, menacingly. He barked as loud as he ever had, so that Marlee could hear nothing else. Oh, Nigel, I love you so much; if you were only—

  Get out, Marlee. Get out of the room, just get out of the room.

  She raced to the door, stubbing her toe on one of the bed casters. She grasped the chair, but it wouldn’t move, wouldn’t move. Trapped in her room, trapped.

  The phone rang in the living room. Marlee thought her heart would leap from her chest, thought a scream would fly from her throat.

  Marlee tugged as hard as she could at the chair; it came loose with a crack of wood. She opened the door, stumbled into the terrifying dark of her own house. There, the glow of the phone. She could see it through her tears.

  Ring, ring.

  She picked up the phone, slumped to the floor as she picked up the receiver.

  “Marlee, I hate to complain but—” The voice belonged to her neighbor, Mrs. Wemple.

  “Prowler!” she shrieked. “Police! Prowler! Call the police … Oh, please …”

  Marlee was bone tired; she hoped the coffee, bagel, and orange she had bought at the take-out place across the street from the Gazette would perk her up.

  Good, the newsroom wasn’t crowded yet. She wasn’t in the mood to socialize. But she was glad Will Shafer was in.

  “Morning, Marlee,” the executive editor said, looking up from his desk. “Are you okay? You look exhausted.”

  “I’m mostly okay, and I am exhausted. Listen, Will, I need a favor. Two favors, actually.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I want to sub my column for tomorrow.”

  “Damn, Marlee, that’ll mean killing a page. How vital is it?”

  “Very.” Marlee looked into Will Shafer’s eyes; tell him, she thought. “I had a prowler at my place last night, and I want to write about it. I can have the column done before noon. Promise.”

  “A prowler? Are you okay?”

  “Tired is all. Please, Will.”

  The editor frowned. He looks tired, too, Marlee thought. She remembered hearing that Will’s wife was out of town for a few days at some sociology conference; kids must be a handful for him.

  Marlee knew that killing a page at the last minute was no small thing; it cost money. She couldn’t blame Will Shafer if he said no.

  “You got it, Marlee. I’ll tell the foreman.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “What’s the other favor?”

  “Could I use your office? So I can write without anyone hanging around me?”

  Where to begin? From the heart, Marlee told herself. Slowly she began to type on Will Shafer’s computer:

  “I want to share something with you. I claim no special wisdom as I type this, even though I know something now that I didn’t know only hours ago.

  “I am more tired than I ever was before, yet I feel more alive.

  “It is only a few hours since a prowler came by my house just as I was falling asleep. There are no words to tell you the terror I felt when I heard the sounds on my porch and outside my bedroom window.”

  Marlee paused, staring at the green glow of the computer screen. How safe she was now, in the quiet privacy of Will Shafer’s office with the door locked. He had even said she could help herself to the coffee. She could smell the aroma from the coffeepot. Will was famous for making coffee that wasn’t very good.

  How safe she felt now, not just because she was among her friends and colleagues, but because of all that had happened after the prowler came.

  Write it, Marlee. Just get it down. You’re on deadline. Remember?

  And she did write, stripping her soul almost naked. She wrote of the contrition she felt for not having understood the depths of fear a woman might have, and how her experience had changed her forever—for the better, she hoped.

  She told how easy it was to panic, how after screaming into the phone she had not had the composure to dial the police herself, but had relied on her neighbor to do it. And the neighbor had: Mrs. Wemple, who was close to seventy and old-fashioned, and Marlee had never sought her company because she was so old-fashioned.

  Oops, no. Marlee was mixing thoughts with writing. No, she wouldn’t write all that. Just say a neighbor woman, Marlee thought.

  She wrote of how she had sobbed on her bedroom floor, lying there curled like a child, even after hearing the stepladder clatter to the ground and hearing the quick rustle of feet as the prowler fled, and hearing the great dog Nigel barking in fury.

  She wrote of hearin
g the siren, of how quickly the police car was out front—even in her fear she knew the police had been quick—and how the spotlight from the police car had searched the corners of the yard, how the light had shone off the stepladder when, at last, she gathered the courage to look out the window.

  She wrote how grateful she was to the police, who told her they were just doing their job. She recalled how she had criticized the police before, for not being sensitive enough with rape victims and women who had been beaten by their husbands. Now, she wrote, she was grateful with all her heart.

  She didn’t write about how sexy the younger cop was, how good he had made her feel when he comforted her, and how he had hit it off immediately with her Airedale. Hmmm, Marlee thought. Maybe I should call to thank him again.

  And then she was done writing, or almost done. How to finish?

  “People do care,” she typed.

  She sent her column electronically to the appropriate computer directory, then dialed the editor who normally handled it. “My sub’s in, Ellie. I’m in Will’s office if you need me.”

  Marlee sipped her coffee and munched on the bagel. She peeled the orange and ate it slowly, segment by segment. God, she was tired.

  She hoped her column made sense. No, she knew it made sense. She hoped it wasn’t too … too …

  The phone rang. “Marlee, this is wonderful,” her editor, Ellie, said. “Why don’t you go home and rest.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  She hung up, sat at Will Shafer’s desk, finished her small breakfast.

  Only one more thing to do.

  Marlee cried.

  Fifteen

  His feet were cold. He hadn’t bothered to step into his slippers after waking up because he had to check on the noise. It was an irregular thud, thud coming from another room.

  There it was again. He wished that he had taken the time to put on his slippers. The rest of him was cold, too, especially his back and shoulders. The night had turned chilly, really chilly for summer. He wished he had his robe.

  What could it be, that noise? Nothing, he told himself, but it still made him uneasy. He looked out a window. All was black and still; it was the deepest part of the night, a long time to go before the first hints of the devil-routing dawn.

  He heard the noise again. It was coming from below. He stood in the dark, telling himself not to be afraid, but it was no use.

  Should he turn on a light? No. At least in the dark he was invisible, too.

  Thud, thud, thud. The noise was louder now; there was no doubt it was coming from one floor down. A rat? There had never been rats before.

  His feet were colder; so were his back and shoulders. Should he go back for his slippers and robe after all? No, the noise had not only awakened him, it had drawn him near the door in the kitchen, the one he almost never opened.

  He was standing at the door now. Too late to go back for his slippers and robe. Oh. A sliver of yellow under the door. A light on behind the door. He could not remember when he had last opened the door.

  The noise again. He had to find out, even though he was afraid. He opened the door wide. There were stairs leading down. There was nothing at the bottom except bare basement concrete bathed in light. But the noise was louder now with the door open. Yes, it was coming from down there, from somewhere out of view.

  And something else, another noise. A scuffing noise, from feet somewhere down there, scuffing feet on the concrete. Then a thud, thud. More scuffing, louder, like feet going in a frantic circle.

  Standing at the top of the stairs, he was both bewildered and terrified.

  The phone. His cold feet moved to the wall, and his trembling hands found the phone in the dark. He held the receiver to his ear, heard the dial tone.

  His fingers were thick and numb. He could not find the right numbers. He held the phone in his hand and tiptoed back toward the open door. The scuffing seemed louder than ever; it must be coming from the foot of the stairs. Now he heard the thud, thud louder than ever. Something was banging against the basement steps, near the bottom.

  He tiptoed the last few steps and stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into the light.

  The priest was there, trying desperately to shake the golf club out of his head. Only the top of the priest’s head was visible, the pulp and bloody hair showering red drops this way and that as the priest shook his head. The priest’s feet scuffed on the concrete floor. Oh, the priest could not stand up for long, that was it.

  Watching from the top of the stairs, he felt his eyes fill up with tears. The priest was suffering, had been in terrible pain all this time.

  He wanted to tell the priest he was sorry. He cried out to the priest, and the scuffing and head-shaking stopped. The priest raised his head, the end of the golf club catching for a moment on the side of the staircase.

  The priest had only one eye. Part of the mouth was still there, the shreds of lip hanging down, but the rest of the face was pounded meat. The eye was sad, as though the priest had been crying, but it was angry, too.

  The scuffing started again; the priest was trying to come up the stairs.…

  Watching from the top of the stairs, he screamed as loud as he could.

  His foot lashed out and struck the side of the table by his bed. He screamed again, into the darkness, then groped for the light. Finally he found it.

  He looked toward the window; the shade had slipped, and the ring on the end of the cord was dancing in the stream of air, bouncing off the air conditioner. Thud, thud, thud.

  In his sleep, he had flung off the sheet. The cold from the air conditioner had flowed over his back and feet. His throat was raw from screaming.

  He lay there, trembling. Tears ran down his cheeks. Was it good that he was alone this night?

  Only a dream, and not the first dream about the night of the ice storm. So long ago. The other thing was not a dream: someone knew. After all this time, someone knew.

  He stood on trembling legs, walked to the window. He turned down the air conditioner, and the cord stopped dancing. He peeked behind the shade.

  Still deep in the night, hours to go before the devil-routing dawn.

  Someone knew.

  Sixteen

  Grant Siebert was late for lunch with Lorraine Pierce. He had remembered their date during his golf lesson.

  “You been away?” Doug Barnes had said. “Haven’t seen you in a few days.”

  “Things I had to do,” Grant said, just before he hit an iron straight and far.

  “Good follow-through,” Doug Barnes said. “You taking steroids for lunch or what?”

  “Holy shit,” Grant said. “Lunch.”

  He trotted part of the way to the Douglaston station. Perspiring freely on the train, he tried to figure how he could get to the restaurant without being more than twenty minutes late.

  If he took the subway directly from Penn Station to within a couple of blocks of the restaurant, he would be sweatier than ever and inadequately dressed, even though he might be almost on time. If first he took the subway downtown to his apartment and showered and changed clothes, he would be a half hour late. No, forty minutes at least.

  So he went to his apartment, called the restaurant, and left a message. Then he sponged off his chest and back while he was standing in front of the air conditioner, slapped on deodorant and shaving lotion, put on a clean shirt.

  He got to the restaurant feeling not too fresh, his nerves on edge. And twenty-five minutes late. She’s pissed, he thought as he caught her half-wave and half-smile from the corner table.

  “Sorry,” he said, bumping the table as he sat down.

  “‘Sokay,” she said. “Hassle at the magazine?”

  Should he lie? “No. I was … I was taking a golf lesson. Out in Douglaston.”

  “That explains why you look kind of sweaty.”

  Ah, nice dart, Lorraine. Bull’s-eye. She was still smiling, but the points of her teeth showed more and her eyes were hard.

&n
bsp; “Well, anyhow, I’m sorry.”

  “‘Sokay. Why don’t you order us some drinks. I’ll have another vodka with Perrier chaser.”

  He did order drinks, from a waiter who seemed to sniff disapprovingly at him. He felt both guilty and annoyed, not quite clean and totally out of place amid the sparkling silverware and immaculate white linen. The lunch was off to a terrible start. Maybe a few gulps of alcohol would lift him to a mood that could still turn things around.

  “I didn’t know you played golf.”

  “I haven’t for a long time.”

  “And you’re taking it up again?”

  “Golf kind of stays with you. Stays in your blood.”

  He was more conscious than ever of Lorraine Pierce’s clipped, direct style of conversation. He imagined that it helped make her an effective lawyer. Early on, he had found it appealing. Now, at least today, it seemed much less so.

  “Why right now?” she said. “Why take up golf again now?”

  He was saved, for the moment, by the arrival of the drinks.

  “To good health,” he said, touching her glass with his and filling his throat with gin and tonic.

  “So are you planning a golf vacation or something?”

  “Uh, not so much a vacation as a reunion, actually.”

  “Reunion? Where?”

  “In Bessemer. At the paper I used to work for.”

  “Really? What’s the occasion?”

  “The paper’s throwing itself a birthday party.”

  “But where does the golf come in?”

  “Part of the reunion is a golf tournament.”

  Lorraine shrugged and frowned. He finished his drink and signaled for another. Lorraine was barely into hers.

  They ordered gazpacho and the Caesar salad for two.

  “I never wanted to try golf,” she said. “I need something I can throw myself into more. Like single-handing a sailboat.”

  “Mmmm.” He was starting to feel the gin, but he was afraid the buzz wouldn’t help.

  “I’m kind of surprised you’re going to Bessemer,” she went on. “I know you worked there, but I never hear you talk about it. Have you ever been back?”