Deep Night

by Ambrose Ibsen

  The address corresponded to a cozy one-story house across the street from a park. It couldn't have contained more than two bedrooms, and was done up with bright white siding that stood out starkly against the dusk. A chain-link fence marked out the perimeter of a meager yard whose most eye-catching fixtures were a number of well-shaped evergreen bushes.

  Having parked beneath the shade of a towering oak, tens of feet from the nearest streetlight, Ulrich took in the rear of the property from what he felt was a good vantage point. It was through the back yard—presumably from the direction of the park—that the intruder made their nightly trip onto Nancy's property, and from this shadowed spot the detective felt he'd have a perfect view of the action. Stepping out of the car, he paused to drink in the evening air, which was rich with the smell of cut grass.

  The front lawn was split nearly down the center by a gravel driveway where an old Jetta was parked, and a squat tree—swaying in the warm breeze—stood sentry on the left side of the narrow walk leading to the porch. The entryway light came on as Ulrich approached the door.

  Tapping the doorbell, the detective had only to wait a few moments before Nancy, wearing an apron over the same jeans and blouse from earlier, rushed to meet him. Throwing open the screen door, she put on a big smile, stepping to one side and waving him in. “Mr. Ulrich, thanks for coming by. I wasn't expecting you quite this early.”

  The detective stepped inside, struck at once by a sweet, heavy smell emanating from deeper in. “I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I just found myself with a bit of extra time this evening and thought it might be a good idea to get started. You know, to familiarize myself with the property and such.”

  “Oh, it's no problem,” she insisted, closing the door. “I was just doing some baking. Work was a bear today and I wanted a pick-me-up. Can I interest you in a cookie? They just came out of the oven.” Leading the detective to a well-lit kitchen, she pulled out a chair at her table and urged him to sit. Then, pointing to a cooling rack on said table weighed down by a few dozen cookies, she added, “They're raspberry thumbprints, a favorite of mine. Please, help yourself.”

  Glutton that he was, Ulrich needed no further permission. He dropped into the chair, plucked a cookie from the tray and proceeded to indulge. When all was said and done, he'd helped himself to nearly a dozen, along with a tall glass of milk. “They're delicious,” he remarked. “You're in the wrong business; you should be running a bakery.”

  “Thank you,” she said, draping the apron over the back of her chair and joining him at the table. She enjoyed a few cookies herself as the investigator gorged. For a time, they sat in silence, munching.

  Finally, recalling his reason for being there, Ulrich polished off his glass of milk and—after one last cookie—began running through the details of the case with her. “Now, this individual who's been dropping by every night. How long have they been coming around?”

  “At least three nights,” she replied. “It's possible they've come by before that, but I've only heard the tapping for three nights.”

  “All right, and you called the police how many times?”

  Pausing, she wiped her palms against her pant legs. “The first night, I heard the tapping but I didn't see anyone. That time, I thought it was just my imagination or something. I tuned it out all night.” She tensed. “The second night, though, I saw someone out back, around the fence—kind of near the bushes. I called Marc, the deputy, then. Last night, too.”

  Ulrich nodded. “Yes, I've parked around back. I'll have a good view of the entire yard from my car.” Wiping at his lips with a napkin, he continued. “Tell me, what's your impression of this person? I know that they carry a red umbrella, but... Are they young? Old? Male? Female? Tell me what you can. I want to have some idea of what to expect.”

  The questions seemed to rob Nancy of all interest in the cookies. She pushed aside her plate and drew in a deep breath. “Well, that's the thing...” She glanced up at him with a certain sheepishness. “I don't know how to describe them. I only ever get a brief look—and from the worst possible angle, too.” She began to shrug but rattled off a shudder instead. “The one thing I can tell you for sure is that they're pale. Like, unnaturally so.”

  “Pale, eh?” In his head, Ulrich attempted to build some vision of the perpetrator, and he heaped this characteristic onto the framework. “OK, what else? How tall would you say this person is? Are they slim? Hefty? What do they wear?”

  The more he pressed her, the more Nancy seemed to strain beneath the pressure of his questions. “Uh...” She raked at her brow with her nails till the skin grew red. “Listen, Mr. Ulrich, you're going to think I'm insane, but... I really don't know.” She chuckled nervously. “I just... I remember seeing someone pale standing out there, in my back yard. I don't remember their face, but I know they were looking at me, even with that umbrella in the way. Does that make sense? I don't know what they were wearing, either, but...” Her lips fell into a frown. “I get the impression that they aren't wearing anything. Like... when I see them, the only detail that really sticks is the paleness... It disgusts me.”

  The detective sat back and crossed his legs. “Hmm...” What was he to make of this? Something didn't sit right, though he couldn't say what. “OK, and what time do they usually come by?”

  “Minutes after midnight,” she replied. “Very punctual.”

  “I see...” Ulrich glanced at his watch. There were some hours yet, and the thought of his spending them cooped up in the car inspired a phantom ache in his lumbar region. “Well, I'll be keeping a lookout from the road there. If anyone approaches the house, they'll be in my sights.” Glancing past the kitchen counter, he added, “Do you mind if I have a look around? I just want to get a feel for the place. If there's any chance of a break-in, like last night, I'd like to know the place's layout.”

  She stood. “Certainly, let's take the tour.”

  All told, it took only ten minutes to explore the entirety of the house. The master bedroom, where Nancy had been awakened the past three nights by an ominous tapping at her window, was a sparsely furnished thing. In it there was only a small closet filled with a modest assortment of clothes and boxes, a queen sized bed, a dresser and a nightstand. The other bedroom, a spare, contained a bit more clutter. The bathroom rounded out the three doors down the hallway, and managed to squeeze a full tub into its claustrophobic dimensions. There was a large closet which contained a washer and dryer, and another stocked with shoes near the front entryway. The kitchen was well-traveled ground by then, which left only the living room to assess, and it was there that Ulrich spent the bulk of his time.

  His interest was spurred chiefly by a painting hanging on the wall. It was a small piece, perhaps two feet by two feet or a little larger, and it hung a few paces from a luxuriant leather sofa. The piece was a landscape, capably painted and thoughtfully planned, with immense detail that bordered on photorealistic. It featured a lonely two-story house—an old and stately thing—drenched in rain. Wisps of grey clouds filled out the sky, and dewy leafage spread out on both sides of the abode in the form of a hedgerow that was punctuated by trees at regular intervals. Ulrich would have thought it a very handsome painting, if not for a single, hideous flaw that appeared in the foreground.

  There was a figure painted there—a rushed, vaguely grotesque caricature, really—and it served to ruin the entire composition. This figure, which had been hastily scrawled, might have been at home in a more impressionistic piece, but against the rich detail of this backdrop it stood out like a boil on the face of Michelangelo's David.

  Aside from this clash of artistic styles, Ulrich couldn't say just why the character irked him so much. Perhaps it was due to the strange way the figure had been obscured, the painter choosing to hide the bulk of their form beneath the ragged edge of a red umbrella. From under this cover, little could be said of the character, except that they were of a whitish and gnarled cast, with long tendrils of raven-black hair seeming to sw
irl in a rainy wind.

  “Oh, do you like it?” asked Nancy, after Ulrich's prolonged study of the piece.

  “It's lovely,” he lied. In truth, it was too dreary—no, too ghastly—a thing for his tastes. Hanging such a foul and depressing thing in his own home and being forced to look at it every time he sat down to watch television was beyond imagining.

  “I actually brought it home with me from the shop. Someone pawned it, and I'd been looking for something to fill this wall with. I love the detail of the trees, in particular. They look so real,” explained Nancy.

  “Yes, they do.” Ulrich pointed out the figure, eyes narrowing in disgust. “Red umbrella. Just like your nightly visitor, eh?”

  Nancy loosed a nervous laugh, cradling herself in her arms. “Yeah, looks like it.”

  “Maybe the person who pawned it changed their mind and is trying to get it back,” proposed the detective with a grin. He finally left the living room, returning to the kitchen to swipe another cookie from the tray. “Anyhow, it's getting late. I'm going to head out to the car. You've got my number—if you notice anything, give me a call. I'll do the same. It's important that we keep in touch.”

  “I understand,” she replied. “Do you need me to do anything else?”

  “No,” replied the detective. “We don't want to give things away. Go about your evening the way you normally would. Ideally, this individual won't notice anything different, won't realize the house is under surveillance. Consider keeping the outside lights on so that I can better see what's happening, but don't otherwise alter your routine.”

  “Got it. Please let me know if you need anything.” She signaled to the remaining cookies. “Want some for the car?”

  “Oh, no, I shouldn't,” replied the detective, patting his distended lump of a gut, where a knot of dough was presently stewing. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

  Ulrich set out into the night once more, striding to his sedan and slipping into the front seat. Ensuring the doors were locked, he put his seat back a few clicks and then glanced over the bottom edge of his window towards Nancy's back yard.

  This was it. The hunt was on. Within the next few hours the nightly visitor would come round, and Ulrich would have a front row seat. When they turned up, he'd exit the car, zoom in on them with his cell phone camera and record their movements. Then, when he'd gotten some good footage of their meddling—and a clear shot of their face—he'd be set. Law enforcement could handle the rest.

  Checking his watch and taking a pull from his watered-down soda, he prepared for a long night of careful surveillance.

  7

  If not for the text from Nancy, Ulrich might have slept well past midnight.

  The phone buzzed in his pocket, knocking him out of sleep. Pawing at his drool-encrusted chin, he scanned his surroundings blearily until he finally remembered where he was. With a series of hard blinks, he cleared the heaviness from his eyes and rolled down his window, staring into Nancy's yard. The light by the back door burned a pleasant yellow. A lengthy perusal of the property and the street beyond showed not so much as a blade of grass out of place. A few minutes remained before midnight.

  Reaching into his pocket, Ulrich read the brief text message.

  How's it going? Anything happening out there? she'd asked.

  Nothing yet, he tapped out in response. Will keep you posted. With that, he set the phone on his dash and put the seat up a few more clicks, to keep himself from drifting back off.

  The night air, warm and dense, had a sweetness to it. Propping his chin up on his palm, the detective let his eyes wander up and down the length of the house. To his back, a traffic light went through its cycles of blinking; green, yellow and red lit up again and again, though there were no cars around to obey. The other houses along the stretch—each separated by a fair bit of space—were dark and quiet. There wasn't much of a wind, but when it did blow, however weakly, there came on it the sounds of suburban midnight; dry leaves rolling over the pavement, the rumbling of some far-off train on unseen tracks, the barking of a dog from the next street over.

  He looked into each of his mirrors in turn, seeking signs of movement in the pervading stillness. There were none. Through the windshield, he picked up a few signs of life in the slumbering town. He could make out the diffuse, feeble glow of a gas station, of a late-night diner, a mile or more away. Up ahead, at the nearest intersection, the tail lights of some ambling sedan blinked into view briefly, then receded into the distance.

  It was, to put it simply, a dull night. The kind of night where, wrapped up in a pleasant and soothing quiet, one felt nothing could happen.

  No sooner had the hands on his watch inched past midnight did something new enter into the air, however.

  That fine summer air, perfumed with the scent of cut grass and warm pavement, was quickly possessed of a chill more characteristic of mid-autumn. He felt it first on his forearms, on the nape of his neck. It was as though the air in the car had suddenly cooled by several degrees, and the change was sufficient to make him longingly eye the blazer he'd left spread out on the passenger seat.

  He ignored the chill, gaze wandering back to the yard, and it was then that he was struck by the depth and immensity of the night that'd settled all about him. Since his last glance out the window, the darkness about Nancy's property had deepened into an almost abyssal shade, and the single bulb positioned outside her back door could scarcely compete with it. Like the waters of an encroaching flood, the night spilled over her property vigorously, leaving even the brilliant white siding looking as dull as spent charcoal.

  Slowly, Ulrich sat up straight and began a thorough study of his environment. His gaze began upon the edge of the fence nearest the car and traveled over the tops of squarish evergreen shrubs stained the color of pitch. He surveyed the road behind the property, but found he could scarcely make out its borders now. Even the traffic light back there, whose languid, hypnotic transitions he'd watched for some time, seemed buried in night, impossibly distant.

  He felt a weight in his stomach; a weight that he couldn't attribute altogether to his terrible dietary choices. Leaning forward slightly, Ulrich observed the window he knew to correspond to Nancy's bedroom and took to rubbing the unnatural chill from his arms. There was no one there, and the light in the room looked to be off. He continued to canvass the lot.

  The phone nearly leapt from his dash and the car was filled with a flash of light as it buzzed. Ulrich jumped so hard he bumped his head on the ceiling. Another text message had rolled in, and with it had gone perhaps a year or two from the investigator's life expectancy. Clawing up the phone, Ulrich read over the text with a scowl.

  Then, when he'd had an instant to process its contents, his expression softened into blank confusion. “What in the world?” he asked, re-reading it and then casting a nervous glance out into the yard.

  The text had read, I can hear it. Someone's tapping at the bedroom window. Can you see them?

  A long study of the window from the car proved that this was not the case, however. There was no one there. The darkness was deep about the house, but so far as the detective could tell there was nothing stirring in it.

  Rather than reply to the text forthwith, Ulrich chose to investigate the matter with more thoroughness. It was possible that she was mistaken; that she was hearing a noise from some other place, or that something—a leaf in the wind, a twig, the droppings of a passing bird—had struck her window and set her on high alert.

  He crept out of the car and closed the rickety door as quietly as possible. Then, when he'd managed to get the camera app on his phone open—no small feat with his large, unruly thumbs—he started up the curb, towards the fence. From there he began to record a video, scanning the entirety of the yard with the watching lens in a slow pan. As before, he detected nothing out of place, nothing that could be considered untoward in the least. But still, the curious chill reigned. Where it had come from and how it had managed to run the rightful warmth
of summer out of town was anyone's guess, and what's more, the darkness had grown so thick about the property that he felt he'd have to hack it away with a machete in order to proceed.

  Perhaps this night wasn't so dull after all. Perhaps it was the sort of night where anything could happen.

  With great care, Ulrich hopped the fence and continued his scan of the yard through the camera lens. Another text from Nancy came through, a pleading one, that the detective read in the notification window while recording. Mr. Ulrich? Do you see them? He didn't respond, continuing his trip over the lawn and squaring the bedroom window in his sights.

  He paused to take another slow pan of the yard, and that was when he heard it.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  At that sound, he froze.

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Shuddering violently, the detective returned to the window. He was quite sure of what he'd heard; and yet, at that moment, he couldn't believe it.

  The sound could not have been attributed to anything else. It hadn't been the settling of the house, nor the rabble of leafage. Someone had been tapping on a pane of glass—on that bedroom window. It was beyond doubt.

  And yet, even as he admitted this, he couldn't name a culprit. There was no one there to do the tapping.

  Jaw tensed, Ulrich leveled the camera lens on that window and began a slow march towards it. If this is some kind of trick... he thought, pulse pounding in his temples. Arriving within arm's reach of the window, he reached out to touch the glass. Turning around, he made another visual sweep of the shadowy yard to his back. There was no one out there; no one that he could see, anyway...

  The light in the bedroom came on. Nancy pulled open the blinds, and at finding Ulrich lurking there, nearly slipped and crashed to the floor with a yelp. “Mr. Ulrich!” she blurted through the glass. “What're you doing out there?” Unlocking the window, she yanked it open, leaning against the sill. “Haven't you been getting my texts?”