He Comes in the Night

by Ricky Fry

  “Sure,” he said. “But Nancy—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you remember the Driscolls?” She laughed as she poured herself another glass of scotch. Was it her second—or maybe it was her third? No matter. She was happy for the distraction.

  Byron smiled. “How could I forget Bob and Diane?”

  “Denise,” she said.

  “Are you sure? I could have sworn it was Diane.”

  “No, I’m quite sure it was Denise. We had tennis lessons together every Thursday while you and Bob were busy at the office. She had a thing for the tennis pro. He was Czech, or was it Polish? Either way, Denise couldn’t get enough of him in those little white shorts.”

  It was Byron’s turn to refill his glass. They’d drifted into the study after dinner, swapping old stories over drinks as if the events of the last year had never happened. “Oh right, Denise. We shared a suite with them on that company trip to Mexico.”

  Nancy remembered it well. She and Byron had been married only the year before. He was a much younger man then, so eager to climb the corporate ladder. The trip to Mexico had been some kind of half-disguised business retreat, but on the last day they took a pleasure cruise from Puerto Vallarta. “Bob got so drunk on piña coladas he fell off the boat.”

  Byron laughed. “Poor bastard was bobbing around in the Pacific for a good ten minutes while they brought the boat around. I thought he was going to drown.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but the best part was Denise shouting ‘shark!’ over the railing as the crew threw him a life preserver. I’ll never forget the look on his face.”

  “She was brutal, that Denise.”

  They laughed so hard Nancy thought she might pee her pants. “You know, Denise wasn’t the only one with a thing for the tennis pro.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “It was only natural.” Nancy giggled. “He had a lot of balls.”

  Byron sipped his scotch, eyeing her over the edge of the glass. “I could be your tennis pro.”

  “Why Byron Hardaway, is that some kind of proposal?”

  She could remember Bob and Denise Driscoll and the trip to Mexico. She could remember the long hours in the courthouse, and the innocent face of the caretaker’s son as he played with his toy cars on the verandah, but she couldn’t remember the last time Byron had made love to her with so much passion. Surely, she thought, it was some time before Nora had been born, before they’d started trying for a baby and sex had become just another routine.

  He’d taken his time, starting with gentle kisses on her neck and then working his way down to the warm place between her thighs. More than once she thought she might climax, but he pulled back, delivering more tender kisses that sent chills running over her skin.

  Finally, when she could wait no longer, he entered her. They moved in rhythmic motion, up and down like the cascading waves of an ocean, until they collapsed together on the mattress, two bodies breathing heavily in the dark.

  “I love you,” he said, as he placed one last kiss upon her forehead.

  She feel asleep with his arm around her, the final thought passing through her mind as she drifted off was that she believed him—he loved her and somehow everything would be okay.

  His arm was still around her when she woke up in the morning. But something was different. His warm embrace had been replaced by cold and clammy skin.

  “Byron?” She gave him a nudge and he slid over onto his back, limp arms flopping down at his sides. “Wake up, Byron.”

  She knew he wasn’t going to wake up. The look in his eyes, the blank stare on his face, was the same as that of the nanny when she’d found her sprawled on the floor of the nursery.

  Her husband was dead.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  They met Vladislav at the tavern and fled the city with no time for an explanation. It had been self-defense, the killing of Ion and the man with the axe, but they were in a foreign land, surrounded by foreign people, who were unlikely to tolerate the slaying of two of their own by strangers from the north.

  They moved quickly, stopping only to rest for a few hours at a time. Ten days had passed, maybe more, when they came upon the empty village where they’d been captured by Yegor and his band of wild men.

  Bogdan had expected they might see them there, lurking in the forest with their peculiar masks, intent on some kind of retribution for their fallen leader. But if they were near, they remained out of sight. He wondered if they had made good on their promise to become farmers.

  It’s the long journey back, Svyatoslav had told to him one night as they set out again into the dark, when the heart aches most for home. Perhaps he was right, but as the days passed Bogdan couldn’t help feeling a mounting sense of dread. He imagined them returning to an empty village, not unlike the one they had passed on the trail, dead bodies and barren cupboards the only things left behind by those who had given up hope.

  And so he was relieved, as they approached the outskirts of their village on a late summer day, to find folks working in the fields.

  “It’s Bogdan!” A sturdy woman wielding a hoe stood and peered out over tall crops, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. “Fetch the priest! Bogdan the Great has returned!”

  They had been gone two months, and were greeted with smiles and cheers by the men and women of the village. The old priest, who was looking better than he had when they’d left, took Bogdan in his arms.

  “I never doubted,” said the old man. “I was certain God would return you safe. But what of the evil spirit? We’ve suffered not a single death since you left.”

  Bogdan was happy to see the innocent faces of the village children, running in circles around their parent’s legs, but he was exhausted from the journey, more exhausted than he imagined any one person could ever be. “We shall talk, but first I must rest.”

  “Yes,” said the priest. “Go and rest easy, my son.”

  He slept for two days, waking only to relieve himself and eat the hearty soup that Svyatoslav’s wife carried to his house in the evenings.

  On the second night, the priest came to join him at his table. “Tell me, my dearest friend, tell me of your journey and what you have seen.”

  Bogdan raised an eyebrow as he broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in the soup. “Have you not already spoken to Svyatoslav?”

  The priest smiled. “I tried. He says I must speak only to Bogdan the Great.”

  “Very well,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything. Tell me everything.”

  They ate their soup and he spoke of cannibals, of the city that was both the filthiest and most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He told the story of Vlad Țepeș the Impaler, and the treachery of Ion. When he’d almost reached the end, he crossed the room and returned with the silver stake they’d found in the Impaler’s grave.

  The priest turned it over in his hands, the shiny metal reflecting the flames in the hearth. “What is it?”

  “They drove it through his heart, some two centuries before our time. When we found him there was nothing but a box of dust.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the priest. “If he was sent to Hell by a stake in the heart, how is it that he’s continued to ravage us for hundreds of years?”

  It was a question Bogdan had considered for much of the long road home—one for which he was only able to reach a single conclusion. “Because they were not successful in sending him to Hell, only in driving him away from the city.”

  “But his body—you said it had turned to dust.”

  “Yes.” Bogdan scraped soup from the bottom of the bowl with his spoon. “He must have found a new one.”

  The old man sighed. In a single moment, the weariness of the past returned to his eyes. “There’s another matter,” he said. “I’m afraid it can’t wait.”

  “What is it, priest?”

  “It’s your son, Bogdan. He needs a name for the baptism, somethin
g made all the more pressing if what you’ve said is true. I’ve been patient, but now, as the spiritual leader of our community, I must insist.”

  “Kyrill,” he said. “I’ll call him Kyrill.”

  A tiny spark returned to the priest’s eyes. “Bless you, Bogdan. You’ve given a sad old man some small measure of happiness.”

  It was a humble ceremony. Bogdan carried his son, who had been well-kept and grown larger in his absence, to the sanctuary of the wooden church.

  The priest lit a candle and read aloud from the Book of Matthew. “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.”

  Svyatoslav and his wife were presented as godparents, each promising to love and cherish the child as their own. Bogdan was sure he saw Svyatoslav cry.

  Then it was his turn.

  “What name have you chosen for this child?”

  “Kyrill,” he said. “Son of Bogdan.”

  The priest made the sign of the cross on the boy’s forehead and repeated the name. “I baptize you, Kyrill, son of Bogdan, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. May you know God’s love forever.”

  The whole of the village, at least those who had survived, turned out to celebrate the baptism. The harvest would be upon them soon, and there would be enough food to last another winter. Though it had only been two months since seven of their own had perished in a single night, all were convinced the evil spirit had been dispelled, and that the many tragedies which had befallen their village would trouble them no longer.

  All except for Bogdan.

  Svyatoslav sat beside him, struggling to balance a beer in his hand as he swung his heavy legs over the bench. “Come now, my friend. Surely you can be happy for one night.”

  “It won’t last,” he said.

  The big man put his beer on the table and got to work loading his pipe. “Nothing ever does.”

  The cool morning air chilled his skin—the first sign of fall. He’d woken up early, and was alone as he strolled past quiet little homes. Only a rooster was crowing. They were sleeping it off, he thought. Most of the village had stayed up well into the night. Even Svyatoslav, widely known for his ability to out-drink almost anyone, had to be carried off to his bed.

  He reached the edge of the village and found the tree where he’d been tied and left to die. His sacrifice had never truly ended. It continued one day after the next, and as he stood staring up at the branches, he wondered if it might continue this way forever.

  The answer came in the form of a woman’s cries, rising up and spilling out of a nearby house.

  By the time the village came to life, three more were dead. Vladislav was among them.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “Nancy Hardaway, my name is Detective Jim Davies of the Boston Police Department.” He wore a trim mustache and drank coffee from a styrofoam cup. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Why am I here?” She’d been taken down to the police station in the back of a squad car, not long after the ambulance left with her husband’s body.

  “I can assure you it’s all standard procedure.”

  She’d seen enough television dramas to know it’s rarely a good sign whenever a cop says something is standard procedure. “Detective, my husband has just passed away. I should be at home with my daughter.”

  “This won’t take long.”

  She crossed her arms and stared around the room. It was one of those small rooms with a low ceiling and a glass mirror on the wall. She imagined this was the same type of room where they’d taken Byron after his arrest, and she wondered who might be watching from the other side of the one-way mirror. “Do I need a lawyer?”

  The detective took another sip of his coffee. “You’re welcome to call your lawyer, Nancy. But then we have to wait for them to come, and everything gets much more complicated. I just want to ask some simple questions. Is that okay?”

  She thought she was stupid for asking. Anyone who had ever been brought to one of these rooms needed a lawyer. But she was tired, and her head spun from the shock of waking up to find her husband dead. And so it was easy to make the same careless mistake so many others before her had made. “Okay,” she said, “as long as it doesn’t take too long.”

  Detective Davies smiled. “That’s better. Could you please state your name for the record?”

  “Nancy—Nancy Hardaway.”

  “See, that wasn’t so hard. Would you like some coffee, Nancy? Maybe some tea?”

  “No, thank you.” She wasn’t planning to stay long enough for coffee.

  “Smart choice. The coffee around here is terrible.”

  “Detective, I really must insist we move this along.”

  Another sip of coffee. “Right, of course. Where were you last night?”

  “I was at home with my husband. As I’m sure you’re well aware, he’d just been released from jail. The trial was all over the news.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m aware. And were you with him the whole night?”

  She nodded. “I made dinner, penne pasta, and we went to bed together sometime around midnight.”

  The detective was taking notes on a yellow pad of paper. “Was that the last time you saw him? What I mean to ask is, did either of you wake up at any point in the night? Maybe you went to the bathroom, or down to the kitchen for a snack?”

  “I fell asleep in his arms, and that’s exactly how I woke up in the morning.” It had been the first time she’d felt truly loved by him in a long time, and the memory of it nearly sent her into tears. But she stiffened up in her seat. She wouldn’t give this stupid detective, whoever he was, the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

  “I see. Thank you, Nancy. That’s very good. Who else was in the house last night?”

  “My daughter Nora, and the nanny.”

  “Right. What can you tell me about the nanny? Let’s start with her name.”

  “Iryna,” she said.

  He wrote it down on his yellow pad. “And her last name?”

  She was embarrassed to admit she couldn’t remember Iryna’s last name. It was one of those difficult Slavic words she’d always had trouble pronouncing. Was it Petrovich? No, that wasn’t right. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t remember.”

  The detective raised an eyebrow. “It’s rather strange, don’t you think? This woman cares for your child and you can’t remember her last name? You must have conducted a thorough background check before bringing her into your home.”

  In fact, she had done no such thing, and as she considered his question she realized just how little she really knew about the woman who spent so much time with her daughter. There was only one thing she knew for certain. Iryna, for whatever reason, had lied about her professional references on her résumé—and in all of the confusion surrounding Byron’s arrest she’d chosen to overlook it.

  “We’ll need to speak with her,” said the detective.

  “Yes, of course.” She wondered if they might find something awful hidden in Iryna’s past.

  “Are you sure you don’t want something to drink, Mrs. Hardaway? You look a bit flushed.”

  “I’m upset,” she said. “My husband is dead. How much longer is this going to take?”

  “I know this must be difficult and I appreciate your cooperation. Just a few more questions.” He pulled a large photo from a manila folder and slid it across the table. “Who is this woman?”

  It was a photo of their first nanny, smiling and full of life. Nancy guessed the photo was taken some time before the woman had come to work for them. “She was our first nanny.”

  “She died in your home, did she not?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “How did she die?”

  She didn’t like the way he asked the question, the forceful tone of his voice. Something about it made her feel defensive, as if she had suddenly found herself on trial. “I’m not su
re. As far as I know, the medical examiner was unable to determine a specific cause of death.”

  “Hmm.” He scratched more notes in his yellow pad and then produced another photo. “What about this one? How did he die?”

  It was the caretaker’s son, cold and stiff on a stainless steel autopsy table.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”

  Still another photo. This time it was her husband, just as she’d found him in bed. “And this one?” said the detective. “What about this one?”

  She wanted to run. She wanted to scream. She wanted to punch him in the face. But she did none of those things. Instead, she took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eyes. “I want my lawyer.”

  “Are you insane?” Mr. Bennett had come straight from the squash courts. It was the first time Nancy had ever seen him in anything other than a suit. He was quick to give his condolences before unleashing his anger on the detective. “In all my years as an attorney, I’ve never seen such malicious harassment. This poor woman just lost her husband, and you want to throw about baseless accusations?”

  The detective appeared unfazed. “I’ve got three mysterious deaths, all under the same roof. And the only person who was present for all three is your client.”

  “It’s a stretch,” said the attorney. “I can’t believe you’re even entertaining this—never mind the ill-timed and hugely insensitive manner of your interrogation. What could Mrs. Hardaway possibly have to gain from her husband’s death?”

  “How about one million dollars?”

  “You’re joking.”

  “On the contrary,” he said. “Were you aware of Mr. Hardaway’s life insurance policy?”

  “Of course. I’m his lawyer—was his lawyer. But what does that have to do with the nanny or the boy?”

  “See, that’s where things get fuzzy. Look, I’ll cut to the chase. We opened an investigation into Mrs. Hardaway after the boy died. It never went anywhere, at least not until today. Two deaths is suspicious. Three deaths is a pattern.” He let the last part hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “The way I see it, we have two choices. Your client can go ahead and confess, in which case I’d be happy to clear up those fuzzy details, or we can all hunker down and see how this plays out.”