A Noise Downstairs

by Linwood Barclay

Frank’s eyes seemed to grow vacant. Anna knew he was unlikely to solve her problem, but airing her concerns out loud might help just the same. “I’ve already reported this man to the police, and some of what he’s done is a matter of public record. So I think the ethical concerns are minimal.”

  Frank nodded, then pushed himself back from the table and stood. “I’m gonna hit a few balls. Let me know when it’s time to go.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “Okay, Dad.”

  Twenty-Three

  Oh, my God,” Charlotte said, staring at the page in the typewriter, then whirling around to look back into the kitchen. “Someone really is here.”

  “No,” Paul said, gripping her shoulders. “No one’s here now, and I don’t see any evidence that anyone’s been here at all. I’ve checked doors and windows. I’ve been through the whole place. I’m certain no one got in here after we went back upstairs.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said.

  “Come with me,” he said. He walked her over to the stairs that led down to the front door. “Look.”

  “What am I looking at?”

  “That shoe.”

  There was a single dark blue running shoe on the floor by the door.

  “I’ve been doing that the last few nights. One shoe, up against the door. If someone opened it, the shoe would have moved.”

  Charlotte stared, dumbfounded, at the shoe, then at Paul. “So what’s going on? I don’t understand.”

  “Where did you get that typewriter?” Paul asked.

  “I told you. At a yard sale. Some people were moving, clearing out their stuff.”

  “Where?”

  Charlotte blinked several times, trying to recall. “It was on Laurelton Court. A two-story, three baths, double-car garage. I didn’t have the listing, but I drove by, you know, because I like to be aware of the houses in Milford that are on the market, and they were having this sale. I saw that typewriter and knew instantly that you’d like it.” She paused. “I sure called that wrong.”

  “Could you find the house again?”

  Charlotte gave him a “ seriously?” look.

  “We need to talk to those people,” Paul said.

  “Why? Why does it matter where it came from? It’s just a fucking typewriter! Paul, honestly, you’re scaring me.”

  “I need to know who else has used it. I need to know who has used this machine.”

  “Hundreds of people could have used it,” Charlotte said. “Please, tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “Read it again.”

  “What?”

  “Go on. Read it again.”

  He led her back to the small room, grabbed the sheet of paper by the top, and ripped it out of the typewriter. “Just read it.”

  “I’ve read it.”

  Paul read it aloud: “‘We typed our apologies like we were asked but it didn’t make any difference.’ That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

  “Paul, I swear.”

  “That’s what Kenneth made them do. Before he killed them. Before he killed those two women.”

  Charlotte stared at him blankly for several seconds, then back to the page in his hand. “This is insane.”

  “No kidding. You think I don’t feel nuts even suggesting it?”

  “And what the hell are you suggesting?”

  He shot her “ seriously?” look right back at her.

  Charlotte said, “Hang on, let me try to get my head around what I think you’re saying. You believe those women are sending you a message? Through this typewriter? Paul, listen to yourself.”

  Paul hesitated. “Look, I know it sounds ridiculous. But what if this . . . what if this is the very same typewriter those apologies were written on?”

  “But how could that typewriter end up in a yard sale? Wouldn’t the police have it? Wouldn’t it be in evidence?”

  Paul thought about that. “That’s a good question. You’d think it would be. I honestly don’t know. It was days later that I remembered Kenneth putting something in that Dumpster. The police might never have found it. Maybe someone else did.”

  “Okay, so maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t the actual typewriter. Regardless, how do you explain this?” She took the sheet of paper from his hand and waved it in front of his face.

  “I don’t know.” He thought a moment. “I’m going to call that woman.”

  “What woman?”

  Paul edged around her, sat in his cheap office chair, and fired up his laptop. “The reporter who wrote the story. I can’t remember her name. She wrote a feature with lots of details about the case. It was the first thing I read when I decided to throw myself back into this.”

  He tapped away on the keyboard, scrolled down through the results of a search. “Here it is. Here’s the story. Gwen Stainton. She’s the one. At the New Haven Star. She seemed to know more about this case than anyone else.”

  Paul executed a few more keystrokes. “Okay, here’s the Star staff list . . . hang on. Yeah, Stainton. I’ll send her an email.” As he typed, he read his message aloud. “Dear Ms. Stainton, I have read with interest all your stories about the Kenneth Hoffman case, and I have one question. What happened to the typewriter on which the apologies were written? Do the police have it? If you know the answer, I’d be most grateful if you could tell me. If not, please pass along the name of someone who might know.”

  He turned and looked at Charlotte. “How does that sound?”

  Hesitantly, she said, “Fine, I guess.”

  “What? You don’t sound like you mean it.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  He pointed to the typewriter. “I have to know more. You get that, right?”

  Charlotte glanced down at the typewritten sheet she was still holding, dropped it on the desk, and looked back at her husband. “Go ahead and send it, I don’t care. I’ve got to get ready for work.”

  She slipped out of the room as Paul turned his attention back to the laptop. He moved the cursor over the SEND button and clicked.

  The email to Gwen Stainton vanished from the screen with a whoosh.

  “Okay,” he said to himself.

  His eyes moved to the antique Underwood. He stared at it for several seconds, then took a fresh, blank sheet from the nearby printer and rolled it into the typewriter, positioning it just as he had the other piece.

  “Just in case you have anything else you want to say,” he whispered.

  Twenty-Four

  I’ll drive you to work,” Paul said when Charlotte had returned to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast. He had already run upstairs and quickly dressed so that he’d be ready to leave when she was.

  “I need a car in case—”

  “No, listen, I want to see if we can find the house where you got the typewriter.”

  Charlotte appeared to wilt. “Paul, listen to yourself.”

  “I just want to talk to them. The people who had the yard sale. Ask them where it came from, how they got it. Look, if they’ve had it for fifty years, fine. But if they got in the last eight months, then there’s a chance—”

  “I need my car,” she repeated.

  “Okay, fine. We’ll take your car, and I’ll grab a cab home from your office.”

  “You think we could get a coffee along the way?”

  Paul sighed. “Fine.”

  Before she descended the stairs, she looked into his study. “You rolled in another sheet of paper.”

  “Yes.”

  She began to move in that direction. “You really think—”

  He took her arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

  As Charlotte got behind the wheel, she dug her phone from her purse. “I don’t know how this is going to go, so let me call the office and tell them I might be a bit late.”

  “Good idea,” Paul said, getting in on the passenger side.

  She tapped a number, put the phone to her ear. “Yeah, hi, it’s Charlotte. Look, uh, Paul and I are running a couple of errands this morning so
it’s probably going to be around nine-thirty before I get in.” She nodded to whomever was on the other end, then said, “Yeah, sure, the file’s on my desk. See you in a bit.” She returned the phone to her purse. “Okay, let’s do this. And don’t forget, you promised me coffee.”

  Charlotte headed out of the neighborhood, and when she reached New Haven Avenue, she hung a right. Up ahead was a Dunkin’ Donuts. She wheeled into the parking lot and said, “You’re buying.”

  Paul went into the store and returned with two paper cups of coffee. She took a sip of hers, then put it into the cup holder between the seats. She keyed the ignition, backed out of the parking spot, and they were off.

  She drove confidently back through the downtown Common, then a series of rights and lefts until they had reached Laurelton Court.

  “It’s a dead-end street,” she said. “An attractive feature if you’re selling or buying. Minimum traffic. No one uses your street as a shortcut.”

  She brought the car to a stop out front of a house with a SOLD real estate sign out front.

  “This is it,” she said.

  Paul had the door open before she had the car in park.

  “God, slow down—”

  He was already out of the car, heading for the front door. He rapped on it hard before he’d even looked for a doorbell button. When he spotted that, he jammed it with his index finger.

  Charlotte wore a worried expression as she watched from the car. She reached for the coffee and took another sip.

  Paul knocked on the door again. And for a second time, he rang the bell. No one came to the door. Charlotte watched as he peered through the window in the door, using his hands as a visor to get a better look. His shoulders slumped. He turned and walked slowly back to the car.

  “What?” Charlotte asked as he settled into the passenger seat.

  “I looked inside. The house is empty. Cleared out. Not a stick of furniture. They’re gone.”

  Charlotte gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry.”

  “You could find out, right?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Who owned the house? And where they went? Do you know the agent who had the listing?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “If you can get a name, wherever they’ve moved to, I could call them.”

  “Sure,” Charlotte said. “I could do that.”

  Paul frowned. “You don’t sound crazy about the idea.”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “I said I would do it.”

  “I can tell by your voice you don’t want to.”

  Charlotte said nothing for several seconds, then shifted in her seat so she could look at her husband more directly. “The thing is,” she said, her voice softening, “maybe where the typewriter came from doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does.”

  “The only way it would matter is if we were to accept that—I don’t even know what to call it—there was some kind of supernatural or psychic or whatever connection between the typewriter and anyone who might have used it. And Paul, I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You saw the message,” he said, bristling. “You saw those words. We weren’t dreaming when we saw them. They were there, on that piece of paper.”

  “I know.”

  “And I can’t find anything to suggest someone got into the house,” Paul continued. “I mean, yeah, Josh has a key, and maybe Hailey has a key, for all we know, but that shoe, Charlotte. That shoe, I’m pretty sure it hadn’t moved.”

  “I know,” she said again.

  “So what’s your solution, then?” he asked her. “If nothing else makes any sense, how the hell do you think those words got on that page?”

  She looked away, turned the key, and started doing a three-point turn on Laurelton.

  “Answer me,” Paul said.

  “I wonder, and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I wonder if it’s possible there’s one other explanation,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Did you ask Dr. White if it was possible to be partly asleep and awake at the same time?”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “She said maybe.”

  “So think about that.” She guided the car out of the neighborhood and headed toward her office.

  “Just spit it out,” he said.

  “If you could hear something that really wasn’t there, maybe you could do something you have no memory of.”

  “Oh, fuck,” he said, turning and looking out his window.

  “You stayed downstairs a long time last night before you came up to bed. Maybe you nodded off before you joined me. Or maybe you got up in the night and I didn’t hear you.”

  “You think I typed that note.”

  “All I’m saying is that you need to consider the possibility.”

  He didn’t speak to her the rest of the way. A block away from her office, she said, “Look, I’ll run you home. You don’t have to get a taxi.”

  “Just fuckin’ drop me off anywhere.”

  “Please, I never meant to—”

  “Save it,” he said.

  She pulled into the parking lot of the real estate agency. Paul got out without saying another word and slammed the door.

  Twenty-Five

  I’m sorry, I don’t have an appointment,” Paul said later that morning to Dr. Anna White. “I know I was here only yesterday.”

  Anna had a surprised look on her face when she found him at her door—everyone had to ring in now, no walking straight into the waiting room—looking distressed. “Paul,” she said, “I’ve got someone coming in five minutes, but what’s wrong?”

  She invited him in and guided him into her office.

  “Sorry to just show up,” he said again.

  “What’s happened?”

  He hesitated. “Let me ask you something, and I need you to give me a straight answer.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do I strike you as someone who could be totally delusional?”

  “What’s brought this on?”

  “I’m pretty sure Charlotte thinks I’m losing my mind.”

  “I don’t believe that. Why would she?”

  “Something really strange has happened and I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Just tell me.”

  So he told her about finding the sheet of paper in the typewriter with the message written on it.

  “I see,” Anna said slowly.

  “I don’t like the sound of that ‘I see’ very much,” Paul said. “My theory is, well, it’s pretty out there, but I think Charlotte has one that’s a little more down to earth.”

  Anna nodded slowly. “That it’s you? That you typed it yourself?”

  Paul nodded slowly.

  “Do you think that’s possible?” she asked.

  “No,” he said quickly. But then he bowed his head, and added, “God, could it be?”

  “Talk to me about that.”

  “Charlotte has never heard the typing in the night. I’m the only one. I mean, yeah, I suppose it’s possible I dreamed it, even though it seemed very real.”

  “Okay.”

  “But a message in the typewriter, that’s totally different. That’s something you can hold on to. It’s concrete. Charlotte saw it just as clearly as I did.”

  “Let’s try to look at this logically,” Anna said. “If we accept the fact, as I do, that there are no spirits or supernatural forces actually at work in our world, except in the movies and in the pages of Stephen King novels, then we have to consider that the stresses you’ve been under are manifesting themselves in creative ways you may not even be aware of. And you have, in the last week or so, made a conscious decision to revisit the circumstances of Kenneth Hoffman’s attempt to kill you.”

  “So I typed that note and don’t even know I did it.”

  “I think we have to look at that as a possibility.”

  Pa
ul ran a hand over his mouth and chin. “Charlotte and I had this entire conversation yesterday about the dry cleaning that I have no memory of. There are texts I don’t remember sending. And, of course, those typing noises in the night, before an actual note showed up. But composing a crazy note and not remembering it, that’s something totally . . .”

  “I could do some research on it,” Anna offered. “People have done some amazing things while sleepwalking. A lot more than walking. People have been known to get in their cars and drive around with no memory of having done it. I think if someone could do that, typing out a few words is not such a stretch.”

  Paul let out a long breath. “Well, whatever I’m doing while I’m asleep is making me crazy while I’m awake.”

  Anna looked ready to ask something but was holding back.

  “What is it?” Paul asked.

  “Is your house secure?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “So you don’t think it’s likely that someone could have entered the house and put that note into the typewriter.”

  Paul shook his head. “I don’t think so. And I can’t think of any reason why anyone would.”

  Anna did not say anything for several seconds. Then, “There’s something I need to tell you. I don’t honestly think it has any bearing on this, but you know that patient the other day? The one who got angry and stormed out?”

  Paul nodded. “Yeah. Gavin, was it? Hitchcock or something?”

  “The name’s not important,” Anna said. “But this patient may, and I stress may, be harassing some of the people I see. I can’t prove it, but if he were, it would be consistent with the behavior that sent him to me in the first place.”

  “What’s he done?”

  Anna hesitated. “Do you know anything about computers?”

  Paul shrugged. “About as much as most people.”

  “How long would someone need to download files from a computer with one of those little sticks? You know the kind I mean?”

  Paul let out a long breath. “I don’t know. Not long, probably. Why?”

  She shook her head. “You understand this is an awkward situation for me, but I can tell you what’s already part of the public record. There was a news item. He called a grieving father, pretending to be his deceased son.”