In the Still of the Night: Tales to Lock Your Doors By

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  The secretary retreated into the office and Laura said that she had to go soon, that most of her trip lay ahead of her.

  “Miles to go before you sleep,” the doctor quoted.

  She nodded and sipped the coffee, bitter as alum.

  “We do review your father-in-law’s case periodically, you understand. I’ve said he likes it here. I’m not sure that’s true. He’s a great manipulator.”

  “He’s an Irishman,” Laura said.

  The doctor smiled. It was spontaneous and she liked him better. “What about these Irish fraternal organizations he talks about? He gets letters from them now and then, harmless things, like ‘Cheer up, the world’s not getting better waiting for you….’ We used to censor mention of Irish politics, but with things looking better, and he is allowed newspapers … but what I want to ask you: Would any of these organizations help you support him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know the names of them—except when they march on St. Patrick’s Day.”

  “That’s coming up tomorrow, isn’t it? Let me get Mallory’s file. Do you want more coffee?”

  Laura shook her head and said, “Thank you.” Her cup was more than half full.

  “Don’t throw it in the plant,” the doctor said. “It’s had its quota for the week.”

  Laura leaned back and relaxed for the first time since arriving. They were human here after all. Which, strangely, made her want to reconsider the enormous undertaking of making a home for a man who had been institutionalized for fifteen years. She remembered the dog Tim and she had bought from a kennel. They got it cheap because it had been living in the kennel for two years. The first day in the house it bit Tim and wouldn’t let him come near Laura.

  Dr. Burns was gone for several minutes. She could hear him on the telephone and sounds within the building seemed to be picking up, muted bells and intercom messages. She supposed that, as in all hospitals, they had their evening meal early. Daylight was fading and it looked as though it might be raining. She did not know why but she did not want to get up and go to look out the window, and she thought of the moment of fear in the elevator, at home, and then of a tale from her adolescence involving an elevator: “Room for One More.” One thing about growing up, you didn’t enjoy getting spooked anymore.

  The doctor returned, apologized, and forgot to bring the file with him. He called out to his secretary. But just as Tony came into the room, an alarm sounded on the intercom system. Laura could feel the shock of it at the back of her neck. It was an eerie repetitive hee-haw, like the bray of a donkey. Both men stood still and counted. The signal was repeated. Dr. Burns excused himself to Laura and instructed the secretary to stay with her, but to monitor communications. He returned to his office, half closing the door this time so that Laura could only see him go toward his desk and soon come back from it. She wondered if he had stopped there for a gun. “Check seventeen, will you?” he said to Tony, and left by the hall door.

  Laura knew from having written Joe Mallory that Block Seventeen was part of his address. She followed Tony to the door of the office. He watched her, waiting for his call to get through. The braying signal let up. She could hear her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. Tony spoke on the phone and then listened for what seemed a long time. Laura leaned on the frame of the door. The secretary signaled her to take one of the office chairs. She remained standing at the door. When he hung up the phone he said to Laura, “Mr. Mallory is in his room.”

  “Thank God,” Laura said, “and thank you for telling me.”

  “It could be a false alarm. That’s happened before. I’m sorry you had to get caught in it.”

  “I don’t think I ought to wait for Dr. Burns….”

  The secretary was shaking his head. “The building’s sealed. Nobody leaves just now. Why don’t you sit down again? I’ll bring you a magazine or two. Can’t keep them in here. They disappear.”

  Laura was not going to remember a single word she read. What kept going through her mind was that they had checked out Joe Mallory. That had to mean something, some appraisal of his behavior. But what? And it was strange how they had broken in on his playing a dirge. If she didn’t get away soon, she would backtrack on the whole idea of taking him into Tim’s and her home. A few minutes later one long bray came over the alarm system. Tony came to the door and said he’d been right. It was a false alarm.

  She waited another twenty minutes. Dr. Burns had not returned. Alarms must upset the inmates. Not inmates, patients. It was ridiculous but her nerves were getting ragged. She looked into the office where the secretary, his back to her, was working on a computer. She put on her coat and simply walked out the hall door and down the corridor by which she had entered. The guard checked her pass and opened the heavy door to let her out into a drizzle of rain.

  The Honda was sitting alone, the cars with MD registrations she had parked between were gone. When she got in, she patted the steering wheel. “Oh, baby, am I glad to see you.”

  There was even less traffic on the grounds than when she had arrived, but lights had come on in all the buildings, and she told herself she ought not let her imagination run wild. It was a shabby thing she had done, leaving without a word. A little more courage and she’d go back. No way, not tonight. At the gate she was required to sign out. A state trooper got into his cruiser and with a wave to the gateman, followed her off the grounds. As soon as they hit the highway, he turned on his flashers and passed her, picking up speed. “Follow that car!” she said aloud, and wished she could. Not on a winding, two-way road. She intended to go on to the Taconic Parkway, but to get away from traffic decided on Route 22 for part of the way. It was getting dark too soon. In the rearview mirror she saw that the sky was brighter behind her than ahead. She also saw a car turn in where she had turned. He gained speed until he was almost up to her. She slowed down to let him pass. He slowed down. She accelerated. So did he.

  “We didn’t need this,” she said, again aloud. She did not like driving scared. She settled for fifty-five miles per hour; so did the driver behind her, and the uneasiness let up a little. She had read somewhere that fear and guilt went together. Mea culpa, mea culpa. It wasn’t as though she’d let Joe Mallory himself down. Not yet anyway. She braked suddenly when a rabbit dashed into the road. It zigzagged in front of her, and kept to the road. Finally, she doused her lights. A pale, damp twilight. When she turned them up again, the rabbit was gone. But the driver behind her had kept even pace. There was a car behind him now too. She hoped it would follow him until she could get to the village ahead. Then, as they approached it, she decided to take a chance that he would turn off there. He didn’t but the car behind him did, and she was soon beyond the village. She was in farm country, hollows in the road and fog she drifted into and out of. The rear of the car gave a thump. She didn’t think she had hit an animal. It came again. She slowed down and checked the dashboard. Normal. Then she looked in the rearview mirror.

  In the light of an oncoming car, she saw Joe Mallory palely, a face without a body. She swerved wildly, the right wheels jolting off the pavement.

  “It’s Joe Mallory, for the love of God,” the old man called out. Stowed away in the trunk, he had pushed down the back seat and was pulling himself through the opening. “Keep us out of the ditch, girl!” and when she braked, “Don’t stop!”

  The Honda thumped itself back onto the pavement. Laura’s mouth was so dry she couldn’t speak. Her hands quivered on the steering wheel. Behind her the old man was struggling out of a white jacket such as Leroy wore. The car behind overtook them and slowed down alongside.

  “Wave him on or I’ll kill him,” the old man shouted.

  Laura waved. She did not look, afraid to take her eyes off the road. The driver gave his horn several jolly beeps and sped into the night.

  Mallory pulled the coat off. “Free at last! Free at last!” he sang out. “I’ll crawl up with you in a minute. Have you no radio in the car?”

  “No.”
r />   “Mother of God.”

  Laura coaxed saliva into her mouth. “I park on the street overnight. The one in my last car was stolen.”

  “Savages.” Then: “What did that sign say?” They had come up on a road sign and passed it.

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “Damn it to hell, I’m here without my glasses. Where are we?”

  “On Route 22, going north.”

  “I don’t want to go north. Turn around the first chance you get.”

  “Let’s go back,” Laura said. “You shouldn’t be here, Joe. They’ll never let you out and Tim and I asked if they would soon.”

  “The hell you did, and him never writing to me. Don’t lie to me, girl. They wouldn’t even send my brief to the governor.” A hand with fingers like talons grasped her shoulder. “I’m not going back so get it out of your head. I never heard of Route 22. Keep going ahead till I get my bearings. Isn’t it a wonder I’m here at all?”

  Laura didn’t say anything.

  A brief silence. Then she thought he was chuckling. “The key in the very place I taught him to hide it when he was a kid. They don’t make bumpers like that anymore, but it was there.”

  Laura knew what he was talking about although she’d forgotten: After she had once locked herself out of the car, Tim had soldered a pocket on the underside of the bumper.

  “Drive easy, I’m coming up front with you.” He reached forward and put something on the passenger seat, a small, snub-nosed gun, terrible to see in the pale light of the dashboard. She wanted to grab it and throw it out the window but she was as afraid of the gun as she was of him. She opened the wrong window and closed it. He cursed the headrest as he twisted around and came over feet first. Sneakers, thin pants, and a sweater. His knees on the seat, he put the gun in his pocket and pushed the back of the rear seat into place, closing the trunk.

  “Bastards won’t even give you a belt to hold your pants up with.” He wriggled around, a slight, wiry figure on the seat beside her. But deadly. Or was he?

  “Is the gun loaded?”

  “Ha! Would I carry a dummy?” He giggled and then laughed. He rocked back and forth in the seat, the laughter bubbling out of him. It quieted down to a cough. Finally: “You want to know where I got it, don’t you?”

  “No. I want you to throw it away and let me take you back.” Once she had spoken she knew she could speak, and it occurred to her then, she had a mighty weapon of her own, the car, the Honda, which Tim said would go through hoops for her. “Listen to me, Joe. Dr. Burns asked me if some of the Gaelic organizations—the ones who wrote to you—he wanted to know if they’d help support you if you came to live with Tim and me. Now do you believe me?”

  “Tell it to me again. My ears are stopped up.”

  She repeated more or less what she had said.

  “Bloody spy. He was looking for information. Did he say the word ‘Gaelic’?”

  “He did,” she lied.

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I never got to tell him anything. The alarm cut us off.”

  He was on the verge of laughing again. He choked it back. “And me lying in my bed innocent as a babe.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What do you know about it? Nothing. I was under the bed, and Leroy rolled up like a pig in the blankets.”

  Dead? she wondered. She wondered also at the strength and agility of the man beside her. The orderly must weigh nearly two hundred pounds.

  “What are we going this way for? Read me the road signs we come to.”

  Laura missed the next ones purposely; chief among the directions was that to the Taconic Parkway. She said she was sorry, and began to contrive a desperate gambit. When the next sign came, it also pointed to the Taconic. She read it aloud, but took the road in the opposite direction.

  “How long before we’ll make the city?”

  “Two hours.”

  “They’ll be looking for me with dogs by then. Is there no way you can go by side roads?”

  “I can try. Where do you want me to take you?”

  “Aren’t you taking me home? Isn’t that what you said you came for? Won’t Tim be waiting for us?”

  “Okay, Joe. Let’s go for it.” She drew a deep breath and took firm hold of the steering wheel.

  “I’m pulling your leg, girl. Isn’t that the first place they’d look? You’ll put me down near the heart of the city, and I’ll get lost among my own. I’ll have a night on the town.” Once again he broke into high, hysterical laughter.

  Laura, trying to watch both him and the road, came up too fast on a broken-down car, the driver outside it trying to steer and push it off the road. She swerved wildly and must have missed the man by a hairbreadth. She could hear him screaming after her. She could only hope he’d contact the police. Rolling with it, she straightened the Honda.

  “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” the old man said. “You could’ve cracked my skull. You could dump me on the road and be off to Vermont or wherever the hell you’re going.”

  “I’m taking you home,” Laura said grimly.

  “There’s a tune to that. I wish I could’ve brought my fiddle. I don’t wish that at all. It’ll be alive and well when I’m writhing in hell. Ah, Laura, there’s times I wish I could pray….”

  “We could pray together,” she said.

  “Not if you knew what I’d pray for.”

  “What?”

  “That I’ll find the motherless bastard who sold out Ireland for a penny’s worth of peace.”

  “Oh, my God … Don’t, Joe. Ireland’s not worth it!”

  The old man didn’t hear her, intent now on his own resolution. “If I live through the night and the parade is tomorrow, I’ll send him home in a coffin.”

  There was no way he could make it, surely. And yet, he had found a man seventeen years ago, after a four-year search for him.

  The rain had almost stopped and the sky to what she supposed was the south was a musty yellow and pink. She turned toward it.

  “What’s that ahead making all the color?” he wanted to know.

  “New York.”

  “It lit up the sky when I was on the run there. Can you go no faster?”

  She sped up and, glimpsing the speedometer top seventy, passed two cars, and shot between a third and an oncoming truck, her wheels squealing.

  “You’re a Barney Oldfield!” the old man shouted.

  He twisted his scrawny neck to look after a passing sign. “Where are we now?”

  “Near Yonkers,” she said. It was a familiar name, though they were miles and miles away from there.

  “Cows?” said Mallory. “Did I see a cow?”

  “An ad,” she made up. “Borden’s milk.”

  “And no more traffic than this? What time is it?”

  “Look at the clock.” It wasn’t seven yet.

  “I can’t read it. Do you have a pair of glasses I can try?”

  “Try my reading glasses. My purse is on the floor at your feet.”

  He plundered her purse while she sped on, praying to attract police attention, but there was no traffic at all. She thought they’d soon be in reservoir country and she’d have to slow down.

  “I’ve money in my pocket I saved all these years,” he said. “Will you go to the police as soon as you leave me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t know, who does?” He was trying her glasses. “Can’t see through the damn things at all.” He put them back in her purse. “I’ve lived my life, Laura. Half dream, half horror. You wouldn’t begrudge me a last hurrah?”

  “What about Leroy?”

  “Leroy. What about him?”

  “Did he help you escape?” What she had wanted to ask was if he had killed him.

  “Not by choice. He’ll sleep till they wake him. I put every pill in my box down his throat.” Mallory threw back his head and laughed. “Oh my God, he won’t wake up for a week and they’ll send him back
to Sing Sing where he came from … I’ll miss the bastard.” And after a minute, “No, he’ll miss me.”

  “Go back while there’s time,” Laura pleaded. At the intersection, she made a right turn, again the tires squealed. So did the brakes of a car coming on behind her. She had run the stop sign and cut in front of him. He was not going to be able to stop. She all but lifted the Honda into the left lane, in the path, but at a distance she could handle, of an approaching car. The car behind zoomed past on the passenger’s side, his horn blasting. He started to stop and then went on. Laura cruised back into the lane behind him.

  “Tim’s wrong,” the old man said. “It’s a darling car.”

  They were both silent for a time, the road winding and rutted. There was little oncoming traffic, but in the rearview mirror Laura could see a police car approaching. She was of two minds what to do, but before she could settle on one of them, it was too late. The vehicle passed them, its siren sudden and shrill. “Now where are they going?” the old man said.

  Laura said nothing. Having slowed down to let them pass, she had read STATE POLICE CANINE CORPS.

  Soon they could see the sky ahead lit up, the color of alarm, of search. The iron fence loomed in the headlights as though rising from the ground. “Now I know,” the old man said, and for a few seconds rocked himself in the seat. “Put me down here,” he ordered, “and get the hell away.”

  Laura stopped. The ceiling light came on when he opened the door. He noticed the two boxes of candy on the back seat. “Is one of them for me?”

  It was an hour later when Laura stopped near the Massachusetts border, intending to call both Tim and her aunt Mattie. When she went to get money out of her purse, she found the snub-nosed gun. It was of carved wood, polished to a sheen. She also found a small roll of dollar bills tightly bound with a rubber band.

  About the Author

  Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic. The author of seventeen crime novels, including the Mrs. Norris Series and the Julie Hayes Series; three historical novels; and numerous short stories; she has served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and is a founder of Sisters in Crime.