John Verdon - Let the Devil Sleep

“The first is my bedroom. The second is the bathroom.”

“I’m going to take a look in each one. If you hear anything at all, or if you call my name and I don’t answer immediately, get out through the front door as fast as you can, lock yourself in my car, and call 911. Got that?”

“Yes.”

He moved down the hall, looked inside the first room, then stepped in and switched on the ceiling light. There wasn’t much to see. A bed, a small table, a full-length mirror, a couple of folding chairs, a rickety armoire in place of a closet. He checked the armoire, checked under the bed. He stepped back out into the hall, gave Kim a thumbs-up sign, moved on to the bathroom, and repeated the process.

Next was the kitchen.

“Where did you see the drops of blood?” he asked.

“They start in front of the refrigerator and go into the back hall.”

He entered the kitchen cautiously, glad for the first time in six months that he was armed. The kitchen was a wide room. On the far right was a dinette table and two chairs in front of a window that faced the driveway and the adjoining house. The window brought some light into the room, but not much.

In front of him was a countertop with cabinets under it, a sink, and a refrigerator. Between him and the refrigerator was a small butcher-block island. On the island he saw a meat cleaver. As he stepped around the island, he spotted the blood-a sequence of dark drops on the worn linoleum floor, each about the size of a dime, one every two or three feet, stretching from in front of the refrigerator door over to the rear doorway of the kitchen and out into a shadowy area beyond it.

Without warning he heard the sound of breathing behind him. He spun around in a crouch, pulling the Beretta from his pocket. It was Kim, standing just a few feet away, the cliché deer in the headlights, staring at the muzzle of the little.32, mouth half open.

“Jesus,” he said, taking a breath, lowering the pistol.

“Sorry. I was trying to be quiet. You want me to turn on the light?”

He nodded. The switch was on the wall over the sink. It operated two long fluorescent bulbs mounted on the ceiling. In the brighter light, the blood drops on the floor looked redder. “Is there a light switch for that back hall?”

“On the wall to the right of the fridge.”

He found it, turned it on, and the darkness beyond the doorway was replaced by the buzzing, flickering, cold light of a cheap fluorescent fixture at the end of its life. He moved slowly toward the doorway, the Beretta pointed downward.

Except for a green plastic garbage barrel, the short rear hallway was empty. At its far end, a solid-looking exterior door was secured by a substantial dead-bolt lock. There was a second door in the right wall of this cramped space. It was to this one that the trail of blood drops led.

Gurney glanced quickly at Kim. “What’s behind that door?”

“Stairs. The stairs… to the basement.” Fear was creeping back into her voice.

“When was the last time you were down there?”

“Down… oh, God, I don’t know. Maybe… maybe a year ago? A circuit breaker cut out, and the landlord’s maintenance guy was showing me how to reset it.”

“Is there any other access?”

“No.”

“Any windows?”

“Little ones at ground level, but they have bars on them.”

“Where’s the light switch?”

“Right inside the door, I think.”

There was a drop of blood in front of the door. Gurney stepped over it. Standing flat against the wall, he turned the knob and pulled the door open quickly. The smell of dead, musty air filled the little hallway. He waited, listened, then looked down the stairs. They were dimly illuminated by the flickering fixture in the hall behind him. There was a switch on the wall. He flipped it, and a faint yellowish light came on somewhere in the basement.

He told Kim to turn off the hall fluorescent, to stop the buzzing noise.

When it was off, he listened again for at least a minute. Silence. He looked down the stairs. On every second or third step, he saw a dark spot.

“What is it? What do you see?” If Kim’s voice got any more brittle, it was going to crack.

“A few more drops,” he said evenly. “I’m going to take a closer look. Stay where you are. You hear anything at all, run like hell out the front door, go to my car-”

She cut him off. “No way! I’m staying with you!”

Gurney had a talent for projecting a calmness that increased in direct proportion to the agitation of those around him. “Okay. But here’s the deal: You’ve got to stay at least six feet behind me.” He tightened his grip on the Beretta. “If I have to move quickly, I’ll need some room. Okay?”

She nodded.

He began to make his way slowly down the steps. The staircase was a creaky structure with no handrails. When he reached the bottom, he could see that the trail of dark spots continued across the dusty basement floor toward what appeared to be a long, low chest in the far corner. On one wall a furnace stood alongside two oil tanks. On the adjacent wall, there was an electrical-service breaker box, and above it, almost touching the exposed joists, there was a row of small horizontal windows. External bars on each were dimly visible through filthy glass. The low light was emanating from a single bare bulb as begrimed as the windows.

Gurney’s attention returned to the chest.

“I have a flashlight.” Kim’s voice came from the stairs. “Do you want it?”

He looked up at her. She switched it on and handed it to him. It was a Mini Maglite. Its little batteries were about due for replacement, but it was better than nothing.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. Last time you were down here, do you remember a box or a chest against the wall?”

“Oh, God, I have no idea. He was showing me the circuit things, the switches, I don’t know what. What do you see?”

“I’ll let you know in a minute.” He moved forward uneasily, following the trail of blood to the long, low box.

On the one hand, it appeared to be nothing more than a very old blanket chest. On the other hand, he couldn’t get the melodramatic notion out of his head that it was about the right size for a coffin.

“Oh, my God. What’s that?” Kim had followed him and was now standing just a few feet behind him. Her voice had dropped to a whisper.

Gurney put the flashlight between his teeth, pointed down at the box. With the Beretta in his right hand, he lifted the lid gingerly with his left.

For a second he thought there was nothing there.

Then, gleaming softly in the flashlight’s little pool of yellow light, he saw the knife.

A kitchen paring knife. Even in the weak, dirty light, he could see that the blade had been honed until it was unusually thin and sharp. On the point was a tiny drop of blood.

Despite Gurney’s efforts to persuade her, Kim refused to call the police.

“I told you, I’ve called before. I’m not doing it again. Nothing happens. Worse than nothing. They come to the apartment, they poke around the doors and windows, and they tell me there’s no sign of any forced entry. Then they ask if anyone was injured, if anything of value was stolen, if anything of value was broken. It’s like if the problem doesn’t fit one of those categories, then it’s not a problem. Last time, when I called about finding the knife in my bathroom, they lost interest when they learned it was mine-even though I kept telling them that the knife had been missing for two weeks before that. They scraped up the little drop of blood that was next to it on the floor, took it with them, never said another word about it. If they’re going to come here and give me this look like I’m some hysterical woman wasting their time, then the hell with them! You know what one of them did the last time? He yawned. He actually, unbelievably, yawned in my face!”