Брендан Дюбуа - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2006

I had left my silver-handled walking stick leaning up against my night table. Using it, I limped into the kitchen. Four aspirin and a glass of orange juice made breakfast. Then I returned to my bedroom, where I dressed methodically in my last pair of clean pants, a blue-and-gold sweater, and worn leather loafers — all remnants from better days, when I had been a wunderkind at a Wall Street investment bank. But that had been before my nervous breakdown. And before my run-in with the taxi.

At the front door, I paused just long enough to pull on a Yankees cap and shrug on a windbreaker against the cool October weather. In an act of defiance, I deliberately forgot my toothbrush. Then, taking a firm grip on my walking stick, I slowly limped into the hallway, then out to my building’s tiny front porch.

A cold wind gusted, stirring leaves in the gutter. Lowering gray clouds threatened rain. A long black limousine with dark-tinted windows sat double-parked in front of my door, its powerful engine purring. The chauffeur — short but stocky, sporting a military-style haircut and dark sunglasses — opened the rear door and stood stiffly next to it, waiting for me to get in.

Three careful steps down, leaning heavily on the rail, and I reached the sidewalk. When I limped over to the limo, I noticed the bulge of a gun at the chauffeur’s right armpit — which meant he was not only armed, but also left-handed. Just another useless detail I couldn’t help but observe. My mind turned like a well-oiled machine now, noting everything around me and analyzing it.

Surreptitiously, I gave a quick glance up and down the block, but found no sign of life — everybody in my lower working — class neighborhood had already gone off to work or school or whatever else they did during the day — no witnesses to see my abduction.

Carefully, grimacing a bit, I lowered myself into the extra-roomy backseat and stretched out my legs. They hurt less that way.

Mr. Smith sat inside, dressed, as he had been the last time we met, in an impeccable Italian silk suit. He wore his short salt-and-pepper hair swept back, and the faint scent of lavender surrounded him. Against my better judgment, I eyed the two glasses in his hands with interest, amber liquid with faintly clinking cubes of ice. As the chauffeur closed the door firmly behind me, Smith passed me a drink. I gulped without hesitation, then made a face. Ginger ale.

“You spoiled perfectly good ice,” I muttered.

“Alcohol kills brain cells, Pit. I want you at your best.”

“Why?” I asked bluntly. My hands started to tremble again. As subtly as I could, I placed the glass into a holder in the door, spilling just a little.

“Because,” he said, “I have a problem, and you can help me solve it.” It wasn’t a request; it was a statement.

Leaning forward, he tapped on the plastic partition separating us from the chauffeur, who had returned to the driver’s seat. Slowly we accelerated. At the end of the block, we turned left, heading toward Roosevelt Boulevard.

I half grumbled, “Why does everyone think I’m some sort of freelance problem-solver?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No!”

Smith chuckled again. “My aunt has a farm west of here. You’re going to pay her a visit and keep an eye on things for a week or so. She...” His voice trailed off. I couldn’t read anything from his expression. “Someone — or something — may be stalking her.”

“Some thing?” I asked.

“Well...” He shifted a tad uncomfortably. “She’s claimed to see ghosts and angels as long as I can remember.”

“Then she needs a psychiatrist, not a seedy drunken cripple!”

“Come on, Pit! You aren’t seedy. Merely depressed.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” I grumbled sarcastically. Boy, had my stock fallen. From stopping blackmailers to babysitting crazy aunts.

“Actually,” he went on, “I sent a couple of my boys out to visit her a month ago. They scared off a prowler one night, though I suppose it might have been a dog or even a coyote. It was dark; they couldn’t tell. Anyway, after that, things got quiet. As soon as they left, though, Aunt Peck started reporting disturbances again.”

I frowned. “What sort of disturbances?”

“Oh... noises at night, her possessions disappearing or moving around inside the house. That sort of thing. She thinks the spirit world is trying to communicate with her.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Do you believe in these spirits?”

His eyes narrowed. “Let’s say... I have an open mind. I’ve seen a lot of odd things over the years. And believe it or not, I used to be a choirboy. Growing up in the Catholic Church, you get a good strong dose of saints and miracles and superstition.”

I snorted.

“You don’t believe?” he asked.

“There are no ghosts, ghouls, zombies, vampires, werewolves, or angels prancing around farms in rural Pennsylvania!” I said it with absolute certainty.

“Then prove it!”

I looked out the window at the passing row houses. Laundry hung outside on tattered lines. Trash and graffiti spoke of a neighborhood heading downhill fast, just like my life. Suddenly I felt old and tired.

Angels...

Once upon a time, before my accident, so long ago it felt like someone else’s life — once upon a time, when I was a good little boy, I had believed. But now...

Frowning, I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Did I really want to do this? Did I really want to babysit a delusional old lady?

It wasn’t like Smith had given me a choice in the matter; we were already on the road, so I might as well make the best of it. Besides, maybe a change of scenery would be good. At least it would keep me from drinking myself to death for a little while longer.

Leaning back, I closed my eyes. “Tell me,” I said, “everything you know about your aunt. Start with her name and family background.”

“Don’t you want to know about the disturbances?”

“No. You’re a secondhand source of information. If I need to, I’ll question her about them.”

“Then you’re going?”

My mind was racing ahead. Ghosts... farms... noises in the night...

I sighed. I shook my head.

But I said, “Yes.”

Her name, said Smith, was Elizabeth Peck. She was his mother’s sister-in-law: not a blood relative, but marriage meant a lot in his family. As long as he could remember, she had espoused the beneficial effects of fresh air and sunshine on children, and the Pecks’ farm — a hundred or so acres just outside Hellersville — played host to a steady stream of young relatives throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Her husband Joshua had been a lay minister, so the country visits came with generous helpings of sermons... especially to the Tortelli boys, the black sheep of the family.

After Uncle Peck’s death two years ago, Aunt Peck began renting her land to neighbors, who planted soybeans, corn, and other crops. She made enough to pay her rather modest bills.

Aunt Peck had always been an avid correspondent, and she still kept in touch with all branches of her extended family through frequent letters. Her speculations about the nightly disturbances being caused by “angels” had alarmed Smith enough to send a couple of his men out to visit her.

Their first night on the farm, moaning sounds awakened them just after midnight. They ran outside, fired a couple of warning shots into the air, and heard someone — or something — run off through a cornfield. They gave chase, but whoever or whatever it was got away.

Then things got quiet. After another week, they left.

A few days later, Aunt Peck proudly wrote that the “angels” had returned. Hence Pit’s summons.

“She may just be a crazy old lady,” Smith said thoughtfully, “but she’s my aunt, and I have to look out for her. Family duty, you understand.”