Linwood Barclay: A Tap on the Window

It was something Phyllis had definitely thought about.

“We’ll take him out into the woods,” she said, “and dig a nice hole for him and cover him up, and we’ll have our own little private funeral for him. That’s what we’ll do.”

But today, after seven years, Phyllis has determined that process may have to be sped up a bit.

Because it’s only a matter of time before someone starts putting things together, comes to the house armed with a search warrant, finds Harry down in that room.

Now, it’s all about getting rid of the evidence.

Harry is the evidence.

If the police show up, claiming to have been told some cockamamie story about keeping Harry in the basement, she can say, “What are you talking about? Go down there, have a look. That’s just crazy talk.”

The only one who’s seen him down there is Dennis. And Dennis will have told Claire. The good news is, Richard has taken care of both of them. The only things left to worry about now are that detective, and the book.

Phyllis is betting he has the book. If she can take care of both those matters at once, she might find a way to get out from under all this. For herself, and for her son.

Soon, she’ll put in a call to Cal Weaver. But not just yet. There are more immediate concerns.

“What are all these boxes?” Harry asks when she wheels him out of his room and past the washer and dryer.

“I’m moving you upstairs,” she says. “With you out of the basement, I can store some more stuff in there.”

“Where? What are you talking about?”

“I thought I’d give you Richard’s room. It’s been empty a long time. You’ll have a window and a view and a fresh breeze when you want it.”

“I don’t know what to say— Really?”

“You wait here for a few minutes while I deal with your old room.”

“I won’t be going back in there?”

“I can promise you, Harry, you won’t be sleeping another night in there.”

She feels something catch in her throat. She goes into the room with a garbage bag, stuffs it with anything that says “Harry.” Clothes, adult diapers, scraps of food, a bag of cookies, used tissues, bedding.

She forces the rollaway back together, pushes it into a corner of the room, piles some boxes in front of it. Brings in a few more boxes that she’s been storing in other rooms. Sprays some air freshener, takes a sniff, concludes that it’s not that bad. Working feverishly it takes her the better part of twenty minutes to do it all, but she is a strong woman. Attributes it to years of lugging cases of beer.

“Okay, we’re good to go,” she says, closing the door and locking it, more out of habit than anything else.

“I’m going to need help on the stairs,” he says.

He wheels the chair up to the bottom step. Phyllis gets her hands under his arms, lifts. He grabs onto the railing with his right hand, and with Phyllis on his left, he manages to get to the kitchen. He crawls onto the floor and stays there while Phyllis runs back down, folds up the wheelchair, and brings it up one flight.

“That’s a new fridge,” Harry says, scanning the kitchen.

Had to grind up sleeping pills and put them in his food the day they replaced the old refrigerator when it conked out. At least that was upstairs. That time the furnace went out in the basement, she not only drugged Harry, she tied him down to the bed and taped his mouth, just in case he woke up, which, thank the Lord, he didn’t. When the washing machine broke down, she got Richard to research it on the Internet and fix it himself. Still leaked a bit, but it did the job.

Phyllis gets him back into his chair, steers him toward the back door. “Aren’t we going out the front?” he asks.

“It’s easier to get you into the car this way,” she says.

She realizes, as she grips the handles of the wheelchair, that her hands are shaking. She gets ahead of the wheelchair, opens the door, then gets around behind him again and pushes the chair outside. Phyllis tips the chair back slightly to ease it down the two steps.

The car is there, backed right up to the bottom step. The trunk is open.

Harry says, “Why you got all that plastic lining the trunk, Phyllis?”

It has a low lip, this trunk. Phyllis tips Harry forward, like she’s emptying a wheelbarrow. The top half of his body falls in. He throws his hands forward, trying to brace himself.

“The hell are you doing, Phyllis? Damn, I hit my head.”

“Sorry, honey,” she says. “Can’t have anyone seeing you on the way to Baskin-Robbins.”

“For Christ’s sake, I can scrunch down in the seat!”

She tips the lower half of his body into the car, pulls the chair away, folds it, and puts it into the backseat of the sedan.

“Phyllis! Get me the hell out of here!”

“One second,” she says, and runs back into the house, opens the kitchen drawer where she keeps her knives.

“I’ve been good to him,” she tells herself, her eyes starting to fill with tears. “I’ve done the best I can.”

Phyllis grabs the knife she always uses to carve the Christmas turkey and runs back outside .

“Phyllis must have moved him,” I said to Augie. “She had to know we were coming, so she got him out of here.”

“This is insane,” Augie said.

I shifted some boxes around. “I think this stuff was just moved in here. There’s no dust on the floor around the boxes. And — hang on. There’s half a sandwich down there, and the bread’s not moldy. Would you come eat a sandwich in this room if you didn’t have to?”

“I can barely breathe,” my brother-in-law said. “Wait a second.” He left the room.

“What?” I said.

“Marks on the floor,” he said. “Like something was wheeled through here. Went through some water on the floor, leaking out from under the washing machine...”

“A wheelchair,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“I’m not making this shit up,” I said.

“Let’s go back up,” he said. We rendezvoused in the kitchen. “Think Phyllis drives a Crown Vic. Tan-colored one. Looks sort of like a cop car without the bells and whistles.”

He got out his phone, told the Griffon police dispatcher to have everyone looking for Phyllis Pearce’s car. “Try Patchett’s first. If you see it, don’t do anything. Just let me know.”

He put the phone away and said, “We might as well head over there anyway.”

“I need to talk to you about this other thing.”

Augie pulled back a kitchen chair and plopped himself down. He gestured for me to do the same, and I did.

“Go ahead,” he said wearily.

“I think Ricky Haines killed Scott.”

I’d found, over the years, it was nearly impossible to shock Augustus Perry. Provoke, yes, but not shock. Even if you managed to say something that surprised him, he’d do his best to remain stone-faced.

He wasn’t able to hide his reaction this time.

“What?” he bellowed. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Haines was searching Claire Sanders out back of Patchett’s one night. Used it as an excuse to give her one hell of a patdown. Scott saw it happen, threatened to report Haines — maybe to you — for assault. Every time he saw Haines around town, he referred to him as a pervert. Haines had it in for him.”

“Come on,” Augie said. “Maybe Claire’s making it up.”