Linwood Barclay - Too Close to Home

“Not a thing.”

“They were all shot, isn’t that right?”

“That’s my understanding.”

“Three people, shot to death, Jesus, and you didn’t hear anything?”

Like it was our fault. Or maybe just mine. If I’d heard something, if I’d heard the first shot, maybe I could have prevented it from being the total bloodbath it turned out to be.

“No,” I said. “We didn’t hear anything.”

“Do the police know what happened?” Conrad asked. “Surely to God it wasn’t a murder-suicide kind of thing.”

“Doesn’t appear to be that,” I said. “But beyond that, I really don’t know.”

“Illeana and I, we’ll drop by, see how you’re doing,” he said.

“We’ll certainly look forward to that,” I said.

“Okay then,” he said. For an acclaimed author and former English professor who should know a thing or two about irony, Conrad seemed strangely oblivious to sarcasm.

“I’ll tell Ellen you called,” I said, and hung up.

By nightfall, things seemed to be settling down, but it would be a stretch to say things were back to normal. I wondered whether life around here would ever really be normal again. But Ellen and I did pull together a dinner-nothing too fancy, a salad and burgers on the barbecue-and the three of us did sit together at the table to eat.

There wasn’t a lot of conversation, however.

Ellen told me to take it easy after dinner, go watch TV or read the paper, she’d clean up. I wondered if what she really wanted was for me to leave her alone in the kitchen. I left for a few minutes, then wandered back in on the pretext of making some coffee, and saw an almost empty wineglass next to the sink, where Ellen was standing. She was reaching for it when I said, “Hey.”

She jumped, and as she turned knocked the glass into the sinkful of hot, soapy water.

“Jesus,” she said. “Don’t do that. Especially now.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. I mean, Jesus, no, I’m not fine. Who could be fucking fine?”

I took the long-stemmed glass from the water, set it on the counter. “It might get broken,” I said, “in there with the regular stuff.”

Ellen looked at me. “I was just taking the edge off.”

“Sure,” I said.

“It’s been that kind of day,” she said. “If there ever was a day I’m entitled to a drink, this is it. At least I’m not smoking again.”

I nodded and went back to the living room.

The police told us they’d be leaving someone at the scene around the clock for the next few days. There was a black and white car parked up by the highway, and police tape still surrounded the Langley house, as if pranksters had toilet-papered the place, but neatly, and with yellow tissue.

The police presence didn’t make it any easier for Ellen to get to sleep. She went through the house several times, checking doors and windows. She asked me to do a check of the shed, standing on the back-door step while I went round the truck-the cops had finally let me bring my rig in from the highway-and examined the building where I kept my mowers and tools and other incidentals, including my old artwork.

“All clear,” I said, stepping back into the house, not mentioning that our property was surrounded by trees, and that if someone was watching us, he’d hardly need to use the shed to hide himself. The number of places where one could hide seemed limitless.

We got into bed, and Ellen tried reading for a while but finally put her book aside. “I keep going through the same paragraph over and over again,” she said, “and haven’t the foggiest idea what I’ve just read.”

I wanted to say something along the lines of “Rereading Conrad’s book, are you?” but managed to hold my tongue. “Not easy to focus at the moment, is it?” I said.

She shook her head, placed the book by the base of her bedside lamp, reached up and twisted the knob to turn it off. I got under the covers and we both stared at the ceiling for a while. I don’t know for how long, but I must have finally fallen asleep, because I was having that dream, where I’m on the lawn tractor, climbing a hill that’s getting steeper and steeper, until the front end of the mower lifts off the ground and starts going over my head and-

Ellen jabbed me in the side, sometime around midnight, and I awoke with a start.

“What?” I said. “The smoke detector?”

“No, not that!” she whispered urgently.

“What?” I said, my heart instantly pounding.

“I heard something.”

“What? Where?”

“A door. I heard a door downstairs.”

“Maybe you dreamt it.”

“No,” she said. “I was already awake. I haven’t been able to get to sleep yet.”

I threw back the covers and, wearing only a pair of dark blue boxers, slipped out the bedroom door. “Be careful!” Ellen whispered.

I whispered back, “Call the police.” If by some chance we were being visited by the same folks who’d gone to the Langleys’ the night before-my theories of the afternoon seemed pretty pitiful all of a sudden-the time to call for help was now, not later. I didn’t know what had happened to the cruiser up by the highway, whether it was still posted out there or not, and there was no way to tell, standing outside our bedroom door in the dark of night.

As I went by Derek’s door I noticed it was closed, which suggested to me he was in there, asleep, although Derek didn’t exactly keep us posted as to his comings and goings. I went down the stairs, feeling naked not so much because I was in nothing but a pair of shorts, but because I had nothing in my hands. We don’t keep guns in the house, but right about then I’d have been happy for one. I’d have settled for a baseball bat, but we didn’t have one of those either, at least not anyplace handy. Down in the basement, maybe, tucked away behind the furnace. Perhaps, if I could make it to the kitchen without running into anyone first, I could arm myself with a cast-iron frying pan, or the fire extinguisher that hung on the wall right next to the stove. You wouldn’t want to get hit in the head with that sucker.

As I reached the first floor I could hear Ellen on the phone upstairs, whispering urgently. Across the living room I spotted a poker hanging among the tools next to the fireplace. That would do.

I crept over toward it, delicately slipping the pointed iron bar out of its holder. I liked the heft of it in my hand and felt, while not relieved, at least slightly better prepared.

I moved through the darkness into the kitchen, and my eyes went to the deadbolt latch. It was in the vertical position, unlocked. There was no way Ellen had forgotten to lock that door. If she checked it once, she checked it three times.

Was someone in the house? Or had someone already been here and gone back out?

I froze, held my breath, listening for anything. I thought I could hear some murmuring, voices, but not inside the house.

Outside, on the deck beyond the back kitchen door.

I moved up to it, put my hand around the knob ever so carefully, twisted it silently to the left until I could turn it no more, confident now that the latch had cleared, then swung it open as swiftly as I could. I wanted the element of surprise on my side.

And I had it.

There was a scream, a woman’s scream, and that was followed by a man shouting, “Jesus!”

Upstairs, Ellen screamed, “Jim! Jim!”

My heart still pounding, I reached for the switch by the back door, casting light across Derek and his girlfriend, Penny Tucker. I’d met her enough times to recognize her, even in this limited light.

Evidently they’d both been sitting on the deck steps that led in the direction of the shed, just talking, but when I’d made my entrance they’d both jumped to their feet and Derek had reached out to steady Penny, who’d nearly stumbled over.