Линвуд Баркли - A Noise Downstairs

“And your son? Josh?”

Paul frowned. “It hit him hard when it happened, of course. Thinking your dad might die, that’s not easy for a nine-year-old kid. But I wasn’t in the hospital long, and while I had some recovering to do — and still am — it was clear I wasn’t going to drop dead right away. And he splits his time between his mom and me. So he’s not necessarily around when I wake up screaming in the night.”

Paul tried to laugh. Anna allowed herself a smile. They were both quiet a moment. Anna sensed that Paul was working up to something, so she waited.

Finally, he said, “I wanted to bounce something off you.”

“Sure.”

“I talked about this with Charlotte, and she thinks maybe it’s a good idea, but she said I should get your input.”

“I’m all ears.”

“It’s pretty obvious that I’m... what’s the word? Haunted? I guess I’m haunted by what Kenneth did.”

“I might have used the word traumatized , but yes.”

“I mean, not just because he nearly killed me. That’d be enough. But I knew him. He took me under his wing when I arrived at West Haven. He was my friend. We had drinks together, shared our thoughts, connected, you know? Fellow sci-fi nerds. How could I not have seen that under all that, he was a monster?”

“Monsters can be very good at disguising themselves.”

Paul shook his head. “Then again, there were many times when I wondered whether I knew him at all, even before this. Remember Walter Mitty?”

“From the James Thurber story?”

Paul nodded. “A boring, ordinary man who imagines himself in various heroic roles. Kenneth presented as a drab professor with some secret life as a ladies’ man. Except with him, the secret life wasn’t imaginary. It was for real. He had this underlying charm that women — well, some women — found hard to resist. But he didn’t advertise it to the rest of us. He didn’t brag about his latest sexual conquest.”

“So he never told you about women he was seeing?”

“No, but there was talk. We all knew. Whenever there was a faculty event, and he’d bring his wife, Gabriella, all you could think was, is she the only one in the room who doesn’t know?”

“Did you know his son?”

“Len,” Paul said, nodding. “Kenneth loved that boy. He was kind of — I don’t know the politically correct way to put this — but he was a bit slow. It’s not like he was somewhere on the spectrum or anything, but definitely not future college material. But Kenneth would bring him out on campus so he could hang out for hours in the library looking at art books. Kenneth’d gather a stack of books for Len so he could turn through them page by page. He liked looking at the pictures.”

Paul gave Anna a look of bafflement. “How do I square that with what he did? Killing two women? And the way he did it. Making them apologize to him before slitting their... I can’t get my head around it.”

“It’s hard, I know. So, you wanted to bounce something off me.”

He paused. “Instead of trying to put all of this behind me, I want to confront it. I want to know more. I want to know everything . About what happened to me. About Kenneth. I want to talk to the people whose lives he touched. And not just in a bad way. The good, too. I want to understand all the different Kenneths. If it’s possible, I’d like to actually talk to him, if they’ll let me into the prison to see him. And if he’ll see me, of course. I guess what I’m searching for is the answer to a bigger question.”

Anna tented her fingers. “Which is?”

“Was Kenneth evil? Is Kenneth evil?”

“I could just say yes and save you the trouble.” She took in a long breath, then let it out slowly. “I could go either way on this. Do you honestly think it will help?”

Paul took a moment before answering.

“If I can look into the eyes of evil in the real world, maybe I won’t have to run from it in my sleep.”

Anna followed Paul Davis out the door. He continued up the driveway to his own car when Anna stopped to open the back door of her Lincoln SUV, careful not to let her father fall out.

“Come on in, Dad.”

“Oh, hi, Joanie. Must have nodded off.”

“It’s Anna, Dad. Not Mom.”

“Oh, right. We should get going. Joanie will be going to lunch soon.”

“She’s not at Guildwood anymore, Dad,” she said gently. “I’m going to get you some coffee. There’s still half a pot.”

“Coffee,” he said. “That sounds good.”

He turned his legs out the door, then ever so carefully slid off the seat until his feet touched the ground, like some slow-motion parachutist.

“Ta da,” he said. He looked down, saw that the laces on one of his shoes were loose. “For my next act, I will tie my shoelaces.”

“When we get inside,” Anna said, closing the car door and walking with her father back into the house. Once inside, her father chose to sit in one of the two waiting room chairs so that he could deal with his shoe promptly.

“I’ll go get you a coffee, then you can go upstairs and watch your shows,” she said.

He gave her a small salute. “Righty-o.”

Instead of going through the door into her office, Anna took the route that led back into the main house. She went to the kitchen, got a clean mug from the cupboard, and filled it from the coffeemaker.

She heard, faintly, the side door open and close again. She hoped her father hadn’t decided to take up residence in the car again. Then it occurred to her that her next client might have arrived.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. Anna did not want her father engaging in conversation with her clients, particularly the one who was now due. In her rush to return to her office, she fumbled looping her finger into the handle of the coffee cup and knocked it to the floor.

“For fuck’s sake,” she said. Anna grabbed a roll of paper towels off the spindle, got to her knees, and mopped up the mess. Once she cleaned the floor and tossed the sodden towels, she poured another cup of coffee and went back to the office.

She found her father chatting with a thin man in his late twenties who had settled into the other chair and was leaning forward, elbows on knees, listening intently to Anna’s dad. When Anna walked in, he smiled.

“Hi,” he said nervously to Anna. “Just talking to your dad here.”

Anna forced a smile. “That’s nice, Gavin. Why don’t you head in?”

Gavin shook the old man’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Frank.”

“You bet, Gavin.” Frank White tipped his head toward his daughter. “She’ll get you sorted out, don’t you worry.”

“I hope so,” Gavin said.

Gavin went into Anna’s office as she handed her father his coffee. She looked down at his feet.

“You didn’t do up your shoelaces,” she said.

Frank shrugged, standing. “I’ll be fine. He seems like a nice fella.”

You have no idea, Anna thought.

“Are you going to watch TV in your room?”

“I think so. Maybe work on the machine a bit.”

“Dad, you already did, like, an hour of rowing this morning.”

“Oh, right.”

She accompanied him as he went into the main part of the house and walked to the bottom of the stairs. She looked at the coffee he was holding, his untied shoelaces, and that flight of stairs, and could imagine the disaster that was waiting to happen.

“Hang on, Dad,” she said.

Anna knelt down and quickly tied his shoes. “You don’t have to do that,” he protested.

“It’s no problem,” she said. “I don’t want you tripping on the stairs. Hand me your coffee.”