Линвуд Баркли - A Noise Downstairs

When she returned home and gave the neighbor her freedom, she checked on Frank, whom she found in the backyard knocking some more chip shots with a nine-iron. The woods behind the house, Anna imagined, were littered with hundreds of golf balls.

Then she went about rescheduling. Once she was done with that, it was nearly seven, and time to pull something together for her father and herself for dinner.

“Dad,” she said, finding him back in his bedroom on the rowing machine, “are you okay with a frozen pizza? I know it’s pretty sad, but it’s been that kind of day.”

“Okay by me, Joanie,” he said, sliding back on the machine.

Knowing he’d be okay with it, but still feeling she needed to apologize for it, she had already preset the oven. By the time she got back to the kitchen, it was time to slide the pizza into it.

Half an hour later, sitting at the table with her father, he studied her and said, “What’s on your mind, pumpkin?”

His pet name for her since she was a child. So at least for the moment, he knew she was his daughter.

“I have to confront somebody about something,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to it.”

Frank smiled sadly. “It’s okay. I can handle it.”

“Oh, God, Dad, it’s not you ,” she said, laying a hand on his.

“If there’s something you gotta tell me, I can take it.”

“It’s something else entirely. Really.”

“Okay, then.”

“I might have to go out tonight.”

He nodded. “Sure thing.”

“And I need to know you’ll be okay if I do. I can’t impose on Rosie again.”

“Not a problem.”

She was relieved that her father no longer seemed traumatized by their visit from the SWAT team. He seemed to have forgotten all about it.

“What is it you have to do?” he asked.

“I kind of have to work myself up to it.”

Another nod. “If you decide not to, I was thinking we could go visit your mother tonight.”

It never ceased to amaze her how he could drift in and out this way. Be perceptive enough to tell there was something on her mind, and then propose an outing based on a fantasy.

“We’ll see,” Anna said.

He offered to do the dishes — there was little more than a baking sheet, two plates, and two glasses — so Anna told him that would be great. She wanted him to feel useful whenever possible.

When he was finished and had retreated upstairs to his bedroom to watch the cartoon channel, Anna made some tea. When it was ready, she poured herself a cup and sat at the kitchen table to drink it.

She spent the better part of an hour on it.

“Sooner or later,” she said under her breath, “you’re gonna have to do this thing.”

But that didn’t have to mean she couldn’t have another cup of tea first while she thought about it.

They felt a celebration was in order.

And why not? Bill and Charlotte never had to be worried about being arrested for murder because — Breaking News, folks! — they had not murdered anyone.

Sure, they might have driven Paul to take his own life, but how was anyone ever going to prove that? There was no so-called smoking gun. No fingerprints, no DNA, no incriminating hairs or fibers. None of that stuff you saw on TV.

The pages of faked messages from Catherine and Jill weren’t evidence. They’d been written on that typewriter, and so far as anyone knew, Paul had written them. About the only thing Bill thought they needed to address was that extra smartphone with the typewriter ringtone.

He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and brought it over to the cupboards, stood on it, and retrieved the device that had been sitting up there since they’d put their plan into action. It had been plugged into an outlet near the ceiling that had originally been installed to power accent lighting.

He stepped down off the chair, phone in hand.

“No need to throw this out,” he said. “All I have to do is change this ringtone.”

He fiddled with the phone’s settings for several seconds, then placed it screen down on the island.

“Done,” he said. “Consider our tracks covered.”

Charlotte had apologized for being so angry about the overheard whisper. “Who cares what Anna White heard? I could have gone down on you in the middle of the church and there wouldn’t be a damn thing they could do about it.”

“We got what we wanted, but son of a bitch, our hands are clean,” Bill said. “I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming.”

“You,” Charlotte said, “are a lot smarter than you look.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But you were the one who really had to pull it off. You had to be here. You had to play along. You deserve an Oscar.”

She’d brought out a bottle of wine from the fridge and was already on her third glass. Bill was into his fourth beer. No more meeting in empty houses. If anyone came by, his presence here was totally legitimate. He was consoling the widow.

He had some very serious consoling in mind for later.

“It’s really — shit, you know — it really was the so-called perfect crime,” she said. “You know why? Because there was no crime.”

“Are there even laws for what we did?” Bill asked. “Even if someone could prove we used that thing” — he pointed to the typewriter — “to mess with someone’s head, was it even illegal? We could say it was like a practical joke that got out of hand. Or even better, we were helping Paul.”

“Helping?”

“No, not helping. Inspiring . The same thing you told him when you gave it to him. He wanted to write about what Kenneth had done to him, and what we did was designed to inspire him with that effort. Really get him into it. That’s all. We couldn’t have known he’d take it the way he did.”

“ That’s a bit of a stretch,” Charlotte said.

“Anyway, it’s a moot point. It’s never going to get to that.” He became reflective. “I still can’t believe he did it. Walked right out into the water. I mean, how would you do that? If you fall out of a boat or something like that, and you can’t make it to shore, sure, you drown. There’s nothing you can do. But walking in? You’d think, once your lungs started filling up, your natural instincts would take over, you’d try to save yourself, turn around and run back for shore.”

Charlotte shook her head. “No, it could happen. I’ve seen stuff like that on the news.” Her face went dark. “God, it must have been awful.” She looked at Bill and her eyes misted. “The water is so cold.” She mimed shivering, but the chill was real.

It was a rare moment for her. She almost felt sorry for what they’d set into motion.

“Listen,” he said. “It’s done. We don’t look back. We look forward.” He pulled her into his arms. “It’s all over now. We made our decisions and now we live with them.” He tightened his squeeze on her. “We got what we wanted.”

“I was worried about you for a while,” she said. “I thought you were getting cold feet at one point. That you were having some crisis of conscience.”

“Not anymore.”

He bent his head down and put his mouth on hers. She placed her hand at the back of his neck and latched onto him.

“That’s the spirit,” Bill said, breaking free long enough to take a breath. He grasped her around the waist and lifted her onto the island so that her face was level with his. She wrapped her legs around his torso, locked her ankles, trapping him. They explored each other that way for another minute before Charlotte put her hands on his chest and gently pushed back.

“Upstairs,” she said.

Seconds later, they were in the same bed where Charlotte and Paul had spent their last night together. If she had any qualms about that, she did not show it. The sex with Bill was fast and animalistic. The second time was slower but no less passionate.