Allan Leverone - Mr. Midnight

The man shook his head. “Step away from the door and close it behind you. There’s no need for the entire neighborhood to witness our little get-together, not that anyone’s out there to see it anyway.”

Kevin once again took Cait’s elbow, this time moving her one step to the left. He reached back with his foot and pushed the door shut. It closed with a thunk of finality and she knew this was going to be bad. This was going to be very bad.

Maizie Adams had lived in Everett her entire life, the last forty-five years of it right here in Granite Circle. She had moved in when the neighborhood was still nearly brand-new, buying the only house she would ever own with her husband Roger, a printing press operator at the Boston Globe .

Roger had worked long hours, doing the dirty, messy work of putting out a newspaper back in the days when each page was laid out by hand, decades before the process was simplified by the advent of computer programming. In those days it took a team of professionals hours to get it right. Roger would come home exhausted in the middle of the night while the rest of the city slept, his hands and arms stained with ink halfway up to the elbow, the day’s edition ready to go.

Then he suffered a massive stroke and, unable to work, found himself relegated to the Barcalounger in the cramped living room, oxygen tank at his side, a once-proud man slipping farther and farther into depression, his life eventually flickering out one night while Maizie slept on the couch next to him.

“Natural causes,” the doctor had called it, but Maizie recognized that diagnosis for what it was: a steaming pile of crap. Roger had given up on living, unable to do the job he loved, unable to provide for the woman he loved, unable to find the will to continue breathing.

Maizie buried her husband and then soldiered on alone, missing him but knowing he was better off now, wherever he was. She took a job for the first time in her life, working for a short while as a medical transcriptionist, eventually quitting when she came to the realization she had no real use for the money she was earning. Roger’s pension from the Globe , along with the small annuity from some long-ago investments, was more than enough to heat the house and buy the groceries and pay the property taxes. Maizie didn’t need any more than that.

Now in her early eighties, Maizie Adams’s days were mostly spent puttering around her house, watching her soaps and cleaning. Rare was the day when the carpet wasn’t vacuumed at least three times, the dishes weren’t washed after every meal, and the furniture went undusted.

She also maintained a healthy interest in the comings and goings of her neighbors. None of the other houses were occupied by the same people who had lived in them back in 1968, when the Adamses had moved in; in fact, most of the homes in Granite Circle had been sold several times over as families moved into these starter homes, made their mortgage payments for a few years, and then moved up to bigger and more expensive places in bigger and safer neighborhoods.

But none of that mattered to Maizie. In fact, in some ways she thought it was good. New families meant new routines to observe, new quirks to discover, new people with whom to familiarize herself.

For example, Victoria Ayers, in Number Seven, the house located directly across the circle from Maizie’s, had been living in her home since 1983, and she was a strange case. Her husband was long gone, having died in a suspicious manner—Maizie suspected he may have killed himself, but wasn’t sure—close to a quarter-century ago, and Victoria was nearly as reclusive as Maizie herself, although somewhat younger. She didn’t look younger, Maizie thought, but she was.

Maizie could count the number of times Victoria had received guests since her husband died on one hand, which made the last two days’ flurry of activity so noteworthy. Yesterday a young couple had visited, arriving by taxicab and spending a couple of hours inside the house. Then they had left after a strained exchange on the front porch. Maizie’s eyesight was failing rapidly, along with most of her other senses, but the awkwardness of their departure had been clear even to her, watching from her living room at least a hundred feet across Granite Circle.

Then, today, a young man had arrived, pulling into the driveway in his own car, knocking on the door and entering the house after a short conversation. Maizie had been watching closely and darned near called the police then. She would have sworn the young man had half forced his way in, sticking his shoe in the doorway and pushing his way inside like a bull in a china shop.

She had almost called the police, but not quite. The whole thing happened so quickly and was over so fast that she immediately began to question what she had seen. After all, her eyesight wasn’t what it used to be and although Everett could be a dangerous city at times, especially if you didn’t know where you were going and ended up in the wrong section of town, this neighborhood was pretty safe most of the time.

So Maizie had let it go, ignoring the feeling of unease worming its way through her intestines, blaming it on the undercooked chicken breast she had eaten for lunch. But then, just a few minutes ago, the couple from yesterday had shown up again. Three separate callers in two days!

One caller was practically unheard of for Virginia Ayers, but three? Never. Something was definitely going on.

And things had only gotten more perplexing. The front door swung open wide at their arrival and Maizie was certain she had seen the young man who had (maybe) forced his way inside standing behind the door, in the shadows of the hallway, like he was trying to stay out of sight. Then the young couple had stood at the door for a few seconds before beginning to back away. They had suddenly changed their minds and entered. Then the door had slammed closed.

The entire incident had taken place in just a few seconds, and Maizie was watching from pretty far away and sure, she was old and her eyesight wasn’t what it used to be.

But Maizie Adams knew trouble when she saw it. And she had seen it.

She picked up the telephone and cursed herself for being such an old fool. Why hadn’t she trusted her instincts earlier? Whatever was happening over there at 7 Granite Circle was bad and she should have notified the police the minute she suspected something was wrong.

It was too late to worry about her foolishness now, though. All she could do was try to correct her mistake.

She squinted at the laminated card taped to the wall next to her telephone. Damn, the thing was hard to read. Her daughter Jeannie had placed the card there months ago, concerned about what might happen in the event of a fire or attempted break-in. All of Everett’s emergency response numbers were listed, but to Maizie’s way of thinking you had to have the eyesight of a twenty-year-old just to read it. She punched in what she hoped was the number for the Everett Police Department and was rewarded when it was picked up on the second ring.

“Everett police.” The voice was female, and sounded young and bored.

“Yes,” Maizie said. “I’d like to report…” What? A break-in? A disturbance? What?

“Yes?” the voice prompted, now impatient as well as bored.

“Well, there’s something strange going on in the house across the street from mine. The address is Seven Granite Circle.”

“Something strange? Could you please be more specific?”

“A young man I’ve never seen before knocked on the door a little while ago. I can’t swear to it, but I think he may have forced his way in. Now two other people have entered the house after visiting yesterday, and they seem to have entered reluctantly. Please send someone quickly, I’m afraid something is very wrong over there.”