A Noise Downstairs(23)

“Yup,” Paul said.

Charlotte gave him a quizzical look. “And it’s somehow a big deal if Josh was messing around with it? It’s built like a tank. He can’t break it.”

“It wasn’t me,” Josh said again. “I’m glad Mom is coming.” He got up from the table and fled up the stairs to his room.

Charlotte gave her husband a look.

“What?” Paul said.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe you dreamed it? You heard some tap tap tapping in your sleep?”

Doubt crept across Paul’s face.

“Okay, the first time I heard it, I was in bed, probably half-asleep.”

“There you go.”

Hesitantly, he added, “But then I got up and heard it again when I was going down the hall.”

Charlotte slowly shook her head. “Your mind plays funny tricks on you when you’re half-awake, or half-asleep, that time of night. Maybe you heard something else. Some kind of house noise. A ticking radiator or something.”

“This house doesn’t have rads.”

“Whatever.” While the coffee brewed she took a seat at the table. “Look, you’ve been under an enormous strain lately. Don’t take it out on Josh.”

Paul ran a hand over his mouth and shook his head.

The doorbell rang.

Paul tipped his head back and shouted to the upper floor, “Josh! Your mom’s here!”

“Early, as always,” Charlotte said, returning to the coffee machine. “Walter’s always in a hurry.”

The doorbell rang again.

“Hold your horses,” Paul said under his breath.

Then, from the front door one floor below: “Hello?”

Paul and Charlotte exchanged glances. “Did you lock the door when you came in last night?” Paul asked her quietly.

Charlotte grimaced. “I thought I had. Does Hailey have a key?”

Paul shook his head. “Josh does. Maybe she made a copy.” He got out of the chair and reached the top of the stairs as Hailey appeared. Five-ten, short blond hair, jeans with artfully arranged threadbare patches, bracelets jangling from each wrist, hoop earrings the size of coasters. She gave Paul’s wife a cold stare and said, “Charlotte.”

“Hailey.”

Paul nodded a silent hello to his ex, then called a second time for Josh. “Coming!” the boy shouted.

Outside, a horn honked.

“Jesus,” Hailey said.

“Walter in a bit of a hurry?” Paul asked.

“When isn’t he? There’s not a damn thing he doesn’t do in a hurry.”

Charlotte snickered. Hailey, realizing her comment invited more than one interpretation, tried to recover. “Just getting out of the city was a nightmare. Even on a Sunday morning. We were stuck on the FDR for forty minutes. You know Walter and traffic. He totally loses it. And 95 was no picnic, either.”

Hailey sighed then regarded her former husband with what seemed genuine concern. “How are you doing?”

“Okay,” he said.

“Back to a hundred percent?”

“Getting there.”

Hailey smiled. “That’s good.”

Josh came thumping down the steps, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He was heading straight for the stairs.

“Hey,” Hailey said, “you gonna say good-bye to your dad?”

Josh mumbled a “bye” without turning around.

“That was a bit lame,” his mother said.

“Dad says I’m a liar,” he said, holding his position at the top of the stairs to the first floor.

“What?” Hailey asked. “And what happened to your finger?”

“It’s nothing,” Paul said. “Josh, I never said you were a liar.” Josh glared at him without comment. “I just—look, come here.”

The boy moved his way as though his running shoes had lead soles. Paul said, “Maybe I was wrong.”

“Maybe?” Josh said, then spinning on his heels and disappearing down the stairs.

Hailey gave her ex-husband a reproachful look but voiced no criticism. “Good-bye, Paul,” she said, then, almost as an afterthought, glanced at his wife. “Charlotte.”

Charlotte nodded.

Once they’d heard the front door close, Paul shook his head and said, “Shit.”





Twelve

While Charlotte hosted her open house, Paul spent much of the afternoon cloistered in his office. He read more articles online about Kenneth Hoffman, and when he thought he’d found pretty much everything on the subject, including several video segments from local news stations, and an item on that NBC show Dateline, he broadened his search to include think pieces on why people do bad things.

That covered a lot of territory. Why do people lie? Why do they steal? Why do they have affairs? And, most important, why do they kill?

He scanned articles until he felt he would go blind, and by the end of it, he had no clearer sense of why Hoffman murdered those two women. Paul found Hoffman’s motivation to kill him the simplest to explain. Paul was a witness. He had seen those two women in the back of the Volvo. Hoffman had to kill Paul if he was to have any chance of getting away with his crime.

Paul thought he would like to talk to him about it.