A Noise Downstairs(50)

The woman nodded with satisfaction. “Thank you.” She cocked her head at an angle and asked, “What’s fucking nuts?”

It jarred him, his words coming back to him, from this sweet old lady.

What the hell, he thought. It might be easier to ask a stranger this question than someone he knew well.

“Do you think,” he asked hesitantly, “that the dead can speak to us?”

The woman reacted as though this were the easiest question she’d ever been asked. “Of course,” she said, taking out the tea bag and setting it on a napkin. “I hear from my husband all the time. Do you know what he did?”

Paul waited.

“He died in October. This’d be in 1997. He’d been sick a long time and knew what was coming. So, four months later, a dozen roses arrive at the door. He figured he wouldn’t make it to February, so he had ordered my Valentine’s Day flowers back in September.” She smiled. “How about that?”

“Well,” Paul said. “He must have been something.”

She took a sip of her tea. “He had his moments.”

Paul stood. He tucked his napkin into the empty coffee cup. “You have a nice day,” he said.

He dropped the cup into the trash and headed for the escalator that would take him from the food court down to the main part of the mall. He glanced back for one last look at that woman, thinking he would give her a friendly farewell wave.

She was gone.





Thirty-Two

He decided his next stop would be Gilford Lamb.

The one-time director of human resources at West Haven had not returned to work after his wife’s murder. His initial time off for bereavement leave had turned into an extended sick leave. From what Paul had heard, he had never recovered emotionally from the loss.

Paul looked up his address online and found that he lived in the Derby area of Milford in a simple two-story house. He pulled into the driveway next to a twenty-year-old rusting Chrysler minivan. As he got out of his own car he took note of the uncut lawn choked with crabgrass, the crooked railing alongside the steps to the front door, the paint flecking off the house.

God, Paul thought. It’s only been eight months.

When Paul pushed the button for the doorbell, he didn’t hear anything. Must be broken.

So he knocked.

Not too hard, the first time. But when no one answered, he tried again, this time putting his knuckles into it.

From inside the house, a muffled, “Hold on.”

After ten seconds, the door opened. An unshaven Gilford Lamb looked through a pair of taped glasses at Paul, blinked twice, and said, “Paul?”

“Hi, Gil.”

“Well, son of a bitch. What brings you here?”

Paul guessed Gilford was in his midforties, but he looked more like a man in his sixties. His hair had thinned and turned gray, and Paul bet the man was thirty pounds lighter than the last time he’d seen him, which would have been about nine months ago. His plaid shirt was only half tucked into a pair of jeans that looked like they’d last seen a wash when the first Bush was president.

“I was going by, thought I’d drop in. It’s been a while.”

“Goddamn, yes, it has. Come on in.”

He opened the door, and the second Paul stepped into the house he wanted to leave. The place smelled of sweat and piss and booze and old meat. The living room, or what was once a living room, was a clutter of newspapers, magazines, bottles, and, of all things, an oval model train track on the dirty carpet. But the Lionel steam train would have had a hard time making the loop, given that portions of the track were littered with dropped items including a coat and a busted computer monitor.

“You want anything?” Gilford asked.

“No, that’s okay.”

“Well, I think I will,” he said and disappeared briefly into the kitchen. Paul heard the familiar pfish! of a pull tab. Gilford returned with a can of Bud Light in his hand. “Gosh, it’s great to see you!” His smile seemed genuine. “I was thinking about you the other day, wondering how you were doing.”

“Good to see you, too,” Paul said, working to hide his shock at how Gil’s life appeared to have spiraled downward so severely.

“Grab a seat.”

That was definitely something Paul did not want to do, but he could see no way to refuse. He moved aside some old magazines— science journals, train enthusiasts’ magazines, even a few comic books—from the stained cushion of a lounge chair while Gilford dropped his butt right onto a layer of newspapers that acted as a couch cover. He crinkled as he got comfortable.

“Not many folks from the college come by,” he said. “Well, I guess the truth is, none of them come by. Hear from human resources occasionally, but that’s about it. You probably know I’m still on a leave.”

“Me, too,” Paul said. “But I expect to be going back in September.”

“Head’s all healed?”

“Getting there. How about you?”

“Oh.” He smiled. “I’m never going back. I’ll ride out the medical leave long as I can and then quit. I’ll never set foot on that campus again.”

“How are you . . . managing?” He tried not to look about the room as he asked.

“Oh, it’s day by day.” He chortled. “I don’t much give a fuck.”