A Noise Downstairs(55)

He looked her in the eye. “No. I swear.”

She nodded very slowly, turned to look at the typewriter, and said, “Then we have to get that fucking thing out of here.”





Thirty-Four

Paul didn’t need any time to come up with a plan.

“We take this thing, we put it in the trunk, we drive to the middle of the bridge, and drop it in the goddamn Housatonic.”

Charlotte nodded. “We could. We could do that. I like that idea.”

Paul eyed her skeptically. “I’m hearing a but.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want to do, fine, but you better do it at night. You toss something into the river and you’ll be up on some environmental charge. Littering, something. And how are you going to explain yourself if the police come by? Why does a person drop a typewriter off a bridge? What’s your story going to be? And even at night, there are probably traffic cameras.”

Paul shook his head slowly. “Is there another bridge, another place where—”

Charlotte raised a hand. “Look, for now, let’s get it out of here. We can talk about where to get rid of it permanently later.” She thought for a moment as they stood, shoulder to shoulder, looking at the Underwood. “The garage.”

Paul bit his lip. “How does that solve the problem? If there’s really something going on with this thing, moving it out of here won’t make it stop.”

“Neither would dropping it into the river, but whether it’s there, or in the garage, you’ll stop hearing it in the night,” Charlotte said. “This . . . thing can type out as many notes at it wants in the garage. If we don’t know about it, we don’t have to care.”

“Okay,” he said, a hint of defeat in his voice. “I’m in.”

He got his hands under the typewriter. It was, he realized, the first time he had ever moved it.

“This thing is heavy,” he remarked.

“I told you,” she said. “It’s a fridge with keys.”

Careful not to slip on any of the sheets of paper still on the floor, Paul walked the typewriter across the kitchen and down to the first floor. At the foot of the stairs, at right angles to the front door, was the second door—also fitted with a dead bolt lock—that led into the garage. Charlotte got ahead of Paul, turned back the bolt, opened the door, and held it for her husband. Being an interior door that led to a garage, it had a spring-loaded hinge to guard against possible carbon monoxide mishaps.

She flicked on the light switch. The garage was littered with cardboard boxes, several old bicycles, unneeded furniture.

“That,” Paul said, nodding at something in the corner.

Charlotte pointed to a wooden antique blanket box tucked up against the wall. “This?”

Paul nodded, shifting the weight of the typewriter from one arm to the other. “Yeah. Open that up. See if there’s anything in it.”

The box was about three feet wide, a foot and a half high and deep. Charlotte lifted the lid.

“There’s a bunch of old Life magazines and National Geographics and stuff in there.”

“God, why do we have those? They were my parents’. Can you shove them over, make enough space for this thing?”

Charlotte got down on her knees and started piling magazines over to one side, creating a cavity on the left.

He leaned over and set the typewriter into the bottom of the box. When he let go, he flexed his fingers to get the blood circulating in them again. “That is one heavy son of a bitch. Okay, close it.”

Charlotte closed the lid of the blanket box as Paul scanned the room.

“What?” she asked.

“Looking for something heavy to put on top.”

“Jesus, Paul, it’s not the clown from It. It’s not going to break out and attack us.”

Paul had nothing to say to that. He found three liquor store boxes with the word BOOKS scribbled on the side in black marker. He set them on top of the blanket box.

“That should do it,” he said. “Those things weigh a ton.” He clapped his hands together, as if dusting them of dirt.

Charlotte linked an arm in his. “Do you think maybe you can relax a bit now?” When he said nothing for several seconds, she said, “Paul?”

“There’s one more person I want to talk to.”

“Who?”

“Gabriella Hoffman,” he said, and saw the doubt in his wife’s eyes.

“What can that possibly accomplish?”

“Locking that typewriter in a box doesn’t mean I don’t still have questions.”

“I don’t know, Paul. Maybe this has been a mistake. Maybe you need to put all this behind you, stop dredging up everything.” She glanced at the blanket box weighed down with the boxes of books. “I never should have bought that thing.”

“What if you were meant to buy it?” Paul asked.

“What are you saying?”

“What if this is all part of some plan?”

Charlotte looked away, not wanting to listen.

“Hear me out. Whatever the reason for those messages, it’s possible that typewriter belonged to Kenneth Hoffman, that this is the machine he forced those women to write their apologies on. What are the odds you’d be drawn to that very yard sale, find that very machine, by chance? To buy something linked to someone I know, to an issue I’d already been thinking I might write about? What are the odds of that?”