A Noise Downstairs(59)

“I should go,” Paul said.

“Maybe you should.”

But Paul hadn’t moved toward the door, and Gabriella guessed why. “I’ll still do it for you. I’ll get in touch with Kenneth, and the prison.”

“Thank you. Can I give you my cell number?”

She went for a pen and a piece of paper. When she returned he gave it to her and she wrote it down.

“Okay,” she said.

“When I talked to Leonard,” Paul said hesitantly, “he said it was my fault.”

“What?”

“Because I came upon Kenneth. Because maybe if I hadn’t, Kenneth would have been gone by the time the police came.”

“Does that surprise you?” she asked. “I think, at some level, Leonard can’t believe it’s true. That there must be some sort of extenuating circumstances. His father couldn’t have done what they said he’s done.”

Paul nodded. “Thank you for your time, Gabriella.”

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IT WAS NEARLY TEN WHEN PAUL GOT HOME.

He locked the front door once he was inside. As he was about to climb the steps upward, his gaze was drawn to the door to the garage.

Paul reached out for the doorknob, but then pulled his hand back.

There’s no need to check, he told himself.

But the longer he stood in that spot, the more he knew he was going to have to prove it to himself. It was like going back into the house to make sure you’d turned off the stove. You knew you’d done it, you knew it was off, but you had to know.

He turned back the bolt on the door, opened it, and reached his hand around to flick on the light. He stepped around the various boxes and pieces of furniture until he was in the far corner of the garage, where the cartons of books were piled atop the wooden blanket box.

This is crazy, he told himself. Of course it’s in there.

He held his breath, listening. If the keys were tapping away in that box, he’d surely hear them.

And he was hearing nothing.

Which was a good sign, right?

And even if there had been anything going on in that box since Paul put the typewriter in there, he had not left any paper in it. So the machine wouldn’t be able to do any communicating.

No, wait.

Not true.

What about those sheets of paper scattered all over the kitchen? How in the fuck had that happened?

How did countless sheets get rolled into the typewriter? And how the hell did they get pulled out?

Paul began moving the cartons of books off the blanket box. Once he had it cleared off, he knelt down, slipped his hand into the groove under the lid to allow him to lift it up easily.

Just do it.

Lift it up and look inside.

Paul took a deep breath, and brought the lid up.

“Paul!”

“Jesus!” he shouted, dropping the lid and whirling around. His heart jackhammered in his chest.

The interior door to the garage was open about a foot, Charlotte’s head poking in.

“What are you doing?” she said. “I thought I heard you come in, but then you didn’t come upstairs.”

“You scared me half to death,” he said, still kneeling.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I was . . . checking. That’s all.”

He turned back to the blanket box and lifted the lid, casting light down into it.

The typewriter was there. There was no paper rolled into it, no other paper to be found, not counting the stacks of old magazines.

Paul swallowed, lowered the lid, and stood.

“Well?” Charlotte asked.

“It’s here,” he said.

“Well, of course it is. For God’s sake, come to bed.”

He nodded sheepishly and walked across the garage, hit the light, and closed the door as he went back into the house.





Thirty-Seven

Paul was in front of his laptop when his cell phone rang shortly after noon the following day. It was Gabriella Hoffman.

“It’s set up for tomorrow,” she told him. “For both of you.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “He’s willing to see me?”

“He is.”

Then he called Anna White and told her they were set for a prison visit with Kenneth Hoffman, if she was still interested in coming.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She would have to clear her schedule for the day, and make sure that she could get Rosie, a retired nurse who lived next door who often checked in on her father whenever Anna had to be away for any length of time.

“Why don’t I drive,” she said.

Paul was going to ask why, then figured, if he were dealing with someone who’d suffered a head injury and from all indications was borderline delusional, he’d want to be the one behind the wheel, too.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come to your place, then we’ll head up in your car.”

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“WAS THERE EVER ANY TALK OF CHARLOTTE COMING WITH US?” ANNA asked as they backed out of her driveway. The prison facility where Kenneth Hoffman was serving his time was near Waterbury. Anna figured it would take the better part of an hour to get there. She entered its address into the in-dash GPS system on her Lincoln SUV. They’d start out by taking Derby-Milford Road up to Highway 34, jogging west, then heading north on 8.