A Noise Downstairs(79)

“It’s hard to know what’s going through people’s heads,” Arnwright said. “When did you last see Mr. Davis?”

“We met up for a squash game the other day but didn’t really play that hard. You know he had a head injury, and I didn’t even think he should be playing, but he was sick of treating himself with kid gloves. But after a few minutes, he came to his senses, and we cut our session short.”

“How did he seem to you?”

“Upset. You know about the nightmares? The typewriter thing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Were you close friends, you and Paul?”

Bill hesitated. “Friends, for sure. Maybe not super close. We knew each other in university, UConn, and we sort of kept in touch. We both ended up in Milford, and he knew what I did for a living, and when Charlotte was getting into real estate, he asked if there was any way I could help her out. We found a spot for her at the agency.”

“So all three of you were friends.”

“I guess. Sure.”

“Are you married, Mr. Myers?”

“I have been, but not now.” He appeared to be considering whether to tell Arnwright something. “Let me tell you a story.”

“Okay.”

“I had a cousin, she lived in Cleveland. And around the time she was turning twenty, she started believing that she was being pursued by Margaret Thatcher.”

“The British prime minister?”

Bill nodded. “She said she was getting messages from her, telepathically. And here’s the thing. Her parents, they wanted to believe that it was really happening. That somehow, for reasons they could not explain, the prime minister of England was out to get their daughter. You know why?”

“I think so.”

“Because the alternative was even more horrible to imagine. That their daughter was seriously mentally ill. They were in denial about that. But eventually, of course, they had to accept the fact that my cousin Michele was delusional. A delusion became the only rational explanation.”

“And that’s how you feel about Paul and his obsession about that typewriter.”

Bill shrugged.

“What happened to Michele?” Arnwright asked.

“She jumped off the Hope Memorial Bridge into the Cuyahoga River at the age of twenty-four.”

_________________

DETECTIVE ARNWRIGHT HAD TO WAIT NEARLY A MINUTE FOR HIS knock to be answered at Gavin Hitchens’s house.

When the door finally opened, Arnwright’s eyebrows went up a notch. He knew Hitchens had been seriously injured by Paul Davis, that he’d suffered a blow to the head, that his elbow had been sprained, that one of his knees had been hurt. So the sling, the bandage on his head, and the wrapped knee were to be expected. Arnwright was just expecting Hitchens to be wearing more than a pair of boxers.

“Yeah?” he said.

Arnwright introduced himself. Hitchens nodded knowingly and smiled.

“Let me guess,” he said. “That son of a bitch wants to charge me with harassment or something.” Hitchens grinned maliciously. “Fucker puts me in the hospital, and I’m supposed to be the dangerous one.”

“You’re talking about Mr. Davis,” Arnwright said cautiously.

“Is that what he did? File a complaint about me? Because if he’s saying I did something, I didn’t do anything.”

“What do you think he might have said?”

“Look, okay, I was on his street. I was looking at his house. But that’s all. I was getting an ice cream.”

“And when was this?”

Hitchens blinked. “Hang on. Is that why you’re here or not?”

“If you think I’m here about Paul Davis, yeah, you’re right about that. So when was this?”

“Yesterday, kind of midday.”

“You had words?”

Hitchens shrugged. “He told me to move on, and I did. End of story.”

“But there’s a lot of bad blood between you.”

“Wow,” said Hitchens. “I can see why you’re a detective.”

“What’s the source of this trouble?”

The young man shrugged. “I’ve been through this. I gave a statement. This Davis guy is some kind of mental case. Thinks I was trying to drive him insane or something, but believe me, his crazy train had already reached the station.”

“Did you speak again with Mr. Davis later yesterday?”

“No, that was it.”

“What was your purpose in standing out in front of his house?”

Gavin Hitchens looked away. “I don’t know. It was a place to be.”

“Were you trying to scare him? Intimidate him? Make him think you were going to get even?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “I mean, he might never even have seen me if he hadn’t come out when he did, so you can’t really scare a guy if he doesn’t know you’re there.”

Arnwright studied the man for several more seconds.

“Okay,” the detective said finally. “Thanks for your trouble.”

He turned to leave but Gavin said, “Hey, hold on. That’s it?”

Arnwright turned. “That’s it.”