A Noise Downstairs
Linwood Barclay
Prologue
Driving along the Post Road late that early October night, Paul Davis was pretty sure the car driving erratically in front of him belonged to his colleague Kenneth Hoffman. The ancient, dark blue Volvo station wagon was a fixture around West Haven College, a cliché on wheels of what a stereotypical professor drove.
It was just after eleven, and Paul wondered whether Kenneth—always Kenneth, never Ken—knew his left taillight was cracked, white light bleeding through the red plastic lens. Hadn’t he mentioned something the other day, about someone backing into him in the faculty parking lot and not leaving a note under the windshield wiper?
A busted taillight was the kind of thing that undoubtedly would annoy Kenneth. The car’s lack of back-end symmetry, the automotive equivalent of an unbalanced equation, would definitely irk Kenneth, a math and physics professor.
The way the Volvo was straying toward the center line, then jerking suddenly back into its own lane, worried Paul that something might be wrong with Kenneth. Was he nodding off at the wheel, then waking up to find himself headed for the opposite shoulder? Was he coming home from someplace where he’d had too much to drink?
If Paul were a cop, he’d hit the lights, whoop the siren, pull him over.
But Paul was not a cop, and Kenneth was not some random motorist. He was a colleague. No, more than that. Kenneth was a friend. A mentor. Paul didn’t have a set of lights atop his car, or a siren. But maybe he could, somehow, pull Kenneth over. Get his attention. Get him to stop long enough for Paul to make sure he was fit to drive. And if he wasn’t, give him a lift home.
It was the least Paul could do. Even if Kenneth wasn’t the close friend he once was.
When Paul first arrived at West Haven, Kenneth had taken an almost fatherly interest in him. They’d discovered, at a faculty meet and greet, that they had a shared, and not particularly cerebral, interest. They loved 1950s science fiction movies. Forbidden Planet, Destination Moon, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Day the Earth Stood Still. The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, they agreed, was nothing short of a masterpiece. Once they’d bonded over the geekiest of subjects, Kenneth offered Paul a West Haven crash course.
The politics of academia would come over time, but what a new guy really needed to know was how to get a good parking spot. Who was the person to connect with in payroll if they screwed up your monthly deposit? What day did you avoid the dining hall? (Tuesday, as it turned out. Liver.)
Paul came to realize, over the coming years, he was something of an exception for Kenneth. The man was more likely to offer his orientation services to new female hires, and from what Paul heard, it was more intensive.
There were a lot of sides to Kenneth, and Paul still wasn’t sure he knew all of them.
But whatever his misgivings about Kenneth, they weren’t enough to let the man drive his station wagon into the ditch and kill himself. And it would be just himself. As far as Paul could see, there was no one in the passenger seat next to Kenneth.
The car had traveled nearly a mile now without drifting into the other lane, so maybe, Paul thought, Kenneth had things under control. But there was an element of distraction to the man’s driving. He’d be doing the speed limit, then the brake lights would flash—including the busted one—and the car would slow. But then, it would pick up speed. A quarter mile later, it would slow again. Kenneth appeared to be making frequent glances to the right, as though hunting for a house number.
It was an odd area to be looking for one. There were no houses. This stretch of the Post Road was almost entirely commercial.
What was Kenneth up to, exactly?
Not that driving around Milford an hour before midnight had to mean someone was up to something. After all, Paul was out on the road, too, and if he’d gone straight home after attending a student theatrical production at West Haven he’d be there by now. But here he was, driving aimlessly, thinking.
About Charlotte.
He’d invited her to come along. Although Paul was not involved in the production, several of his students were, and he felt obliged to be supportive. Charlotte, a real estate agent, begged off. She had a house to show that evening. And frankly, waiting while a prospective buyer checked the number of bedrooms held the promise of more excitement than waiting for Godot.
Even if his wife hadn’t had to work, Paul would have been surprised if she’d joined him. Lately, they’d been more like roommates who shared a space rather than partners who shared a life. Charlotte was distant, preoccupied. It’s just work, she’d say, when he tried to figure out what might be troubling her. Could it be Josh, he wondered? Did she resent it when his son came for the weekend? No, that couldn’t be it. She liked Josh, had gone out of her way to make him feel welcome and—
Hello.
Kenneth had his blinker on.
He steered the Volvo wagon into an industrial park that ran at right angles to the main road. A long row of businesses, every one of them no doubt closed for the last five hours or more.
If Kenneth was impaired, or sleepy, he might still have enough sense to get off the road and sleep it off. Maybe he was going to use his phone. Call a taxi. Either way, Paul was thinking it was less urgent for him to intervene.
Still, Paul slowed and pulled over to the side of the road just beyond where Kenneth had turned in. The Volvo drove around to the back of the building, brake lights flashing. It stopped a few feet from a Dumpster.
Why go around the back? Paul wondered. What was Kenneth up to? He killed his headlights, turned off the engine, and watched.
In Paul’s overactive imagination, the words drug deal came up in lights. But there was nothing in Kenneth’s character to suggest such a thing.
And, in fact, Kenneth didn’t appear to be meeting anyone. There was no other car, no suspicious person materializing out of the darkness. Kenneth got out, the dome light coming on inside. He slammed the door shut, circled around the back until he was at the front passenger door, and opened it. Kenneth bent over to pick up something.
Paul could not make out what it was. Dark—although everything looked pretty dark—and about the size of a computer printer, but irregularly shaped. Heavy, judging by the way Kenneth leaned back slightly for balance as he carried it the few steps over to the Dumpster. He raised the item over the lip and dropped it in.
“What the hell?” Paul said under his breath.
Kenneth closed the passenger-side door, went back around to the driver’s side, and got in behind the wheel.
Paul slunk down in his seat as the Volvo turned around and came back out onto the road. Kenneth drove right past him and continued in the same direction. Paul watched the Volvo’s taillights recede into the distance.
He turned and looked to the Dumpster, torn between checking to see what Kenneth had tossed into it, and continuing to follow his friend. When he’d first spotted Kenneth, Paul had been worried about him. Now, add curious.
Whatever was in that Dumpster would, in all likelihood, still be there in a few hours.
Paul keyed the ignition, turned on his lights, and threw the car back into drive.
The Volvo was heading north out of Milford. Beyond the houses and grocery stores and countless other industrial parks and down winding country roads canopied by towering trees. At one point, they passed a police car parked on the shoulder, but they were both cruising along under the limit.
Paul began to wonder whether Kenneth had any real destination in mind. The Volvo’s brake lights would flash as he neared a turnoff, but then the car would speed up until the next one. Kenneth, again, appeared to be looking for something.