“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.”
“Is that bastard going to go to jail for what he did to me?”
“Doubtful,” Arnwright said.
Forty-Eight
The following day, Charlotte Davis sat on the bed she had shared with her husband and looked out through the sliding glass doors at the sun reflecting off the waters of Long Island Sound.
There were things she had to do, but she was having a hard time getting started.
Finally, she stood and opened the closet so that she could select a suit for Paul. The funeral home had been asking. Paul had only one good one. As a professor, he could get through almost any function with a sport jacket, jeans, and a tie. Even during graduation ceremonies, when he might be called upon to wear a gown, he could get away with smart casual undercover. The last time Paul had worn a suit, Charlotte thought, was to attend the funeral of a cousin in Providence.
And so he would wear one to a funeral again.
Charlotte pulled a dark blue suit from the hanger, laid it out on the bed. It had not seen any outings since its last trip to the dry cleaners. The tag was still attached. She took the jacket off the hanger, held it up to the light from the window, turned it around.
There was a small smudge on the back that the cleaners had missed, but really, did it matter? Even with an open casket, no one was going to see that. The matching pants, she noticed, had been on the hanger so long they had a crease at the knee, but again, was anyone going to see anything below the waist? Wouldn’t only the upper half of her husband’s body be viewable, not all of him?
Charlotte hadn’t even discussed with the funeral home director the possibility of a closed casket. Was that the way to go? It wasn’t as though Paul had been in a bad car accident. Death by drowning had left his face relatively unscathed. He was, in a word, presentable.
She decided she would press the pants, regardless. And at least try to get the spot off the back of Paul’s suit jacket. The man deserved that much.
Her cell phone rang.
She’d left it on the dresser. She took a step toward it, looked at the screen to see who it was.
BILL
She held the phone for several seconds, letting it ring six times in her hand before declining the call.
She did not want to talk to Bill. Not now. She’d not spoken to him since the call in the middle of the night, when Bill had told Paul not to go to the hospital. Bill was not the only one from whom Charlotte was not taking calls. She was ignoring calls from Hailey, too.
Except for one.
Paul’s ex-wife, her husband, Walter, and her son were coming to the service the next day. Josh, Hailey had told Charlotte, was utterly destroyed by the death of his father. He only stopped crying to sleep, which had only come because he was exhausted from weeping.
“Well,” Charlotte said, “the good news is, you and Walter got what you wanted. Full fucking custody.”
Hailey had gasped. Before she could respond, Charlotte ended the call. When Hailey tried to call her back, Charlotte did not pick up.
Charlotte set up the ironing board in the small downstairs laundry room and placed the suit pants on it. While she waited for the iron to heat, she went up to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. She had started a pot earlier but had yet to have the first cup. Nor had she bothered yet with any breakfast.
The kitchen island was covered with nearly a dozen empty cardboard liquor boxes. She pushed a couple of them aside to make a working space for herself. She grabbed a small plate from the cupboard and some butter from the fridge. She put a slice of whole wheat bread into the toaster, but before she could push it down, the doorbell rang.
She glanced down at herself. She was only a step up from pajamas — a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, hair pinned back, no makeup. She was not ready for unexpected visitors coming to pay their respects.
She sighed, scurried barefoot down the steps to the front door and peered through the narrow window that ran down the side.
It was Anna White.
Charlotte unlocked the door, swung it open.
“Dr. White,” she said.
Anna nodded. “Mrs. Davis. I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, but would you have a moment?”
Charlotte raised her arms in a gesture of futility. It was far from welcoming, but she said, “Sure, come on in.”
“Thanks,” Anna said, following her up the stairs.
Once they’d reached the kitchen, Charlotte said, “I’ve left the iron plugged in, be right back.”
Charlotte disappeared downstairs.
Anna looked at the empty boxes on the island. As she turned slowly to take in the rest of the room, her gaze landed on the open door to what had been Paul’s minioffice.
Anna felt a chill that ran the entire length of her spine.
There, on the desk, next to the laptop, was the Underwood.
Anna assumed it was the typewriter. The machine Paul had believed was sending him messages from beyond the grave. The machine that, one might argue, drove him to the brink of madness. The machine that played a major part in the man’s suicide.
It had not been here the other night. Paul had said it was in Charlotte’s car, that it wasn’t coming back into the house unless it was smart enough to unlock the trunk.
She walked slowly to the office and entered. Cautiously, as though it were electrified, Anna touched the typewriter with the tips of her fingers.
She actually felt something akin to an electric shock but knew it was nothing of the kind. It was an emotional reaction. The metal casing of the typewriter was cool and smooth to the touch.
Anna was reminded of that movie, the one by Stanley Kubrick, where the ape reaches out to touch the black obelisk. Fearfully at first, then, when he realizes the black slab isn’t going to bite him, he runs his hands all over it.
Anna ran her fingers across the keys, gave the space bar a tap.
There didn’t appear to be anything ominous about it, but how the hell did it get back up here if—
“Dr. White?”
Anna turned to see Charlotte standing there. “You startled me,” Anna said. She nodded in the direction of the typewriter. “I just had... to look at it. How did it get back up here? Paul had said it was locked in your car.”
Charlotte gave her a quizzical look. “I put it there,” she said.
“Oh, well, of course,” Anna said.
Paul’s wife frowned. “Tell me you didn’t think it got up here on its own.”
“No, no, I didn’t think that,” Anna said, her face flushing. “I’m just surprised to see it.”
“When I went out to get boxes, I needed the trunk space, so I put it back in here. When I get around to Paul’s stuff” — her voice began to break — “I’ll have to decide what to do with it.”