There was no doubt in my mind that a strange noise had awoken me. I laid in bed, motionless, for what seemed like a long time. A few seconds later, I heard it again. It was a sound that most folks wouldn’t have noticed unless they’d lived in the house for years like me. It was the sound of a footstep, the shift of a person’s weight on a hardwood floor panel in the hallway just outside my bedroom door. In my mind, I pictured them leaning in toward the door with an ear cocked, listening for the slightest sound from inside.
My mind raced and my thoughts immediately latched on to the fact that there was a loaded, pump-action shotgun resting upright in the corner. I imagined myself leaping from bed, grabbing the gun, flipping off the safety and blasting away at the burglar. The only problem with that plan was that it would make one hell of a racket. The creak of the bed and the sound of my bare feet on the floor might prompt the burglar to counterattack before I could reach the gun.
I continued to lay there and after what felt like a long time, I heard the burglar move on down the hall toward my study. I sprang into action when I was certain that I heard the door to my study close with a click. As quietly as I could, I swung my feet off the bed, careful not to overly disturb the bedsprings. A few seconds later, I was on my feet and moving softly towards the shotgun.
I paused to listen, and I could hear the burglar going through my desk. The sound of him pulling open drawers and rustling through papers was unmistakable. My ears also caught the sound of his voice as if he were murmuring to himself. It was no voice that I recognized.
Who could this be, I wondered. Was it the mysterious man in the photograph that Bagley gave me at Burton Park last night? Was it the cops or a private investigator? A rival reporter from another paper? Was it a run-of-the-mill burglar, looking for something to pawn for a few bucks to exchange for drugs? There were a number of possibilities, none of them good.
I reached for the gun and picked it up. Its weight felt good in my hands. It was a weapon and more than evened the odds between me and whoever was going through my desk. There also no need to rack the pump and alert the burglar to my presence due to the fact that there was already a round in the chamber, ready for action.
As quietly as I could, I made for the bedroom door that let out into the main hallway. I grabbed the doorknob and turned it slowly. The knob was old, but it didn’t protest as the bolt slipped out of the doorframe. With my left hand, I pulled, but the door wouldn’t budge. High humidity made the door stick, and I knew that if I pulled it open hard, the door would squawk against the frame and certainly alert the burglar.
Without releasing the knob, I paused again to listen. Whoever was in there was still going through my desk. It was in that moment, I heard him pull open the file cabinet in the corner behind my desk. I knew there were four drawers to that file cabinet, and the opening of just one of those drawers made more than enough noise to cover the sound of my opening of the bedroom door.
Keeping my hand on the door knob, I waited. A minute later, my opportunity came. I had to act quickly since there was little warning. A half-second after he pulled another filing cabinet drawer open, causing it to rattle on its slide-rail, I pulled the bedroom door open. As expected, it squawked loudly.
Had the burglar heard, I wondered. I stopped again to listen and heard nothing. I took this as a bad sign. Before, the burglar had been going through my study loudly as if he thought no one was home. Now, there was only silence. I pictured him in my study, ears cocked, listening, trying to figure out what caused the noise he heard. The dark side of my mind, which I could usually rely on, cast up the imagine of the nameless, faceless burglar reaching under his coat and producing a large handgun.
My hands gripped the shotgun tightly as I prepared myself for action. I swung the door open and stepped into the hallway. There was no one there, and the door to my study was closed. The burglar was in there, and he was trapped. There was only one way in and one way out. He’d have to go through me to escape.
“You inside the office,” I shouted. “I know you’re in there. I’ve got a gun.”
Again, only silence. “You better say something,” I shouted again. “Or I’m coming in there blasting.”
More silence. Had the burglar slipped out one of the room’s several windows? Or was he just waiting on me to come near the door so he could unleash a barrage of bullets into the hallway?
“Stay in there then,” I shouted at the closed door. “I’m calling the cops.”
To be perfectly honest, I had no intentions of calling the police. Instead, I hoped that whoever was in my study would put up a fight, which would give me an excuse to squeeze the trigger of the gun I was holding.
Suddenly and without warning, a smoke detector began to go off, not the one in the hallway just over my shoulder, but the one in my study. What was this burglar up to? Had he found something that he hoped to destroy before I could stop him? Was he trying to create a diversion? Was he trying to burn my house down? Whatever his reason, I’d had enough.
I ran the short distance down the hallway and kicked in the door. I let my momentum carry me into the room and slid into a crouch toward the fireplace as I swung the shotgun around looking for a target. In those brief few seconds, I caught a glimpse of the burglar and caught the gist of his escape plan.
The burglar wore an old fashioned overcoat. It was gray and looked like a lightweight trench coat. And I didn’t get a good look at his face because he was wearing a hat, like an out of style fedora, and he turned in such a way as to shield his face from view.
His escape plan had been blessedly simple. The smoke detector was right over the door. He’d stood to one side and probably used a cigarette lighter to set off the alarm. The piercing sounds of the detector continued to ring out as the burglar sprang out of the room with a rustle of his coat. Whoever it was, he was fast, but it appeared that his hands were empty. He wasn’t brandishing a gun, and it was possible that he hadn’t found what he was looking for.
The urge to fire a round into the burglar as he slipped through the door was powerful, but I didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, I scrambled to my feet and gave chase. As I reached the door of my study, I saw the man reach the end of the hall. As if he were overly familiar with the layout of my house, I speed through the dining room, entered the utility room and hooked a right into the kitchen.
Close on his heals, I followed. As soon as I entered the kitchen, I heard the back screen door bang shut as he entered the back yard. Instinctively, I knew he was headed for the small patch of woods behind the house. If he made those woods, he’d be gone.
I ran to the back door, kicked it up, raised the shotgun and fired. The noise was loud and out of place in the afternoon light, and I watched as the man doubled up into a heap. He’d been about 20 yards away, and the shotgun blast had sent him to the ground. I pumped another round into the chamber, jumped down the steps and closed the distance.
“Hold it right there,” I shouted.
“McMorn!” came an unexpected voice from a short distance away. It was my neighbor, Tom Jones. “What the hell’s going on?”
Not taking my eyes off the burglar, who was face down, I answered. “Tom, this man broke into my house. Call 911. Tell them we need the police and an ambulance and hurry!”
Tom disappeared around the corner about the time the burglar turned over on his back. A few seconds later, I lowered my shotgun and ran to the man’s side. It was Bagley, the man who’d given me the unusual photo in the park the night before.
(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)
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