Deep Night: Detective Harlan Ulrich, #1

By Ambrose Ibsen

IT COMES AT NIGHT

Pawn shop owner Nancy Pruitt is being stalked. Every night since bringing a mysterious painting into her home, she's been awakened by a rapping at her bedroom window. What's more, the nightly visitor seems to bear quite the resemblance to a figure in her new painting...

Enter Harlan Ulrich: Coffee-fueled eccentric and private detective.

Running from a ghost-filled past, Ulrich settles down in Tanglewood, Ohio, hoping to turn a new leaf and put the supernatural behind him.

But upon getting involved with Nancy's case, the detective realizes he may have just gotten wrapped up in precisely the kind of investigation he's been trying to avoid.

DEEP NIGHT is a novel of supernatural suspense, the first in the Detective Harlan Ulrich series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ambrose Ibsen
• Release date: Aug 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393618423

Book preview

One

No. No. Not again. Not tonight, please...

She awoke.

Not little by little, not peacefully. One instant she'd been well and truly asleep; the next, she was wide awake—awake and certain that something was wrong.

It had been a sound—that sound—that'd yanked her out of a peaceful sleep.

A rapping at her window.

Nancy shifted uncomfortably against the bedclothes, peeled the sweat-damp sheets off and stared into the darkness, trying to quiet the pounding of her pulse. She studied the clock on her bedside table. The chunky red letters told her she was closing in on a quarter after midnight.

It's just like last night, she thought with a wince.

The same time on the clock, the same noise at the window, the same fear churning her guts.

For awhile she stayed put, closing her eyes, hoping that whoever had come by might lose interest and mosey on, or that she'd simply misheard. But then, that hadn't worked the last time, had it? The tapping had kept on—the visitor had rapped at the window until she'd finally gotten up to look.

For three nights running, she'd heard this noise at her window, and for three nights running she'd come to fear the dark. It hadn't always been this way. Having lived in the house alone almost twenty years, she couldn't recall ever feeling so frightened and vulnerable in the dark, nor could she remember ever dealing with nighttime trouble of this kind. Tanglewood, Ohio, was a safe place—as safe as they came. Pranksters and home invaders were practically unheard of in her neck of the woods.

There it was again—the slow drum of fingertips against the glass.

Slipping out of bed, she stood in the darkness and worked at chasing away the terror that left her knees knocking. Her heart climbed into her throat as she crept to the window, a single finger seeking out one of the seams in the blinds. She parted them the merest fraction, squinting through the crack in search of her nocturnal visitor.

But there was no one there.

Instead, she found herself looking out narrowly at her twilit back yard. She glanced past the bushes, past the chain link fence that separated the border of her property from the street and the park beyond.

What? Where did...

The night before, through this same window, and after a bout of the same tapping, she'd spied someone lingering near the fence. It'd been a very pale person, kind of lanky, hunched beneath the cover of a red umbrella. Maybe it was just because her eyes weren't so good these days, but she hadn't been able to make out much more. After tapping at her bedroom window for a bit, they'd seemingly stationed themselves by the fence, watching the house for a time. Nancy had been so terrified at this that she'd called Marc, the sheriff's deputy, over to scope things out. The lurker by the fence had taken off before he'd arrived, though.

Now, it seemed, they'd returned. But where were they?

She should have felt peace at finding the yard empty, but she only clenched her teeth harder. She tugged at the blinds, widening her vantage point, and studied the back of her property from end to end. The breeze set the bushes near the window quivering. A white moth bobbed across the lawn. From a street over, a traffic light sleepily clicked over from yellow to red and dyed the surrounding pavement with a fiery glow.

Allowing for a cautious optimism, Nancy drew away from the window. Maybe you really did imagine it... Straightening her pajama top and fumbling with a nearby floor lamp, she took a steadying breath and returned to bed, sitting on the edge.

No sooner had she begun to court relief did the sound register again—a slow, deliberate rapping against the glass.

Nancy forced herself to her feet. Keeping the window in her sights, she backed towards the dresser, against which she'd set a baseball bat the evening previous. With the weapon in one hand, she returned now to the window, shakily grasping at the cord of the blinds and giving it a quick yank. W-Who's there? she demanded.

The blinds flew up and she got her answer.

Someone stood just outside the window, their bulk filling out the glass and casting a gnarled shadow across the carpet.

Nancy screamed. The blinds crashed back into place.

Dragging the bat behind her, she barreled out of the bedroom, into the dim hallway. By the time she arrived in the kitchen, plucking her cell phone from the charger on her counter, she'd put on virtually every light in the house. Barely able to keep hold of the phone, she ran through her contacts and dialed Marc. While it rang, she paced the stretch between her living room and kitchen, eyeing the locks on the front and back doors and making sure they'd been engaged.

The deputy answered with his usual "'yello? and when Nancy—close to hyperventilating—didn't reply, he cleared his throat and prodded her. Uh, Nance, that you?"

Yes, she spat in a whisper. It's me, Marc. I... I need you to come by. It's... it's the same as last night. There's someone here. They were tapping on the window—and this time, I saw them. Just outside.

All right, are they trying to get inside? Marc could be heard to sit up, and the sound of his cruiser's engine revving punctuated the question.

I... I don't know. I don't... Catching her breath, Nancy stopped and listened for any sounds of intrusion. Not at the moment, she said finally.

All right, I'm on my way. I'm over near the library, Nance. You stay put, got it? Marc cut the line.

Setting her phone down on the counter, Nancy resumed her patrols between the front and back doors. She clutched the baseball bat to her chest, her arms shaking. Just stay calm. Marc's on his way. He'll be here in just a few minutes, she told herself. At this hour, with no traffic, Marc would be over in a flash. She just needed to stay inside and make sure that—

A noise intruded upon her thoughts—a new noise.

It was the sound of her front door being tried.

Forcefully.

M-Marc? she blurted, though she knew at once it wasn't the deputy. The doorknob trembled and the deadbolt could be heard to creak in its housing as some unseen weight pressed against the outside of the door. There came a series of hard blows—not knocks, more like haymakers—that made the entire entryway quiver.

Backing into the living room, barely holding in a scream, Nancy pressed herself against a wall. The blows ceased, but even so she couldn't bring herself to look over at the door. Wiping tears from her eyes, she side-stepped further along the wall, nearly knocking a framed piece from its hanger in the process. The picture—a new oil painting she'd brought home with her from the shop just recently—swayed against the wall as she shuffled past. She couldn't say why, but possessed with terror though she was, she paused long enough to glance it over.

There was something in the painting that struck her just then, some flourish that stood out for one reason or another. The picture was a grey, dreary landscape, and featured a large house flanked with trees and bushes. In the foreground was a figure—a woman, it seemed—taking shelter beneath a red umbrella. This was the only figure featured in the painting. It was a strange character study, its lack of detail completely at odds with the more realistic treatment of the background. The figure proved a somewhat sketchy, ill-defined composition when studied up-close. Little could be seen of her body; some windswept black locks appeared just behind the bulk of the red umbrella, but aside from those, Nancy could make out only a pale, gnarled shape that answered for a body. It had been thrust onto the canvas in a series of harsh, chaotic strokes—seemingly an afterthought.

Something occurred to her as she stared on. The umbrella...

A taut silence fell over the house.

No, she told herself, dismissing the notion out of hand. No, that's ludicrous.

She kept on scanning the painting. The stately building, the rain-soaked trees, the well-done hedgerow that was so detailed its every leaf could be counted... Without meaning to, her gaze ran back to the figure, to its vague and uneasy shape. It did have something of the humanoid aspect to it, but just barely. One might suppose that it was a woman attempting to shield herself from the wind and rain, but in the present moment the posture of the thing proved far more sinister than that. Nancy got the impression that the figure was walking up the lawn, towards the viewer, as if planning to exit the painting completely, and that the red umbrella—cast onto the canvass by a few slashes of blood-like red—was not wielded to fend off the elements, but to disguise something hideous lurking furtively beneath...

She couldn't deny it; what troubled her most was a perceived resemblance between this nebulous figure in the painting and the similarly vague, pale prowler that now hounded her.

No, enough. There's no time for delusions; you've got far more serious things to worry about.

She turned away from the picture and started back to the kitchen. Through the window over the sink came the blues and reds of the deputy's cruiser, and at spotting them she sank against the counter with a long-held sigh. She put down the baseball bat and looked out into the street, where Marc had parked against the curb and was now exiting his vehicle.

Nancy left the kitchen, preparing to meet him through the front door, but as she made the walk through the living room for the dozenth time, she stopped short.

The front door, where the intruder had been pounding away only moments ago, and which had been locked and bolted, was now sitting ajar. The warm breeze leaked into the house, bringing with it the scent of night.

Somehow, the intruder had gotten inside.

It was a wonder that she didn't drop dead with fright at the discovery, and it was all she could do to stay on her feet. Sure that the intruder was in her home, she turned on her heels, surveying her immediate surroundings dizzily. There was no telling where the trespasser had gone; the house wasn't very large, but there were plenty of places to hide. Her gaze traveled down the hall, to the bedrooms. Perhaps they'd gone into one of those. It was possible they'd slipped into one of the closets, or the bathroom, or...

Peering through the open door and finding the way clear, Nancy rushed through it and bounded out onto the porch, nearly meeting Marc head-on.

Whoa, Nance. The deputy steadied himself, keeping one hand on his service weapon. You OK?

T-They're in the house, she barely managed. The front door... it was locked... but...

The young deputy scanned the front of the property. Then, taking her arm and guiding her away from the door, he asked, Did you see 'em? Are they armed?

In answer to all these questions, she merely shook her head.

OK. Do me a favor and wait in the backseat of my cruiser, will you? Marc nodded back to the car. The engine was still running. I'm going to have a look. I'll come back and get you when I'm done. Noting her hesitation, he spared a quick smile. You'll be safer in there, trust me. I don't know who we're dealing with here, so just wait in the car.

The deputy waited until Nancy had entered the cruiser and locked the doors before drawing his firearm and starting inside. Come on out, nice and slow! he called as he stepped through the threshold.

A half hour had gone by with no word from Marc, and Nancy had chewed all of her nails down to stubs. Finally, after some forty-odd minutes, the deputy could be seen to emerge from the house, his gun in its holster and his hands on his hips. He returned to the car, opening the rear driver's side door and letting her out.

D-Did you find them? she asked, stepping onto the road and cradling herself with her arms.

He shook his head, his expression a curious one. It was confusion and anxiety—possibly some annoyance in the mix, too. I didn't. And I checked every room, every closet, every nook and cranny. He took a deep breath. You sure they broke in? 'Cause... He nodded at the front door. "The locks weren't broken, didn't look picked... no signs of forced entry. You said it was locked, but are you sure? Did you see someone enter?"

She shook her head. No, I didn't see it. They must have done it when I had my back turned. I was in the living room, waiting for you, and that's when I looked over and realized the door was open. I-I made sure both doors were locked, though. She glanced past the deputy, studying the house with wide eyes. "Are you sure there's no one in there?"

Marc chuckled, leaning against the cruiser. I'm plenty sure. His smile faded somewhat and he squared her with a firm gaze. What's more, Nance, I've gotta ask. Have you been... drinking? Or maybe you're on a new sleeping pill that's making you see things?

No! Nancy stood upright. The accusation stung. Of course not!

The deputy put his hands up, continuing, Hey, don't take it like that. I just have to ask, Nance. It's the second night you've called me up with this. And... well, it's the second night I've come by to find bupkis.

Nancy slumped against the side of the cruiser. What, so you're saying that I made it up?

The deputy stopped short of saying precisely that, though the look in his eyes telegraphed he was thinking it. Now, I'm not saying there wasn't someone here, but...

Marc, why would I lie to you? she replied, clearly affronted.

Look, just take it easy. Get some sleep, Nance. Marc started up the driver's side and slipped into the cruiser.

Nancy watched him drive off. Even as he disappeared around the corner, she was still a few minutes in reentering her home. When she'd finally worked up the nerve to do so, she spent a good half-hour walking the floors and looking for signs of the intruder. It was as Marc had told her, however—no signs of forced entry, no one camping out in any of the rooms. She was alone there.

Standing in the kitchen, wide awake as the night wore on, she didn't feel alone, though.

One by one, she put out the lights in the house, slowly making her way back to bed. She paused in the living room, taking a few moments to study the new painting again. Her eyes moved from the house in the background, to the trees on each side, and finally to the woman with the red umbrella. She reached out and touched the figure with her finger as if to verify that it was really there. Then, pushing the matter from her mind, she shut off the light and started back to her room.

It was only after sunrise that she managed any sleep. The rest of the night had been spent sitting up in bed, listening for more of that rapping at the window.

Two

Nancy Pruitt lowered her sunglasses and checked the address of the three-story building against the one in the newspaper ad. The summer sun, though timid on this overcast day, was still doling out its fair share of heat, and the twenty-minute walk from her home on Harvest Lane had left her sweating.

Sure enough, she was at the right place. This was indeed the Otterbein building—1135 Seger Avenue. Tucking the newspaper clipping into the pocket of her jeans, she started for the glass double-doors at the entrance.

At pushing them open, she was stunned by two things.

The first was that the temperature within the building was scarcely cooler than that of the outside. From some far-off corner, a tired air conditioner could be heard to chug along, but for all its noisy toil it hardly knocked a degree off the thermostat. This warm air was distinctly pungent with the smell of old paper.

The second thing that struck her as she entered—quite literally—was a woman. Thin, with black, frizzy hair off-set by a streak of grey, the woman rushed in like a hawk, and had a beak on her to match. Welcome! said the woman with rehearsed enthusiasm. I'm Dorothy, manager here at Page Turners. What brings you in today? What can I help you find? This woman, Dorothy, reached out and tugged at Nancy's arm half-pleadingly, towards what she now saw were rows of bookshelves.

Oh... replied Nancy, pulling away. This is a bookstore?

It sure is! replied Dorothy, her bird-like visage narrowing into a predatory smile. "The finest in Tanglewood. We've got all kinds, and as it happens we're