Odd Hours

to have been watered down, perhaps by melted ice.
    Another glass lay on its side. A small puddle of spilled bourbon glistened on the table.
    The evidence suggested Whittle had returned home after regaining consciousness, and had left again in too much of a hurry to clean up the spill.
    Two chairs stood away from the table. Before leaving, the drinkers had not taken time to tuck the chairs where they belonged.
    A pair of unlaced men’s shoes were under the table, one lying on its side. Whittle could have changed shoes before leaving. Or he might still be here.
    Because vinyl blinds had been drawn down tight at every window, I stopped pinching the flashlight beam and let it flourish.
    A narrow hallway led from the kitchen past a living room full of lifeless furniture, where the draperies were drawn shut and where no art adorned the walls.
    I had been in the house approximately one minute.
    Across the hall from the living room lay a study with a couch, a desk, a chair, bookshelves. Here, too, the blinds allowed no view of the night.
    The desk top had been swept bare. The bookshelves were empty.
    I suspected that this place had been rented furnished and that Sam Whittle had not lived here more than a few weeks, having made no plans to settle in long-term.
    Nevertheless, I wanted to search the desk drawers, although not until I determined Whittle was not here, either awake or sleeping.
    In the final room, the bedclothes were disheveled. A pillow had fallen to the floor.
    On the carpet, a damaged earthworm slowly writhed. It must have been brought in on someone’s shoe or pants leg. If it had been there more than a little while, it would already have died.
    Outside, a truck engine growled in the distance and swiftly approached. I switched off the flashlight, although the windows were covered.
    The vehicle seemed to take forever to pass, but eventually the engine noise faded.
    When I switched on the flashlight, the dying earthworm had nearly finished flexing.
    Although the house was small, I felt that I was a long way from an outside door and a quick escape.
    I clicked off the light again, drew open a set of draperies, and unlatched the double-hung window. Concerned that the wood might be swollen in the humid night, I was relieved when the bottom sash slid up with little noise.
    I closed the window but did not lock it. I pulled the draperies across the window before switching on the flashlight again.
    Two minutes.
    The sliding doors of the closet were shut. I disliked turning my back on them.
    Yet intuition drew me toward the bathroom. The gap at the base of that door admitted no light from the other side; but I have not survived by ignoring intuition.
    When I put my hand on the knob, a shiver of trepidation climbed my spine, from sacrum to topmost vertebrae, and it seemed like a worm wriggled in the very axis on which my head turned.
    Without realizing what I was doing, I had raised my left hand to my chest. Through the sweatshirt and the T-shirt, I could feel the thimble-size bell that hung from the silver chain around my neck.
    I turned the knob. The door opened inward. No one flung himself at me or struck out.
    The flashlight played across the surfaces of a bathroom from the 1940s: a field of glossy white ceramic tiles on the floor, enhanced with inlays of small pastel-green tiles, the grout cracked with age and dirty; a reversal of that scheme on the walls, a pale-green field punctuated by white inlays.
    From directly ahead came a silvery splash of flashlight flaring off a mirror, then my reflection uplighted by the beam bouncing off the floor.
    To my left a shower stall featured a frosted-glass door in an aluminum frame crusted with white corrosion.
    To my right lay a bathtub, and in the tub a dead man languished, he who had been Flashlight Guy.
    The shock of such a discovery would provide the ideal moment for an assailant to strike. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I saw with relief that no one loomed in the bedroom behind me.
    Sharing this small space with a corpse, I wanted more light than the flashlight could provide. A shutter covered the only window in the bathroom, so I risked switching on the overhead light.
    Sam Whittle had died in a sitting position. He remained that way because his shirt collar was snared on the hot-water faucet. His head lolled to the left.
    Duct tape sealed his mouth, and something—most likely a rag—bulged behind it. They had gagged him because they had not killed him quickly.
    His