An Old Friend Of The Family (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 3) by Fred Saberhagen (interesting books to read for teens .TXT) 📗

    Corday blinked mildly at the deputy. “Perhaps the young man, even though he had a gun, was frightened when Miss Southerland and I broke in.”

    “Perhaps. Huh. You say you’re the one who broke the door in? How’d you manage that?”

    “Construction standard are not what they were in the old days.”

    “Well, that’s for sure.” Scratching his head, the deputy gave Joe a wary look: You know this old guy, huh? You didn’t warn me he was a little crazy.

    Corday added: “And it is not always the brave, is it, who bear weapons?”

    “That’s for damn sure.” The deputy sighed. “Now, sir, tell me again—how’d you know the Southerland boy was here, as you say he was?”

    “I repeat, I am an accomplished hypnotist—” The old man broke off, turning to watch the front door. A few seconds later it grated open. This time a piece of the smashed lock fell completely free.

    Deputy Two, wide-eyed, stopped in the doorway. “Carl! I just got the Glenlake chief on the horn. He confirms what our witness here says. Both the Southerland kids are home, they drove up from out here. The boy has the little finger missing from each hand. They’re taking him to Evanston Hospital. The FBI and everyone else is gonna be out here on our ass in about ten minutes.”

    “Jesus,” said Deputy One, with fervor. He gave the old man a look that showed how little of the old man’s story had been believed, up until this moment. “Well, let’s not screw up anything until they get here.”

    “Carl, I’m gonna take a look around outside. The suspect is supposed to have run out, isn’t he?”

    Number One considered. “Right. I guess you better. But don’t screw up anything. Don’t mess up the tracks in the snow, if there are any. I guess there must be, if the guy ran out.”

    “I’ll come along,” Joe volunteered. “I can show you which tracks are mine, at least.”

    “Thanks, that would be a help.”

    Outside, more snow was now falling, in the form of frigidly dry powder. From the front step, Deputy Two’s powerful flashlight swept the yard. “The longer we wait, the harder it’s gonna be to find anything.”

    “Those tracks going all the way around the house are mine,” Joe pointed out. “Now there, those are new.” From the front step a narrow, fresh trail led in a straight diagonal across the yard, angling away from the drive.

    “I’d say two people.”

    “Not side by side, though. One following the other.”

    “Or chasing the other, maybe.”

    They started across the yard themselves, keeping parallel with the trail they followed. The deputy led with his flash, Joe stepping into the deputy’s tracks.

    Joe said: “I think they were both running.”

    “Jesus, I think you’re right. Look, can this be one stride, from here to here? It must be ten feet long.”

    “I’m no expert at this tracking bit.”

    “Hell, I’m not either.”

    At the edge of the yard the makers of the double trail had somehow negotiated a decorative, split-rail fence. On the other side of the fence the trail went on, still practically in a straight line, through a patch of young woods and down an easy slope.

    Following the deputy over the fence and on, Joe muttered: “Couldn’t have been running to get to a road this way, could they? Highway’s back in the other direction.”

    “All that’s down this way is the creek, I think—hey.”

    A few yards ahead, the slope flattened into what would be in summer muddy creek-bottom land. The dead stalks of last summer’s growth of weeds made a thin, wintery jungle, more than headhigh but fragile and offering no real impediment to progress. Along the trail a number of dried stalks had been broken down in its direction. Not many yards farther on, the flashlight’s beam now reached the frozen creek itself, a sunken aisle surfaced with plain snow, twisting between overgrown banks.

    On the near bank of the frozen creek the double trail ended in a broad, trampled circle centered on a mound of something that was not entirely snow.

    Hurrying forward, looking over the deputy’s shoulder along the brilliant shaft of the flashlight’s beam, Joe could see blood. The trampled space was marked with it in little flecks and splashes, fresh, not yet sanitized by falling snow. And there, a pair of thick-lensed eyeglasses had fallen. As they entered the circle Joe also saw a human finger, its stump-end ragged and gory. Had someone carried one of the poor kid’s fingers out here, meaning to hide evidence? Or—

    The central mound was moving in the light. It was sheepskin under newly fallen white. Joe lifted at it with two hands, the deputy with the hand in which he did not hold the light, and it turned over.

    “Jesus.”

    “He’s still alive, anyway.”

    “Yeah.”

    Joe lifted some more, the deputy held his light and brushed off snow. One arm in a sheepskin sleeve fell dangling.

    “Look at his hand.”

    “It’s both hands. Jesus God.”

    Struggling to move the inert weight back toward the house, Joe found himself stepping on another loose finger. He saw a third. He didn’t look for more. Halfway back to the house, the deputy started blasting a whistle. In a few seconds his partner came running to them through the snow, gun drawn.

    With three to carry they made quick work of getting the hurt man back into the house. Corday watched their entrance without comment, and slowly followed them to the bedroom. There they stretched their burden on the cot, the only feasible place.

    Joe was angry. “You’re a doctor, right? This is an emergency case we’ve got here, wouldn’t you say?”