Read Online Case Closed by Jan Burke - Free Book Online Page B

handed my father a long knife.
    My father stared at it.
    â€œGet on with it, man!” Winston ordered.
    â€œJohn,” my father said, anguished, “leave us. Go home. It was wrong of me to bring you here—”
    â€œI’ll not leave you, Father.”
    He shook his head, but turned back to the open coffin. He set the knife aside, and with trembling fingers, tenderly moved her burial gown down from her neck. I heard him sob, then saw him lift the knife. He cut a gash in her chest.
    â€œThe heart, the heart!” Winston said eagerly.
    Father’s face seemed to turn to stone—cold and gray. He pried the wound open, then took the knife and cut away her heart. Bloody fluid ran from the wound onto her dress.
    â€œYou see! She’s the one, she’s the vampire!”
    As from a distance, I heard the other men gasp, and saw their quick gestures—signs against evil.
    â€œPut it in the fire, Arden!” Winston directed.
    â€œNo!” I said weakly, but Father walked toward the blaze. He let the heart drop from his fingers; the fire hissed and sparked as it fell into the center of the flames.
    Father walked back to Mother’s coffin, placed the lid on it, and began to hammer it shut. I picked up one of the other hammers—tears blinding me, I worked at his side. Without speaking, several men did the same for the other coffins. Each coffin was slowly lowered back into its grave, and in silence we began to cover them again—but Father buried Mother’s coffin alone, refusing the others’ help with a steely look in his eyes.
    I saw Winston warming his hands over the fire. He caught me looking at him and smiled. “You should thank me. I’ve saved your life this day, John.”
    Before the others could stop me, I slammed my fist into his jaw.
    My father led me away from them, and with Isaac we made our way back home. All the way down the lane, I could not help but be troubled over what I had seen, and wondered at it. That my mother could be a vampire, I did not for a moment believe. I knew there must be a rational, scientific explanation for the blood that had been in my mother’s heart. I swore to myself that I would study anatomy and medicine—yes, and vampires, too—and learn all I could about consumption and its causes.
    When we returned to the house, Noah held Nathan’s body in his arms.
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    My medical schooling was the best in New England. The Boston area had many fine schools, and Springhaven University was among them. Springhaven was the choice of my godfather, as it was his alma mater, and he was a respected alumnus and benefactor.
    Medical school was not easy for me. The work itself was not difficult, though much harder than my earlier schooling, to be sure. I took to the reading, lectures, and discussions with great interest, but it was the hustle and bustle of Boston that caused me discomfort. The size of the city, its noises and smells, always left me ill at ease. Although I loved the work, I was homesick.
    Early on, I learned that there had been nothing unusual about the appearance of my mother’s body, given the conditions of her burial—the coldness of the ground, the brief length of time she had been buried. The heart is a pump, my anatomy instructor said, and at death, blood and other fluids often settle there and in the chest cavity after the heart ceases beating.
    My professors called consumption by another name—tuberculosis, or TB. Tuberculosis was not an enigma to these men of science. Over forty years before my brother’s death, sanitariums were being established in Europe, and TB patients were living longer lives. But of all the discoveries that had been made about the disease, perhaps the most exciting had come in 1882, when Robert Koch identified its true cause— Mycobacterium tuberculosis . Koch’s discovery proved that TB was transmitted from a consumptive to a healthy