Read Online Night Howl by Andrew Neiderman - Free Book Online Page A

small or insignificant it might seem at the time.
    Leon Clark, his night patrolman, and Charley Strasser were waiting for him at the front of the house. Dr. Hamilton’s car was parked on the road and the ambulance was right behind it. The three volunteers, Marge Baxter, Tom Singleman, and Corky Wilson were standing beside it and talking softly. With the volunteers dressed in their white uniforms, the ambulance lights blinking, and Clark’s radio amplifying static, the scene took on an eerie, dreamlike quality. It reminded Harry of the nightmares he had been having lately, nightmares that drove him out of his sleep and woke him with a start, leaving him sweating and breathing hard. Fortunately, Jenny hadn’t noticed, or if she had, she hadn’t let on about it. He ascribed it to mental fatigue and thought more seriously about his pension and his retirement.
    He offered Charley his hand and condolences.
    “It don’t look right,” Charley said.
    “It never does, Charley. It never does.”
    “But this is different, Harry. I know he was along in his years, but I was here just yesterday. He was as spry as ever.”
    The chief nodded and turned to his patrolman.
    “Coroner’s back there?”
    “Right behind me. Julie raised him on his car phone.”
    “Let me talk to him, Charley,” Harry said. He and Clark moved through the darkness. Clark had taken the portable spotlight off the patrol car and left it with the coroner. Intermittent moonlight, breaking through what was now a partly cloudy sky, helped too. Whenthey turned the corner of the house, they saw Dr. Hamilton kneeling beside the body.
    “Any ideas yet, Doc?”
    Hamilton looked up. He was a short man in his early fifties with wavy, reddish-blond hair and freckles, but his Van Johnson face was incongruous with his Peter Lorre voice. He always spoke slowly, methodically. Depending on accuracy, he looked at the world with microscopic eyes. Sometimes he gave Harry the creeps because he was so intense, even when he carried on an ordinary conversation. It was as if a simple “good morning” might turn out to be a clue.
    “Well,” he said, standing slowly. “Off-the-record first impression?”
    Harry looked behind him to be sure the others had remained far enough behind to be out of earshot.
    “I’m all ears, Doc.”
    “Well, we have peticial hemorrhage in the eyes. See the little round blood spots?”
    “I’ll take your word for it.”
    “There’s swelling in the lips, tongue, and eyelids. You’ll also notice the lips and earlobes are purple—cyanosis. Simply put, Chief, this man died from asphyxiation. He was smothered to death.”
    “A definite homicide?”
    “No question about that. Whoever did it put some furry, hairy object over his face and blocked his respiration.
    “Hairy?”
    Hamilton took a sealed plastic sack from his pocket and handed it to Harry.
    “I got those hairs off his face and hands. He struggled against whoever it was.”
    Harry looked down and saw that the coroner had placed plastic bags over Ken Strasser’s hands to protect them for the autopsy and for the forensics team.
    “How long has he been dead?”
    “An hour, hour and a half tops. I have my pictures.”
    “Clark, go get the camera and diagram the scene. What about that rifle?”
    “It’s back there, Chief. From the grass stains on the stock and the indentures in the earth, it looks like it flew out of his hands.”
    “Bag it carefully after you photograph. Was there much of a struggle, Doc?”
    “Not from what I can see now. He received a blow on the abdomen, a blow that sent him backward, I imagine. That was probably when the rifle left his grip.” He turned toward the barn. “Probably heading toward the door. There are contusions on his back from the fall and from being pressed down. Held down, I should say. It wouldn’t take much to hold down a man of his age and frame.”
    “Not now, maybe, but twenty years ago, it would have taken two fully grown men. I