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

once saw him lift the back of a car to get the wheel off some ice.”
    “I’ll tell the ambulance squad to take him to the hospital morgue as soon as you’re done.”
    “Okay, I’ll go up with them. I’d better call the district attorney,” Harry said. But he looked toward the barn door again. He picked up the spotlight and went to it. Shining the light about, he looked in until he spotted the bed of hay by the door. He went to it and knelt down to inspect it. Running his hands over it, he found strands of hair similar to the ones the coroner had taken from Ken Strasser’s body. He held one of them in his fingers and twirled it about. Then he put some in his shirt pocket. He went back outside and watched Clark take photographs and complete the diagram. After he called the district attorney, he joined Charley at the front of the house.
    “Coroner won’t say anything to me,” Charley said.
    “He’s not supposed to.”
    “What happened to him, Harry?”
    “We’re going to have to wait for the autopsy before we make any definite conclusions, Charley. It’s standard procedure.”
    “I know a little about police work, Harry. I watch television. You’re treating this like a homicide, right?”
    “Yes, Charley, we are. Now I got a crazy question for you. Did your father have a dog, even a stray he kept around?”
    “A dog? No. A homicide. Who would want to hurt my father?”
    “Let’s wait until we gather all the facts together, Charley. I’m following the ambulance to the hospital.”
    “I’ll go with you.”
    “It’s going to be hours, Charley. I’ll call you. That’s a promise.”
    Charley nodded. They watched the ambulance squad lift his father’s body into the ambulance. They handled it carefully, as if it mattered. As soon as the doors were closed, Charley shook his head.
    “Kids are going to take this hard.”
    “Go home, Charley,” Harry said and put his hand on Charley’s shoulder. “Get your family together. I’ll call you.”
    “Thanks. Thanks, Leon,” he said, turning to Officer Clark.
    After Charley left them, Harry turned to Clark. “I told Julie to tell you to be on the lookout for a stray dog when you made your sweep on Lake Street,” he began. He didn’t want to get into Sid Kaufman’s story, so he added, “It was bothering some people.”
    “I ain’t seen any sign of him, Chief. A German shepherd?”
    “Right. Make another sweep down Lake Street tonight.”
    “Okay,” Clark said. They watched the ambulance pull away.
    “Did you put the rifle in my car?”
    “Yeah.”
    Harry thought for a moment and then got into his car. When he came to Sid Kaufman’s house, he slowed down and turned his spotlight on the doghouse. It was empty and there were no signs of anything about. Still, he felt uneasy. He took out one strand of hair he had placed in his shirt pocket and studied it in the car’s interior light. It looked as if it very well could be dog hair—a German shepherd’s hair.
    What the hell was going on here? he wondered. He looked at the doghouse again, and the coldest chill ran up his spine. He looked into the darkness around him. If he were to believe in his instincts at all, he would be afraid, for they were telling him that something unusual, something very strange and very dangerous was here and might even be watching him at this very moment.
    He chastised himself for permitting his imagination to run wild and sped up to catch the ambulance.
    As soon as the scent of death came up to him, he released the pressure on the man’s face and lifted himself from the man’s body. It had been as easy as he thought it would be. How fragile they were when they didn’t have clubs and fire and knives. He poked the body with his nose and sat back. It occurred to him that this was actually his first great kill. He couldn’t help it; something stronger than logic came over him. He brought his head back and howled at the night sky. The sound entered the barn, reverberated,