“Approximately,” Corday conceded, turning to look with mild interest at the damage.
The deputy made a note. “You say he fired twice . . . one could be in the carpet somewhere, I suppose.”
“That seems not improbable. As I recall, his arm was shaking.”
“Then he ran out of the house, you say. Did you make any attempt to hold him?”
“I am not as young as I once was, officer.”
“Yessir, I don’t blame you a bit for that. Don’t get me wrong. But first, he did let you load the kidnap victim into a car and drive him out of here? I don’t quite understand that.”
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 standards 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 a few minutes ago in someone’s Caddy. The girl says they came 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 a round 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, wintry jungle, more than head-high but fragile and offering no real impediment to progress. Along the trail a number of the 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 on 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?” But there was more to his anger than the fact that Corday was standing by so passively.
The two of them were at the bedroom doorway. One of the deputies squeezed past and ran out, evidently heading for the car radio again.
Corday said gently, imperturbably: “I will examine him if you wish.” With Joe and the other deputy hovering watchfully, he approached the cot. He bent and touched the young man’s face. The eyes of the supine figure opened, squinting, blinking like a newborn’s in the light of the single lamp. It took those eyes a little while to focus on Corday’s face.
Then the man on the cot raised what had been a hand. A gurgle came from his throat, and with a terrible effort he moved as if to rise, to scramble backward. Joe caught him under the armpits to keep him from falling to the floor, and in that moment the young man’s body ceased to move.
Corday continued to regard the youth intently for a moment, without touching him again. Then he straightened. “Gentlemen, this man is dead.”
“We’re calling for an ambulance,” the deputy argued, as if in contradiction. Meanwhile he was helping Joe lay the man down flat again. “Isn’t there anything you can do? Heart massage . . .”
“It is too late.”
The deputy stood indecisively for a moment. Then, mumbling swearwords, he stalked out after his partner.
The body on the cot certainly looked dead. Joe waited to hear the broken, grating sound with which the front door closed. Then he looked at the old man. “Dr. Corday?” His own voice was tighter than he liked. He felt close to some kind of violence himself. His anger was largely at himself, he realized, for being taken in.