Sleep was just taking over when a scuttling sound jerked him upright.
Good lord, something was under him!
Moving under the bed, like a giant goddamn crab! The moon was coming in through filmy curtains onto the river and Vernon sat on the bed with his legs far apart now, as if making room for whatever was under there.
Was it an animal?
If so, could he make it back to the dresser and the revolver before whatever it was had him?
But what was it?
Then the moon slid under a cloud and the thing beneath the bed scurried out from under, and Vernon still couldn’t make it out; it was as if some giant turtle or clam with limbs were moving across the parquet wood floor, scratching. Then the thing was out of sight again, just beyond the foot of the bed.
Vernon threw the covers off and was about to run, to get himself somewhere, anywhere else, when the dark form came clambering up onto the bed and clawing at the bottom sheet and coming right at him, on him, up from between his legs and, my God, it had arms and hands, and those hands were climbing Vernon’s torso like a ladder, forcing him back down, and then a face was staring right at him, nose to nose, a grotesque, twisted thing framed in a matted unruly mop, eyes glittering, yellow teeth bared and uneven, creased like a simian but no ape, no monkey, something worse.
And Vernon grabbed at him — this was no monster, it was a man! And a doctor knew how to hurt people, so he rallied himself and grabbed at this man, but then the turtle-shell form he’d seen reminded him that there was no man down there to grab, that this was half a man.
The doctor screamed, and the half-man grabbed the other pillow and pressed it into the screamer’s face and held it down and held it and held it until Vernon wasn’t struggling anymore — smothered to death in a pillow still redolent with his late wife’s perfume.
Chapter 2
Blake Cutter, chief of police of Peachtree Heights, Georgia, pulled his personal vehicle, a steel-gray Dodge Challenger, through the gate of the fieldstone walled-in compound of Dr. Roy Ryan’s residence and clinic.
A gravel drive cut through the slightly overgrown lawn and widened into an apron around a large, rambling wooden two-story home dating to the turn of the century. A pair of outlying buildings on either side of the house represented Dr. Ryan’s office in a cement-block building and a similar structure given over to equipment used for tending to the large yard. It was well known that the late Dr. Raymond Ryan, Roy’s father, had allowed Depression-era patients who were able-bodied but not able to pay his fee to instead work at maintaining the yard and its shrubbery.
That old-fashioned tradition was eventually replaced by Roy and his brother and sister taking over the yard work when they were of high school age. Roy’s grown siblings lived out of state, and were also doctors — of medicine and archeology respectively. But after their father died of a heart attack earlier this year, it was Roy who returned to be in-house gardener and physician. One day, perhaps, his boy Richie would take over the lawn work.
Perhaps.
Cutter knew ten year-old Richie was a Special Needs kid, but pleasant and seemingly sharper than most in his category. Just exactly what Richie was capable of, Cutter wasn’t sure — the chief was friendly with Roy Ryan but not close to the man, who had only moved back home upon the elder Ryan’s passing last year, taking over both the family home and his late dad’s practice, bringing his son along... but not his wife.
The old homestead needed work, probably more than one man — particularly a busy family practitioner — could manage. But Cutter felt confident Roy was up to both tasks. And everyone in town knew the young Dr. Ryan had walked away from a high-paying practice in Atlanta to return to his roots in Peachtree Heights.
Cutter himself was not a native of the place. He was a Georgia boy, all right, if a man of fifty might be termed a “boy,” having grown up in Atlanta where he lived until his football scholarship to Georgia Tech was interrupted by Pearl Harbor. After the war, Cutter had married a New York girl he’d met at the USO there, and wound up with a career in law enforcement. He’d been a captain of homicide when he retired last year, after which he landed this job as chief of police in Peachtree Heights, a town of about 15,000 close to Atlanta but not quite a suburb.
Cutter’s ex-wife Dorrie still lived in the Coca Cola capitol. They were on friendly terms and he was working at getting her back — she hadn’t remarried, which was a good sign, and his two grown kids (Mary and Bill) were on his side. Dorrie hated his profession, the danger, the long hours, and considered her husband a workaholic.
He’d hoped to prove her wrong with his new job, trading New York for a classic American small town, and so far it had been easier, more administrative than anything. He’d taken over from a chief tossed out on corruption charges that had impacted the ten-man force. Cutter replaced most of them with other recent NYPD retirees, assembling a great damn staff he could be proud of. His captain, Leon Jackson, was his solid right hand, although after getting a look at the little town, Leon had asked, “Where are the damn peach trees?”
“They were all killed by a fungus in 1857, Leon.”
“And what’s ‘heights’ about it? I don’t see any damn hills.”
“Lots of towns flatter than a pancake use ‘Heights,’ Leon — way back when, it attracted settlers. You settled here, didn’t you?”
Leon made a big bearded face. “I came for the peaches, boss, but so far it’s the pits.”
Cutter smiled at the thought of that, but knew Leon was settling in just fine.
Four cars were pulled in near the porch — next to each other were a Chevy sedan, dark blue with medical license plates, and a pink Oldsmobile Toronado that screamed money... and a visit from Mrs. Ryan. She was not quite the doc’s ex yet — they were separated — but word around town said divorce was inevitable.
The other two vehicles were Peachtree Heights PD patrol cars, “Serve and Protect” black-and-whites. Each had brought two officers who could be seen right now, walking the periphery, across the lawn, around the outbuildings, along the walls. One might have thought this was a place under siege.
One might not have been entirely wrong.
The chief stepped from the Dodge into the cold, crisp night and took off his tan Stetson, surveying the scene. He wore a black PD windbreaker and white shirt-and-tie with chinos, a Smith & Wesson Model 39 nine millimeter on his hip. The rangy six-footer had only a hint of paunch, his craggy western lawman’s face topped by short, ragged brown hair going white. He had blue eyes on loan from Paul Newman and no idea how impressive he looked. Or at least he wasn’t about to admit it.
He nodded at the nearest of his men, patrolling the grounds, got a nod back, and climbed the four steps to the slightly saggy porch. His knock was answered by Dr. Roy himself, slender but sturdy-looking in a sports coat and Polo and jeans, brown hair cut short, face a handsome, friendly oval, but his dark blue eyes were almost lost under his furrowed brow.
“You all right, Doc?”
Ryan whispered, “I’ve been better. Helen is here. Her hair’s on fire about all this.”
Cutter grunted a laugh. “Maybe you need the fire department not the police.”