A Werewolf Among Us by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online

animal hairs alien to the human body—three of them in the bloody wound and one under Betty's right thumbnail. Ten minutes more, and a mobile robotic lab had definitely matched them with the wolf hairs found on the previous corpse. After that discovery, they were all wasting time. It was almost as if every possible clue had been removed by the killer—who had then planted the four hairs especially for them to find. This one thing. No more.
    The Inspector Chief assigned to the case was named Otto Rainy, a plump little man whose quick, pink hands were forever pressing his hair back from his face. He looked as if he had not gotten a haircut in six months, though more because he neglected his appearance than for any reason of style. His clothes were rumpled, his shoes unpolished, the cuffs of his coat frayed badly. He was, despite his appearance, a thorough investigator, careful with his questions, probing. St. Cyr doubted that he missed much.
    "Cyberdetective," he said, first thing, when he approached St. Cyr.
    "That's right."
    "Does it really help?"
    "I think so."
    "Government isn't so sure about them, though," Rainy said. "No one has issued a ban on them, of course. But if the fedgov really trusted them, the word would have come down long ago for every copper on every world to hook up soonest."
    "The government usually is a couple of decades behind science—behind social change, too, for that matter."
    "I suppose."
    "What have you found?"
    Rainy wiped at his hair, pinched the bridge of his nose, wiped at his hair again. His blue eyes were bloodshot and weary. "Nothing more than those four damn hairs."
    They were standing at the end of the side corridor that lead to Betty Alderban's room. The others, huddled outside the half-open door to the death scene, had ceased to talk among themselves. No one was crying any longer, either.
    St. Cyr said, "Theories?"
    "Only that it must have gotten to her on the balcony."
    "From the lawn?"
    "Yes."
    "How far is that from the lawn—thirty feet?"
    "Thirty-five."
    "Climb it?"
    "No handholds," Rainy said. He brushed angrily at his hair now, as if he could feel it crawling purposefully toward his eyes, as if it were a separate, sentient creature. "And no hook or rope marks on the balcony rail."
    "Suppose the killer didn't come over the balcony rail, though. Just suppose that he walked right in through her door."
    "We've already investigated the possibility," Rainy said, hair-wiping. "Each member of the family has a vocally-coded lock to insure his privacy and, as Jubal said after one of the earlier murders, 'to increase his sense of creative solitude.' "
    "Teddy can open those doors," St. Cyr pointed out.
    "Oh?"
    'You didn't know?"
    "No."
    "He uses a high-pitched sonic override to operate the mechanism."
    "You think his tone could be duplicated?"
    "All that anyone would need to do," St. Cyr observed, "is hang around with a tape recorder and wait for Teddy to serve someone breakfast in bed, record the tone for later use."
    Rainy thrust both hands in his pockets with such measured violence that it was only good fortune that kept him from ripping his fists through the lining. He seemed to be making a conscious effort not to smooth down his hair. "You talk as if our man must be a member of the family."
    "That seems most likely."
    "Yes, it does. But what in the world would any of them have to gain by it?"
    "Hirschel, for instance, has the entire fortune to gain —if he comes out of this as the sole survivor."
    Rainy shook his head and said, "No. He is not so naive as to think that he can kill all of them without arousing suspicion, then walk away with the cash. He appears to me to be a very clever, able man, not a bungler."
    "I'd guess not. Still, it's something to keep in mind."
    Rainy looked toward the Alderban family, removed one hand from his pocket and wiped his hair, caught himself halfway through the nervous habit, shrugged and finished wiping. He called to Teddy, where the master unit