Night Terror by Chandler McGrew Read Free Book Online Page A

potential murder weapon.
    “Fine,” he said.
    “This is important.”
    “Why?”
    “Because pretty soon I’ll be over there.”
    “I saw Cooder today.”
    “Virgil, I will be. We need to talk about it.”
    “I damned near ran over him.”
    “I want to know what it’s really like.”
    “He made me nervous.”
    Doris stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “Why on earth would Cooder Reese scare anyone? He’s never been a danger to anyone other than himself. Has he?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Then why were you nervous?”
    He stared at the old inlaid headboard, trying to read something in the pattern of light and dark wood. Doris’s mother had given them the bedroom suite as a wedding present. A lot of living had gone on in this room. Two kids had been conceived in this bed. The whole family had crowded in together on stormy nights, and Virgil remembered time after time carrying one or the other child back to bed sound asleep when he’d come in after a late-night patrol. Wedding suits and funeral suits had made their way out of the old dresser against the wall, and he had watched in the mirror of the matching vanity as Doris went from shy young girl to confident woman to beautiful matron.
    Now it hurt to look into her eyes.
    “I don’t know. He said he’d seen bad things.”
    “Well, I can believe that.”
    “It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he said it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Nothing,” he said, screwing up his lips. “It was just one of those funny things that gives you goose bumps. You know what I mean?”
    “I want you to come to the séance.”
    “I’ll probably be on patrol.”
    “Virgil. I want you to come.”
    He nodded, picking up the tray, wiping her chin gently with the napkin.
    “Eight o’clock tomorrow night,” she said, moving her mouth back and forth across the cloth. “We’ll have it right here in the bedroom. Make some sandwiches.”
    “Sure.”
    He carried the tray back into the kitchen and washed the bowl and spoon, setting them in the strainer. What kind of sandwiches did you make for a séance? He pictured a bunch of old crones with snarled hair, sitting around waving wands over a boiling cauldron, but he was pretty sure that was something he’d dredged up from high school English class. Still, with Babs in charge, there was no telling.
    The phone rang and he snatched it before it could ring again.
    “Virgil,” he said.
    “Hi, Virg.”
    He smiled when he heard Marg’s voice. He hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks, and he knew she was wondering why. Marg was his first cousin and his best friend. For fifty years they’d managed to make time for each other almost daily.
    “Hi, Marg. How’s things?”
    “Missed you a lot lately.”
    “I been pretty busy.”
    “Yeah. I’m sure. Are you okay?”
    “Good as can be expected.”
    “That’s what I’m worried about. How’s Doris holding up?”
    “Not so good.”
    “Pain?”
    “The pain isn’t bad. But she’s lost a lot more weight.”
    “You knew that was going to happen.” Marg was head of the nursing staff at Cartland Memorial, just around the corner. Virgil had been forced to ask Marg about Doris’s disease, after he realized that he’d blocked out most of what the specialists had told him. She hadn’t pulled any punches.
    “Knowing is one thing. Seeing is another,” he said.
    “Is there anything I can do?”
    “Not that I can think of.”
    “You ought to stop by the hospital on your rounds. I’ll buy you a cuppa.”
    “Soon.”
    “Mrs. Bock was here this weekend.”
    Marg knew about his feelings on the Bock case. But why keep him updated on the mother’s health?
    “What was she in for?” He knew Marg wasn’t supposed to tell him. Knew that she would.
    “She’s having nightmares.”
    “That doesn’t surprise me. Is she going to be all right?”
    “Doctor Burton wants her to see a shrink.”
    “Of course.” Virgil didn’t think much more of head doctors than