The Vision by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page A

officer, Miss?”
    “I’m the receptionist.”
    “Could I speak to an officer?”
    “What’s the nature of your complaint?”
    “Oh, no complaint. I think you people do a wonderful job.”
    “I meant, are you reporting a crime?”
    “I’m not sure. A very strange thing happened here.”
    “What is your name?”
    “Alice. Alice Barnable.”
    “Your address?”
    “Peregrine Apartments on Euclid Avenue. I’m in apartment B.”
    “I’ll connect you with someone.”
    “Sergeant Erdman speaking.”
    “Are you really a sergeant?”
    “Who’s this?”
    “Mrs. Alice Barnable.”
    “What can I do for you?”
    “Are you really a sergeant? You sound too young.”
    “I’ve been a policeman for twenty years. If you—”
    “I’m seventy-eight, but I’m not senile.”
    “I didn’t say you were.”
    “So many people treat us senior citizens as if we’re children.”
    “I don’t, Mrs. Barnable. My mother’s seventy-five, and she’s sharper than I am.”
    “So you better believe what I’ve got to tell you.”
    “And what’s that?”
    “Four nurses share an apartment above mine, and I know they’re in some sort of bad trouble. I called up there, but no one answers the phone.”
    “How do you know they’re in trouble?”
    “There’s a puddle of blood in my spare bathroom.”
    “Whose blood? I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
    “You see, the water pipes that serve the apartment above mine are exposed, and they run up one corner of my spare bath. Now, I don’t want you to think I live in a cheap place. The pipes are painted white, hardly noticeable. The building’s old but elegant in its way. It’s not cheap. It’s quaint. My Charlie left me enough to let me live very comfortably.”
    “I’m sure he did, Mrs. Barnable. What about the blood?”
    “Those pipes run through a hole in the ceiling. The hole’s a tiny bit bigger than it needs to be. Just a quarter of an inch of space all the way around the pipe. During the night, blood dripped out of that hole. The pipes are streaked with it, and there’s a large sticky spot on my floor.”
    “You’re sure it’s blood? It might be rusty water or—”
    “Now you’re treating me as if I’m a child, Sergeant Erdman.”
    “Sorry.”
    “I know blood when I see it. And what I wondered—I wondered if maybe your people should take a look upstairs.”
     
 
Patrolmen Stambaugh and Pollini found the door to the apartment ajar. It was spotted with fingerprints that were cast in dried blood.
    “Think he’s still in there?” Stambaugh asked.
    “Never can tell. Back me up.”
    Pollini went inside with his gun drawn and Stambaugh followed.
    The living room was inexpensively but pleasantly furnished with wicker and rattan. On the white walls were colorful framed prints of palm trees and native villages and bare-breasted, nut-brown girls in striped sarongs.
    The first body was in the kitchen. A young woman in black and green pajamas. On the floor. On her back. Long yellow hair streaked with clotted red bands spread around her like a fan. She had been stabbed—and kicked in the face more than once.
    “Christ,” Stambaugh said.
    “Something, huh?”
    “Don’t you feel sick?”
    “Seen it before.”
    Pollini pointed to several items on the counter by the sink—a paper plate, two slices of bread, a jar of mustard, a tomato, a package of cheese.
    “Important?” Stambaugh asked.
    “She woke up during the night. Maybe she was an insomniac. She was making a snack when he came in. Doesn’t look like she put up a fight. He either surprised her, or she knew and trusted him.”
    “Should we be talking like this?”
    “Why not?”
    Stambaugh gestured toward the rooms that they hadn’t yet investigated.
    “The killer? He’s long gone.”
    Stambaugh greatly admired his partner. He was eight years younger than Pollini. He’d been a cop only six months, while the older man had been on the force for seven years. In his view, Pollini had everything