Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [100]
Lee explained the situation as calmly as possible, emphasizing to Lieutenant Robinson that he didn’t know if the attacker was related to the case he was working on, but that he suspected there was a link. Robinson listened, then asked if Lee and his niece were all right.
“We’re fine, thanks—just shaken up a little. I’m at my mother’s house, and if it’s all right with you I’ll come by tomorrow to have a look at that car.”
“Fine. I’ve already spoken with the troopers who found it—it’s right where you said it was, but it’s empty. There’s a trail of footprints in the snow leading away from the car out to the road, but that’s where they disappear.”
“How many sets of prints?”
“One. A man, by the look of it. Medium-sized feet—about a size nine, Trooper Edwards said. Guess we should take a cast of the prints, if there’s a possible connection to a murder suspect.”
“I would appreciate that very much.”
“And we’ll do a trace on the car, of course. Doesn’t look like a rental.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re sure you’re okay now?”
“Yeah, fine—thanks.”
“Okay, then, we’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Right.”
Lee hung up and stared into the fire. The flames licked greedily upward, as if they wanted to fly straight up the chimney and into the night. The pointed tongues of flame reminded him of pitchforks, and, listening to the wind whistling through the house’s ancient eaves, he imagined he was hearing the howls of the damned.
Chapter Forty-four
The trip to Somerville the next day was disappointing. The car had been reported stolen earlier that day, and the owner, a well-respected local doctor, was beyond suspicion. He also wore a size-eleven shoe.
No blood was found inside the car, at least not in the preliminary search, but it was being sent to the state crime lab for further analysis. Lee doubted they would find anything—the driver, whoever he was, had probably worn gloves.
The first thing Lieutenant Robinson did was to put a twenty-four-hour guard on Fiona’s house, much to her disgust. Lee also called Kylie’s father, over his mother’s protests, and asked him to come stay with them for a while, which he did gladly. Lee tried not to alarm him unduly, but George Callahan was a kind man, and his concern was obvious. He offered to take Fiona and Kylie over to his house, but Fiona was having none of it. She called the whole thing “silly,” insisting that Lee had simply had an encounter with a drunk driver.
“It’s true what they say about Jersey drivers, you know,” she said, both eyebrows lifted in disdain. “They are a dangerous lot.”
Lee wasn’t interested in his mother’s opinion, and insisted on the safety precautions. The state trooper was to accompany Kylie to and from school, at least for a while.
When Lee told Chuck Morton about the attack, he insisted on meeting as soon as Lee was back in the city.
By the time Lee left New Jersey it was nighttime, and a late winter storm was blowing in. Lee returned to the city just as the storm slammed into the coast with a vengeance. He barely made it to the car rental place in the Village. A foot of snow had already fallen by the time he headed out for his apartment on foot.
When he got in, he phoned Chuck on his cell phone to say he would come by first thing in the morning. He wasn’t going out again tonight. Chuck was already on his way back to his house. If he delayed his departure from the city any longer, he might end up having to spend the night. Everyone was saying this was going to drop a load of snow on the area—possibly up to three feet.
Lee sat at the piano playing a Bach prelude as he listened to the storm moaning as it swirled around the low-lying buildings of East Seventh Street. The old tenement building creaked and shuddered as the wind whirled around the edges of the windows, gusting and howling like a living thing, a demon in search of souls to capture.
He stopped playing and stared out the window at the trees across the street, which were bending and swaying so violently he thought they might snap. Demons. Lost souls. Lee wasn’t sure he believed