Night Howl (22 page)

Clara started to relax until she looked up and saw the handle being turned. It was like a knife through her heart. She stared in disbelief. What kind of a dog was this? Who had trained it to do such things? What more would it be able to do? She looked about quickly and saw the cartons of old things, the dresser they had put down here a year ago, meaning to give it away someday. She knew what had to be done. Some of those things had to be brought to the door to help keep it secure. She was too weak and in too much pain to hold back the large animal for long.

“Honey . . .” She was gasping for breath, herself. What if she blacked out now? Oh God, the children. “You’ve got to drag some of those cartons over here and we’ve got to move that dresser against this door. Do you understand?” Lisa nodded. She looked as though she had pulled herself together some. Clara was hopeful. Bobby, almost unconscious now, his body heaving in small, convulsive jerks, still clung to her leg.

Lisa went to the cartons and began pulling on one, sliding it slowly across the cement floor. Clara thought how fortunate it was that they had never carpeted this area. Everything would slide along more easily. Once Lisa got the carton started, she got behind it on her knees and pushed.

“Good, honey. Good. Bobby, help Lisa. Bobby. . .”

Clara felt the door moving inward and pressed her back against it. She moved to the left when Lisa brought the first carton over and pushed it against the door.

“The dresser, Lisa. Try to move the dresser.” Clara knew if she lifted her body away from the door to help, the dog would have little to oppose it. One carton was not enough to block the dog from getting the door open
enough for him to slip in. In fact, the door opened slightly and she saw the dog’s snoot appear.

“Lisa!”
she screamed,
“Back here, hurry!”
Together they pressed the door shut again. There was some respite as the dog had to turn the handle once more. “The dresser,” she whispered. It was more of a gasp. Lisa started for it again.

It barely budged. Lisa began to cry. Clara heard the handle turn open again; she heard the click and felt the dog’s power as it pressed its heavy, muscular body against the door. Hope began to sink quickly. Clara felt the blood struggling through her veins. It was as though some great magnet were pulling her down into the floor.

“Back, Lisa, back,” she said, and once again the two of them forced the door closed. Clara lowered her head to her chest. She had gone beyond pain. Her adrenaline had taken her beyond normal capabilities, but now, because she felt depressed and defeated, the fatigue and the agony began a slow, definite return. Her body was beginning to turn into dead weight.

Her daughter went back to the dresser. Miraculously, she moved it an inch, then another, and another.

“Good, honey. Good,” Clara said. The dresser came closer and closer until Clara had to move away from the door completely to make room for it. Just before she did so, she told Lisa to push as hard as she could so there would be only a short moment without resistance to the dog. The dresser slammed against the door and there was a long moment of silence as they waited to see what effect it would have. The door barely budged. They were safe for the moment.

“Thank God,” Clara said. “Good, Lisa, good.” She looked down at Bobby. His face was pressed against her thigh; his eyes were closed. The hysteria had driven him into shock and he had fallen asleep. She
wiped his face and gently pried his arm loose from her leg.

“I’ll put some more stuff against the door,” Lisa said. Clara nodded and closed her eyes. She couldn’t fight it now. The darkness was coming in, wave after wave. She lowered herself beside her son and tried to embrace him. Seconds later, she was unconscious.

A
T FOUR FORTY-FIVE,
Sid Kaufman made his way back to George Friedman’s office. Friedman’s secretary was getting things together, preparing to leave for the day. When she saw him, there was an expression of guilt on her face. Perhaps she had started this wind-down a lot earlier than need be, Sid thought. At the moment he didn’t relish the role of inspector. He smiled and she appeared to relax some.

“Having a productive first day?” she asked.

“Yes, yes I am. Is Mr. Friedman in?”

“No, but he’s due back within the hour.”

“I was just going to use the phone again.”

“Oh, go right in. I’m sure it’s all right.”

“Thank you,” he said. He got behind George’s desk, reached the operater quickly, and made the call. Once again, the phone rang and rang. After the third ring, his heart began to sink. By the end of the tenth ring, he was convinced that something terrible had happened. He hung up; then he lifted the receiver and dialed the operator again to place a person-to-person call to Chief Michaels of the Fallsburg Police Department. He was lucky. He caught Harry Michaels minutes before the chief was going to leave the office. Sid explained his inability to reach his wife.

“She wasn’t even home around the time the children
come back from school,” Sid went on, “and she’s always there for that.”

“All right, Mr. Kaufman. All right. Don’t worry. I’ll take a ride up to your house myself and check things out, but I’m sure she’s probably gone to a relative or a friend. Maybe she’s taking the kids to Burger King.”

“I don’t think so,” Sid said. “Listen, are you going to go right up there? I mean, right up there now?”

“I said I would.”

“If you get into the house, will you call me? I’ll give you the number where I am,” he said and recited George Friedman’s office phone number. “If you don’t get in, call me anyway. Call me collect. I’ll wait right by this phone. Please.”

“Mr. Kaufman,” Harry said, putting on his best fatherly tone of voice, “I know what you’ve been through. I know what you feel like. I promise, I’m going right up there and I’ll call you within fifteen minutes or I’ll have my dispatcher call you. Okay?”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Try to relax in the meantime.”

Sid hung up and sat back in the chair. He closed his eyes and then opened them quickly to look at the exact time. It was five to five. The police station was only two or three minutes from his house. If he kept to his word, Michaels would call by ten after five, give or take a few minutes. Sid knew it would seem like hours.

As soon as Michaels hung up, he went out to his dispatcher and gave him the phone number.

“I might call you from the car,” he said. “You’ll call Mr. Kaufman at this number and give him the message I tell you. Got it?”

“Right.”

“Where’s Sidewater?”

“Hurleyville. There’s a cow loose on Brophy Road.”

“Great. Why couldn’t MacBurn handle that?”

“You told me to send him to Woodbourne today because Philips is out sick.”

“I haven’t got a patrolman in the South Fallsburg area?”

“Not right now, Chief. You want me to call Mac-Burn in?”

“No, not yet. All right, I’m heading up to Kaufman’s house,” he said and went out to his car. His back tires spun on the macadam as he turned around and headed away. He never gave much credence to what some fellow law enforcement officers called the police instinct, but he couldn’t help feeling an unusual sense of danger. Maybe it was imposed on him by the note of hysteria in Kaufman’s voice, or maybe it was just some delayed reaction to the whole Ken Strasser affair, but whatever it was, it made him tremble. For some reason, an image of Jenny came to mind. He saw her as he’d left her that morning: in the kitchen, gathering the ingredients of the pie she was going to make and bring up to Charley Strasser’s house. He smiled at the memory, but his expression changed as soon as the Kaufmans’ house came into view and he saw Carlson’s car in the driveway.

If Sid Kaufman had called his home only minutes ago, why hadn’t someone answered, especially if Carlson was there? he wondered. He pulled in behind the car and studied the front of the house. The front door was slightly open. What could this mean? He opened his door slowly and stepped out. There wasn’t a sign of anyone around. The house looked deadly quiet.

He adjusted his gun belt and unclipped the strap holding the pistol securely in his holster. For him that was a considerable action. He had to dig back through his memories to recall the time he had last drawn his gun. In all the time he had been a policeman, he had
never once fired at a man, and no one had ever fired at him. He had been in his share of fights; actually, in more than his share.

He started for the house. Sid Kaufman’s wife and children had probably just pulled up, he thought, with Carlson right behind them. They’d just forgotten to close the door—probably engrossed with Carlson’s methodical questions.

He stopped less than a foot from the house when he heard the phone ringing. Sid Kaufman was most likely trying again. The ringing continued. Why didn’t any-one answer it? He looked back at his patrol car, wishing he had brought one of his patrolmen along. Even the dispatcher would have been some comfort. The emptiness of the car, the quiet of the deserted road, and the persistent ringing of the phone filled him with a sense of dread. He was tempted to retreat, but he chastized himself for his uncharacteristic lack of courage.

I’m getting too old for this, he thought again; but he drew his pistol from his holster and went on into the house. Almost as soon as he stepped through the doorway, the phone stopped ringing. The silence that followed was more threatening. He listened for the sounds of people, but there were none. When he continued into the house, he discovered the mess in the kitchen.

“What the hell—” He spun around, his pistol up, anticipating something, but there was nothing there, nothing but the sound of his own heavy breathing. “Carlson!” he called and waited. “Carlson!” He shouted louder.

Then he heard the sound of a little girl screaming. He realized it was muffled and quickly understood that it was coming from the basement. When he reached the opened doorway, he paused and looked behind
him because he thought he heard something. The screaming continued, so he started down the stairs.

The moment he saw Carlson’s body, he froze. He then brought the hammer back on his revolver and looked about. The girl had stopped her screaming, but he now heard her sobbing behind the closed door. He hesitated to speak, fearing to give away his position without first discovering who or what had done this to Carlson. He moved farther down the stairs and when he reached the bottom, he looked about the basement. He saw nothing.

“Mrs. Kaufman!” he called. There was silence, and then the little girl screamed for her daddy. Harry knelt beside Carlson’s body, felt his wrist, and then went for the door. But before he reached it, the dog came out from behind the bar and leapt through the air. To Harry Michaels it looked as if the animal could fly. His jump easily took him across half the basement floor.

Harry had time to raise his left arm protectively and get off one shot. The bullet went wide and the animal seized him at the forearm, snapping the bone almost instantly. Michaels fell over Carlson’s body, but he had enough strength and momentum to throw the dog toward the stairway. The dog did not come back at him. It went into a crouch and moved so quickly up the stairway that by the time Harry brought his arm around for another shot, the animal had reached the top.

Harry squeezed off another round. The bullet tore into the doorjamb and sent splinters flying, but the dog whipped itself out of the door before Michaels could shoot again. Just at that moment, the pain in his left arm registered and he fell farther backward. He moaned and took a few deep breaths. There were no sounds coming from behind the door; he imagined the little girl had been driven into a terrified silence.

He struggled to his feet, keeping his eye on the basement doorway. He wanted to put his gun in his holster and hold his left forearm, but he was afraid that the animal would reappear. So he pressed his arm against his body and tried the door to the utility room. It wouldn’t budge.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s the police. It’s all right. Mrs. Kaufman?”

“Mommy,” he heard the little girl say, “wake up. Mommy.”

“Listen, Lisa, it’s Harry Michaels. Let me in and I’ll help you.”

“The dresser is against the door,” she said. Her voice was small and pathetic.

He looked back at the stairway and then put his shoulder to the door. It began to give slowly until he built up momentum and shoved it open. As soon as he did so, he saw Clara Kaufman lying on the floor, unconscious, the little boy cuddled up in her right arm. Lisa appeared from behind them, her eyes bloodshot, her face streaked from the tears.

“It’s okay,” Harry said. “Everything’s going to be okay now.” He knelt down and felt for Clara’s pulse. Satisfied with the strength of it, he turned his attention to the little boy. Bobby’s eyes opened slowly and then he sat up quickly, rubbing his face. “Okay, take it easy, buddy. Everybody’s going to be all right. Jesus,” he said, rising. He stepped out and went right to the phone behind the bar.

After he called for the ambulance and for the dispatcher to bring in all his patrolmen, he dialed the number Sid Kaufman had given him.

“I’m in your house, Mr. Kaufman,” he began. “Your children are all right, but your wife’s been hurt.”

“How badly?” Sid said. “And by what?”

“She’ll be all right,” Harry said. He had no idea if she would be or not but thought it best to lie at this point. “She’ll need some medical treatment, though.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“Not just yet.”

“She can’t talk?”

“Mr. Kaufman, Mr. Kaufman,” he repeated. He heard the hysteria in Sid’s voice. “I told you I would come right up here and I told you I would call you right away, didn’t I? I didn’t lie to you, did I?”

“No, no . . .”

“So you’ve got to believe me now. It won’t do you any good not to,” he added.

“What happened to her?”

“They had a bad scene here, Mr. Kaufman. They were being terrorized by a dog.”

“A dog? A German shepherd?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was she bitten?”

“Just nipped on the wrist. She did a good job of protecting the children. It’s all over and I’m getting her to the hospital for a checkup.”