An Old Friend Of The Family (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 3), Fred Saberhagen [best large ereader .txt] 📗

    “I think we’d better let you rest.” Judy bent over her brother to hug him one more time.

    When it came Joe’s turn to say farewell, he grinned at the boy and shook his own two hands together. “Let us know if we can bring you anything.”

    “I will.”

    Judy had paused to restore the papers fallen from the table. Looking at one sketch, she gave a little sniff and almost smiled. “Know who this one looks like to me? I met him once, when he was trying to get Kate to go on a skiing weekend with him. Craig Walworth.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

   You didn’t just find upper-crust society in the Chicago phone book, of course. But if you were in the police department you knew a number to dial to be told the address of someone with an unlisted phone.

    Alone after dropping Judy and Clarissa off in Glenlake, driving on south toward the Loop’s sky-notching towers, Joe considered for the dozenth time why he shouldn’t just lay Craig Walworth’s name on Charley Snider. The main reason, he decided, was his feeling that the evil old man wanted him to do just that. Why else had the old man brought the name up out of nowhere when they were alone? Who is Craig Walworth? Damn the old man to hell, anyway, for asking that and then disappearing. So there was no real Walworth-connection to be pointed out to Charley. One question, from someone who was very clever and not to be trusted; and one sketch that might look a little like Craig Walworth but had evidently been discarded because it didn’t look too much like the bearded kidnapper.

    When they had given Joe his days off to mourn for Kate, they hadn’t specifically warned him to keep from muddling up the Southerland investigation by doing any poking around on his own. The captain evidently hadn’t thought him dumb enough to need a warning of that kind. Well, he wasn’t dumb. And he wasn’t getting into the investigation, he told himself now. He was only trying to get it clear in his own mind whether there might be anything that could tie Craig Walworth into it.

    While driving Judy home he had questioned her casually—as casually as he could manage—about that skiing weekend invitation. Judy had been very definite that Kate had never accepted any proposition like that from Craig Walworth. But Judy would say that now, anyway, just to spare Joe’s feelings.

    When he reached the tall apartment building on Lake Shore Drive, Joe had a qualm about using his police ID to get in. He compromised by using it and then telling the doorman he wanted to see Walworth on personal business. The doorman, an old-timer whose badly fitting jacket suggested he might just have been called out of retirement, told him, sure lieutenant, that’s okay, I’ll watch your car, just leave it in the drive. I’ll just give him a buzz to let him know you’re coming. Oh, yes, the ID helped.

    Joe went up alone in the small elevator, up to a small marbled foyer where someone’s old raincoat hung covering a mirror or picture. He touched a bell button beside a dark door of massive wood, that reminded him of yesterday’s broken-in front door. A lean old fellow like Corday, wiry-strong or not, could hardly have done that without a sledge…

    Walworth himself came to answer the door. And Judy had been right about the sketch, it hadn’t been far off at all in depicting this man’s face. The dark hair and even the short beard were messed up now. Walworth was wearing a loose, short, very fancy robe of some kind, his hairy, muscular arms and legs protruding. He had the look of someone just out of bed, even to the puffiness around the eyes. He also looked a little jumpy. But a great many perfectly innocent people looked jumpy when you came on as a police.

    “If you’re a cop,” said Walworth in a voice whose loudness sounded habitual, “come in and get it the hell over with, whatever it is.”

    “Thanks.” Joe came in, let Walworth close the door behind him. The palatial apartment was a littered mess, evidently from last night’s party. “But like I said, it’s not police business. I just wondered if I could have a word with you about Kate. Sorry I got you up.”

    “Kate?” The dumb look might be genuine.

    “Kate Southerland.”

    “Oh. Oh, yeah. Sure. Terrible. What can I tell you? I hardly knew her.” Walworth picked up a half-empty bottle, frowned at it, put it down. No doubt the maid, or a battalion of maids, would soon be along to see that it was disposed of.

    Joe said: “You see, I had asked her to marry me.”

    “Oh,” said Walworth, and his face went through several changes of expression, the first of which looked like genuine surprise. None of the expressions seemed likely to be helpful. “I’m very sorry,” he thought of saying finally.

    “Yeah. Well, I just wondered if you could tell me about what happened that last night she was here.” Joe had designed this question, or statement, with great care, and had rehearsed it on the long drive down from Glenlake.

    “Here?” For a moment, consternation. “But she was never here.”

    Joe had also rehearsed his next step, to be taken after this anticipated denial; but before he could put his plans for further probing into effect, he heard a door opening and closing somewhere down a hallway.

    “Craig?” The one tentative word in a softly feminine voice preceded the girl around a corner and into the room. She came wearing a cloud of red hair almost the color of fresh copper wire, and a large green towel wrapped around her body from armpits to