Читать книгу Small Town Monsters - Craig Nybo - Страница 64

Craig Nybo

10

was in the act of cutting the head from a werewolf with an oversized carving knife.

•••

The front door of the station opened, startling Kurt from his reading. He had spent the afternoon pouring over Artemus’s arcane book, though there were piles of paperwork to which he should have been focusing his attention.

Kurt looked up from his reading to see Harmon Bently darken his office entrance. Harmon wore a perfect grandfatherly smile, thin-lipped and lined with a salt and pepper pencil mustache. The old man clutched an old fedora hat in his wrinkled pale hands, a relic from a lost time when men were rarely seen without them. He wore the fedora everywhere he went; but he hadn’t forgotten the courtesy of removing it when indoors or in the presence of a lady. He smelled of strong after shave.

“Harmon, what brings you to the station?” Kurt asked, using a manila folder to cover up the array of photographs and forensic evidence of Danny Slade’s case lying on his desk. He stood and gestured towards a comfortable seat.

Harmon sat down. Kurt looked over the old man. There was something misplaced in Harmon’s countenance.

“How’s that boy of yours, still set on attending Berkely?”

Harmon smiled. “My grandson, Tory, is a good boy. He’s planning on leaving right away to establish residency in the state of California. I have to admit, I will miss him. Raised him like my own, you know, since my Marilyn died back in ’95.”

“Well, I’ll be the first to admit that DePalma Beach will miss him; that kid is a wiz.”

“Thank you. But I didn’t come to discuss Tory.”

“What can I do for you,” Kurt said, settling into his chair and resting his hands on his desk.

Harmon looked off in a random direction for a moment, composing his thoughts. “I don’t know exactly how to proceed.”

“Why so anxious? Has something happened?”