Free Case Closed by Jan Burke Page B

torture yourself so!”
    â€œThere is no escape from it.”
    â€œThen try to find some peace where I have—in helping the living. That is how my mother’s memory is best served—the sooner we educate our neighbors in the truth of this matter, the less influence men of Winston’s stripe will have over them.”
    I was gratified, the next day, to see that he seemed to have dedicated himself to this cause, and that he was to some degree transformed by his devotion to it. Whenever I happened to glance out my office window, I saw my father talking in an animated fashion to any who would hear him. He was a respected member of the community, and had no shortage of listeners. Isaac Gardner was with him, and he, too, seemed to have taken up the banner. By the early afternoon, Mr. Robinson had stopped into my office to ask if what my father said was true—that vampires had nothing to do with consumption, that some people were being cured of it in sanitariums. I verified that it was so, and watched his eyes cloud with tears. “Then what Winston told me to do to Louisa’s body—the ritual—that was all for naught?”
    â€œI’m afraid so,” I said gently.
    He swore rather violently regarding Mr. Winston, then begged my pardon, and left. I watched him walk across the street to join the growing crowd that had gathered around my parent. I smiled. My father, Isaac Gardner and Mr. Robinson would all do a better job of convincing the others than I ever could.
    I was vaguely aware that the crowd was moving off down the street, but I was soon caught up in the care of a young patient who had fallen from a tree, and forgot all about vampires and consumption. I set his broken arm, and sent him and his grateful mother on their way. I had just finished straightening my examination room when the door to my office burst open, and my father, Noah, Isaac Gardner, Robinson and a great many others came crowding into the room. They carried between them a man whose face was so battered and clothing so bloodied that I would not have recognized him were it not for a memorable piece of ostentation he was never without—a heavy gold watch chain.
    â€œWinston!”
    The others looked at me, their eyes full of fear.
    â€œLay him on the table!” I ordered.
    It took only the briefest examination to realize that he was beyond any help I could offer. He was already growing cold. “He’s dead.”
    I thought I heard sighs of relief, and I turned to face them. They all stood silently, hats in hand.
    â€œWho did this?” I asked.
    No one answered, and all lowered their eyes.
    â€œWho did this?” I asked again.
    â€œVampires,” I heard someone whisper, but I was never to know who spoke the word. No matter what I asked, no matter how I pleaded to be told the truth, they remained resolutely silent. Winston’s blood was on all of them; there was no way to distinguish a single killer from among the group. I went to my basin, to wash his blood from my own hands. The thought arrested me. These were neighbors, friends—my father, my brother. I knew what had driven them to this—I knew. Had I not lived in Carrick Hollow almost all my life?
    â€œWhat shall we do with him?” one of them asked. I dried my hands and said, in a voice of complete calm, “I believe it is said that for the good of the community, one who is made into a vampire must be cremated.”
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    I could show you the place in the woods where it was done, where the earth has not yet healed over the burning. Nature works to reclaim it, though, as nature ever works to reclaim us all.
    I would like to tell you that the last vampire of Carrick Hollow had been laid to rest there, and that we now live in peace. But it is not so.
    Not long after Winston’s death, people who had lived in our village all their lives began to leave it. Farms were abandoned. We would tell