'Salem's Lot(65)

Ben's eyes centered on the upper hem of the flawlessly laundered sheet that covered Mike. There was a single small drop of blood on it, dried to maroon.

'I don't think he's breathing,' Matt said.

Ben took two steps forward and then stopped. 'Mike? Mike Ryerson. Wake up, Mike!'

No response. Mike's lashes lay cleanly against his cheeks. His hair was tousled loosely across his brow, and Ben thought that in the first delicate light he was more than handsome; he was as beautiful as the profile, of a Greek statue. Light color bloomed in his cheeks, and his body held none of the deathly pallor Matt had mentioned - only healthy skin tones.

'Of course he's breathing,' he said a trifle impatiently. 'Just fast asleep. Mike - ' He stretched out a hand and shook Ryerson slightly. Mike's left arm, which had been crossed loosely on his chest, fell limply over the side of the bed and the knuckles rapped on the floor, like a request for entry.

Matt stepped forward and picked up the limp arm. He pressed his index finger over the wrist. 'No pulse.'

He started to drop it, remembered the grisly knocking noise the knuckles had made, and put the arm across Ryerson's chest. It started to fall anyway, and he put it back more firmly with a grimace.

Ben couldn't believe it. He was sleeping, had to be. The good color, the obvious suppleness of the muscles, the lips half parted as if to draw breath . . . unreality washed over him. He placed his wrist against Ryerson's shoulder and found the skin cool.

He moistened his finger and held it in front of those half-open lips. Nothing. Not a feather of breath.

He and Matt looked at each other.

'The marks on the neck?' Matt asked.

Ben took Ryerson's jaw in: his hands and turned it gently until the exposed cheek lay against the pillow. The movement dislodged the left arm, and the knuckles rapped the floor again.

There were no marks on Mike Ryerson's neck.

4

They were at the kitchen table again. It was 5:35 A.M. They could hear the lowing of the Griffen cows as they were let into their east pasturage down the hill and beyond the belt of shrubbery and underbrush that screened Taggart Stream from view.

'According to folklore, the marks disappear,' Matt said suddenly. 'When the victim dies, the marks disappear.'

'I know that,' Ben said. He remembered it both from Stoker's Dracula and from the Hammer films starring Christopher Lee.

'We have to put an ash stake through his heart.'

'You better think again,' Ben said, and sipped his coffee. That would be damned hard to explain to a coroner's jury. You'd go to jail for desecrating a corpse at the very least. More likely to the funny farm.'

'Do you think I'm crazy?' Matt asked quietly.

With no discernible hesitation, Ben said, 'No.'

'Do you believe me about the marks?'

'I don't know. I guess I have to. Why would you lie to me? I can't see any gain for you in a lie. I suppose you'd lie if you had killed him.'

'Perhaps I did, then,' Matt said, watching him.

'There are three things going against it. First, what's your motive? Pardon me, Matt, but you're just too old for the classic ones like jealousy and money to fit very well. Second, what was your method? If it was poison, he must have gone very easily. He certainly looks peaceful enough. And that eliminates most of the common poisons right there.'

'What's your third reason?'

'No murderer in his right mind would invent a story like yours to cover up murder. It would be insane.'

'We keep coming back to my mental health,' Matt said. He sighed. 'I knew we would.'

'I don't think you're crazy,' Ben said, accenting the first word slightly. 'You seem rational enough.'

'But you're not a doctor, are you?' Matt asked. 'And crazy people are sometimes able to counterfeit sanity re?markably well.'

Ben agreed. 'So where does that put us?'

'Back to square one.'

'No. Neither one of us can afford that, because there's a dead man upstairs and pretty soon he's going to have to be explained. The constable is going to want to know what happened, and so is the medical examiner, and so is the county sheriff. Matt, could it be that Mike Ryerson was just sick with some virus all week and happened to drop dead in your house?'

For the first time since they had come back down, Matt showed signs of agitation. 'Ben, I told you what he said! I saw the marks on his neck! And I heard him invite someone into my house! Then I heard . . . God, I heard that laugh!' His eyes had taken on that peculiar blank look again.

'All right,' Ben said. He got up and went to the window,' trying to set his thoughts in order. They didn't go well. As he had told Susan, things seemed to have a way of getting out of hand.

He was looking toward the Marsten House.

'Matt, do you know what's going to happen to you if you even let out a whisper of what you've told me?' Matt didn't answer.

'People are going to start tapping their foreheads behind your back when you go by in the street. Little kids are going to get out their Halloween wax teeth when they see you coming and jump out and yell Boo! when you walk by their hedge. Somebody will invent a rhyme like One, two, three, four, I'm gonna suck your blood some more. The high school kids will pick it up and you'll hear it in the halls when you pass. Your colleagues will begin looking at you strangely. There's apt to be anonymous phone calls from people purporting to be Danny Glick or Mike Ryerson. They'll turn your life into a nightmare. They'll hound you out of town in six months.'