Cry for the Strangers (17 page)

“Oh, come on, Brad, be fair,” Elaine cried. “You know damned well what Clark’s Harbor is like for strangers. You can read it all over the place. And you heard as well as I did what those people were saying about Glen the first day we were in town.”

“They were talking?” Glen said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Elaine looked away, wishing she hadn’t spoken so quickly.

“Well, that’s something new,” he went on. “When I’m around that’s like everyone’s been struck dumb. What were they saying?”

“Oh, just the typical small town stuff about artists,” Elaine said, forcing a lightness she didn’t feel into her voice. But Rebecca would not let the subject drop.

“It must have been more than that,” she said gently. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have remembered it.”

“Well, the gist of the conversation—if you can call it that, since it was mostly just backbiting—was that no one in town seems to be glad you’re here,” Elaine told them. “But
I’m
glad you’re here,” she went on, “for the same reasons you’re glad we’re coming. Maybe we can take the curse off the place for each other.” Elaine caught herself and glanced from one face to the other. “Sorry about that I’m beginning to sound like Miriam Shelling, aren’t I?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rebecca said. “Suddenly, with some people around and a couple of glasses of wine, I think I’m beginning to see some reason again. But an hour ago I wasn’t Is there any more wine in that bottle?”

Glen poured them each another round, then went out to find another log for the fireplace.

“I really am glad you’re going to be here,” Rebecca said while he was gone. “I had no idea how dependent I’d become on people till we moved up here and all of a sudden there wasn’t anyone to talk to. Sometimes I’ve thought I was going out of my mind, and I think Glen’s felt the same way. We’ve been holding on for so long now, telling each other it’s going to get better. But until tonight I didn’t believe it. Now I do.” She grinned suddenly. “I hope I don’t get to be a nuisance—I suspect I’ll be running up and down the beach every five minutes at first, just making sure you’re really there.”

“You’d better be,” Elaine replied. “If you’re not I’ll have to do all the running, just to find out how to survive without electricity.”

“Why don’t you talk to Whalen about putting some in?” Glen said, returning in time to hear the last “It shouldn’t cost much from where you are—the main line runs out almost as far as your house.”

“Not worth it,” Brad said. “And even if it were I doubt Whalen would go for it For some reason he seems to be rooted in the past. He made a big deal out of telling us the old Indian story about the Sands of Death.”

“That’s not so funny, considering what happened last night,” Elaine pointed out.

“Except that Mrs. Shelling killed herself,” Brad said. “No one else was involved, and she certainly wasn’t buried on the beach in the style of the story Whalen told us.”

No, but the dog was
, Elaine thought suddenly. She said nothing, standing up instead: sending Brad a signal that it was time for them to leave.

A few minutes later they started the long walk back down the beach.

Glen and Rebecca watched them go until they were only shadows in the moonlight Then they closed the cabin door and put their arms around each other.

“Things are going to get better now, aren’t they?” Rebecca whispered.

“Yes, honey, I think they are,” Glen said softly. He didn’t tell Rebecca about the strange feeling he had gotten while he was out getting the log:
the strange feeling of being watched…
.

11

“Well, that’s that,” Elaine said as she closed the last suitcase and snapped the latches into place. She began her final inspection of the room, pulling each of the drawers open, then moved on into the bathroom. “Damn,” Brad heard her say.

“The hair dryer?” he called.

“What else?” Elaine replied, returning to the room with the offending object in her hand. She stared glumly at the suitcase on the bed, mentally rearranging it so that the cumbersome dryer would fit “Maybe I’ll just throw it on the back seat,” she speculated. She tossed the hair dryer onto the bed and dropped heavily into one of the chairs, glancing around the room as if she expected some other item she had overlooked to appear suddenly from her new vantage point.

“You were right,” she said suddenly. “This
is
a nice room. In a way I hate to leave it.”

“We’ll be back.”

“Yes, but not here.” She sighed and got to her feet, reaching for the coat Brad was holding. “Do I need this today?” She looked doubtfully out the window;
the sun was shining brightly and the harbor lay softly blue below her.

“It’s a bit snappy out,” Brad said. He picked up the dryer. “What about it? The back seat?”

Elaine scowled at him playfully and reopened the suitcase.

“As if you didn’t know.” She quickly reorganized the suitcase, mostly a matter of stuffing several of Brad’s shirts further into a corner, and crammed the dryer in. It was a struggle but the suitcase closed.

“How come the dryer always winds up ruining
my
clothes?”

“Yours are cheaper, and besides, you don’t care how you look,” Elaine teased. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

Each of them picked up two suitcases and they left the room, its door standing open, to make their way down stairs. Merle Glind looked up when he saw them coming but didn’t offer to help them with the luggage.

“Checking out?” he inquired.

“No, actually we’re just moving our luggage around,” Brad replied, but the sarcasm was lost on the little innkeeper. He set the luggage down and tossed the key onto the desk. Glind picked it up and examined it carefully, then pulled their bill from a bin on his desk, matched the room number to the number on the bill, and began adding it up. Brad suppressed a smile as he noted that their bill had been the only one in the bin, and wondered what Glind would have done if the numbers had failed to match. He handed Glind a credit card, which was inspected minutely, then signed the voucher when it was presented to him. He wasn’t surprised when Glind carefully compared
the signature on the voucher with the one on the back of the card. Finally Glind returned the plastic card and smiled brightly.

“Hear you folks rented the old Baron house,” he said.

“That’s right,” Brad said neutrally as he slipped his credit card back into his wallet.

“Not much of a house,” Merle remarked. “No electricity. I wouldn’t be surprised if the roof leaks.”

“Well, we’ll be living mostly on the first floor anyway, so I don’t expect a few leaks will bother us.”

Merle stared hard at Brad, then decided he was being kidded. He chuckled self-consciously. “I suppose you folks know what you’re doing,” he said, “but if I were you, I’d think twice, then think twice again before I moved out there.”

“You mean the legend?”

Glind shrugged. “Who knows? But Harney Whalen believes in the legend, and he’s part Indian.”

“The police chief?” Elaine asked unbelievingly. “He certainly doesn’t look it!”

“Take another look,” Merle replied. “If you know, it shows up right away. Anyway, he thinks there’s something to the legend. That’s why he doesn’t like to rent the house out there. Fact is, I’m surprised he rented it to you.”

“Well, he didn’t seem too eager,” Brad said.

“Don’t imagine he was. And if I were you I’d have let him discourage me. That’s a bad place out there—no mistaking it.”

Elaine suddenly felt angry, and her eyes narrowed.

“Exactly what do you mean?” she demanded.

Her tone seemed to frighten the nervous little man
and he retreated a step back from the counter. “N-nothing, really,” he stammered. “It’s just the stories. You must have heard the stories.”

“We’ve heard them,” Brad said levelly, “and frankly, we don’t put any stock in them.”

Glind’s eyes suddenly clouded over and he almost glared at them. “Well, that’s up to you,” he said stiffly. “For your sake I hope you’re right” But his tone told them that his hope was faint Brad and Elaine picked up their suitcases and left the Harbor Inn.

“That really burns me up,” Elaine grumbled as they carefully fit the suitcases into the car. “It’s almost as though he was trying to scare us off.”

“That’s exactly what he was trying to do,” Brad said, slamming the trunk closed. He heard something crack inside and ignored it “But it won’t work, will it?” He smiled confidently at his wife, knowing her instinctive reaction to Glind’s tactics would be to prove the odd little man wrong.

“No, it won’t,” Elaine said defiantly as she got into the car. She waited until Brad was behind the wheel before she spoke again. “The way I feel now, I wish you’d been able to talk Whalen into selling the place to us!”

“That’s my girl!” Brad said happily, reaching over to pat her on the leg. Suddenly Elaine stared suspiciously at him, her eyes narrowing and a tiny smile playing around her mouth. “Did you put him up to that? Just to bring me around?”

“Absolutely not,” Brad said sincerely, staring straight ahead through the windshield. Then he turned and grinned at her. “But if I’d thought of it I would have!”

“Bastard!” Elaine said, laughing suddenly. Then: “Hey, let’s stop and see Glen Palmer before we leave, just to say good-bye.”

“I’d already planned on it,” Brad said easily. He turned the corner and headed up Harbor Road toward the main road. A few minutes later they pulled up in front of the gallery.

Brad and Elaine were standing in front of the gallery, trying to picture what it might look like when it was finished, when Rebecca Palmer appeared at the front door.

“I was hoping you two would show up,” she said happily. “That’s why I came in this morning. A little bird told me you might stop on your way back to Seattle. Come on in—I’ve got coffee going.”

She led them into the gallery. A moment later Glen appeared from the back room.

“Rebecca’s little bird was right, I see. Well, what do you think?” The Randalls looked around as Glen led them through the room, explaining what would eventually be where, trying to build a visual image for them with his words. He was only half-successful, but Brad and Elaine admired the work anyway. Glen looked just a little crestfallen.

“You can’t see it, can you?”

“Just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Elaine protested. “Let me see it again when it’s finished. Did you say there’s some coffee?”

“Some beer too,” Glen offered. “Come on back and see what I got this morning.”

In the back room, standing on its hind legs and
whimpering plaintively, a tiny puppy peered at them from the confines of a small carton.

“Oh, he’s adorable!” Elaine cried, sweeping the puppy into her arms and cuddling it “Where did you find him?”

“I didn’t,” Glen said. “He found us. He was sitting out front this morning when we arrived.”

“But he can’t be more than eight weeks old,” Elaine protested. “What would a puppy that young be doing wandering around at night?”

“Search me,” Glen said. “I asked a couple of people about him this morning but no one seems to know where he might have come from. Bill Pruitt down at the gas station said sometimes people from Aberdeen or Hoquiam come up here and dump puppies instead of having them put to sleep. I figure if nobody comes looking for him today, he’s ours.”

Elaine carefully put the puppy back in its box. Immediately it began trying to scramble out again, its tiny tail wagging furiously.

“Was Snooker’s neck really broken?” Rebecca suddenly asked. Elaine looked at her sharply and bit her lip.

“Glen told you?”

Rebecca nodded mutely.

“Well, then there isn’t any use lying about it, is there?” She smiled weakly. “I’m sorry. When I found him I had no idea he was your dog.”

“What did you do with him?”

“I left him where he was,” Elaine said gently. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Well, there isn’t anything to be done now, is there?”

“There wasn’t anything to be done when I found him, Rebecca. He’d been dead for hours, I’m sure.”

“I know,” Rebecca replied. “But it just seems too coincidental, Snooker getting his neck broken and then Mrs. Shelling—” She let the sentence hang, then pulled herself together and tried to smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “These things have just gotten to me. I’ll be so glad when you’re back, Elaine. All of a sudden I just don’t like the idea of being out at Sod Beach all by myself.”

“That’s nonsense,” Elaine said with a certainty she didn’t feel. “It’s a beautiful beach and you’ve been very happy there. It’s absolutely silly to let this get to you.”

“I know,” Rebecca said. “And if it were just one thing—even if the one thing was Miriam Shelling—I think I’d be all right But two things? It just seems spooky.”

“Another minute and you’re going to start sounding like Merle Glind,” Brad said.

“Merle?” Glen said the name sharply and Brad’s attention was drawn away from Rebecca. “What did he have to say?”

“Not much, really,” Brad answered. “Some nonsense about what a mistake we’re making moving out to the beach. Without really saying it, he managed to imply that there’s something to that legend of Whalen’s. Say, did you know that Whalen’s part Indian?”

“Not me,” Rebecca said. “But now that you mention it, I suppose he does have that look.”

Outside, a car pulled up and the group suddenly fell silent, waiting for the door to open. When it didn’t
Rebecca got up and went to look out. “Well, speak of the devil,” she said. Frowning slightly, Glen joined his wife. Outside, Harney Whalen was standing next to the Randalls’ car, one foot on the bumper, writing in what appeared to be a citation book. “What the hell is he up to?” Glen muttered. He started for the front door but was stopped by Brad’s voice.

“I’ll take care of it, Glen. It’s my car he’s got his foot on.” He went to the door and stepped outside. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully. The police chief didn’t respond.

“Something wrong?” Brad asked. Whalen glanced up at him, then finished writing and tore a page from the book. He handed it to Brad.