Cry for the Strangers (27 page)

Robby shook his head in the darkness. “I don’t remember anything,” he said vaguely. “I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to go outside.”

“Why didn’t you?” Missy asked.

“You would have told Mom and Dad,” Robby said matter-of-factly. He climbed back up into the top bunk.

Again there was a silence, and the two children listened to the storm howling outside.

“I wish it would stop,” Missy said quietly.

“I do too,” Robby agreed.

Suddenly, without any warning, the rain stopped and the wind died.

Silence fell over Sod Beach.

BOOK THREE

Storm Dancers

18

Elaine Randall was staring disconsolately at the dishes stacked on the kitchen counter. There seemed to be so many of them, now that they had been taken out of the cupboard, that she couldn’t decide whether to pack them in a box to be taken to Clark’s Harbor or to haul them down to the large storeroom in the basement where most of their personal effects were going to be stored while they were gone. Finally she evaded the issue entirely by turning her attention to the pots and pans. Those were easy—the old, battered ones went with them, the good ones stayed behind. She was about to begin packing what seemed to her like the ninety-fifth box when the telephone rang. Gratefully, she straightened up and reached for the phone.

“I’ll get it,” Brad called from the living room, where he was filling cartons with books.

“Some people get all the breaks,” Elaine muttered loudly enough so she was sure Brad heard her.

“Hello?” Brad said automatically as he picked up the receiver.

“Brad? Is that you? It’s Glen Palmer.”

“Hi!” Brad exclaimed warmly. “What’s up?”

There was a slight hesitation, then Glen’s voice came over the line once more, but almost haltingly.

“Look, are you people still planning to move out here?”

“Imminently,” Brad replied. “I’m packing books and Elaine’s working on the kitchen. Sort of a last vestige of sexism, you might say.” When the joke elicited no response, not even the faintest chuckle, Brad frowned slightly. “Is something wrong out there?”

“I don’t know,” Glen replied slowly. “A boat cracked up on the rocks out here last night.”

“Last night? But it was calm and clear last night.”

“Not in Clark’s Harbor, it wasn’t. We had a hell of a storm.”

Brad’s brows rose in puzzlement, but then he shrugged. “Well, anybody who goes out in ‘a hell of a storm’ deserves to go on the rocks,” he said complacently.

“Except that nobody knows how the boat got there. Your landlord seems to think I had something to do with it.”

“You? What gave him that idea?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.” There was a silence, then Glen’s voice went on, hesitantly, almost apologetically. “That’s why I called you. Everything seems crazy out here and I didn’t have anyone else to talk to. How long before you’ll be coming out?”

“Not long,” Brad said. “Today, in fact.”

“Today?” There was an eagerness in Glen’s voice that Brad found disturbing.

“We’re packing up the last of our stuff. The truck should be here around noon. I’d say we should be
there somewhere around four, maybe five o’clock.”

“Well, I guess I won’t crack up by then,” Glen said, but his voice shook slightly. “I hate to tell you this, Brad, but something horrible is going on out here.”

“You make it sound like some kind of conspiracy,” Brad said, his curiosity whetted. “You sure you’re not letting your imagination get the best of you?”

“I don’t know,” Glen said. “How many times have I said that? Look, do me a favor, will you? Come see me this afternoon or this evening? If I’m not at the gallery I’ll be at home.”

“I’d planned on it anyway,” Brad assured him. “And look, don’t get yourself too upset. Whatever’s happening, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re sure. All right, no sense running this call up any higher. See you later.”

As Brad said good-bye he realized Elaine was standing in the archway that separated the living room from the dining room, a curious expression on her face.

“What’s going on? Who was that?”

“Glen Palmer.”

“What did he want?”

“I’m not really sure,” Brad mused. “He’s all upset about something. A boat went on the rocks last night and Glen seems to think Harney Whalen wants to blame it on him.”

“I didn’t know Glen even had a boat.”

“It wasn’t his boat apparently.” He shrugged, and began packing books again. “I told him we’d be out there this afternoon, so he didn’t go into the details. But he sure sounded upset.”

Elaine stayed where she was and watched Brad work. Then she moved to the living-room window and
stared out at Seward Park and the lake beyond. “I wonder if we’re making a mistake,” she said, not turning around.

“A mistake?” Brad’s voice sounded concerned. Elaine faced him, letting him see the worry on her face.

“It just seems to me that maybe we shouldn’t go out there. I mean, there really isn’t any reason why you can’t write here, is there? Certainly our view is as good as the view from the beach, and you don’t have to be bothered with interruptions. A lot of people manage to live like hermits in the middle of the city. Why can’t we?”

“I suppose we could,” Brad replied. “But I don’t want to. Besides, maybe something
is
going on out there.”

“If there is I don’t want any part of it,” Elaine said with a shudder.

“Well, I do. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a best seller out of this whole deal.”

“Or maybe you’ll just get a lot of trouble,” Elaine said. But she realized that there was going to be no argument. Brad’s mind was made up, and that was that. So she winked at him, tried to put her trepidations out of her mind, and went back to her packing.

She finished in the kitchen at the same time Brad sealed the last carton of books. As if on cue the truck that would move them to Clark’s Harbor pulled into the driveway.

Jeff Horton stayed in bed as long as he could that morning, but by ten o’clock he decided it was futile and got up. It had been a night of fitful sleep disturbed
by visions of the fire, and through most of the small hours he had lain awake, trying to accept what had happened, trying to find an explanation. But there was none.

Max had been securing the boat. That was all.

He wouldn’t have taken her out. Not alone, and certainly not in a storm.

But he must have been on the boat or he would have come to the inn.

If he was on the boat, why did it go on the rocks? Why didn’t he start the engines?

There was only one logical answer to that: the engines had been tampered with. But by whom? And why? They were strangers here; they knew no one. So no one here would have any reason to sabotage the boat.

None of it made any sense, but it had cost Jeff dearly. His brother was gone, his boat was gone, and he felt helpless.

Several times during the night he had gone to the window and tried to peer through the darkness, tried to make himself see
Osprey
still tied up at the wharf, floating peacefully in the now-calm harbor. But when morning came Jeff avoided the window, postponing the moment when he would have to face the bleak truth of the empty slip at the dock.

Merle Glind peered at him dolefully when he went downstairs, as if he were an unwelcome reminder of something better forgotten, and Jeff hurried out of the inn without speaking to the little man. He paused on the porch and forced himself to look out over the harbor.

Far in the distance the mass of rocks protruded from the calm surface of the sea, looking harmless in the morning sunlight.

There was no sign of the fishing trawler that had gutted itself on them only hours ago.

Seeing the naked rocks, Jeff felt a surge of hope. Then his eyes went to the wharf, and there was the empty slip, silent testimony to the disappearance of
Osprey
. Jeff walked slowly down to the pier, to the spot where the trawler should have been moored. He stood there for a long time, as if trying by the force of his will alone to make the trawler reappear. Then he heard a voice behind him.

“She’s gone, son,” Mac Riley said softly. Jeff turned around and faced the old man.

“I warned you,” Riley said, his voice gentle and without a trace of malice. “It’s not safe, not when the storms are up.”

“It wasn’t the storm,” Jeff said. “I don’t care how bad that storm was, those lines didn’t give way. Someone threw them.”

Riley didn’t argue. Instead, his eyes drifted away from Jeff, out to the mouth of the harbor. “Sort of seems like the wreck should still be there, doesn’t it?” he mused. Before Jeff could make any reply, the old man continued, “That’s the way she is, the sea. Sometimes she throws ships up on the rocks, then leaves them there for years, almost like she’s trying to warn you. But not here. Here she takes things, and she keeps them. Reckon that’ll be the way with your boat. Wouldn’t be surprised if nothing ever turns up.”

“There’s always wreckage,” Jeff said. “It’ll turn up somewhere.”

“If I were you I’d just go away and forget all about it,” Riley said. “Ain’t nothing you can do about it, son. Clark’s Harbor ain’t like other places. Things work different here.”

“That’s just what the police chief said last night,” Jeff said angrily. “What do you mean, things work different here?”

“Just that. It’s the sea, and the beach. The Indians knew all about it, and they thought this was a holy place. I suppose we do too. Strangers have to be careful here. If you don’t know what you’re doing, bad things happen. Well, I guess you know about that, don’t you?”

“All I know,” Jeff said doggedly, “is that my boat’s wrecked and my brother’s missing.”

“He’s dead, son. If he was on that boat he’s dead.” There was no malice in Riley’s voice; it was simply a statement of fact.

“If his body turns up then he’s dead,” Jeff replied. “As long as there’s no body he isn’t dead.”

“Suit yourself,” Riley said. “But if I were you I’d just head on back to wherever you came from and start over again. And stay away from Clark’s Harbor.”

He reached out and patted Jeff on the shoulder, but Jeff drew angrily away.

“I’m going to find out what happened,” he said.

“Maybe you will, son,” Riley said placidly. “But I wouldn’t count on that. Best thing to do is learn to live with it, like all the rest of us.”

“I can’t,” Jeff said almost inaudibly. “I have to know what happened to my brother.”

“Sometimes it’s better not to know,” Riley replied. “But I guess you can’t understand that, can you?”

“No, I can’t.”

“You will, son. Someday, maybe not very far down the road, you’ll understand.”

The old man patted him on the shoulder once more and started back toward shore. Then he turned, and Jeff thought he was going to say something else, but he seemed to change his mind. Wordlessly, he continued on his way.

Jeff stayed on the wharf awhile longer, then began walking south along the narrow strip of beach that bordered the harbor. Somewhere, parts of
Osprey
must have been washed ashore. If he was lucky, one of those parts might offer some clue.

The storm of the night before had left a layer of silt on the beach, washed down from the forest above. Wet and thick, it clung to Jeff’s boots as he trod slowly out to the end of the southern arm of the harbor. Nowhere did he find even a trace of wreckage. He hadn’t really expected to. If there was going to be anything it would probably be north, taken out by the ebbing tide, then carried up the coast on the current. But from the end of the point he would have a good view of the rocks. Perhaps something would be visible from there that couldn’t be seen from the wharf.

There was nothing, only the black and glistening crags of granite, clearly visible and unthreatening in the calm sea. Nowhere was there a sign of the damage they had wreaked the night before, nowhere a scrap of the boat that had broken up on them.

Jeff lingered on the point for a while, almost as if his proximity to the scene of the disaster would somehow help him to determine what had happened. But
the reef merely mocked him, taunting him with its look of innocence.

After thirty minutes he turned away and started back along the beach.

He didn’t go out to the end of the sand spit at the north end of the harbor. Instead he followed the worn path that cut across it to the rock-strewn cove beyond. Jeff explored the small beach carefully, inspecting pieces of driftwood that appeared to have been brought to shore the night before, his eyes carefully searching for any familiar object, any broken piece of flotsam that might be part of the vanished trawler. Again there was nothing.

Finally he rounded the point and stood at the southernmost tip of Sod Beach. For the first time his eyes stopped searching the shore at his feet and took in the beauty of the spot. It seemed incongruous to him that something as magnificent as this could be here, in the middle of such deadly surroundings. The beach lay bathed in sunlight, and the surf, free to wash the shore here, had cleaned away the silt that covered the harbor sands. Only a haphazard scattering of driftwood gave evidence of the storm that had battered the coast the night before, and even that, strewn evenly over the beach, only enhanced the beauty and peace of the place.