Cry for the Strangers (12 page)

“Really?” Elaine said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice but not entirely succeeding. “Why? Is it haunted?”

“Some people think so. It’s the beach, I imagine.”

“What about the beach?”

“It didn’t used to be called Sod Beach. That just sort of came into being by accident. Used to be called the Sands of Death years ago. Then the maps shortened it to S.O.D., and that eventually got turned into Sod Beach.”

“The Sands of Death,” Brad said softly. “I’ll bet there’s a story about that.”

Whalen nodded. “It was the old Klickashaw name for the beach. Can’t remember what the Indian words were, if I ever knew. It don’t matter anyhow. What matters is why they called the beach the Sands of Death. The Klickashaws had a wonderful custom—makes a hell of a good story for scaring kids with. It seems they had a cult—they called themselves Storm Dancers—that used to use the beach for executions.”

“Executions?” Elaine echoed the word hollowly, not sure she really wanted to hear the tale.

“The story goes that the Klickashaws didn’t like strangers any more than we do now. But they dealt with them a little bit different than we do. We at least tolerate ’em if we don’t exactly make ’em welcome. The Indians didn’t.”

“You mean they took them out on the beach and killed them?” Brad asked.

“Not exactly. They took them out to the beach and let the sea kill them.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Elaine said softly.

“They buried them in the sand,” Harney Whalen said. His voice had become almost toneless, as though he was repeating the tale by rote. “They’d wait till low tide, then put their victims in a pit, and cover them with sand until only their heads were left showing. Then they’d wait for the tide to come in.”

“My God,” Elaine breathed. She could picture it in her mind—the terrified victims waiting for death, watching the surfs relentless advance, feeling the salt water lap at them, then slowly begin to wash over them; she could almost hear them gasping for air during the increasingly short intervals between the waves, and finally, inexorably … She forced the horrifying image from her mind and shuddered. “It’s horrible,” she said.

But Brad didn’t appear to hear her. His eyes were fixed on the iron-haired police chief. “I don’t see what that has to do with people not staying in your house on the beach,” he said.

Whalen’s smile was grim. “The legend has it, those people are still buried in the sand out there and that their ghosts sometimes wander the beach at night To warn strangers about the beach,” he added, leaning
back in his chair to stare at the ceiling for a while before he spoke again. “Don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but I do know nobody ever stays in that house for long.”

“Which might have something to do with the lack of amenities, right?” Brad said.

“Might,” Whalen agreed.

“When can we see the house?” Brad asked. There was little point in further discussion. They would look at the house; either it would be suitable or it wouldn’t.

“If you really want to look at it I suppose we could go out there right now. Frankly, I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Why don’t you let us decide that?” Elaine said, forcing her voice to be cheerful. “We might like it a lot more than you think.”

Before Whalen could respond to this the telephone rang. He plucked the receiver up.

“Chief Whalen,” he said. Then he listened for a moment. Both Brad and Elaine were sure that his face turned slightly pale. “Oh, Jesus,” he said softly. “Where is she?” There was another silence, then Whalen spoke again. “Okay, I’ll get out there as fast as I can.” He dropped the phone back on the hook and stood up. “It’ll have to wait,” he said. “Something’s come up.”

“Something serious?” Brad asked.

Whalen frowned, started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. “Nothing that concerns you,” he said, almost curtly. Brad and Elaine got to their feet.

“Maybe later this afternoon—?” Brad began.

But Whalen was already on his way out the door.
The Randalls followed him to his car. For a second Brad thought he had forgotten them, but as he started the motor Whalen suddenly stuck his head out the window. “Tell you what,” he said. “Meet me out at the house, about three. Merle Glind at the inn can tell you how to get there.” He gunned the engine, flipped the siren on, and took off with a resentful screech from the tires. The Randalls stood alone on the sidewalk, watching the car speed away.

“Well,” Brad said when Whalen was out of sight. “What do you think about that?”

“He burned me up,” Elaine said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one but Brad was close enough to hear. “My God, Brad, he acted like the whole town is some kind of private preserve. Like nobody has a right to live here unless his great-grandparents were born here.”

“Kind of got your hackles up, did it?” Brad grinned.

“Damn right it did. I’ll cook on that damned wood stove of his for the rest of my life if I have to, just to let him know he can’t always have things the way he wants them.”

“You might hate the house,” Brad cautioned her.

She smiled at him almost maliciously. “Do you want me to describe it to you, or would you rather be surprised?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The house. I’ve seen it. I’m sure it’s on the beach I was on yesterday, where I found the dead dog.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. I walked right by it. It has to be the one. It was the only house on the beach and it looked as though no one had lived in it for years.”

“What’s it like?”

“I think a realtor would describe it as ‘a picturesque beach charmer, perfect for the handyman, needs work, easy terms.’ ”

“Doesn’t sound too promising.”

“Mr. Whalen certainly didn’t lie to us, I’ll say that much.”

They walked back to the inn. They would have a leisurely lunch, then walk up the beach to meet Harney Whalen at the old house. But when they reached the hotel they found Merle Glind in a state of extreme excitement.

“Isn’t it terrible?” he asked them. When they looked totally blank, he plunged on. “Of course you haven’t heard. It wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway, would it?”

“What wouldn’t?” Brad asked. “What happened?”

It was as if a door had slammed shut The moment Brad asked the question, Merle Glind went rigid. His eyes narrowed and his mouth closed in a tight, thin-lipped line. Finally, he spoke. “It’s none of your business,” he said. “You take my advice, you go back where you belong.”

Then, unable to resist, he told them.

Rebecca Palmer finished cleaning up the mess from breakfast and took the pan of dirty water outside to empty it onto the tiny cedar tree she had planted near the pottery shed. She examined the fragile-looking plant carefully, pleased to see that the makeshift fence she had rigged up around it seemed to be working—the little cedar showed no new signs of having served as dessert for the neighborhood deer. She was about
to go back into the cabin when she heard the first faint sounds of the siren. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, but as it grew louder she frowned a little. A fire truck? An ambulance? It was louder now, headed in her direction—but there was nothing out here except their own cabin. Deciding it must be Harney Whalen after a speeding car that hadn’t had the sense to slow down as it passed through the Clark’s Harbor speed zone, she went on into the cabin. But when the siren stopped abruptly a few seconds later and she thought she heard sounds of shouting, she went back outside.

There
were
voices coming from the woods now. She thought she could hear someone calling out, “Over this way,” but she wasn’t sure.

Rebecca took off her apron, tossed it onto a chair just inside the door, and strode out onto the beach. When she thought she was close to the place where the shouting had been going on, she picked her way carefully over the driftwood barrier and headed into the woods. A minute later she wished she’d followed the road.

The ground was nearly covered with ferns and salal, and everywhere she stepped there seemed to be an ancient, crumbling log buried in the undergrowth. She stopped after a while and strained her ears, trying to pick up the sounds of the voices that had drifted so plainly over the beach. Finally she called out.

“Hello? Is anybody out here?”

“Over here,” a voice came back. “Who’s that?”

“Rebecca Palmer.”

“Stay away,” the voice called. “Go back to the house
and stay there. Someone will come over in a little while.”

Rebecca paused, debating what she should do. It didn’t take her long to make up her mind. She plunged onward toward the anonymous voice, annoyed at being told what to do on what she was almost sure was her own property.

After a few seconds she thought she could make out a flash of movement off to the left. Whatever was happening, it was definitely happening on the Palmers’ land.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“It’s me, Mrs. Palmer,” the voice came back, “Chief Whalen. Just go back home and I’ll send someone down as soon as I can.”

The hell I will, Rebecca thought If something’s going on, I have a right to know what it is. She’d be damned if Harney Whalen was going to tell her what to do. She pressed on through the tangle of undergrowth and suddenly broke through into a small clearing. Harney Whalen and Chip Connor and a man Rebecca didn’t recognize stood in the clearing, looking upward. Automatically, Rebecca’s eyes followed theirs. Suddenly she wished she had done what Whalen had told her to.

Rebecca began screaming.

“Oh, God,” Whalen muttered under his breath. Then, aloud, he said, “Take care of her, will you Chip? Get her out of here.” He pulled his eyes away from Rebecca, and looked once more up into the trees.…

8

Miriam Shelling’s body hung limply ten feet above the ground. Her eyes bulged grotesquely from her blackened face, and her tongue hung loosely from her mouth. The rancid smell of human excrement drifted on the breeze—Miriam had evacuated her bowels at the moment her neck had snapped.

A small group of people stared uncomprehendingly up at her, their stupor unbroken by Rebecca Palmer’s screams. At the order from the chief, Chip Connor separated himself from the group and went to Rebecca, leading her away by the same route as she had come.

“Oh, God,” Rebecca repeated over and over again. “What happened to her? What happened to her? Last night—” she broke off suddenly, but Chip prompted her.

“What about last night?” he asked. They emerged from the forest and Chip helped her over the pile of driftwood, then gently guided her toward the cabin.

“Nothing,” Rebecca said. For some reason she didn’t want to tell the deputy that her husband had seen, even talked with, Miriam Shelling on the beach the evening before. She remained silent as they walked.

“Will you be all right?” Chip asked when they were inside the cabin.

“I’ll be fine,” Rebecca replied weakly. “Well, not fine exactly, but you go ahead and do what you have to do. I’ll take care of myself.”

Chip looked at Rebecca carefully, wondering if what she had seen could have put her into a state of shock; then, realizing that he probably wouldn’t recognize shock if he saw it, he decided to go back to the clearing. When Doc Phelps arrived, Chip would have him come over and check on Mrs. Palmer. Patting her gently on the hand and assuring her that everything would be all right, Chip started back to the small clearing.

Rebecca watched him go, strangling back a sob. As soon as he disappeared from sight she wished she’d told him that she wasn’t all right. She shivered a little, and put on a sweater even though the day was bright and warm, then built up the banked fire until it blazed hotly.

She said she was waiting for something, Glen had said last night. She was sitting on a piece of driftwood, and she was waiting for something. Suddenly Rebecca had a vision of Miriam Shelling sitting quietly, watching the beach, waiting for Death to come and take her to her husband. But why the beach, Rebecca wondered. Why out here?

In the clearing, Harney Whalen was wondering the same thing. He was remembering the previous day, too, when Miriam Shelling had appeared in his office demanding that he do something. She had been upset—
very upset. He searched his mind, trying to remember every detail of what she had said, trying to find something—anything—that should have warned him that she was about to do something drastic. But there was nothing. She had only been demanding that he find whoever had killed her husband. And then, a sudden hunch coming into his mind, he left the clearing and beat his way through the woods to the beach. He looked out across the expanse of sand, then glanced north and south, taking a quick bearing. His hunch was right—Miriam had chosen a spot almost directly onshore from the place Pete Shelling had gotten caught in his own nets. Wondering if it meant anything or was merely a coincidence, he retreated back to the clearing. Doctor Phelps was waiting for him.

“Why hasn’t she been taken down?” the old doctor demanded. He stared accusingly at Whalen over the rims of his glasses.

“I wanted to wait for you,” Whalen said, trying not to feel defensive. But the doctor, eighty-six years old and still going strong, had treated Harney Whalen when the police chief was a child and never let him forget that as far as he was concerned, Whalen was a child still.

“Well, it’s pretty obvious she’s dead, isn’t it?” Phelps said sourly. “Am I supposed to climb up there myself to see what happened?”

Whalen was about to begin climbing the tree himself when Chip Connor reappeared.

“Chip? Think you can get her down?”

Chip forced himself to stare up into the tree once more, though his stomach rebelled every time his eyes
fell on Miriam’s face. He examined the branches carefully.

“No problem,” he said out loud. Privately he wondered how he was going to be able to lower the body to the ground without—he broke off the thought without completing it and started up the tree. The climb was easy—the branches almost formed a ladder. A minute later he was level with the branch from which Miriam hung. Though it was invisible from below, a neat coil of rope lay in the fork of the tree. Carefully, Chip examined the knot from which Miriam was suspended, though a glance had told him how to get her down. All that held Miriam to the tree was a double slip knot, the kind children make in a string when they first discover how to knit it into a rope. He picked up the coil of rope and dropped it down. Then he made his way back to the ground.