Cry for the Strangers (18 page)

“Parking ticket,” he said evenly, his eyes boring into Brad’s.

Brad grinned crookedly. “A parking ticket?” he repeated vacantly. “What are you talking about?”

“Car’s parked illegally,” Whalen stated. Brad glanced around, looking for a sign that would tell him he had broken the law. There was none.

“It isn’t posted,” he said.

“It’s not illegal to park here, Randall,” the chief said. “It’s the way you parked. Rear end of the car is over the pavement.”

Brad walked around the car. The edge of the pavement, indistinct in the dust, appeared to be no more than an inch or two under the side of the Volvo. Suddenly he knew what was going on. “I’m sorry,” he said easily. “Very careless of me. How much is this going to cost?”

“Ten dollars,” Whalen said. His face wore what appeared to be an insolent smile, as if he were waiting
for Brad to protest the citation. Instead, Brad simply reached for his wallet, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and handed it to the chief together with the citation.

“I assume I can pay you?” he asked politely.

“No problem,” the chief said, pocketing both the citation and the money.

“I’ll need a receipt for that,” Brad said.

The police chief glared at him for a second, then moved to his patrol car. He sat behind the wheel and scribbled a receipt, then returned to the spot where Brad waited for him.

“Be more careful next time,” he said, handing the receipt to Brad. He turned and started back to the black-and-white.

“Chief Whalen?” Brad called. The policeman turned and stared at him. “If you think you can scare me off with a phony parking ticket, you’re wrong,” Brad said quietly. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to keep me out of Clark’s Harbor.”

Harney Whalen pulled at his lower lip and seemed to turn something over in his mind. When he finally spoke his voice was just as quiet as Brad Randall’s had been.

“Dr. Randall, I don’t give phony tickets. Your car is parked illegally, so I cited it. If I wanted to keep you out of Clark’s Harbor, believe me, I could. I tried to tell you what things are like here. Now, you want to come out here or you want to stay away, that’s your business. But don’t come to me looking for trouble—you’re likely to get it. Do I make myself clear?”

Brad suddenly felt foolish. Perhaps he’d been mistaken and the ticket hadn’t been the harassment he’d
assumed it was. And yet it had to be—the violation, if indeed it was a violation, was so trivial. He decided to drop the matter, at least for the moment.

“Perfectly clear,” he said. “If I was out of order I apologize.”

The chief nodded curtly and wordlessly, got into his car, and drove away. Brad watched him go, then went back into the Palmers’ gallery.

“What was that all about?” Elaine asked. “Was he giving us a ticket?”

“He gave us one and I paid it,” Brad said pensively.

“What for?” It was Rebecca, a look of concern on her face.

“Apparently I parked illegally. It seems the right rear corner of the car is an inch or two over the pavement.”

“And he cited you for that?” Glen was outraged. “That’s ridiculous!”

“I thought so too, but I didn’t push it. No sense getting off on the wrong foot.”

“Sometimes I don’t think there’s a right foot,” Glen said bitterly. There was a silence, and Rebecca moved to him and took his hand.

Elaine looked down at her watch. “It’s time to get going,” she said softly. “It’ll take us at least three hours to get home.”

Rebecca suddenly put her arms around Elaine and hugged her. “Don’t change your mind,” she whispered.

“Not a chance,” Elaine assured her. “This town’s got my dander up now.” She pulled away from Rebecca. “Give us a week, more or less, and we’ll be back. Okay?”

Rebecca nodded. “I feel silly,” she said. “But all
of a sudden things seem like they’re going to be fine. Hurry back.”

“We will,” Brad said. “And I expect to find this place finished by then. If it’s not I’ll have to pitch in and do it myself.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Glen promised him. He and Rebecca walked with the Randalls to their car, then watched them drive away.

“I hate to see them go,” Rebecca said. “What if they change their minds and don’t come back?”

“They’ll be back,” Glen told her. “Now come on in and forget about them for a while. There’s lots of work to be done and a puppy to be taken care of.”

Together, the Palmers went back into the gallery.

“What are you thinking about?” Brad asked as they drove away from the gallery.

“Nothing much,” Elaine said, not sure she wanted to share her thoughts with Brad. She was afraid she was being silly. She didn’t fool her husband.

“Worried again?” he guessed.

“I suppose so. Maybe we jumped in too fast. I mean, a house at the beach is one thing, but without electricity and in a town that doesn’t seem to want us?”

“It isn’t the whole town,” Brad pointed out “It’s only Harney Whalen and Merle Glind. There are also Glen and Rebecca, who want us very much.”

Elaine lapsed back into silence. Resolutely, she put her thoughts aside. But as they drove further and further away from Clark’s Harbor, the thoughts kept coming back:
And they’re strangers
, she thought
Strangers, just like us. And just like the Shellings
.

*    *    *

Harney Whalen waited until the Randalls’ car was completely out of sight before he pulled out from behind the billboard and headed back into town. As he made the turn onto Harbor Road he glanced at the Palmers’ gallery with annoyance and wished once more that they had taken him up on his offer to buy them out. Then, with the offending gallery behind him, he looked out over the town.
His
town. He had a proprietary feeling about Clark’s Harbor, a feeling he nurtured. Now it lay before him, peaceful and serene in the morning sun.

He pulled up in front of the tiny town hall and ambled into his office. Chip Connor was already there, enjoying a steaming cup of coffee. When Harney came in Chip immediately poured a cup for his boss.

“Well, they’re gone,” Harney said.

“Gone? Who?”

“The Randalls. Left just now.”

“But they’ll be back,” Chip pointed out.

“Maybe,” Harney drawled. “Maybe not.” He sat down and put his feet up on his desk. “Beautiful day, isn’t it, Chip?”

“For now,” the deputy commented. “But a storm’s coming. A big one.”

“I know,” Whalen replied. “I can feel it in my bones.”

Harney Whalen smiled and savored his cup of coffee and waited for the storm.

BOOK TWO

Night Waves

12

The Reverend Lucas Pembroke peered over the tops of his half-glasses at the sparse crowd that had gathered in the tiny Methodist church and tried to blame the poor attendance on the weather. It had been raining almost steadily for the last five days—ever since Miriam and Pete Shelling had been buried—and the Reverend Pembroke wanted to believe that it was the weather that was keeping people away. Only a few, the bored and the curious, had showed up at the burial. Lucas had hoped that more would turn out for this service. It seemed almost useless for him to have driven all the way up from Hoquiam just to hold a service for two people he hardly knew in front of an audience of less than ten. Perhaps, he reflected, if the bodies were here … He let the thought die and chastised himself for its uncharitability.

No, it was something else, something he had been acutely aware of ever since he had added Clark’s Harbor to his circuit. He had felt it from the first: a standoffishness among his congregation that he had never completely overcome. It was as if they felt that though they ought to have a pastor for their church, still, an outsider was an outsider and not to be completely
accepted. Lucas Pembroke had thought he had come to grips with the situation in Clark’s Harbor, but the deaths of Pete and Miriam Shelling had hit him hard. Of all his congregation they had been the only ones who had ever really let him know they appreciated his weekly trips to the Harbor, perhaps because they, too, had never felt particularly welcome here. He missed the Shellings, so he had decided to hold a service to say farewell to them. Apparently not many people in Clark’s Harbor shared his feelings.

Merle Glind was there, of course, but Lucas was sure that Glind’s presence was due more to his innate snoopiness than to any feelings for Pete and Miriam. Glind sat in the fourth pew, about halfway between the door and the chancel, and his small, nearly bald head kept swiveling around as he noted who was there and who wasn’t.

Other than Glind, only three fishermen and Harney Whalen represented the town at the service. But in the front pew, off to one side, Rebecca and Glen Palmer sat with their children, strangely out of place. They had never been in the church before, and Lucas wondered what had brought them here today. He glanced at the clock he had placed above the door of the church to remind him of the time when his tendency to ramble on too long got the best of him, and decided he had delayed long enough.

He began the service.

An hour later the small assemblage filed out of the church. Harney Whalen was the first to leave, and Pembroke noticed that the police chief seemed to be in a hurry. He hadn’t stopped to chat, even for a
minute or two. Merle Glind paused briefly to pump Lucas’s hand, then, mumbling that he had to get back to the inn, bustled off. As soon as he was gone, Rebecca Palmer stepped up to him.

“It was a very nice service, Mr. Pembroke,” she said shyly.

“I’m glad you came.” Pembroke’s response was warm. “So few did, and it always hurts me when people stay away from a funeral. I suppose I can understand it but it always makes me feel lonely. I didn’t know you knew the Shellings,” he added, making it almost a question.

“We didn’t, really,” Glen answered. “Actually, I don’t think I ever spoke to Mr. Shelling. But I talked to Mrs. Shelling the night she died, and we just felt that we should come.”

Lucas Pembroke shook his head sympathetically. “It must have been very difficult for you,” he said to Rebecca. “If there’s anything I can do …”

“I’m fine now,” Rebecca assured him. “Really I am. Your service helped. I know it sounds strange, but I thought if we came it might help me stop thinking about it. And I think it will.”

“Come back again,” Lucas urged. “I mean for the regular services, of course. We don’t have a large congregation and I hate to preach to an empty church. Makes me feel unimportant, I suppose,” he joked.

The Palmers assured him that they would, but the minister was sure they wouldn’t. He couldn’t really say he blamed them. They were undoubtedly feeling the same chill he had felt when he first came to the Harbor, and he suspected they would continue to keep pretty much to themselves. He watched them leave
the church, then turned his attention to the three fishermen.

The youngest of them, Tad Corey, was one of Pembroke’s regular parishioners. “Tad,” Lucas said warmly. “It was good of you to come. Although I must say I’m surprised.”

“It wasn’t my idea, Reverend,” Tad Corey said genially. “I told Mac Riley here, that there were better things to do than spend the day in church, but he wouldn’t listen.” There was no malice in Corey’s voice, and he winked at the pastor as he said it Lucas Pembroke chuckled appreciatively and turned his attention to the oldest of the three fishermen.

“I don’t see you very often, Mr. Riley,” he observed.

The old man, his eyes almost lost in the wrinkles of his weathered face, didn’t seem to hear Pembroke. Instead, his attention was centered on Missy and Robby Palmer, who stood a few feet away staring curiously at the fisherman. Pembroke sensed a silent interchange taking place between the ancient fisherman and the two children, a shared experience that they were now remembering, and keeping to themselves.

Riley broke the moment and smiled at the minister.

“Not likely to see me here often either,” he rasped. “After seventy years of fishing these waters I know too much of too many things. There are things going on here. Things you don’t know anything about.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you made it today,” Lucas Pembroke said uneasily, wondering what Riley was trying to tell him.

“Pete Shelling was a good fisherman,” the old man continued, and Pembroke was grateful to be back on familiar ground. “Never knew his wife very well but I
knew Pete. It’s a shame, that’s what it is. A crying shame.”

“Well, accidents do happen,” Lucas said consolingly.

“Yes,” Riley agreed tartly. “But not often.” He turned away from the pastor and started to leave the church. When he was a few paces away he called, without turning around: “You boys planning to waste the whole day?”

Tad Corey and the third fisherman, Clem Ledbetter, exchanged a quick glance, back the pastor good-bye, and hurried after Riley. Lucas Pembroke watched them go, then went back into the church. He began tidying up the few hymnals that had been used during the service and wondered what to do with the flowers he had brought with him for the occasion. He considered using them again on Sunday, then quickly, almost spitefully, rejected the idea—he didn’t think the people of Clark’s Harbor would appreciate the gesture. But if he took them home to Hoquiam, his landlady would be thrilled. She might even fix a decent dinner.