Cry for the Strangers (35 page)

Brad wanted to move him, to pull him further up the beach so the surf couldn’t get at him, but as he played the flashlight over Jeff’s body he realized something was terribly wrong.

Jeff’s head lay at a strange angle. His neck was broken.

That Jeff was alive at all was a miracle.

Then Jeff’s eyelids fluttered again and once more he tried to speak. Glen leaned down, dose to Jeff’s lips.

“What is it, Jeff? What happened?”

Jeff tried hard but no sound would come out of him.
He used the last of his strength to take a deep breath, then made a desperate effort to speak. But before the words could be formed the breath turned into a soul-shaking rattle and was expelled in a long, slow sigh.

Jeff Horton, like his brother, lay dead on Sod Beach.

Elaine Randall paced between the kitchen and the living room, pausing every few seconds to stare futilely into the blackness of the night. Several times she forced herself to sit down in front of the fire, but it was useless. A moment later she was on her feet again, her nerves jangling, a knot of fear twisting her stomach.

Her eyes flicked around the room and she wondered briefly what she was looking for. Then she knew.

The float.

The glistening blue glass ball she had found on the beach—how long ago? It seemed like years, though it had been only weeks.

She picked the sphere up from its place on the mantel, and stared into its depths.

It was no longer beautiful.

What she had thought of as an omen for good now seemed evil to her. She turned it over in her hands, wondering what to do with it.

She decided to return it to the sea.

Without giving herself time to change her mind, Elaine put on her pea coat and hurried out of the house. She moved directly across the beach, and when she neared the surf line she stopped. She looked at the float once more, curiously, then raised her arm and hurled it into the pounding waves. As it left her hand Elaine felt a tingling—almost electric—in her arm.
Suddenly terrified, she turned and fled back into the house.

Glen Palmer lurched unsteadily through the kitchen door, his face pale and his hands trembling.

Elaine stood at the stove stirring a pan of hot cider. As soon as she saw Glen she knew.

“You found him, didn’t you?” she whispered.

Glen nodded mutely and sank into a chair at the kitchen table, cradling his head in his hands.

Missy saw it
, Elaine thought.
She saw it happen
. She touched Glen gently on the shoulder. “Just sit here. I’ll get Rebecca.” She frowned. “Where’s Brad?”

“He went to town,” Glen muttered. “He went to report what we found.” Elaine, not yet wanting to hear exactly what they had found, went to the living room and gestured Rebecca to the kitchen. “I’ll check on the kids,” she whispered. Rebecca hurried toward the kitchen as Elaine stepped into the room where Missy and Robby were occupying her bed.

Robby was sleeping quietly but Missy was wide awake.

“Where’s Daddy?” she asked.

“He’ll be in in a little while,” Elaine whispered. “He had to go out on the beach.”

The little girl seemed to shrink before her eyes. “He shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered. “The beach is a bad place.”

Missy’s words sent a shiver up Elaine’s spine but she said nothing. Instead she merely tucked Missy in and kissed her on the forehead. “Now go back to sleep. I want to be able to send your daddy in to kiss you, not scold you for staying awake. All right?”

Missy made no reply, but her eyes closed tightly and she squirmed further into the bed.

Did she really see it?
Elaine asked herself.
Dear God, I hope not
.

She carefully checked the window, then pulled the door closed behind her. A moment later she was in the kitchen, listening as Glen tonelessly told them what had happened on the beach.

Merle Glind was pouring a third beer for Chip Connor when the telephone tucked away at the end of the bar suddenly began ringing.

“They never let you alone,” Merle clucked, setting the half-empty bottle on the bar next to Chip’s glass. “If it isn’t one thing it’s another.”

Chip grinned as Merle bustled down to the telephone, but his smile faded when the fussy little man held the receiver up and called out to him.

“It’s for you but I don’t know who it is.”

“Hello?” Chip said into the phone a moment later.

“Chip? It’s Brad Randall. Are you still sober?”

“I’m on my third beer,” Chip replied. “What’s happened?”

“Jeff Horton. Glen and I found him on the beach a little while ago. He’s dead.”

“Shit!” Chip said. Then: “Did you call Harn?”

There was a slight pause before Brad spoke again. “I decided to call you instead,” he said almost hesitantly.

“All right,” Chip said. “Where’s the body?”

“Still on the beach. We didn’t want to move it.”

“Okay, I’ll be right out.” Then he paused and frowned slightly. “Where are you?”

“Pruitt’s gas station. It was the nearest telephone. You want me to wait here for you?”

“No, I can meet you at your place. I’ll have to call Harney and tell him what’s happened.”

“I know,” Brad said. “If I hadn’t been able to find you I’d have called him myself.”

“Okay,” Chip grunted. “Go on back home. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Is Glen all right?”

“A little shock but he should be out of it by the time you get there.”

“Will he be able to answer questions?”

Now there was a long silence, and when Brad finally answered his voice was guarded. “It depends on what kind of questions. That’s why I called you instead of Whalen, Chip.”

Chip bit his lip thoughtfully and wondered what would happen if he simply handled it himself and didn’t notify Harney until morning. He’d get his ass chewed, that’s what would happen, he decided. “I have to call him,” he told Brad. “He’s the chief.”

“I know,” Brad said tiredly. “All right. See you.”

Chip replaced the receiver on the phone under the bar and wasn’t surprised when he found Merle Glind hovering behind him, his eyes wide and curious.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s happened?”

“Jeff Horton. He’s out on Sod Beach, dead.”

“Mercy!” Glind said. Then he clucked his tongue, his head wagging sympathetically. “I knew he should have gone. I just knew it.”

But Chip wasn’t listening. He had the phone in his hand once more, and was dialing Harney Whalen’s
number. On the tenth ring, just as Chip was about to give up, Whalen’s voice came onto the line.

“Did I get you out of bed?” Chip asked.

“No,” Whalen replied, his voice sounding a little vague. “I was watching television. I guess I must have dozed off.”

“Well, you’d better get down to Sod Beach right away. Jeff Horton’s out there and he’s dead.” There was a silence and Chip wasn’t sure the chief had heard him. Then, as he was about to repeat himself, Whalen’s voice grated over the line.

“I warned the son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “Nobody can say I didn’t warn him. Take care of it, will you, Chip?”

The phone went dead in Chip’s hand. Harney had hung up on him.

By midnight it was all over. Chip Connor and Brad Randall had brought Jeff Horton’s body in out of the storm. It lay in the dining room, covered by a blanket, until an ambulance could be summoned to take it away. Rebecca and Elaine, chilled by the closeness of death, avoided the dining room as if whatever had killed Jeff might still be lurking there.

Chip hovered near while Brad examined the body, going over it quickly but expertly. When he was finished he drew the blanket over Jeff’s face and spoke quietly to Chip.

“His neck’s broken. That’s all I can find. Of course a full autopsy will have to be done, but that’s not my business. And I doubt they’ll find anything else. It’s almost incredible that he was still alive when Glen found him.”

“Why?”

“The way his neck was bent. He should have been dead just a minute or two after his neck was broken.”

“Then how did he stay alive?”

Brad shook his head doubtfully. “I’m not sure. Pure will, probably. His windpipe must have stayed open, but his spinal column is a mess.”

“Did Glen’s touching him have anything to do with him dying?”

“It might have but he’d have died anyway. If anything, all Glen did was put him out of his misery. There was no way he could have survived what happened.”

“What did happen?” Chip asked. “Can you tell?”

“From the bruises on the back of the neck, it looks like someone hit him with something—hard enough to crush the bones in his neck—then jerked on his head to make sure the job was done.”

“Christ,” Chip groaned, feeling a little sick at his stomach. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“I wish I knew.” He looked curiously at Chip. “Isn’t Whalen coming out?”

“No. He told me to take care of it for him. I guess he still isn’t feeling well.”

“What do you mean?”

“He took yesterday off,” Chip said. “When I talked to him this morning he said something about indigestion. I guess it must have hit him again tonight.”

“Indigestion?” Brad repeated. “He doesn’t seem the type. He looks strong as an ox.”

“He is,” Chip agreed. “But he’s sixty-eight years old, even though he doesn’t look it.”

“Sixty-eight? I’d have thought he was in his late fifties.”

“Nope. He’ll be sixty-nine in August.”

Brad shook his head admiringly. “I should look that good when I’m his age,” he said, but his mind was no longer on Whalen’s appearance. It was his age that Brad had focused on. Something about his age that made some kind of connection. But before he could sort it out the ambulance arrived, and by the time they had finished attending to Jeff Horton’s body the elusive connection had slipped away.

Brad closed the kitchen door against the rain as the ambulance disappeared into the storm. “You still on duty, or can I offer you a drink?”

“I’d better not,” Chip replied. “I have to get down to the station and write up this report so Harney will have it in the morning.” He closed his notebook and prepared to leave. Then, just as he was about to open the door, he turned to Brad. He had one last question.

“Brad, do you have any idea what’s going on out here? What’s causing all this mess?”

Brad shook his head sorrowfully. “I wish I did. All I can tell you is that I think it has something to do with the storms.”

“The storms?” Chip repeated. “But we’ve always had storms.”

“I know,” Brad said softly. “And it seems like you’ve always had a mess too.”

Chip stared at him, then tried to laugh it off. “Maybe it’s the Indians. God knows they did terrible things out here.” Then he put on his hat and disappeared into the blackness outside.

25

The storm had not let up by morning.

As Brad and Glen drove into Clark’s Harbor the rain buffeted the car, flooding the windshield faster than the wipers could clear it away.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Glen commented. “I thought the worst storms hit during the winter.”

“You never know,” Brad said as they pulled up in front of the town hall. “Sometimes I think they gave the Pacific the wrong name. This one looks as though it could blow for days.”

Several people lounging in the lobby looked up as they came in, examining them with speculative expressions. Something new in Clark’s Harbor, Brad thought with some irony. Ignoring the inquisitive stares, they hurried down the hall to the police station.

Harney Whalen glared balefully at Glen as they came into his office. Before either of them could say anything, Whalen set the tone of the conversation.

“Seems like every time there’s trouble around here you’re right in the middle of it, doesn’t it, Palmer?”

Glen felt the first pangs of anger form a knot in his
stomach and silently reminded himself that losing his temper wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“It seems like every time there’s trouble it happens on Sod Beach,” he countered.

Harney Whalen snorted and tossed a folder toward Glen and Brad. “You want to look that over and tell me if it’s accurate?”

Glen scanned the report, then handed it to Brad. When both of them had read it, Brad returned it to Whalen.

“That’s about it,” Brad said.

“You want to tell me about it?” Whalen asked Glen, ignoring Brad.

“There’s nothing to tell. We went out looking for Jeff and we found him. He died almost immediately.”

“Why were you looking for him?” The curiosity in Whalen’s voice was almost lost in the hostility. “He’s a grown man—
was
a grown man.”

“It was getting late—there was a storm blowing in. We just didn’t like the idea of him being out in it,” Glen replied.

“I think it was something else,” Whalen said coldly.

“Something else? What?”

“I think you killed him,” Whalen said. “Maybe one of you, maybe the other, maybe both. But I sure as hell don’t believe the two of you just went for a walk on the beach and found a dying man. Something makes men die and it’s usually other men.”

Brad and Glen gaped at the police chief, unable to comprehend what they were hearing. Brad recovered first.

“I’d be careful what I said if I were you, Whalen.”

“Would you?” The sneer in Harney Whalen’s voice hung in the air, a challenge. But before either of them could take it up Whalen went on. “How about this? The two of you were at the library last night, right? Well, let’s suppose that while you were gone Horton wasn’t staying home taking care of your wives like a good guest. Let’s suppose he was just taking care of them. And you two walked in on it.” He eyed first Glen, then Brad, looking for a reaction.

Glen Palmer stood quivering with rage, staring out the window at the downpour, saying nothing. But Brad Randall returned Whalen’s icy look, and when he spoke it was with a calmness that Whalen hadn’t expected.

“Are you charging us?” he asked calmly.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Whalen growled.

“Then we’re leaving,” Brad said quietly. “Come on, Glen.” He turned and forced Glen to turn with him. Before they reached the door Whalen’s voice stopped them.