Cry for the Strangers (8 page)

“It’s your job to find out.”

“I’ve done what I can, Miriam. I’ve talked to everybody in the fleet and they all say the same thing. They went out together and they came back together. All of them except Pete. He stayed out alone when the fleet came in. The storm was already brewing and he should have come in with the rest of them. But he didn’t. That’s all there is to it. It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” Miriam said, her voice rising dangerously. “I know it’s not over.” For a moment Harney Whalen was afraid she was going to go to pieces. But she merely turned and left his office. He watched her go. He was still watching when his deputy, Chip Connor, came in.

“What was that all about?” Chip asked.

“I’m not sure,” Harney replied. “Miriam seems to think what happened to Pete wasn’t an accident.”

Chip frowned. “What does she expect us to do?”

“Search me.” Whalen shrugged. “We did everything we could yesterday.” Then he scratched his head. “Say, Chip, when I was down on the wharf yesterday there were a couple of strangers down there. Looked like city people.”

“So?”

“So I don’t know,” Whalen said testily. “But do me a favor, will you? Go over to the inn and ask Merle if they’re still here, and if they are, how long they’re planning to stay.”

Chip looked puzzled. “What business is it of ours?”

Harney Whalen glared at his deputy. “Someone died here, Chip, and there’s strangers in town. Don’t you think we ought to find out why they’re here?”

Chip Connor started to argue with his chief, but one glance at Whalen’s expression changed his mind. When Harn Whalen set his jaw like that, there was no arguing.

Feeling somewhat foolish, he set off to talk to the proprietor of the Harbor Inn.

5

“Morning, Merle.”

He recognized Chip Connor’s voice immediately, but Merle Glind still jumped slightly, nearly knocking his thick-lensed glasses from their precarious perch on his tiny nose. One hand flew up to smooth what was left of his hair, and he tried to cover his embarrassment at his own nervousness with a broad smile. The effect, unfortunately, was ruined by his inability to complete the smile. His lips twitched spasmodically for a second, and Chip waited patiently for the odd little man to compose himself.

“Is something wrong?” Merle asked. His rabbity eyes flicked around the hotel lobby as if he expected to find a crime being committed under his very nose.

“Nothing like that,” Chip said easily, wishing he could put Merle at his ease. But as long as Chip could remember, Merle Glind had remained unchanged, fussing around the inn day and night, inspecting each seldom-used room as if it were the Presidential suite of a major hotel, going over and over the receipts as if hoping to find evidence of embezzlement, and constantly poking his head into the door of the bar—his major source of income—to count the customers. When
Chip was a boy, Merle had always been glad to see him, but ever since he had become Harn Whalen’s deputy three years ago, Merle had begun to show signs of acute nervousness whenever Chip appeared at the Harbor Inn. Chip supposed it was simply a natural wariness of the police, amplified by Merle’s natural nervousness and not modified in the least by the fact the innkeeper had known Chip Connor since the day he was born.

“Well, there’s nothing going on here,” Merle hastened to assure him. “Nothing at all. Nothing ever goes on here. Sometimes I wonder why I even keep the place open. Gives me something to do, I suppose. Thirty-five years I’ve had this place, and I’ll have it till I die.” He glanced around the spotless lobby with unconcealed pride and Chip felt called upon to make a reassuring comment.

“Place looks nice,” he said. “Who polishes the spittoons?”

“I do,” Merle said promptly, holding up a can of Brasso he mysteriously produced from somewhere behind the counter. “Can’t trust anybody else—they’d scratch the brass. Nothing as bad for a hotel’s reputation as scratched brass. That and dirty linen. And I don’t mind saying that in thirty-five years I’ve never yet rented a room with dirty linen. Old, maybe, but not dirty,” he finished with a weak attempt at humor. Chip laughed appreciatively.

“What’s the occupancy?”

“Twenty percent,” Merle responded proudly. Then, honesty prodding him, he added, “One room occupied, four empty.”

“Who’s the customer?” Chip said casually.

“Harney want to know?” Merle’s eyes narrowed immediately.

“You know Harn,” Chip replied. “Keeps an eye on everything. But this time he has a reason. Something about Pete Shelling.”

Merle clucked sympathetically, then realized the import of what Chip had just said.

“Harney doesn’t think—” he began, then broke off, not wanting even to voice the awful thought. Visions of the hotel’s ruined reputation danced in his head.

“Harney doesn’t think anything,” Chip said, reading the little man’s mind. “It’s just that Miriam Shelling was in this morning claiming that Pete was murdered. Harney’s just doing his job, checking out everything.”

Relieved, Merle Glind pushed the register across the counter, turning it so that it faced Chip. It wasn’t anything unusual, he told himself. Whenever there were guests at the hotel either Chip or Harn stopped by to check them out. No reason to be nervous, no reason at all. Still, he felt anxious, and peered at Chip as the deputy examined the latest entry in the register.

“Randall,” Chip read the entry out loud, “Dr. and Mrs. Bradford, from Seattle.” He looked up at Merle. “Vacationing?”

“I don’t ask questions like that,” Merle said pompously, though Chip knew that he did. Then, lowering his voice: “I did notice they had quite a bit of luggage though, so I suppose they’re on some kind of trip.”

“Staying long?”

“A couple of days. He told me this morning.”

“Says he’s a doctor. I wonder what kind of doctor?”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” Merle said. “But I
suppose I could find out. Do you think it’s important?” he added eagerly.

“I doubt it,” Chip gave a short laugh. “But you know Harney. Doesn’t matter if it’s worth knowing or not, Harn wants to know it. Think you could find out a couple of things for me?”

“I can try, that’s all I can do.”

“Well, if you can find out what kind of doctor Randall is and why they chose Clark’s Harbor, let us know, okay?” He winked at Glind, pushed the register back across the counter, and left the inn.

Chip drove slowly through Clark’s Harbor, looking for nothing in particular, since nothing was likely to happen. Eventually he found himself approaching the tiny schoolhouse that had served the town for three generations.

He pulled the car to a stop and sat watching the children playing in the small yard next to the building. He recognized all of them and knew most of them very well. He, himself, had gone to school with their parents.

His eyes fell on two children who stood apart from the rest, a little boy and his younger sister. He knew who they were—the newcomers, the Palmer children. And he knew why they were standing apart—they had not yet been accepted by the rest of the children of Clark’s Harbor.

Chip wondered how long it would take before Robby and Missy Palmer would be part of the crowd. The rest of the year? Part of next year? Longer?

The children, he knew, were no different from their parents. If anything, they were worse.

If their parents didn’t like strangers the children would hate them.

If their parents made remarks about the Palmers, the children would taunt the Palmers’ children.

There was nothing Chip could do about it. Indeed, Chip didn’t even worry about it. He started the engine and drove away.

In the schoolyard Robby Palmer watched the police car disappear into the distance and wondered why it had stopped. He knew Missy, too, had been watching, but before he could make any comment, he heard his name being called.

“Robby! Little baby Robby!” The voice was taunting, hurting. Before Robby even turned around he knew who it was.

Jimmy Phipps. Jimmy was bigger than Robby, a year older, but Robby and he were in the same grade. Jimmy had made it clear from Robby’s first day at school that he thought the younger boy should be in a lower grade—and that he would make Robby’s life miserable. Now, when Robby turned, he saw Jimmy Phipps standing a few feet away, glowering at him.

“You want to fight?” Jimmy challenged him.

Robby shook his head, saying nothing.

“You’re chicken,” Jimmy said.

“He is not!” Missy snapped, leaping to her brother’s defense.

“Don’t say anything, Missy,” Robby told his sister. “Just act like he isn’t there.”

Jimmy Phipps reddened. “Your daddy’s a queer,” he shouted.

Robby wasn’t sure what the word meant but felt called upon to deny the charge.

“My daddy’s an artist!” he declared.

“And my dad says all artists are queers,” Jimmy replied. “My dad says your parents are commies and bums and you should go back where you came from.”

Robby glared at the bigger boy, his eyes blazing with anger. He knew he shouldn’t swing at him—his parents wouldn’t approve. But how else could he defend himself from Jimmy Phipps’s taunts? He took a step forward and saw three other boys line themselves up behind Jimmy.

“Get him, Jimmy,” Joe Taylor urged. “Rub his face in the dirt.”

“I don’t want to fight,” Robby said in a final effort to avoid a fracas.

“That’s ’cause you’re chicken!” Jimmy cried. His friends urging him on, he leaped on Robby, his fists pummeling the smaller boy.

Robby fought back and managed, somehow, to get on top of Jimmy, but then the other boys crowded in, grabbing Robby and holding him while Jimmy Phipps recovered himself.

“Let go of him!” Missy screamed. “You let go of my brother!”

She aimed a kick at one of the boys, but Robby stopped her, telling her to stay out of it. Then he jerked suddenly, struggled free, and threw a punch at Joe Taylor. Joe’s nose started to bleed immediately and he ran off toward the schoolhouse, howling in pain and clutching his injured face. The other boys looked on in surprise. Jimmy Phipps, about to leap on
Robby again, stopped and stared, suddenly unsure of himself. Robby, though small, apparently packed a wallop.

“You leave me alone,” Robby said. “And you take back what you said.”

“All right,” Jimmy Phipps said. “You’re not chicken. But your daddy’s still a commie queer. My dad says so.”

Robby jumped on the bigger boy, but the fight was suddenly stopped when their teacher appeared, grabbing each of the boys by the shoulder and separating them by pure force.

“That will be enough,” she said. “What’s this all about?”

“It’s Robby’s fault, Miss Peters! He gave Joe Taylor a bloody nose and jumped on Jimmy Phipps!”

Miss Peters had been teaching at the Clark’s Harbor school for thirty years. She was sure there was more to the story than that, but she had learned long ago that getting the whole truth out of half a dozen ten-year-olds is harder than undoing the Gordian Knot. The most effective way to deal with a situation like this was to listen to no one at all.

“I don’t care what happened,” she said. “Robby, your clothes are filthy and it looks like you’re going to have a black eye. Go home for the rest of the day.” Jimmy Phipps grinned maliciously but Miss Peters put a quick end to his triumph.

“As for you, James, you can spend this afternoon cleaning the school, and the rest of you can help him!” She took Missy by the hand and started back inside.

Robby stood glowering at his tormentors for a moment,
then started toward the schoolyard gate. Behind him, Jimmy Phipps couldn’t resist a parting shot.

“We’ll get you for this!” he shouted. “You’ll wish you never came to Clark’s Harbor!”

Robby Palmer, his eye beginning to swell, burst into tears and began running home.

Rebecca gave the pottery wheel a final kick, gently molded the clay between the fingers of her right hand and the palm of the left, then wiped the dampness from her hands while the wheel coasted to a stop. She surveyed her work with a critical eye. The rim of the vase should be a little thinner, perhaps a shade more fluted. Then, with a sigh, she decided to leave well enough alone. Heavy, chunky pottery was her style—the fact that it was easier for her to execute was a bonus—and why take a risk she didn’t have to take? She brushed a strand of long dark hair away from one eye, then carefully removed the nearly finished vase from the wheel.

She left the old tool shed that had been converted into a makeshift pottery and walked slowly toward the cabin to check on her bread dough. To her right the beach arched invitingly away to the south, white sands glistening, and for a moment she was tempted to go off beachcombing, looking for items that could eventually be sold in the gallery. But somehow it didn’t seem fair to abandon herself to the beach while Glen was cooped up in the gallery, struggling with two-by-fours that refused to bend themselves to his desires. Which was strange, she reflected, considering that he could do anything at all with wood-carving tools. In
fact, Rebecca considered Glen to be a better wood sculptor than painter, but she would never tell him so. Yet when it came to a simple thing like measuring and cutting a shelf, he was a dead loss. She smiled to herself as she pictured the finished gallery, its shelves all slightly lopsided. No, she decided, Glen’s sense of artistry would make the gallery look right, no matter how ill-fitting everything might be.

With one last longing look at the beach, she made herself continue on into the cabin. She surveyed the bread dough dolefully. In fairness to Glen, there were things she wasn’t very good at either, bread making among them. The dough, which should have risen by now, sat stolidly where she had left it. It seemed, if anything, to have shrunk. She poked at it, hoping to set off some small, magical trigger inside, that would start it swelling up to what it should be. Instead, it resisted the pressure of her finger and looked as if it resented the intrusion. Rebecca contemplated alternate uses for the whitish mass, since it was obvious that it was never going to burst forth from the oven, a mouthwatering, golden-brown, prize-winning loaf. Finally, since she could think of nothing better, she simply dumped the mass of dough onto a cookie sheet, shoved it into the oven, and threw another piece of wood into the ancient stove, hoping for the best.