“Stories. Stories about things that happened around here a long time ago. Long before I was even born. For instance, he told me why Harn hates strangers so much.”
“You want to tell me?”
“It’s a pretty ugly story.” He paused a moment, then swallowed. When he spoke again, his voice was strained.
“Harney watched his grandparents being murdered when he was a little boy.”
Brad’s eyes widened. “Say that again, please?”
“When Harn was a little boy — maybe seven, eight years old — his grandparents were murdered on the beach. Harney watched it happen.”
“Holy Christ,” Brad muttered. “Who did it?”
“Nothing was ever proven but everyone seemed to think it was a group of people who were interested in lumbering the area. Maybe even the man who built this house.”
“Baron? I thought he was a fisherman. He died by getting caught in his own fishing nets.”
“Just like Pete Shelling,” Chip agreed. “But he only became a fisherman after Harn canceled his lumbering lease. Anyway, whoever killed Harn’s grandparents, they were strangers, and Harn’s hated strangers ever since. Only now it’s getting out of hand.”
“What can I do?” Brad asked.
“I was wondering if maybe you could talk to him,” Chip replied.
“Me? Haven’t you forgotten something? I’m a stranger here too, and yesterday he as much as accused me of murder. What makes you think Whalen would talk to me?”
“I don’t know,” Chip said nervously. “I just thought maybe if you could go down there — maybe to talk about something being wrong with the house — and sort of draw him out. Maybe you could tell if he’s all right or not.”
Brad turned the idea over in his mind, wondering if it could possibly work. If the chief were obsessive, as Chip seemed to think, Whalen certainly wouldn’t open up to him. But on the other hand, his refusal to talk just might tell him something too.
“Well, I suppose I could try,” he agreed without much conviction. “But I can’t promise you anything. Don’t expect me to go down and talk to him for five minutes, then be able to tell you if he’s sane or not. It just isn’t that simple. Besides, he’ll probably throw me out of his office.”
“But you’d be able to tell if he’s reasonable or not, wouldn’t you?”
“I can tell you that right now. I don’t think Whalen’s reasonable, and I never have. But what I think doesn’t constitute either a medical or a legal opinion. All it means is that as far as I can tell he’s a rigid person with some pretty strong prejudices. That doesn’t make him crazy. All it makes him is difficult.”
“But what about Glen? What about what Harney’s doing to him?”
“So far he hasn’t done anything except make a lot of wild accusations. And he hasn’t even done that on the record. I mean, he hasn’t charged Glen with anything. Or has he?”
Chip shook his head. “No. But I think he’s going to.”
“Do you? I don’t. I don’t think Whalen has the vaguest idea of what’s going on, and he certainly doesn’t have anything to use against Glen Palmer, or anybody else. And I’ll tell you something else — I don’t think he’s ever going to make sense out of this mess. I’m not sure there
Something stirred in Chip’s mind — a connection only half-made, but he was sure it was an important connection.
“What happens to Robby?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Brad confessed. He made a gesture encompassing the books around him. “I’ve been trying to find something similar, but so far there isn’t anything. Even Robby isn’t sure what happens to him. The storms excite him but he doesn’t remember what he does during them.”
The connection clicked home in Chip’s mind. Whalen’s visit to Doc Phelps. Was it really indigestion? And other things, little things. The day he had worked with Glen, undisturbed. It had been stormy that day and Whalen had never called him. And that night the Hortons’ boat had gone on the rocks. He searched his mind frantically, trying to remember where Harney Whalen had been each time something had gone wrong in Clark’s Harbor. And he couldn’t remember. All he knew was that usually Harney had been home. Except … who knew if he was at home or somewhere else?
Chip made up his mind to have a talk with Doc Phelps. Then, and only then, would he talk to Brad Randall. After all, Randall was a stranger, and Harney Whalen was his uncle.
In Clark’s Harbor the natives stuck together.
28
The leaden sides over the Olympic Peninsula were dropping a soft mist on the small graveyard that overlooked Clark’s Harbor, but there were no umbrellas raised above the heads of the tiny group of people who watched as Rebecca Palmer was laid to rest.
Lucas Pembroke closed his bible and began reciting the prayers for Rebecca’s soul from memory, his eyes closed not only in reverence, but so that no one would see the sorrow he was feeling for Rebecca.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …”
As the words droned automatically from his lips the minister wondered how much longer he would continue to come to Clark’s Harbor, how much longer he would be able to tolerate the coldness that emanated from the village, how much longer, and how many more deaths, it would take before he turned his back on the little settlement nestled by the harbor.
Glen Palmer, holding Missy and Robby close, stood bare-headed in the rain, with Brad and Elaine Randall flanking him. They stood at the end of the open grave, and as the coffin was slowly lowered into the pit Missy began sobbing quietly. Elaine immediately knelt beside the child and gathered her into her arms. Robby, his face frozen in stoic acceptance, watched impassively, but as the coffin disappeared from his view a tear welled in his eye, overflowed, and ran unnoticed down his cheek.
A few yards away, his hands fingering his gloves nervously, Chip Connor stood with his grandfather, Mac Riley. Every few seconds Chip glanced at Glen, nodding slightly, as if to encourage his friend. The gesture went unheeded. Glen’s eyes remained fastened on his wife’s casket, his features a study in confusion and anguish.
At the fringe of the group, not really a part of it but observing everything, Merle Glind and the village librarian stood clucking together under the protection of a newspaper, their inquisitive eyes darting from face to face, filing away the reactions of everyone there for future discussion and reference.
As the Reverend Pembroke finished his prayers and picked up a clod of earth to sprinkle over the casket, he noticed a flash of movement in the trees beyond the graveyard. But when he looked more carefully, hoping to see who — or what — was there, there was nothing. Pembroke bit his lip, crushed the lump of earth, and dropped it into the grave.
It was like pulling a trigger. Missy Palmer, her quiet tears suddenly bursting forth into loud sobs, clung to Elaine Randall; and Robby, his hand tightening in his father’s, suddenly looked up.
“I–I—” he began, but his words were choked off as he began to tremble and sob. Glen quickly sank to the ground beside him and held him.
“It’s all right, son,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Then he scooped up a handful of damp earth, put it in Robby’s hand, and led him to the edge of the grave. Together, father and son back farewell to Rebecca.
“I’m so sorry, Glen,” Chip said softly when it was over. “If there’s anything I can do — anything at all—”
“Find out who did it,” Glen pleaded. “Just find out who killed her.”
Chip glanced quickly at Brad, who just as quickly shook his head slightly. Neither of them had yet told Glen of Brad’s suspicion, and this was not the time to do it.
