packed.”
“Maybe we’d better make reservations,” Elaine wondered aloud.
“Oh, no need for that,” Merle said. “No need at all. I’ll make sure there’s a table for you. What time do you want to eat?”
“Seven? Seven thirty?”
Merle Glind wrote himself a hasty note and smiled up at the Randalls. “There you are. All taken care of, see? No need for reservations at all — just leave it to me.”
Two minutes later, in their room, Elaine threw herself onto the bed and burst into laughter. “I don’t believe it,” she cried. “He’s too perfect Do you know, Brad, I think he actually didn’t realize he was taking a reservation? It’s incredible!”
Brad lay down on the bed beside his wife and kissed her gently. “Now what do you think?” he asked.
“I think we have enough time before dinner,” Elaine replied. She began unbuttoning Brad’s shirt. …
Merle Glind sat nervously at his desk and his eyes kept flicking to the stairway as he dialed the phone. It rang twice, then was answered. Briefly, he filled Harney Whalen in on what he’d found out about the Randalls. When he was done there was a silence before the police chief spoke.
“So they’re planning to stay awhile, are they? Well, maybe they will, and then again, maybe they won’t Thanks Merle, you’ve been a big help.”
Merle Glind, feeling pleased with himself, put the receiver back on the cradle, then went into the dining room, where he put a small sign on one of the tables. “Reserved,” the sign said.
6
Harney Whalen glanced at the clock, drummed his fingers nervously on the worn oak surface of his desk, then rose and paced to the window, where he stood staring down the street, as if his stares could hurry the arrival of Chip Connor. His deputy was late, and that was unusual. Anything unusual worried Harn Whalen, and too many unusual things were happening in Clark’s Harbor the last couple of days. First Pete Shelling (nothing more than an unfortunate accident, of course), and now these Randall people, acting like they wanted to move to the Harbor. Now
Harney moved away from the window and unconsciously flexed his still-solid body, patting his firm belly with the palm of his right hand. Then he reseated himself at his desk, pulled the meager file on Pete Shelling to a spot in front of him, and read it once more. He was still reading it, scowling, when Chip Connor finally appeared.
“Thought you’d decided to take the evening off,” Harney observed as he glanced at Chip.
“Just having a little dinner,” Chip replied mildly. “Anything doing?”
“Not really, except I had a call from Merle Glind a few minutes ago.” Chip’s brow arched curiously as he waited for the chief to continue. “Seems they think they’d like to settle down here for a while,” Harney said.
“They?”
“That guy Randall and his wife at the inn.”
Chip frowned. That spelled trouble. As long as he’d known Harn Whalen, which was all of his life, Harn had had an aversion to strangers, a distrust that sometimes seemed to go beyond the natural feelings of most of the Harborites. Chip supposed it was not really so strange. Harn knew everyone in town — he was related to half of them, including Chip — and his knowledge of them made his job much easier. He knew them all inside out — who were the troublemakers, who were the drunks, and what was the best way to handle everybody. But strangers were an unknown quantity, and Harn Whalen didn’t like unknown quantities. Strangers upset the balance of the town. For a while no one reacted the way he was supposed to react, and that made Harn Whalen’s life more difficult. And then there were the outsiders themselves to deal with. For Harn, that was the hardest part. Among his own people he was fine, but introduce him to a stranger and he’d clam right up. He’d watch them warily, from a distance, as if he half-expected them to do something to him. It had been that way with the Shellings for a long time after Pete and Miriam arrived in Clark’s Harbor. It had taken Harney nearly five years just to offer them a nod of greeting. Chip supposed he understood though. He felt much the same way himself. By the time he was as old as Harney, and as set in his ways, he’d probably have all the same reactions as the chief. But Harn was up to something now; that was for sure.
“What do they want here?” Chip said finally.
“Merle says the guy’s planning to write some kind of book and thinks this is a good place to do it.”
“Well,” Chip mused, “you’ve got to admit it’s quiet here.”
“And that’s the way I like it,” Harney said. “Won’t stay quiet, though, if the place fills up with city folk. They always bring their noise with them. Like Palmer and his wife.”
“They haven’t been much trouble,” Chip suggested.
“Pounding all day?” Whalen countered.
“Well, you can’t remodel a building without some pounding.”
Whalen grunted in reluctant assent. It was true, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He decided to shift gears. “Don’t know what he thinks he’ll accomplish by opening an art gallery here,” he grumbled. “Nobody’s going to buy his junk.”
“Then he won’t be here long, will he?” Chip grinned. “I’d think you’d be down there every day helping out. After all, the sooner he gets the place open, the sooner he’ll go broke, right?”
Harney looked sourly at his deputy but couldn’t help smiling.
“You’re too sharp for me, Chip. Too sharp by a long shot. So tell me, what’ll we do about the Randalls? I’m just not sure I can stomach another set of strangers right now. They upset me. And don’t give me any lectures about how I can’t keep the town the same forever — maybe I can’t, but as long as I’m chief of police, I’ll damn well try.”
“What are they going to do about a place to live?”
“Merle told them to come and talk to me.”
“Then it’s easy,” Chip suggested. “Just tell them the old house isn’t for rent.”
“I told that to the Palmers but it didn’t stop them. They just talked old Mrs. Pruitt into selling them that crummy cabin at the other end of the beach. If she’d have talked to me first, I’d have bought the cabin myself, but she didn’t No, I think the best thing to do is just try to talk them out of the whole idea. If that doesn’t work, I’ll rent the old Baron place to them. A month on Sod Beach in that wreck ought to change their minds for them.”
“You’re a devious old man, Harn,” Chip said with a smile.
“Not devious at all,” Whalen said. “I just don’t like strangers. Now, why don’t you get to work on Pete Shelling? The file’s right here.”
“What’s to work on?”
“Search me.” Harney shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned it was just an accident, but I figure if Miriam Shelling should come walking in here again, it wouldn’t hurt at all to be ‘working on the case,’ if you know what I mean.”
Chip laughed out loud.
“The old dog knows some old tricks, that’s all,” Harney said with a wink. A moment later he was gone and Chip Connor was alone in the tiny police station.
* * *
Glen Palmer watched the police chief drive past the gallery and started to wave, as he did every day. But suddenly he changed his mind and his hand dropped back to his side, the gesture uncompleted. What was the point? Whalen never returned the greeting, never even so much as glanced his way. Glen wasn’t sure if it was conscious rudeness or if the man was merely preoccupied, but he knew he resented it. The chief’s coldness seemed symbolic of the attitude of the whole town. Glen had come to believe that if he could only win the chief’s approval, his acceptance in Clark’s Harbor would begin. But so far he had been unable to make a single dent in Whalen’s shield of hostility. All in good time, he told himself for the hundredth time, all in good time.
That was also the attitude he was trying to take about the gallery itself, but it was more difficult every day. He glanced around at the front room. Tomorrow he would begin spending all his time on the display area. The office
