Cry for the Strangers

carefully, pleased to see that the makeshift fence she had rigged up around it seemed to be working — the little cedar showed no new signs of having served as dessert for the neighborhood deer. She was about to go back into the cabin when she heard the first faint sounds of the siren. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, but as it grew louder she frowned a little. A fire truck? An ambulance? It was louder now, headed in her direction — but there was nothing out here except their own cabin. Deciding it must be Harney Whalen after a speeding car that hadn’t had the sense to slow down as it passed through the Clark’s Harbor speed zone, she went on into the cabin. But when the siren stopped abruptly a few seconds later and she thought she heard sounds of shouting, she went back outside.

There were voices coming from the woods now. She thought she could hear someone calling out, “Over this way,” but she wasn’t sure.

Rebecca took off her apron, tossed it onto a chair just inside the door, and strode out onto the beach. When she thought she was close to the place where the shouting had been going on, she picked her way carefully over the driftwood barrier and headed into the woods. A minute later she wished she’d followed the road.

The ground was nearly covered with ferns and salal, and everywhere she stepped there seemed to be an ancient, crumbling log buried in the undergrowth. She stopped after a while and strained her ears, trying to pick up the sounds of the voices that had drifted so plainly over the beach. Finally she called out.

“Hello? Is anybody out here?”

“Over here,” a voice came back. “Who’s that?”

“Rebecca Palmer.”

“Stay away,” the voice called. “Go back to the house and stay there. Someone will come over in a little while.”

Rebecca paused, debating what she should do. It didn’t take her long to make up her mind. She plunged onward toward the anonymous voice, annoyed at being told what to do on what she was almost sure was her own property.

After a few seconds she thought she could make out a flash of movement off to the left. Whatever was happening, it was definitely happening on the Palmers’ land.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“It’s me, Mrs. Palmer,” the voice came back, “Chief Whalen. Just go back home and I’ll send someone down as soon as I can.”

The hell I will, Rebecca thought If something’s going on, I have a right to know what it is. She’d be damned if Harney Whalen was going to tell her what to do. She pressed on through the tangle of undergrowth and suddenly broke through into a small clearing. Harney Whalen and Chip Connor and a man Rebecca didn’t recognize stood in the clearing, looking upward. Automatically, Rebecca’s eyes followed theirs. Suddenly she wished she had done what Whalen had told her to.

Rebecca began screaming.

“Oh, God,” Whalen muttered under his breath. Then, aloud, he said, “Take care of her, will you Chip? Get her out of here.” He pulled his eyes away from Rebecca, and looked once more up into the trees.…

8

Miriam Shelling’s body hung limply ten feet above the ground. Her eyes bulged grotesquely from her blackened face, and her tongue hung loosely from her mouth. The rancid smell of human excrement drifted on the breeze — Miriam had evacuated her bowels at the moment her neck had snapped.

A small group of people stared uncomprehendingly up at her, their stupor unbroken by Rebecca Palmer’s screams. At the order from the chief, Chip Connor separated himself from the group and went to Rebecca, leading her away by the same route as she had come.

“Oh, God,” Rebecca repeated over and over again. “What happened to her? What happened to her? Last night—” she broke off suddenly, but Chip prompted her.

“What about last night?” he asked. They emerged from the forest and Chip helped her over the pile of driftwood, then gently guided her toward the cabin.

“Nothing,” Rebecca said. For some reason she didn’t want to tell the deputy that her husband had seen, even talked with, Miriam Shelling on the beach the evening before. She remained silent as they walked.

“Will you be all right?” Chip asked when they were inside the cabin.

“I’ll be fine,” Rebecca replied weakly. “Well, not fine exactly, but you go ahead and do what you have to do. I’ll take care of myself.”

Chip looked at Rebecca carefully, wondering if what she had seen could have put her into a state of shock; then, realizing that he probably wouldn’t recognize shock if he saw it, he decided to go back to the clearing. When Doc Phelps arrived, Chip would have him come over and check on Mrs. Palmer. Patting her gently on the hand and assuring her that everything would be all right, Chip started back to the small clearing.

Rebecca watched him go, strangling back a sob. As soon as he disappeared from sight she wished she’d told him that she wasn’t all right. She shivered a little, and put on a sweater even though the day was bright and warm, then built up the banked fire until it blazed hotly.

She said she was waiting for something, Glen had said last night. She was sitting on a piece of driftwood, and she was waiting for something. Suddenly Rebecca had a vision of Miriam Shelling sitting quietly, watching the beach, waiting for Death to come and take her to her husband. But why the beach, Rebecca wondered. Why out here?

In the clearing, Harney Whalen was wondering the same thing. He was remembering the previous day, too, when Miriam Shelling had appeared in his office demanding that he do something. She had been upset — very upset. He searched his mind, trying to remember every detail of what she had said, trying to find something — anything — that should have warned him that she was about to do something drastic. But there was nothing. She had only been demanding that he find whoever had killed her husband. And then, a sudden hunch coming into his mind, he left the clearing and beat his way through the woods to the beach. He looked out across the expanse of sand, then glanced north and south, taking a quick bearing. His hunch was right — Miriam had chosen a spot almost directly onshore from the place Pete Shelling had gotten caught in his own nets. Wondering if it meant anything or was merely a coincidence, he retreated back to the clearing. Doctor Phelps was waiting for him.

“Why hasn’t she been taken down?” the old doctor demanded. He stared accusingly at Whalen over the rims of his glasses.

“I wanted to wait for you,” Whalen said, trying not to feel defensive. But the doctor, eighty-six years old and still going strong, had treated Harney Whalen when the police chief was a child and never let him forget that as far as he was concerned, Whalen was a child still.

“Well, it’s pretty obvious she’s dead, isn’t it?” Phelps said sourly. “Am I supposed to climb up there myself to see what happened?”

Whalen was about to begin climbing the tree himself when Chip Connor reappeared.

“Chip? Think you can get her down?”

Chip forced himself to stare up into the tree once more, though his stomach rebelled every time his eyes fell on Miriam’s face. He examined the branches carefully.

“No problem,” he said out loud. Privately he wondered how he was going to be able to lower the body to the ground without — he broke off the thought without completing it and started up the tree. The climb was easy — the branches almost formed a ladder. A minute later he was level with the branch from which Miriam hung. Though it was invisible from below, a neat coil of rope lay in the fork of the tree. Carefully, Chip examined the knot from which Miriam was suspended, though a glance had told him how to get her down. All that held Miriam to the tree was a double slip knot, the kind children make in a string when they first discover how to knit it into a rope. He picked up the coil of rope and dropped it down. Then he made his way back to the ground.

“Give me a hand, will you, Harn?” he asked. He took hold of the rope that now dangled from the tree and yanked on it He felt a double jerk as the knot gave way. Then, with the chief helping him, he gently lowered the corpse out of the tree.