pitiful wailings lost in the sea wind and the roar of the surf that would soon claim them as its own. Then the vision was gone. Only the weathered house remained on the beach and, far off at the opposite end, the tiny cabin.
“Well, we won’t have many neighbors, will we?” Brad said finally, and Elaine had a sinking sensation in her stomach. Brad had already made up his mind. She pulled free of his encircling arm and started moving up the beach.
“Come on,” she said. “We might as well see what it’s like.” Brad trotted silently after her, ignoring the negative tone in her voice.
They had walked once around the house when Harney Whalen arrived, appearing suddenly out of the woods.
“Didn’t think you folks were here yet,” he called to them. “There wasn’t any car out on the road.”
“We walked along the beach,” Brad replied, extending his hand to the approaching police chief. Whalen ignored the gesture, instead mounting the steps to the porch and fishing in his pocket for keys.
“It’s not in very good shape. I haven’t even had it cleaned since the last people … left.”
Brad and Elaine exchanged a look at his slight hesitation, but neither one of them commented on it.
“The place seems to be sound enough,” Brad remarked as Harney opened the front door.
“All the old houses are sound,” Whalen responded. “We knew how to build them back then.”
“How old is it?”
“Must be about fifty or sixty. If you want I suppose I could figure it out exactly. Don’t see any point in it, though.” His tone said clearly to Brad, Don’t bother me with foolish questions.
But Elaine plunged in. “Did your family build it?” she asked. Whalen looked at her sharply, then his face cleared.
“Might say we did; might say we didn’t. We sold the land the house is on and my grandfather helped build the house, then we bought it back when the Barons … left.” Again there was the slight hesitation, and again the Randalls exchanged a look. Brad wondered how much more there was to the story and why the chief didn’t want to tell them all of it Then he looked around and realized that Whalen hadn’t been kidding when he said the place hadn’t been cleaned.
If it hadn’t been for the layer of dust covering everything, Brad would have sworn the house was inhabited. Magazines and newspapers lay open on the chairs and floor, and the remains of a candle, burned to the bottom, sat bleakly on a table. There wasn’t much furniture — only a sofa and two chairs — and what there was had obviously been obtained secondhand.
“They left in a hurry, didn’t they?” Brad asked.
“Like I told you, skipped right out on me,” Whalen said. Then, before Brad could comment further, he began telling them about the house.
“That’s a double fireplace over there. The other side opens in the kitchen, and between the two of them the downstairs stays pretty warm. There’s a bedroom through that door that I suppose you’d want to use, unless you’ve got kids. If you do, I’d put them in there, just in case of fire. It’s a lot easier to get out of the first floor than the second.”
“We don’t have children,” Elaine said, and stuck her head in the bedroom. It was a large room, facing the beach, and one wall was partly brick. She heard Whalen behind her explaining.
“The brick’s part of the fireplace. The whole house is built around the fireplaces. You’d be surprised how much heat comes through those bricks, especially if you keep fires going in both rooms. Don’t know why they don’t build houses like that anymore — with all the talk about energy, you’d think they’d want to. But no, they build them with the fireplaces on an outside wall, and you can kiss the heat good-bye.
“If you go through there,” he went on, “there’s the bathroom — that opens into the kitchen as well. It’s not so convenient for guests, but for whoever’s living here it works just fine.”
Elaine followed his directions and found herself in a small and incredibly grimy bathroom. She went through it and into the kitchen, where she stared at the forbiddingly large and ungainly wood stove. It seemed to challenge her, and she glared at it, silently telling the stove that come what may, she would learn to make it behave. But she wasn’t too sure.
The kitchen was as filthy as the bathroom. The pots and pans used for the preparation of what had apparently been the last tenants’ final meal were still stacked unwashed in the sink. Elaine swallowed hard, wondering if she would be expected to clean up the mess in the event they rented the place, and pushed on into the dining room.
The table was set, and at each place there was the remains of a half-eaten meal. The food had long since decayed, but from the looks of things it was an abandoned dinner. In the center of the table an ancient glass kerosene lamp stood, and Elaine could see that it was empty: whoever had lived here must have gotten up in the middle of dinner and left without even putting the lamp out. The lamp — God knew how much later — had simply burned itself out.
She was about to ask Whalen what had happened — why his tenants had “skipped out” in the middle of dinner — when she became aware that Brad was already talking to the police chief.
“How much would you want if you were to sell the place?” he was asking. Elaine felt her stomach sink again, and was relieved to hear Whalen’s reply.
“It’s not for sale,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument “It was a mistake when my grandfather sold the land in the first place. I won’t repeat that mistake.”
“You’re going to pass it on to your children?”
“I never married,” Harney replied. “Got lots of family, though. Most of the town is related to me one way or another. I wouldn’t be surprised if my deputy wound up with this place — he’s some kind of nephew.”
“Well, let’s talk about a lease, then,” Brad said.
“Why don’t we look at the upstairs?” Elaine interrupted.
Whalen shrugged and pointed the way toward the staircase that separated the living room from the dining room. He stayed downstairs as Brad followed Elaine to the second floor.
As soon as they were alone Elaine turned to her husband. “My God, Brad, it’s a mess,” she began.
Brad laughed “Of course it’s a mess, and I’ll bet we can get it cheap. But picture it cleaned up. It’s sound as a dollar and the location is perfect Peace, quiet, and an unbeatable view. All it needs is a coat of paint on the inside and it’ll be wonderful.”
“But there’s no electricity,” Elaine protested.
“Well, you’ve always said you longed for the simple life,” Brad teased.
Elaine wasn’t amused “Not this simple,” she said, frowning. Then, at the look of deep disappointment on her husband’s face, she relented “Brad, it’ll be so much work, you won’t get anything done on your book for weeks!”
“I can think while I paint,” Brad said “It won’t be like Seattle, where I have to keep my mind on my work every minute. And chopping wood is good exercise. I could stand to lose a few pounds.” He patted his flat firm stomach with the confidence of a man who hadn’t gained an ounce in ten years.
“If I have to cook on that stove, you’ll lose more than a few pounds.”
“You can learn,” Brad said, and there was a pleading tone to his voice that Elaine had rarely heard in the twelve years of their marriage.
“You really want it, don’t you?” she asked quietly, looking deep into his eyes.
He nodded. “I love it,” he said. “I don’t know exactly why, but I have a feeling about it It’s as though the whole place is calling out to me. Elaine, if I’m going to be able to write that book at all, I’m going to do it here.”
She gave in, as she always did. If Brad wanted it that badly, she would learn to live with it “All right,” she said, smiling with a confidence she didn’t feel. “We might as well have a look around up here and see how bad it is.”
“You mean it?” Brad asked eagerly. And seeing the look on his face, Elaine realized that she did mean it Her smile turned genuine.
“Come on, Randall, let’s see how much work it’s going to take to make this place livable.”
Harney Whalen was not waiting for them downstairs.
They found him on the beach in front of the house, his eyes fixed on the horizon. When they followed his gaze Brad and Elaine saw nothing but the sea and the sky, meeting darkly in a low bank of fog that seemed to be
