There was an off chance that what damage had been done could be repaired and Max could get at least one of the engines going. A close examination dashed his hopes, and he returned to the deck. He cast the beam of the flashlight ahead and immediately realized that the boat had drifted around and was now proceeding stern first. He grabbed a large bucket and ran to the bow, where he tied the bucket to one of the mooring lines. He threw the primitive sea anchor overboard, hoping the current would catch it with enough strength to pull the trawler around. Then he began to consider the advisability of abandoning the boat.
The wind seemed not to be slackening at all — if anything, its intensity was increasing, and it was an onshore wind. If he could rig a sail on the dinghy he just might make it back to safety. But if the sail failed to work the ebbing tide would carry him out to sea. It was this possibility that made up his mind for him.
If he stayed on the trawler and the sea anchor held, there was a good chance he could ride out the storm, providing he missed the rocks at the mouth of the harbor. But in the dinghy he would have no chance. True, the wind might carry him shoreward, but the combination of wind and tide would surely capsize him. If that happened he would be unconscious in ten minutes, dead in twenty. In daylight he might have risked it, counting on someone to come to his rescue. But at night, in the storm, he would be on his own. He decided to stay with the boat.
As he came to his decision another flash of lightning rent the sky and he tried to get his bearings. The sea anchor had worked, and the trawler was now riding with the tide, her bow into the wind. Far ahead, Max thought he could barely make out the jagged points of the reef, and he told himself that with a little luck he would clear them on the starboard side. He returned to the wheelhouse and lit another cigarette. All he could do was wait.
Harney Whalen parked his car in front of his house and hurried up the steps to the front door, pushing it open, then closing it behind him before he turned on the lights. His uniform was soaking wet; he felt cold clear through to his bones. And his heart was pounding.
He stripped off his dripping clothes and put on a robe, then turned up the heat, lit a fire in the fireplace, and mixed himself a strong brandy and water. He slugged the drink down, mixed another, then went to the bathroom. As the hot water streamed over him and the chill slowly dissipated, his pulse slowed, and by the time he stepped out of the shower, dried himself, and settled down in front of the fire to sip his second drink he felt much better. But he still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.
He remembered being out at Sod Beach, sitting in front of the fire, enjoying the rain and the solitude. He had listened to the storm bear down on the coast, even gotten up once to watch the thunderheads gather before moving in to lash out at Clark’s Harbor. He had built up the fire then and settled back into the chair, and begun to daydream. But he must have fallen asleep, or had one of his “spells,” for the next thing he remembered he was in his car, driving home. And try as he would, he couldn’t account for his uniform being soaked through: the car had been parked only ten or twenty yards from the Baron house. Surely his clothes wouldn’t have gotten that wet even if he had crawled the distance.
An image flickered in his mind for a split second, then disappeared: he thought he saw himself on the beach, walking in the storm, staring out to sea. And there was something else, something just beyond his vision. Shapes, familiar shapes, and they were calling to him. But everything was confused, and Whalen couldn’t decide whether he’d had a flash of an old memory or whether it was simply his imagination.
He mixed a third drink, weaker this time, and pondered the advisability of discussing the “spells” with Doc Phelps. But Phelps would insist on giving him a complete examination, and Harn wasn’t sure he wanted to go through that. You never knew what the doctors might find, and Harn was only a couple of years from retirement. No sense rocking the boat…
The ringing of the telephone broke his train of thought.
“Whalen,” he said automatically as he picked up the receiver.
“Harn? Where’ve you been?” Chip Connor’s voice sounded almost accusatory, and Whalen scowled.
“Out,” he said flatly. There was a slight pause, and Harney felt better as Chip’s sudden discomfort projected itself over the telephone line.
“I’ve been trying to get you all evening,” Chip said, his voice conciliatory now. “Thought you’d want to know a couple of fishermen checked into the inn.”
“Fishermen?” Whalen repeated.
“Couple guys from up to Port Angeles. Merle says they were heading to Grays Harbor but the storm drove them in here.”
Whalen shrugged indifferently. “They have any trouble?” he asked.
“Trouble? No, not that I know of. I just thought you’d want to know they were here.”
“Okay,” Harn said. “Thanks for calling.” He was about to hang up when he suddenly thought of something else. “Chip?”
“Yeah?”
“Anything happen today?”
“Nothing at all,” Chip told him. “Quiet as a tomb.”
“How’d you like what I did to Palmer?”
There was a silence, and for a moment Harn wasn’t sure Chip had heard him. He was about to repeat his question when his deputy spoke.
“I’m trying to act like it was an accident, Harn,” Chip said hesitantly.
“It wasn’t,” Harn growled.
“No, I guess it wasn’t.” There was another silence, longer than the previous one, as each man waited for the other to speak. Chip weakened first. “I told Palmer it was an accident, Chief.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” Whalen said. “I wish you’d just let him worry.”
Chip decided to let the matter drop. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
“Yeah,” Whalen said shortly. “See you in the morning.” He dropped the receiver back on its cradle, picked up his drink, and went to the window. He stared out at the storm, not quite seeing it, and his brow furrowed into a deep scowl. All in all, he decided, it had been a rotten day. And the worst of it was, there were parts of it he couldn’t even remember. Then he chuckled hollowly to himself, thinking that it didn’t much matter — the parts he couldn’t remember probably weren’t worth remembering anyway.
Jeff Horton glanced at his watch, then went to the window of his hotel room. He tried to make out the wharf a hundred yards away, but the storm was impenetrable. He looked once more at his watch. He had been in the room for nearly forty-five minutes; Max shouldn’t have taken more than ten to batten down the boat.
He turned from the window, pulled on his slicker, and left the room. He stopped downstairs and glanced at the bar, but Max wasn’t there. Only Merle Glind, perched on a stool, chattering amiably to a young policeman next to him. Jeff went out into the storm.
Even on the wharf the fury of the storm blinded him, and he moved slowly, peering up at each boat as he came abreast of it. Then he came to the empty slip.
The storm forgotten, Jeff stared at the gap which he was sure had been occupied by
There was no question in Jeff’s mind. The boat was
Max Horton was staring numbly out the windshield of the wheelhouse when the sheet of lightning tore the curtain of darkness from his eyes and he realized instantly that the boat was going on the rocks. They loomed dead ahead, only yards away, the sea swirling around them, churning itself into foam as it battered at the ancient barrier.
The imminent peril jerked him out of the lethargy he had sunk into during the past thirty minutes, and he grabbed a life jacket, securing it around his waist. Then he left the wheelhouse and began preparing the dinghy for launching. He pulled its cover free and released the lines that secured it to the davits, then began lowering it into the turbulent sea as it swung free.
He was too late.
