a thermos.
“I thought you might be able to use this,” she said cheerfully. “The first couple of days we were here I couldn’t get the coffee to perk at all.” She pulled the top off the thermos and the room filled with the aroma of fresh, strong coffee. Elaine poured three cups and immediately took a sip from one of them.
“I may live,” she sighed. Then she looked questioningly at Rebecca. “Did you see Jeff?”
“Jeff? Isn’t he here?”
“I thought I heard him go out just before I got up,” Elaine replied. “I think he was going out to look for wreckage.”
“He’s not on the beach,” Rebecca said.
“Probably went the other way,” Brad suggested. “But I don’t think he’ll find anything.”
Chip Connor found Harney at his desk, sourly going over the report Chip had left there the night before. The chief looked up at him and pushed the file aside.
“You expect me to do anything about that?” he asked.
“It’s our job,” Chip pointed out.
“Anything stolen?”
“Not as far as Glen could tell. But you should see the place,” Chip added. “It’s a mess.”
“Well, that’s the way things go sometimes,” Whalen said, unconcerned. “If nothing was stolen then what’s the big deal?”
“You mean you aren’t going to do anything?” Chip couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No,” Whalen said heavily, “I’m not.”
Chip’s eyes narrowed angrily. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Harn. It seems like lately you just don’t give a damn what goes on around here.”
“I don’t give a damn about what happens to outsiders,” Whalen corrected. “And I have my reasons.”
“I know about your reasons,” Chip replied. “Granddad told me all about it. But the past is the past, Harney. All that happened years ago. Things change.”
“Some things change. Some don’t.= Some things can be forgiven, and some can’t. I haven’t forgotten what happened to my grandparents. Never will. And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want any outsiders hanging around this town. They’re dangerous.”
“It seems to me that this town’s more dangerous for them than they are for us,” Chip countered.
“That’s the way things are here.” A hatred came into Whalen’s voice, a tone that Chip had never heard before. “When my grandparents first came here it was dangerous for them. The Indians didn’t like what was going on and they did their damnedest to get rid of all the whites. But my grandparents hung on and they learned to live here. My daddy even married a girl who was part Indian, but I guess you know about that, don’t you?”
Chip nodded, wondering what Whalen was getting at.
“Well, the Indians went away after a while, up north, and left us alone. But they always said the place would be no good for strangers. And it hasn’t been. The lumbermen tried to come in here, but it wasn’t any good for them.”
“That was your doing,” Chip said. “First your grandfather’s, then yours.”
“I didn’t renew a lease, that’s all,” Whalen said mildly. “But they should have gone away then. They didn’t. They tried to stay and fish. And it didn’t work.”
“I heard,” Chip said dully.
“Well, it’s been that way ever since,” Whalen said. “Every now and then strangers come, and they always bring trouble. But it’s just like the Indians said. The trouble always flies back in their faces. And you know something, Chip? There’s not a damned thing we can do about it.”
“You don’t even try.”
“Not anymore, no,” Whalen agreed. “I used to but it never did any good. So I live with it. Can’t say it bothers me particularly.” He picked up the folder containing Chip’s report on the vandalism at Glen Palmer’s gallery. “So don’t expect me to do anything about this. I won’t find anything — anybody could have done it and there’s nothing to look for. If I were you I’d forget it. You just tell Palmer, if he wants to stay in Clark’s Harbor, he’d better expect things like this.”
Chip nodded his head absently and started to leave. But before he got to the door he remembered something and turned back.
“Did you see Doc Phelps yesterday?”
“Yeah.” Whalen said the word tonelessly, as if there were nothing more to add, but Chip pressed him.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing he could find. I just didn’t feel very well the other night, so I decided to have him take a look. Must have been indigestion.”
Whalen wondered briefly why he was lying to Chip, why he didn’t want to tell Chip about his “spells,” then decided it was just none of Chip’s business. Besides, the spells weren’t serious. If Phelps couldn’t find out what was causing them there wasn’t any point in talking about them.
“Well, if you need me call me on the radio. I’m going to give Glen Palmer a hand today, but I’ll leave the radio open.”
Whalen scowled at his deputy. “I don’t suppose it’s any of my business what you do on your days off, but I think you’re wasting your time. You get involved with Palmer and you’ll get in trouble.”
“I don’t see how,” Chip said, annoyed at Whalen.
“That’s the way it happens, that’s all,” Harney said flatly. He pulled a file from the top drawer of his desk, and opened it, as if to dismiss Chip.
But as the door to his office closed behind his deputy, Harney Whalen looked up from the file he had been pretending to be reading. His eyes fastened vacantly on the closed door but he didn’t really see it. Instead he saw Chip’s face, but it was not quite the face he knew so well. There was something different about the face Harney Whalen visualized.
Something strange.
That was it, he thought to himself.
Chip’s become a stranger to me.
Then he put the thought aside and returned to the file in front of him.
“Want a beer?” Glen asked as Brad came through the front door. He and Chip were leaning against one of the display cases admiring their work. The mess was gone, the shelves were back up, and all but one of the display cases had been repaired.
“I thought you said it was destroyed,” Brad said, puzzled.
“I guess it wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Glen replied a little sheepishly. “Not that I could have fixed it myself, of course.”
“He’s been fussing around, getting in the way all day,” Chip said. “I told him to go out and paint a picture but he wouldn’t.”
“Well, if you can get along without him I’ll drag him down to the library with me.”
“The library?” Chip asked. “What’s at the library?”
Brad glanced at Glen and Glen nodded his head. “If he doesn’t think I’m crazy,” he said, “he’s not likely to think you are.” He turned to Chip. “Brad has a theory about what’s going on around here.”
“It has to do with the storms,” Brad said. “They seem to affect Glen’s son and I’m wondering if they might be affecting somebody else too.”
Chip frowned, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”
“I’m not sure I do either,” Brad said. “But it just seems as though too many ‘accidents’ have happened out here. I’m just trying to find out if they really are accidents.”
“You mean the drownings?” Chip asked.
“Not just the drownings,” Glen answered. “There’s also what happened here, and Miriam Shelling, and my dog. It all just seems like too much.”
“I don’t know what you think you’ll find out,” Chip said. “Harney Whalen sure doesn’t seem too interested.”
“What does he think is going on?” Glen asked carefully. He’d learned to be careful with Chip on the subject of Whalen.
