The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

on.

Just never at night.

The hesitant click of her footsteps resonated down the hall, fading reverberations fusing into a dissonant hum. The lump of keys in her hand rattled, and she stumbled as though drowsy. A damp smell hung in the air. Can't see a thing. When she judged she'd gone far enough from the draped front windows, she switched on the flashlight, swinging the beam past a glass case commemorating the town's war dead. One side of the building housed an auditorium, long unused, and she played the light across office doors on the other side of the corridor: county clerk, registry.

A door stood open. The beam rippled across letters reversed on frosted glass, then planed over surfaces within. Above a row of file cabinets, window shades blocked the night. I suppose I can chance a bit more light now. Stepping into the office, she closed the door quietly behind her. I am the law after all. Instead of flicking on the overheads, she groped her way to a desk and switched on a gooseneck lamp, twisting it to face the wall.

The cabinets loomed like gray sentinels. She tugged the first drawer--it made a low grinding, suggestive of metal teeth, but didn't budge. However, a desk drawer slid open smoothly, revealing pens, index cards, and a tray full of keys marked with letters on bits of tape. A moment later, she clanked open the A-G drawer.

Inside lay a mass of crushed papers, and she pawed hastily through them. Only the Chandler file sported a typed tab, and she hefted it to the desk, swiveling the lamp so that light pooled on the blotter.

She paged through arrest records, but the snapshots shocked her so that she had to lean against the desk until the trembling stopped. The woman had been slashed apart. Pudding seemed to seep from the tatters of her dress. She turned the photos facedown and flipped open a small notebook. As the pen scratched loudly, the shadow of her own hand flowed massively across the page.

Finally, she returned to the photographs.

Raising her head, she confronted the dark.

After a moment, she moved to the next desk and switched on that lamp as well, and a second bright puddle gave shape to the shadows.

He answered on the first ring. Her voice sounded faint, far away.

'No, I'm all right,' she told him. 'Just a little rattled. I've been looking at Polaroids of the crime scene. Yes. About what you'd expect. Not much here we didn't already know. The initial report is sealed.'

He perched on the bed. She had dropped him at his hotel before going on to the courthouse. 'Sealed?'

'By court order.'

'Can't you open it, Kit?'

At first there was silence on the other end of the line. 'You don't understand. It's probably in a safe somewhere. There's just a card here referencing it.'

'Why would it be sealed?'

'Courtesy probably. I told you. Influential local family. All I've got here is some incidental information filed by the officers who went to the house. Doesn't tell us much. She was a teacher apparently. There's something weird though.'

'What?' His own voice grated in his ears.

'Mrs. Chandler's maiden name. It's the same. Chandler. According to this anyway. Could be a mistake. Did you say something?'

'Never mind. What else?'

'A business address I didn't know about and...'

'Any other family?'

'I'm not sure.'

'Could you check?' he snapped. After a pause, he added, 'Please.'

'Just a minute.'

He heard the phone clack down on the desk. Hollow footsteps faded; then he heard the muffled clang of a file drawer.

'Hello?' Soft rustlings accompanied her voice. 'Yes, it's here.' Loudly, she rifled pages. 'Another boy and a girl.'

'How old?' Tension twisted deep in his stomach.

'Uh, the girl, let's see, she'd be...seventeen.'

He forced himself to inhale calmly. 'And the boy?'

'I guess he'd be about...thirteen or so.'

His lungs emptied out, purging him.

'Barry? Are you there?'

He could hear her voice, but bright spots pulsed around him.

'Barry?'

'Yeah.' Light-headed, he breathed again.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing. I...I'll tell you about it when I see you. Get out of there now. I'm...not feeling too well. My head.'

'Of course.'

'We need to plan our next step. Come over and...'

'You need to rest. I'll pick you up in the morning, and we'll go get your car.'

'Come now.'

'Quit giving me orders.'

'You have to...'

'I have to take these keys back now.'

The line went dead in his ear.

At least I can still hang up on him. She slumped back in the chair. A bit of light burglary, some mild illegal entry. Throw in 'withholding information pertinent to a criminal investigation.' Not bad for one night. She scooped the contents of the file back into the folder. What else would I do if he asked?

The phone rang.

'Look, I told you--I have to take these keys back. We can start looking for Ramsey in the morning and...'

She stopped talking. She knew.

'No need to look further, dear woman.' The words pushed through with a mushy quality. 'She will die. Can your limited mentality comprehend this? If the boy spots anyone around, if he so much as suspects the police are after him, he will take her life.' The voice slurred and choked. 'You cannot imagine what he is.' Groaning wind all but drowned out his words. 'And for my part, I cannot let you endanger her with your meddling. Do you understand? I cannot allow it.'

She leaned over the phone, as though sucked in by his words, and she gripped the receiver so tightly her fingers ached. 'If you have any information regarding this...'

Branches rattled in a sudden gust; then the dial tone rose loudly.

'Hello?' Panic settled on her. Get him back on the line. Try star sixty-nine. Her numbed fingers stabbed at the buttons. Get him talking, get him to say something useful. Act like a cop for once.

In the distance, she could hear a phone ringing. Not over the instrument, but faintly through the windows behind her. She replaced the receiver, and the ringing ceased.

The phone booth outside.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Don't scream. She bit down, hard. Don't make a sound.

I'm unarmed. She had to will her numbed fingers to move, to pick up the phone again, to punch out the number of Barry's hotel, but panic boiled through her. three and then eight and