by John Saul
“We should go home,” Missy complained. “It’s cold and the rain’s starting to come down my neck.”
“We’re going home,” Robby explained. “We’re going to take the path through the woods, so we won’t get soaked.”
“I’d rather go along the beach,” Missy sulked. “I don’t like the woods. Or we could go into the old house and wait for the rain to stop.”
“The rain isn’t going to stop.” Robby grabbed his sister by the hand and began leading her toward the woods. “Besides, we aren’t supposed to go anywhere near that house. Mommy says empty houses can be dangerous.”
“It isn’t empty,” Missy replied. “There’s someone there. There’s been someone there all afternoon.”
Robby stopped and turned to the little girl. “That’s dumb,” he said. “Nobody lives there. Besides, how would you know if someone was there?”
“I just know,” Missy insisted.
Robby glanced at the old house, bleak and forbidding in the failing light, then pulled at Missy once more.
“Come on. If we aren’t home pretty soon, Daddy will come looking for us.” He started picking his way over the driftwood, looking back every few seconds to make sure Missy was behind him. Missy, more afraid of being left behind than of the woods, scrambled after him.
15
Max Horton glanced at the threatening sky, then adjusted the helm a few degrees starboard, compensating for the drift of the wind that buffeted the trawler.
“Jeff!” He waited a few seconds, then called again, louder. “Jeff, get your ass up here!”
His brother’s head appeared from below. “What’s up?”
“This storm’s going to be a real son-of-a-bitch. Take over up here while I figure out where’s the best place to put in.”
Jeff took over the helm and Max went below to pore over a chart. He switched on the Loran unit he’d installed a month earlier, then pinpointed their exact location on the chart that was permanently mounted on the bulkhead. They could probably make it to Grays Harbor, but it would be tricky. If the storm built at the rate it had been going for the last hour there was a good chance they’d be trying to batter their way into port through a full gale. He looked for something closer and found it. A minute later he was back at the wheel.
“Ever heard of Clark’s Harbor?” he asked Jeff.
Jeff thought a minute, then nodded. “It’s a little place—just a village. They’ve got a wharf though.”
“Well, I think we’d better head there. We could probably make it on down to Grays Harbor, but I don’t like the feel of things.” He pulled Osprey around to port and felt the roll change into a pitch as the boat responded to the rudder. The pitch was long and slow with both the wind and the sea at their stern, and Max chewed his lip tensely as he tried to gauge how much time he had before he’d have to bring the boat around, throw out a sea anchor, and ride it out.
“I told you we shouldn’t have come this far south,” Jeff muttered.
“Huh?”
“I said, I told you we should have stayed up north. We’ve heard the stories about the freak storms down here. This isn’t any big surprise!”
“It isn’t any big disaster either,” Max replied. “We’ve got the wind and the tide working for us, and we can make Clark’s Harbor in thirty minutes. Is there any coffee down there?” He jerked one thumb toward the galley, then quickly replaced his hand on the wheel as Osprey began drifting off course. Jeff disappeared and returned with a steaming mug, which he placed in a gimbaled holder near Max’s right hand. Then he lit two cigarettes and handed one to his brother. Max took the cigarette and grinned.
“Scared, kid?”
Jeff grinned back at Max, feeling no resentment at being called “kid.” Max had always called him that, but he had always used the term fondly, not patronizingly, and Jeff had never objected, even though both of them were now nearing thirty.
The trawler, a commercial fisherman, was their joint property, but Jeff always thought of it as Max’s boat. Max was the captain—always had been and always would be—and Jeff was a contented mate.
There was a two-year difference in their ages, but they had always been more like friends than brothers, even when they were children. Wherever Max had gone he had taken Jeff with him, not because their parents made him do it, but because he liked Jeff. If Max’s friends objected to the “kid” tagging along, they were no longer his friends.
They had bought Osprey four years ago, when Max was twenty-five and Jeff twenty-three. Jeff had been very worried the first year, sure that the immense loan would sink them even if the sea didn’t. But the sea had been kind to them, and it looked as though the loan would be paid off by the end of the current season—all they really needed was four or five more really good catches, and Max seemed to have a nose for fish.
It was Max’s nose that had brought them here today. The rest of the fleet that worked out of Port Angeles had stayed safely in the Strait, but Max had gotten up that morning and announced that he “smelled” a school of tuna to the south. They would go after it and spend the night in Grays Harbor before heading back north the following day.
He had been right. The hold was filled with tuna, and all had gone according to plan. Except for the storm. It had come upon them suddenly, as if from nowhere, giving them no time to complete the run south.
Now they were moving steadily if sluggishly through the heaving sea. A constant stream of rain mixed with salt spray battered against the windows of the wheelhouse, but Max held his course by compass, only occasionally glancing out into the gathering darkness. After some twenty minutes had passed in silence, he spoke.
“I’m going to have to send you outside.”
Jeff checked the buttons on his slicker and put on his rain hat.
“What am I looking for?”
“Chart shows some rocks in the mouth of the harbor. They should be well off the port bow, but keep a lookout. No sense piling this thing up when it’s almost paid for.”
Jeff left the wheelhouse and felt the wind buffet him. He clung to the lifelines strung along the length of the boat and made his way slowly forward until he was in the bow pulpit. He strained to see through the fading afternoon light, and his stomach knotted as he thought of what might happen if he failed to see the rocks.
And then they were there, sticking jaggedly above the surface, fingers of granite reaching up to grasp the unwary. Jeff waved frantically, but even before he made the gesture, he felt Osprey swinging slightly to starboard: Max must have seen the rocks at almost the same instant he had. He watched the water swirling and eddying around the reef as they swept past; then, when the danger had disappeared beyond the stern, he returned to the wheelhouse.
Max was finishing his coffee, one hand relaxing on the wheel, grinning cheerfully.
“You could have given them a little more room,” Jeff commented.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” Max replied. “Want to take her in?”
“You’re doing fine. I’ll get ready to tie up.”
A few minutes later, as the trawler crept into a vacant slip, Jeff jumped from the deck to the wharf and began securing the lines. On board, Max cut the engines.
Jeff had just finished tying the boat up when he became conscious of someone standing nearby watching him. He straightened up and nodded a greeting. “Some storm,” he offered.
“You planning to spend the night here?” Mac Riley said.
“On board,” Jeff replied.
“Storm’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” Riley said dourly. “Don’t think you can do it.”
“Do it? Do what?”
“Spend the night on that boat. We got a regulation against that here. Too dangerous.”
Max came out of the wheelhouse in time to hear the last, and jumped from the deck to join Jeff on the wharf.
“What do you mean, too dangerous?” he challenged. “You’ve got a good harbor here.”
“Didn’t say you don’
t,” Riley responded, unperturbed. “But in a storm like this anything can happen. So you won’t sleep on your boat.”
Max stared at the old man, annoyed. “I could take her out in the middle of the harbor and drop anchor.”
“You could just scuttle her right here too, but I don’t think you will.”
Max looked over his shoulder and saw the wind-whipped whitecaps that covered the small bay. All around him, securely moored though they were, the other boats rocked and groaned restlessly, complaining at their captivity.
“You got any suggestions?”
“The inn’s right up there,” Riley said, jerking a thumb shoreward.
Jeff and Max exchanged a look and nodded in unspoken agreement. While Max prepared the boat for the night, battening her down against the storm, Jeff and Riley started toward shore, the wind and spray whipping at their backs. As they hurried toward the Harbor Inn, a bolt of lightning flashed out of the sky and the roar of thunder rolled in from the angry sea.
The lobby of the inn was deserted, but when Jeff banged impatiently on the bell that sat on the counter Merle Glind appeared at the dining-room door. He blinked rapidly and stared at Jeff over the rims of his glasses.
“Something I can do for you?” he piped anxiously.
“A room,” Jeff said. “I need a room for the night.”
Merle bobbed his head, and scuttled around the end of the counter, flipped open the reservation book, and studied it intently. Then he peered up at the young man and frowned.
“I’ve got a room,” he announced victoriously, as if he had had to search for a highly unlikely cancellation. “Just one night?”
“Depends on how long the storm lasts,” Jeff explained. “My brother and I were heading for Grays Harbor, but it got so bad we put in here. If it blows over tonight we’ll head out tomorrow.”
Merle Glind pushed the register toward him, collected his money, and handed him a key.
“No baggage?”
“We’re not on vacation,” Jeff said. “All we need is a place to sleep.”
Glind nodded amiably and watched the fisherman go up the stairs. Then he returned to the dining room and climbed onto the barstool he had been occupying when the bell had interrupted him.
“Guests?” Chip Connor asked.
“Couple of fishermen coming in out of the rain,” Merle said. He peered out the window, seeing nothing but the reflected lights of the dining room wavering in the rivulets of water that ran down the glass. “Can’t say I blame them. Not fit for man nor beast out there tonight.” He frowned slightly. “One of them’s still out there.”
Chip slid off his own stool, and dropped two dollars onto the bar. “Order me another, will you? I’d better give Harn a call. You know how he is.”
“Use the phone behind the bar,” Glind said. “Save yourself a dime.”
Chip suppressed a grin and didn’t tell Merle that he had never intended to use any other phone. He went to the end of the bar and fished the phone off the shelf below it. First he dialed the police station. When there was no answer there, he called Harney Whalen at home. He let the phone ring ten times, then dropped it back on the hook.
“Well, I tried,” he said, picking up the fresh drink that waited for him. “At least I tried.” Then, remembering what Harn had had to say to him that morning when he reported not having gotten much information out of Glen Palmer, Chip made a mental note to try to reach the chief later.
“So that’s what happened,” Glen Palmer said. He had just finished telling Rebecca about the strange sequence of events that day—first Chip Connor’s questioning and the near fight, then Whalen’s deliberate attempt to ruin the paintings, and finally Chip’s help at the gallery all afternoon.
“First I thought he was just trying to cover Whalen’s ass,” he mused. “He wouldn’t admit Whalen did it on purpose, and I figured he hung around for a while just to calm me down, but now I don’t know. If I hadn’t called a halt I think he’d still be there, tearing apart everything I’ve done and doing it all over again.” He grinned, remembering. “You should have seen him. It was like what I’d done was a personal affront, but he never said a word. Just kept fixing things. I have a feeling I haven’t seen the last of him. Oh, and we now have a charge account at Blake’s.”
When Rebecca made no reply Glen came out of his reverie and studied his wife. Her brow was knitted into a frown. She seemed to be listening to something, but Glen was sure it wasn’t him.
“Rebecca?”
She jumped a little and smiled at him self-consciously. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t listening.” Then, with an apologetic smile, she murmured, “It’s the storm, I guess. I’m still a little nervous. It seems like whenever there’s a storm out here something terrible happens.”
“Now that isn’t true and you know it,” Glen protested. He was feeling very good and wasn’t about to let his wife spoil it.
“I know,” Rebecca agreed ruefully. “I suppose I’ll get over it. But there’s something else too.”
“Something else?” Glen’s voice took on an anxious tone, and he wondered what she hadn’t told him.
“It’s Missy. She says there was someone in the old house this afternoon. The Randalls’ house.”
“How did she know?”
“Search me,” Rebecca said, shrugging helplessly. “Robby says they weren’t anywhere near the place, but Missy insists that someone was inside the house.”
Glen frowned, then called the children. They came out of their bedroom, Robby carrying Scooter. The puppy squirmed in his arms, and when Robby finally set him down he hurled himself at Glen, scrambling clumsily into his lap and licking his face.
“What’s this I hear about someone being in the Randalls’ house?” Glen asked as he struggled to contain the puppy.
“I didn’t say anyone was there,” Robby said self-righteously. “Missy said someone was there, but she was wrong.”
“I wasn’t either,” Missy said hotly. Her tiny face screwed up and she looked as though she was about to cry. “I said Snooker wasn’t coming back too, and he didn’t, did he?” she demanded, as if it would provide proof of her honesty.
“No, he didn’t,” Glen said patiently. “And I’m not saying no one was in the Randalls’ house today. I only want to know how you knew someone was there.”
Missy, mollified by what her father had said, turned the matter over in her mind. When she finally spoke her face looked perplexed. “I don’t know how I know,” she said. “I just know.”
“You don’t know,” Robby said scornfully.
“Now, Robby, don’t say that,” Glen objected. “She might have seen something, or heard something, and has just forgotten about it.”
“Smoke,” Missy said suddenly. “I saw smoke coming out of the chimney.”
“You didn’t either,” Robby argued. “Smoke’s the same color as clouds, and you wouldn’t have seen it even if there was any.”
Missy started to argue but Rebecca cut them both off.
“That’s enough. Now take Scooter back into your room and get ready for bed.”
“Can he stay inside again tonight?” Robby demanded. It was a request he had made every night since the arrival of the puppy, and it had always been granted, partly because of what had happened to Snooker, and partly because Scooter was so tiny and appealing that neither Rebecca nor Glen had had the heart to make him stay outside. Now Rebecca nodded her head in resignation.
“Just make sure he stays in his box. I don’t want him messing up the blankets.”
“He’s almost housebroken,” Robby said eagerly, hoping he could gain a little ground in his campaign to make the dog a bedmate. Unfortunately Scooter chose that moment to squat in the middle of the floor and form a puddle under his belly. Neither Glen nor Rebecca could contain the urge to giggle, and Robby, realizing he and Scooter had lost the argument, snatched the puppy up and scolded it severely. Scooter lapped wetly at Robby’s face.
“Get him ou
t of here,” Rebecca cried. Laughing, she shooed her children and their pet back to their room and wiped the mess off the floor. As she finished she realized Glen was putting on his raincoat.
“Where are you going?”
“I think I’ll take a walk down the beach and have a look at the Randalls’ place. If there is someone there, I’ll report it to Chip Connor.”
“In this rain?” Rebecca protested. “Honey, you’ll be soaked to the skin—it’s pouring out there, and the wind’s nearly tearing the roof off.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to come with me?” Glen asked innocently. Rebecca glared at him.
“That means I don’t want you to go at all.”
Glen gave her a quick hug and kissed her on the nose. “Well, I’m going and that’s that. If we’re ever away, I hope the Randalls will keep an eye on this place. It seems to me that the least I can do is keep an eye on theirs. And if Missy thinks she saw someone—”
“She didn’t say she saw anyone.”
“Well, she saw smoke.”
“She said that tonight,” Rebecca argued. “She didn’t say anything about it this afternoon. I think she was just trying to convince us that someone was there. I probably put the idea into her head myself when I said she might have seen something.”
“But she might have seen smoke,” Glen countered, “and if she did I want to know what’s going on.”
Rebecca sighed, knowing further argument was useless. “All right, but be careful. Please?”
“Nothing to worry about,” Glen reassured her. “I’ll be back in half an hour, probably sooner.”
A moment later he was gone. Rebecca strained to see him from the window as he went out into the night. But the storm swallowed him up, and she was left to wait alone and worry.
16
Max Horton surveyed the cabin of the trawler, making a final inspection before going ashore. He’d been working steadily for half an hour, though he could have finished the job of putting the boat to rights in ten minutes. He’d been dawdling, making the work last, enjoying his solitude, enjoying the boat. But now the job was done and he could no longer delay joining his brother at the inn. A slight smile crossed his face as he anticipated the warm glow that a hot brandy and water would bring.