John Saul - Cry for the Strangers

“Well, I think we’d better get you home. I’ll bet your parents are worried sick about you.”

“But I have to find my dog.” Robby protested “He’s been gone two nights now and Daddy won’t go look for him.” Robby looked to be on the verge of tears and Elaine put her arms around him. She was suddenly sure that the dog she had found on the beach had been his. “There, there,” she soothed him. “Don’t you worry about anything. He’s probably wandered off somewhere, but he’ll come home.”

“Missy says he won’t,” Robby said flatly. “She wouldn’t help me look for Snooker either, because she says he’s gone.”

Before either of the Randalls could determine the meaning of this odd statement, they heard a call from the forest.

“Robby? Robby!”

“Over here!” Brad shouted “On the beach!”

A moment later Glen Palmer broke out of the forest at almost the same spot where Robby had appeared a few minutes earlier.

“Dr. Randall! What are you doing out here? You haven’t seen Robby around—” He broke off as he saw his son and climbed swiftly over onto the beach. “Robby! I’ve been looking for you!”

“I was trying to find Snooker,” Robby wailed. “You said you were going to look for him but you weren’t, so I—” He ran to his father and buried his face against him. Glen held him for a moment, looking helplessly at the Randalls, then disentangled himself from his son. He knelt down and met the boy’s tear-filled eyes.

“I was going to come out and look for him but your mother needed me,” he explained. “We were talking, and as soon as we finished, I’d have come out looking.”

Robby peered doubtfully at his father, wanting to believe him, and Glen shifted his own gaze to Brad Randall.

“You haven’t seen a dog out here, have you?” he asked doubtfully. Elaine’s eyes darted to the child, and she bit her lip.

“We’ve only been here a few minutes ourselves,” she said, evading the question entirely. She’d tell Palmer the bad news when the boy was out of hearing. “We wanted to see what the place looked like at night.”

Glen looked puzzled. “Sod Beach?”

“The house,” Elaine explained. “We rented the old house today.” She gestured in the direction of the dilapidated structure, but Glen’s puzzlement only seemed to deepen.

“Whalen rented it to you?” he asked. He shook his head. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“He didn’t seem too eager but he gave in,” Brad said with a chuckle. The chuckle faded as he remembered the police chiefs odd behavior just before the lease was signed, but he didn’t mention it to Glen.

“He wouldn’t rent it to me at all,” Glen said almost bitterly. Then he brightened. “Say, why don’t you walk up the beach with me? Rebecca’s waiting for me — all upset about Robby — and I’d better get back. Besides, you promised to stop by yesterday and then you didn’t. Rebecca hasn’t said anything but I think she’s disappointed. Frankly, she doesn’t have many people to talk to out here.”

“Of course,” Elaine said immediately. “We should have stopped today but we’ve just been so busy. I mean, coming to a decision like the one we just made takes all your concentration. But it was rude of us, wasn’t it?” She took Glen’s arm and started up the beach, leaving Brad to walk with Robby. Brad, sensing immediately that his wife was going to tell Glen about the dog, kept Robby occupied. And while he kept the boy busy, he observed him.

The change in Robby was as dramatic as Glen had described it Not a trace remained of the frenetic, anguished child Brad Randall remembered so vividly. Instead, he found himself walking along the beach with a remarkably normal nine-year-old boy, a child who was obviously active, but not overactive; who talked easily, readily, but not with the frenzied pace he had constantly displayed only months before. As they walked Brad found his puzzlement at the change deepening, found himself wondering exactly what could have happened to Robby Palmer, or what might still be happening to him. The boy was almost too normal. Brad found it vaguely disturbing.…

When she was sure they were out of earshot of her husband and Glen Palmer’s son, Elaine suddenly turned to Glen. “Was your dog black-and-white, sort of a spaniel?”

“You’ve seen him?” Glen asked eagerly.

“I think so,” Elaine replied, her voice somber. “Yesterday morning I took a walk on the beach. I found a dead dog, buried in the sand. It was medium-sized, black with whitish patches.”

“That sounds like Snooker,” Glen said. “He was a mutt, but there was a lot of springer spaniel in him.” He paused for a moment, then: “You say he was buried in the sand?”

“Not very deep. The sea might have done it, I suppose, but I’m not sure. His neck was broken.”

Glen stopped and turned to face Elaine. “Broken? What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure,” Elaine said unhappily. “He didn’t seem to have any other injuries, but his neck was broken. Brad said he could have been hit by a piece of driftwood that was coming in on the surf the night before.…” She trailed off, thinking the story sounded hollow. As if he read her mind, Glen shook Ids head.

“Doesn’t sound very plausible, does it?”

“I didn’t think so,” Elaine said. “I suppose I should have told you before, but I didn’t want to, not in front of Robby.”

“Of course not,” Glen agreed. “I’ll wait a day or so — maybe try to find the kids a new puppy — then tell them. Or maybe I won’t tell them at all. I’ll just find them another dog and that’ll take their minds off Snooker.”

Robby and Brad caught up with them in the trees in front of the Palmers’ cabin, and as they approached, Glen called to his wife.

“Rebecca? Come on out here — we’ve got company!”

Rebecca appeared at the door and, seeing her son, immediately swept him into her arms. Robby wriggled, protesting that he was fine, and finally Rebecca let him go, straightened up, and looked with surprise at Brad and Elaine.

“You remember Dr. Randall, of course,” Glen said. “This is his wife, Elaine. I found them on the beach near the old Baron house. They’ve leased it and we’re going to be neighbors, so I brought them home for a glass of wine.”

“Come in,” Rebecca urged them. “It’s not nearly as big as the house you got, but there’s room for everyone.” She led Brad and Elaine into the small main room and pressed them to take the two chairs usually reserved for her and Glen. “Let me get Robby settled in bed. Glen, why don’t you open the wine?” She disappeared into the tiny bedroom, and while Glen poured four glasses of wine Elaine and Brad inspected the cabin, Brad curiously, and Elaine carefully. By the time Rebecca reappeared Elaine was ready.

“Can you really cook on that stove?” she asked, making the question almost a challenge.

Rebecca looked blank for a second, then burst into laughter.

“It isn’t nearly as difficult as it looks,” she said. “Come here and I’ll show you what happens.” She bent over the stove with Elaine, demonstrating how the various vents worked and how to control the fire so that the burners would operate at various levels of heat.

“The main trick is to keep the fire fairly small so that you can move it around and control it Otherwise the thing gets so hot you can’t even get close to it But if your husband is anything like mine,” she finished, “you won’t have any problem — there won’t ever be enough wood to build a really big fire.”

Elaine shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t know,” she said. “Something tells me we’re going to be eating out a lot.”

“We can’t,” Rebecca said. “And even if we could, we wouldn’t. Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve gotten to the point where I actually enjoy cooking on this thing. The worst part of living on the beach is bathing.”