John Saul - Cry for the Strangers

“What is it?” Brad urged him again. “Is it about Glen?”

“Only indirectly,” Chip replied. “I guess mostly it’s Harn — Harney Whalen.”

“What about him?”

“I’m not sure,” Chip said, squirming in the chair. Then, almost as if to change the subject, he said, “Did Glen tell you about what happened today?”

“No. He came in a couple of hours ago, but went right out again. He said he had some thinking to do.”

“I’ll bet he did,” Chip said. “I wish I knew what he was thinking.”

“Well, you might go ask him,” Brad suggested dryly. “You two seem to get along pretty well.”

“Maybe I will after a while,” Chip agreed. A silence fell over the two men.

“You said you wanted to talk about Whalen,” Brad said at last.

Chip nodded glumly. “I think something’s gone wrong with him.”

“How do you mean, wrong? You mean physically?”

“I wish it were that simple,” Chip hedged.

Brad’s fingers drummed on the table and he decided to wait Chip out, let him get to the point any way he wanted to. He wasn’t surprised when Chip suddenly stood up and started pacing the room.

“Something’s been nagging at me for quite a while now,” he said finally. “Harn’s attitude, I guess you might say.”

“You mean the way he feels about outsiders?”

“That’s it,” Chip agreed. “But up until today I’ve always been able to convince myself that it wasn’t anything particularly serious — that it was sort of a quirk in his personality.”

“But something happened today that changed your mind?”

“Glen Palmer. He came in to tell Harn what happened last night.”

“And—?”

“And Harn didn’t give him a chance. Instead he told Glen what happened.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“It was crazy,” Chip said. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since and the only word I come up with is crazy. Harn didn’t ask Glen any questions at all. Instead he accused Glen of killing Rebecca himself.”

“Just like that?” Brad asked.

“Close enough so that it doesn’t make any difference what the exact words were. He must’ve spent most of the night last night dreaming up a story about how Glen found Rebecca and Jeff Horton making love and killed Jeff, then Rebecca. Apparently you’re out of it,” he added, smiling humorlessly. Brad ignored the comment.

“What did Glen have to say?”

“What could he say? He said it was ridiculous but Harn wasn’t even interested in hearing what happened last night. He just kept after Glen, repeating his idea over and over, as if he were trying to convince Glen. I think he wanted Glen to confess.”

“I hope he didn’t.”

“Of course not,” Chip said. “And even if he had it wouldn’t have made any difference. The way Harney was acting, any court I’ve ever heard of would disqualify the whole thing.”

“But why? Why would he want to put the whole thing on Glen?”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with Glen personally,” Chip said. “For a while I thought it did, but I talked to my grandfather a few days ago, and he told me some things that made me wonder.”

“What sort of things?”

“Stories. Stories about things that happened around here a long time ago. Long before I was even born. For instance, he told me why Harn hates strangers so much.”

“You want to tell me?”

“It’s a pretty ugly story.” He paused a moment, then swallowed. When he spoke again, his voice was strained.

“Harney watched his grandparents being murdered when he was a little boy.”

Brad’s eyes widened. “Say that again, please?”

“When Harn was a little boy — maybe seven, eight years old — his grandparents were murdered on the beach. Harney watched it happen.”

“Holy Christ,” Brad muttered. “Who did it?”

“Nothing was ever proven but everyone seemed to think it was a group of people who were interested in lumbering the area. Maybe even the man who built this house.”

“Baron? I thought he was a fisherman. He died by getting caught in his own fishing nets.”

“Just like Pete Shelling,” Chip agreed. “But he only became a fisherman after Harn canceled his lumbering lease. Anyway, whoever killed Harn’s grandparents, they were strangers, and Harn’s hated strangers ever since. Only now it’s getting out of hand.”

“What can I do?” Brad asked.

“I was wondering if maybe you could talk to him,” Chip replied.

“Me? Haven’t you forgotten something? I’m a stranger here too, and yesterday he as much as accused me of murder. What makes you think Whalen would talk to me?”

“I don’t know,” Chip said nervously. “I just thought maybe if you could go down there — maybe to talk about something being wrong with the house — and sort of draw him out. Maybe you could tell if he’s all right or not.”

Brad turned the idea over in his mind, wondering if it could possibly work. If the chief were obsessive, as Chip seemed to think, Whalen certainly wouldn’t open up to him. But on the other hand, his refusal to talk just might tell him something too.

“Well, I suppose I could try,” he agreed without much conviction. “But I can’t promise you anything. Don’t expect me to go down and talk to him for five minutes, then be able to tell you if he’s sane or not. It just isn’t that simple. Besides, he’ll probably throw me out of his office.”

“But you’d be able to tell if he’s reasonable or not, wouldn’t you?”

“I can tell you that right now. I don’t think Whalen’s reasonable, and I never have. But what I think doesn’t constitute either a medical or a legal opinion. All it means is that as far as I can tell he’s a rigid person with some pretty strong prejudices. That doesn’t make him crazy. All it makes him is difficult.”

“But what about Glen? What about what Harney’s doing to him?”

“So far he hasn’t done anything except make a lot of wild accusations. And he hasn’t even done that on the record. I mean, he hasn’t charged Glen with anything. Or has he?”

Chip shook his head. “No. But I think he’s going to.”

“Do you? I don’t. I don’t think Whalen has the vaguest idea of what’s going on, and he certainly doesn’t have anything to use against Glen Palmer, or anybody else. And I’ll tell you something else — I don’t think he’s ever going to make sense out of this mess. I’m not sure there is any sense. All I know is that the storms around here do something to Robby Palmer, and my best guess is that they’re doing something to someone else as well.”

Something stirred in Chip’s mind — a connection only half-made, but he was sure it was an important connection.

“What happens to Robby?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” Brad confessed. He made a gesture encompassing the books around him. “I’ve been trying to find something similar, but so far there isn’t anything. Even Robby isn’t sure what happens to him. The storms excite him but he doesn’t remember what he does during them.”

The connection clicked home in Chip’s mind. Whalen’s visit to Doc Phelps. Was it really indigestion? And other things, little things. The day he had worked with Glen, undisturbed. It had been stormy that day and Whalen had never called him. And that night the Hortons’ boat had gone on the rocks. He searched his mind frantically, trying to remember where Harney Whalen had been each time something had gone wrong in Clark’s Harbor. And he couldn’t remember. All he knew was that usually Harney had been home. Except … who knew if he was at home or somewhere else?

Chip made up his mind to have a talk with Doc Phelps. Then, and only then, would he talk to Brad Randall. After all, Randall was a stranger, and Harney Whalen was his uncle.