John Saul - Cry for the Strangers

Chip couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so he left the police station — reluctantly — and went looking for Doc Phelps. He found him at the inn, sitting on the stool Chip usually occupied, a half-empty beer in front of him. He started to get up when Chip came in, but Chip waved him back onto the stool.

“Order one for me and I’ll fill yours up,” he said cheerfully, sliding onto the stool next to Phelps.

“What about me?” Merle Glind piped eagerly from the stool on the other side of Phelps.

“You could buy your own just once,” Chip teased. “But what the hell. Might as well be a big spender.”

The beers were drawn and set up in front of them when Phelps asked about Harney Whalen.

“Whalen?” Chip said carefully. “What about him?”

“Well, I ordered him to come in for some tests, but he hasn’t showed up. I guess he must be feeling better.”

“What kind of tests?” Chip asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

“Oh, just some things I’d like checked out,” the doctor replied cautiously. “He hasn’t been feeling too well, you know.”

“Told me it’s just indigestion.”

“Indigestion?” Dr. Phelps gave the word a sarcastic twist that riveted Chip’s attention. “Damnedest kind of indigestion I ever heard of. Most people remember indigestion.”

Chip felt his heartbeat skip and a knot of anticipation form in his stomach.

“You mean he’s having memory problems? Like blackouts?”

“That’s what he told me,” Phelps said. “Wanted me to keep it to myself, and I suppose I ought to. But if he isn’t going to obey doctor’s orders, seems to me something ought to be done.”

Chip didn’t hear what Phelps had just said — his mind was racing.

“Doc, tell me about the blackouts. It might be important. Very important.”

Phelps frowned at the young man and tugged at his lower lip. He didn’t like these kids trying to push him around.

“Well, I don’t know,” he hesitated. “Seems to me like I’ve already broken Harn’s confidence—”

“The hell with Harn’s confidence,” Chip snapped. “Dr. Phelps, I have to know what you know about those blackouts.”

“Well, I don’t really know much at all,” Phelps grumbled. He still resented being ordered to talk by Chip, and yet there was a note of urgency in the young deputy’s voice that struck a chord in the doctor. “He didn’t really tell me much. Mostly he was upset about something that happened the other day while he was driving out to Sod Beach. It was the day those new people moved in — the Randalls? — and I guess Ham was taking them out to their house. Anyway, he froze at the wheel, I guess, and almost ran over those two kids who live out there.”

“Robby and Missy? The Palmer kids?”

“Those’d be the ones,” the doctor agreed. “Anyway, it upset Harney enough so he came to see me. Told me he’d been having what he calls spells. His hands start twitching, and then he doesn’t remember anything for an hour or so.”

“Do you know what’s causing it?” Chip asked anxiously.

“Haven’t any idea at all,” Phelps shrugged. “I wanted him to go down to Aberdeen for some tests, but you know Harn — stubborn as a mule!”

“And you didn’t try to make him?” Chip demanded unbelievingly. “For Christ’s sake, Doc, he might have killed somebody!”

“But he didn’t, did he?” Phelps said blandly.

“Didn’t he?” Chip muttered. “I wonder.”

He slid off the barstool and headed back to the police station, intent on confronting the police chief. But when he got to the station, Harney Whalen’s office was empty.

Chip glanced around the office and saw that Whalen’s raincoat still hung from the coat tree in the corner. Wherever he had gone, and for whatever purpose, he hadn’t bothered to take his coat with him.

The storm outside, so gentle this morning, was raging.

And it was getting dark. Tonight high tide would be an hour after dusk.

As dusk began to fall Elaine took Missy and Robby into the downstairs bedroom and began putting them to bed. The storm had increased, and the sound of rain battering against the window seemed menacing to Elaine, but she was careful not to communicate her feelings to the children. As she tucked them into the big bed Missy suddenly put her arms around her neck.

“Do we have to sleep here?” she whispered. “Can’t we sleep at home?”

“Just for tonight, dear,” Elaine said. “But don’t you worry. We’ll all be in the next room. Your father, and me, and Brad. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“No, it isn’t,” Missy said, her voice tiny and frightened. “Nothing’s ever going to be fine. I know it isn’t.”

Elaine hugged the child reassuringly and kissed her on the forehead. Then she kissed Robby too and picked up the lantern by the bed.

“If you need anything you just call me,” she told them. Then she pulled the door closed behind her as she left the room.

They lay in bed, listening to the rain beat against the window. For a long time they were quiet, but then Missy stirred.

“Are you asleep?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.” Missy paused a moment, then: “I miss Mommy. I want to go home. I don’t like this house.”

“It’s just a house,” Robby said disdainfully. “It isn’t any different than any other house, except that it’s better than ours.”

“It’s creepy,” Missy insisted.

“Oh, go to sleep,” Robby said impatiently. He turned over and closed his eyes and tried to pretend that he was sleeping. But he heard the sounds of the rain and the wind and the building surf of the flowing tide. The sounds seemed to be calling him, and try as he would, he couldn’t ignore them.

“If you really want to, we can go home,” he whispered.

Missy stirred next to him, and he knew she’d heard him.

“Could we go through the woods?” she whispered.

“All right,” Robby agreed. The beach would be better, he thought, but the woods would be all right. At least he’d be near the storm.…

A few moments later Robby raised the window and the two children crept out into the night.

Harney Whalen sat behind the wheel of the patrol car, his knuckles white with tension, his face beginning to twitch spasmodically. The windshield wipers, almost useless against the driving rain, beat rhythmically back and forth in front of his eyes, but if he saw them, he gave no sign. He was watching the road in front of him, and there was an intensity in his look that would have frightened anyone who saw it. But he was alone, driving north toward Sod Beach.

As he approached the beach he began to hear voices in his mind, voices from his childhood, calling to him.

Floating in the darkness ahead of him, just beyond the windshield, he thought he saw faces — his grandmother was there, her face twisted in fear, her eyes reflecting the panic of a trapped animal. She seemed to be trying to call out to Harn, but her voice was lost in the howling tempest — all that came through was the faint sound of laughter, a laughter that mocked Harney, taunted him, made the chaos in his mind coalesce into hatred.

He turned the car into a narrow side road halfway up Sod Beach and picked his way carefully through the mud until the forest closed in on him, blocking him. He turned off the headlights, then the engine, and sat in the darkness, the rain pounding on the car, the wind whistling around him, and the roar of the pounding surf rolling over him, calling to him. Beckoning him.

Listening only to the voices within him, unmindful of reality, Harney Whalen suddenly opened the car door and stepped out into the storm. A moment later the police car stood lonely and abandoned in the forest.