Catherine Coulter - The Cove

he said to Sam's partner, Martin Amick. "It's really urgent."

He hung up and watched Sally St. John Brainerd pace back and forth over a rich wine-red Bokhara carpet. It was fairly new, that beautiful carpet. "What did you mean when you said you knew it?"

"What? Oh, I heard her scream last night. There were three screams, and at the last one I knew someone had killed her. It was just cut off so quickly, like someone just hit her hard and that was it.

“Amabel thought it was the wind because it was howling-no doubt about that, but I knew it was a woman's scream, just like the one the first night I was here. I told you about that. Do you think it was the same woman?"

"I don't know."

"Amabel called Reverend Vorhees and he came with three other men and they went on a search. When they came back they said they hadn't found anything. It was the wind, they said. Reverend Vorhees patted me again, like I was a child, an idiot."

"Or worse, a hysterical woman."

"Exactly. Someone killed her, James. It couldn't have been an accident. I heard her scream the night I arrived- three nights ago-and then last night. Last night, they killed her."

"What do you mean, 'they'?"

She shrugged, looking a bit confused. "I don't know. It just seems right."

The phone rang and James answered it. It was Sam North calling him back. Sally listened to his end of the conversation.

"Yes, a woman anywhere from young to middle aged, I guess. The tide washed her in, and she'd been Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

battered against the rocks for a good number of hours. I don't know how long. What do you want to do, Sam?''

He listened, then said, "A little town called The Cove about an hour or so southwest of you. You know it? Good. The local doctor is looking her over now, but they have no law enforcement, nothing like that.

Yes? All right. Done. His name is Doc Spiver, on the end of Main Street. You've got the number. Right.

Thanks, Sam."

He said as he hung up the phone, "Sam's calling the county sheriff. He says they'll send someone over to handle things."

"Soon, I hope," Doc Spiver said, walking into the small living room, wiping his hands-an obscene thing to be doing, Sally thought, staring at those old liver-spotted hands, knowing what those hands had been touching. There was a knock on the front door and Doc Spiver called out, "Come along in!"

It was Reverend Hal Vorhees. On his heels were the four old men who spent most of their time sitting around the barrel playing cards.

"What the hell's going on, Doc? Excuse me, ma'am, but we heard you'd found a body at the bottom of the cliffs."

"It's true, Gus," Doc Spiver said. "Do all of you know Mr. Quinlan and Sally, Amabel's niece?"

"Yes, we do, Doc," Purn Davies, the man who'd wanted to marry Amabel, said. "Now what's happening? Be quick telling us. I don't want the ladies to hear about it and be distressed."

"Sally and Mr. Quinlan found a woman's body."

"Who is she? Do you recognize her?" This from Hal Vorhees.

"No. She's not from around here, I don't think. I couldn't find anything on her clothes either. You find anything, Mr. Quinlan?"

“No. The county sheriff is sending someone over soon. A medical examiner as well."

"Good," Doc Spiver said. "Look, she could have been killed by anything. Me, I'd say it was an accident, but who knows? I can't run tests, and I haven't the tools or equipment to do an autopsy. As I said, I vote for accident."

"No," Sally said. "No accident. Someone killed her. I heard her screaming."

"Now, Sally," Doc Spiver said, holding out his hand to her, that hand he'd been wiping, "you're not thinking that the wind you heard was this poor woman screaming."

"Yes, I am."

"We never found anything," Reverend Vorhees said. "We all looked a good two hours."

"You just didn't look in the right place," Sally said.

"Would you like something to calm you?"

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She stared at the old man who had been a doctor for many more years than her mother had been alive.

She'd met him the previous day. He'd been kind, if a little vague. She knew he didn't want her here, that she didn't belong here, but as long as she was with Amabel, he would continue being kind. Come to think of it, all the folk she'd met had been kind, but she still felt they didn't want her here. It was because she was a murdered man's daughter-that had to be it. She wondered if they would turn her in now that she and James had found the woman's body, the woman Sally had heard screaming.

"Something to calm me," she repeated slowly, "something to calm me." She laughed, a low, very ugly laugh that brought Quinlan's head up.

"I'd better get you something," Doc Spiver said, turned quickly, and ran into an end table. The beautiful Tiffany lamp crashed to the floor. It didn't break.

He didn't see it, James realized. The damned old man is going blind. He said easily, “No, Doc. Sally and I will be on our way now. The detective from the Portland police will tell the sheriff to come here. If you'd let them know we'll be at Amabel's house?"

"Yes, certainly," Doc Spiver said, not looking at them. He was on his knees, touching the precious Tiffany lamp, feeling all the lead seams to make certain it wasn't cracked.

They left him still on the floor. All the other men were silent as death in the small living room with its rich wine-red Bokhara carpet.

"Amabel told me he was blinder than a bat," Sally said as they stepped out into the bright afternoon sunlight. She stopped cold.

"What's wrong?"

"I forgot. I can't have the police knowing I'm here. They'll call the police in Washington, they'll send someone to get me, they'll force me to go back to that place or they'll kill me or they'll-"

"No, they won't. I already thought of that. Don't worry. Your name is Susan Brandon. They'll have no reason to question that. Just tell them your story and they'll leave you be."

"I have a black wig I wore here. I'll put it on."

"Couldn't hurt."

"How can you know they'll just want to hear my story? You don't know what's going on here any more than I do. Oh, I see. You don't think they'll believe I heard a woman screaming those two nights."

He said patiently, "Even if they don't believe you, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they'd then have a murdered woman on their hands, does it? You heard a woman's screams. Now she's dead. I don't think there's a whole lot of other possible conclusions. Get a grip, Sally, and don't fall apart on me now. You're going to be Susan Brandon. All right?"

She nodded slowly, but he didn't think he had ever seen such fear on a face in all his years.

He was glad she had a wig. No one could forget her face, and the good Lord knew it had been flashed on TV enough times recently.

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6

DAVID MOUNTEBANK HAD hated his name ever since he'd looked it up in the dictionary and read it meant boastful and unscrupulous. Whenever he met a big man, a big man who looked smart, and he had to introduce himself, he held himself stiff and wary, waiting to see if the guy would make a crack. He braced himself accordingly as he introduced himself to the man before him now.

"I'm Sheriff David Mountebank."

The man stuck out his hand. "I'm James Quinlan, Sheriff Mountebank. This is Susan Brandon. We were together when we found the woman's body two hours ago."

"Ms. Brandon."

"Won't you be seated, Sheriff?"

He nodded, took his hat off, and relaxed into the soft sofa cushions. "The Cove's changed," he said, looking around Amabel's living room as if he'd found himself in a shop filled with modern prints that gave him indigestion. “It seems every time I come here, it just keeps looking better and better. How about that?"