Cry for the Strangers Page 0,21

careful. All of them but Pete grew up here, and they know better than to go out alone. The storms come up fast and they’re mean. Pete knew that too. He should never have gone out by himself. It was an accident, Miriam, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Miriam said dully. “You’re not going to do anything?”

“I don’t know what else I can do, Miriam. Pete was by himself out there and nobody saw what happened.”

“Somebody saw it,” Miriam said quietly. “Somebody was out there when it happened.”

“Who?” Whalen inquired mildly.

“It’s your job to find out.”

“I’ve done what I can, Miriam. I’ve talked to everybody in the fleet and they all say the same thing. They went out together and they came back together. All of them except Pete. He stayed out alone when the fleet came in. The storm was already brewing and he should have come in with the rest of them. But he didn’t. That’s all there is to it. It’s over.”

“It’s not over,” Miriam said, her voice rising dangerously. “I know it’s not over.” For a moment Harney Whalen was afraid she was going to go to pieces. But she merely turned and left his office. He watched her go. He was still watching when his deputy, Chip Connor, came in.

“What was that all about?” Chip asked.

“I’m not sure,” Harney replied. “Miriam seems to think what happened to Pete wasn’t an accident.”

Chip frowned. “What does she expect us to do?”

“Search me.” Whalen shrugged. “We did everything we could yesterday.” Then he scratched his head. “Say, Chip, when I was down on the wharf yesterday there were a couple of strangers down there. Looked like city people.”

“So?”

“So I don’t know,” Whalen said testily. “But do me a favor, will you? Go over to the inn and ask Merle if they’re still here, and if they are, how long they’re planning to stay.”

Chip looked puzzled. “What business is it of ours?”

Harney Whalen glared at his deputy. “Someone died here, Chip, and there’s strangers in town. Don’t you think we ought to find out why they’re here?”

Chip Connor started to argue with his chief, but one glance at Whalen’s expression changed his mind. When Harn Whalen set his jaw like that, there was no arguing.

Feeling somewhat foolish, he set off to talk to the proprietor of the Harbor Inn.

5

“Morning, Merle.”

He recognized Chip Connor’s voice immediately, but Merle Glind still jumped slightly, nearly knocking his thick-lensed glasses from their precarious perch on his tiny nose. One hand flew up to smooth what was left of his hair, and he tried to cover his embarrassment at his own nervousness with a broad smile. The effect, unfortunately, was ruined by his inability to complete the smile. His lips twitched spasmodically for a second, and Chip waited patiently for the odd little man to compose himself.

“Is something wrong?” Merle asked. His rabbity eyes flicked around the hotel lobby as if he expected to find a crime being committed under his very nose.

“Nothing like that,” Chip said easily, wishing he could put Merle at his ease. But as long as Chip could remember, Merle Glind had remained unchanged, fussing around the inn day and night, inspecting each seldom-used room as if it were the Presidential suite of a major hotel, going over and over the receipts as if hoping to find evidence of embezzlement, and constantly poking his head into the door of the bar—his major source of income—to count the customers. When Chip was a boy, Merle had always been glad to see him, but ever since he had become Harn Whalen’s deputy three years ago, Merle had begun to show signs of acute nervousness whenever Chip appeared at the Harbor Inn. Chip supposed it was simply a natural wariness of the police, amplified by Merle’s natural nervousness and not modified in the least by the fact the innkeeper had known Chip Connor since the day he was born.

“Well, there’s nothing going on here,” Merle hastened to assure him. “Nothing at all. Nothing ever goes on here. Sometimes I wonder why I even keep the place open. Gives me something to do, I suppose. Thirty-five years I’ve had this place, and I’ll have it till I die.” He glanced around the spotless lobby with unconcealed pride and Chip felt called upon to make a reassuring comment.

“Place looks nice,” he said. “Who polishes the spittoons?”

“I do,” Merle said promptly, holding up a can of Brasso he mysteriously