Cry for the Strangers Page 0,55

in and forget about them for a while. There’s lots of work to be done and a puppy to be taken care of.”

Together, the Palmers went back into the gallery.

“What are you thinking about?” Brad asked as they drove away from the gallery.

“Nothing much,” Elaine said, not sure she wanted to share her thoughts with Brad. She was afraid she was being silly. She didn’t fool her husband.

“Worried again?” he guessed.

“I suppose so. Maybe we jumped in too fast. I mean, a house at the beach is one thing, but without electricity and in a town that doesn’t seem to want us?”

“It isn’t the whole town,” Brad pointed out “It’s only Harney Whalen and Merle Glind. There are also Glen and Rebecca, who want us very much.”

Elaine lapsed back into silence. Resolutely, she put her thoughts aside. But as they drove further and further away from Clark’s Harbor, the thoughts kept coming back: And they’re strangers, she thought Strangers, just like us. And just like the Shellings.

* * *

Harney Whalen waited until the Randalls’ car was completely out of sight before he pulled out from behind the billboard and headed back into town. As he made the turn onto Harbor Road he glanced at the Palmers’ gallery with annoyance and wished once more that they had taken him up on his offer to buy them out. Then, with the offending gallery behind him, he looked out over the town. His town. He had a proprietary feeling about Clark’s Harbor, a feeling he nurtured. Now it lay before him, peaceful and serene in the morning sun.

He pulled up in front of the tiny town hall and ambled into his office. Chip Connor was already there, enjoying a steaming cup of coffee. When Harney came in Chip immediately poured a cup for his boss.

“Well, they’re gone,” Harney said.

“Gone? Who?”

“The Randalls. Left just now.”

“But they’ll be back,” Chip pointed out.

“Maybe,” Harney drawled. “Maybe not.” He sat down and put his feet up on his desk. “Beautiful day, isn’t it, Chip?”

“For now,” the deputy commented. “But a storm’s coming. A big one.”

“I know,” Whalen replied. “I can feel it in my bones.”

Harney Whalen smiled and savored his cup of coffee and waited for the storm.

BOOK TWO

Night Waves

12

The Reverend Lucas Pembroke peered over the tops of his half-glasses at the sparse crowd that had gathered in the tiny Methodist church and tried to blame the poor attendance on the weather. It had been raining almost steadily for the last five days—ever since Miriam and Pete Shelling had been buried—and the Reverend Pembroke wanted to believe that it was the weather that was keeping people away. Only a few, the bored and the curious, had showed up at the burial. Lucas had hoped that more would turn out for this service. It seemed almost useless for him to have driven all the way up from Hoquiam just to hold a service for two people he hardly knew in front of an audience of less than ten. Perhaps, he reflected, if the bodies were here … He let the thought die and chastised himself for its uncharitability.

No, it was something else, something he had been acutely aware of ever since he had added Clark’s Harbor to his circuit. He had felt it from the first: a standoffishness among his congregation that he had never completely overcome. It was as if they felt that though they ought to have a pastor for their church, still, an outsider was an outsider and not to be completely accepted. Lucas Pembroke had thought he had come to grips with the situation in Clark’s Harbor, but the deaths of Pete and Miriam Shelling had hit him hard. Of all his congregation they had been the only ones who had ever really let him know they appreciated his weekly trips to the Harbor, perhaps because they, too, had never felt particularly welcome here. He missed the Shellings, so he had decided to hold a service to say farewell to them. Apparently not many people in Clark’s Harbor shared his feelings.

Merle Glind was there, of course, but Lucas was sure that Glind’s presence was due more to his innate snoopiness than to any feelings for Pete and Miriam. Glind sat in the fourth pew, about halfway between the door and the chancel, and his small, nearly bald head kept swiveling around as he noted who was there and who wasn’t.

Other than Glind, only three fishermen and Harney Whalen represented the town at the service.