Cry for the Strangers Page 0,58

outside, and dumped it into the garbage can.

“Want to go out on the beach?” she asked Glen when she came back in. “The sun’s about to break through and you know how I feel about the children being out there by themselves.”

Glen looked at his wife speculatively. This was the first time she had let them play on the beach at all since the day Miriam Shelling had died. He decided to approach the subject obliquely.

“Are you glad we went to the service?” he asked.

Rebecca seemed surprised by the question. “Well, of course I’m glad we went. I was the one who insisted we go, remember?” Then she suddenly realized what he was getting at. Instinctively, she started for the door, then stopped herself.

“It really is over, isn’t it?” she said.

“It was over as soon as it happened, darling,” Glen said gently. “But you needed that service just to tell you so.”

“I know,” Rebecca replied. “And I don’t mind telling you that I feel pretty silly about it now, but it really shook me up.”

“Well, at least the kids have the beach again. I don’t know about you, but I was beginning to go a little crazy with them and that puppy underfoot all the time.” He opened the ice box. “Tell you what. Let’s make some sandwiches and have a picnic on the beach. I’ll forget about going back to the gallery and you forget about whatever you were going to do this afternoon, and we’ll have a little wake for the Shellings, just the four of us.”

“We’re not Irish,” Rebecca protested.

“We can pretend.” Glen grinned. “Besides, you know as well as I do that those kids are going to have a million questions. So we might as well make a party out of answering them.”

For the first time in days Rebecca’s depression suddenly lifted and she realized she was once again happy to be at the beach. She hugged Glen and kissed him firmly.

“What’s that about?” he said after he returned the kiss.

“Nothing in particular. Just to let you know that I appreciate having such a wonderful husband.” She looked out the window just in time to see the clouds break and the sun pour through. The leaden-gray sea suddenly turned a deep blue, and the green of the forest sprang to life. “The storm’s over,” she said. “I can hardly believe it.”

“I wouldn’t believe it if I were you,” Glen said. “According to the old-timers I’ve heard talking around town, the last few days have just been a prelude. The real storm’s been sitting out there waiting to come in.”

Rebecca made a face at her husband. “Well, aren’t you just the prophet of doom?”

“Only repeating what I heard.”

“And do you believe everything you hear?” Rebecca teased. “Come on, let’s make hay while the sun shines!”

Clem Ledbetter set aside the net he was working on and shook a cigarette from a crumpled package he fished from his pants pocket.

“What do you think?” he said to no one in particular as he lit the cigarette and took a deep drag on it.

“You gonna work or smoke?” Tad Corey asked. “I know you can’t do both.”

“I was thinking about Miriam Shelling,” Clem said, ignoring Tad. “It just don’t make any sense to me.”

“Lots of things don’t make sense.” Mac Riley set aside his work and pulled out his pipe. As he carefully packed it from an ancient sealskin tobacco pouch, he peered at Clem. “What is it in particular?”

“Miriam Shelling. It just don’t make sense, her killing herself. She just wasn’t the kind of woman to do something like that.”

“What makes you such an expert?” Corey asked. “You and her closer than you let on?”

“Shit, no. It’s just that she didn’t seem like the type, that’s all. Me and Alice knew Pete and Miriam as well as anybody around here and if you ask me, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense.”

“Pete Shelling was a fool,” Tad Corey said vehemently. “Anybody who stays out alone like that is a fool.”

“That may be,” Clem said. “But Pete was a good fisherman and you know it. He ran a good boat—I never once saw Sea Spray but what everything wasn’t in order. Not like some people I could name whose boats look like pigsties.”

Tad refused to rise to the bait. “Kept his boat too neat if you ask me,” he said.

“Maybe so,” Clem said doggedly. “But someone who kept his boat as neat as Pete Shelling did just isn’t likely to let