Cry for the Strangers Page 0,82

snooping around on your own.”

Glen felt his fury almost choking him but he held it back. “Fine,” he said tightly. “But in case you’re interested, which apparently you’re not, someone was in that house today. And he hadn’t been gone long when I arrived. There was a fire still burning in the fireplace. It had been banked, but not for long.”

“You’re right,” Whalen said easily. “I was in the house this afternoon.” Then he jerked a thumb at Jeff Horton. “You ever see him before tonight?”

“No.”

“What about you, Horton? You ever see this guy before?”

“I already told you, Chief, I’ve never seen anybody around here before tonight. Not you, not him, not anybody. Now, for God’s sake, aren’t you going to do anything about my brother?”

“And I’ve already told you,” Whalen mimicked him, “there’s nothing we can do about your brother. If he was on that boat he died when it blew. If he went overboard he didn’t last more than twenty minutes in the water. In ten minutes a man passes out, out there. In ten more minutes he’s dead. So you’d better hope that your brother was never on that boat. And that seems pretty unlikely, since you claim the boat was headed directly for the rocks.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Jeff cried.

“I’m saying that unless one of you two is lying, it looks to me like your brother got on that boat and deliberately piled himself up.”

“That’s a fucking lie!” Jeff yelled. “He was securing the boat for the night. Max would never do anything like that. Never!”

A slow smile came over Whalen’s face. “What are you saying then? That someone killed him? Cut the boat loose? Steered it out onto that reef?”

“Something like that,” Jeff replied. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know who, but it was something like that. But we won’t know anything about it until we go out there, will we?”

“No,” Whalen agreed, “we won’t. Meantime, Horton, I think maybe you’d better plan on sticking around to answer some more questions. You too, Palmer.”

Glen’s fury finally exploded. “Are you out of your mind?” he yelled at the police chief. “You tell me right now, Whalen, am I under arrest or not?”

“You’re not,” Whalen said mildly, almost enjoying the other man’s rage. “Not yet.”

“And I damned well won’t be,” Palmer declared. “I had no motive, I wasn’t there. Hell, I don’t even know what kind of a boat it was. Dammit, Whalen, all I did was try to help out.” He stalked out of the police station, half-expecting Whalen to stop him. But he didn’t.

Instead, when they were alone, Whalen turned to Jeff Horton.

“I don’t like what happened here tonight,” he said softly, almost menacingly. “I don’t like it at all. I intend to find out what happened though, and I intend to see to it that it never happens again. And once I’ve found out I’ll expect you to get out of Clark’s Harbor. I don’t like strangers. They bring trouble. You’ve brought trouble, and your friend Palmer’s brought trouble. So hang around only as long as I tell you to. Then get out. Understand?”

Jeff Horton, still numbed from the shock of what had happened, nodded mutely and told himself he wasn’t hearing what he thought he had just heard. As he walked slowly back to the hotel, Jeff cursed the storm that had brought him to Clark’s Harbor, cursed Clark’s Harbor, and cursed Harney Whalen.

His impulse was to leave. He had no baggage, nothing. He could simply check out of the inn, walk up to the main highway, and thumb a ride north. But he knew he couldn’t.

He had to stay in Clark’s Harbor.

He had to find Max.

As the storm slashed rain in his face, Jeff tried to tell himself that he would find his brother, that Max would be all right.

His guts told him he was wrong. His guts told him Max was not all right; nothing would ever be all right again.

Glen Palmer was still almost shaking with rage when he left the police station. He began walking toward the harbor before he stopped to think it out. He wondered if Rebecca might drive in to pick him up, but decided she wouldn’t—she didn’t like leaving the children by themselves. Then he remembered Chip Connor. The deputy still hadn’t returned, but if Glen followed the road Chip might pass him and give him a lift. He turned around and began walking up Harbor Road. He had just reached