Cry for the Strangers Read online

  “Social whirl, indeed,” Elaine chuckled. “I’ll bet that boils down to an ice-cream social at the church once a month. But I don’t know, Brad. I keep telling myself to forget about that man, but even when I do, there’s something about this place. Something that just doesn’t seem right. I suppose it’s partly the way Glen Palmer was treated in the café this afternoon.”

  “We’ve already been through that,” Brad pointed out.

  “I know and I agree with you. There’s bound to be some of that sort of thing anywhere we go. But I just have a bad feeling about the whole place. Maybe it’s this storm.” As if on cue, a flash of lightning illuminated the room and the drumming of the rain was momentarily drowned out by a crash of thunder. Elaine, who usually liked storms, winced.

  “Or maybe it’s your woman’s intuition?”

  “If you want to call it that.”

  “Well, I like it here,” Brad said decisively. “I think the whole place is fascinating. The people intrigue me. I suppose they interest me professionally. They seem sort of detached, if you know what I mean, as if they live together but they don’t really care about each other. It’s an interesting phenomenon, almost a contradiction in terms. A small, close-knit village, probably inbred as hell, yet no one seems to have any emotional involvement with anyone else. At least not on the surface. They probably cover a lot.”

  “Maybe it’s just that nobody liked the poor man who drowned,” Elaine suggested.

  “Maybe so,” Brad agreed. “But I think it’s something else, something deeper.” He broke off and the two of them nestled together on the bed listening to the storm. Outside, the wind was building, and the inn was beginning to creak softly.

  “I even love the weather,” Brad said softly. “It makes me want to make love.”

  Elaine pulled away from her husband and stood up. A moment later her skirt dropped to the floor, followed by her blouse. She stood naked in front of Brad and arched her back, her breasts jutting forward. She smiled softly down at him.

  “One nice thing about a storm,” she whispered, “is that you can never hear what’s going on in the next room.”

  Then she slipped into bed.

  Two miles out of Clark’s Harbor, at the north end of a crescent of sand that was called Sod Beach, a single soft light glowed in the darkness from inside a tiny cabin. Too weak to illuminate even the corners of the room, it barely penetrated the dense black woods that nearly surrounded the structure. Rebecca Palmer, peering at the dishes she was washing in the dimness of the lantern light, cursed quietly to herself—nearly whispering so that her words would not be audible. But her son’s ears were sharper than she thought.

  “Daddy!” Robby Palmer cried out with all the puritanical fervor of his nine-and-a-half years, “Mommy said a bad word!”

  Glen glanced up from the game he was playing with his daughter and regarded his son seriously. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?” he observed mildly. Robby bobbed his head in agreement, but before he could say anything more his little sister’s voice interrupted.

  “Which one?” she demanded. “The one that means poop?”

  Robby looked at her scornfully. “Not that one, Missy. Everyone says that one. She said the one that means screw.”

  Missy turned to her father, her seven-year-old face alive with curiosity. “I don’t know that one. Which one is that?”

  “Never mind,” Glen said gently, then turned his attention to his wife. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  Rebecca bit her lip, stilling her sudden urge to cry. “Oh, nothing, I suppose. I just wish we had electricity out here. I can’t even see if these dishes are clean.”

  “What’s to worry about?” Glen said lightly. “If you can’t tell if they’re clean, we certainly won’t be able to tell if they’re dirty, will we?” Then, sensing that his attempt at humor was a mistake, he got to his feet and moved closer to Rebecca. Robby took his sister by the hand and led her into the tiny room that served as their bedroom. With the children gone, Glen drew his wife into his arms and held her close.

  “It’s rough, isn’t it?” he said. Her face pressed against his chest, Rebecca nodded. For a moment she thought she was going to lose control and let her tears flow, but she decided to curse instead.

  “Fuck it all,” she said softly. “Fuck it all.” Then, feeling a little better, she pulled away from Glen and grinned uncertainly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll be fine—really I will. I seem to be able to handle the big things—it’s always some dumb little thing that sets me off, like kerosene lanterns that don’t give off as much light as a forty watt bulb. Not that we’d have any electricity tonight even if we had electricity,” she added as a flash of lightning illuminated the room and the immediate clap of thunder flushed the children from the bedroom. Missy climbed into her father’s arms, while Robby stood in the doorway, his arms clasped tightly around a wriggling black-and-white spaniel. Glen felt a surge of relief at the appearance of the children, the relief that comes when a moment of tension is suddenly broken. He knew the break was only temporary, that the pressures that were building in both of them would have to be defused. But he had no idea how.

  The Palmers had been in Clark’s Harbor only five months, but the months had not been easy. At first Glen and Rebecca had told each other that the coldness they felt from the town was only natural, that things would warm up for them. But Clark’s Harbor remained cold, unwelcoming, and many times they had thought of leaving.

  If it hadn’t been for Robby they probably would have left.

  Robby had never been an easy child. From the time he was a year old, Glen and Rebecca had realized that he was “different.” But only in the last three years had they truly begun to understand that Robby was not just “different,” not just precocious as they had assumed. He was, in fact, ill, and the older he got, the worse his illness became. Slowly, insidiously, Robby’s hyperkinesis had begun destroying all of them. Glen found himself increasingly unable to work, unable to concentrate, unable to create. And nearly all Rebecca’s time was taken up by what she had come to think of as “tending” Robby. She could hardly call it raising him, not even call it supervising him. It was cleaning up after him, trying to anticipate him, struggling to stay ahead of him. Each year Rebecca had become more tired, more irritable, more desperate.

  Only Missy had been unaffected.

  Missy, two years younger than her brother, had always remained calm, had learned early to take care of herself, knowing somehow that her brother had special needs that she did not have.

  Then they had come to Clark’s Harbor.

  When Glen had first suggested that a vacation might help them all, Rebecca had resisted, certain it would be no vacation at all, but only more of the same—Robby constantly talking, constantly moving, poking at his sister, demanding things, becoming suddenly violent. But Glen had prevailed. They had left Seattle and driven out to the peninsula, camping on the beaches. Finally they had come to the crescent of beach just north of Clark’s Harbor and pitched their tent.

  There, the miracle had happened.

  Neither one of them had noticed it at first. It was Missy who brought it to their attention. “Something’s wrong with Robby,” she said one afternoon.

  Rebecca dropped the pair of jeans she was scrubbing, and ran out to the beach. She saw Robby playing near the surf line, building a sand castle, patiently building up the walls and parapets, digging the moats, and constructing drainage systems against the incoming tide. Rebecca watched, stunned, for a minute, then called to Glen.

  “Look,” she said when he appeared on the beach.

  Glen looked. “So?” he asked. “What’s so special about a kid building a sand castle?”

  “It’s Robby,” Rebecca said softly. “And he hasn’t torn it down.”

  It was true. Something had dispelled Robby’s frenetic restlessness. He sat quietly in the sand building his castle. They waited for the moment when he would suddenl
y jump to his feet, kick the structure all over the beach, and begin screaming and crying, venting his frustrations on whatever—whoever—was closest. But it didn’t happen. He continued working on the castle until it was built to his satisfaction, then looked up and, seeing his parents, waved to them.

  “Look what I built,” he called. Glen and Rebecca, with Missy trailing behind, solemnly inspected Robby’s work. At first they didn’t know what to make of it, so used were they to his habit of starting something, then wrecking it and moving immediately on to something else. And yet there it was, a maze of walls and moats, stretching almost fifteen feet along the beach.

  “He’s been working on it all morning,” Missy said proudly.

  “The tide will wash it all away,” Glen pointed out, more to soften the inevitable blow than to disparage the work.

  “That’s okay,” Robby said. “I can build another one further up.” He took his sister by the hand and started down the beach, walking slowly so that his stride matched Missy’s shorter steps. Glen and Rebecca watched them go, wondering what had happened, and waited for the terror to surface again.

  But it didn’t, not once in the five days they spent on the beach, which they found out was called Sod Beach. It didn’t appear until they left Sod Beach and started back to Seattle. It started in the car the morning after they began the trip south. Robby became his familiar nervous self, fidgeting, teasing his sister, needing constant stimulation, interested in nothing.

  Back in Seattle they told Brad Randall what had happened on Sod Beach, but he had no explanation. A fluke, he said, a coincidence. But Glen and Rebecca couldn’t accept that. All they knew was that on Sod Beach their son had been a normal nine-year-old boy. And so, during one long night of talk, they decided to leave Seattle. They would take the few thousand dollars Rebecca had inherited from her grandmother and move to Clark’s Harbor. There they would open a small art gallery, and with a little luck they would be able to make a living.

  But the luck hadn’t come. They had quickly discovered that Clark’s Harbor was not the least bit interested in them or their plans. They had succeeded in buying the cabin on Sod Beach and making a down payment on a building which they were in the process of converting into a gallery. But the conversion was slow. Materials Glen needed never seemed to be in stock; deliveries seemed to take forever. Twice Glen had hired local men to help him with the work, but he had quickly discovered that the locals, either through inexperience or malice, were more a hindrance than a help.

  Robby, though, was flourishing. The hyperkinesis that had plagued him throughout his short life had vanished as soon as they moved into the cabin on Sod Beach and showed no signs of recurring. Glen glanced at his son. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing quietly with his dog while Missy watched. If it hadn’t been for Robby, Glen and Rebecca would have left Clark’s Harbor. But for him they stayed.

  “Did something happen today?” Glen suddenly asked Rebecca.

  She nodded. “I wasn’t going to tell you about it, but I suppose I might as well. It was weird.”

  She told him about the incident at Blake’s Dry Goods, while Glen listened to the strange story in silence. When she was finished, he shrugged.

  “So we don’t shop at Blake’s anymore,” he said. “All things considered, I don’t suppose it’ll make much difference.”

  “It’ll be a damned nuisance,” Rebecca snapped. Seeing Glen flinch, she was immediately sorry. “Well, I suppose worse things could have happened. And I suppose they will.”

  Glen was about to reply when Robby suddenly came into the room. Sensing that the boy was about to ask a question about what had happened to his mother that day, and not wanting to have to explain, Glen decided to divert him.

  “Guess who I saw today?”

  Robby looked at him curiously. “Who?”

  “Dr. Randall.”

  “Who?” Robby asked blankly.

  Rebecca’s response was more positive. “Dr. Randall? Why didn’t you tell me? Where was he? Is he still in town?”

  “One at a time,” Glen protested. “He and his wife are on vacation and they happened to be at the café when I went in for lunch. They’re staying at the inn, and I told them to stop by tonight or tomorrow.”

  “Company …” Rebecca breathed, then glanced quickly around the tiny room, wondering what the Randalls would think of it. Robby was still gazing at his father.

  “Who’s Dr. Randall?” he asked again.

  Behind him Missy’s voice piped up. “Oh, Robby, he was your doctor. Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  “You never remember anything,” Missy taunted him.

  “You’ll remember him in the morning,” Glen said, putting a quick end to the budding argument. “I think it’s time you two were in bed.”

  “It’s too early,” Robby objected automatically.

  “You don’t know what time it is,” Rebecca said.

  “Well, whatever time it is, it’s too early,” Robby insisted. “We always stay up later than this.”

  “Not tonight, you don’t,” Glen said. “Come on, both of you.”

  He picked his daughter up and took his son by the hand. A moment later they were all in the tiny bedroom the two children shared. Glen helped them into their pajamas, then tucked them into the bunk beds, Robby on top and Missy below. He had started to kiss them good-night when Missy spoke.

  “Daddy, can we have a light on in here?”

  “A light? Since when do you need a light?”

  “Just for tonight,” Missy begged. “I don’t like the storm.”

  “It’s only wind and thunder and lightning, darling. It won’t hurt you.”

  “Then what about Snooker?” Robby put in. “Can’t he sleep with us tonight?”

  Snooker, the small black-and-white spaniel, stood in the doorway, his tail wagging hopefully, his soulful brown eyes pleading. Glen almost gave in, then changed his mind.

  “No,” he said firmly. “He can’t. You know very well that dogs belong outside, not inside.”

  “But he’ll get all wet,” Missy argued.

  “He’ll survive. He sleeps under the house anyway.”

  Before the children could argue any more, Glen kissed them both and picked up the lantern. “See you both in the morning,” he said, then pulled the door closed behind him.

  He put a protesting Snooker outside, then sat down next to Rebecca, slipping an arm around her.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” he said softly. “By tomorrow old Blake will have forgotten all about his damned dishes.”

  “Hmm? Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. It’s Robby.”

  “Robby?”

  “How could he have forgotten Dr. Randall?”

  “Children do that.”

  “But, my God, Glen, he spent two or three hours a week with Randall for almost three years.”

  “Then he’s blocked it.” Glen shrugged. “What’s so mysterious about that?”

  “I didn’t say it was mysterious,” Rebecca said. “It just seems … odd, I guess.”

  They fell silent then and sat quietly in front of the fire, listening to the wind and the pounding of the surf.

  “I do love it here,” Rebecca said after a while. “Even when I think I can’t make it through another day, all I have to do is listen to that surf and I know everything’s going to be all right.” She snuggled closer. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is,” Glen said. “It just takes a little time.”

  A few moments later, as Glen and Rebecca were about to go to bed, a small voice summoned them to the bedroom. Missy sat bolt upright in the lower bunk while Robby peered dolefully down at her from the upper.

  “I told her not to call you,” Robby said importantly.

  “I heard something outside,” Missy declared, ignoring her brother.

  “What did you hear, darling?” Rebecca asked gently.

  “I’m not sure, but it was something.”

&nb
sp; “Sort of a rustling sound?”

  The little girl’s head bobbed eagerly.

  “It was probably just a branch rubbing against the house,” Glen said reassuringly.

  “Or old Snooker looking for something,” Robby added.

  “It was something else,” Missy insisted. “Something’s out there.”

  Glen went to the small window and pulled the makeshift drapery aside. Beyond the glass the darkness was almost palpable, but he made a great show of looking first in one direction, then another. At last he dropped the curtain back into place, and turned to his daughter, who was watching him anxiously from the bunk. “Nothing there.”

  Missy looked unconvinced. “Can I sleep with you and Mommy tonight?”

  “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Robby said scornfully. Missy cowered under the quilt at her brother’s reproach. But Rebecca leaned over the tiny face, and kissed it gently.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she murmured. “There’s nothing outside, and Mommy and Daddy will be right in the next room. If you get frightened, you just call us and we’ll be right here.”

  She straightened, winked at her son, and left the room. After kissing each of his children once more, Glen followed his wife.

  “Are you asleep?” Robby whispered.

  “No.” Missy’s voice seemed to echo in the darkness.

  A flash of lightning lit the room, followed immediately by a thunderclap.

  “I wish it would stop,” Missy complained.

  “I like it,” Robby replied. “It makes me feel good.” There was a silence, then the little boy spoke again. “Let’s go outside and find Snooker.”

  Missy crept out of bed and went to the window, straining to see in the blackness. “It’s raining. We’ll get soaked.”

  “We can put on our slickers.”

  “I don’t think Snooker’s out there,” Missy said doubtfully.

  “Yes he is. Daddy says he sleeps under the house.”

  Robby climbed down from the top bunk and crouched next to his sister. “It’ll be fun,” he said. “It’ll be an adventure.”

  “I don’t like adventures.”

  “Fraidy cat.”