by John Saul
“Nobody ever found out exactly what happened that night, but during the storm there were terrible things done. It was the next morning that all hell broke loose. Harney woke up and the house was empty. He looked around for his grandparents but they weren’t there. So he started searching for them.” Riley closed his eyes, visualizing the scene as he talked. “He found them on the beach. Sod Beach, about halfway between where the houses are now. Neither of them was there back then—the beach was just a beach. Anyway, Ham went out there and at first he didn’t see them. But they were there: buried in the sand up to their necks, drowned. It was just like the old Klickashaw stories, but that time it wasn’t a story. It was Harn’s grandparents. I saw them myself a little while later. The whole town went out there before they even dug the Whalens up. Awful. Their eyes were all bugged out, and their faces were blue. And the expressions—you wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Jesus,” Chip said softly. “Did they find out who did it?”
“Nah,” Riley said. Disgust edged his voice. “Everybody had suspicions, of course, and what happened after that didn’t help any.”
“Something else happened?”
“About a week after the funeral, Harney’s dad gave in and signed a lease with the lumber people. The old man wouldn’t, but Harney’s dad did. And then he leased the beach to that guy Baron, who built the house out there that Harney owns now.”
“How’d Harney get it?”
“He grew up,” Riley said flatly. “He Just waited around. The lease wasn’t a long one—only about ten or fifteen years—but by the time it was up his dad had died too and Harney owned the land. He just refused to renew the lease. Baron was mad—real mad. Claimed there’d been an unwritten agreement, some kinda option, I think. But Harn got some fancy lawyer from Olympia to go to work on that. Anyway, he ended the lease, and that was it for Baron. He stayed around for a while and tried to fish, but that didn’t work either. Got himself drowned, he did. Nobody around here gave a shit—they all thought he’d been in on killing Old Man Whalen and his wife.” The old man chuckled then. “Funny how I always think of him as Old Man Whalen—he must have been twenty years younger than I am now when he died.”
He stopped talking for a few minutes, then grinned at his grandson. “Funny thing. I was telling Tad and Clem about Baron the other day, but I couldn’t remember his name then. I know it as well as I know my own but it just slipped right on away. Anyway, like I told Tad and Clem, same thing happened to Baron’s wife as happened to Miriam Shelling. Hung herself in the woods. Might even have been the same tree for all I know.”
Chip stared at his grandfather. “She hanged herself? After her husband drowned?”
“Yup. Just like Pete and Miriam. Funny how things like that happen. I guess the guy who said history repeats itself wasn’t so far off, was he?”
“Funny Harney didn’t tell me about it,” Chip commented.
Riley made an impatient gesture. “Why would he? What happened to the Barons was thirty-five, forty years ago, long before you were even born. Anyway, that’s why Harney hates strangers so much. A couple of them killed his grandparents, even if no one ever proved it.”
Chip swirled the half-inch of scotch that still remained in his glass and stared thoughtfully up at the portrait of his grandmother. Her dark face had a stoic, almost impassive look, as if life had been hard for her but she had survived it. As he studied the portrait Chip realized that the resemblance between her and her nephew, Harney Whalen, was not so much a physical thing at all. It was the look. The look of impassivity.
Chip began to understand Harney Whalen, and his sense of worry deepened.
Missy Palmer lay in bed asleep, her hands clenched into small fists, her face twisted into an expression of fear. The rain pattered on the roof, and Missy began to toss in the bed. At the sound of a twig snapping outside, her eyes flew open.
She was suddenly wide awake, the memory of her nightmare still fresh in her mind.
“Robby?” she whispered.
No sound came from the bunk above.
Missy lay still, her heart thumping loudly in her ears. Then she thought she heard something. A snapping sound, like a branch breaking.
Her eyes went to the window and the thumping of her heart grew louder.
Was there something at the window? Something watching her?
Her dream came back to her. In it the … something at the window was chasing her. She was on the beach with Robby, and it was chasing both of them. They ran into the woods, trying to hide, but it followed them, looming closer and closer. Her legs wouldn’t move anymore. Try as she would, she couldn’t run. Her feet were stuck in something, something gooey, that sucked at her, trying to pull her down.
Then she fell, and suddenly the shape was above her, towering over her, reaching for her.
She screamed.
She felt her mother’s arms go around her and began sobbing, clinging to Rebecca.
“There, there,” Rebecca soothed her. “It’s all right. It was a dream, that’s all. You had a dream.”
“But there was someone here,” Missy sobbed. “He was trying to get us. Robby and I were running from him but he was after us. And then I fell …” She dissolved once more into her sobbing, and Rebecca stroked her hair softly.
Robby, awakened by the scream, hung over the top bunk, a look of curiosity on his sleepy face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked groggily.
“Nothing,” Rebecca assured him. “Missy had a nightmare, that’s all. Go back to sleep.”
Robby’s head disappeared as Glen came into the doorway.
“Is she all right?” he asked anxiously.
“She’s fine,” Rebecca told him. “Just a bad dream.”
Missy’s head stirred in her mother’s lap. “It wasn’t a dream,” she cried. “It was real. He was here. I saw him outside the window.”
“Who did you see, darling?” Glen asked.
“A man,” Missy said. “But I couldn’t see his face.”
“You were dreaming,” Rebecca said. “There isn’t anyone out there.”
“Yes there is,” Missy insisted.
“I’ll have a look,” Glen said.
He threw a raincoat on over his pajamas and opened the door of the cabin, shining his flashlight around the surrounding forest. There was nothing.
Then, as he was about to close the door, Scooter dashed between his feet, his tiny tail wagging furiously, barking as loudly as his puppy voice would allow. Glen reached down and scooped him up.
“It’s all right,” he said to the puppy, scratching its belly. “Nothing’s out there.”
Scooter, soothed by the scratching, stopped barking.
But Missy kept on crying.
Two miles away, while the wind rose to a vicious howl, the back door of Glen Palmer’s gallery flew open. The horror began.
22
Early the following morning Glen Palmer put on his slicker, opened the cabin door, and let Scooter out. The puppy scuttled around the corner, and when Glen followed, he found the dog sniffing under the window of the children’s room. He squatted down, picked up the wriggling puppy, and carefully examined the ground. There was a slight depression, obscured by the still-falling rain, that might have been a footprint.
Or it might not.
Glen frowned a little and tried to find another, similar depression, but the ground was rough, soggy, and covered with pine needles.
“Well, if anything was there, it isn’t now,” he muttered to Scooter, then set the puppy down again. Scooter, having lost interest in whatever he had been sniffing at, trotted happily off into the woods, looking back every few seconds to make sure he hadn’t lost sight of Glen. Clumsily he lifted a leg next to a bush, then ran back to the front door, where he began yapping to be let in.
As Glen followed the puppy into the house, Rebecca looked curiously at him from the stove, where she was frying eggs.
“Find anything?”
“Wh
at makes you think I was looking for anything?”
“You were. Was there anything to find?”
“Not without a liberal dose of imagination. There’s a dent in the ground outside the kids’ window, and I suppose I could claim it’s a footprint if I wanted to, but I don’t think anybody’d believe me. I certainly wouldn’t.”
Rebecca put down the spatula she was holding and began setting the table. “You want to get the kids going?” she asked.
“Let them sleep a few more minutes. I’ll take them in when I go and drop them at school.”
“What’s the rush this morning?”
“There isn’t any really. Except that Chip might show up and I don’t want to miss him.”
“I like him.”
“So do I,” Glen grinned. “I especially like the way he works. We’ll have the place open by the end of the week. And I’m going to give him that painting.”
“Painting? Which one?”
“The one of the old house where the Randalls live. He really likes it. It seems like the least I can do.”
They fell silent, but it wasn’t a comfortable silence.
“Something’s bothering you,” Glen said at last. Rebecca nodded.
“I keep having a feeling something’s happened, or is about to happen.”
Glen laughed. “Maybe you’d better go see Brad Randall along with Robby.”
“Robby?” Rebecca said blankly. “What about Robby?”
“Nothing, really,” Glen replied, trying to pass it off. “He just asked me if he could look Robby over. I think he wants to try to figure out what happened to him when we came up here. But if you ask me, he’s wasting his time.” Then his voice grew more serious. “What about you? This feeling you have?”
“Oh, it’s probably nothing,” Rebecca said, though her tone belied the statement. “Just nerves, I guess.” She paused a moment, then: “When was the last time Missy had a nightmare?”
Glen frowned, trying to remember. Then he saw what Rebecca was getting at. “Never, I guess. But that doesn’t prove anything.”
“Except that she said someone was outside last night and you found a footprint.”
“I found something that might have been a footprint,” Glen corrected her. “Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill. One nightmare doesn’t mean anything.”
“But she thought she saw someone outside before, remember?”
“That happens to all kids. They have vivid imaginations. You know that as well as I do.”
Rebecca sighed. “I suppose so,” she said reluctantly. “But I still have this feeling.” Then she forced a smile. “I suppose I’ll get over it. Why don’t you get the kids out of bed?”
Glen dropped the children off at the tiny Clark’s Harbor school an hour later, then went on to the gallery. He knew something was wrong as soon as he opened the door.
The display cases, finished only the day before, had been smashed. All the glass was shattered, and the framing had been torn apart and scattered around the room. The shelves, securely anchored to the walls by Chip Connor only a few days before, had been ripped down.
The back room was even worse. The shelves on which Rebecca’s pottery had been stored were empty; the pottery itself was on the floor, heaped against one wall, every piece smashed beyond recognition.
And the paintings.
They were still in their frames, but they too had been destroyed, viciously slashed. Every canvas was in tatters, made even more grotesque by the undamaged frames.
Glen stared at the wreckage, first in disbelief, then in grief, and finally in rage. He felt the anger surge through him, felt a towering indignation take possession of him. He turned away from the wreckage, walked through the main gallery and out the front door. Without pausing at his car, he started walking into the village, staring straight ahead.
Fifteen minutes later he stalked into the police station.
Chip Connor looked up when he heard the door open. At the look on Glen’s face, his greeting died on his lips and he stood up.
“The gallery—” Glen began. Then he choked on his own words and stopped. He stood quivering in front of Chip, trying to control himself, trying to force himself neither to scream nor to cry. He breathed deeply, sucking air into his constricted lungs, then let it out in an immense sigh.
“Someone broke into the gallery last night,” he said at last. “They wrecked it.”
“Come on.” Chip grabbed his hat and started out of the office.
“Where are you going?” Glen demanded.
“I want to see it,” Chip said. There was an icy quality in his voice that Glen had never heard before.
“Not yet,” Glen said. “Let me sit down a minute.” He felt suddenly weak, and let himself sink into a chair. “Do you have any coffee around here? Or maybe even a drink?”
The coldness immediately left Chip’s manner. He closed the office door, poured Glen some coffee from the huge percolator that was always ready, and sat down at the desk again.
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess that wasn’t very professional of me. What happened?”
“I don’t know. I walked in and the place was wrecked. Both rooms. And Rebecca’s pottery. And my paintings.”
“Shit,” Chip cursed softly. “How bad is it?”
“The pottery and the paintings are completely ruined. As for the gallery, you’ll know better than I. Frankly, I didn’t take time to really look. I walked down here as soon as I saw what had happened.”
“You walked?”
“I was so mad I could hardly see straight, and I didn’t even think about getting into the car. If I had, I probably would have run it into a tree.” Then he frowned slightly. “Where’s Whalen?”
“Not here. He’s over to Doc Phelps’ this morning.”
“Well, I’m just as glad he isn’t here,” Glen said wearily. “I probably would have blown it completely if I’d had to talk to him. Is there more coffee there?”
“Help yourself.” He waited, chewing thoughtfully on his lips, while Glen refilled his cup. When Glen was seated once more, Chip spoke again. “Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Sure,” Glen said tonelessly.
“Did you come over here to report what happened, or to yell at Harney Whalen?”
The question caught Glen by surprise and he had to think about it. “I don’t honestly know,” he said finally. “Both, I guess. I had to report it, of course, but I was going to to vent some anger on Whalen too.” He smiled weakly. “I guess it’s just as well he isn’t here.”
“I guess so,” Chip agreed. “You about ready to go over to the gallery? I’ll make out a report there, and we can decide what to do next.”
“Do? What’s there to do? Everything’s ruined.”
“Maybe,” Chip agreed. “Maybe not. Let’s go find out.”
“Holy Christ,” Chip said as the two of them entered the gallery. “It looks like someone let a bear loose in here.”
He pulled out his notebook and began writing down a description of the damage. When he was finished in the front room he went into the back and repeated the process.
“They came in here,” he said, starting at the back door. It hung grotesquely, one hinge completely torn loose from the frame.
He made a few more notes, then put the notebook away. Glen was staring at the shreds of the paintings, his face expressionless.
“Is there any way to repair them?” Chip asked.
Glen shook his head. “You can fix a small tear sometimes, but nothing like this,” he said tonelessly.
Chip couldn’t bear the look in Glen’s eyes. “I don’t know if it’ll do any good,” he said, “since there doesn’t seem to be anything to sell. But we can fix the gallery.”
“It’s all broken up,” Glen said dully.
“Not that bad. We’ll have to get new glass, but the cases can be put back together again.” He smiled briefly, then added, “It isn’t as if the shelves haven’t been torn off the wall
s before.”
“It will just happen again,” Glen pointed out.
“Not if we put in an alarm system. And not if we find out who did it.”
“Oh, come on, Chip. We’re not going to find out who did it, and you know it.”
“We might,” Chip said. Then he decided he might as well be honest. “No, you’re right, we probably won’t. Hell, we don’t even know why they did it.”
“I guess you know what I think,” Glen said.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Chip asked, deliberately ignoring Glen’s comment. Without waiting for an answer, he went on. “Take the day off. Go home and tell Rebecca what happened, then decide what the two of you want to do. We’ll start cleaning up tomorrow. I’m off duty.”
“Okay. The mess has to be cleaned up anyway.” Glen’s face clouded as a memory came back to him. “Rebecca said something was going to happen,” he said. “Just this morning, when we got up. She said something’s happened or is about to happen. I guess she was right.”
They had walked from the back room into the gallery, but suddenly Glen returned to the workroom. A minute later he was back.
“They didn’t get everything,” he said triumphantly. “There was one picture I put away and they didn’t find it.”
Chip looked curiously at him as Glen turned the picture he held. It was the canvas depicting Sod Beach and the weathered old house with the strange presence in the window.
“I’m glad it was this one,” Glen said. “I put it away because I was saving it. But you’d better take it now, Chip. It might not be around much longer.”
“Take it? What are you talking about?”
“I was going to give it to you the day we finished the gallery,” Glen explained. “So I put it away, just so I couldn’t be tempted to sell it. But I think you’d better take it now, just in case.”
“I can’t take it,” Chip protested. “My God, it’s all you’ve got left.”
But when they left the gallery a few minutes later, Chip was carrying the painting and planning where to hang it.
Harney Whalen sat in Dr. Phelps’ cluttered office, and described what had happened the previous afternoon. Phelps listened patiently. When Harney finished he shrugged his shoulders.
