"El's not here?" She looked around, realizing for the first time the deputy was missing. "But the car-"
"Yeah, I know. But it was here when I got back.
Washed like he was expecting to be in a parade. The car, but no Eliot. I've been calling his place for the past hour, but I can't get an answer and nobody I can raise has seen him. Jesus, he must be under a tree with Wally."
"Nobody…" She set the cup on the desk. "Garve, what's going on?"
He looked back at the boy, who was studying the shotguns and the rifle in the cabinet. Then he pulled his chair as close to the desk as he could, leaned forward on his forearms and rubbed his chin with a thumb. "Peg, I got to be honest, I haven't the faintest idea. Half the town leaves yesterday like the whole place was on fire, that's on account of the Screamer. But today… well, you're the first person I've seen since I got up. Except for Lee."
She passed on a comment that rose automatically; this wasn't the time to kid him about his lovelife.
"Maybe… maybe they're afraid the storm will hit sooner than after midnight. They might be too busy to answer."
"Oh, it will." He snapped a finger at a pink sheet of paper. "Got the word about five minutes ago. Damn fools at the National Weather place, they didn't want to make a mistake. It moved right out into the ocean, stopped, thought about it, and it's coming right back."
"Oh, God, the windows."
"Yeah, exactly. Between trying to get hold of Eliot, I've been calling everyone I can think of." He shook his head, and shrugged. "Hardly anyone left. This place is going to be a disaster if they don't come back soon."
She sighed, bit softly on her lower lip. "What was that about Wally?"
He looked disgusted. "Bob comes in a while back, bitching about Sterling leaving the ferry unattended. No sign of him, the ferry's at the island. Cameron had to bring over his supplies on his own." His expression was sour. "He was lucky he didn't end up in Chesapeake Bay the way he pilots that thing."
"Lilla," Matt said, so loudly they started, not realizing he had walked up behind the chief. "What's this?" Tabor asked, half turning in his seat. "Matt, I told you not-"
"Lilla, sir," Matt said when he didn't look away. "I told Mom and Mr. Ross about the fog, but they didn't believe me."
Peg kept her silence when Tabor lifted a hand to prevent an interruption, but she could not help an annoyed frown when Matt explained to the chief about the fog and Lilla's singing. She expected him to laugh, or to touch the boy's shoulder and nod to humor him. What she didn't expect was the thoughtful expression that blanked Tabor's eyes for the briefest of moments.
"Garve, you don't believe that."
"I heard her this morning, Peg."
"Yes, but-"
"I told you, Mom. And I'll bet the storm-"
"Matthew, please!"
Tabor rose, walked to the open door, and put a hand on the frame as a smoke gust of fog drifted down the street. "It's an odd day, Peg," he said. "That Screamer just turned around like someone yanked on its chain. It should be halfway to France by now. Halfway to France." He sniffed, scratched his head. "An odd day."
She rose and joined him, folding her arms under her breasts. "Odd, yes. But nothing more."
"Yeah. Sure."
"Honestly, Garve, you're going to scare the boy with talk like that. It's bad enough, what he saw. Don't make it worse."
He nodded an apology, and snatched his hat off the rack. "You staying?"
"I have to," and explained again about Colin's call.
"All right, then." He looked at Matt. "You're a deputy now, son, okay? You have to protect your mother and watch for the crooks while I ride out to the cliffs."
He looked stern, but she caught a wink as he waited for Matt's answer.
"Really?" the boy asked, "really?"
"Really. Your mother, she'll do the easy stuff like answering the phone for me. You have to do the rest. Think you can handle it?"
"Oh, boy!"
"Right." Another wink when she mouthed thanks as he passed her, a wave before he was in the patrol car and ghosting down the street. She stood at the door for over ten minutes, returning inside only when the fog suddenly thickened.
And from the woods across the way, she heard Lilla singing.
THREE
The wind had already routed the beachside vanguard of fog by the time Colin reached the top of the last dune. The light here was brighter than under the trees, clinging to a muted glow as the overcast broke apart to gather again in dizzying swirls and sweeps of high roiling black; the beach was gray, desolate, and covered with remnants of settling, quivering foam as the tide raced in thunder for the woods, retreated, held its breath, and charged again; what warmth remained had turned to a damp chill that penetrated his jacket as if it were gauze.
He squinted against the wind, entranced for a moment by the dark of the ocean, a black-ice depth that resembled the face and fury of a season not yet arrived. Deep winter storms were his favorite, when there were no bathers around to tempt the undertow and give the impression that the Atlantic was friendly-a nice place to cool off, a great place to frolic, a fine place to cultivate a smooth-sheened tan. In the cold, however, when the tourists were gone, the ocean gave up the sunlight masquerade and turned its true color-metallic and harshly beautiful, slashed through with white, rising in great swells not meant for surfing or diving-exposing the power that stalked behind the facade of a tranquil summer.
But it wasn't yet Thanksgiving, and the sea he watched was already December's.
He turned away quickly and headed across the flat toward the shack. There was no sense calling out; the wind would carry his voice clear to New York before Lilla would hear it. He grunted when he tripped over an exposed rock and nearly lost his balance, remembering the slow-motion fall of Tess Mayfair off the ledge.
She had tried to kill him.
He knew it, even though he'd denied it to Peg.
She had tried to kill him.
And worse Peg had not seen her as closely as he had, She had not seen the white edges of Tess' ragged wounds, the bleached look of her ribs smashed and stabbing through all that flesh, the complete lack of blood anywhere on her. And she had not seen the fact that Tess' eyes were pure white.
If Tess had been lying on the road in that condition, he would not have hesitated in pronouncing her dead.
Though he had said that Tess was probably attacked by the same person who had murdered Warren Harcourt, once away from the others he couldn't quite believe it. It had to have been an accident. A car accident, or something like that, something at the boarding house that maybe brought a portion of it down on her. Not a fire; they'd neither seen nor smelled smoke and there was no… he swallowed… there was no charring on Tess that he'd been able to see.
No; not assault this time, though that did not make his intention to get Lilla any less urgent. The wind out there was bringing the sea too damned close.
His hands hid in his pockets as he approached the shack, his mind forceably shifting away from the cliffs to the present. Garve, he thought, would take care of Tess' puzzle. Right now, he reminded himself again, he had his own task to do, and as he rounded the shack's corner he wondered if this was such a good idea after all.
But he chided himself half humorously when he reached the building and hesitated. Then, with a mental kick to his backside for giving in to the day and to Peg's case of nerves, he knocked, the door swung open slowly, and he reeled around and stumbled a dozen paces away, one shoulder up, an arm flung across his face. Gagging, retching, flailing with his free hand at the stench that enveloped him and burned through his nostrils.
"Jesus… Christ!"
He fumbled in his hip pocket for a handkerchief, found none, covered his nose and mouth with a palm, and, breathing through his mouth, stared incredulously at the shack. There was no light inside, and the light where he stood wasn't strong enough to penetrate. He glanced around the room as if he expected to find Lilla, and stepped forward slowly, almost sideways, watching the weathered building as though it were an old and angry lion waiting to spring.
The stench increased.
He gasped, rubbing at the tears that rose and swept to his cheeks. Hoarsely: "Lilla!"
He was half bent over by the time he reached the door again. "Lilla!"
She couldn't be in there, not with that smell. "Lilla!"
It was so strong he was afraid that if he lit a match the entire island would explode. "Lilla, it's me!"
He staggered over the threshold, leaning heavily against the jamb as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the light. In a far corner he saw a bundle, gray and water-stained. The shroud, he thought, and told himself he was wrong. The shroud held Gran, and that was under the ocean surface.
The flesh across his cheeks felt tight, close to shredding.
The door to the rear room was ajar, and he could see shadows in there, shadows but nothing more. Maybe a bed, something else, something scattered over the floor. He tried to move forward, push himself away from the rough-plank wall, but his legs refused. The stench was a bludgeon now, a slow swinging club of rotting fruit and rotted meat and the carnage of a battlefield hours later in the sun. He couldn't do it.
He threw himself out the door and fell, rolled, didn't stop rolling until he came up against the pines that separated the flat from the beach. A hand to the coarse bark, he pulled himself to his feet, and stood with head lowered while tears streamed and his throat burned. He gulped for air, blinked rapidly and brushed a forearm across his face. When he was ready he staggered toward the dunes, looking back only once and wondering what in hell the old man had had in there that could die so foully.