Colin checked the sky again, the water, and said, "I can't tell you how lucky I feel." Then he looked down at the beach, at the people still gathering. "Funny, I thought I saw Cameron."
"He slipped away about fifteen minutes ago."
Colin grunted his surprise.
Garve spat dryly. "Doesn't make any difference. He was here to be seen, that's all. Slap a few backs, whisper in a few ears. I expect his buddies are waiting for him at the restaurant."
"Oh, you know about them?"
Garve glanced at him oddly. "Do you?"
He gave a brief account of Cameron's phone call, letting the tone of his voice provide the commentary needed.
"Well, well," Garve said. He pushed his hat to the back of his head, and slipped the fingers of his left hand into his hip pocket. "Old eagle eye doesn't miss much, m'boy. It's in the genes with us law folk. There are two of them, actually. Came over this morning. One guy doesn't weigh a hundred pounds, I bet. He's Mike Lombard and his specialty is real estate law. He lives in Trenton and drinks cocktails with the governor. The other one, he has a knife scar from his gut to his throat, and his expertise is political persuasion. The way I hear it, they're looking to Bob to provide them with a donation for their retirement fund."
"Interesting. But shouldn't you be after them or something?"
Garve laughed quietly. "Col, this isn't the Old West. I can't give them twenty-four hours to get outta town just because I don't like their faces. As long as they don't get Cameron to do something real stupid, all I can do is make them very unhappy to see me in their shadows."
Colin would have replied but he realized the mourners were staring past him to the shack. He turned slowly. The door was open, and a few second's watching brought Lilla into focus.
Garve sighed relief. "Time, I guess. Listen, maybe you'd-"
He nodded, took his hands from his pockets and trudged across the sand.
Eliot Nichols glared into the tiny office and dared the phone to ring again. Then he locked the door behind him and rushed to the green patrol car. With everybody and their brother wanting to know if a Screamer was coming (and too damned lazy to listen to the radio), he'd have to speed so as not to miss the funeral. And if he was going to be chief one of these days, attendance was a social must.
Midway along Neptune Avenue, far beyond the darkened gas station-the last business on the street- he passed between the Rising Sun Motel and the Seaview, both constructed in the shape of an H, windows boarded now for winter and the parking lots deserted and filled with dead leaves. He glanced at them automatically, though he really wasn't looking. The Rising Sun was a meeting place for the worst of the island's teenagers. Though they'd never been caught, he knew they generally broke into the second floor rooms in back to party, drink themselves stupid on beer, do a little dope, do a little sex. There weren't many of them, a half dozen tops, and it usually happened only four or five times before the owners returned in spring. But it galled him to know they were there at all. Laughing at him. Not giving a damn. Just biding their time until they were legally old enough to get off the island. They were decidedly unlike the rest of the local kids, and he had a hard time understanding how they got that way.
A hundred yards later he saw Warren Harcourt sitting on the pebbled verge, hat in hand, legs splayed, feet bare, head bowed and nodding. With a groan, he pulled over and climbed out. Shaking his head, he slammed the door shut and hitched up his belt. Harcourt didn't move. Nichols stood over him for nearly a full minute, waiting for a reaction. When the man refused to acknowledge him, Nichols groaned again.
"You idiot," he said, grabbing the taller man's shoulders and yanking him effortlessly to his feet. "Don't you know there's a funeral tonight? Don't you have any respect for the dead?" He punched Harcourt's arm sharply, and had to reach out quickly to keep him from falling.
Harcourt belched.
"Damn it, Warren, why don't you get your butt on home?"
The lawyer blinked several times. "Wanna see Gran," he said. "I wanna see Gran."
Nichols didn't know whether to laugh or kick him. "Gran," he said with exaggerated care, "is dead. For God's sake, that's who they're buryin'! Jesus, you know that."
Harcourt swiveled around to face him, his dark eyes brimming with tears. "Dead?"
The deputy nodded. "Burying him?"
"Aw, Warren, come on! You heard what I said."
The attorney reached several times for his topcoat lapels, failed, and let his hand dangle at his side. He swallowed. "They're not… are they burying him at sea?"
"Where the hell else, huh?"
For a moment the liquor seemed gone from the man's system, so much so that Nichols took a step back and frowned.
"Does Lilla know this?" Harcourt asked sharply. "Does she know what they're doing?"
Nichols stared, frowning.
"Well, sir, does she know?"
He put a hand to his forehead and rubbed slowly. He'd seen this happen before: One moment the lawyer was so out of it he could barely stand, the next it was as if he hadn't had a drop in his life. It spooked him. It really spooked him.
Harcourt belched again.
"That's it," Nichols muttered. He took the unsteady man's arms and spun him around toward town. Another moment for consideration and he gave him a harsh shove. "Go! Go on, damn it, before I run you in and throw away the key."
Harcourt lurched forward five or six feet, regained his balance, and walked a half dozen feet more. Then, abruptly, he turned and slipped his hands into his topcoat pockets. He was just beyond the reach of the patrol car's headlights, a shadow barely formed, and Nichols could have sworn he looked almost normal.
His voice was deep, and perfectly steady. "He won't like it, you know. He won't like it at all."
Nichols turned away, more spooked than before, and looked up to the stars. Damn, he thought, wouldn't you know it. Gone more than a week and now the damned fog is coming back.
Matt had asked her again: "Mom, why don't you and Mr. Ross get married?"
And again she'd answered truthfully: "Don't know, darlin'. Maybe because there's a time for things like that, and this isn't it."
It had sounded weak when she said it and Matt had finished his chocolate pudding in silence, cleared the table and gone up to his room when she'd pardoned him from doing the dishes. He wanted to finish the picture of the gulls, he'd told her; he wanted it done by Monday so Mr. Ross could tell him what he'd done wrong and what he should practice on. And when she was alone she washed the plates and listened to the radio, humming when she recognized a melody, shutting the music out when she didn't. Afterward, she wandered into the study where she opened the store ledger and stared at the columns, the figures, the black and red ink.
She held a ball-point pen in her right hand and tapped the retractor knob against her teeth.
Ten minutes later nothing had changed-the store was still solvent, no hints of financial disaster, and she might even be able to give one of her two clerks, Frankie Adams, a slight raise for the winter. If, she amended, he kept his nose clean. She smiled. She might as well ask for a million tax-free dollars. Though the boy was ambitious, and a decently hard worker, he was also enthralled by the local godhood, Carter Naughton. As long as Cart suffered the younger boy's presence, Frankie was going to be a problem. Well, maybe the raise would turn him around. Her good deed for the year.
She pushed away from the desk and stretched, groaned with pleasure, and toed off her shoes. Her hair, a rich and sullen auburn, was bunned at the nape for convenience, not preference. Her blouse and skirt were white and unfrilled. She rebelled against smocks, lab coats, and the like. Pharmacist or not, she didn't believe she lost a dime in sales just because she looked like a woman.