The Cove

Reverend Vorhees patted me again, like I was a child, an idiot."

    "Or worse, a hysterical woman."

    "Exactly. Someone killed her, James. It couldn't have been an accident. I heard her scream the night I arrived- three nights ago-and then last night. Last night, they killed her."

    "What do you mean, 'they'?"

    She shrugged, looking a bit confused. "I don't know. It just seems right."

    The phone rang and James answered it. It was Sam North calling him back. Sally listened to his end of the conversation.

    "Yes, a woman anywhere from young to middle aged, I guess. The tide washed her in, and she'd been battered against the rocks for a good number of hours. I don't know how long. What do you want to do, Sam?''

    He listened, then said, "A little town called The Cove about an hour or so southwest of you. You know it? Good. The local doctor is looking her over now, but they have no law enforcement, nothing like that. Yes? All right. Done. His name is Doc Spiver, on the end of Main Street. You've got the number. Right. Thanks, Sam."

    He said as he hung up the phone, "Sam's calling the county sheriff. He says they'll send someone over to handle things."

    "Soon, I hope," Doc Spiver said, walking into the small living room, wiping his hands-an obscene thing to be doing, Sally thought, staring at those old liver-spotted hands, knowing what those hands had been touching. There was a knock on the front door and Doc Spiver called out, "Come along in!"

    It was Reverend Hal Vorhees. On his heels were the four old men who spent most of their time sitting around the barrel playing cards.

    "What the hell's going on, Doc? Excuse me, ma'am, but we heard you'd found a body at the bottom of the cliffs."

    "It's true, Gus," Doc Spiver said. "Do all of you know Mr. Quinlan and Sally, Amabel's niece?"

    "Yes, we do, Doc," Purn Davies, the man who'd wanted to marry Amabel, said. "Now what's happening? Be quick telling us. I don't want the ladies to hear about it and be distressed."

    "Sally and Mr. Quinlan found a woman's body."

    "Who is she? Do you recognize her?" This from Hal Vorhees.

    "No. She's not from around here, I don't think. I couldn't find anything on her clothes either. You find anything, Mr. Quinlan?"

    “No. The county sheriff is sending someone over soon. A medical examiner as well."

    "Good," Doc Spiver said. "Look, she could have been killed by anything. Me, I'd say it was an accident, but who knows? I can't run tests, and I haven't the tools or equipment to do an autopsy. As I said, I vote for accident."

    "No," Sally said. "No accident. Someone killed her. I heard her screaming."

    "Now, Sally," Doc Spiver said, holding out his hand to her, that hand he'd been wiping, "you're not thinking that the wind you heard was this poor woman screaming."

    "Yes, I am."

    "We never found anything," Reverend Vorhees said. "We all looked a good two hours."

    "You just didn't look in the right place," Sally said.

    "Would you like something to calm you?"

    She stared at the old man who had been a doctor for many more years than her mother had been alive. She'd met him the previous day. He'd been kind, if a little vague. She knew he didn't want her here, that she didn't belong here, but as long as she was with Amabel, he would continue being kind. Come to think of it, all the folk she'd met had been kind, but she still felt they didn't want her here. It was because she was a murdered man's daughter-that had to be it. She wondered if they would turn her in now that she and James had found the woman's body, the woman Sally had heard screaming.

    "Something to calm me," she repeated slowly, "something to calm me." She laughed, a low, very ugly laugh that brought Quinlan's head up.

    "I'd better get you something," Doc Spiver said, turned quickly, and ran into an end table. The beautiful Tiffany lamp crashed to the floor. It didn't break.

    He didn't see it, James realized. The damned old man is going blind. He said easily, “No, Doc. Sally and I will be on our way now. The detective from the Portland police will tell the sheriff to come here. If you'd let them know we'll be at Amabel's house?"

    "Yes, certainly," Doc Spiver said, not looking at them. He was on his knees, touching the precious Tiffany lamp, feeling all the lead seams to make certain it wasn't cracked.

    They left him still on the floor. All the other men were silent as death in the small living room with its rich wine-red Bokhara carpet.

    "Amabel told me he was