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tied up, with men working on them, repairing nets, tinkering with engines, inspecting equipment. They walked the length of the wharf, pausing to inspect each boat as they passed it. No one spoke to them, and once, when Brad offered a tentative “hello,” there was no response.
    “They don’t talk much, do they?” Elaine observed as they neared the end of the pier.
    “Odd, isn’t it?” Brad replied. “Apparently the image of the happy fisherman hasn’t reached Clark’s Harbor yet.” He glanced around as if unsure what to do next. “Shall we go for a ride?”
    Before Elaine could answer him there was a blast of a siren and a police car pulled up to the wharf. From the driver’s side a barrel-chested man of about sixty emerged, then circled the car to open the door for a heavyset woman. She got out of the car, one hand clutching the police officer’s arm, the other holding onto a crumpled handkerchief.
    All activity on the wharf came to a halt as the men on the boats stared at the new arrivals.
    “Something wrong, Chief?” a voice called.
    “Something’s always wrong when Harney Whalen comes to the wharf,” another voice shouted.
    Police Chief Harney Whalen didn’t acknowledge the second voice, but chose instead to answer the first.
    “Don’t know,” he called out. “Miriam Shelling herecan’t seem to find Pete. Any of you guys seen him?”
    There were negative murmurings among the fishermen, and they began leaving their boats to gather around the chief. Miriam Shelling still clung to Whalen and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
    “He went out last night,” she said, looking from one of the men to another, then another, her eyes never resting for long on any single face. “He said he’d be back about four o’clock this morning, but he never came in.”
    One of the fishermen nodded in agreement. “Yeah, he was right behind me when I went out last night, but he didn’t come back in when I did. He’s probably found a school and wants to get all he can.”
    Miriam Shelling shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that,” she insisted. “He’d know I’d be worried. He’d at least have called me on the radio.”
    The men exchanged glances among themselves. Harney Whalen looked uncomfortable, as if he was wondering what to do next, when the silence was broken by the blast of an air horn. Everyone turned toward the harbor, where a small launch was speeding toward the wharf. Miriam Shelling’s fingers tightened on the police chief’s arm.
    The launch pulled up into one of the empty slips and a line was tossed out, caught, and tied to a cleat. A man leaped from the small boat, his face pale. He looked quickly around, his eyes coming to rest on Harney Whalen.
    “Are you a policeman?”
    “I’m the chief,” Whalen said. “Something the matter?”
    The man nodded. “I found a boat drifting out there.When I hailed it there wasn’t any response, so I went aboard. The boat was deserted.”
    “Where is it?” Whalen asked.
    “It’s anchored about a mile north, maybe three hundred yards out,” the man said. “It’s called the Sea Spray.”
    “That’s Pete’s boat,” Miriam Shelling cried. The man stared at her for a moment, then pulled Whalen a few feet away. When he spoke again his voice dropped low.
    “Its nets were out,” he said softly. “I decided to pull them in. And they weren’t empty.”
    Whalen glanced quickly at Miriam, then back to the stranger.
    “A body?”
    The man nodded. “I brought it back with me.”
    Whalen moved to the launch and stepped down into it. The fishermen crowded around as Whalen pulled back the tarpaulin that lay bundled in the stern. Pete Shelling’s vacant eyes stared up at them.
    Ten yards away the Randalls watched as the fishermen reacted to the death. They stared mutely down into the boat, then one by one began drifting away, as if somehow embarrassed to be in the presence of death. They passed Miriam Shelling silently, offering her neither a