Free The Hour Before Dark by Douglas Clegg Page A

dance on the shore or love the smell of the fishing boats as they came into the harbor.
    I suspected that, whether she ever married or not, she would always remain in that house, always caring for it and tinkering with its upkeep, and making sure that someone remained to remember the Raglan history. It was as if the doors were not open for her.

     
    9
     
    Brooke went to flick on the kitchen light, and when her back was turned, Bruno whispered to me, “Sedatives.”
    “Yes,” Brooke said, turning to face him. She shot him a poisonous look. It nearly scared me, because it didn’t seem like the soft gentleness I’d remembered her having. “You drink, and I get a pill now and then.”
    “I didn’t mean it as—” Bruno began, but shut up. “Sorry.”
    Brooke’s face smoothed out. Then to me: “Pola and her little boy came by. Just paying respects. It seems early for it. I didn’t run her off, but I have a hard time with the idea of people just popping over the day after this. Harry came by this morning, too, and it’s making me angry that everyone has to say something to me. As if it’s required.” The sorrow in her face nearly astonished me. She needed sleep badly. Sleep and peace. “Just make yourself at home. Your room should be okay. Mab and Madoc seem to like sleeping there some nights. If they bother you, just shut them out. Don’t put up with any crap from them. There’s a spot heater in the den you can have if it gets too cold. I’m not sleeping at night. Don’t bother me ‘til after seven tonight. I just want to sleep right now. As long as I can.” She whistled for her dogs, and they leapt nearly across the living room and ran to her.
    And then my sister went down through the living room, out the door that led to the dining room. I heard a series of doors open and shut as she went through twelve rooms, upstairs, to her own room, near the back of the house.
    “She’s was on edge before this,” Bruno said. “Either quiet or like a cyclone. She and Dad were fighting all week. Mainly about money.”

     
    10
     
    Within an hour of being home, I got a call from the local police chief.

     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     

    1
     
    "Nemo?”
    “Joe,” I said. I had always known him as Joe rather than Officer Grogan. The island was like that. We had been tight-knit. Too tight. First thing I asked him, “You catch the killer yet?”
    A pause on the line.
    “First, I’m sorry for all this.” He said it in a low, quiet voice. It reminded me of my father a little, when he was trying to tell me something bad.
    “I just got in,” I said. But I wanted to just sink into a soft sadness and not deal with anything.
    “Well, I want you to know we’ve been scouring the island for this killer. Everyone is cooperating.”
    “Thank you,” I said, unsure how to respond. I still wasn’t certain how I was supposed to continue in life, thinking about this murder. I wonder if anyone who has been touched by a murder really knows how to react to it or to how people treat you afterward. It was as if you somehow came out of another dimension, as if you lost your pact with the rest of the human race, and then you were either a wounded victim or simply a foreigner in the land of normalcy.
    “We’ll need to ask you some questions, soon,” he said.
    “Of course,” I said.
    “Good. How’s Brooke?”
    “She seems to be ... well, holding up.”
    “Hang tough,” he said, before hanging up.
    I glanced at Bruno. Hung up the phone. “Grogan,” I said.
    “He’s calling too much,” Bruno said. “Means he doesn’t have anything. He really wants to talk to Brooke. I think he’s scared of her.”

     
    2
     
    The first week was a blur of reporters, who didn’t bother us as much as I thought they might, but generally were around if one of us left the house and actually ventured to the village. (I stayed home with Brooke unless a trip to town was absolutely necessary, and then I just went to buy eggs or coffee or milk at the