Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 1. Whole No. 344, July 1972

The Thing on the Beach by Florence V. Mayberry{© 1972 by Florence V. Mayberry.}

Here is Florence V. Mayberry, again doing her particular thing. But this time she gives it something new, something different — what might be called “a piecemeal technique.” Piecemeal in more ways than one... Is the tiny community of Sea Mount a microcosmic mirror of the world? (Aren’t we all?)

Mrs. Cecilia Pigazzi’s black button eyes twinkled with pleasure when she hopped out of bed, pulled up the blinds of her window, and saw bright sunshine. No fog this morning! Oh, lolly-da, a good day to watch what went on in Sea Mount. Must hurry. Else she might be in her nightgown when Angelo the fish man drove round in his truck and all the neighbors would be at their windows spying on everything a widow did.

She hurried into the bathroom, splashed her face, rinsed her mouth, and carefully slipped in her dentures, moving her lower jaw back and forth to adjust them. Tony used to laugh at her, started calling her an old woman when she was only 30 and her teeth went bad. Ah well, poor old Tony, God rest his soul!

Racing against the sound of Angelo’s fish-truck horn, she pulled a pair of stretch bluejeans over her lush round bottom, zipped them, and slipped her arms into a plaid flannel shirt. The shirt had belonged to Tony, her husband, a large man whose demise before he reached 50 was surely encouraged by gargantuan helpings of ravioli, spaghetti, chili, deviled crab, chili and more chili; he had been crazy for spicy foods, that man.

Hastily she measured the coffee and plugged in the percolator. Then, her lips swelling and fluttering almost as in passion, she went to the bay window of her living room where, in the place of honor, stood her beloved spyglass. A beautiful instrument, it had been auctioned off by an old sea captain’s estate. Cost her a pretty penny, too, with every family in Sea Mount wild to get their hands on it. But a treasure. Not another telescope in the valley to match it. Now, with a sigh of satisfaction, she put her eye to its sight and swung it in slow reconnoiter over the valley.

Ah, ha! That nasty little boy of Joe and Marnie Sykes was teasing their German Shepherd again; one of these days that dog would pull his chain free and then young smarty, Little Joe, might be sorry. Oh, good, good! Big Joe, his dad, appeared on the back steps and motioned the boy into the house. But the ornery little whelp just ran down the hill and headed for the beach, no doubt to fool around and maybe drown himself. Saturday. No school to keep him in line. Oh, well—

What, no smoke rising from Silas Williams’ chimney? Had old tightwad Silas at last broke loose with some money and bought his prissy-mouthed Laura an up-to-date range that used gas instead of driftwood? Or maybe taken her up to San Francisco? Ha, ha, maybe to a lawyer to make her sign away all rights to his money so that one of these days she wouldn’t be aggravated into finishing him off. Well, keep looking, dear, Sea Mount’s got more in it than the Williams place.

Ringing the tiny community on three sides were low mountains, still green from winter and early spring rains. On the remaining side was the Pacific Ocean, blue and undefiled. Between the scattered houses and the mountains were dark fields of rich earth that produced artichokes, peas, and flowers for San Francisco’s markets.

The sight of the valley gave Cecilia a surge of satisfied possession. Yes, yes, it was a pretty place. Nice and quiet. A place for real down-to-earth folks.

She spotted Hughie Cornfeld carrying a bucket and slowly walking toward the cliff trail which led from his one-room shack at the cliff’s top down to the pale sandy beach. “Going clam digging,” she decided, her mouth watering in anticipation. Hughie was different from Angelo. Angelo charged money for his fish. Hughie, on the other hand, despised money and was generous with the food he garnered from the sea.

Hughie, that screwball, admitted he used to be head of some brokerage company in San Francisco. A really big company, according to rumors that were whispered around, with Hughie himself a millionaire. Imagine! Old holes-in-the-pants Hughie! Once, when she broached the subject to him, he told her he walked out of the whole dog-eat-dog mess because it was killing his soul.

“I gave all my money to my wife Sadie,” he had said. “Sadie loved money. So did I. Once. But finally I hated it and what it did to me. So Sadie got her money, and I got fresh air and freedom.”

Holes in his head as well as in his pants, that was Cecilia’s personal opinion. Not that she was wild about money herself, but thank God Tony left enough insurance to keep a roof over her head and her stomach filled. That ought to please Tony, who was always saying food, bed, roof over one’s head, in that order. “So, Tony, I got it all, even the other half of the bed I’m in no hurry to fill up,” she said to his memory.

The inner picture of Tony Pigazzi clung as she returned to her cheerful kitchen with its red and white checked wallpaper and white woodwork. She could almost see him stomp across the waxed linoleum, heavy belly hanging over pants that were fastened only at the top button, hawking and belching as he made his way to the bathroom. “Ah, well, old Tony,” she said cheerfully. Like a good placid pet patted on the head, the memory curled up in the back of her mind and went to sleep.

As soon as she finished her hearty breakfast she hurried back for another look through the spyglass. Down by the cliff she caught a flash of blue moving rapidly toward the highway. Must be Little Joe Sykes, he was wearing a bright blue shirt this morning. Running like crazy, he was. Maybe Hughie lost his good nature and chased the brat off the beach for interfering with his clam digging.

Sure enough, here came Hughie after him. Running good for a man of 50 or so, his shaggy hair bouncing in the breeze he made.

Well, now, look at that! Here comes that Sykes dog after them, beating its chain behind him, finally broke loose and a danger to everybody.

The boy, the man, and the dog ran down the brief stretch of highway, past the garage, to Ed and Anna Grimes’s general store. The boy flung open the door. Hughie followed. The dog ran back and forth outside, panting and looking nervously at his dragging chain.

It seemed only an instant until Ed Grimes, Hughie, and the boy tore out of the store, Anna Grimes behind them, all talking excitedly. “Pity this thing can’t hear!” Cecilia fumed.

The dog ran at the boy, his tongue slapping affectionately over him. The boy swatted the dog, mouthed something. The dog fell to its stomach and started creeping toward the hill. “Ought to have bitten him,” she muttered. “I can’t stand people who hurt animals.”

Anna stayed behind while the men and boy half ran, half walked toward Hughie’s shack and disappeared over the cliff’s edge.

Cecilia flung on a sweater, pulled out the percolator plug, rushed out the back door. She got in the big old station wagon Tony had left her and headed down the village lane toward the highway. She barely reached it ahead of Big Joe Sykes, the wheels of his car screaming right behind her. Of course. With Mamie Sykes glued to her binoculars at her front window every free minute of the day. Saw their boy maybe got himself into some devilment.

Farther up the hill two more cars barreled toward them, looked like Angelo’s fish truck and Joe Watanabi’s car.

She left her car and hurried along the cliff’s edge. Below her, the men and boy, with the dog skulking behind, ran along the tide-packed sand. They stopped, veered to a spot high on the beach, bent down. The dog, now close, darted at something. The boy slapped him back. Whatever they were looking at, they didn’t touch it.

Cecilia scrambled down the rough footholds worn into the steep path. As she reached the men Ed Grimes put out his foot and gingerly pushed at something. Hughie shook his head and turned his face. The boy was white under his tan and saliva moistened his lips. They all turned and looked at Cecilia, their eyes unfocused as though they had tuned out everything but what lay at their feet. As a group, Cecilia now part of it, they looked down again. Cecilia gasped and whispered, “Whose is it?”

Hughie shrugged, threw out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. Ed moved a chaw of tobacco from his cheek and began to chew.

“Could be anybody’s.” It was Big Joe Sykes speaking, now pushed in beside them, with Angelo big-eyed and quiet behind him.

Little Joe looked up at his father and stepped back. The paleness of his face had sickened into a greenish cast and he swallowed. “I wasn’t doing nothing,” he whined. “Just going along with Hughie. Then I got ahead and was fooling around by the cliff. And there it was. Like a funny stick, all covered with sand. So I picked it up.” He swallowed hard. “Then I could tell. What it was.”

“Can’t be just anybody’s,” Ed Grimes finally said. “Anyway, not a man’s.”

Hughie shook his head sorrowfully. His blue eyes tilted downward and his shoulders rocked slightly. All he needs is a shawl and a wall to beat his head against, Cecilia thought; the man’s a weakling.

“Yeah, must be a woman’s foot all right, by the size of it,” Big Joe agreed. “Rest of her is probably in the ocean, eat up by this time.”

Cecilia’s stomach churned, but she fought down the sickness. Now, let’s see, what woman around Sea Mount has trouble? Which of us could that foot belong to?

“Maybe gangsters did it!” Little Joe put in. “I seen a show like that on TV. Maybe we ought to call the F.B.I. or get Chief Ironside — gee, Dad—”

“Damn it, Little Joe, get out of here!”

“Aw, Dad, I’m the one that found it. Right over there.” He pointed toward the cliff.

“Get! And take King with you. Beat it, boy!”

Reluctantly the boy picked up the loose chain and slowly headed for the cliff path.

“What woman around here have we lost sight of?” Cecilia asked.

Ed spat, frowned. “Lost sight of ’em all, as far as I’m concerned, the way everybody around here keeps to their-selves. Sea Mount women don’t trade in my store. They gotta waste gas driving to Half Moon trying to save a coupla pennies.” He grinned sourly at Cecilia. “Ain’t seen you for a bit, Cecilia.” He made a point of looking at her feet. “Nope, you got both this morning.”

“This is no joking matter, Ed Grimes,” Cecilia said stiffly. “Now listen, we’ve got to get the authorities. Joe, you go for the Sheriff — no, Ed, you better go back to the store and call the Sheriff, get a deputy out here. Hughie and Angelo, you stay here, see that the waves don’t — well, wash it away. While I look around.” She hesitated delicately. “You never know, there might be more.”

“I often wondered why a big strong guy like Tony decided to die,” Big Joe said. “Now I know. Mrs. Lordalmighty, I’m gonna tell my wife and nobody else. And she’s not going to touch our telephone, either. I don’t want my kid mixed up in any part of this. Tell ’em the dog found it.”

Ed put a contemplative gaze on Cecilia. “You got plenty breath. Why waste ours?” He turned and swung his long loose-hinged legs over the sand toward the cliff. Big Joe followed. After a moment so did Angelo, calling back, “I don’t see nothing. You tell ’em that. I got fish to sell.”

At the cliff top the three men grouped briefly around Mr. Watanabi, the flower grower who lived deep in the valley. They pointed to the beach. Then the four headed toward the highway.

“Cecilia, I apologize for them,” Hughie said gently. “They haven’t got any respect and courtesy — it’s a terrible thing not to have respect. No doubt they had bad training when they were children. Besides, like Ed said, people in Sea Mount keep to themselves. They don’t get used to talking to each other.”

“One of ’em knows something,” she said spitefully. “Or can make a guess about it. Maybe they know what woman has suddenly left town, isn’t seen around her yard or—” Her voice trailed off. No smoke in Silas Williams’ house? Could Silas have — did this belong to Laura Williams?

“Hughie, how old would you judge this woman to be?”

Hughie’s arms lifted helplessly. “Who can tell? Sea water. Sand scrubbing the skin.”

“Laboratories can. They’ve got tests and things. Hughie, you wait here and watch. I’ll go telephone. I’ve got nothing to hide. Like maybe Big Joe and Ed have.”

“Cissie, don’t say that, Big Joe and Ed—”

She whirled on him, her face red and furious. “Don’t call me that, Hughie Cornfeld! Don’t you ever call me that! Nobody gave you the right — nobody ever had the right! Tony was always doing that, he knew it made me mad, so don’t you start! Not even Tony had the right.”

“Please, Cecilia, please, dear Mrs. Pigazzi.” Hughie’s hand gently touched her shoulder. She flung it off. “It slipped out — no meaning to it. I have the highest respect. It’s like everybody calls me Hughie. I don’t mind when they’re nice and friendly with it.” He tried to laugh. “I was finished with Mr. Hugh David Cornfeld a long time ago. I like Hughie. Dear Mrs. Pigazzi, please, you run along now, take care of things, and I’ll watch.”

Mollified, she pouted her lips, then lifted them in a one-sided smile. “Well. Okay. But it bugs me to be called that. Kids did it when I was little, all my seven brothers and sisters, I was the youngest. Only they really meant sissy. Turned me into a fighter. I jabbed my table fork into my oldest brother’s hand once when he called me that. Okay, Hughie, keep an eye out.”

Cecilia panted up the path and hurried to the public telephone booth outside the Grimes General Store and Garage. As she entered, Ed Grimes stuck his head out the door of his store and yelled, “I done it!” Then he vanished behind the slammed door.

“Damned old fool!” Cecilia said loudly. She walked slowly back to the lot beside Hughie’s shack, climbed into her station wagon, and waited for the officers to arrive.

When she saw a Sheriff’s car approaching she hastily left the station wagon and hightailed it down the cliff path. Hughie was far down the beach, bending down, digging in the sand, poking his hand into his bucket of sea water. Blast the man, he couldn’t wait to dig those clams! Her gaze scoured the sand, searching for that small and terrible object. It wasn’t to be seen. “Hughie!” she screamed.

“It’s gone, he’s lost it!” she said frantically to the Sheriff’s men, now close behind her. “He’s let the ocean get it!”

Her agile mind pounced on a new thought — maybe Hughie? For all his soft and gentle ways, maybe Hughie? Maybe Hughie, living like a bachelor even though he was married, or used to be, got carried away; men were crazy anyway.

Then she saw it. Lone and pitiful, disguised by rubbings of sand. Its humanness had vanished; it was now a mere object, displayed as though the beach were a macabre museum. She pointed to it. “No, it’s still here. There.”

But as she told Hughie later, should a busy woman have put aside her housework and hung around for this? A couple of men strutting around in uniforms and saying, “Hum-m-m, did you discover any more of the body, Mr. Cornfeld? Oh, the boy found it, where’s the boy? That your house up there? You see any strangers around? Hear any cars drive up in the night? Hum-m-m.” Then after walking around in circles on the sand, like dogs looking for a soft spot to take a nap: “Well, we’ll get it checked in the lab — age, how long dead, so on. But unless more of the body is found — well, we don’t keep toeprints on file.”

“I could do better myself, and me with no salary like they get,” she told Hughie when they left.

“I don’t doubt it,” Hughie agreed. His large sad eyes surveyed her, from her thick wavy hair, round face with its full lips, down over her sturdy body. “You’re a very vigorous lady.”

“I’m not bragging, it’s just plain truth,” she said, bridling pleasurably at his inspection. “They need a good woman in that Sheriff’s office. Hughie, I think I’ll run along now, I’ve got work to do.”

“And I can get my clams,” Hughie said patiently.

Cecilia sat for a few minutes in her station wagon before starting the engine, cogitating on how to manage a casual visit to Silas Williams’ house. To be casual was difficult, seeing she had been there only once in the twelve years she had lived in Sea Mount. That other time to ask for a rosebush slip, the frosty-faced Laura giving it to her and then saying after barely a minute of chat, “Good day, Mrs. Pigazzi.”

The station wagon jerked forward, slowly drove to the Williams house, and parked.

Still no chimney smoke. No fire in the cook stove. “Eggs,” said Cecilia, and nodded her head approvingly at her shrewdness. “They’ve got hens. If they’re home I’ll tell ’em I’ve run out of eggs and can’t stand the store-bought ones.”

She went to the rear of the house to be less visible to the scattered houses on the slope. She tapped on the back door, primly straightened her sweater, and squinted through the glass in the door. Involuntarily she jumped back. Silas and Laura Williams were sitting at the kitchen table, not a speck of food on it, no dishes, nothing. They were just sitting, turning their heads and staring at her.

Laura got up and opened the door. Cecilia sucked in her breath and took another step back. A long lethally sharp butcher knife was in Laura’s hand. “Yes, Mrs. Pigazzi?”

“I–I wondered if you had any spare eggs you’d sell. I ran out and you know those eggs at the store, they break the minute they hit the pan.”

“No, Mrs. Pigazzi,” Laura said flatly, evenly. “This morning I cracked all our eggs and ran them down the sink. You may tell everyone in Sea Mount and clear to Half Moon Bay that I shall continue to do this, and worse, until Mr. Williams buys me a gas range. You may also tell them that Mr. Williams and I are both on a hunger strike. And unless he becomes reasonable they are likely to find us dead here soon. At the table, starved to death, with a stocked cupboard and seventy-five thousand dollars in the bank.”

“Laura! Shut your mouth!” Silas roared. “You know that woman. She’ll blast it everywhere.”

“You may tell everyone,” Laura repeated. “Add to it that I am going to gouge Mr. Williams with this butcher knife if he tries to build a fire in that damn wood stove.”

Silas groaned, half rose from his chair, Laura wheeled at the movement, the butcher knife ready. Silas sat down.

Cecilia’s lips twitched, struggling to hold back a grin. “Now, Mrs. Williams, surely you don’t mean that,” she said, her eyes round with delighted approval. “Especially with the dreadful news here this morning, you surely wouldn’t want another — well, another murder.”

Laura Williams moved to close the door and Cecilia’s words rushed to prevent it. “Little Joe Sykes found a woman’s foot on the beach this morning!”

The door froze. Silas grated a laugh. “Hear that, Laura? Woman’s foot. If you’re not careful there may be two of ’em before the day’s over. Both off the same side. Which is it, Cissy, left or right?”

Cecilia reached past Laura, grabbed the doorknob, and banged shut the door. She went down the steps, along the brick path to her car, got in it. “Damn him anyway! Old big-mouth Tony! Called me that to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. To my face, behind my back, down at the garage, everywhere! Sissy! The hell I am!” A lone skimpy tear trickled down her cheek. She swiped angrily at it, started up her car, and drove home.

In early afternoon she took another stand at her spyglass just in time to see two Sheriff’s cars drive up beside Hughie’s shack. A number of men got out of the cars, pulled out shovels and picks from the trunk compartments, and slowly walked toward the cliff’s edge. Cecilia wasted no time heading for the action.

From the cliff’s edge she watched Hughie, weighted to one side by his clam bucket, join the men. The deputies dropped their shovels and picks, pulled out cigarettes, offered one to Hughie, Hughie shaking his head. “Gabbing, wasting time,” she muttered.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Where’s your sand pails, kiddies?” The men looked around, waved good-naturedly.

A brush of sound behind her startled her. She whirled toward it. Joe Sykes’s big brute of a German Shepherd stood not more than five feet away, tongue lolling, still dragging the chain. Cecilia tensed, ready to kick, scream, or run. But the Shepherd stood, as tense as she was, flicking its gaze from the startled woman to the men on the beach.

Cecilia stamped her foot. “Git!” she ordered. The dog gave a nervous turn toward the highway, decided against it, took a few steps toward the cliff path. But Cecilia blocked it. The dog turned toward the men and began a precipitous slide down the almost sheer cliff.

The animal scrambled for control, fell sideways, and, yelping, tumbled over and over, the chain flinging against him and the cliff. He twisted sideways, trying to climb upward, and slid into a jut of earth covered with succulents some ten feet above the beach. The men laughed and snapped their fingers at the dog. The dog sat down and began licking a front foot.

Now the men tossed away their cigarettes, walked around, poking with their picks at the sandy earth high on the beach.

Above them the dog began scratching into the ledge that had caught his fall. He barked sharply, and Cecilia and the men turned to look at him. He whined, barked again, dug ferociously, hair standing in a ruff around his neck. Then he raised his head. As though in macabre greeting, a human hand dangled from his mouth.

The men rushed toward the dog, terrifying the animal. He leaped to the beach, dodged the men, and ran toward the blending of cliff into the valley, the shouts and the flinging chain urging him faster. He sped up the creek bed, the hand still in his mouth. And vanished.

The men turned back toward the ledge. A deputy stood on the shoulders of another man and scrambled onto the ledge. He dug into the succulents and came up with — merciful God, no! But there it was. An arm.

As in a nightmare ball game the deputy tossed the grisly object to the man below. The latter caught it and motioned toward Hughie’s clam bucket. Hughie shook his head, pointing to its contents. Then, as the deputy insisted, Hughie shrugged, upended the bucket, sloshing clams and sea water onto the sand. The deputy dropped the arm into the bucket.

“Nothing else here!” the man on the ledge shouted. “Could be scattered anywhere from here clear to San Looey!”

“Come on down and go call the office!” one of the men below shouted back. “Ask for more men. We’ll start tearing up this cliff.”

The deputy slid down, headed up the path. He shook his head chidingly as he passed Cecilia. “Ladies oughtn’t to be watching this. Gruesome.” He went to one of the cars and put in the call.

“Phooey!” Cecilia said under her breath. She focused on the beach again. Poor old Hughie was staring at his heap of clams scattered on the sand. He shrugged again, took off his sweater, revealing a yellowish long-sleeved undershirt spotted with holes. He scooped his clams onto the sweater, rolled it into a bundle, and trudged up the cliff path. At the top Cecilia stopped him.

“Hughie, like the deputy said this morning, you see anything odd around here? Like folks who ordinarily don’t come to the beach, or maybe strangers around? You’re the only one lives close enough to the beach to see things like that.”

He smiled sadly. “No strangers. Once in a while a child, like little Joe Sykes. But the rocks along here make swimming bad, and the fishing boats can’t put out. Mostly only Hughie, combing the beach.”

Her bright beady gaze bore into him. “That’s right,” she said. “Even for clams they don’t come here. There’s a better clamming beach a couple of miles south. Just you, Hughie.”

He surveyed her with aloof, wry sadness. “You think old Hughie killed a lady? Maybe for her pocketbook? I give up a fortune, my wife and my friends say I’m crazy, and I come down for peace and quiet in a shack on the beach. Because the world has no more dignity, no more respect, because it’s crazy for money and I’m sick of being crazy. So then Hughie finds some lady with a fat purse? Or maybe I’m a sex maniac. Did I ever treat you with anything but respect, Cecilia?”

A subtle aura of strength shone from the shabby man. She had a swift perceptive flash of past authority, hidden depth of power, which Sea Mount had whispered about but never quite believed.

“I didn’t say such a thing. Whatever gave you such an idea?”

“Mrs. Pigazzi, if you think such a thing you should mention it to the Sheriff’s men. Or I can.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said angrily. Abruptly, with her irritation, he was merely Hughie again, ridiculous in ragged clothes and frayed tennis shoes.

Hughie smiled tentatively. “You’re very pretty when you’re mad. Rosy.”

“I’ll rosy you, twisting my words that way!”

“Oh, Cecilia, with all the sadness in the world, why should we fight? Especially here in Sea Mount, such a little place, but so few on friendly terms. I tell you, how would you like a good clam dinner tonight? I am happy to cook them, but it would be far better if you prepared them in your own beautiful way. My house is a poor place for a lady.”

“Come to my house,” she said briskly, mentally gauging when the fog would come in and darkness prevent binoculars from watching Hughie climb the slope to her house. “Make it no earlier than seven thirty. Now hurry, get another bucket, fill it with sea water — we don’t want these clams to die.” My God, everything around here is dying. I wonder how Laura and Silas are coming along?

She squinted toward the Williams house as Hughie placidly did her bidding and then put the clams in her car. No, no smoke yet.

Despite the fact that it was only Hughie coming to dinner, Cecilia primped before the bathroom mirror, dusting powder on her florid skin, smoothing on lipstick, drawing a black line around her eyelids. Too bad it’s only Hughie. Still, he’s a man, wishy-washy or not. Not much like old Tony. The black line gave her eyes an unfortunate predatory look, like those of a mink ready for battle. Nevertheless she had the tempting look of a firm and rosy apple.

She tied on a pink-checked apron and went to check the supper preparations. The clams were scrubbed and ready for last-minute steaming. The salad was in the refrigerator, awaiting its oil and vinegar dressing. Everything ready and not yet 7:30. Even with the fog rolling in it was still light enough for a last-minute look through her spyglass.

She went to the bay window and spun the glass around the tiny community. No activity down by the cliff. The deputies’ cars were gone. Nobody walking on the lanes or in their yards. Probably all at supper.

Then she saw a truck parked outside Silas Williams’ house. Two men were struggling along the narrow brick path to the back door, carrying a large kitchen range. In the back yard she could see a third man installing a bottle of gas. She laughed triumphantly. “So Laura won! Hard to stop a woman when she makes up her mind. Finally.”

She watched the men go into the house, at last come out, turn on their headlights, drive away, dim in the settling fog. Then she saw a shadowy figure move out of the mist which covered the highway and slowly climb the slope toward her house. Old Hughie, shuffling along as if he was still in beach sand. Some big-shot financier these days for sure; my God, Cecilia, some boy friend!

“What a day for sorrow and trouble,” Hughie said when he came in. “Now Silas Williams is hurt. Had to be driven to the doctor in Half Moon Bay. Cut his hand slicing a ham.”

Cecilia snorted, her little black eyes rolling back and forth gleefully. “Only a doctor? Lucky the stingy old goat didn’t get driven to the morgue.”

“It wasn’t that bad a cut,” Hughie said. “Deep, though, Ed Grimes said when I was in the store. Ed had to drive him, Mrs. Williams can’t drive. Silas told Ed the knife slipped and sliced his arm. Bad cut. Right arm, too.”

Cecilia giggled. “Left-handed, huh?”

Hughie squinted, and thought. When his eyes relaxed, Cecilia watched a knowledge within them drop into a slot and file itself. Hughie shrugged. “Who knows? Does it matter? It’s a bad cut.”

“The deputies find anything else on the beach?”

Hughie shook his head. “Nothing. They’ll be back tomorrow to search farther up and down the shore.”

“It could be gangsters. But I’ll bet you ten to one some crazy hippie from San Francisco did it. Maybe a whole bunch of crazies. The world’s gone crazy. Mobs, riots, bombings, psychos all over the place.” She sighed. “And now messing up this nice quiet little spot.”

“Money,” Hughie said. “Money causes all the trouble. Some like it too much. And some hate it too much. Well, I have to admit it. I’m this much of a hippie. I hate money.” Cecilia fought down a snort of laughter. This much of a hippie! Boy, oh, boy, you were a hippie before these kids started!

Cecilia put on the clams to steam with herbs and garlic, split a loaf of sour French bread, slathered it with garlic butter, then put the loaf in a warm oven.

“A nice way with a house you have,” Hughie said. “Such a pretty, clean kitchen. No doubt you had happy times.”

Here it comes, next thing he’ll be wanting to move in.

Cecilia sighed heavily. “Indeed, indeed. Well, I’m alone now but I’ve been too well trained to let things slide. Between Mama and Tony, I mean. Mama said, you clean the house, give your man good food, be nice to him, you always got him around. And then both Mama and me are finally widows.”

She shook her head ruefully at the irony of life. “And Tony — well, to tell the truth, Tony was a regular slob in some ways. You know how a hard-working man can get. Too tired to walk to the bathtub. But fussy about his food, oh my! He sure kept up Mama’s training. How Tony could eat!” She sighed again. “That’s what killed him, the doctor said.”

Hughie’s face drooped in sympathy. “A man so big and strong. It must have been a terrible shock how quickly he went. Sick one day, gone the next.”

Her eyes misted. “Started with only a cold, and then — but that’s the type, the doctor said. The fat ones die, the measly ones last because the strong don’t watch themselves. I tell you, Hughie, when I found Tony lying across that oven door — it’s still sprung, never has worked right since — it really shook me. Like I told the doctor, I’d kept Tony in bed and fed him there, then I went outside to hang up a few clothes. But Tony had such an appetite he couldn’t wait for a minute till I got back. Traipsed out to the kitchen for a refill. Anyway, poor guy, he thought his chest pains were only from his bad cold. Besides, he was crazy for chili. I’d cooked up some for myself but he had to have it even though I’d begged him, Tony, how about some poached eggs? So I was coming in with the clothes basket when I heard this thud. I rushed in. There was Tony on the oven door, with chili spilled all over the floor.”

“Dear Mrs. Pigazzi, you shouldn’t talk about it.”

She waved him quiet, annoyed at the interruption.

“Believe me, I had a time cleaning this kitchen before the doctor got here. And all the time having to look at Tony, just lying there. Too heavy to lift. Anyway, no pulse, blue in the face. Like suffocated, you know. Heart stopped.”

Hughie nodded, in helplessness rather than in encouragement.

“And that doctor, you should have heard him bawl me out! Said spicy beans was no good for a man with chest pains. Said gas had pressed his heart, that a fat man’s heart is already strained. Well, I tell you, that was a night.”

An insistent and delicious smell blended from clams, herbs, and garlic pervaded the kitchen. “Everything’s about ready,” Cecilia said, cheerful once more. “Sit at the table, Hughie. I’ll pour your coffee.”

As Hughie went to the table he asked idly, “Where’s your little dog? That cute little white terrier, used to follow Tony’s truck sometimes? He must be company for you.”

Cecilia’s round face became suddenly gaunt with tragedy. “Don’t talk about him, it still gets me. My poor little Pepi died the same night Tony went.” Oh, my poor baby dog, why did you gobble up that chili before I got in the house? I never thought it would be spilled on the floor. I always fed you good, baby. But you had to gobble it up and get poisoned by your own Mama! And me breaking my heart, having to hide your little body and bury you in the night.

Hughie clucked sympathetically. “Heartbroken over Tony.”

Her voice rasped, “He wasn’t Tony’s dog! He hardly ever followed Tony’s truck. Pepi was my dog.”

The passion in her voice made Hughie squirm uneasily. She noticed this and said flatly, “Let’s eat now. Forget that night.”

But her harsh, enigmatic emotion hovered over them. Hughie picked at his food, while on her part Cecilia ate sullenly. Soon, however, the good food soothed her mood as well as her stomach. She looked up quizzically at Hughie, cogitating how to drop the bombshell. Well, just tell it; go ahead — Laura said to tell it.

“Hughie, Silas Williams didn’t cut his own arm. Laura cut him.”

Hughie put down his fork, his mouth set in stem, patriarchal disapproval. “She attacked her own husband?”

Cecilia nodded. “You’ve heard how stingy Silas is. Never would buy Laura a decent gas range, made her carry in wood. Driftwood, too, most of the time, won’t half bum. Well, this morning when I stopped by, right in front of me Laura threatened him with a butcher knife if he tried to build another fire in the wood range. So he must have tried it. So she cut him.” She nodded with satisfaction.

“Her own husband! Terrible! It’s terrible to have no respect.”

Like Sadie. Never giving respect, forget the love. Money-money. Slap, scream, give-me-money, bang, like I was a slot machine, every time she pulled the handle.

“What about a woman who can’t stand getting no respect, Hughie Cornfeld? No consideration, slave-slave, do-this, do-that. I don’t like that prissy Laura Williams, but I don’t blame her for cutting him up! Pity she didn’t — you crazy or something, Hughie Cornfeld, putting the blame on the woman?”

“Mrs. Pigazzi, please! It’s nothing to argue about. But it’s wrong for a wife to humiliate her husband. Especially in front of strangers.” Dear God, how many times did Sadie do that?

Cecilia snorted. “Stranger! And Laura and me both living in Sea Mount eleven — no, twelve years!”

“A manner of speech. It would be a disgrace for a wife to do that in front of her own family.”

“You got something against women? Sure, you’re a man!”

Hughie stood up, blue eyes lambent with anger. “Mrs. Pigazzi, you’ll excuse me.”

“Hah!” She looked him over contemptuously — frayed sweater, straggly hair, baggy pants, the side of his foot showing through the broken canvas of his tennis shoe. “Why are you so mad over men not getting respect?” Deliberately, “You’re not much of a man.”

For an instant Hughie towered above her, his face transfixed with wrath. Then swiftly his hand delivered a heavy slap to her cheek. Her head rang with the force of the blow and her mouth fell open with shock. Then the back door slammed behind Hughie.

Cecilia picked up her cup, coffee and all, and crashed it into the door. She sprang up and in a fury of frustration kicked the door. She began to cry, holding her cheek. “Sissy! Sissy!” she blubbered. “Damn old sissy, just like Tony, hitting women!”

Outside, Hughie stumbled down the hill, cross-cutting empty lots. Above, high on the hill, he heard Joe Sykes’s big Shepherd baying mournfully. Hughie shivered. The terrible look when the dog ran off with it today! Like waving goodbye.

He started nervously as he came even with the Williams house. A shadowy figure was on the front steps. Its head raised and the light filtering through the front-window blinds picked up a nimbus of sandy-gray hair. Silas.

“Good evening,” Hughie said. “I heard you cut yourself. I’m sorry.”

Silas growled, “You’re sorry! I’m the one cut.”

“True, true. But I’m sorry it happened.”

“Damn knife slipped.”

Hughie nodded. “A sharp knife is dangerous. I’ve often cut myself when I’m cleaning fish.” The man’s right-handed; I’ve seen him work on a tire down at the garage. “I do hope you feel much better in the morning. Good night.” Compulsively he added, “Sir.” At least the man could have that much respect.

He hurried toward his shack, pursued by a nightmare of raging women. But the nightmare outran him. When he went inside and shut the door, there it was facing him.

Dear Lord, why had Sadie finally traced him to this lost and lonely place? Digging up, like a terrier, this lost and lonely man? Whining and crying she’d spent all his money, that he should come back and make more. Slapped him, spit at him even, when he tried to explain a man can’t make money when he hates money. And hates the men who make it, including himself. And hated her, the slapping, screeching, disrespectful money-snatcher! Yes, Sadie, I hated you — me, who could be a loving man, I hated you.

No dignity. No respect. Treating a man like a slot machine.

The nightmare had opened its arms, clasped him in hateful embrace, slavered at his face until he was dripping wet with perspiration.

The same way it had started tonight with that fat wicked-eyed Cecilia; the rage — no, not rage, surely it was righteous anger — had filled his soul. But Cecilia wasn’t important. Once anyway, Sadie had been important. That had made his anger worse...

After the anger was spent, Sadie was gone. Nothing was left but flesh, dead flesh, to be got rid of. The foot? It must have slipped out of the sack while he scrambled up the cliff. God knows it had been a frantic dark time, struggling in the fog, with his self-hatred chasing him.

As the Sheriff’s deputy had said, hidden from here clear to — was it Half Moon Bay or farther, to St. Louis? How far can a man, sick with disgust and fear, walk and climb in the night?

He began scrubbing his shack again as he had three nights before. The floor, the age-pocked walls. He scanned every crack, every crevice, the table, the bed, the stove, for any shred of garment, bead, earring, anything.

He found nothing. But his care was hopeless. He knew that. There was the taxi man who had driven her to the shack late that night. The taxi man hadn’t waited. Sadie had sent him away. Then she had threatened Hughie to stay in Sea Mount until he came to his senses. Well, the taxi man would read the papers or hear the radio and remember his late-at-night passenger. Or a friend, a neighbor, a bank, an apartment-house superintendent — someone would worry about what had happened to Sadie Cornfield.

Then one of them would remember Hughie.

Then someone else would recall the thing on the beach.

And always there would be himself remembering. Is this dignity, Hughie Cornfeld? You like respect so much, but do you respect yourself?

He sighed deeply at his own questions, shrugged helplessly.

Then he got fresh water and began scrubbing his shack again.