Amos Tarbell drove along as he radioed. Even in the cloudy day now, the Ridge was beautiful in his eyes. The sun was filtering a brown-­orange color through the clouds, and the spreads of trees stood bronze in the un­usual light. Almost the color of the cockroaches. The man didn’t want the image, but it persisted. He tried to think instead of how the trees needed rain, but all he saw was the army of insects, that incredible mob of cockroaches that had chased after him and Ben and Russ at the grove. It was hard to believe he wouldn’t wake up and find he had dreamed it all.

Despite the wind and the now glowering sky—though still no rain—the usual High Ridge serenity was all around him. The trees—beginning to whip about—now blocked his view of the ocean, but always up here he had the sense of the sea, as well as the stretching sky. There was a sense of great spaces extending all about. It increased the feeling of isolation of tiny Yarkie in the midst of the ocean. In a storm like the one brewing now, the land seemed even more precious to him—safe harbor, home. It would be that way again! he vowed.

The Laidlaw place was lovely, chalk-­white against the storm-­darkened pitch pine. It made a landscape out of a Wyeth painting, Tarbell thought, though today the scene was somehow disturbing. The white railing circling the widow’s walk atop the house seemed more like skeletal bone than wood.

Tarlell shook his head impatiently. It was no time for woolgathering or omen-­spooking. He told himself there was every reason to be on edge, but even the eerie bronze color bathing High Ridge was no cause for him, of all people, to get his heart thumping like a kid scared by a Halloween witch.

He put his mind instead to the Laidlaws, as he turned into their driveway. They had been on Yarkie for only fifteen years, which made them newcomers. But they helped the local charities and, more important, they never pretended to belong. That made them welcome. A paradox, the sheriff smiled to himself. Typically Yarkie.

He sat for a moment eyeing the house the Laidlaws rented from Stephen Scott. Then he knocked on the gracious white door politely. Tact and diplomacy. Get them out without scaring them. No answer. He tried the knob. Inside, the house was as quiet as it was cool. The polished bannister post sported its ivory “mortgage button” to proclaim that this house was owed to no bank. He wondered if that custom existed in other parts of the country.

He called upstairs. No answer. He sniffed. No smell of cooking, either. They might have driven to town for broiled fish at Elvira Soaras’s cafe—Craig’s mother cooked the tastiest meal anywhere on Cape Cod.