Green Lake Read Online Free PDF Page A

boaters didn't see each other, or were too drunk to care. It happens occasionally. Once, Gudrun and I found an entire arm in the water. They wouldn't let us keep that either.”
    “Why did you want to bury it?” asked Madeleine, almost afraid to hear the answer.
    Tanner shrugged. “Kind of symbolic, don't you think? A hand or an arm buried in your yard, always pointing.”
    Madeleine forced herself into a nod. “Well,” she said, “I'd better get back to work here, before I lose my light.”
    Sherman Tanner looked at the fading sun and gave a tug on his dog's leash. “Craziest thing I've ever seen, digging in the ground with a rock.”
    “No crazier than you,” Madeleine murmured as she sank back to the ground.
    “What's that?”
    “I said have a good day.”
    Tanner eyed her then said, “Not much of this one left. Do I take it you'll be staying awhile?”
    “For a while,” Madeleine answered.
    “All right, then.”
    Tanner said nothing further, merely continued walking his dog up to the turnoff where the old cemetery lay. Madeleine felt as if she had just been given permission to exist by the wiry, suspicious-eyed Tanner.
    Who did he think he was? She wondered. Keeper of the hill?
    By the time he returned with his dog, Madeleine was carrying her tomato plants back to the three holes she had made. She felt Tanner's eyes on her as she placed the plants in the holes and began to fill in around them. When she could take it no more she paused in what she was doing and turned to stare at him. He quickly averted his gaze and pretended to be looking at the other side of the road. Madeleine sniffed and went on filling in with dirt. What a nutty old bird, burying human hands and arms. What was wrong with him?
    She had tamped the earth down and was watering each plant when she heard the sound of a pickup truck skid to a halt right in front of the cabin.
    Madeleine hurried around the side of the cabin in time to see a door of the truck's cab open and somebody toss something into her yard.
    “Hey!” Madeleine yelled, and the driver of the truck threw rocks and gravel as he floored the accelerator.
    Madeleine squinted in the growing dusk and just barely made out the license plate. Then she walked to see what in the name of Adolph Coors had been thrown in her yard.
    She heard them before she saw them. No beer cans these, but three tiny kittens, each one round-eyed and mewling in terror, making their way across the lawn.
    “Dammit,” said Madeleine as she stared at the small felines. Two were gray-striped and one was black.
    Disgusted with the people in the truck, Madeleine gathered the kittens against her shirt and took them up to the porch. There was a large box in the garage that had once held Manuel's small satellite dish, and Madeleine placed the kittens in the box with two towels and a big bowl of milk. Then she went into the kitchen to write down the tag number and pen a note to Eris Renard.
    He came home while she was slipping the note inside his screen door, and he looked inquiringly at her as he got out of the truck. He appeared tired, which made him look even more forbidding to Madeleine. She backed away and held up the note.
    “Two people in a pickup came and dumped some kittens in my yard. I got the tag number.”
    “Good,” said Renard, and he approached her to take the note. Madeleine had to steel herself not to jump away.
    Renard sensed her stiffening. He stopped and held out his hand, palm up. Madeleine dropped the note in his hand and he turned to open his door. She shifted behind him.
    “The kittens are on my porch in a box.”
    He glanced over his shoulder at her but said nothing.
    “You can pick them up anytime,” said Madeleine.
    He looked at her again, and one brow lifted. “Would tomorrow morning suit you, Miss Heron?”
    Madeleine noted his irritation and responded coolly, “Tomorrow morning will do just fine, Mr. Renard.”
    He nodded and pushed open his door. Madeleine ambled up to the