Sing It to Her Bones Read Online Free PDF

reinforcements to help hold back the mob.”
    I returned the blusher to my makeup bag and zipped it shut. When I tossed the bag carelessly on top of the dresser, it skidded sideways and toppled a picture of Paul taken at Camp Letts the summer he turned twelve.
    “Gosh, Connie! How could we have forgotten to tell Paul? Just give me a minute, okay?”
    I dialed Paul’s number at work but got his voice mail. “There’s been some excitement down on the farm,” I told the recording. “Give us a call.”
    Rather than take the long way across the fields, Connie and I walked together down the driveway, the gravel crunching pleasantly beneath our sandals. At the end of the drive we turned right onto paved road. It was early May, and the sun had warmed the pavement so we could feel the heat through the soles of our shoes. Grass and wildflowers grew in high hedges along both shoulders. The plants absorbed the sun, seeming to convert it into sweet, spicy perfume that washed over us in warm waves.
    Several cars passed, followed by a small white Isuzu pickup that honked and slowed. The driver, a ruggedly attractive, ruddy-faced fellow I guessed to be in his middle fifties, rolled down his window.
    “Hi, Con. I heard the news down at the marina office. Someone said you found a body at the old Nichols place.”
    “Not me, Hal. My sister-in-law, Hannah, here.”
    Hal nodded in my direction. “Wonder who it is?” he inquired.
    “Hard to tell.” She lowered her voice and rested her arms against the window of the truck. “Hannah said it looked like it had been there for quite a while.”
    Hal shifted into park. In the silence between them, I could hear WTOP, all-news radio, blaring over the noise of the air conditioner running full blast.
    “You gals want a ride?” Before Connie could answer, Hal twisted sideways and struggled to move a huge sail bag which fully occupied the passenger seat. “Genoa #3” was stenciled on the canvas in black letters. It refused to budge.
    “Thanks, Hal, it’s a nice thought, but where would we sit?” She gestured toward the back of his truck, where several plastic buckets and four striped lawn chairs lay, folded up. “Should we set up those chairs and ride in the back like queens in the Fourth of July parade?”
    Hal chuckled and saluted with his left hand. “Suit yourself! Guess I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.” His face gradually disappeared behind the tinted glass as the window rolled up, and he sped away, taking the curve at the bottom of the hill at least fifteen miles over the forty mile per hour speed limit in a squeal of steel-belted radials.
    “Who was that?” I asked Connie as the smoke from his exhaust dissipated in front of us.
    “Hal Calvert. He owns the marina where I keep Sea Song. ” She pulled a pair of sunglasses out of herpocket and put them on. “His family’s lived in Chesapeake County for centuries. Old Mr. Calvert’s still alive. Walks down to the boatyard from the family compound every day. Keeps his hand in, too, refinishing teak. He varnished Sea Song ’s toe rails this spring. Eighty-eight years old and he still has a steady hand with the brush.”
    Another car approached and tooted its horn. Connie waved as it passed.
    “You take the boat out much?”
    “Oh, about once a month when I can find someone to sail with me.” She turned to look at me. “That’s something I was hoping we could do while you’re here.”
    I groaned. I had taken a course at the Annapolis Sailing School several years ago just to please Paul, but I wasn’t especially good at it. I knew port from starboard by remembering that port and left had the same number of letters. I had memorized a whole book full of nautical terms; living in a sailing capital like Annapolis, I didn’t want to embarrass myself by calling the mast a pole or by referring to the bow of the boat as the pointy end. As for the mechanics of sailing, though, if anyone fell overboard with me at the helm,