Sing It to Her Bones Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’d better resign himself to drowning.
    “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten everything I ever learned in sailing school, Connie.”
    “Nonsense! It’s like riding a bicycle. It’ll come back to you.”
    “Let’s hope.”
    “I thought about selling Sea Song , you know, after Craig died. But he loved her so much! He must havesaid it a million times: ‘That Tartan’s a good, sturdy bay boat, Connie. Should last us for years.’ That’s why I don’t think he’d have minded my paying off the loan with part of his life insurance settlement. Sometimes I wonder, though. You know what they say about sailboats: It’s a hole in the water where you throw your money!”
    By then we had reached the Nichols farm, where trucks and cars were parked higgledy-piggledy along both sides of the road, their tires half on the asphalt and half on the grassy shoulder. A crowd of approximately twenty people had gathered, and I noticed Connie’s friend Hal, still in his truck, deep in conversation with three firemen clustered in a disorderly huddle outside his window. Yellow crime scene tape stretched from the battered Nichols mailbox to the telephone pole at the foot of the drive. A uniformed officer stood nearby. He was young and trim; the sleeves of his uniform strained against the muscles that bulged in his upper arms. He looked perfectly capable of discouraging anyone from wandering too close to something he shouldn’t. Farther up the drive, next to the house, sat a fire truck, an ambulance, two Chesapeake County patrol cars, and a dark silver Ford Taurus.
    “What do they need the fire truck for?” I asked the officer, whose name tag said “Braddock.”
    “Routine.”
    I stepped closer. “And the ambulance? I found the body, Officer Braddock. I don’t think an ambulance is going to help much.”
    “Also routine.” He smiled a straight, white, gap-toothed grin, causing the deepest dimples I’d ever seen to appear suddenly in his cheeks. He looked about twelve years old. “I’ll need to get your names,” he added.
    Braddock wrote our names at the bottom of a long list.
    “What’s happening up there?” I asked.
    “Nothing much. We’re waiting for the medical examiner and the ECU.”
    “What’s the ECU?”
    “Evidence Collection Unit.”
    While we were busy distracting the talkative Officer Braddock, a young boy seized the opportunity to slip under the tape. “Hey!” Braddock was on him in two steps, catching the youngster by the waistband of his jeans. “Out you go, young man!” The kid smiled and shrugged as if to say, Well, it was worth a try!
    Connie and I stepped back then to join the others milling about on the road, creating a significant traffic hazard. A heavyset woman in a flowered dress had just emerged from a car parked a short distance away. When she caught sight of Connie, she waved and struggled up the hill.
    “Ellie Larson,” Connie informed me. “She owns the Country Store with her daughter, Angie. Angie must be minding it today.”
    Ellie arrived, wheezing and out of breath. She dabbed at her forehead with a crumpled tissue, leaving specks of white behind. “Just driving by and saw all the cars. Someone having an auction or a garage sale?”
    “Hannah was walking the dog this morning and thinks she saw a body in the old cistern out back.”
    Connie turned to me, and I got to tell my story all over again, concluding, because I knew Ellie would ask, with “No, I don’t know who it is!”
    Ellie looked thoughtful. “Not many people have disappeared around here in the past few years. Some teenage runaways is all, but they always turn up. Except … well, except for the Dunbar girl.”
    “What about her?” Connie asked.
    “She disappeared about eight years ago. It was after the homecoming dance at the high school. Hasn’t been seen since. A pretty, curly-headed girl. Looked like a cherub. Do you think it could be Katie Dunbar?” Ellie looked at me expectantly.
    I felt the chill returning.