Cutter's Run Read Free Page B

coyotes.”
    “He liked to wander through the woods,” she said, “but he never went far.” She turned to me and smiled. “Jack had some spaniel in him. He loved to hunt. Chased chipmunks and sparrows. I used to worry about porcupines. The day he got sick, in fact, he went for a long romp, came back all wet and muddy and bedraggled. Trying to catch ducks, probably.” She smiled at the memory, then shook her head. “I don’t keep anything poisonous, Mr. Coyne. I took very good care of him.”
    “Dr. Spear mentioned running some toxicology tests,” I said gently.
    “Why?”
    “Well, to determine exactly what caused it. She said it was very unusual. Not like any poisoning death she’d ever seen.”
    “Sure,” she said, “but I mean, what good would that do?”
    “If someone poisoned Jack—”
    “On purpose, you mean?”
    I shrugged.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You think that swastika…”
    “Yes. That is what I was thinking.”
    “Toxicology tests would require an autopsy, wouldn’t they?”
    I nodded.
    She bowed her head. “I don’t know, Mr. Coyne. He was… I really loved that little dog. Do you understand?”
    “Of course.”
    “The idea of—of cutting him open, and…”
    “I know,” I said.
    “I’ll have to think about it,” she said.
    “Dr. Spear will keep him until she hears from you.”
    I continued to sit there with her, and I had the feeling that my presence comforted her a little. After a few minutes she offered me coffee, which I accepted. She went inside, and a few minutes later came back out with a mug in each hand and sat beside me again.
    “You’ve got an awfully pretty spot here,” I said.
    “It is, isn’t it? It’s just too bad…”
    I nodded. “That swastika.”
    “Well, yes. That. And…”
    I turned to her. “And what?”
    She shook her head. “Nothing I can discuss right now, Mr. Coyne.”
    “I’m not sure I’d have the courage to stay,” I said.
    She smiled. “Courage has nothing to do with it. I’ve got to stay until…” She shook her head. “Maybe someday we can talk about it.”
    But not, I understood, just then. Charlotte had something on her mind, and it wasn’t only swastikas or poisoned dogs.
    “You can talk to me anytime,” I said.
    We sat there awhile longer, sipping coffee and gazing across the meadow toward the distant hills. When I’d drained my mug, I stood up. “I’m really sorry to bring you this news.”
    She stood up and took born of my hands in hers. “You’ve been awfully kind, Mr. Coyne,” she said in that delicious Smoky Mountains accent of hers. “I don’t know that many kind people.”
    I squeezed her hands and headed back to my car. When I reached the edge of the meadow, I turned to look back. Charlotte was standing there in front of her little house with her hand shielding her eyes, watching me.
    She waved, and I waved back, then continued on my way.

CHAPTER 3
    T UESDAY EVENING I TOOK my portable phone and a glass of Rebel Yell sippin’ whiskey and ice cubes out onto my balcony overlooking the harbor and slouched into one of my aluminum lawn chairs. I hadn’t spoken to Alex since I kissed her good-bye and drove back to Boston after supper Sunday night, During our Monday-through-Friday separations, we tried to talk on the phone a couple of times, I from my balcony in the city and she from her deck on the hilltop in Garrison. I’d watch the moon come up over the ocean toward the east, while she gazed off to the west, where daylight was fading from the Maine hills.
    Alex and I had looked for metaphorical significance in the fact that my view looked to the east, where new days began, while hers faced west, where they ended—but so far we had found none. We decided it might make more sense if it were the other way around.
    On this night, the late-August, remarkably smogless sky over the ocean blinked with a million stars, and a half-moon bathed the inner harbor six stories below me in silvery