Triple Witch Read Free Page B

will.”
    Monday looked from Ellie’s face to mine, figuring out the emotional subtext, which to a dog is really the only thing that matters. People, too; dogs are just better at admitting it.
    “You dated Kenny Mumford a few times, didn’t you?” I asked. “When you were in high school?”
    Ellie steered us back out into deep water, increasing the throttle just enough to buck the swirling currents and keep us from wallowing in the waves.
    “More than a few times. My sophomore year. He had a car, and all he wanted to do was drive.”
    I waited.
    “He was always a perfect gentleman,” she added, a bit too defensively, I thought. On the other hand, in my time I have drunk enough Southern Comfort in the back seats of enough convertibles to know when I really ought not to pursue a subject, so I didn’t.
    “And then you started seeing George.”
    George Valentine, who if Ellie were in trouble on theother side of a mile of burning coals, he would hotfoot it over in a heartbeat.
    “And then George,” she agreed. “I’d broken off with Kenny a few months earlier, so there was no trouble about that.”
    “But still.” Monday stood unsteadily in the boat’s bow, her nose twitching in anticipation of land.
    “Right. Kenny was important to me.”
    The boat scraped bottom. Ellie cut engine and hauled up the Evinrude, hopping out as the boat’s motion sent it onto the small stones. Monday leapt out, too, paddling around a few times in an excess of doggy happiness before scrambling onto the stony beach, shaking off a halo of sparkling droplets.
    I put a foot in the water, cringed, and dropped overboard. The icy wavelets came up only to about my ankles, but froze me to my hipbones, with the deep, aching, wedgelike agony of water that is cold to the point of being truly dangerous; survival time without a drysuit in Passamaquoddy Bay, even in summer and with your head above water, runs about fifteen minutes.
    Ellie and I dragged the boat up above the high-water line while Monday had a puppy blowout, which even in her canine middle age still consists of: (1) dashing away full tilt, (2) skidding to a frantic, backpedaling halt like a cartoon character, (3) chasing her tail in a half-dozen mad circles, and (4) repeating the above until a switch flips in her brain and she saunters calmly back to you, the look on her face asking clearly what the hell you think is so funny.
    “Hey,” said Timothy Mumford. We hadn’t heard him coming.
    “Hello, Timothy,” said Ellie. “This is my friend, Jacobia.”
    He stood on a grassy rise above the beach, gazing down at us in surprise and alarm. Flanking himwere a pair of evil-looking hounds, one a shepherd mix with pale yellow eyes and a snaggletoothed grin that did not look at all welcoming, the other a tan, hulking brute with a missing ear, some god-forbid cross between a mastiff and, apparently, a Rhodesian Ridge-back.
    “Monday,” I said quietly, and she trotted over; she is a knuckleheaded little Labrador retriever, but no fool.
    The mastiff picked his way deliberately down the embankment, placing his enormous feet with the delicacy of a deer.
    “Nice doggy,” I said inadequately.
    The mastiff sat, offering his paw and looking grateful when I took it.
Umph
, he remarked from somewhere deep in his big chest.
    At this the shepherd gave a little yip of relief and danced into a play bow in front of Monday; moments later all three dogs were chasing in and out of the water, having a high old time.
    Timothy hadn’t said anything. He was a small, wiry man with thin, silky white hair, skin tanned the color of moose hide, and anxious blue eyes, wearing a flannel shirt and overalls.
    “Timothy,” said Ellie, “I’m afraid we’ve got bad news.”
    His face did not change expression, as if after many sorrows another one would not come as a surprise.
    “Ayuh,” he said, leaning on a stick. That was when I noticed his clubbed foot. “Coast Guard fellers came yesterday, said Ken’s