Foursome by Jeremiah Healy Page B

color of shake shingles, the round ends of the logs showing the rings and checking of old wood. The foundation and chimney consisted of mortared fìeldstones, laid flat but jutting out irregularly, smooth with age and plastered with moss. Two Cape Ann rockers and a small table, hewn from the same kind of wood as the logs, sat on a shallow porch nobody could mistake for a sundeck. Rusty nails driven halfway into the porch logs supported all sorts of wood-handled tools with crescent metal blades, from logging or farming, I assumed. The window frames were weathered two-by-fours, three joined together to form the vertical jambs, one each for the lintels above and sills below the small windows. Screens were held in place by brads driven into the boards. The roof was covered by large green squares, like somebody had stripped two dozen pool tables of their covers and tacked them down.
    To one side was an old, two-door utility vehicle that looked like an International Scout, with a cream metal top and an aquamarine body. The spare was under the side window behind the passenger’s seat. The rear bumper was roped onto the chassis, the license plate taped in the rear window. Behind the truck was a garage full of old junk and an outhouse with the elbow of a tree limb for a door handle. The garage and privy formed the corners of a chicken wire run, three big, mongrel dogs in it, each going crazy to be the first one to come through the wire at us.
    “That’ll do.”
    At Judson’s raspy command, all three dogs stopped making noise and sat down on their side of the wire. Two big-headed, short-haired dogs could have been twins and looked a lot like Old Yeller, tongues out and tails wagging. The third dog drew his gene pool somewhere between a German shepherd and a malamute, and his ghostly blue eyes didn’t give any indication he was happy to see me.
    “I take it you don’t have a problem with burglaries out here.”
    She smiled, a fresh-batch profile for the cookie commercial. “Leastways no repeat offenders.”
    I said, “You in law enforcement, too?”
    “Christ come to earth, no. No, I just read the papers from time to time about what goes on in the cities. I got Jack and Jill when they was pups from the pound. Littermates somebody left by the side of a quarry back in the country a ways. Runty, I’m just minding him for Dag, till he gets back from fishing.”
    “He looks pretty big to be called ‘Runty.’ ”
    “Dag named him that because on the TV show, they called Rin Tin Tin ‘Rinty,’ but Dag thought with only some shepherd in him, he ought to be called ‘Runty.’ You pumping me already?”
    The smile was still fresh-batch, but the gray eyes were now as flinty as a country lawyer’s.
    I said, “It would be a help if you could tell me what you saw and heard that night.”
    “I can tell you the truth as I know it. I figure that’s my duty as a citizen. But I’m not about to let you record anything, and I’m sure not going to sign anything.”
    “Agreed.”
    “Come on up to the porch, then. I can scare up some lemonade, but it’s just the store-bought kind.”
    “Thanks, that’ll be fine.”
    I climbed the two wooden steps to the porch and tried one of the rockers while Judson disappeared into the house. With caning for seat and back, the chair was amazingly formfitting and comfortable, at least until I noticed Jack and Jill and Runty, still watching me.
    Ma Judson reappeared without the shotgun but with two gas station giveaway glasses of lemonade. I took mine, tasted it, and said it really hit the spot. She gulped two or three ounces of hers and said they never could get it to taste like the real thing, but who wants to carry home ten dollars’ worth of lemons to make it right?
    Judson set her glass down precariously on the small table. “All right, young man, now that you’ve softened me up, what do you want to know?”
    “I understand you were the first one to reach the house after the