Читаем 45ebf3c490593574dd454e5dfd5a5758 полностью

45ebf3c490593574dd454e5dfd5a5758

“You can’t do this.”

“Oh, watch us,” said Rufus. “I can not eat for days or even weeks!” He slapped his large belly. “I’ve got plenty of reserves in the tank, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Fifi slapped her own considerably smaller belly, gulped and squeaked,“Me, too!”

“If you don’t eat for a day you’ll faint, Fifi,” Brutus pointed out. “And if you don’t eat for two days, you’ll be dead.”

Fifi gulped some more.“Anything for a good cause,” she said finally. “So you know what to do, Max,” she added. “if you don’t convince Father Reilly to add dog choir to the roster, you’ll be responsible for my premature demise.”

Oh, God. Just what I needed!

And just when I was about to launch into a long speech on why this wasn’t a good idea, a loud scream suddenly reached our ears, and when we looked up, we saw that Tex had come wandering into his backyard, presumably to take a gander at his lovely new house. He now stood face to face with a naked Jason Knauff, who’d just come out of the house, looking a little bleary-eyed. And did I mention he was still fully in the nood?

“What the hell!” Tex cried.

“Oh, hi, sir,” said Jason as he stretched and yawned. He didn’t even have the decency to cover his private parts with his hat. Then of course he didn’t have a hat at his disposal.

Drawn by the screams, the rest of the Pooles came hurrying over, and when they saw Jason the way God had created him, their reactions were varied and interesting to watch.

Gran was grinning, and so was Chase. Odelia was frowning, and Marge was watching the scene slack-jawed.

“I was getting a feel for the energy of the house,” Jason now said, feeling compelled to explain his presence. “It’s what I always do when I accept a new assignment.”

“Walk around the backyard nekkid?” asked Gran.

“Well, yes,” he said with an indulgent little smile. “Clothes form a barrier, you see, an obstacle between myself and these subtle energies. So I get rid of this barrier so I can become one with the empty space—bask in its aura so I know what the house needs.”

“And what does the house need?” asked Marge, who’d managed to reel in her jaw but was still staring at the designer.

“Well, I’m seeing… brightness,” he confessed, holding up his hands like a cinematographer. “Yellows and greens and blues and reds—bright, bright, bright!”

“You know what I see?” said Tex.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the designer with a mild smile.

“Pants,” said Tex curtly. “Get dressed, buddy. Now!”

“But surely the naked body holds no secrets for you, Doctor Poole,” Jason tried.

“Pants! Right now!”

Tex is a mild-mannered man, and it’s very rare that he loses his temper, but clearly meeting a naked man in his own backyard, a place where a homeowner can safely assume to be safe from naked men popping out of the undergrowth, had taxed him.

Theartiste blew out a sigh of disappointment, but finally entered the house, presumably to put on some clothes.

Just then, Uncle Alec suddenly came crashing through the opening in the hedge.“Oh, there you all are,” he said. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to. Chase, Odelia, can you both drop by the station now? Dolores just called. Neda’s sister is coming in.”

“Neda’s sister?” asked Odelia. “I didn’t even know Neda had a sister.”

“Well, looks like she did. She’s coming in from New York, and she’s very anxious to find out what happened to her sister.”

“You’re not going to invite her to the station, are you?” said Marge.

“Why not?” asked her brother, indignant. “What’s wrong with my police station?”

“And put her in one of those horrible interrogation rooms? No way. You better buy her a cup of coffee,” she told her daughter.

“Did you know that Neda had a sister?” Odelia asked.

“No, I didn’t,” her mother confessed.

Chase had slapped an arm around his superior officer’s shoulder and said with a grin, “You missed something, buddy. There was a naked man out here just now.”

“An exhibitionist?”

“Vesta’s decorator. Something about clothes forming a barrier between energies.”

“Do you want me to arrest him?”

“No!” Gran cried. “There will be no arresting of my decorator. He’s a genius.”

“A naked genius!” said Chase, that grin still firmly in place.

“So? All geniuses are eccentric, everybody knows that.”

“Now, Max,” Rufus suddenly urged me on. “You tell Vesta that dog choir is to be included on the concert’s bill or else.”

“All right, all right,” I told our friendly neighborhood sheepdog. “But not now.”

“But…”

“Do you trust me, Rufus?”

He hesitated, then finally nodded sheepishly. Or sheepdoggedly.“Yes, I do.”

“Then let me handle this in my own way.”