"Esther M. Friesner - Birthday" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

One of the policemen is holding a shopping bag and trying to make the crowd
back
away. The bottom of the shopping bag looks wet. Another one is telling the
people over and over that there is nothing here for them to see, but they know
better.

A third stands with pad in hand, interviewing a waiter. The waiter looks young
and frightened. He keeps saying, "I didn't know, I had no idea, she came in
and
ordered a Caesar salad and a cup of tea, then she paid the bill and started to
go. I didn't even notice she'd left that bag under the table until that man
grabbed it and started to run after her." He points to the man embracing the
iron girdle of the tree. "I didn't know a thing."

The girl is in the fourth policeman's custody. I think she must be sixteen,
although she could he older and small for her age. Her face is flat, vacant.
What does she see? The policeman helps; her into the back of his squad car and
slams the door. "Said she couldn't face it, going to a clinic, having it
recorded like a decent woman. Bitch," I hear him mutter. "Murderer."

As I walk past, quickening my step as much as I can without beginning to ran,
I
hear the waiter's fluting voice say, "I don't think it was dead when she got
here."
A man answers the door when I ring the bell at my last stop. "Frances Hughes?"
I
ask nervously. Has a prankster cal led the Woman's Center, giving a man's name
that sounds like a woman's? Oralee says it's happened before. Sometimes a
prank
call only leads to a wild goose chase, but sometimes when the runner arrives
they're waiting for her. Trudy had her wrist broken and they destroyed all the
samples she'd collected so far. It was just like those stories about Japanese
soldiers lost for years on small islands in the Pacific, still fighting a war
that was over decades ago.

The man smiles at me. "No, I'm her husband," he says. "Won't you come in?"

Frances Hughes is waiting for me in the living room. She is one of those women
whose face reflects years of breeding and who looks as if she were born to
preside over a fine china tea service on a silver tray. If I drink one more
cup
of tea I think I'll die, but I accept the cup she passes to me because she
needs
to do this.

"We can't thank you enough," her husband says as he sits down in the Queen
Anne
armchair across from mine. Frances sits on the sofa, secure behind a castle
wall