"Nancy Kress - Evolution" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

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Evolution
by Nancy Kress
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Copyright (c)1995 Nancy Kress
First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, October 1995

Fictionwise Contemporary
Science Fiction


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"Somebody shot and killed Dr. Bennett behind the Food Mart on April
Street!" Ceci Moore says breathlessly as I take the washing off the line.
I stand with a pair of Jack's boxer shorts in my hand and stare at her.
I don't like Ceci. Her smirking pushiness, her need to shove her scrawny body
into the middle of every situation, even ones she'd be better off leaving
alone. She's been that way since high school. But we're neighbors; we're
stuck with each other. Dr. Bennett delivered both Sean and Jackie. Slowly I
fold the boxer shorts and lay them in my clothesbasket.
"Well, Betty, aren't you even going to _say_ anything?"
"Have the police arrested anybody?"
"Janie Brunelli says there's no suspects." Tom Brunelli is one of
Emerton's police officers, all five of them. He has trouble keeping his mouth
shut. "Honestly, Betty, you look like there's a murder in this town every
day!"
"Was it in the parking lot?" I'm in that parking lot behind the Food
Mart every week. It's unpaved, just hard-packed rocky dirt sloping down to a
low concrete wall by the river. I take Jackie's sheets off the line. Belle,
Ariel, and Princess Jasmine all smile through fields of flowers.
"Yes, in the parking lot," Ceci says. "Near the dumpsters. There must
have been a silencer on the rifle, nobody heard anything. Tom found two .22
250 semi-automatic cartridges." Ceci knows about guns. Her house is full of
them. "Betty, why don't you put all this wash in your dryer and save yourself
the trouble of hanging it all out?"
"I like the way it smells line-dried. And I can hear Jackie through
the window."
Instantly Ceci's face changes. "Jackie's home from school? Why?"
"She has a cold."
"Are you sure it's just a cold?"