"Christopher Moore - The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore Christopher)

"Dear, dear, how queer everything is today! And yesterday everything went
on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think:
Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember
feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same the next question Is: Who
in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"
--Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventure In Wonderland

one
 Theophilus Crowe

As dead people went, Bess Leander smelled pretty good: lavender, sage,
and a hint of dove. There were seven Shaker chairs hung on pegs on the walls
of the Leanders' dining room. The eighth was overturned under Bess, who hung
from the peg by a calico cloth rope around her neck. Dried flowers, baskets of
various shapes and sizes, and bundles of dried herbs hung from the open
ceiling beams.
Theophilus Crowe knew he should be doing cop stuff, but he just stood
there with two emergency medical technicians from the Pine Cove Fire
Department, staring up at Bess as if they were inspecting the newly installed
angel on a Christmas tree. Theo thought the pastel blue of Bess's skin went
nicely with her cornflower-blue dress and the patterns of the English china
displayed on simple wooden shelves at the end of the room. It was 7 A.M. and
Theo, as usual, was a little stoned.
Theo could hear sobs coming from upstairs, where Joseph Leander held his
two daughters, who were still in their nightgowns. There was no evidence of a
masculine presence anywhere in the house. It was Country Cute: bare pine
floors and bent willow baskets, flowers and rag dolls and herb-flavored
vinegars in blown-glass bottles; Shaker antiques, copper kettles, embroidery
samplers, spinning wheels, lace doilies, and porcelain placards with prayers
from the Dutch. Not a sports page or remote control in sight. Not a thing out
of place or a speck of dust anywhere. Joseph Leander must have walked very
light to live in this house without leaving tracks. A man less sensitive than
Theo might have called him whipped.
"That guy's whipped," one of the EMTs said. His name was Vance McNally.
He was fifty-one, short and muscular, and wore his hair slicked back with oil,
just as he had in high school. Occasionally, in his capacity as an EMT, he
saved lives, which was his rationalization for being a dolt the rest of the
time.
"He just found his wife hanging in the dining room, Vance," Theo
pronounced over the heads of the EMTs. He was six-foot-six, and even in his
flannel shirt and sneakers he could loom large when he needed to assert some
authority.
"She looks like Raggedy Ann," said Mike, the other EMT, who was in his
early twenties and excited to be on his first suicide call.
"I heard she was Amish," Vance said.
"She's not Amish," Theo said.
"I didn't say she was Amish, I just said I heard that. I figured she
wasn't Amish when I saw the blender in the kitchen. Amish don't believe in
blenders, do they?"