"Nancy Springer - Silent End" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

*Silent End* by Nancy Springer

"Whew, what's that?" Unlocking the front door of her very own beloved
shop, Judith smelled something that made her think her ex-husband had
played one of his nasty tricks. Had broken in and left her a rotting dead rat,
perhaps. Stepping inside, she glanced at crisp white bisque arranged on
shiny black shelving; except for the stink, all seemed well. Out of habit, she
flipped the ceramic door sign that declared "Personal Pottery is OPEN!"
before she headed past the plastic-covered studio tables into the back room
to hang up her jacket --
"Oh my God!"
She froze by the coatrack, gawking at shards of glazed bisque piled
around the kiln like cyanotic casualties of war: shattered butterfly plaques,
smashed fish platters, beheaded bunnies and puppies and kittens, pony
figurines in pieces, decorator plates and miniature teapots and fallen
knickknacks of all kinds strewn amid the insectlike, multi-legged stilts that
had supported them -- an entire kiln load of crafts lay in dismembered ruins
on the linoleum. The expensive ceramic shelves that went in the kiln had
been thrown aside, lying in monolithic, fissured slabs, crushing the bluish
bodies. It was, in miniature, like the aftermath of a terrorist strike. Judith
screamed, backed away, and stumbled to the phone.
By the time the cop cruiser pulled up, she had recovered from her
shock and segued into anger. "I want you to get the detectives in here," she
told the township police officer walking toward her as she propped the
shop's front door open to air out the place. "I've had enough of this."
Though actually, It had never sabotaged her shop be-fore, just stalked her,
slashed her tires, left venomous messages, that sort of thing.
" 'Had enough of this'?" the cop echoed.
"It's my ex. Because I got a restraining order. I know it's him."
The cop gave her a long, almost bovine look. Without inflection he
asked, "What's the problem? The smell?"
"No. Well, I mean, I hadn't thought..." Judith straightened her spine,
annoyed by her own failure to connect the devastation in her back room
with the stench until this moment. That lapse showed how unnerved she
was, and she hated to be less than poised.
Crisp as bisque, she said, "Maybe there's some rotting garbage
involved. I don't know. This way." She led him to the inner doorway.
"Everything I loaded into the kiln Sunday night," she told him as he took
in the carnage. "A week's worth of business. Several hundred dollars I'm
going to have to refund. God knows how many ticked-off customers."
 "That stuff used to be, uh, merchandise belonging to you?"
"It was already sold. Glazed, paid for. And overglazed. All I had to do
was fire it." Watching the cop, she saw his placid face rumple; like many
people, he didn't understand what her business was about. Effortlessly,
Judith shifted gears into her spiel. "Personal Pottery is unique to this area, a
shop where you can creatively color your own ceramics. Select your
inexpensive bisque item, and for a nominal studio fee we supply the
brushes, the glazes, studio space, everything you need to paint your own
one-of-a-kind ceramic artwork. When your -- "
Starting to get it, the cop pointed at the kiln. "That's an oven for pottery?"