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

"A kiln, yes." Quite a good kiln, actually. An expensive kiln. A Cadillac
among kilns. A brick-and-metal cylinder a yard wide and four feet high,
automated, computerized, and complete with adjustable ceramic shelving,
large enough to hold dozens of fancy-handle coffee mugs and ruffle-edged
pie plates and teddy-bear tissue covers and personalized piggy banks,
Judith's kiln was the white-hot heart of her paint-your-own-pottery business.
"That broken stuff, was it baked yet?"
"No." It lay with the greeny-blue overglaze still on it. "That's what I'm
trying to tell you, somebody pulled it out of the kiln and smashed it -- "
"What's in the oven, then?"
"Nothing, I guess."
"I don't like that smell," the cop said. "How hot does that thing get?"
"Twenty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit. But I keep it at eighteen
hundred. Why?"
"Smells like a crematory in here. How hot is that thing right now?"
"Room temp." The computer display flashed the blood-red numerals
72.
Keeping his eyes on the kiln as if it might pull a gun on him, the cop
fumbled in a black leather pouch on his belt. He pulled out rubber gloves.
He put them on. He took a few cautious steps forward, reached over, and
inserted his fingertips under the kiln's heavy lid. He heaved it up.
"Stay where you are," he told Judith too late. She had followed, and she
saw what he did. Ashes -- yuck, a coating of reeking, greasy ashes in her
kiln -- and in the ashes a small blob of something that maybe used to be
white, and some quarter-sized puddles with a metallic luster to them. And
wallowing in one puddle, an oval, greenly glinting gem. And that was all,
except some pallid stubs of -- of bone?
Judith caught just a single shocked glance before the police officer
lowered the lid. "Get back," he ordered.
"It could be something else," Judith blurted, starting to shake. "A -- a big
dog..."
"Only if the big dog wore jewelry. Get back."
***
At the end of the day, Judith was still in shock, so much so that she almost
didn't go to Scrabble Club. She had told the police officer she wanted
detectives? Hoo boy, she got detectives. The coroner said yes, those were
human bones, and Personal Pottery became a crime scene, closed to
business -- yet more income lost -- and all day it had been questions,
questions, questions, like Chinese water torture. The signs of forcible entry
on the back door -- when had she first noticed them? Never. Why?
Because I always use the front door. There's no parking in back, just a
driveway for deliveries. (Idiots!) The smell, when had she first noticed that?
Today. Tuesday. Not yesterday? No, the shop is closed on Monday.
Because I fire the kiln on Sunday nights. Heat up and cool down takes
twenty-four hours, makes the place awfully hot, you know? (Cretins!) But the
pottery broken on the floor was never fired? Right. (Which means he did it
Sunday night, shortly after I left. Finally, they're starting to get it!) So, ma'am,
Sunday night you left here at nine P.M.? And what were your movements at
that time? I went home! Did you see anyone, talk with anyone? No! Anyone
who can verify your whereabouts? No, dammit.