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

Babbling to herself in her car after the detectives finally let her go, Judith
declared, "They think I did it! They really think I did it! Morons!" And she was
still shaking, because obviously It had put the body in her kiln for some
reason, and aside from making her life a living hell, what was It trying to tell
her? That she would be next?
She went to Scrabble Club because she didn't want to face the empty
house alone. Even joining a group of pedantic misfits in a church basement
seemed preferable. Why were all such Sunday School rooms bile green,
with those heinous Masonite tables and mustard-colored bulletin boards
and the selfsame melanic upright piano with a plastic Jesus on top? As she
walked in, an egg-shaped, balding man greeted her, "Hi, Judy."
"Judith," she corrected him more frostily than was necessary. Poor
Dick, he couldn't help it that he was a hopeless nerd. Judith just enjoyed
cruciverbalization, herself, but some of these people were total word freaks,
obsessed with cryptograms, anagrams, acrostics, puns, palindromes,
whatever. Utter word geeks. At least Dick had said hi, unlike the club's other
nerdy and obsessed male, Doug, who had achieved the Master level in
regional Scrabble competition and was now going for national and Expert.
Right this minute, while women members stood chatting all around him,
Doug sat at one of the tables gazing in his usual baby-blue manner at a list
of words he was memorizing -- not the meanings, just the spellings.
Nobody in the club knew or used Scrabble words in any context other than
Scrabble.
"Yataghan," Doug whispered to himself, his brow creased beneath
blunt, childish bangs. "Y-a-t-a-g-h-a-n."
Standing right beside Doug, Judith knew he was not speaking to her
and did not wish to be spoken to. She addressed Dick instead. "Sorry I
snapped at you. I've had a terrible day. Had to call the police. Somebody --
"
"Did you see the trophies from Saturday?" Beaming, Dick pointed
toward a gleaming, aspiring display.
There had been a tournament, evidently. Who cared. "Somebody put a
body -- "
"I'm not in Novice anymore." Dick's smile echoed the lines of his triple
chin as several women turned to congratulate him. "Yes, I got Master."
"That's great," Judith mumbled. "I suppose Doug won overall?"
"No, Eloise won!"
Judith almost offered Doug her sympathies. Three times so far she had
found herself facing Eloise across Eloise's gold-filigree-and-mother-of-pearl
custom-made Scrabble board, and each time she had managed to hold her
own -- or so she had thought until Eloise, at the end of each game, had
used her seven remaining letters ("Bingo!" Fifty extra points.) and gone out.
Which was brilliant if done once, almost impossible if done the way Eloise
did it -- habitually. Each time, caught flat-footed, Judith had realized that
Eloise had been playing clawed cat to her mouse -- and had looked up to
see Eloise watching her get it. ("Aw, Judy want a crying towel?") Even
playing Doug was not as bad as playing Eloise. Doug never cut even the
most novice opponent a break, and he always won, but he didn't gloat.
Actually, he didn't speak at all, usually.
"Sforzato," Doug whispered, tuning out various conversations.