Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Advice. Purrfect Passion. A Purrfect Gnomeful

“Say, Ted. Your collection seems to have grown considerably,” he said, staring at one gnome that looked the spitting image of the crowning piece of his own collection. It was one of those fat jolly gnomes with its face stuck in a rictus grin and its apple-cheeked features just a little too happy for comfort. In fact he could probably feature in a Patterson novel as a serial killer about to slay victim twenty-three in a most gruesome manner.

“Yeah, I’ve been splurging,” said Ted, sounding a little guilty but not much. “Marcie isn’t too happy about it, let me tell you. And I did promise her I’d stop now. She feels my collection is about as big as she’ll tolerate, so there’s that. And some of these guys don’t come cheap.” He chuckled. “Listen to me go on. Of course I don’t have to tell you. You have some of the nicest gnomes in the neighborhood. Pride of your collection and all that. I have to confess, though, Tex, that living next door to you and seeing your frankly fantastic collection has given me that boost to go the extra mile myself.” He grinned. “Nothing like a bit of healthy competition between neighbors, eh?”

A look of suspicion had traveled up Tex’s face and he now asked, “Can I see that big one over there for a moment, Ted? Yeah, the one with the pea-green bib.”

Ted dutifully handed Tex the big gnome with the pea-green bib and Tex turned it over in his hands. When he saw the big red T on the gnome’s undercarriage he snorted wildly.

“What’s wrong, Tex?” said Ted, cautiously taking the gnome from his neighbor’s hands.

But Tex was too overwhelmed for speech. Instead he was breathing loudly through both nostrils, like a bull about to charge a matador and gore him.

“Do you want me to get you a doctor?” Ted laughed and slapped his brow. “Oh, silly me. You are a doctor! What am I saying?”

Tex finally found speech again, but when he opened his mouth, expecting fire and brimstone to pour out, instead a long drawn-out scream erupted: “THIEEEEEEEEEF!”

“What?” said Ted, stepping back a few paces.

“YOU’RE A THIEF!” Tex screamed at the top of his lungs. “YOU STOLE MY GNOMES!”

“What? I did not!” said Ted, retreating even further from his fire-breathing neighbor.

“That is my gnome and you know it!”

“Are you crazy? This is my gnome,” said Ted, cradling the gnome, as one would a baby.

“It still has the big red T I wrote on the bottom! Check it!”

Ted checked it and frowned. “Gee. There is a T.”

“That’s my T! I write T on all of my gnomes. T for Tex. So I can catch filthy thieves like you in the act—THIEEEEEEEF!”

“But, Tex, really,” said the man, growing a little white around the nostrils. It’s never pleasant to be accused of theft, and especially not by a neighbor having gone berserk.

“You stole my gnomes—confess, you THIEF!”

“What’s going on here?” asked Marcie, coming out of the house, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“Tex says I stole his gnome,” said Ted, now looking like a kicked puppy.

“Is this true, Tex? Are you accusing my husband of being a thief?”

“Yes, Marcie, I am,” said Tex. “Because that’s what your husband is. A filthy THIEF!”

“Oh, will you stop shouting,” said Marcie with a frown.

“He says I stole this gnome,” said Ted, showing his wife the gnome in question.

“There’s a big letter T on the bottom of that gnome. I wrote that,” said Tex, breathing stertorously. If a doctor had been present, and that doctor had been a different doctor from the one now looking close to a heart attack, he would probably have advised Tex to take it easy. But since there wasn’t, it was up to Marcie to take the sensible approach.

She opened the little gate a previous homeowner had once installed and that connected both gardens and said, “Tex, come over here a minute, will you?” Once Tex had complied, she added, “Now sit down. You too, Ted.”

Both men reluctantly sat down at the garden table, Tex shooting fire with his eyes, insofar as a mild doctor can shoot fire with his eyes, and Ted sitting at the edge of his chair, ready to bolt if Tex made the slightest move to violate the physical integrity of his person.

“Now let’s thresh this thing out,” said Marcie, grabbing the gnome from her husband’s hands and turning it upside down. “Where did you get this gnome, Ted?”

“I… I don’t remember,” said Ted.

“Hah!” said Tex.

“Quiet, Tex,” said Marcie. “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”

“Well, I did drop by the garden center yesterday to buy a fresh batch, but I honestly don’t remember every single one of them or their exact particulars.”

“How many did you buy?”

“Um, a dozen?” he said, giving his wife a sheepish look.

“Oh, Ted,” said Marcie with a sigh. “And how many did you have?”

“Two dozen.”

“So that makes three dozen. So let’s count, shall we?”

All three of them started counting the gnomes in Ted and Marcie’s backyard. It immediately became clear there were far more than thirty-six gnomes littering the place. In fact there were forty-eight.

“How is that possible?” murmured Ted.

“Because you stole mine!” Tex cried, and made to get up and wring Ted’s neck.

Marcie pushed him back down and said crisply, “Ted, did you steal Tex’s gnomes?”

“No, of course I didn’t!” her husband cried.

“Hah!”

“Quiet, Tex. So where do these extra twelve come from?”

“I don’t know!”

Marcie had gotten up and was now checking a couple of the superfluous gnomes. “Some of these have the letter T on them,” she said.

“Those are all mine,” said Tex, getting up and collecting them from Marcie’s hands.

“I don’t know what to say, Tex,” she said apologetically.

“I swear on the heads of my kids that I didn’t steal your gnomes, Tex!” Ted cried, much perturbed.

But Tex didn’t even deign the gnome thief with a response. Instead he checked every single gnome in that backyard until he’d retrieved his own dozen gnomes. Then, his arms laden with gnomes big and small, he stalked off.

“Tex, buddy, please!” said Ted.

But Tex had left the backyard.

Chapter 13

Vesta glanced up at the impressive church steeple and made the sign of the cross.

“What are we doing here?” asked Scarlett, watching with some measure of bewilderment as her friend displayed all the hallmarks of a religious person, which she hadn’t thought Vesta actually was.

“We’re adding another formidable recruit to our already formidable team,” said Vesta.

“Father Reilly? Are you sure?”

“A priest knows, Scarlett,” Vesta pointed out. “In fact a priest knows all. People come in to confess, and he writes it all down in his little black book. Criminals, sinners, or even righteous souls confessing some minor transgression. Father Reilly knows all and sees all.”

“I think that’s God,” said Scarlett, but Vesta was undeterred.

“If we can recruit Father Reilly to our cause, crime in Hampton Cove will be all but extinct,” she said, and crossed the threshold to step into the church proper. It took some effort to push through those heavy oak doors, and then they were inside, in that cool and semi-dark place that was St. John’s Church, the town’s center of all that was holy.

As it happened, Father Reilly was replenishing the stoup near the entrance as they strode in, and smiled in greeting. “Vesta. Scarlett. What brings you here?”

“We have an offer for you, Francis,” said Vesta. “An offer you can’t refuse.”

Father Reilly’s equanimity diminished to a slight degree. “Is that so?”