“What the hell!” Tex cried.
“Oh, hi, sir,” said Jason as he stretched and yawned. He didn’t even have the decency to cover his private parts with his hat. Then of course he didn’t have a hat at his disposal.
Drawn by the screams, the rest of the Pooles came hurrying over, and when they saw Jason the way God had created him, their reactions were varied and interesting to watch.
Gran was grinning, and so was Chase. Odelia was frowning, and Marge was watching the scene slack-jawed.
“I was getting a feel for the energy of the house,” Jason now said, feeling compelled to explain his presence. “It’s what I always do when I accept a new assignment.”
“Walk around the backyard nekkid?” asked Gran.
“Well, yes,” he said with an indulgent little smile. “Clothes form a barrier, you see, an obstacle between myself and these subtle energies. So I get rid of this barrier so I can become one with the empty space—bask in its aura so I know what the house needs.”
“And what does the house need?” asked Marge, who’d managed to reel in her jaw but was still staring at the designer.
“Well, I’m seeing… brightness,” he confessed, holding up his hands like a cinematographer. “Yellows and greens and blues and reds—bright, bright, bright!”
“You know what I see?” said Tex.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said the designer with a mild smile.
“Pants,” said Tex curtly. “Get dressed, buddy. Now!”
“But surely the naked body holds no secrets for you, Doctor Poole,” Jason tried.
“Pants! Right now!”
Tex is a mild-mannered man, and it’s very rare that he loses his temper, but clearly meeting a naked man in his own backyard, a place where a homeowner can safely assume to be safe from naked men popping out of the undergrowth, had taxed him.
Theartiste blew out a sigh of disappointment, but finally entered the house, presumably to put on some clothes.
Just then, Uncle Alec suddenly came crashing through the opening in the hedge.“Oh, there you all are,” he said. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to. Chase, Odelia, can you both drop by the station now? Dolores just called. Neda’s sister is coming in.”
“Neda’s sister?” asked Odelia. “I didn’t even know Neda had a sister.”
“Well, looks like she did. She’s coming in from New York, and she’s very anxious to find out what happened to her sister.”
“You’re not going to invite her to the station, are you?” said Marge.
“Why not?” asked her brother, indignant. “What’s wrong with my police station?”
“And put her in one of those horrible interrogation rooms? No way. You better buy her a cup of coffee,” she told her daughter.
“Did you know that Neda had a sister?” Odelia asked.
“No, I didn’t,” her mother confessed.
Chase had slapped an arm around his superior officer’s shoulder and said with a grin, “You missed something, buddy. There was a naked man out here just now.”
“An exhibitionist?”
“Vesta’s decorator. Something about clothes forming a barrier between energies.”
“Do you want me to arrest him?”
“No!” Gran cried. “There will be no arresting of my decorator. He’s a genius.”
“A naked genius!” said Chase, that grin still firmly in place.
“So? All geniuses are eccentric, everybody knows that.”
“Now, Max,” Rufus suddenly urged me on. “You tell Vesta that dog choir is to be included on the concert’s bill or else.”
“All right, all right,” I told our friendly neighborhood sheepdog. “But not now.”
“But…”
“Do you trust me, Rufus?”
He hesitated, then finally nodded sheepishly. Or sheepdoggedly.“Yes, I do.”
“Then let me handle this in my own way.”
“All right, Max.”
“You take your time, Max,” Fifi joined in. Then she gave me a wink. I think she was happy that she wouldn’t have to go on a hunger strike.
19
Henrietta Riding, or Titta as she liked to be called, was a young woman probably twenty years Neda’s junior. She wore her hair short and had a small ring through her nose and a piercing through her upper lip. All in all she didn’t look anything like her big sister, and I was curious to hear her life’s story, and so were Odelia and Chase as they took a seat across from Titta in Cup o’ Mika, the popular coffee shop on Norfolk Street.
Marge had been right, of course. You don’t meet grieving relatives in that old police station, even though Uncle Alec, in a final attempt to out-argue his sister, had offered his own office for the interview.
“I was a troubled teen,” Titta began as she took off her leather jacket and placed it next to her on the bench. They’d taken a seat near the window, where they could watch the world go by, and still enjoy one of the excellent coffees Mika is rightly famous for.
I’m not a coffee aficionado myself, of course, so I take Odelia’s word for it. She’d chosen the venue, since she is a big coffee fan, and so is her hubby.
“A troubled teen?” Odelia prompted.
“Yeah,” said Titta, who’d drawn up one leg under her bum and looked a little sad. “Always getting in some kind of trouble. Drugs, vandalism, getting involved with a bad crowd. So my dad finally had enough and kicked me out—sent me to a boarding school in upstate New York. More a reform school for girls. I thought I’d hate it, and I did, but it was also what saved me. If I’d continued down the same road, I probably wouldn’t be alive today. But while I was there, Dad decided it wasn’t enough that he’d kicked me out of the house, he also decided to disown me. Especially afterI managed to get in trouble again, in my first year. I’d met a boy, and gotten pregnant and we ran away together. We made it to the Canadian border when police found us and brought us back. At least they brought me back, Frank was sent to prison—I was still only fifteen at the time, you see, and he was nineteen. Anyway, Dad felt enough was enough, and didn’t want anything more to do with me. He still paid for the school, but he effectively cut me out of his life.”
“You never saw your dad again?”
“No, I didn’t. I spent the next three years in that school, and when I finally graduated Dad had one of his lawyers contact me. He offered me a choice. Either go to college, which he’d pay for, or accept a lump sum and never darken his doorstep again, as he so eloquently put it. I chose the money, and ended up drifting around for a while, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I finally hooked up with Frank again, and we set off for India. Only Frank had a different idea of what to do once we got there. He wanted to live off my money and score drugs and party. I wanted to stay clean and make something of myself. So we split up, and I traveled to Nepal but got stranded in Banbasa.”
“Banbasa?” asked Chase, who’d been jotting down notes.
“North of India,” Titta explained. “I ended up staying in one of the orphanages up there, and since I’ve sometimes felt like an orphan myself I fit right in. So I never left, and have been helping out there, doing what I can. And for the first time in my life I felt at home. It’s been themaking of me. I found purpose and something to dedicate my life to.”
“So what brought you back?” asked Odelia.
She shrugged.“I wanted to visit my sister. I’d heard Dad had died, and tried to get in touch with Neda, but she wouldn’t acknowledge me. So I just figured I’d drop by and talk to her in person.” Her face crumpled. “Only turns out I was too late.”
“When did you arrive from India?”
“Three days ago. I’m staying with a friend in Brooklyn. I tried to get in touch with Neda again, and when that didn’t work I was planning to drive down here and just show up on her doorstep. But then my friend saw the news about a woman being robbed and killed, so…” She tapped the table with her finger. “Now I’m really all alone in the world.”