Chapter Four
Turnedout headless Abner was a no-show. He wasn’t in any of his typical haunts. He used to belong to a rental on Ebb Street, but it looked like the new rental agency had finally done away withhim.
“So what’s the next move?” Hatterasked.
It was super dark now, and we were parked on the corner of Anchor. Mr. Denver lived there along with his wife. Mr. Denver was a retired music teacher with hearing damage, and Mrs. Denver slept with a jet engine she insisted was a white noise machine. She also collected yard art. A lot of yardart.
Including a boatload ofgnomes.
The little buggers were hiding in the bushes, stacked up the edges of the front steps, hanging on swings from the porchrafters.
A quick count gave me thirty of various sizes and accouterments. Some with shovels, some with buckets, some with lanterns, flowers, bunnies, mushrooms, and one with agun.
I was keeping an eye on the one with thegun.
“We wait for them to wakeup.”
“Sun’s down,” henoted.
“Yep.” I took a drink of my soda, didn’t look away from the yard. “Any minutenow.”
“There some kind of strategy tothis?”
I saw a branch rustle, grass wave. This was it. “Think like agnome.”
I pushed out of the truck and strode to the yard knowing there was no way Mr. and Mrs. Denver would hearus.
It was important to pick out the leader of the group. Not easy since they all looked pretty much the same. All the boy gnomes had beards, all the girl gnomes hadbraids.
“We going to see anything else come alive?” Hatter whispered as we came up on one side of the big rhododendron bush at the edge of the property. “Flamingos? That bear statue over there?” He waved toward thegarage.
“Justgnomes.”
I didn’t know if there was a time-release on the spell, hex, whatever it was, but one minute they were statues, maybe a random shift or blink here or there, and then they were allalive.
I stepped out from behind the bush. “Is headless Abner still one ofyou?”
Three dozen gnomey heads turned. Three dozen sets of gnomey eyes looked up at me, lingered on my badge, then lookedaway.
Well, they all looked away except for one gnome. She was vintage, chubby, with happy round features and two long blonde braids falling from beneath her hat. She wore a long dress and ascowl.
“Gnice to see you, Officer Reed.” She said in passable English, though there was a bit of an accent–nothing I’d heard from any creature except a gnome. I didn’t know what it was, but it always caught at my ear, as if there was a silent letter in there somewhere I should be noticing. “Who’s the gnewpartner?”
“This is Officer Hatter. He’ll be your secondary contact for themonth.”
She was still scowling, but wasn’t looking at us anymore. Gnomes had short attention spans. Sometimes that worked to ouradvantage.
“Why are my apples purple?” She shook the basket hanging from the crook of her arm as if that would do something useful. The little stone apples clacked like a fistful of marbles. “Why are all my applespurple?”
This was bad. Gnomes were creatures of habit. If one found out someone had updated their paint colors with a little bit of whimsy, it did not go overwell.
“They’re plums,” Isaid.
She glanced up at me, then back at her basket. “Plums?”
“Plums.”
“Oh,” she said with a quick smile. “How invigorating. Plums.” She stood a little taller, tipped the knob of her chin upward. “I wouldn’t suppose any of the other gnomes have plums in their baskets, dothey?”
