"Steven Gould - Wildside" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

ago, he disappeared."

"Disappeared? I thought he was dead," said Marie.
 "He probably is."

Joey said, "So you think he went through and got munched?"

I lowered my head and stared at Joey over the tops of my glasses.

Marie hit him on the arm. "What a thing to say!"

"When did you discover the door again, Charlie?" Rick asked.

"When Dad was transferred to DFW, Mom didn't want to live in the metroplex—she and Uncle
Max are from here, so Dad decided to commute. Mom came back several times to try and find out
what happened to Max and to make sure the place was okay. He left a will naming her executor and
a power of attorney in her name. The power of attorney was in effect, but the will didn't go into effect
until he was finally declared dead three months ago. That's when I inherited formally."

"What about the rest of your mom's family?"

"There isn't any. Their parents died before Dad and Mom were married. My dad's side of the
family goes on and on, but it was always just Uncle Max on Mom's side." I blinked. "Maybe that's
why Mom took my moving so hard. I'm her only blood kin."

"And the door?" Joey said, impatient.

"I'm getting to it. We knew all along that the farm came to me in the will, so I was 'allowed' to do
most of the upkeep on the place. Mow the place with the tractor, rake, cut up the dead trees, paint.
Fix the fences. I was standing in the barn one day, and the memory of going hunting with Uncle Max
came back, very strong.

"The hay was stacked like it is now—but it was older hay, years old and dry, and it kept
cracking and falling to the floor. Every week or so I'd rake up the pieces and put them in the compost
heap, but one day I decided that it would make more sense to get rid of all the hay, once and for all.

"As you might imagine, I found the door then. The locking brackets were empty and I found the
bar just inside the door. I figure Uncle Max expected to be gone long enough that he didn't want
someone finding the door, so he restacked the hay behind him before closing the doors."

I paused to take a breath and Rick said, "Didn't they look for him? I mean, the county sheriffs
department? Didn't they come out here and search? Why didn't they find the door?"

"Apparently they spent most of their efforts interviewing his neighbors, his friends, and places
like his bank. By the time they started asking around, he'd been missing about a month—that is, they
found a month-old bank record of a small cash withdrawal that was done in person at a teller and the
utility bills had been paid by checks dated from that same week. One theory was that he had an
accident away from the house so they had dogs out in the woods all around and down by the river.
Another theory was that he was fishing the river and he fell in."