The Seal of Solomon (Alfred Kropp #2)(48)

The second thing I noticed was the yard gnome.

Was it the same gnome from outside? In semidarkness almost everything took on shades of gray, so I couldn’t be one hundred percent positive, but it could have been the same gnome, now standing a few feet inside the entryway. Same height, same rubbed-out face, same creepy ambience that all yard gnomes have.

Cold air blew through the open door behind me, so I pushed it closed, keeping my eye on the gnome. It didn’t move. Well, I didn’t really expect it to come to life, did I? Yard gnomes don’t come to life, not in the real world. Then I thought, with a pang of sadness, that the real world was gone, the world I knew before Bernard Samson, OIPEP, the Sword of Kings, and the Seal of Solomon came into my life.

That world was gone and never coming back, even if we somehow got the genie back in the bottle. Like Dr. Merryweather had said, we had crossed the threshold into a new reality, and maybe it wasn’t looking into the demon’s eyes that had me so screwed up—maybe it was the loss of everything that made sense to me.

“Okay, look,” I said to the gnome. “I’m not afraid of you.” Probably the first time in the history of the world anyone had said that to a yard gnome—also probably the first time anyone had ever lied to a yard gnome.

He just stared back at me wearing that sly little grin.

To heck with it. “Op Nine!” I shouted. “Op Nine, where are you?”

The lights in the entryway blazed on and the floorboards creaked behind me. I whirled around, jamming my hand into my coat pocket, fumbling for the mini-3XD Op Nine had given me in the car.

An old lady stood by the front door, wearing purple house slippers with a flowery print that matched her robe. On her left hand she wore an oven mitt. In her right, she held a gun, pointed directly at the center of my forehead.

“If you move, dear, you’re dead,” she announced.

“I’m going to take my hand out of my pocket,” I said. “Okay?”

She nodded. “Slowly, dear. It’s late and I’m jumpy.”

I slowly brought my right hand into view and then raised both into the air.

“I’m not a burglar,” I said.

She smiled. I got an eyeful of large, sparkling white teeth with oversized incisors, just like Mike’s. She had a small head and a wide, round face, crisscrossed with wrinkles and deep creases, her eyes bright blue and kind.

She dropped the gun into the pocket of her robe and I took that as a signal I could lower my hands. We stood there for a second, staring at each other.

“I’m Alfred Kropp,” I said.

“I know who you are, dear,” she said. “Michael said you might show up. Well, not you specifically, but someone from his company.”

“That’s actually who I came in looking for,” I said.

“Well, you won’t find him here. I sent him on his way. Police detective!” She trilled a little laugh.

“That’s good,” I said. “I was afraid maybe you shot him.”

I was trapped between her and the yard gnome by the stairs. Why would someone put a yard gnome by their stairs?

“I’ve baked an apple pie, Alfred. Would you like a slice?”

“I’m not really that hungry.”

“I insist.”

“I guess I am a little hungry.”

“After you, dear. To your left.”

I walked through the formal dining room and into the kitchen, which was decorated in a country theme, rooster figurines and Jersey cow kitchen doodads and a red and white checkered tablecloth on the table.

The pie was sitting on the sill over the sink, and steam still rose from its golden brown lace crust. My stomach rumbled. I was starving.

“Please sit down, Alfred,” she said, waving me toward the table. “A few more minutes to cool and it’s ready to slice. A la mode, dear?”

I cleared my throat. “Just the pie, ma’am. That’s fine.”

I wondered where Op Nine was. Probably scrambling around outside, looking for me, though I wondered how I missed him. Most likely he was beside himself, while I sat in Mama Arnold’s kitchen, eating pie.

“How do you know my name?” I asked.

“Michael’s told me all about you.”

“Where is Mike?”

“I have no idea, dear.”

She pulled a gallon of milk from the refrigerator and poured a big frosty glass. She set it on the table in front of me. She smelled of vanilla.

“Somebody told us you were on a cruise,” I said.

“Mike made up that story. He wanted me to leave, of course, but why would I leave? I may be old, dear, but I can take care of myself. I go for target practice twice a month.”

“Well,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. “Everybody needs a hobby.”

Right by the litter box stood another gnome. And there were gnome refrigerator door magnets and gnome figurines standing like little guards around the pie pan on the sill.

“You like gnomes,” I said.

“Gnomes keep evil spirits away.”

“You’re worried about evil spirits?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Mike’s told you what happened?”

She was standing on her tiptoes by the sink—she was only about five feet tall—sticking her nose near the pie.