The Fourth Bear

He got up, kissed her and said with an emboldened heart, “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s… that… I’m… Punch and Judy have moved in next door,” said Jack, losing his nerve entirely.

“I know. It should be quite a show,” replied Madeleine. “I’ve had the residents’ committee around already. They’ve opened a complaint book and want us to log every single problem we have with them.”

“I hope they’ve got a big book and several gallons of ink,” said Jack, giving up on confessions for the foreseeable future and fetching the milk from the fridge, “but I don’t think it will do much good. The pair of them have racked up so many noise-abatement orders they could wallpaper the toilet with them—and, if the rumors are correct, have done so.”

“What do we do?” asked Madeleine. “You know I can’t stand all that residents’ association curtain-twitching, protect-house-prices-at-all-costs stuff.”

Jack shrugged. “Nothing, for the moment. Keep an eye out, and if you hear them threatening to throw the baby downstairs again, let me know and we’ll get social services involved. They won’t do anything, but it might just calm them down a bit.”

“Fair enough. You know they’ve got a pet crocodile in the back garden?”

“It figures. There’ll be a string of sausages, a beadle, a hangman and a dog named Toby involved somewhere, too.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s a Nursery Crime thing. Punch and Judy are… PDRs.”

“I thought they might be,” replied Madeleine thoughtfully.

“You did?” asked Jack, suddenly worried. “How? How did you know? What, was it something they said? The way they walked? What?”

“It was probably,” said Madeleine, giving him a “how dopey do you think I am?” look, “something to do with their heads being made of painted papier-mache.”

“Keen sense of observation you have there, pumpkin.”

“But why the ceaseless violence?”

“PDRs just can’t help themselves. Ever have a song going around in your head all day and you can’t shake it? Then find yourself humming it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the same with Punch and Judy and any other nursery character, but instead of a song it’s actions. Look at it as a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder or a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Punches have toned down their act a lot since the seventeenth century—infanticide, wife beating and multiple murder aren’t generally considered entertainment these days.”

“Are all forms of compulsive behavior a sign of PDRness?” she asked slowly.

“No, no, of course not,” replied Jack hurriedly, thinking about his own obsessional hatred for fat. “There have to be several other factors as well.”

Stevie gurgled at him from his high chair, and Jack, glad of the distraction, leaned over and affectionately tweaked his ear.

“Hi, Dad,” said Pandora as she walked into the kitchen with her fiance, the Titan Prometheus. Having a daughter engaged to a four-thousand-year-old myth could be stressful at times, but Jack was determined not to be a flustery old hen of a father—and the union was improving her Greek no end. They were getting married in a month’s time, and there were still a lot of details to be ironed out.

“Do you think the record of the wedding should be as a video, a tapestry, depictions on a Grecian urn or as a twenty-eight-foot-long marble bas-relief?”

“I have a friend who can do urns at a discount,” added Prometheus helpfully, as the budget of the wedding had long since spiraled out of control since Bacchus had taken over the reception arrangements.

“An urn, I guess,” conceded Jack.

“Oh, goody!” cried Pandora happily. “I always saw my wedding recorded in profile. Now, Dad, remember what you promised about not doing a plot device number fifty-two on the day of my wedding?”

“There’s only the annual Tortoise v. Hare race on that weekend, and there’s never any trouble at that, sweetpea,” he said, “so there’ll be no conclusion of a case near your wedding that results in an overdramatic dash to the church.”

“Great!” said Pandora, and she and Prometheus walked out, talking about how they could stop Artemis and Aphrodite from squabbling, as they invariably did.

“Perhaps we should just let them fight in some mud and pretend it’s part of the entertainments?” suggested Prometheus.

The large family and the expense of a wedding was a severe drain on Jack’s salary, despite Bacchus’ concession that they could drop Orpheus and go with a Santana tribute band instead. Madeleine had a limited income from her photography but insisted on concentrating on high-end, limited-print-run photographic books. Good food for the soul, but famine for the wallet.

“How are things at work?” she asked, handing Stevie another spoon.

“Not… terrific,” replied Jack with a twinge of understatement, stirring some sugar into his tea.

“I’m surprised you’re back so early, what with Johnny Cake on the loose.”

“I’m… not on that case—and he’s a cookie.”

Madeleine stared at him quizzically and said, “Listen, I don’t know poo about police procedures, but even I know that the Gingerbreadman is NCD.”

Jack helped himself to a gingernut, smelled it, made a face and put it back in the cookie jar.

“Briggs gave it to… Copperfield.”

“David?” she echoed in surprise. “He’s a sweet guy, but he couldn’t find an egg in a henhouse.”

Jack shrugged. “Like it or not, there it is. Briggs thinks I’m overdoing it and that the Riding-Hood incident was beyond what any officer should have to face…. He’s made Mary acting head while I’m on sick leave.”

“Oh, sweetheart!” she said, giving him an extra-tight hug. “I’m sorry to hear that. But don’t worry—Briggs usually suspends you at least once during any investigation.”

“And that’s what worries me,” responded Jack, returning her hug and kissing her tenderly on the forehead. “I’m not on an investigation. And I won’t be until I’ve passed some sort of mental review board.”

“Yikes. Being sane might render you almost useless at the NCD.”

“I know that. But you didn’t have to say it.”

A spoon ricocheted off the back of Jack’s head and hit a plant pot on the windowsill.

“Was that you, monster?”

Stevie opened his eyes wide and shrieked with laughter.

Madeleine smiled, untangled herself from the embrace and stacked the tea things.

“So aside from losing a prime case that is clearly yours, being knocked from the top job at the division and the prospect of having to convince a complete stranger that you’re not a drooling lunatic, how else was your day?”

“Peachy. I bought an Allegro Sports Equipe. Do you want to see it?”

“Maybe later.” She handed him a stack of plates to put in the dishwasher. “Would you have a word with Jerome? I heard his pet sniggering to itself again this morning.”

Jerome was eight, and he wanted to be a vet. To get into practice, he had taken to bringing strays home with him. First it was fleas with kittens attached, then puppies with fleas attached, then fleas with fleas attached. All of this could be vaguely tolerated, until he brought something home that deftly escaped into the void within the interior walls, and no one had seen it since.

Jack walked into the living room and bent down to listen at the baseboard. There was a sound a bit like someone blowing a raspberry, and he frowned, got up and walked into the hall. He opened the door to the closet under the stairs and heard a faint rustling. He quietly turned on the light and peered into the musty gloom.

“He doesn’t mean any harm,” said a voice behind him. It was Jerome, his face a picture of angelic innocence.

“You know your mother wants it out, my lad.”