A Bone To Pick Part 2

"Okay. I'm not perfect, and I don't expect you to be perfect. Everyone has att.i.tudes and opinions that are not exactly toeing the line spiritually; we're all trying, and it'll take our whole lives to get there. That's what I believe.I also don't believe in premarital s.e.x; I'm waiting for something to change my mind on that issue, but so far it hasn't happened. Did you want to know any of that?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. That's just about exactly what I did want to know." What surprised me was the amount of relief I felt at the certainty that Aubrey would not try to get me to go to bed with him. Most dates I'd had in the past ten years, I'd spent half the time worried about what would happen when the guy took me home. Especially now, after my pa.s.sionate involvement with Arthur, it was a load off my mind that Aubrey wouldn't expect me to make a decision about whether or not to go to bed with him. I brightened up and really began to enjoy myself. He didn't discuss his wife again, and I knew I would not introduce the subject.

Aubrey's ban on premarital s.e.x did not include a ban on premarital kissing, I discovered when he walked me to my back door.

"Maybe we can go out again?"

"Give me a call," I said with a smile.

"Thanks for this evening."

"Thank you."

We parted with mutual goodwill, and as I scrubbed my face and pulled on my nightgown the next day didn't seem so daunting. I wasn't scheduled to work at the library, so I could work at Jane's house. My house. I couldn't get used to the owners.h.i.+p.

But thinking of the house led to worrying about the break-in, about the holes in the backyard I hadn't yet seen, about the object of this strange search. It must be an object too big to be in the safe deposit box Bubba Sewell had mentioned; besides, he had told me there was nothing much in the box, implying he had seen the contents already.

I drifted off to sleep thinking, Something that couldn't be divided, something that couldn't be flattened...

When I woke up in the morning I knew where that something must be hidden.

I felt like I was on a secret mission. After I scrambled into some jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt and ate some toast, I checked the sketchy contents of my tool drawer. I wasn't sure what I would need. Probably Jane had these same basic things, but I didn't feel like rummaging around until I found them. I ended up with a claw hammer and two screwdrivers, and after a little thought I added a broad-bladed putty knife. I managed to stuff all these in my purse except the hammer, and finally I managed that; but the haft stuck up from the drawstringed gather. That wouldn't be too obvious, I told myself. I brushed my teeth hastily but didn't bother with makeup, so before eight o'clock I was pulling into the driveway on Honor.

I brought the car right up into the carport and entered through the kitchen door. The house was silent and stuffy. I found the thermostat in the little hall and pushed the switch to "cool." The central air hummed into life. I glanced through the rooms hastily; nothing seemed to have been disturbed during the night. I was sweating a little, and my hair kept sticking to my face, so I did track down a rubber band and pull it all back on my neck. I blew out a deep breath, braced my shoulders, and marched into the living room. I raised the blinds around the window seat to get as much light as possible, took out my tools, and began.

Whatever it was, it was in the window seat.

Jane had had it carpeted over, so no one would think of it as a container, but only as a feature of the room, a nice place to put a plant or some pretty pillows or a flower arrangement. The installer had done a good job, and I had a h.e.l.l of a time prizing up the carpet. I saw Torrance Rideout pull out of his driveway, glance at the house, and drive away to work. A pretty, plump woman walked a fat dachshund down to the end of the street and back, letting the dog perform on my yard, I noticed indignantly. I recognized her, after I thought of it awhile, as I pried and pulled at the rose-colored carpet with its little blue figure. She was Carey Osland, once married to Bubba Sewell, once married to Mike Osland, the man who had decamped in such a spectacularly callous way. Carey Osland must live in the corner house with the big climbing roses by the front porch.

I plugged away, trying not to speculate about what was in the window seat, and finally I loosened enough carpet to grab an edge with both hands and yank.The bay window really did contain a window seat with a hinged lid. I had been right. So why didn't I feel triumphant?

Whatever was in the house was my problem, Bubba Sewell had said.Taking a deep breath, I raised the lid and peered into the window seat. The sun streamed down into the seat, bathing its contents with a gentle morning glow.There was a rather yellow pillowcase inside, a pillowcase with something round in it.

I reached in and pulled at the corner of the pillowcase, gingerly working it back and forth, trying not to disturb its contents. But finally I had to pull it off altogether, and the thing that had been in the pillowcase rolled onto its side.

A skull grinned up at me.

"Oh my G.o.d," I said, slamming the lid down and sitting on the seat, covering my face with both trembling hands. The next minute I was in frantic action, lowering those blinds and shutting them, checking to make sure the front door was locked, finding the light switch, and flipping on the overhead light in the suddenly darkened room.

I opened the window seat again, hoping its contents had miraculously changed.

The skull still lay there with its slack-jawed grin.

Then the doorbell rang.

I jumped and squeaked. For a moment I stood indecisively. Then I tossed the tools into the seat with the thing, shut the lid, and yanked the loose carpet back up. It wouldn't settle back into place very well, having been removed so inexpertly, but I did the best I could and then heaped the fancy pillows around the edges to conceal the damage. But the carpet still sagged a little. I pushed it into place, weighted it down with my purse. It still pouched. I grabbed some books from the shelves and stacked them on the window seat, too. Much better.The carpet stayed in place. The doorbell rang again. I stood for a moment composing my face.

Carey Osland, minus the dachshund, smiled at me in a friendly way when I finally opened the door. Her dark chestnut hair was lightly threaded with gray, but her round, pretty face was unlined. She was wearing a dress that was one step up from a bathrobe, and scuffed loafers.

"Hi, neighbor," she said cheerfully. "Aurora Teagarden, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said, making a huge effort to sound casual and calm."I'm Carey Osland, I live in the house with the roses, on the corner," and she pointed.

"I remember meeting you before, Carey, at a bridal shower, I think."

"That's right-a long time ago. Whose was it?"

"Come in, come on in...Wasn't it Amina's shower, after she eloped?" "Well, it must have been, 'cause that was when I was working at her mother's dress shop, that's why I got invited. I work at Marcus Hatfield now." Marcus Hatfield was the Lord & Taylor of Lawrenceton."That's why I'm such a slob now," Carey went on smilingly. "I get so tired of being dressed up."

"Your nails look great," I said admiringly. I am always impressed by someone who can wear long nails and keep them polished. I was also trying very hard not to think about the window seat, not to even glance in that direction. I had waved Carey to the couch so she'd have her back partially to it when she half-turned to talk to me as I sat in the armchair.

"Oh, honey, they're not real," Carey said warmly. "I never could keep my nails from chipping and getting broken.... So, you and Jane must have been good friends?"

The unexpected change of subject and Carey's very understandable curiosity took me by surprise.

My neighbors were definitely not of the big city impersonal variety.

"She left me the house," I stated, figuring that settled that.And it did. Carey couldn't think of a single way to get around that one to inquire as to our exact relations.h.i.+p.

I was beginning to wonder about our relations.h.i.+p, myself. Considering the little problem Jane had left me to deal with.

"So, do you plan on living here?" Carey had rallied and was counterattacking with even more directness.

"I don't know." And I didn't add or explain. I liked Carey Osland, but I needed to be by myself with the thing in the window seat."Well"-Carey took a deep breath and released it-"I guess I'd better be getting ready for work."

"Thanks for coming by," I said as warmly as I could. "I'm sure I'll be seeing you again when I have things more settled here." "Like I said, I'm right next door, so if you need me, come on over. My little girl is away at summer camp till this weekend, so I'm all on my own." "Thanks so much, I may be taking you up on that," I said, trying to beam goodwill and neighborliness enough to soften the fact that I did not want a prolonged conversation and I wanted her gone, things I was afraid I'd made offensively obvious.

My sigh of relief was so loud after I'd shut and locked the door behind her that I hoped she wouldn't hear it.

I sank down into the chair again and covered my face with my hands, preparing to think.

Sweet, fragile, silver-haired Jane Engle, school librarian and churchgoer, had murdered someone and put the victim's skull in her window seat. Then she'd had the window seat carpeted over so no one would think to look there for anything.The carpet was in excellent condition, but not new. Jane had lived in that house with a skull in her living room for some years.That alone would take some hard getting used to.I should call the police. My hand actually picked up the receiver before I remembered that the phone was disconnected and that I owed Jane Engle. I owed her big-time.

Jane had left me the house and the money and the skull.I could not call the police and expose Jane to the world as a murderess. She had counted on that.

Drawn irresistibly, I went to the window seat and opened it again."Who the h.e.l.l are you?" I asked the skull. With considerable squeamishness, I lifted it out with both hands. It wasn't white like bones looked in the movies, but brownish. I didn't know if it was a man's or a woman's skull, but the cause of death seemed apparent; there was a hole in the back of the skull, a hole with jagged edges.

How on earth had elderly Jane managed to deliver such a blow? Who could this be?Perhaps a visitor had fallen and bashed the back of his head on something, and Jane had been afraid she'd be accused of killing the person? That was a familiar and almost comforting plot to a regular mystery reader. Then I thought in a muddled way of a.r.s.enic and Old Lace. Perhaps this was a homeless person, or a solitary old man with no family? But Lawrenceton was not large enough for a missing person to go unnoticed, I thought. At least I couldn't recall such a case for years.

Not since Carey Osland's husband had left to pick up diapers and had never returned.

I almost dropped the skull. Oh my Lord! Was this Mike Osland? I put the skull down on Jane's coffee table carefully, as if I might hurt it if I wasn't gentle.And what would I do with it now? I couldn't put it back in the window seat, now that I'd loosened the carpet and made the place conspicuous, and there was no way I could get the carpet to look as smooth as it had been. Maybe now that the house had been burgled, I could hide the skull in one of the places the searcher had already looked?

That raised a whole new slew of questions. Was this skull the thing the searcher had been looking for? If Jane had killed someone, how did anyone else know about it? Why come looking now? Why not just go to the police and say, "Jane Engle has a skull in her house somewhere, I'm certain." No matter how crazy they'd sound, that was what most people would do. Why had this person done otherwise?This added up to more questions than I answered at the library in a month. Plus, those questions were a lot easier to answer. "Can you recommend a good mystery without any, you know, s.e.x, for my mother?" was a lot easier to answer than "Whose skull is sitting on my coffee table?"

Okay, first things first. Hide the skull. I felt removing it from the house would be safest. (I say "felt" because I was pretty much beyond reasoning.) I got a brown Kroger bag, from the kitchen and eased the skull into it. I put a can of coffee in another bag, figuring two bags were less conspicuous than one.After rearranging the window seat as best I could, I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock, and Carey Osland should be at work. I'd seen Torrance Rideout leaving, but, according to what he'd told me the day before, his wife should be at home unless he was running errands.

I peeked through the blinds. The house across from Torrance Rideout's was as still as it had been the day before. The one across from Carey Osland's had two small children playing in the side yard next to Faith Street, a good distance away. All clear. But, even as I watched, a you-do-it moving van pulled up in front of the house across the street.

"Oh, great," I muttered. "Just great." After a moment, though, I decided that the moving van would be far more interesting than my departure if anyone was watching. So, before I could worry about it, I grabbed up my purse and my two paper bags and went out the kitchen door into the carport."Aurora?" called a voice incredulously.

With a strong feeling that fate was dealing harshly with me, I turned to the people climbing out of the moving van, to see that my former lover, burglary detective Arthur Smith, and his bride, homicide detective Lynn Liggett, were moving in across the street.

FOUR.

From being bizarre and upsetting, my day had moved into surrealistic. I walked on legs that didn't feel like my own toward two police detectives, my purse slung on my shoulder, a can of coffee in the bag in my right hand, a perforated skull in the bag in my left. My hands began sweating. I tried to force a pleasant expression on my face, but had no idea what I had achieved.Next they're going to say, I thought, they're going to say- What's in the bag?The only plus to meeting up with the very pregnant Mrs. Smith at this moment was that I was so worried about the skull I was not concerned about the awkward personal situation I'd landed in. But I was aware-acutely-that I had on no makeup and my hair was restrained with a rubber band.Arthur's fair skin flushed red, which it did when he was embarra.s.sed, or angry, or-well, no, don't think about that. Arthur was too tough to embarra.s.s easily, but he was embarra.s.sed now.

"Are you visiting here?" Lynn asked hopefully.

"Jane Engle died," I began to explain. "Arthur, you remember Jane?"

He nodded. "The Madeleine Smith expert."

"Jane left me her house," I said, and a childish part of me wanted to add, "and lots and lots of money." But a more mature part of my mind vetoed it, not only because I was carrying a skull in a bag and didn't want to prolong this encounter, but because money was not a legitimate score over Lynn acquiring Arthur. My modern brain told me that a married woman had no edge over an unmarried woman, but my primitive heart knew I would never be "even" with Lynn until I married, myself.

It was a fragmented day in Chez Teagarden.

The Smiths looked dismayed, as well they might. Moving into their little dream home, baby on the way-baby very much on the way-and then the Old Girlfriend appears right across the street.

"I'm not sure whether or not I'll live here," I said before they could ask me.

"But I'll be in and out the next week or two getting things straightened out."

Could I ever possibly straighten this out?

Lynn sighed. I looked up at her, really seeing her for the first time. Lynn's short brown hair looked lifeless, and, far from glowing with pregnancy, as I'd heard women did, Lynn's skin looked blotchy. But when she turned and looked back at the house, she looked very happy.

"How are you feeling, Lynn?" I asked politely.

"Pretty good. The ultrasound showed the baby is a lot further along than we thought, maybe by seven weeks, so we kind of rushed through buying the house to be sure we got in here and got everything settled before the baby comes." Just then, thank goodness, a car pulled up behind the van and some men piled out. I recognized them as police pals of Arthur's and Lynn's; they'd come to help unload the van.

Then I realized the man driving the car, the burly man about ten years older than Arthur, was Jack Burns, a detective sergeant, the one of the few people in the world I truly feared.

Here were at least seven policemen, including Jack Burns, and here I was with...I was scared to even think it with Jack Burns around. His zeal for dealing out punishment to wrongdoers was so sharp, his inner rage burned with such a flame, I felt he could smell concealment and falsehood. My legs began shaking. I was afraid someone would notice. How on earth did his two teenagers manage a private life?

"Good to have seen you," I said abruptly. "I hope your moving day goes as well as they ever do."

They were relieved the encounter was over, too. Arthur gave me a casual wave as a shout from one of his buddies who had opened the back of the van summoned him to work.

"Come see us when we get settled in," Lynn told me insincerely as I said good-bye and turned to leave.

"Take it easy, Lynn," I called over my shoulder, as I crossed the street to my car on rubbery legs.

I put the bags carefully in the front seat and slid in myself. I wanted to sit and shake for a while, but I also wanted to get the h.e.l.l out of there, so I turned the key in the ignition, turned on the air-conditioning full blast, and occupied a few moments buckling my seat belt, patting my face (which was streaming with sweat) with my handkerchief, anything to give me a little time to calm down before I had to drive. I backed out with great care, the unfamiliar driveway, the moving van parked right across the street, and the people milling around it making the process even more hazardous.I managed to throw a casual wave in the direction of the moving crew, and some of them waved back. Jack Burns just stared; I wondered again about his wife and children, living with that burning stare that seemed to see all your secrets.Maybe he could switch it off at home? Sometimes even the men under his command seemed leery of him, I'd learned while I was dating Arthur.I drove around aimlessly for a while, wondering what to do with the skull. I hated to take it to my own home; there was no good hiding place. I couldn't throw it away until I'd decided what to do with it. My safe deposit box at the bank wasn't big enough, and probably Jane's wasn't either: otherwise, surely she would have put the skull there originally. Anyway, the thought of carrying the paper bag into the bank was enough to make me giggle hysterically. I sure couldn't keep it in the trunk of my car. I checked with a glance to make sure my inspection sticker was up-to-date; yes, thank G.o.d. But I could be stopped for some traffic violation at any time; I never had been before, but, the way things were going today, it seemed likely.

I had a key to my mother's house, and she was gone.No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I turned at the next corner to head there. I wasn't happy about using Mother's house for such a purpose, but it seemed the best thing to do at the time.

The air was dead and hot inside Mother's big home on Plantation Drive. I dashed up the stairs to my old room without thinking, then stood panting in the doorway trying to think of a good hiding place. I kept almost nothing here anymore, and this was really another guest bedroom now, but there might be something up in the closet.

There was: a zippered, pink plastic blanket bag in which Mother always stored the blue blankets for the twin beds in this room. No one would need to get blankets down in this weather. I pulled over the stool from the vanity table, climbed up on it, and unzipped the plastic bag. I took my Kroger bag, with its gruesome contents, and inserted it between the blankets. The bag would no longer zip with the extra bulk.

This was getting grotesque. Well, more grotesque.I took out one of the blankets and doubled up the other one in half the blanket bag, leaving the other half for the skull. The bag zipped, and it didn't look too lumpy, I decided. I pushed it to the back of the shelf.Now all I had to dispose of was a blanket. The chest of drawers was only partially full of odds and ends; Mother kept two drawers empty for guests. I stuffed the blanket in one, slammed it shut, then pulled it right back open. She might need the drawer. John was moving all his stuff in when they got back from their honeymoon. I felt like sitting on the floor and bursting into tears. I stood holding the d.a.m.n blanket indecisively, thinking wildly of burning it or taking it home with me. I'd rather have the blanket than the skull.The bed, of course. The best place to hide a blanket is on a bed.I stripped the bedspread off, pitched the pillow on the floor, and fitted the blanket smoothly on the mattress. In a few more minutes, the bed looked exactly like it had before.

I dragged myself out of Mother's house and drove over to my own place. It seemed as though I'd gone two days without sleep, when in fact it was only now getting close to lunchtime. At least I didn't have to go to work this afternoon.I poured myself a gla.s.s of iced tea and for once loaded it with sugar. I sat in my favorite chair and sipped it slowly. It was time to think.Fact One. Jane Engle had left a skull concealed in her house. She might not have told Bubba Sewell what she'd done, but she'd hinted to him that all was not well-but that I would handle it.

Question: How had the skull gotten in Jane's house? had she murdered its-owner?occupant?

Question: Where was the rest of the skeleton?

Question: How long ago had the head been placed in the window seat?Fact Two. Someone else knew or suspected that the skull was in Jane's house. I could infer that this someone else was basically law-abiding since the searcher hadn't taken the chance to steal anything or vandalize the house to any degree.The broken window was small potatoes compared with what could have been wreaked on Jane's unoccupied house. So the skull was almost certainly the sole object of the search. Unless Jane had-horrible thought-something else hidden in her house?Question: Would the searcher try again, or was he perhaps persuaded that the skull was no longer there? The yard had been searched, too, according to Torrance Rideout. I reminded myself to go in the backyard the next time I went to the house and see what had been done there.

Fact Three. I was in a jam. I could keep silent forever, throw the skull in a river, and try to forget I ever saw it; that approach had lots of appeal right now. Or I could take it to the police and tell them what I'd done. I could already feel myself s.h.i.+ver at the thought of Jack Burns's face, to say nothing of the incredulity on Arthur's. I heard myself stammer, "Well, I hid it at my mother's house." What kind of excuse could I offer for my strange actions? Even I could not understand exactly why I'd done what I'd done, except that I'd acted out of some kind of loyalty to Jane, influenced to some extent by all the money she'd left me.

Then and there, I pretty much ruled out going to the police unless something else turned up. I had no idea what my legal position was, but I couldn't imagine what I'd done so far was so very bad legally. Morally was another question.But I definitely had a problem on my hands.

At this inopportune moment the doorbell rang. It was a day of unwelcome interruptions. I sighed and went to answer it, hoping it was someone I wanted to see. Aubrey?

But the day continued its apparently inexorable downhill slide. Parnell Engle and his wife, Leah, were at my front door, the door no one ever uses because they'd have to park in the back-ten feet from my back door-and then walk all the way around the whole row of town houses to the front to ring the bell. Of course, that was what Parnell and Leah had done."Mr. Engle, Mrs. Engle," I said. "Please come in." Parnell opened fire immediately. "What did we do to Jane, Miss Teagarden? Did she tell you what we did to her that offended her so much she left everything to you?"

I didn't need this.

"Don't you start, Mr. Engle," I said sharply. "Just don't you start. This is not a good day. You got a car, you got some money, you got Madeleine the cat. Just be glad of it and leave me alone."

"We were Jane's own blood kin-"

"Don't start with me," I snapped. I was simply beyond trying to be polite. "I don't know why she left everything to me, but it doesn't make me feel very lucky right now, believe me."

"We realize," he said with less whine and more dignity, "that Jane did express her true wishes in her will. We know that she was in her good senses up until the end and that she made her choice knowing what she was doing. We're not going to contest the will. We just don't understand it." "Well, Mr. Engle, neither do I." Parnell would have had that skull at the police station in less time than it takes to talk about it. But it was good news that they weren't small-minded enough to contest the will and thereby cause me endless trouble and heartache. I knew Lawrenceton. Pretty soon people would start saying, Well, why did Jane Engle leave everything to a young woman she didn't even know very well? And speculation would run rampant; I couldn't even imagine the things people would make up to explain Jane's inexplicable legacy.People were going to talk anyway, but any dispute about the will would put a nasty twist on that speculation.

Looking at Parnell Engle and his silent wife, with their dowdy clothes and grievances, I suddenly wondered if I'd gotten the money to pay me for the inconvenience of the skull. What Jane had told Bubba Sewell might have been just a smoke screen. She may have read my character thoroughly, almost supernaturally thoroughly, and known I would keep her secret.

"Good-bye," I said to them gently, and closed my front door slowly, so they couldn't say I'd slammed it on them. I locked it carefully, and marched to my telephone. I looked up Bubba Sewell's number and dialed. He was in and available, to my surprise.

"How's things going, Miss Teagarden?" he drawled.

"Kind of b.u.mpy, Mr. Sewell."

"Sorry to hear that. How can I be of a.s.sistance?"

"Did Jane leave me a letter?"