A Bone To Pick

"What?"

"A letter, Mr. Sewell. Did she leave me a letter, something I"m supposed to get after I"ve had the house a month, or something?" "No, Miss Teagarden."

"Not a ca.s.sette? No tape of any kind?"

"No, ma"am."

"Did you see anything like that in the safe deposit box?" "No, no, can"t say as I did. Actually, I just rented that box after Jane became so ill, to put her good jewelry in."

"And she didn"t tell you what was in the house?" I asked carefully."Miss Teagarden, I have no idea what"s in Miss Engle"s house," he said definitely. Very definitely.

I stopped, baffled. Bubba Sewell didn"t want to know. If I told him, he might have to do something about it, and I hadn"t yet decided what should be done."Thanks," I said hopelessly. "Oh, by the way..." And I told him about Parnell and Leah"s visit.

"He said for sure they weren"t going to contest?" "He said they knew that Jane was in her right mind when she made her will, that they just wanted to know why she left everything the way she did." "But he didn"t talk about going to court or getting his own lawyer?"

"No."

"Let"s just hope he meant it when he said he knew Jane was in her right mind when she made her will."

On that happy note we told each other good-bye.I returned to my chair and tried to pick up the thread of my reasoning. Soon I realized I"d gone as far as I could go.

It seemed to me that if I could find out who the skull had belonged to, I"d have a clearer course to follow. I could start by finding out how long the skull had been in the window seat. If Jane had kept the bill from the carpet layers, that would give me a definite date, because the skull had for sure been in the window seat when the carpet was installed over it. And it hadn"t been disturbed since.That meant I had to go back to Jane"s house.

I sighed deeply.

I might as well have some lunch, collect some boxes, and go to work at the house this afternoon as I"d planned originally.

This time yesterday I"d been a woman with a happy future; now I was a woman with a secret, and it was such a strange, macabre secret that I felt I had guilty knowledge written on my forehead.

The unloading across the street was still going on. I saw a large carton labeled with a picture of a baby crib being carried in, and almost wept. But I had other things to do today than beat myself over the head with losing Arthur. That grief had a stale, preoccupied feel to it.

The disorder in Jane"s bedroom had to be cleared away before I could think about finding her papers. I carried in my boxes, found the coffeepot, and started the coffee (which I"d brought back, since I had carried it away in the morning) to perking. The house was so cool and so quiet that it almost made me drowsy. I turned on Jane"s bedside radio; yuck, it was on the easy listening station. I found the public radio station after a second"s search, and began to pack clothes to Beethoven. I searched each garment as I packed, just on the off chance I would find something that would explain the hidden skull. I just could not believe Jane would leave me this problem with no explanation.Maybe she"d thought I"d never find it?

No, Jane had thought I"d find it sooner or later. Maybe not this soon. But sometime. Perhaps, if it hadn"t been for the break-in, and the holes in the backyard (and here I reminded myself again to check them), I wouldn"t have worried about a thing, no matter how mysterious some of Bubba Sewell"s statements had been.

Suddenly I thought of the old saw "You don"t look a gift horse in the mouth." I recalled the skull"s grin all too clearly, and I began laughing.I had to laugh at something.

It didn"t take quite as long as I expected to pack Jane"s clothes. If something had struck my fancy, it wouldn"t have bothered me to keep it; Jane had been a down-to-earth woman, and in some ways I supposed I was, too. But I saw nothing I wanted to keep except a cardigan or two, so anonymous that I wouldn"t be constantly thinking, I am wearing Jane"s clothes. So all the dresses and blouses, coats and shoes and skirts that had been in the closet were neatly boxed and ready to go to the Goodwill, with the vexing exception of a robe that slipped from its hanger to the floor. Every box was full to the brim, so I just left it where it fell. I loaded the boxes into my car trunk, then decided to take a break by strolling into the backyard and seeing what damage had been done there.

Jane"s backyard was laid out neatly. There were two concrete benches, too hot to sit on in the June sun, placed on either side of a concrete birdbath surrounded by monkey gra.s.s. The monkey gra.s.s was getting out of hand, I noticed. Someone else had thought so, too; a big chunk of it had been uprooted. I"d dealt with monkey gra.s.s before and admired the unknown gardener"s persistence. Then it came to me that this was one of the "dug up" spots that Torrance Rideout had filled in for me. Looking around me more carefully, I saw a few more; all were around bushes, or under the two benches. None were out in the middle of the gra.s.s, which was a relief. I had to just shake my head over this; someone had seriously thought Jane had dug a hole out in her yard and stuck the skull in it? A pretty futile search after all this time Jane had had the skull.That was a sobering thought. Desperate people are not gentle.As I mooched around the neat little yard, counting the holes around the bushes that had screened the unattractive school fence from Jane"s view, I became aware of movement in the Rideouts" backyard. Minimal movement. A woman was sunbathing on the huge sun deck in a lounge chair, a woman with a long, slim body already deeply browned and semiclad in a fire engine red bikini. Her chin-length, dyed, pale blond hair was held back by a matching band, and even her fingernails seemed to be the same shade of red. She was awfully turned out for sunbathing on her own deck, presuming this was Marcia Rideout."How are you, new neighbor?" she called languidly, a slim brown arm raising a gla.s.s of iced tea to her lips. This was the movement I"d glimpsed."Fine," I lied automatically. "And you?"

"Getting along, getting by." She beckoned with a lazy wave. "Come talk for a minute."

When I was settled in a chair beside her, she extended a thin hand and said, "Marcia Rideout."

"Aurora Teagarden," I murmured as I shook her hand, and the amus.e.m.e.nt flitted across her face and vanished. She pulled off her opaque sungla.s.ses and gave me a direct look. Her eyes were dark blue, and she was drunk, or at least on her way there. Maybe she saw something in my face, because she popped the sungla.s.ses right back on. I tried not to peer at her drink; I suspected it was not tea at all, but bourbon.

"Would you like something to drink?" Marcia Rideout offered.

"No thanks," I said hastily.

"So you inherited the house. Think you"ll like living there?" "I don"t know if I will live there," I told her, watching her fingers run up and down the dripping gla.s.s. She took another sip.

"I drink sometimes," she told me frankly.

I really couldn"t think of anything to say.

"But only when Torrance isn"t coming home. He has to spend the night on the road sometimes, maybe once every two weeks or so. And those days he"s not coming home to spend the night, I drink. Very slowly."

"I expect you get lonely," I offered uncertainly.She nodded. "I expect I do. Now, Carey Osland on the other side of you, and Macon Turner on the other side of me, they don"t get lonely. Macon sneaks over there through the backyards, some nights."

"He must be an old-fashioned guy." There was nothing to prevent Macon and Carey from enjoying each other"s company. Macon was divorced and Carey was, too, presumably, unless Mike Osland was dead... and that reminded me of the skull, which I had enjoyed forgetting for a moment.

My comment struck Marcia Rideout as funny. As I watched her laugh, I saw she had more wrinkles than I"d figured, and I upped her age by maybe seven years. But from her body you sure couldn"t tell it.

"I didn"t used to have such a problem with being lonely," Marcia said slowly, her amus.e.m.e.nt over. "We used to have people renting this apartment." She waved in the direction of the garage with its little room on top. "One time it was a high school teacher, I liked her. Then she got another job and moved. Then it was Ben Greer, that jerk that works at the grocery chopping meat-you know him?" "Yeah. He is a jerk."

"So I was glad when he moved. Then we had a housepainter, Mark Kaplan..." She seemed to be drifting off, and I thought her eyes closed behind the dark gla.s.ses.

"What happened to him?" I asked politely.

"Oh. He was the only one who ever left in the night without paying the rent." "Gosh. Just skipped out? Bag and baggage?" Maybe another candidate for the skull?

"Yep. Well, he took some of his stuff. He never came back for the rest. You sure you don"t want a drink? I have some real tea, you know." Unexpectedly, Marcia smiled, and I smiled back.

"No, thanks. You were saying about your tenant?" "He ran out. And we haven"t had anyone since. Torrance just doesn"t want to fool with it. The past couple of years, he"s gotten like that. I tell him he must be middle-aged. He and Jane and their big fight over that tree!" I followed Marcia"s pointing red-tipped finger. There was a tree just about midway between the houses. It had a curiously lopsided appearance, viewed from the Rideouts" deck.

"It"s just about straddling the property line," Marcia said. She had a slow, deep voice, very attractive. "You won"t believe, if you"ve got any sense, that people could fight about a tree."

"People can fight about anything. I"ve been managing some apartments, and the tizzy people get into if someone uses their parking s.p.a.ce!" "Really, I can believe it. Well, as you can see, the tree is a little closer to Jane"s house.. .your house." Marcia took another sip from her drink. "But Torrance didn"t like those leaves, he got sick of raking them. So he talked to Jane about taking the tree down. It wasn"t shading either house, really. Well, Jane had a fit. She really got hot. So Torrance just cut the branches that were over our property line. Ooo, Jane stomped over here the next day, and she said, "Now, Torrance Rideout, that was petty. I have a bone to pick with you." I wonder what the origin of that saying is? You happen to know?" I shook my head, fascinated with the little story and Marcia"s digression."There wasn"t any putting the branches back, they were cut to h.e.l.l," said Marcia flatly, her southern accent roughening. "And somehow Torrance got Jane calmed down. But things never were the same after that, between Torrance and Jane. But Jane and I still spoke, and we were on the board of the orphans" home together.I liked her."

I had a hard time picturing Jane that angry. Jane had been a pleasant person, even sweet occasionally, always polite: but she was also extremely conscious of personal property, rather like my mother.

Jane didn"t have or want much in the way of things, but what she had was hers absolutely, not to be touched by other hands without proper permission being asked and granted. I saw from Marcia"s little story how far that sense of property went. I was learning a lot about Jane now that it was too late. I hadn"t known she"d been on the board of the orphans" home, actually and less bluntly named Mortimer House.

"Well," Marcia continued slowly, "at least the past couple of years they"d been getting along fine, Jane and Torrance...she forgave him, I guess. I"m sleepy now."

"I"m sorry you had the trouble with Jane," I said, feeling that somehow I should apologize for my benefactress. "She was always such an intelligent, interesting person." I stood to leave; Marcia"s eyes were closed behind her sungla.s.ses, I thought.

"Shoot, the fight she had with Torrance was nothin", you should have heard her and Carey go to it."

"When was that?" I asked, trying to sound indifferent.

But Marcia Rideout was asleep, her hand still wrapped around her drink.I trudged back to my task, sweating in the sun, worried about Marcia burning since she"d fallen asleep on the lounge. But she"d been slathered with oil. I made a mental note to look out the back from time to time to see if she was still there.

It was hard for me to picture Jane being furious with anyone and marching over to tell him about it. Of course, I"d never owned property. Maybe I would be the same way now. Neighbors could get very upset over things uninvolved people would laugh about. I remembered my mother, a cool and elegant Lauren Bacall type, telling me she was going to buy a rifle and shoot her neighbor"s dog if it woke her up with its barking again. She had gone to the police instead and gotten a court order against the dog"s owner after the police chief, an old friend, had come to her house and sat in the dark listening to the dog yapping one night.The dog"s owner hadn"t spoken to Mother since, and in fact had been transferred to another city, without the slightest sign of their mutual disgust slackening.I wondered what Jane had fought with Carey about. It was hard to see how this could relate to my immediate problem, the skull; it sure wasn"t the skull of Carey Osland or Torrance Rideout. I couldn"t imagine Jane killing the Rideouts" tenant, Mark whatever-his-name-was, but at least I had the name of another person who might be The Skull.

Back in my house once again-I was practicing saying "my house"-I began to search for Jane"s papers. Everyone had some cache of cancelled checks, old receipts, car papers, and tax stuff. I found Jane"s in the guest bedroom, sorted into floral-patterned cardboard boxes by year. Jane kept everything, and she kept all those papers for seven years, I discovered. I sighed, swore, and opened the first box.

FIVE.

I plugged in Jane"s television and listened to the news with one ear while I went through Jane"s papers. Apparently all the papers to do with the car had already been handed over to Parnell Engle, for there were no old inspection receipts or anything like that. It would have helped if Jane had kept all these papers in some kind of category, I told myself grumpily, trying not to think of my own jumble of papers in shoe boxes in my closet.I"d started with the earliest box, dated seven years ago. Jane had kept receipts that surely could be thrown away now; dresses she"d bought, visits by the bug-spray man, the purchase of a telephone. I began sorting as I looked, the pile of definite discards getting higher and higher.There"s a certain pleasure in throwing things away. I was concentrating contentedly, so it took me awhile to realize I was hearing some kind of sound from outside. Someone seemed to be doing something to the screen door in the kitchen. I sat hunched on the living room floor, listening with every molecule.I reached over and switched off the television. Gradually I relaxed. Whatever was being done, it wasn"t being done surrept.i.tiously. Whatever the sound was, it escalated.

I stiffened my spine and went to investigate. I opened the wooden door cautiously, just as the noise repeated. Hanging spread-eagled on the screen door was a very large, very fat orange cat. This seemed to explain the funny snags I"d noticed on the screen when I went in the backyard earlier."Madeleine?" I said in amazement.

The cat gave a dismal yowl and dropped from the screen to the top step.

Unthinkingly, I opened the door, and Madeleine was in in a flash.

"You wouldn"t think a cat so fat could move so fast," I said.Madeleine was busy stalking through her house, sniffing and rubbing her side against the door frames.

To say I was in a snit would be putting it mildly. This cat was now Parnell and Leah"s. Jane knew I was not partial to pets, not at all. My mother had never let me have one, and gradually her convictions about pet hygiene and inconvenience had influenced me. Now I would have to call Parnell, talk with him again, either take the cat to him or get him to come get the cat... she would probably scratch me if I tried to put her in my car... another complication in my life. I sank into one of the kitchen chairs and rested my head on my hands dismally.Madeleine completed her house tour and came and sat in front of me, her front paws neatly covered by her plumy tail. She looked up at me expectantly. Her eyes were round and gold and had a kind of stare that reminded me of Arthur Smith"s.That stare said, "I am the toughest and the baddest, don"t mess with me." I found myself giving a halfhearted chuckle at Madeleine"s machisma. Suddenly she crouched, and in one fluid movement shifted her bulk from the floor to the table- where Jane ate! I thought, horrified.

She could stare at me more effectively there. Growing impatient at my stupidity, Madeleine b.u.t.ted her golden head against my hand. I patted her uncertainly. She still seemed to be waiting for something. I tried to picture Jane with the cat, and I seemed to recall she"d scratched the animal behind the ears. I tried that.A deep rumble percolated somewhere in Madeleine"s insides. The cat"s eyes half-closed with pleasure. Encouraged by this response, I kept scratching her gently behind the ears, then switched to the area under her chin. This, too, was popular.

I grew tired of this after a while and stopped. Madeleine stretched, yawned, and jumped heavily down from the table. She walked over to one of the cabinets, and sat in front of it, casting a significant look over her shoulder at me. Fool that I am, it took me a few minutes to get the message. Madeleine gave a soprano yowl. I opened the bottom cabinet, and saw only the pots and pans I"d reloaded the day before. Madeleine kept her stare steady. She seemed to feel I was a slow learner. I looked in the cabinets above the counter and found some canned cat food. I looked down at Madeleine and said brightly, "This what you wanted?" She yowled again and began to pace back and forth, her eyes never leaving the black and green can. I hunted down the electric can opener, plugged it in, and used it. With a flourish, I set the can down on the floor. After a moment"s dubious pause-she clearly wasn"t used to eating from a can-Madeleine dived in. After a little more searching, I filled a plastic bowl with water and put it down by the can. This, too, met with the cat"s approval.

I went to the phone to call Parnell, my feet dragging reluctantly. But of course I hadn"t had the phone hooked up. I reminded myself again I"d have to do something about that, and looked at the cat, now grooming herself with great concentration. "What am I going to do with you?" I muttered. I decided I"d leave her here for the night and call Parnell from my place. He could come get her in the morning. Somehow I hated to put her outside; she was an inside cat for the most part, I seemed to remember Jane telling me... though frankly I"d often tuned out when Jane chatted about the cat. Pet owners could be such bores.Madeleine would need a litter box; Jane had had one tucked away beside the refrigerator. It wasn"t there now. Maybe it had been taken to the vet"s where Madeleine had been boarded during Jane"s illness. It was probably sitting uselessly at the Engles" house now.

I poked around in the trash left in Jane"s room from my cleaning out the closet.Sure enough, there was a box of the appropriate size and shape. I put it in the corner by the refrigerator in the kitchen, and as Madeleine watched with keen attention I opened cabinets until I found a half-full bag of cat litter.I felt rather proud of myself at handling the little problem the cat presented so quickly; though, when I considered, it seemed Madeleine had done all the handling. She had gotten back to her old home, gained entrance, been fed and watered, and had a toilet provided her, and now she jumped up on Jane"s armchair in the living room, curled into a striped orange ball, and went to sleep. I watched her for a moment enviously, then I sighed and began sorting papers again.

In the fourth box I found what I wanted. The carpet had been installed three years ago. So the skull had become a skull sometime before that. Suddenly I realized what should have been obvious. Of course Jane had not killed someone and put his head in the window seat fresh, so to speak. The skull had already been a skull, not a head, before Jane had sealed it up. I was willing to concede that Jane obviously had a side unknown to me, or to anyone, though whoever had searched the house must at least suspect it. But I could not believe that Jane would live in a house with a decomposing head in the window seat. Jane had not been a monster.

What had Jane been? I pulled up my knees and wrapped my arms around them. Behind me, Madeleine, who had observed Jane longer than anyone, yawned and rearranged herself.

Jane had been a woman in her late seventies with silver hair almost always done up in a regal chignon. She had never worn slacks, always dresses. She had had a lively mind-an intelligent mind- and good manners. She had been interested in true crime, at a safe distance; her favorite cases were all Victorian or earlier. She had had a mother who was wealthy and who had held a prominent, place in Lawrenceton society, and Jane had behaved as though she herself had neither. She had inherited from somewhere, though, a strong sense of property.But as far as the liberation of women went- well, Jane and I had had some discussions on that. Jane was a traditionalist, and though as a working woman she had believed in equal pay for equal work, some of the other tenets of the women"s movement were lost on her. "Women don"t have to confront men, honey," she"d told me one time.

"Women can always think their way around them." Jane had not been a forgiving person, either; if she got really angry and did not receive an adequate apology, she held a grudge a good long while. She was not even aware of grudge holding, I"d observed; if she had been, she would have fought it, like she"d fought other traits in herself she didn"t think were Christian. What else had Jane been?Conventionally moral, dependable, and she"d had an unexpectedly sly sense of humor.

In fact, wherever Jane was now, I was willing to bet she was looking at me and laughing. Me, with Jane"s money and Jane"s house and Jane"s cat and Jane"s skull.

After sorting more papers (I might as well finish what I"ve begun, I thought), I got up to stretch. It was raining outside, I discovered to my surprise. As I sat on the window seat and looked out the blinds, the rain got heavier and heavier and the thunder started to boom. The lights came on across the street in the little white house with yellow shutters, and through the front window I could see Lynn unpacking boxes, moving slowly and awkwardly. I wondered how having a baby felt, wondered if I would ever know. Finally, for no reason that I could discern, my feeling for Arthur ended, and the pain drained away. Tired of poring over receipts left from a life that was over, I thought about my own life.Living by myself was sometimes fun, but I didn"t want to do it forever, as Jane had. I thought of Robin Crusoe, the mystery writer, who had left town when my romance with Arthur had heated up. I thought of Aubrey Scott. I was tired of being alone with my bizarre problem. I was tired of being alone, period.I told myself to switch mental tracks in a hurry. There was something undeniably pleasant about being in my own house watching the rain come down outside, knowing I didn"t have to go anywhere if I didn"t want to. I was surrounded by books in a pretty room, I could occupy myself however I chose. Come on, I asked myself bravely, what do you choose to do? I almost chose to start crying, but instead I jumped up, found Jane"s Soft Scrub, and cleaned the bathroom. A place isn"t really yours until you clean it. Jane"s place became mine, however temporarily, that afternoon. I cleaned and sorted and threw away and inventoried. I opened a can of soup and heated it in my saucepan on my stove. I ate it with my spoon. Madeleine came into the kitchen when she heard me bustling around and jumped up to watch me eat. This time I was not horrified. I looked over the book I"d pulled from Jane"s shelves and addressed a few remarks to Madeleine while I ate.

It was still raining after I"d washed the pot and the spoon and the bowl, so I sat in Jane"s chair in the living room, watching the rain and wondering what to do next. After a moment, the cat heaved herself up onto my lap. I wasn"t quite sure how I felt about this liberty on the cat"s part, but I decided I"d give it a try. I stroked the smooth fur tentatively and heard the deep percolation start up. What I needed, I decided, was to talk to someone who knew Lawrenceton in depth, someone who knew about Carey Osland"s husband and the Rideouts" tenant.I"d been a.s.suming the skull came from someone who lived close by, and suddenly I realized I"d better challenge that a.s.sumption.

Why had I thought that? There had to be a reason. Okay-Jane couldn"t transport a body any distance. I just didn"t think she"d been strong enough. But I remembered the hole in the skull and shuddered, feeling distinctly queasy for a moment. She"d been strong enough to do that. Had Jane herself cut off the head? I couldn"t even picture it. Granted, Jane"s bookshelves, like mine, were full of accounts about people who had done horrible things and gone unsuspected for long periods of time, but I just couldn"t admit Jane might be like that. Something wasn"t adding up.

It just might be my own dearly held a.s.sumptions and preconceptions. Jane, after all, was a Little Old Lady.

I was worn out physically and mentally. It was time to go back to my place. I unseated the cat, to her disgust, and filled her water dish, while making a mental note to call Parnell. I stuffed my car full of things to throw or give away, locked up, and left.

For Christmas, my mother had given me an answering machine, and its light was blinking when I let myself into my kitchen. I leaned against the counter while I punched the b.u.t.ton to hear my messages.

"Roe, this is Aubrey. Sorry I didn"t catch you in. I"ll talk to you later. See you at church tomorrow?"

Ah oh. Tomorrow was Sunday. Maybe I should go to the Episcopal church. But since I didn"t always go there, wouldn"t it look a little pointed to show up right after I"d had a date with the pastor? On the other hand, here he was inviting me personally, and I"d hurt his feelings if I didn"t show... oh h.e.l.l."Hi, honey! We"re having such a good time John and I decided to stay for a few more days! Stop by the office and make sure everyone"s busy, okay? I"ll be calling Eileen, but I think it would impress everyone if you went yourself. Talk to you later! Wait till you see my tan!"

Everyone at Mother"s office knew that I was strictly an underling, and that I didn"t know jack about the real estate business, though it wasn"t uninteresting.I just didn"t want to work full-time for Mother. Well, I was glad she was having a great time on her second (literally) honeymoon, and I was glad she"d finally taken a vacation of any sort. Eileen Norris, her second-in-command, was probably ready for Mother to come back. Mother"s force of character and charm really smoothed things over.

"Roe, this is Robin." I caught my breath and practically hugged the answering machine so I wouldn"t miss a word. "I"m leaving tonight for maybe three weeks in Europe, traveling cheap and with no reservations, so I don"t know where I"ll be when. I won"t be working at the university next year. James Artis is over his heart attack. So I"m not sure what I"ll be doing. I"ll get in touch when I come back. Are you doing okay? How"s Arthur?"

"He"s married," I said to the machine. "He married someone else." I rummaged in my junk drawer frantically. "Where"s the address book? Where"s the d.a.m.n book?" I muttered. My scrabbling fingers finally found it, I searched through it, got the right page, punched the numbers frantically.Ring. Ring. "h.e.l.lo?" a man said.

"Robin?"

"No, this is Phil. I"m subleasing Robin"s apartment. He"s left for Europe."

"Oh, no," I wailed.

"Can I take a message?" the voice asked, tactfully ignoring my distress.

"So he"s going to be coming back to that apartment when he returns? For sure?"

"Yep, his stuff is all here."

"Are you reliable? Can you give him a message in three weeks, or whenever he comes back?"

"I"ll try," the voice said with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

"This is important," I warned him. "To me, anyway."

"Okay, shoot. I"ve got a pencil and paper right here."

"Tell Robin," I said, thinking as I spoke, "that Roe, R-O-E, is fine."

"Roe is fine," repeated the voice obediently.

"Also say," I continued, "that Arthur married Lynn."

"Okay, got it... anything else?"

"No, no thank you. That"s all. Just as long as he knows that." "Well, this is a fresh legal pad, and I"ve labeled it "Robin"s Messages," and I"ll keep it here by the phone until he comes back," said Phil"s voice rea.s.suringly.

"I"m sorry to sound so-well, like I think you"ll throw it in the wastebasket-but this is the only way I have to get in touch with him." "Oh, I understand," said Phil politely. "And really, he will get this."

"Thanks," I said weakly. "I appreciate it."

"Good-bye," said Phil.