A Bone to Pick

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 embarrassed, or angry, or - well, no, don't think about that. Arthur was too tough to embarrass easily, but he was embarrassed 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 hell 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 God. 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 damn 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 glass 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 shiver 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 bumpy, Mr. Sewell."

"Sorry to hear that. How can I be of assistance?"

"Did Jane leave me a letter?"

"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 cassette? 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 grass. The monkey grass 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 grass 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 grass, 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 glass 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 amusement flitted across her face and vanished. She pulled off her opaque sunglasses 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 sunglasses 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 glass. 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 amusement 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 glasses.

"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 space!" "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 hell," 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 sunglasses, 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.