A Bone to Pick (14 page)

~ A Bone to Pick ~
“Well, now you think about it,” he suggested in a reasonable voice. “Last year when we had those deaths, there you were. When we caught them that did it, there you were.”
About to get killed myself, I said, but only in my head, because you didn’t interrupt Sergeant Jack Burns.
“Then Miss Engle dies, and here you are on the street with a skeleton in the weeds, a street with a suspicious number of reported break-ins, including one in this house you just inherited.”
“A suspicious number of break-ins? Are you say- ing other people on Honor besides me have reported their house being entered?”
“That’s what I’m saying, Miss Teagarden.” “And nothing taken?”
“Nothing the owner would admit to missing. Maybe the thief took some pornographic books or some other thing the homeowner would be embar- rassed to report.”
“There certainly wasn’t anything like that in Jane’s house, I’m sure,” I said indignantly. Just an old skull with some holes in it. “It may be that something was missing, I wouldn’t know. I only saw the house after the burglary. Ah—who else reported their houses had been broken into?”
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Jack Burns actually looked surprised before he looked suspicious.
“Everyone, now. Except that old couple in the end house on the other side of the street. Now, do you know anything about the bones found today?” “Oh, no. I just happened along when they were discovered. You know, I’ve only been in the house a few times, and I’ve never stayed there. I only visited Jane, over the past couple of years. Before she went into the hospital.”
“I think,” Jack Burns said heavily and unfairly, “this is one mystery the police department can han- dle, Miss Teagarden. You keep your little bitty nose out of it.”
“Oh,” I said furiously, “I will, Sergeant.” And as I rose to show him out, my heel caught on the balled- up panty hose under my chair and dragged them out for Jack Burns’s viewing.
He gave them a look of scorn, as if they’d been sleazy sexual aids, and departed with his awful majesty intact. If he had laughed, he would’ve been human. ~ 162 ~

Chapter Nine
A
I’d only had half a cup of coffee the next morning when the phone rang. I’d gotten up late after an un- easy sleep. I’d dreamed the skull was under my bed and Jack Burns was sitting in a chair by the bed inter- rogating me while I was in my nightgown. I was sure somehow he would read my mind and bend over to look under the bed; and if he did that I was doomed. I woke up just as he was lifting the bedspread. After I’d poured my coffee, made my toast, and re- trieved my Lawrenceton
Sentinel
from the front doorstep, I settled at the kitchen table for my morning read. I’d gotten the page one lead story (sewell chal- lenges incumbent) skimmed and was just searching for the comics when I was interrupted.
I picked up the phone, convinced the call was bad ~ 163 ~

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news, so I was pleasantly surprised to here Amina’s mom on the other end. As it turned out, my original premise was correct.
“Good morning, Aurora! It’s Joe Nell Day.” “Hi, Miss Joe Nell. How you doing?” Amina bravely called my mother “Miss Aida.”
“Just fine, thanks, honey. Listen, Amina called me last night to tell me they’ve moved the wedding day up.”
I felt a chill of sheer dismay. Here we go again, I thought gloomily. But this was Amina’s mother. I stretched my mouth into a smile so my voice would match. “Well, Miss Joe Nell, they’re both old enough to know what they’re doing,” I said heartily. “I sure hope so,” she said from the heart. “I’d sure hate Amina to go through another divorce.” “No, not going to happen,” I said, offering reas- surance I didn’t feel. “This is going to be the one.” “We’ll pray about it,” Miss Joe Nell said earnestly. “Amina’s daddy is fit to be tied. We haven’t even met this young man yet.”
“You liked her first husband,” I said. Amina would always marry someone nice. It was staying that way that was the problem. What was this guy’s name? Hugh Price. “She had so many positive things to tell me about Hugh.” He was positively good-looking, he ~ 164 ~

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was positively rich, he was positively good in bed. I hoped he wasn’t positively shallow. I hoped Amina re- ally loved him. I wasn’t too concerned about him lov- ing Amina; I took that as an easy accomplishment since I loved her.
“Well, they’re both veterans of the divorce wars, so they should know what they want and don’t want. Anyway, why I called you, Aurora, moving up the wedding day means you need to come in and get fitted for your bridesmaid’s dress.”
“Am I the only one?” I hoped desperately I could wear something personally becoming rather than something that was supposed to look good on five or six different females of varying builds and complex- ions.
“Yes,” said Miss Joe Nell with open relief. “Amina wants you to come down and pick what you want as long as it will look good with her dress, which is a mint green.”
Not white. I was kind of surprised. Since Amina had decided to send out invitations and have a larger wedding because her first one was so hole-in-the-wall, I’d felt she’d do the whole kit and caboodle. I was re- lieved to hear she was moderating her impulse. “Sure, I can come in this morning,” I said oblig- ingly. “I don’t have to work today.”
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“Oh, that’s just great! I’ll see you then.” This was when your mother owning a dress shop was really convenient. There was sure to be some- thing at Great Day that would suit me. If not, Miss Joe Nell would find something.
When I went upstairs to get dressed, on impulse I turned into the back bedroom, the guest room. The only guest who’d ever slept in it had been my little half brother Phillip when he used to come spend an occasional weekend with me. Now he was all the way in California; our father and his mother had wanted to get him as far away from me and Lawrenceton as possible, so he wouldn’t have to remember what had happened to him here. While he was staying with me. I fought off drearily familiar feelings of guilt and pain, and flung open the closet door. In this closet I kept the things I wasn’t wearing currently, heavy win- ter coats, my few cocktail and evening dresses . . . and my bridesmaid dresses. There were four of them: a lavender ruffled horror from Sally Saxby’s wedding, Linda Erhardt’s floral chiffon, a red velvet with white “fur” trim from my college roommate’s Christmas “nuptials,” and a somewhat better pink sheath from Franny Vargas’s spring marriage. The lavender had made me look as if I’d been bushwhacked by a Bar- bie doll, the floral chiffon was not bad but in blonds’ ~ 166 ~

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colors, the red velvet had made me look like Dolly Parton in the chest but otherwise we’d all looked like Santa’s helpers, and the pink sheath I’d had cut to knee length and had actually worn to some parties over the years.
I’d worn jeans to Amina’s first, runaway wedding. That had been the most useful bridesmaid’s outfit of all.
Now that I had worked myself into an absolutely great mood, what with thinking of Phillip and review- ing my history as a bridesmaid, I decided I’d better get myself in gear and go do things.
What did I need to do besides go by Great Day? I had to go check on Madeleine and the kittens. I had to go by Mother’s office; she’d asked me to on the message left on my machine, and I hadn’t done it yet. I felt an urge to go check on the skull, but I de- cided I could be pretty sure it hadn’t gone anywhere. “Stupid,” I muttered at my mirror as I braided my hair. I slapped on a little makeup and pulled on my oldest jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. I might have to go by Mother’s office, but I wasn’t going to look like a junior executive. All her salespeople were sure I would go to work for Mother someday, completely disrupting their food chain. Actually, showing houses seemed like an attractive way to pass the time, and ~ 167 ~

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now that I had my own money—almost—I really might think about looking into it seriously. But of course I didn’t have to work for Mother. I gave the mirror a wicked grin, picturing the furor for a happy second, before I lapsed back to reality. Wrapping the band around the end of the braid to secure it, I ad- mitted to myself that of course I would work for Mother if I did decide to take the plunge and switch jobs. But I’d miss the library, I told myself as I checked my purse to make sure I had everything. No I wouldn’t, I realized suddenly. I’d miss the books. Not the job or the people.
The prospect of possibly resigning kept me enter- tained until I got to Great Day.
Amina’s father was a bookkeeper, and of course he did the books for his wife’s business. He was there when I came in, the bell over the door tinkling to an- nounce my arrival. Miss Joe Nell was using some kind of hand-held steamer to get the wrinkles out of a newly arrived dress. She was a very attractive, fair woman in her middle forties. She’d been young when she had Amina, her only daughter. Amina’s younger brother was still in graduate school. Miss Joe Nell was very religious, and, when my mother and father had gotten divorced when I was a teenager, one of my many fears was that Miss Joe Nell would disapprove ~ 168 ~

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of the divorce so much she wouldn’t let me stay with Amina anymore. But Miss Joe Nell was a loving woman and sympathetic, too; my worry had been banished quickly.
Now she put down the steamer and gave me a hug. “I just hope Amina’s doing the right thing,” she whispered.
“Well, I’m sure she is,” I said with a confidence I was far from feeling. “I’m sure he’s a good man.” “Oh, it’s not him I worry about so much,” Miss Joe Nell said, to my surprise. “It’s Amina.” “We just hope she’s really ready to settle this time,” rumbled Mr. Day. He sang bass in the church choir, had for twenty years, and would until he could sing no more.
“I hope so, too,” I admitted. And we all three looked at one another rather dolefully for a long sec- ond.
“Now, what kind of dress does Amina want me to try on?” I asked briskly.
Miss Joe Nell shook herself visibly and led me over to the formal dresses. “Let’s see,” she said. “Her dress, like I said, is mint green, with some white bead- ing. I have it here, she tried on several things when she was home for your mother’s wedding. I thought she was just sort of dreaming and planning, but I bet ~ 169 ~

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she had a little idea back then that they would move the date up.”
The dress was beautiful. Amina would look like an American dream in it.
“So we can coordinate my dress easily,” I said in an optimistic tone.
“Well, I looked at what we have in your size, and I found a few things that would look lovely with this shade of green. Even if you pick a solid in a different color, your bouquet could have green ribbons that would sort of tie it together . . .”
And we were off and running, deep in wedding talk.
I was glad I’d braided my hair that morning, be- cause by the time I’d finished hauling dresses off and on it would have been a crow’s nest otherwise. As it was, loose hairs crackling with electricity were float- ing around my face by the time I was done. One of the dresses became me and would coordinate, and, though I doubted I would ever have occasion to wear it again, I bought it. Mrs. Day tried to tell me she would pay for it, but I knew my bridesmaid’s duty. Finally she let me have it at cost, and we both were satisfied. Amina’s dress had long, see-through sleeves and solid cuffs, a simple neckline, beaded bodice, and a full skirt, plain enough to set off the bridal bouquet but fancy enough ~ 170 ~

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to be festive. My dress had short sleeves but the same neckline, and it was peach with a mint green cummer- bund. I could get some heels dyed to match—in fact, I thought the heels I’d had dyed to match Linda Er- hardt’s bridesmaid’s dress might do. I promised Miss Joe Nell I’d bring them by the store to check, since my dress had to remain at Great Day to have its hem raised.
And it had only taken an hour and a half, I discov- ered when I got back in my car. I remembered when I’d gone dress hunting with Sally Saxby and her mother, and four other bridesmaids. The expedition had consumed a whole very long day. It had taken me awhile to feel as fond of Sally as I had before we went dress hunting in Atlanta.
Of course, now Sally had been Mrs. Hunter for ten years and had a son almost as tall as me, and a daugh- ter who took piano lessons.
No, I would
not
be depressed. The dress had been found, that was a good thing. I was going by the office, that was another good thing. Then I would go see the cats at the new house, as I was trying to think of it. Then I would treat myself to lunch somewhere good.
When I turned into the rear parking lot of my mother’s office, I noticed no one dared to park in her ~ 171 ~

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space though she was actually out of the country. I pulled into it neatly, making a mental note to tell Mother this little fact. Mother, thinking “Teagarden Homes” was too long to fit on a Sold sign, had in- stead named her business Select Realty. Of course this was a blatant attempt to appeal to the “up” side of the market, and it seemed to have worked. Mother was a go get ’em realtor who never let business call her if she could get out there and beat the bushes for it first. She wanted every realtor she hired to be just as aggressive, and she didn’t care what the applicant looked like as long as the right attitude came across. An injudicious rival had compared Select realtors to a school of sharks, in my hearing. Marching up the sidewalk to the old home Mother had bought and renovated beautifully, I found myself wondering if my mother would consider me a suitable employee. Everyone who worked at Select Realty dressed to the nines, so I was fairly conspicuous, and I realized my choice of jeans and T-shirt had been a mistake. I had wanted to look as unlike a realtor as I could, and I had succeeded in looking like an outdated hippie. Patty Cloud, at the front desk, was wearing a suit that cost as much as a week’s salary from the library. And this was the
receptionist
.
“Aurora, how good to see you!” she said with a ~ 172 ~

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practiced smile. Patty was at least four years younger than me, but the suit and the artificial ease made her seem as much older.
Eileen Norris passed through the reception area to drop some papers labeled with a Post-it note on Patty’s desk, and stopped in her tracks when she rec- ognized me.
“My God, child, you look like something the cat dragged in!” Eileen bellowed. She was a suspiciously dark-haired woman about forty-five, with expensive clothes from the very best big women’s store. Her makeup was heavy but well done, her perfume was intrusive but attractive, and she was one of the most overwhelming women I’d ever met. Eileen was some- thing of a town character in Lawrenceton, and she could talk you into buying a house quicker then you could take an aspirin.
I wasn’t exactly pleased with her greeting, but I’d made an error in judgment, and Eileen was not one to let that go by.
“I’m just dropping in to deliver a message. Mother is extending her honeymoon a little.”
“I’m so glad she is,” Eileen boomed. “That woman hadn’t taken a vacation in a coon’s age. I bet she’s having a real good time.”
“No doubt about it.”
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