A Skeleton in the Family (21 page)

“I
think I've got it,” I said. “Madison, how about you?”

I'd left for home as soon as my last class was over, not wanting Madison to be nervous about being at home by herself, but I needn't have bothered. Deborah was there installing the alarm system when Madison got there, and she'd just shown us how it worked and helped us set our access code. Speaking as a professional, I had to admit my sister did a good job with the instructions: she was clear, concise, patient.

Madison said, “It's a great system, but you know what would make me feel safer?”

“A hunky bodyguard?” I said.

“A dog.”

I should have known that was coming. Madison had talked about getting a dog on and off for years, but apartment living and dogs don't mix well.

“Mom, you always said we could have one if we got a big enough place, and this house is plenty big. The backyard is even fenced in.”

“Madison, you know living here is only temporary. I can't bring a dog into my parents' house.”

“I texted G-mom, and she said that she and G-dad are fine with it.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I was thinking we could get an adult dog from the pound, so it would already be house trained.”

“What if we have to move? I don't know how long I'll be at McQuaid, and it's hard enough to find affordable apartments without having to try to find a place that will take a dog. We can't get a dog and then abandon it in a year.”

“Aunt Deb says that if anything like that happens, she'll take it. Then we can still come visit.”

“How nice of Aunt Deb,” I said, glaring at my sister. No wonder she'd been so helpful during the security-system lesson—she'd known this was coming.

“I know it's a lot of work,” Madison was saying, “but I'll be responsible for walking him, feeding him, and bathing him. All the day-to-day stuff.”

“Sweetie, having a dog isn't cheap.”

“I know, but I'll chip in part of my allowance, and Aunt Deb says I can work for her to earn money toward paying for food and shots and stuff.”

“You've really thought this through,” I said, but I was looking at Deborah, not Madison. My sister knew exactly why I didn't want a dog: Sid. She also knew I couldn't explain that to Madison without breaking Sid's confidence, and that Madison would be really hurt if I just refused without an explanation. If I hadn't wanted to throttle her, I would have applauded her skillful manipulation.

“Well?” Madison said.

“Let me think about it,” I said. “Now would you mind going to your room for a minute? I want some alone time with your aunt.”

“It was my idea, Mom, not Aunt Deb's. I really do want a dog.”

“I know you do, but you caught me by surprise. I need some time to make up my mind, okay?”

“Okay.” She looked worried, but she went upstairs.

As soon as I heard Madison's bedroom door close, I said, “Did you put her up to this?”

“No! Get the family Bible, and I will swear on it that I did
not
suggest a dog to Madison, especially not for home security. I'm a locksmith—I don't think there's any substitute for a good lock and an alarm system. Any dog you'd want around a kid would be just as likely to love a burglar, too.”

Thinking of Dr. Kirkland's dog, I had to agree. He'd attacked Sid, but only as an extra-special chew toy—he hadn't tried to bite me.

Deborah went on. “I admit that when Mad presented the problems and asked my advice, I did offer to help, but only when I saw how much she wants a dog.”

I looked at her, but she wasn't fudging—Madison wanted a dog that much. And hadn't I told Deborah just the other day that I would never let things like job-related moves and a skeleton in the closet prevent me from giving Madison what she needed?

Apparently she needed a dog.

So I called upstairs. “Madison, get your shoes on. We're going to the animal shelter.”

She nearly ran down the stairs, and hugged me, then Deborah, then me again. It was very sweet.

I was pretty sure that Sid's reaction wouldn't include quite so much hugging.

For once, I was absolutely right.

I
'd halfway hoped that there wouldn't be a dog Madison liked at the Pennycross animal shelter, but she picked one out right away. After a little paperwork, she was the proud owner of a one-year-old dog the woman at the shelter assured us was well behaved and house trained. Deborah fronted Madison the adoption fee and money for the alarming amount of supplies we had to pick up on the way home—kibble, a leash, food and water bowls, a brush, a bed, and other accessories. All I had to do was bring it home. And tell Sid.

I snuck up to the attic as soon as Madison and her canine pal went to bed. Sid was slumped down in his old armchair reading, and didn't acknowledge my presence.

“I guess you heard.”

He turned a page.

“Madison named him Byron—she'd had the name picked out for years, apparently. He's extremely affectionate, and I can tell he adores Madison already.”

Another page.

“Did you know Akitas are Japanese? Madison just loves that. They've got a reputation of being tough for new dog owners to handle, but apparently Byron has a milder temperament than most Akitas. He's handsome, too. Do you want to see a picture?”

I was trying to think of something else perky to say, when he said, “I suppose this means I'm stuck up here from now on.”

“Nope. He's going to sleep in Madison's room, and during the day, we'll put him in the big bathroom downstairs in case of accidents.”

“Great.”

“Or you could let me introduce you to Madison—and her dog—and we could go from there.”

“Oh, so this is my fault? You bring a dog into my house—”

“It's not your house, Sid. It's
our
house, and that includes Madison. She's got rights, and one of those rights is to have a pet. If you wanted a pet, we'd see if we could swing that, too.”

“If I wanted a pet, it wouldn't be a dog! You know what happens when dogs see me, Georgia. They freak out!”

“Not this one.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you've already met.”

“When did—? Oh, no you didn't! You didn't bring home the dog that stole my arm.”

“Yeah, I kinda did.” It was love at first sight for Madison—by the time I realized she wanted to adopt the late Dr. Kirkland's Akita, her heart was set on him. “I know he ran off with your arm that night, but at least he didn't wet the floor and whimper like that Rottweiler we saw that time. I'm sure we can train him not to chew on you.”

He just glared at me.

“Honestly, I feel sorry for him. I heard Kirkland's daughter-in-law say they'd gotten rid of him, which is just mean. The poor dog's owner dies, and then her family just dumps him. The woman running the shelter said he was heartbroken.”

“That is pretty cold,” Sid admitted. “Getting rid of a dog isn't like selling a house or old furniture. You don't abandon a member of the family!”

“Exactly.” I stopped. “Wait. Did I miss some subtext, Sid? Do you feel as if I abandoned you when I left you here?”

“No subtext,” he said firmly. “We both know you couldn't take me with you.”

“Okay, but—”

“No, I mean it. I was thinking more along the lines of a clue. If the dog saw Dr. Kirkland murdered, the murderer might not want him around.”

“They say the police always look at family members first. Of course, the police probably have done just that, and haven't found anything.”

“But they don't know what we know.”

“Do you suppose that old TV trope is true, that when a dog sees a person who attacked their owner, they'll react somehow?”

“I don't know. If Byron had been here when our burglar showed up, it might have proven it.”

“I thought we'd decided that it wasn't burglars who killed Dr. Kirkland.”

“Of course it wasn't, any more than a burglar just happened to break in here.”

I sat down hard on the couch. “You think that was connected to our search for Sid?”

“Of course they're connected. Honey, I know connections. 'Cause, you know, my foot bone's connected to my ankle bone. My ankle bone's connected to my leg bone. My leg bone's connected to my—”

“Let me know when you make it to your head bone.”

“Better a head bone than a bonehead,” he replied with a lipless sneer. “I mean, we just happen to get broken into the day after you took me to JTU, a few days after the break-in at your office? And you didn't see a link?”

“I've been trying not to see links,” I admitted, “but now it's looking like somebody else has made the connection between me and you.”

“And between us and the late Dr. Kirkland.”

“Oh God, Sid. I'd been thinking that, as bad as it was, at least Madison hadn't been in danger, because the local burglars weren't killers. And now you tell me she was in the house with the real murderer? She could have ended up like that poor woman!”

“Hey, hey!” Sid said. “It's okay. You've got an alarm now, and a dog. Madison is safe.”

“What the hell was he doing here, anyway?”

“It sounds like he or she was searching for something, and I'm guessing that was me.”

“That would certainly explain why he was looking in closets instead of running off with computers or televisions. And thanks to Sara, there are plenty of people who know about you.”

“Coccyx, Georgia, I never intended to put you and Madison into danger. I should have let that guy find me.”

“I wanted to help you find yourself, so I'm just as much to blame as you are.” I took a deep breath. “And you're right. We're on our guard now and doing everything we can to keep ourselves safe. And I mean
all
of us.” I was so emphatic I almost convinced myself.

“But—”

“But me no buts unless you have a butt of your own.”

“Like your reporter beau?”

“Eavesdropping much?” I'd expected the comment, and welcomed it if it would take his mind off of sacrificing himself. “Anyway, now we know that somebody is looking for you—we just need to find out who he or she is first. Speaking of which, I don't suppose you saw or heard anything that could help identify him?”

He shook his head. “I was downstairs when I heard somebody at the back door, and I made a beeline for the armoire. It wasn't until I'd locked myself in that I realized it wasn't one of you guys.”

“How did you know?”

“You and Madison use keys, and Deborah picks the lock. Breaking a lock sounds different than either of those. Of course, what I should have done was jump the guy, or at least grab a phone to call the cops.”

“No, what you should have done was exactly what you did. If somebody is looking for you, it's doubly important that we keep you hidden.”

“I guess,” he said, sounding dissatisfied. “Anyway, the guy didn't talk, and of course I couldn't see anything. Georgia, I need a peephole. I tried looking through the keyhole, but the line of sight sucks.”

“Good idea. Can you do it yourself while Madison and I are gone tomorrow? There's a drill in the toolbox.” I was hoping there'd be no more break-ins, especially with both the alarm system and the dog in place, but it would be a nice change for Sid to be able to spy on Madison and me while he eavesdropped.

“Sure,” he said. “Maybe I can do something useful if anything like this happens again. If we'd had the dog yesterday, at least he could have barked.”

“Excuse me, but you did warn Madison to get out of the house. You may be the skinniest guardian angel in history, but you got the job done.”

“I bet the dog would have kept him from getting in at all.”

“Does this mean you're okay with Byron?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, but I would rather you be happy about it.”

“I wouldn't say happy, but I can deal as long as I don't have to walk him. Or feed him. Or interact with him in any way.”

“Insofar as I can control those circumstances, we have a deal.” With that settled, I was ready to move on to the real problem. “I don't suppose you've remembered anything else, like who killed you?”

“No, but I did do some serious thinking, which is why I was downstairs yesterday when our burglar showed up. I was using your parents' computer.” My parents had taken their laptops with them but had left their older desktop model in the downstairs den that served as their home office.

“Bone dude, you are rocking the computer age. What were you doing?”

“The other night we were talking about my being a missing person, so I thought I'd look for people who'd disappeared from JTU during the appropriate era. I used some search engines and looked at the files for the local paper, but I didn't find anything.”

“It seems like somebody would have noticed a student disappearing.”

“That's what I thought, too, but if there was a hue and cry, it's never made it to the Web. Then I went to the site with those JTU yearbooks from before and started looking at pictures, thinking maybe I'd recognize myself.”

“Anything?”

“Nothing. But I did get the idea of checking to see if anybody had been in one year's yearbook but not the next. You know, somebody who was a freshman in nineteen eighty-two who didn't show up as a sophomore in nineteen eighty-three, or a sophomore who didn't show up as a junior, and so on. Since that wouldn't help if I was a senior when I died, I found a copy of the commencement program to find students who never made it to graduation. Then I put all that information into a database.”

“That must have been tedious as hell.”

“Hey, I don't sleep, eat, or work. Tedium is kind of my thing.”

Ouch. I reminded myself to go get Sid some more reading material.

He said, “I started in the late seventies and worked up to eighty-two, and ended up with one hundred and seventy-eight students who disappeared between one semester and another. Of those, seventy-four were women, so I scratched them off the list.”

“That's still a lot of possibilities.”

“The next step will be to Google all those guys to try to track them down. That ought to eliminate a few more. Can I borrow your computer overnight so I can get on it?”

“Be my guest.” I brought it to him, then told him good night, checked that the alarm system was armed, looked to make sure all the doors and windows were locked, put my baseball bat next to my bed, and went to sleep.