A Skeleton in the Family (22 page)

T
he next morning, my laptop was sitting outside my bedroom door with a note tucked into it:

Down to 85 possibilities.

Eighty-five was still a lot, but the needle-concealing haystack was getting smaller all the time. Maybe we could find out who Sid was without breaking into other houses or finding any more dead bodies. Between Byron and the every-bell-and-whistle alarm system Deborah had installed, I was reasonably sure our house would remain secure while we kept looking. As for Madison, she'd promised to be extra vigilant on the way to and from school and said she'd send me regular texts with her status throughout the day.

I firmly shoved all such concerns out of my head to focus on getting Madison to school and myself to McQuaid on time. I thought I was succeeding pretty well with that until I caught myself humming “Dem Bones” as I left my morning class.

Naturally that was when I ran into my favorite anthropologist crossing the quad. “Hey, Yo. How's the dissertation going?”

“Don't ask,” she said with a glare.

“Sorry.” Belatedly I remembered how aggravated I used to get when people had plied me with that same question. Deborah had been the worst offender. “Is the parking situation better now?”

“It was until some asshole broke into my car. Twice in the past week!”

“Seriously?”

“The first time they jimmied my trunk, and before I had a chance to get that fixed, they broke the window to get to the glove box.”

“Did they take much?”

She snorted. “They could steal the whole thing and not get enough to afford gas for the getaway.”

I found myself looking at the grad student speculatively, wondering if she was somehow involved in the Sid situation. After all, she'd been the first to find out about him, even before Dr. Kirkland was killed. The car break-in story could have been a cover. Okay, I couldn't think of why she might have wanted to kill anybody, and she was obviously too young to have killed Sid, but . . .

The thing was, everybody was starting to look suspicious to me: all the Kirklands, the other adjuncts, my students, pretty much anybody I'd spoken to since coming back to Pennycross. Even Fletcher was starting to look fishy—why had he been so interested in getting a photo of Sid for the
Gazette
anyway?

Realizing that I'd been silent too long, I said, “This is getting to be a sketchy place. There was a break-in at the adjunct office over the weekend.” I was watching her for a guilty flash in her eyes, but what I got was irritation.

“Please don't start trashing this place,” she said. “Maybe your life isn't tied to McQuaid, but mine is.”

“Excuse me?”

“If the college starts getting a lousy rep, then how much is a degree from here worth? Nobody is going to care that I graduated before things went downhill—they'll just see that I went to a crap school, which will make it look like I've got a crap degree.” Her voice kept rising as she spoke, and people were starting to notice.

“I get what you mean,” I said. Not that I agreed with her. I'd seen too many academic scandals blow in and out to take them seriously anymore. Even if McQuaid had a dozen robberies a week, nobody was going to look askance at her degree. What I really got was that she was stressed out of her mind trying to finish that dissertation, and as a result, she'd lost all sense of perspective. Hence the outburst. “Don't worry, I won't spread any more rumors.”

“Whatever,” she said, but it was in a gratified tone, and we went our separate ways.

Even though I'd mentally cleared Yo from suspicion, I still found myself looking askance at everybody else on campus that day. It didn't help when I heard a couple of my students snickering about skeletons having permanent boners when I came into class—obviously the news about me having a skeleton had spread. I was much relieved to get home, with my alarm system and vicious attack Akita to protect me, even if the pooch was trending more toward cuddly than fierce.

Madison requested permission to hang with friends at Samantha's house that evening, and after a brief discussion about the difference between hanging and chilling, I gave her money to pay for her share of the communal pizza they'd be ordering and drove her over. Then I went home to raid the kitchen for leftovers.

Fletcher hadn't called about any kind of rendezvous, and I wondered if he was on assignment or still vexed with me. Since I was definitely still vexed with him, I didn't call him either.

Sid came tiptoeing downstairs just as I was finished cleaning up after myself, and whispered, “Where's the dog?”

I looked. “Right behind you.”

“AAAAAAH!” He ran toward me, and Byron, apparently thinking this was a fun new game, cheerfully trotted after him. They made several laps around the room before Sid hopped on top of the kitchen table. Byron barked in good-natured defeat, then sat to watch him. I knew I shouldn't laugh at Sid's predicament, but I couldn't stop myself.

“Georgia!”

“Dude, you two are going to have to coexist.” I reached into the cabinet, pulled out some rawhide chews, and handed them to Sid. “Try giving him one of these.”

Sid gave me a dark look, then held one out to Byron while maintaining the greatest possible distance between them.

Byron took it and lay down right in front of Sid, who glared balefully down at him. “Now what?”

“Step around him. If he grabs any of your bones, I've got this.” I held up a filled SpongeBob Squarepants squirt gun of Madison's that had ended up in the junk drawer. A friend of mine used a spray bottle to train her cats not to climb onto her kitchen counters, so I figured it might work with Byron, should he decide that Sid was looking particularly delectable.

Sid climbed down gingerly, and when Byron didn't lunge at him, stepped around him to get to the living room. Then he opened the armoire door and sat down in the chair closest to it, ready to make a strategic escape.

Byron kept gnawing on the rawhide, but just in case, I took the squirt gun and more chew sticks with me into the living room.

“Just one big happy family,” I said brightly. “Imagine the fun you two can have while Madison and I are gone during the day.”

“Can I have a squirt gun? One of those Super Soaker ones?”

“Not a chance.” To change the subject, I said, “So, you made progress last night?”

“I was working my fingers to the bone.”

“Very humerus,” I said dryly.

He grinned. “Anyway, I did some more today on your parents' dinosaur while the Hound of the Baskervilles was locked up, but your laptop is a lot faster.”

“Educational discounts—it's the only way to go with computer equipment.” Then I thought of something. “Hey, wait a minute! How did you get into my computer? I never gave you the password.”

“Oh, please. It only took me two tries to figure it out. Seriously, Georgia, using
Madison
as a password? You couldn't at least substitute 1 for the
i
?”

“Fine, I'll change it.” Then I stopped. “How did you know how to guess a password?”

“I saw it in a movie or something. It's common knowledge.”

“It's not that common.”

“Just because you didn't know—”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm a Luddite. But tell me something: Did you think about how to guess my password, or did you remember it from a particular movie or book?”

“No, not really. I just . . . did it.”

“Then maybe that's something you knew from before you died. Like how to talk, and cultural stuff, like movie quotes and Shakespeare.”

“Why is this a big deal?”

“Because while it's possible I am in fact the only person in the world who is dumb enough to use my daughter's name as a password
now
, I'll bet that bit of common knowledge wasn't that common back when you were alive.”

He was still looking blank—which he was well equipped for.

“Don't you see? This is another clue about who you were—you knew about computers in the early eighties when not everybody had a home computer or even one at work. If you knew that much while you were still in college, maybe you were a computer science major.”

“Did they have a computer science department at JTU then?”

“Easy enough to find out.” I got out my laptop for some quick hunting. “JTU added computer science as a concentration in seventy-four, with a full-fledged major program instated five years later.”

“Maybe you're right. I'd never really done much on a computer before these past few days, but it does seem to come naturally to me.”

“Of course, that begs the question of why you were associated with Dr. Kirkland. Why would a renowned zooarchaeologist have anything to do with a computer geek?”

“Who are you calling a geek?”

“Please. Anybody who majored in computer science that long ago was almost certainly a geek.”

“Of course, many of those geeks are filthy rich now.”

“True enough.”

Sid yipped, and I saw Byron walking into the room.

“Why didn't Madison take the mutt with her, anyway?”

“Her friend has allergies. He's not going to bother you.” As if to contradict me, the way everybody else in the household did, Byron picked that moment to look at Sid and lick his chops. Sid hastily tossed over another rawhide stick while I wondered if there was another treat we could use if we ran out. Byron accepted the bribe readily enough, but he kept watching Sid as he lay down to work on it.

Sid and I got to work on his list of possibilities and got it down to sixty names in fairly short order. He was willing to keep going all night, but I talked him into a movie break instead. We finished watching
Harvey
just in time for me to go get Madison, and Sid took my laptop to his room before Byron could get any ideas involving teeth.

T
he next morning started out well, especially since I got to sleep in. Madison, on the other hand, had to be up early to walk Byron, a fact I couldn't resist rubbing in when I came down and found her slouching on the couch with what we usually referred to as her grumpy face, watching reruns of
Gravity Falls
.

“You're up bright and early,” I said.

She looked at Byron with no great affection. “
He
woke me up at eight. On a Saturday!”

“Dogs aren't big on clocks or calendars.”

“Then he kept sniffing and scratching around the attic door. Did you do anything about that squirrel up there?”

“I checked thoroughly, and there's no squirrel,” I said. “I don't know what he smells.” I really didn't. Sid didn't smell. Well, he could smell, but he didn't have an odor I'd ever noticed. Though he didn't bathe, he did give himself regular wipes with hydrogen peroxide to keep himself clean.

Madison, still disgruntled, turned back to her cartoon, and I figured it wouldn't hurt to treat her to eggs and bacon, heavy on the bacon. The siren scent soon attracted both her interest and the dog's, and they came to watch me put the meal together. Mom always said that the scent of bacon wafting through the house would wake a dead man, and though I didn't think it had had anything to do with Sid's revival, he did admit that it was the one food he missed most. I thought about telling him to cross any kosher Jews off of his database.

Madison cheered up enough to offer to wash the dishes, and the phone rang while she was at it. It was Fletcher.

“Hey,” he said a bit diffidently.

“Hey.”

“I thought you might want to know that I've found an editor who's interested in my adjunct story.”

“That's great.”

“Without the stuff about Charles.”

I smiled, even though he couldn't see it. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I get carried away sometimes—thinking about the story and not the people. You reminded me, and I appreciate that.”

“Just call me Jiminy Cricket.”

“I know it's short notice again, but I was wondering if you'd like to go to dinner tonight.”

I was tempted, but Madison had already told me she didn't have plans for the night, and I didn't think she was ready to be left at home alone so soon after the break-in, even with the alarm and the dog. And I was sure I wasn't ready to leave her by herself. “I've got a better idea. Do you like chili?
Hot
chili?”

“Love it.”

“Then come to my house for dinner, and I'll fix you my specialty: Enamel Chili.”

“Enamel Chili?”

“It's so hot it'll melt the enamel off of your teeth.”

“I'm there!”

When Fletcher offered to bring dessert, I made sure he knew where Arturo's Ice Cream Shoppe was and what our favorite flavors were. This was going to be his first meal with Madison, and I wanted him to make a good impression.

That meant the rest of the day was less relaxing, as we made a quick trip to the store to pick up the ingredients, then cleaned the public areas of the house. Plus we had to fix ourselves up a little, too—Madison and I even painted each other's nails.

Since my computer was missing, I figured Sid had plenty to do on his own, so other than making sure to speak loudly enough for him to overhear, I didn't attempt to talk to him.

As it turned out, I should have blown off all the prep work and spent the day playing Angry Birds. The phone rang a few minutes after Fletcher had been due to arrive.

“Georgia? It's Fletcher. Look, I hate to do this, but I've got to cancel dinner tonight. A big story is breaking!”

“Not another murder.” I didn't think either my nerves or Sid's could take that.

“No, but they may have solved the first one. The cops caught two guys breaking into a house on Wannamaker Lane—some kids out playing saw them and called 911. After the arrest, the cops searched their van and found loot from previous break-ins. They're the ones, all right.”

“That is big news.”

“I thought you'd want to know so that you and Madison wouldn't be worried about them coming back to your place.”

“Absolutely.” Of course, I didn't think that the break-in at my house was related to the rest of the burglaries, but it was good that the break-ins were over. And that Fletcher was thinking of us.

“Want to know the best part? One of the guys works for a locksmith! So not only was he getting the money from fencing the merchandise, but every theft got him that much more business. They picked targets by checking their database to find out which houses didn't have alarms, and afterward called all the houses nearby to try to sell them systems.”

“Which locksmith?”

There was a burst of noise. “The press conference is starting. I've got to go. Rain check on dinner!”

“Which locksmith?” I asked again, but he'd already gone.

I immediately dialed Deborah's number. “Deborah? Georgia. I just heard that they caught the burglars.”

“It was
not
my assistant who was involved. It was a guy at ABC Locks and Security.”

“That's a relief.”

“Only slightly. Most people are still going to think that all locksmiths are shady and that every time we install a lock or security system, we're casing the joint. Which reminds me: thank you so much for assuming it was me.”

“Cut it out. I knew damned well you wouldn't be breaking into houses.”

“No, you just thought I'd hire the kind of crook who would.”

If she hadn't been having such a bad day, I'd have answered that in the way it deserved, but under the circumstances, I let it go. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Only if you can help me improve the reputation of locksmiths.”

“Sorry, that's not—” Then I got an idea. “Here's a thought: call Fletcher and tell him you're available for an interview about how you and other reputable locksmiths screen employees. There must be some industry statistics you can toss into the mix to show how few bad apples there are in the field. Maybe he can write a sidebar or something.”

“That's not bad. I'll give it a shot. Gotta go.” She hung up.

“You're welcome,” I said to the dead phone.

I told Madison the bad news, put Fletcher's share of the chili into the freezer for another night, and resigned myself to throwing out any of the salad and fresh French bread we hadn't eaten before it went bad. I meanly hoped that Fletcher had bought ice cream before getting the story lead, and that it was melting all over his backseat.

After dinner, Madison suggested going to a movie, so I left Sid to Byron's tender attentions and headed for the theater. The movie we wanted to see was sold out, the one we picked instead was lousy, and the popcorn was stale. Then, to put a capstone on the evening, when we got home there was a note from Fletcher on the front door. He'd come by with the ice cream, but since we hadn't been there to accept it, he'd taken it to his sister's house for her kids.

I was trying to cheer up Madison with Mom-ish aphorisms when we got inside, and might have succeeded had I not seen another note waiting. This one was from Sid and was sticking out of my laptop.

No luck. Back to square one.

After that, I gave up trying to comfort Madison and settled for making us each a big mug of hot cocoa before bed. Sometimes chocolate is the best part of the day.

At least I didn't have to wait until Sunday night to go see what was up with Sid. Deborah called Madison the next morning and told her she'd be over in an hour to pick her up. She had some emergency calls and wanted Madison to come along and start earning back some of the money spent on Byron's accessories. I felt a little guilty about Madison having to work on the weekend, but only a little. I had a stack of essays to grade, so I wasn't exactly going to be loafing.

But first things first. As soon as Madison was gone, I lugged my satchel up to the attic. Sid was in the middle of the sixth Harry Potter book, and I had a hunch he'd been reading ever since he'd left me that note. His bones were still together, but they were definitely more loosely connected than usual.

“What's going on?”

“Nothing. Which is what's inside my skull.”

“You went through all those names?”

“I tried to, but I've got forty left.”

“Then why are you stopping?”

“Because I don't know what else to do. I've Googled them, gone on Facebook and LinkedIn, checked the alumni lists—nothing. Maybe I'm one of those guys, but I don't know how I can ever find out for sure.”

“You want me to take a stab at them?”

“What's the point? Besides, you've got work to do.” He pointed at the essays I'd brought up with me. “I may not eat, but you and Madison still need you to make a living.”

“Let's trade. You go through the essays for misspelled words and grammar problems, and I'll research some of your names.”

I thought he tightened up a bit as he put down his book. “If you think I can help.”

“Hey, you've got a great eye socket for typos.”

“Do I get to use a red pen?”

“Absolutely.”

While he got to work, I opened his database of Sid candidates. There were forty-one left, and I stifled a sigh so he wouldn't start losing bones all over the essays. At least he'd organized the data thoroughly. Each name was hot-linked to its appearance in the online JTU yearbooks, and any other information he'd been able to scrape up—club memberships, majors, and so on—was carefully noted.

Since he'd already tried the obvious places, I tried some less familiar ones: archives for the
Pennycross Gazette
, and when I knew a student's major, membership rosters for applicable professional organizations. I was able to cross off two men via the
Gazette
—they'd both joined the Army—and found two CPAs, an actuary, and even a guy who was a fellow adjunct.

It was encouraging, but it took over two hours of hard work to cross off those six names, and I couldn't help but wonder what we'd do if we crossed everybody off of the list. Where would we go next? I stifled another sigh.

At least Sid was having a good time marking up essays. He really was a good proofreader, sometimes annoyingly so when peering over my shoulder. That may be why I took such pleasure in finding a mistake in his database. “You made a typo.”

“Where?”

“Here.” I pointed to an entry. “You spelled that guy's name A-L-L-E-N Reece. It's A-L-A-N.”

“No it's not.”

I clicked the link to the yearbook where Alan's sophomore picture was printed. “A-L-A-N.”

“Then whoever entered the caption into the yearbook spelled it wrong.”

I should have let it go, since it didn't matter anyway, but I was tired and cranky. “Would it hurt you to admit that you're wrong once in a while?”

“You tell me—you're wrong so much more often than I am.”

“Sid, if all you want to do is fight, I'll go downstairs and play with Byron. I thought it was dogs who snapped at people, not skeletons!”

“Fine!” he snapped—and it was definitely a snap. “I'll go sit in the corner and twiddle my thumbs. Excuse me, my phalanges—wouldn't want to get that wrong.”

I resisted the impulse to tell him where he could put his phalanges, and started hunting for information on A-L-A-N Reece while I waited for him to apologize. He went back to the paper he was correcting, and I suspected he was waiting for me to apologize.

Neither of us spoke.

We'd probably still be there—not speaking—if I hadn't received a text from Deborah that she and Madison were on their way back to the house.

“I've got to go.” Then I made myself say, “Thanks for helping with the papers.”

“No problem,” he said with enough hesitation that I knew he was forcing himself to be civil, too. “Thanks for taking six more names off of my database.”

“I'll come back up after Madison goes to bed and work on some more.”

“No, that's okay,” he said. “I think we need a break.”

“Are you sure?”

“This has been going on for weeks—another night won't make any difference.”

“Okay, but let me know if you change your mind.”

He picked up the book he'd been reading, so I packed up my stuff and went to meet Madison and Deborah. I didn't like leaving it that way, but I figured he was right. A night off wouldn't make any difference.

Wrong again.