Charlaine Harris - A Bone To Pick

“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 handle, 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.

I’d only had half a cup of coffee the next morning when the phone rang. I’d gotten up late after an uneasy sleep. I’d dreamed the skull was under my bed and Jack Burns was sitting in a chair by the bed interrogating 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 retrieved 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 challenges incumbent) skimmed and was just searching for the comics when I was interrupted.

I picked up the phone, convinced the call was bad 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 reassurance 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 was positively rich, he was positively good in bed. I hoped he wasn’t positively shallow. I hoped Amina really loved him. I wasn’t too concerned about him loving 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 complexions.

“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 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 relieved to hear she was moderating her impulse.

“Sure, I can come in this morning,” I said obligingly. “I don’t have to work today.”

“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 something 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 winter 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 Barbie doll, the floral chiffon was not bad but in blondes’ 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 reviewing 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 decided 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 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 admitted 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 entertained 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 announce 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 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.