Charlaine Harris - A Bone To Pick

Jane had left me no other messages. I had the money, the house, the cat (plus kittens), the skull, and the note that said I didn’t do it.

A peremptory knock on the front door made me jump. I’d been sitting on the floor so lost in the doldrums I hadn’t heard anyone approach. I scrambled up and looked through the peephole, then flung the door open. The woman outside was as well-groomed as Marcia Rideout, as cool as a cucumber; she was not sweating in the heat. She was five inches taller than me. She looked like Lauren Bacall.

“Mother!” I said happily, and gave her a brief hug. She undoubtedly loved me, but she didn’t like her clothes wrinkled.

“Aurora,” she murmured, and gave my hair a stroke.

“When did you get back? Come in!”

“I got in really late last night,” she explained, coming into the room and staring around her. “I tried to call you this morning after we got up, but you weren’t home. You weren’t at the library. So after a while, I decided I’d phone in to the office, and Eileen told me about the house. Who is this woman who left you the house?”

“How’s John?”

“No, don’t put me off. You know I’ll tell you all about the trip later.”

“Jane Engle. John knows-John knew her, too. She was in Real Murders with us.”

“At least that’s disbanded now,” Mother said with some relief. It would have been hard for Mother to send John off to a monthly meeting of a club she considered only just on the good side of obscenity.

“Yes. Well, Jane and I were friends through the club, and she never married, so when she died, she left me-her estate.”

“Her estate,” my mother repeated. Her voice was beginning to get a decided edge. “And just what, if you don’t mind my asking, does that estate consist of?”

I could tell her or I could stonewall her. If I didn’t tell her, she’d just pull strings until she found out, and she had a bunch of strings to pull.

“This Jane Engle was the daughter of Mrs. John Elgar Engle,” I said.

“The Mrs. Engle who lived in that gorgeous mansion on Ridgemont? The one that sold for eight hundred and fifty thousand because it needed renovation?”

Trust Mother to know her real estate.

“Yes, Jane was the daughter of that Mrs. Engle.”

“There was a son, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, but he died.”

“That was only ten or fifteen years ago. She couldn’t have spent all that money, living here.” Mother had sized up the house instantly.

“I think this house was almost paid for when old Mrs. Engle died,” I said.

“So you got this house,” Mother said, “and…?”

“And five hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” I said baldly. “Thereabouts. And some jewelry.”

Mother’s mouth dropped open. It was the first time in my life I think I’d ever astonished my mother. She’s not a money-grubbing person, but she has a great respect for cash and property, and it is the way she measures her own success as a professional. She sat down rather abruptly on the couch and automatically crossed her elegant legs in their designer sportswear. She will go so far as to wear slacks on vacation, to pool parties, and on days she doesn’t work; she would rather be mugged than wear shorts.

“And of course I now have the cat and her kittens,” I continued maliciously.

“The cat,” Mother repeated in a dazed way.

Just then the feline in question made her appearance, followed by a chorus of forlorn mews from the kittens in Jane’s closet. Mother uncrossed her legs and leaned forward to look at Madeleine as if she had never seen a cat before. Madeleine walked right up to Mother’s feet, stared up at her for a moment, then leaped onto the couch in one flowing motion and curled up on Mother’s lap. Mother was so horrified she didn’t move.

“This,” she said, “is a cat you inherited?”

I explained about Parnell Engle, and Madeleine’s odyssey to have her kittens in “her” house.

Mother neither touched Madeleine nor heaved her legs to remove her.

“What breed is she?” Mother asked stiffly.

“She’s a mutt cat,” I said, surprised. Then I realized Mother was evaluating the cat. Or valuing her. “Want me to move her?”

“Please,” my mother said, still in that stiff voice.

Finally I understood. My mother was scared of the cat. In fact, she was terrified. But, being Mother, she would never admit it. That was why we’d never had cats when I was growing up. All her arguments about animal hair on everything, having to empty a litter tray, were just so much smoke screen.

“Are you scared of dogs, too?” I asked, fascinated. I carefully scooped Madeleine off Mother’s lap, and scratched her behind the ears as I held her. She obviously preferred Mother’s lap, but put up with me a few seconds, then indicated she wanted down. She padded into the kitchen to use her litter box, followed by Mother’s horrified gaze. I pushed my glasses up on my nose so I could have a clear view of this unprecedented sight.

“Yes,” Mother admitted. Then she took her eyes off Madeleine and saw my face. Her guard snapped up immediately. “I’ve just never cared for pets. For God’s sake, go get yourself some contact lenses so you’ll stop fiddling with those glasses,” she said very firmly. “So. Now you have a lot of money?”

“Yes,” I admitted, still enthralled by my new knowledge of my mother.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t made any plans yet. Of course, the estate has to go through probate, but that shouldn’t take too long, Bubba Sewell says.”

“He’s the lawyer who’s handling the estate?”

“Yes, he’s the executor.”

“He’s sharp.”

“Yes, I know.”

“He’s ambitious.”

“He’s running for office.”

“Then he’ll do everything right. Running for office has become just like running under a microscope.”

“He asked me out, but I turned him down.”

“Good idea,” my mother said, to my surprise. “It’s never wise to have a social relationship mixed up with money transactions or financial arrangements.”

I wondered what she would say about a social relationship mixed up with religion.

“So you had a good time?” I asked.

“Yes, we did. But John came down with something like the flu, so we had to come home. He’s over the worst, and I expect he’ll be out and about tomorrow.”

“He didn’t want to stay there until he got over it?” I couldn’t imagine traveling with the flu.

“I suggested it, but he said when he was sick, he didn’t want to be in a resort where everyone else was having fun, he wanted to be home in his own bed. He was quite stubborn about it. But, up until that time, we really had a great honeymoon.” Mother’s face looked almost soft as she said that, and it was borne in on me for the first time that my mother was in love, maybe not in as gooey a way as Amina, but she was definitely feeling the big rush.

It occurred to me that John had come back to Lawrenceton and gotten in Mother’s bed, not his own. “Has John sold his house yet?” I asked.

“One of his sons wanted it,” Mother said in as noncommittal a voice as she could manage. “Avery, the one that’s expecting the baby. It’s a big old house, as you know.”

“How did John David feel about that? Not that it’s any of my business.” John David was John’s second son.

“I wouldn’t have presumed to advise John about his family business,” Mother began answering indirectly, “because John and I signed a prenuptial agreement about our financial affairs.”

This was news to me, and I felt a distinct wave of relief. I’d never considered it before, but all the complications that could arise when both parties had grown children suddenly occurred to me. I’d only thought of what Mother might leave when she died, this very day. I should have known, as property conscious as she was, she would have taken care of everything.