Charlaine Harris - A Bone To Pick

“He’s dating Lizanne?” I said in some surprise. “I haven’t seen her in quite a while. I’ve been mailing in my bill instead of taking it by, like I used to.”

Lizanne was the receptionist at the utility company. Lizanne was beautiful and agreeable, slow-witted but sure, like honey making its inexorable progress across a buttered pancake. Her parents had died the year before, and for a while that had put a crease across the perfect forehead and tear marks down the magnolia white cheeks, but gradually Lizanne’s precious routine had encompassed this terrible change in her life and she had willed herself to forget the awfulness of it. She had sold her parents’ house, bought herself one just like it with the proceeds, and resumed breaking hearts.

Bubba Sewell must have been an optimist and a man who worshiped beauty to date the notoriously untouchable Lizanne. I wouldn’t have thought it of him.

“So maybe he and Lizanne have broken up, he wants to take you out?” Lillian always got back on the track eventually.

“No, I’m going out with Aubrey Scott tonight,” I said, having thought of this evasion during her recital of Bubba Sewell’s marital woes. “The Episcopal priest. We met at my mother’s wedding.”

It worked, and Lillian’s high pleasure at knowing this exclusive fact put her in a good humor the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t realize how many Episcopalians there were in Lawrenceton until I went out with their priest.

Waiting in line for the movies I met at least five members of Aubrey’s congregation. I tried to radiate respectability and wholesomeness, and kept wishing my wavy bunch of hair had been more cooperative when I’d tried to tame it before he picked me up. It flew in a warm cloud around my head, and for the hundredth time I thought of having it all cut off. At least my navy slacks and bright yellow shirt were neat and new, and my plain gold chain and earrings were good but-plain. Aubrey was in mufti, which definitely helped me to relax. He was disconcertingly attractive in his jeans and shirt; I had some definitely secular thoughts.

The movie we picked was a comedy, and we laughed at the same places, which was heartening. Our compatibility extended through dinner, where a mention of my mother’s wedding prompted some reminiscences from Aubrey about weddings that had gone disastrously wrong. “And the flower girl threw up at my own wedding,” he concluded.

“You’ve been married?” I said brilliantly. But he’d brought it up on purpose, of course, so I was doing the right thing.

“I’m a widower. She died three years ago of cancer,” he said simply.

I looked at my plate real hard.

“I haven’t dated too much since then,” he went on. “I feel like I’m pretty-inept at it.”

“You’re doing fine so far,” I told him.

He smiled, and it was a very attractive smile.

“From what the teenagers in my congregation tell me, dating’s changed a lot in the last twenty years, since last I went out on a date. I don’t want- I just want to clear the air. You seem a little nervous from time to time about being out with a minister.”

“Well-yes.”

“Okay. I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be perfect. Everyone has attitudes and opinions that are not exactly toeing the line spiritually; we’re all trying, and it’ll take our whole lives to get there. That’s what I believe. I also don’t believe in premarital sex; I’m waiting for something to change my mind on that issue, but so far it hasn’t happened. Did you want to know any of that?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. That’s just about exactly what I did want to know.” What surprised me was the amount of relief I felt at the certainty that Aubrey would not try to get me to go to bed with him. Most dates I’d had in the past ten years, I’d spent half the time worried about what would happen when the guy took me home. Especially now, after my passionate involvement with Arthur, it was a load off my mind that Aubrey wouldn’t expect me to make a decision about whether or not to go to bed with him. I brightened up and really began to enjoy myself. He didn’t discuss his wife again, and I knew I would not introduce the subject.

Aubrey’s ban on premarital sex did not include a ban on premarital kissing, I discovered when he walked me to my back door.

“Maybe we can go out again?”

“Give me a call,” I said with a smile.

“Thanks for this evening.”

“Thank you.”

We parted with mutual goodwill, and as I scrubbed my face and pulled on my nightgown the next day didn’t seem so daunting. I wasn’t scheduled to work at the library, so I could work at Jane’s house. My house. I couldn’t get used to the ownership.

But thinking of the house led to worrying about the break-in, about the holes in the backyard I hadn’t yet seen, about the object of this strange search. It must be an object too big to be in the safe deposit box Bubba Sewell had mentioned; besides, he had told me there was nothing much in the box, implying he had seen the contents already.

I drifted off to sleep thinking, Something that couldn’t be divided, something that couldn’t be flattened…

When I woke up in the morning I knew where that something must be hidden.

I felt like I was on a secret mission. After I scrambled into some jeans and a T-shirt and ate some toast, I checked the sketchy contents of my tool drawer. I wasn’t sure what I would need. Probably Jane had these same basic things, but I didn’t feel like rummaging around until I found them. I ended up with a claw hammer and two screwdrivers, and after a little thought I added a broad-bladed putty knife. I managed to stuff all these in my purse except the hammer, and finally I managed that; but the haft stuck up from the drawstringed gather. That wouldn’t be too obvious, I told myself. I brushed my teeth hastily but didn’t bother with makeup, so before eight o’clock I was pulling into the driveway on Honor.

I brought the car right up into the carport and entered through the kitchen door. The house was silent and stuffy. I found the thermostat in the little hall and pushed the switch to “cool.” The central air hummed into life. I glanced through the rooms hastily; nothing seemed to have been disturbed during the night. I was sweating a little, and my hair kept sticking to my face, so I did track down a rubber band and pull it all back on my neck. I blew out a deep breath, braced my shoulders, and marched into the living room. I raised the blinds around the window seat to get as much light as possible, took out my tools, and began.

Whatever it was, it was in the window seat.

Jane had had it carpeted over, so no one would think of it as a container, but only as a feature of the room, a nice place to put a plant or some pretty pillows or a flower arrangement. The installer had done a good job, and I had a hell of a time prizing up the carpet. I saw Torrance Rideout pull out of his driveway, glance at the house, and drive away to work. A pretty, plump woman walked a fat dachshund down to the end of the street and back, letting the dog perform on my yard, I noticed indignantly. I recognized her, after I thought of it awhile, as I pried and pulled at the rose-colored carpet with its little blue figure. She was Carey Osland, once married to Bubba Sewell, once married to Mike Osland, the man who had decamped in such a spectacularly callous way. Carey Osland must live in the corner house with the big climbing roses by the front porch.

I plugged away, trying not to speculate about what was in the window seat, and finally I loosened enough carpet to grab an edge with both hands and yank.

The bay window really did contain a window seat with a hinged lid. I had been right. So why didn’t I feel triumphant?