The Skeleton Stuffs a Stocking

by Leigh Perry

  She looked at us as if to make sure we understood the difference, so I nodded. Charles was still gripping his soda.

  After another bite of rice, she went on. “Annabelle had the day off, and when Sebastian heard that the police were going to be waiting for her the next morning, he wanted to call her so she would know. I told him to stay out of it, that if anybody found out, he could be fired.” She made a face. “But he had a big heart.”

  “Then he did call her?”

  She nodded. “That is when I decided she was a thief. Why would an innocent person run from police the way she did?”

  “I can think of a lot of reasons.”

  “I know the police and the courts get things wrong, but I also know guilty people run, which makes innocent people who run look guilty. Annabelle was either guilty or even more of a fool.”

  I slid the can away from Charles before he completely crushed it.

  “I told this to Sebastian, and this time he agreed,” Mrs. Silva said. “A year later, he died.” Before I could express my condolences, she said, “That was nothing to do with Annabelle. I’m only telling you because of something that happened before he died. A student found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her, and after she broke up with him she told the provost that it was her ex-boyfriend who stole those things and put them in Annabelle’s locker.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Nothing. He’s rich and white. His father sent him to another college and Bostock got expensive new computers, and maybe the father paid the girl off, too. Nothing more was said. I only know because the girl cried on Sebastian’s shoulder, and it was he who told her to go to the provost. I said it would make no difference, but he said it would. I was right, and he was wrong.” She shrugged. “Of course, he was right about Annabelle when I was wrong. He wanted to find her so she could come back to her job because she may have been a—”

  “Do not call her a fool again,” Charles said through gritted teeth.

  Mrs. Silva regarded him and relented. “Whatever else she may have been, she was not guilty of those thefts. Only my husband didn’t know how to find her, and not long after that he had a heart attack and died. He would have wanted Annabelle to know what happened, so if you know where she is, please tell her.”

  I looked at Charles, and from the expression on his face it was obvious that he wasn’t willing to share any information with Mrs. Silva. I asked, “Do you remember the name of the student who was the real thief? Or the students who accused Annabelle of stealing?”

  Despite my having several inches on her, she managed to look down her nose at me. “I don’t make friends with the students. No good ever comes of it.”

  I doubted that Lauri Biegler would agree with her, but I saw no reason to argue. I didn’t think it would be worthwhile to ask more questions, either, and when I looked at Charles again, I decided it was past time to get him out of there. I stood and said, “Thank you for talking to us.”

  Charles rose, too, but didn’t say a word before walking out of the room. I was going, too, but noticed that Mrs. Silva was glaring at the soda cans we’d left on the table. I picked them up and tossed them in the recycle bin before going after Charles. I found him outside with his coat unbuttoned, staring at nothing.

  “Charles?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Charles?”

  Silence.

  I waited another five minutes, getting colder and colder, when finally I quoted, “‘The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.’”

  He gave the hint of a smile. “Shakespeare?”

  “George R.R. Martin, but it’s still a good line.”

  “It is indeed.” He took a deep breath and finally seemed to realize how frigid it was because he buttoned his coat and pulled his gloves out of his pockets. “I’m so sorry, Georgia. Here I am making you stay out in this weather.”

  “It’s okay. I wanted to slug that woman, too.”

  “I hope that the information we gleaned will help you.”

  “I think it will. I just need to let it percolate a little.” In other words, I needed to talk it over with Sid. “I’m starved. Want to get some lunch?”

  “That would be lovely, but would you mind if we left campus? I find myself wanting to be almost anywhere else.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

  We found a shuttle back to the parking deck and retrieved our cars to make the drive into town. The food trucks were still there, and this time I resisted the impulse to look and see if Brownie was around.

  We met up at Jasper’s, a diner that has terrific vegetable soup, which was what I needed to warm myself up. Since Charles didn’t bring up Annabelle, I followed his lead and we talked a little about the strike, a little about history, and a lot about the weather. He left afterward to teach an afternoon class, and I went back home.

  I was feeling time pressure on this case in a way I hadn’t before. Digging up memories was too hard on Charles to let it go on much longer.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Though Sid really did enjoy the kind of tedious task he’d dived into the night before, as soon as I saw him I knew he was tired of it all. It wasn’t just the looseness of his bones, though that was a red flag. It was the fact that he was slumped over his couch, rather than at his computer, and that he wasn’t tapping his bony foot to the song that was playing. I’d never known him to resist the musical allure of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” though he sometimes substitutes his own lyrics.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m stuck, Georgia,” he said mournfully. “You know those neighborhood canvassing montage scenes they put in cop shows?”

  “The what now?”

  “You know, when they have to canvass the neighborhood, and they want to show cops pounding the pavement for hours to make it seem more realistic, only hours of pavement pounding wouldn’t fit into an episode and it would be wicked boring? So they do ten-second snippets of the cops talking to an old guy, a mother with kids, a mail carrier, and a kid on a skateboard before finally getting around to the nosy neighbor who saw everything. Then there’s a nice long scene of them talking to that neighbor.”

  “That does sound familiar, now that you mention it.”

  “That’s what my day was like. I Googled the heck out of all the people from the Nichols house cleanup project. The cheap lawyer who runs bad TV ads on late-night local TV, the hardworking chairman of development having to drum up college donations and deal with odd bequests, his harder-working administrative assistant with two kids and a mortgage, the hoarder helpers who heroically work in the most disgusting situations imaginable, and so on.”

  “What about the nosy neighbor?”

  “That’s the problem. I never found a nosy neighbor.” He sighed heavily.

  “You haven’t been able to eliminate anybody else?”

  “I tried, and I thought for sure I had one to mark off the list. Jetta Silva—one of the custodians—didn’t have a driver’s license, and since the first attempt on Annabelle was with a car, I thought that let her out. Unfortunately, she was married to Sebastian Silva—another custodian—so I had to allow for the possibility that the happy couple were co-killers. Sebastian died several years ago, but Jetta still works at Bostock.”

  “She certainly does, and she is a piece of work.” I told him about my interview with Mrs. Silva.

  Sid said, “What if she was jealous? She could’ve framed and then killed Annabelle because she and Sebastian were having an affair.”

  “If I even suggested such a thing to Charles, he would never speak to me again.”

  “Okay, maybe Sebastian wanted to have an affair with Annabelle, and Mrs. Silva went for the preemptive strike. A crime of passion!”

  I was going to point out that Mrs. Silva gave no impression of having enough passion to drive her to murder, but two things stopped me. One, I could be wrong
. Two, Sid’s bones had snapped together, and he was humming with the music. I didn’t have the heart to take away his best suspect. Instead I said, “We’ll keep both Silvas on the list, but tonight is all about music.”

  “I could go for a dance party.” He jumped up and started rattling around more or less in time with “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

  “Maybe later. I was talking about Madison’s concert.”

  “Is that tonight?” He perked up even more. “I’d lost track because of the case. Is it time to leave? We need to go early to get good seats.”

  He packed his away team of skull and hand into the sugar skull bag, and his headless, one-armed skeleton handed it to me. “I’m ready!”

  Though Madison had been in chorus for years and that usually meant a holiday concert, last year’s had been snowed out, meaning that this one was going to be Sid’s first time in attendance. He was outrageously excited about it.

  I said, “I’ve got to warn you, you might not be able to see well from the bag. I can’t really hold it up because it’ll block the view for other people.”

  “That’s okay,” Sid said. “I’ll be able to listen, and somebody’s going to video it, right?”

  “Phil has his phone all charged up.”

  “Then let’s go!”

  With Sid rushing us, we were at school extra early. I took Madison backstage to join the rest of the performers and left Mom in charge of finding seats in the auditorium. She has a way of weaving through crowds politely, yet swiftly, and snagged front-row seats for me, Phil, Deborah, and herself. Deborah’s job was to defend those seats against any interlopers.

  I’d always said that I wouldn’t be one of those parents who was insanely intent on sitting up front for every performance, but that was before I had a daughter with a penchant for performing. Being in the first row this time meant that not only was Phil going to be able to get great footage but Sid would get a terrific view after all. I could feel the bag vibrating in excitement while we waited for the concert to begin.

  Since it’s a public school, the focus was holiday, not Christmas, so the kids spread nondenominational cheer with “Sleigh Ride,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Winter Wonderland.” For the grand finale, they segued from “Let it Snow,” to the Disney song, “Let it Go,” and when Sid realized Madison had a solo verse, he started jumping up in down in the bag so hard I nearly dropped him. The applause was satisfyingly loud, and nobody noticed the cheers from the bag in my lap.

  After the inevitable reception with cookies, watery punch, and students complimenting other’s performances, we piled into my minivan and drove home. I’d pulled into the driveway and stopped the car before I saw Brownie sitting on the wicker loveseat on the front porch chatting with Andrew, Phil’s most ubiquitous grad student.

  “Coccyx,” I said.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Is something wrong?” said Phil, who was riding shotgun.

  “Brownie’s here,” I said.

  I hadn’t told anybody I was mad at Brownie, but either Sid had or I’d been too obvious in ignoring the phone messages he’d left because nobody seemed surprised by my reaction.

  “Ah,” Phil said. “I see he has company. Perhaps I’ll go see what Andrew wants.” He ushered the rest of the family into the house, gathering Andrew along the way, while I continued to sit in the car and Brownie waited.

  Sid said, “If you want me to, I will jump out of this bag, roll over to him, and bite him. Hard. Just say the word.”

  “Interesting suggestion, but no thanks. At least, not yet.”

  I stewed a while longer but finally got out of the car.

  Brownie stood up as I walked toward the porch. “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “I hear you talked to Sue again.”

  “I hear you lied to me.” He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, I said, “Lying by omission still counts as lying.”

  “I don’t disagree. Can I come in to explain?”

  I considered it. On one hand, I was still angry with him. On the other, it was cold that night, and with the wind blowing, it felt even colder than the thermometer claimed. What really decided it was that I wanted to have that conversation without Sid listening in. “Okay, let’s try that.”

  Madison and Deborah were in the living room, Phil and Andrew were in the dining room, and I could hear Mom clattering around in the kitchen. Since I wasn’t going to take Brownie to my bedroom, that limited my options. “Phil, can I borrow the office for a little while?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “Hello, Brownie.”

  “Hello, Dr. Thackery,” he said with a polite nod as we took off our winter gear and left them on the coatrack. I left Sid’s bag on the table in the hall since I wasn’t planning on having him bite anyone.

  My parents’ office was a good-sized room, but with two desks with accompanying chairs, stuffed bookcases, and a loveseat, that didn’t leave a lot of room to move around. Brownie sat on the loveseat, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be that close to him, so I rolled over Mom’s chair instead. Then I waited. I wasn’t going to make it easy on him.

  He cleared his throat nervously. “I didn’t want to lie to you, Georgia, not even by omission, but by the time I found out how my parents and Sue had decided to spin things, they were all set on it. I mean, have you ever tried to change my mother’s mind once it’s made up?” He laughed weakly.

  I said nothing.

  “I told Sue she should tell you everything, but she has trust issues.”

  “Being lied to does tend to give one trust issues,” I said. “I’m having some of my own right now.”

  “I know. It’s just that carnies have this whole insider/outsider thing and—” He stopped and sat up straight. “No, forget that. Forget everything I’ve said so far. The fact is I screwed up. I knew it was the wrong way to go, and I should have told you everything my parents told me, but I let myself get talked into it. I’m sorry, Georgia, I really am.”

  A part of me was still mad, but that part was shrinking rapidly. Brownie sure did know how to apologize. Besides, it was hard to fault a man for being close enough to his parents to follow their lead. Then there was my own guilt. I hadn’t lied to Brownie about Sid—it wasn’t as if he asked if I had an ambulatory skeleton living in my attic—but it was still a big secret to keep from him.

  I was taking so long to answer that Brownie tried again. “If there is any way I can make it up to you, I will. I’ll help you investigate Annabelle’s murder, or not, if you don’t trust me to. I want to make this right.”

  The mad part was pretty much gone by that point, but I didn’t think I should entirely let him off the hook. “Tell me this. Do you know anything else about Sue or Annabelle that nobody’s told me?”

  “I don’t think so, but I will be happy to tell you everything I do know.”

  “Over dinner?”

  “Tonight?” he said hopefully.

  “If you don’t have other plans.”

  “May I treat you, as part of the apology?”

  “Food has always been an important part of apologies, but I warn you, I’m very hungry. Dessert may be required.”

  “That’s a small price to pay.”

  We didn’t kiss, though I suspect we both wanted to, because there was a knock on the door before my father opened it.

  “Brownie, would you care to join us for dinner?”

  “No, thank you,” Brownie said. “As a matter of fact, I’ll be taking Georgia out to eat.”

  “Another time, then.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Before he retreated, Phil gave me a look with both eyebrows raised, which is generally a sign of his approval.

  I said, “Just let me tell Madison I’m going out.”

  “Would you like to bring her along?” Brownie asked. “Also as my treat?”

  “Coccyx, you really do know how to apologize.”

  “
That, and I like spending time with Madison.”

  “Me, too, but not this time.”

  He grinned.

  I went upstairs, stopping to grab the sugar skull bag.

  “Do you want to go to the attic?” I said to Sid as we climbed.

  Instead of a proper response, all I heard was exaggerated smooching sounds. I have no idea how Sid does that without lips, but then again, I don’t know how he does most of what he does.

  “Wow, that is so mature,” I said.

  More smooching sounds.

  “Or I could leave you downstairs in the hall, in the bag, knowing that Andrew is around, and you’ll be stuck in there for most of the night.”

  The smooches stopped. “Attic, please.”

  “All right.” I stopped in Madison’s room and explained my change in plans, which meant I had to hear two sets of smooching sounds. “Did you two coordinate this?”

  Madison said, “Great minds think alike, Mom.”

  “Thinking? Is that what kids are calling it now? When you two are finished with the sound effects, would you take Sid to his attic? I need to switch pocketbooks before I go.”

  “You’re going to change clothes, too, aren’t you?” Madison said.

  “Brownie has already seen me in this outfit.”

  “Which means he’ll appreciate an upgrade that much more.”

  I looked in the mirror, and since I was wearing an Overfeld College sweatshirt and scruffy jeans, I said, “Fine.”

  Madison, being the helpful daughter that she is, made sure the jeans I picked were appropriately snug and that the red sweater I switched into was appropriately low-cut. She also covered Sid’s eyes while I changed. Then the two of them conferred and decided I could limit my jewelry to shiny gold earrings as long as I put on lipstick that matched the sweater. Madison also transferred everything but the subset of Sid and his phone to a smaller purse for me.

  Once they were satisfied, I kissed Madison’s cheek and the top of Sid’s skull, leaving as perfect a pair of lip prints as I could.