(2T) A Bone to Pick Read online

  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  was the only white person who ever looked at me like she couldn’t tell what color I am.” Which effectively shut me up.

  I realized that I hadn’t known Jane as well as I thought I had. For the first time, I really felt I would miss her.

  I thought of her little, neat house, crammed with her mother’s furniture and Jane’s own books. I remem- bered Jane had liked cats, and I wondered if anyone had taken over the care of her gold tabby, Madeleine. (The cat had been named for the nineteenth-century Scottish poisoner Madeleine Smith, a favorite murderer of Jane’s. Maybe Jane had been more “colorful” than I’d realized. Not many little old ladies I knew had fa- vorite murderers. Maybe I was “colorful,” too.) As I walked slowly to my car, leaving Jane Engle forever in Shady Rest Cemetery—I thought—I heard someone calling my name behind me.

  “Miss Teagarden!” panted the man who was hur- rying to catch up. I waited, wondering what on earth he could want. His round, red face topped by thin- ning light brown hair was familiar, but I couldn’t re- call his name.

  “Bubba Sewell,” he introduced himself, giving my hand a quick shake. He had the thickest southern ~ 10 ~

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  accent I’d heard in a long time. “I was Miss Engle’s lawyer. You are Aurora Teagarden, right?” “Yes, excuse me,” I said. “I was just so surprised.” I remembered now that I’d seen Bubba Sewell at the hospital during Jane’s last illness.

  “Well, it’s fortunate you came today,” Bubba Sewell said. He’d caught his breath, and I saw him now as he undoubtedly wanted to present himself: an expensively suited, sophisticated but down-home man in the know. A college-educated good ole boy. His small brown eyes watched me sharply and curiously. “Miss Engle had a clause in her will that is significant to you,” he said significantly.

  “Oh?” I could feel my heels sinking into the soft turf and wondered if I’d have to step out of my shoes and pull them up by hand. It was warm enough for my face to feel damp; of course, my glasses began to slide down my nose. I poked them back up with my forefinger. “Maybe you have a minute now to come by my office and talk about it?”

  I glanced automatically at my watch. “Yes, I have time,” I said judiciously after a moment’s pause. This was pure bluff, so Mr. Sewell wouldn’t think I was a woman with nothing to do.

  Actually, I very nearly was. A cutback in funding ~ 11 ~

  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  meant that, for the library to stay open the same num- ber of hours, some staff had to go part-time. I hoped it was because I was the most recently hired that the first one to feel the ax was me. I was only working eighteen to twenty hours a week now. If I hadn’t been living rent free and receiving a small salary as resident manager of one of Mother’s apartment buildings (ac- tually a row of four town houses), my situation would have been bleak in the extreme.

  Mr. Sewell gave me such elaborate directions to his office that I couldn’t have gotten lost if I’d tried, and he furthermore insisted I follow him there. The whole way he gave turn signals so far in advance that I al- most made the wrong left once. In addition he would wave and point into his rearview mirror, waiting to see me nod every time in acknowledgment. Since I’d lived in Lawrenceton my whole life, this was unneces- sary and intensely irritating. Only my curiosity about what he was going to tell me kept me from ramming his rear, and then apologizing picturesquely with tears and a handkerchief.

  “Wasn’t too hard to find, was it!” he said encour- agingly when I got out of my car in the parking lot of the Jasper Building, one of the oldest office buildings in our town and a familiar landmark to me from childhood.

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  “No,” I said briefly, not trusting myself to speak further.

  “I’m up on the third floor,” Lawyer Sewell an- nounced, I guess in case I got lost between the park- ing lot and the front door. I bit the inside of my lip and boarded the elevator in silence, while Sewell kept up a patter of small talk about the attendance at the fu- neral, how Jane’s loss would affect many, many peo- ple, the weather, and why he liked having an office in the Jasper Building (atmosphere . . . much better than one of those prefabricated buildings).

  By the time he opened his office door, I was won- dering how sharp-tongued Jane could have endured Bubba Sewell. When I saw that he had three employ- ees in his smallish office, I realized he must be more intelligent than he seemed, and there were other un- mistakable signs of prosperity—knickknacks from the Sharper Image catalog, superior prints on the walls and leather upholstery on the chairs, and so on. I looked around Sewell’s office while he gave some rapid instructions to the well-dressed red-haired sec- retary who was his first line of defense. She didn’t seem like a fool, and she treated him with a kind of friendly respect.

  “Well, well, now, let’s see about you, Miss Teagar- den,” the lawyer said jovially when we were alone. ~ 13 ~

  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  “Where’s that file? Gosh-a-Moses, it’s somewhere in this mess here!”

  Much rummaging among the papers on his desk. By now I was not deceived. Bubba Sewell for some reason found this Lord Peter Wimsey–like pretense of foolishness useful, but he was not foolish, not a bit. “Here we are, it was right there all the time!” He flourished the file as though its existence had been in doubt.

  I folded my hands in my lap and tried not to sigh obviously. I might have lots of time, but that didn’t mean I wanted to spend it as an unwilling audience to a one-man performance.

  “Hoo-wee, I’m sure glad you managed to turn it up,” I said.

  Bubba Sewell’s hands stilled, and he shot me an ex- tremely sharp look from under his bushy eyebrows. “Miss Teagarden,” he said, dropping his previous good-ole-boy manner completely, “Miss Engle left you everything.”

  Those are certainly some of the most thrilling words in the English language, but I wasn’t going to let my jaw hit the floor. My hands, which had been ~ 14 ~

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  clasped loosely in my lap, gripped convulsively for a minute, and I let out a long, silent breath. “What’s everything?” I asked.

  Bubba Sewell told me that everything was Jane’s house, its contents, and most of her bank account. She’d left her car and five thousand dollars to her cousin Parnell and his wife, Leah, on condition they took Madeleine the cat to live with them. I was relieved. I had never had a pet, and wouldn’t have known what to do with the creature.

  I had no idea what I should be saying or doing. I was so stunned I couldn’t think what would be most seemly. I had done my mild grieving for Jane when I’d heard she’d gone, and at the graveside. I could tell that in a few minutes I was going to feel raw jubila- tion, since money problems had been troubling me. But at the moment mostly I was stunned. “Why on earth did she do this?” I asked Bubba Sewell. “Do you know?”

  “When she came in to make her will, last year when there was all that trouble with the club you two were in, she said that this was the best way she knew to make sure someone never forgot her. She didn’t want her name up on a building somewhere. She wasn’t a”—the lawyer searched for the right words—“philanthropist. ~ 15 ~

  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  Not a public person. She wanted to leave her money to an individual, not a cause, and I don’t think she ever got along well with Parnell and Leah—do you know them?”

  As a matter of fact, I am something rare in the South—a church hopper. I had met Jane’s cousin and his wife at one of the churches I attended, I couldn’t remember which one, though I thought it was one of Lawrenceton’s more fundamentalist houses of wor- ship. When they’d introduced themselves I’d asked if they were related to Jane, and Parnell had admitted he was a cousin, though with no great warmth. Leah had stared at me and said perhaps three words during the whole conversation.

  “I’ve met them,” I told Sewell.

  “They’re old and they haven’t had any c
hildren,” Sewell told me. “Jane felt they wouldn’t outlast her long and would probably leave all her money to their church, which she didn’t want. So she thought and thought and settled on you.”

  I thought and thought myself for a little bit. I looked up to find the lawyer eyeing me with specula- tion and some slight, impersonal disapproval. I fig- ured he thought Jane should have left her money to cancer research or the SPCA or the orphanage. “How much is in the account?” I asked briskly. ~ 16 ~

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  “Oh, in the checking account, maybe three thou- sand,” he said. “I have the latest statements in this file. Of course, there are a few bills yet to come from Jane’s last stay in the hospital, but her insurance will pick up most of that.”

  Three thousand! That was nice. I could finish pay- ing for my car, which would help my monthly bill sit- uation a lot.

  “You said ‘checking account,’ ” I said, after I’d thought for a moment. “Is there another account?” “Oh, you bet,” said Sewell, with a return of his former bonhomie. “Yes, ma’am! Miss Jane had a sav- ings account she hardly ever touched. I tried a couple of times to interest her in investing it or at least buy- ing a CD or a bond, but she said no, she liked her cash in her bank.” Sewell shook his receding hairline several times over this and tilted back in his chair. I had a vicious moment of hoping it would go all the way over with him in it.

  “Could you please tell me how much is in the sav- ings account?” I asked through teeth that were not quite clenched.

  Bubba Sewell lit up. I had finally asked the right question. He catapulted forward in his chair to a mighty squeal of springs, pounced on the file, and ex- tracted another bank statement.

  ~ 17 ~

  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  “Wel-l-l-l,” he drawled, puffing on the slit envelope and pulling out the paper inside, “as of last month, that account had in it—let’s see—right, about five hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  Maybe this wasn’t the worst year of my life after all.

  ~ 18 ~

  Chapter Two

  A

  Ifloated out of Bubba Sewell’s office, trying not to look as gleeful as I felt. He walked with me to the elevator, looking down at me as if he couldn’t figure me out. Well, it was mutual, but I wasn’t caring right now, no sirree.

  “She inherited it from her mother,” Sewell said. “Most of it. Also, when her mother died, Miss Engle sold her mother’s house, which was very large and brought a great price, and she split the money from that with her brother. Then her brother died and left her his nearly intact share of the house money, plus his estate, which she turned into cash. He was a banker in Atlanta.”

  I had money. I had a lot of money. “I’ll meet you at Jane’s house tomorrow, and we’ll ~ 19 ~

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  have a look around at the contents, and I’ll have a few things for you to sign. Would nine-thirty be conve- nient?”

  I nodded with my lips pressed together so I wouldn’t grin at him.

  “And you know where it is?”

  “Yes,” I breathed, thankful the elevator had come at last and the doors were opening.

  “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Miss Tea- garden,” the lawyer said, setting his black glasses back on his nose and turning away as the doors closed with me inside.

  I thought a scream of joy would echo up the eleva- tor shaft, so I quietly but ecstatically said, “Heehee- heeheehee,” all the way down and did a little jig before the doors opened on the marble lobby. Imanaged to get home to the town house on Parson Road without hitting another car, and pulled into my parking place planning how I could celebrate. The young married couple who’d taken Robin’s town house, to the left of mine, waved back hesi- tantly in answer to my beaming hello. The Cran- dalls’ parking space to the right was empty; they were visiting a married son in another town. The ~ 20 ~

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  woman who’d finally rented Bankston Waite’s town house was at work, as always. There was a strange car parked in the second space allotted to my apart- ment, but since I didn’t see anyone I assumed it was a guest of one of the other tenants who didn’t know how to read.

  I opened my patio gate singing to myself and hop- ping around happily (I am not much of a dancer) and surprised a strange man in black sticking a note to my back door.

  It was a toss-up as to which of us was the more startled.

  It took me a moment of staring to figure out who the man was. I finally recognized him as the Episcopal priest who’d performed Mother’s wedding and Jane Engle’s funeral. I’d talked to him at the wedding re- ception, but not at this morning’s funeral. He was a couple of inches over six feet, probably in his late thir- ties, with dark hair beginning to gray to the color of his eyes, a neat mustache, and a clerical collar. “Miss Teagarden, I was just leaving you a note,” he said, recovering neatly from his surprise at my singing, dancing entrance.

  “Father Scott,” I said firmly, his name popping into my head at the last second. “Good to see you.” “You seem happy today,” he said, showing excellent ~ 21 ~

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  teeth in a cautious smile. Maybe he thought I was drunk.

  “Well, you know I was at Jane’s funeral,” I began, but when his eyebrows flew up I realized I’d started at the wrong end.

  “Please come in, Father, and I’ll tell you why I’m so cheerful when it might seem . . . inappropriate.” “Well, if you have a minute, I’ll come in. Maybe I caught you at a bad time? And please call me Aubrey.”

  “No, this is fine. And call me Aurora. Or Roe, most people just call me Roe.” Actually, I’d wanted a little alone time to get used to the idea of being rich, but telling someone would be fun, too. I tried to re- member how messy the place was. “Please come in, I’ll make some coffee.” And I just laughed. He surely thought I was crazy as a loon, but he had to come in now.

  “I haven’t seen you to talk to since my mother got married,” I babbled, as I twisted my key in the lock and flung open the door into the kitchen and living area. Good, it was quite neat.

  “John’s a wonderful man and a staunch member of the congregation,” he said, having to look down at me quite sharply now that I was close. Why didn’t I ever meet short men? I was doomed to go through life ~ 22 ~

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  with a crick in my neck. “John and your mother are still on their honeymoon?”

  “Yes, they’re having such a good time I wouldn’t be surprised if they stayed longer. My mother hasn’t taken a vacation in at least six years. You know she owns a real estate business.”

  “That’s what John told me,” Aubrey Scott said po- litely. He was still standing right inside the door. “Oh, I forgot my manners! Please come have a seat!” I tossed my purse on the counter and waved at the matching tan suede love seat and chair in the “liv- ing area,” which lay beyond the “kitchen area.” The chair was clearly my special chair, from the brass lamp behind it for reading light to the small table loaded with my current book, a stained coffee mug, and a few magazines. Aubrey Scott wisely chose one end of the love seat.

  “Listen,” I said, perching opposite him on the edge of my chair, “I’ve got to tell you why I’m so giddy today. Normally I’m not like this at all.” Which was true, more’s the pity. “Jane Engle just left me a bunch of money, and, even though it may sound greedy, I’ve got to tell you I’m happy as a clam about it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said sincerely. I have no- ticed that, if there is one thing ministers are good at ~ 23 ~

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  projecting, it is sincerity. “If someone had left me a bunch of money, I’d be dancing, too. I had no idea Jane was a—that Jane had a lot to leave anyone.” “Me either. She never lived like she had money. Let me get you a drink. Coffee? Or maybe a real drink?” I figured I could ask that, him being Episcopal. If he’d been, say, Parnell and Leah Engle’s pastor, that ques- tio
n would have earned me a stiff lecture. “If by real drink you mean one with alcohol, I wouldn’t turn one down. It’s after five o’clock, and conducting a funeral always drains me. What do you have? Any Seagram’s, by any chance?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. What about a seven and seven?”

  “Sounds great.”

  As I mixed the Seagram’s 7 with the 7 Up, added ice, and even produced cocktail napkins and nuts, it finally struck me as odd that the Episcopal priest would come to call. I couldn’t exactly say, “What are you doing here?” but I was curious. Well, he’d get around to it. Most of the preachers in Lawrenceton had had a go at roping me in at one time or another. I am a fairly regular churchgoer, but I seldom go to the same church twice in a row.

  It would have been nice to run upstairs to change from my hot black funeral dress to something less ~ 24 ~

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  formal, but I figured he would run out the back door if I proposed to slip into something comfortable. I did take off my heels, caked with mud from the cemetery, after I sat down.

  “So tell me about your inheritance,” he suggested after an awkward pause.

  I couldn’t recapture my initial excitement, but I could feel a grin turning up my lips as I told him about my friendship with Jane Engle and Bubba Sewell’s ap- proach after the service was over.

  “That’s amazing,” he murmured. “You’ve been blessed.”

  “Yes, I have,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “And you say you weren’t a particular friend of Jane’s?”

  “No. We were friends, but at times a month would go by without our seeing each other. And not think- ing anything about it, either.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve had enough time to plan anything to do with this unexpected legacy.” “No.” And if he suggested some worthy cause, I would really resent it. I just wanted to be in proud ownership of a little house and a big (to me, anyway) fortune, at least for a while.

  “I’m glad for you,” he said, and there was another awkward pause.

  ~ 25 ~

  ~ Charlaine Harris ~

  “Was there anything I could do to help you, did your note say . . . ?” I trailed off. I tried to manage a look of intelligent expectancy.