A Bone To Pick

was canned stuff and unopened packages. I ended up with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. I stuck the spoon in the jar and stood at the counter licking the peanut butter off.

Murderers needed to be exposed, truth needed to see the light of day. Et cetera. Then I had another thought: whoever had broken into this house, searching for the skull, had been the murderer.

I shivered. Not nice to think.

And even now, that little thought trickled onward, that murderer was wondering if I’d found the skull yet, what I’d do with it.

“This is bad,” I muttered. “Really, really bad.”

That was constructive thinking.

Start at ground zero.

Okay. Jane had seen a murder, or maybe someone burying a body. For her to get the skull, she had to know the body was there, right? Jane literally knew where the bodies were buried. I actually caught myself smiling at my little joke.

Why would she not tell the police immediately?

No answer.

Why would she take the skull?

No answer.

Why would anyone pick Jane’s demise as the time to look for the skull, when she’d obviously had it for years?

Possible answer: the murderer did not know for sure that Jane was the person who had the skull.

I imagined someone who had committed a terrible crime in the throes of who knew what passion or pressure. After hiding the body somewhere, suddenly this murderer finds that the skull is gone, the skull with its telltale hole, the skull with its identifiable teeth. Someone has taken the trouble to dig it up and take it away and the killer doesn’t know who.

How horrible. I could almost pity the murderer. What fear, what terror, what dreadful uncertainty.

I shook myself. I should be feeling sorry for The Skull, as I thought of it.

Where could Jane have seen a murder?

Her own backyard. She had had to know where the body was buried exactly; she had had to have leisure to dig without interruption or discovery, presumably; she could not have carted a skull any distance. My reasoning of a few days before was still valid, whether or not Jane was the murderer. The murder had happened on this street, in one of, these houses, somewhere where Jane could see it.

So I went out in the backyard and looked.

I found myself staring at the two cement benches flanking the birdbath. Jane had been fond of sitting there in the evenings, I recalled her saying. Sometimes the birds had perched on the bath while she sat there, she could sit so still, she had told me proudly. I did wonder if Madeleine had been outside with Jane enjoying this, and dismissed the thought as unworthy. Jane had been many things- I seemed to be finding more and more things she’d been every day-but she hadn’t been an out-and-out sadist.

I sat on one of the cement benches with my back to Carey Osland’s house. I could see almost all the Rideouts’ sun deck clearly, of course: no Marcia in red there today. I could see their old garden plot and some clear lawn. The very rear of their yard was obscured by the bushes in my own yard. Beyond the Rideouts’ I could discern one little section of Macon Turner’s, which had lots of large bushes and rather high grass. I would have to come out here at night, I thought, to find if I could see through the windows of any of these houses.

It was hot, and I was full of roast beef and peanut butter. I slid into a trance, mentally moving people around their backyards, in various murderous postures.

“What you doing?” asked a voice behind me curiously.

I gasped and jumped.

A little girl stood behind me. She was maybe seven or eight or even a little older, and she was wearing shorts and a pink T-shirt. She had chin-length, wavy, dark hair and big dark eyes and glasses.

“I’m sitting,” I said tensely. “What are you doing?”

“My mom sent me over to ask you if you could come drink some coffee with her.”

“Who’s your mom?”

Now that was funny, someone not knowing who her mom was.

“Carey Osland.” She giggled. “In that house right there,” she pointed, obviously believing she was dealing with a mentally deficient person.

The Osland backyard was almost bare of bushes or any concealment at all. There was a swing set and a sandbox; I could see the street to the other side of the house easily.

This was the child who had needed diapers the night her father left the house and never returned.

“Yes, I’ll come,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Linda. Well, come on.”

So I followed Linda Osland over to her mother’s house, wondering what Carey had to say.

Carey, I decided after a while, had just been being hospitable.

She’d gone the afternoon before to pick up Linda from camp, had spent Sunday morning washing Linda’s shorts and shirts, which had been indescribably filthy, had listened to all Linda’s camp stories, and now was ready for some adult companionship. Macon, she told me, was out playing golf at the country club. She said it like she had a right to know his whereabouts at all times and like other people should realize that. So, if their relationship had had its clandestine moments, it was moving out into the open. I noticed that she didn’t say anything about their getting married, and didn’t hint that was in the future.

Maybe they were happy just like they were.

It would be a great thing, not to want to get married. I sighed, I hoped imperceptibly, and asked Carey about Jane.

“I feel myself wanting to get to know her better now,” I said, with a what-can-you-do? shrug.

“Well, Jane was a different kettle of fish,” Carey said, with a lift of her dark brows.

“She was an old meanie,” Linda said suddenly. She’d been sitting at the table cutting out paper doll clothes.

“Linda,” her mother admonished, without any real scolding in her voice.

“Well, remember, Mama, how mad she got at Burger King!”

I tried to look politely baffled.

Carey’s pretty, round face looked a little peeved for just a second. “More coffee?” she asked.

“Yes, thanks,” I said, to gain more time before I had to go.

Carey poured and showed no sign of explaining Linda’s little remark.

“Jane was a difficult neighbor?” I asked tentatively.

“Oh.” Carey sighed with pursed lips. “I wish Linda hadn’t brought that up. Honey, you got to learn to forget unpleasant things and old fights, it doesn’t pay to remember stuff like that.”

Linda nodded obediently and went back to her scissors.

“Burger King was our dog; Linda named him of course,” Carey explained reluctantly. “We didn’t keep him on a leash, I know we should have, and of course our backyard isn’t fenced in…”

I nodded encouragingly.

“Naturally, he eventually got run over, I’m ashamed of us even having an outside dog without having a fence,” Carey confessed, shaking her head at her own negligence. “But Linda did want a pet, and she’s allergic to cats.”

“I sneeze and my eyes get red,” Linda explained.

“Yes, honey. Of course, we had the dog when Jane had just gotten her cat, and of course Burger King chased Madeleine every time Jane let her out, which wasn’t too often, but every now and then…” Carey lost her thread.

“The dog treed the cat?” I suggested helpfully.

“Oh yes, and barked and barked,” Carey said ruefully. “It was a mess. And Jane got so mad about it.”

“She said she would call the pound,” Linda chimed in. “Because there’s a leash law and we were breaking