A Skeleton in the Family (16 page)

O
n Wednesdays, I had a long gap between my morning class and my afternoon stints, which meant I had time to work the adjunct network.

The first step was to check the JTU faculty list. I saw some familiar names, including Charles's, but unfortunately I didn't know anybody in the right departments. Still, I had access to a room full of people who might, so I started making my way around the office.

I started with Kazmi. She was in chemistry, which didn't have anything to do with skeletons, but she knew more of the other adjuncts than I did and gave me the name of somebody else to talk to, who referred me to yet somebody else. Eventually I heard tell of a biologist who'd worked at JTU for two years and, even better, it was thought that she'd cataloged specimens while there. Unfortunately, the biologist in question was Sara.

Since she already didn't like me, I was reluctant to devise a new cover story. Most of mine didn't even fool people who trusted me, let alone somebody like Sara. But I wasn't going to tell her about Sid, either. Instead I was going to try to finesse the situation with a subset of the truth.

Though Sara seemed to be working at her desk, I knew her eagle eyes hadn't missed a step of my information-gathering trek through the room, so I didn't bother to act casual. “Hey, Sara. Have you got a minute?”

“Not really,” she grumbled, but turned my way.

“I hear you worked at JTU for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“I've got a skeleton that might have come from their collection, and I'm trying to figure out the markings it's got on it.”

“And?”

“I thought you might know what they mean.”

“It's been a few years—I don't have their system memorized.”

“Do you know anybody—?”

“I might, but who's got the time to find out? You know how many classes I'm teaching?”

She was teaching five, the same as most of the rest of us, but I knew what she was really saying. “Okay, what do you want in return?”

“I heard that you've got a key to your parents' office. I've got a bunch of one-on-ones with students this week, and I'd rather not have to find an available classroom or try to squeeze them in here.”

I thought about it. My parents had locked all their file cabinets and desk drawers, and had taken their computers with them, so there wasn't anything Sara could snoop into, if snooping were part of her plan. Still I didn't trust her enough to just hand over a key. “I've got some meetings scheduled, too,” I hedged, “but my parents have adjoining offices. We can set it up so that you can use one while I'm using the other.”

“Deal. Give me the ID number, and I'll check with a friend of mine at JTU.”

Wow. She had friends? “It's P-A-F-60-1573.”

She wrote it down. “I'll call my friend after we get the appointment times worked out.”

I was impressed. She didn't trust me any more than I did her. Maybe that mutual distrust could be the basis for a new and meaningful relationship. But after a half an hour of schedule wrangling, I discarded the notion. We just didn't like each other.

After all that, her contact wasn't available until the next morning, which was coincidentally just before her appointment in my parents' office. She wasn't taking any chances on my changing my mind. I'd have found that level of attention to detail admirable in most people—in Sara, it was just a pain in the coccyx.

The rest of the day was refreshingly normal for a change. I was afraid Sid would be disappointed when I didn't have any news for him that night, but he was philosophical about it. It didn't hurt that I'd brought him a bribe: a paperback copy of an archaeology mystery that was written by one of the few academics who didn't make adjuncts feel like the lowest of the low. I thought the subject matter might appeal, given our current project.

The next day, Sara was impatiently waiting for me when I got to my father's office.

“You're late,” she said.

“Your watch must be fast. Did you find out what the ID number means?”

“You mean you're not letting me in until I tell you?”

I just looked at her.

“Fine.” She reached into her purse for a pad, which just happened to be opened to the right page. “P-A-F-60-1573 does appear to be a JTU file number. The structure matches, at least. The 1573 at the end is a file number—somewhere in the computers at JTU there's a record with details about the specimen, but I couldn't get access to it.”

“Okay,” I said, jotting the info onto my own pad.

“The P means it was a purchased specimen as opposed to being excavated on site or donated. The A is for Asian.”

“Really?” Hadn't Yo said Sid was Caucasoid? “I mean, it's possible to tell that from the skeleton?”

Sara shrugged. “That's the best guess. People of mixed races can skew that.”

“What about the F?”

She gave me a disdainful look. “Female, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“The 60 is the estimated age, plus or minus a few years. The detailed analysis will be in the file.”

Could Yo have been that far off the mark? Wrong race, wrong gender, wrong age? “How reliable is this kind of information? Or rather, how hard is it to determine? My parents had a grad student look at it once, and she said it was a man's skeleton, and a young man at that.”

“Grad student in what? Art history? Trust me, JTU is a stickler for vetting their specimens. They wouldn't have put anything down that hadn't been verified by at least two scientists—the kind who've got their degrees.”

“What if the skeleton wasn't from JTU after all? Couldn't another school use a format that looks like this, but in which the F means something else. Like . . . French?”

“Anything's possible,” she said in a tone that showed what an idiot she thought I was to ask such a question. “But I did get the info you asked for, so you still owe me use of the office.” A nervous-looking student turned onto the corridor. “That's my first appointment, so if you don't mind—?”

“A deal's a deal. I'll be next door—let me know when you're done.” I opened the door to Mom's office to let her in, then I went into Phil's office. The door between the offices was closed so Sara could have sufficient privacy, and while she met with students, I sat at Phil's desk and stared at my notepad.

I came up with four possibilities: One, Yo had completely botched her analysis of Sid's skeleton, either from ineptitude or lack of sleep. Two, Yo had misled me for a cheap joke. Three, Sid hadn't come from JTU after all. And four . . . I didn't want to think about number four.

Neither of the first two was too bad—I could rectify either situation by finding a more expert expert to take a look at Sid. That could even be good news if Yo had misread all the evidence—maybe Sid hadn't been murdered after all.

The third was more problematic, because I'd have to swallow a triple dose of coincidence: Dr. Kirkland being at JTU, her son stealing a different skeleton during the same time period, and a code inside Sid's skull that only looked like JTU's identification conventions. That wouldn't just blunt Occam's razor—it would shatter it.

It was the fourth possibility that really worried me. What if somebody had purposely mismarked Sid's skull? The only reason to do that would be to hide him, and there aren't that many reasons to hide a dead body. Of course, we already knew that Sid was murdered, but now it looked like he was murdered at JTU. A thirty-year-old murder, even of somebody I'd known, wouldn't have scared me, but when I tied it to Dr. Kirkland's more recent death . . . That was scary.

Yet it wasn't as scary as what Sid came up with after I shared my speculations.

“P
lease tell me you're kidding.”

“Seriously, Georgia, this will work. We need to get a look at the files at JTU to research my ID number, your pal Charles has access there, and you yourself dubbed me the Houdini of skeletons. You practically suggested this plan yourself!”

“No, Sid, I did not suggest that we get Charles to leave you at JTU so you can prowl around all night.”

“Why didn't you? It's so obvious!”

“It's obvious that you're insane.” Since it was Wednesday night, Madison was at her Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament and Sid and I were in my bedroom. I'd worried he'd be upset, freaked, even frightened by the news that something was off about his ID markings. Instead, he popped out with this crazy scheme.

“What could go wrong?”

“Charles could open the suitcase and see you.”

“You said he was trustworthy.”

“He is, but . . . Okay, you're right. Charles won't do that if I ask him not to.” Even though Sid had never met Charles face-to-face, or face-to-skull, he'd grasped that we could trust him to take Sid's suitcase, leave it outside the door to Dr. Kirkland's office, and never look back to see what was going on. “Okay, then. The office is bound to be locked.”

“I'll either slip enough of myself under the door to open it from the inside, or find a chair to stand on so I can drop pieces of myself through the transom. I've spent hours looking at photos of that campus—just about all of the offices have transoms over the doors.”

“What if the transom isn't open?”

“I can get it open. And if all else fails, I'll break the door lock. I'm sure I can get in, but if I can't, I'll crawl back into the suitcase and wait for Charles to get me in the morning.”

“What if somebody steals your suitcase?”

“I'll escape as soon as possible and either get home on my own or call you to come pick me up.”

“What if a security guard sees the suitcase and takes it to the security office?”

“You're going to put Charles's name on it, so he'll call Charles to come get it. Otherwise I'll escape as soon as possible and either get home on my own or call you to come pick me up.”

“What if—?

“I'll escape as soon as possible and either get home on my own or call you to come pick me up. Look, Georgia, I am eternally grateful for all the work you've done to help me find myself, but this is something I can do. Please let me do it.”

I didn't like it, but I didn't see how I could refuse. It was Sid's life. More or less. “All right, I'll ask Charles to help, but if he says no, we're giving up the idea.”

Of course Charles agreed without hesitation.

I caught him in the adjunct office after teaching my Thursday classes, and since I didn't want anyone overhearing—particularly Sara—I asked him to join me at the McQuaid Coffee Corner.

First we wrangled over who was paying for the coffee, which resulted in him agreeing to let me treat him to coffee and pastries as long as he got to pick up the next check. Then I said, “Charles, you're teaching two classes at JTU this semester, aren't you?”

“I am.”

“Then I need a favor.”

“Anything, dear lady.”

“It's kind of odd, and maybe technically illegal—”

“I said anything. Illegality does not concern me, and I know you would never ask me to do anything immoral or dangerous. So of course I am happy agree to whatever you need.”

“Charles, you are a pearl without price.” The plan was simple: I'd meet him in the parking lot after he was done at McQuaid for the day and give him Sid's suitcase, which he would take to JTU and leave outside Dr. Kirkland's office. Then, just before people started arriving the next morning, he'd retrieve the suitcase. I'd meet him at Jasper's Diner, buy him breakfast, and take the suitcase back.

His only objection was to my paying for breakfast. He maintained that since I'd just bought coffee, the next day would be his turn. I finally conceded. Getting a free breakfast was little enough to endure.

All that was left was to arrange a time for us to meet that afternoon. Sid was already ensconced in his suitcase in my van. At the appointed time, the transfer was made. I was supposed to be off the hook for the rest of the evening, but it didn't work out that way.

Madison probably slept great with no “squirrels” moving around in the attic, but I tossed and turned most of the night, worrying about Sid.

I
finally dozed off at four in the morning and ended up sleeping through my alarm. If Madison hadn't set hers, I never would have gotten up, and as it was, I was running so late that I missed the rendezvous with Charles. When I didn't see his car at Jasper's, I checked for text messages and found one saying he was sorry he'd missed me. He promised to leave the suitcase at my desk.

After that, I just barely made it to class on time. As soon as that was over, I had to trot to my parents' office to meet half a dozen students who'd asked for critiques before handing in the week's essay. So it was nearly noon before I got to the adjunct office.

As soon as I walked in the door, I could tell something was off. Nobody was looking at me. More than that, they were pointedly
not
looking at me, and the room was unnaturally quiet. Every experienced teacher or instructor knows that situation. The last time it had happened to me was when I was in the middle of a class and had to take an emergency call from Madison's school. I excused myself, made sure that Madison was in no immediate danger, then came back to discover that I urgently needed password protection on my laptop.

I hadn't left my laptop unattended this time, but Charles had left Sid's suitcase at my desk. Knowing his penchant for tidiness, I couldn't imagine he'd left it stuck out into the aisle, and there was no reason for it to be partially unzipped. I opened the bag just enough to see that Sid was still in there. Then I cleared my throat, and one finger bone moved just enough to point at the desk in front of me. Toward Sara.

Neither Charles nor Fletcher were in the room, which meant that I was without my closest allies, so I pushed Sid under the desk, sat down, and pulled out some random papers while I thought it through. Then, in a calm voice that was intended to carry throughout the room, I said, “Sara, if you'd wanted to know what was in my suitcase, you could have just asked.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said, looking around for an informant.

“I'm talking about you opening my bag. You know we adjuncts have little enough privacy as it is. We have to share this office, and our desks don't lock. We have nowhere to store anything, or meet with students, or even make a confidential phone call. It always seemed to me that the only way we keep from killing each other is by respecting each other's space. So I would appreciate it if you'd respect mine from here on out. Okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, I pretended to read my random papers, but out of the corner of my eye I could see other adjuncts glaring at Sara. They were realizing that if she was that open about snooping in my things, she wouldn't hesitate to do the same to them.

“You can't prove I opened that bag!” she sputtered.

I tried to look surprised that the conversation was ongoing. “I don't intend to press charges, if that's what you're worried about.”

“If anybody should press charges, it's JTU. You stole that skeleton from them! I know how much that thing is worth on the black market—you only wanted to see if it could be traced.”

Now every adjunct in the room knew I had a skeleton, and in very short order, every adjunct in the college would know, too. Word might even spread to the regular faculty, and it would certainly spread to adjuncts on other campuses. It was time to redirect the conversation.

I sighed in exasperation—that was easy, because I really was pretty damned exasperated. “Number one, I found this skeleton in my parents' attic, where it has been for over thirty years. My sister is a locksmith, and I thought it might make a good display for her front window for Halloween. Skeletons, keys, skeleton keys?” I looked at her as if making sure she was keeping up with me.

“Then why did you ask about the identification number?”

“Because I realized the skeleton is real, and not a reproduction. I knew my parents had obtained it legally, but I didn't know about the place they bought it, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to check. Which I trusted you to help me with.” I paused, letting the silence imply how sadly my trust had been misplaced. “At any rate, this skeleton can't be from JTU—as you pointed out, they only mark female skeletons with an F. This one is male. So I don't know where it came from. At any rate, my sister doesn't want a real skeleton in her shop window, so I'm going to put this one back in the attic. It is legal to keep a skeleton, by the way.”

“Not if it's stolen! Where did your parents get it?”

“It followed them home, okay? Look, Sara, I've been trying to be polite, but I have no intention of discussing my skeleton with you anymore. I'm also not going to discuss the papers in my satchel, the candy hidden in my desk, or the tampons I've got in my pocketbook. Because none of them are any of your business!”

I turned back to my bogus paperwork, and pretended to work while I tried to get a feel for the reaction of the other adjuncts. Did they think Sara was in the right? Did they think I was a freak for carrying around a skeleton? Were they hoping for more fireworks?

A few minutes later, a drama instructor I'd barely spoken to came by, and said, “If you want help tracking ID marks, a friend of mine teaches at a med school at BU.” I thanked her, and I noticed that she gave Sara a dismissive look before leaving. Then my old boyfriend stopped at my desk long enough to tell me about a book he'd read that he thought I'd like, and a physicist asked me for my sister's phone number because he needed a new lock put on his house.

Nobody spoke to Sara.

I stayed in the office about an hour after that, killing time in order to make the point that I had no reason to be embarrassed, then went to teach my next class.

I took Sid's suitcase with me.