The Skeleton Haunts a House (5 page)

Phil yawned pointedly. That started a round of yawns, and I knew I'd been outmaneuvered for the time being.

“Fine,” I said. “We'll talk after we get Sid back.”

But after Deborah left and the rest of us got ready for bed, I started thinking that there might be something my sister wasn't telling me. Plus, despite what I'd told Madison, I couldn't help worrying about Sid. I'd charged my phone as soon as I got home, but there'd been no word from him. Where was he, anyway? Was he okay?

It took me forever to get to sleep.

T
he phone woke me considerably earlier the next morning than I wanted to get up, given the night before. I was scrambling to answer it when I realized it hadn't rung a second time. Since Madison didn't have a landline in her room, I concluded that it had been a wrong number and the caller had given up. I punched my pillow into the proper shape and would have fallen asleep again had there not been a knock on the bedroom door.

“Georgia?” my mother said. “Deborah needs to talk to you.”

Right. Mom and Phil were back. I grabbed my phone, and politely said, “What do you want?”

“I'm on my way over to the haunt.”

“You aren't opening tonight, are you?”

“Are you awake yet? Of course we're not opening tonight—it's an active crime scene and they're still doing all that forensics stuff. Once that's done, Detective Raymond here wants me to walk him through the place, to show him how we operate. Then he should be able to let the cast come
pick up their personal belongings. I thought you might want to bring Madison over to pick up her
things
.”

“You mean I'll be able to get Sid, right?”

“Sure, if she left her school books here, she can pick them up, too.”

“School books? What are you—? Wait, is Louis right there listening?”

“Obviously.”

“Okay. What time should we be over there?”

“Sometime this afternoon, maybe one or two. I'll call when I know for sure.”

“One or—” I looked at the clock. “Deborah, it's eight o'clock in the morning. Why did you call me so early?”

“No, no trouble at all.”

She hung up before I could tell her what a miserable piece of sacrum she was, so I hung up my own phone and rolled back over, determined to get some more sleep.

Until I smelled bacon cooking.

I cannot fathom how anybody could have slept after that tantalizing scent wafted through the house. After five minutes of trying to resist, I gave up, took a quick shower, put on my Saturday loafing jeans and a Boston University sweatshirt, and made my way downstairs to find Phil once again at the stove.

“You really did miss cooking, didn't you?” I said.

“Tremendously. How do pancakes and bacon sound?”

“As good as they smell.”

“I was going to make omelets, but there weren't enough eggs. There's not much maple syrup, either.”

“I was planning to shop today,” I said a little defensively.

“No problem. Your mother went to the grocery store to stock up. Oh, she had to take your car because we haven't picked ours up yet. Is that all right?”

“Sure,” I said, trying not to sound annoyed. “It's low on gas, but there should be enough—”

“Don't worry, she'll fill up the tank on the way back. Now if you'll set the table, I'll have the pancakes ready in a couple of minutes.”

I saw that Byron was in his favorite spot under the table, hoping that somebody would drop some food, and it seemed plain that he'd already adjusted to having Mom and Phil around.

“I should get Madison up to tend to the dog,” I said.

“Oh, let her sleep. I took him for a quick walk when I got up.”

“It's okay to wake her to take care of him, Phil. She knows Byron is her responsibility.”

“I don't mind.”

I made a mental note to remind Madison that she was not to take advantage of my father's willingness to help. Of course, I'd be more convincing if I weren't eating a batch of Phil's pancakes at the time.

Despite his apologies that he was off his game, I'd made it through a stack of them plus accompanying bacon when Mom got back with vast quantities of groceries, and it took all three of us to put it all away.

“Are you planning to feed an army?” I asked.

“I remember how much teenagers eat, and I expect Roxanne will be coming around.”

“Funny how often grad students show up near mealtimes. Which reminds me, I should write you a check for Madison's and my share.”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Mom said. “You can buy the next load.”

Phil took advantage of the additional available ingredients to make omelets, despite my insistence that I'd already had plenty to eat. I only ate mine to keep from hurting his feelings.

Afterward, as we sat sated at the table, I said, “You know I'm really glad you two are back, but it did catch me by
surprise. I haven't even started looking for a place for Madison and me yet.”

Mom said, “Your father and I were talking about that last night, Georgia, and there's no rush. In fact, maybe we should consider making this a permanent solution. After all, the house was big enough for all of us when Madison was a baby.”

“Are you sure about that?” I said. “Teenager Madison takes up a lot more space than infant Madison. Plus we've got the dog now.”

Byron, who is no dummy, picked that moment to lean lovingly against Phil, who patted him and said, “Oh, Byron is no trouble at all.”

“Well as long as we divide up the housework—and the expenses—I'm willing to give it a shot, but if you start to feel crowded or taken advantage of, speak up immediately!”

Mom patted my hand. “I'm sure things will work out just fine.”

“Sounds great,” I said, but I wasn't completely sanguine. I'd known a fair number of people in my generation who'd had to move back in with their parents for financial reasons—it was distressingly common among adjuncts—but I hadn't known any who'd enjoyed the process. Still, I was going to need a new set of tires on my car before winter set in, and if Madison and I could stand to share a house with my parents for even a month or two, it would help my bottom line quite a bit.

Since Mom had taken care of the grocery shopping, I got started on laundry. Madison eventually woke up, and after Phil fed her, I took her aside to tell her about the idea of sharing the house.

I was expecting a little pushback, since it had been just the two of us for most of her life, and adding Sid to the mix had required some adjustment. But she said, “Makes sense to me.”

“You're sure?”

“It'll take a lot of the burden off of you if we don't have to move, so why not?”

“Sweetie, my job is to make life easier for you, not the other way around.”

“I know, but seriously, the house is big enough for all of us, and you get along with G-Mom and G-Dad. Now if it were Aunt Deborah—”

“Don't even go there,” I said. “Speaking of my beloved sister . . .”

“Please don't tell me you two are feuding.”

“We don't feud. We just disagree some of the time.”

“As in all the time.”

“Some of the time,” I insisted. After all, 99 percent of the time still counted as “some,” and Deborah and I weren't that bad. I explained the plan for us to head to the haunt to get her things and retrieve Sid. “Are you okay with that?”

“Sure,” she said. “I didn't have anything planned for today other than working at the haunt, and that's not happening.”

“I mean are you okay with going back to McHades Hall after what happened there?”

“Well, I wouldn't want to go there alone in the middle of the night, but otherwise, it's no problem. I am just as glad I didn't see the body.”

“I could have done without seeing her myself,” I said, though it hadn't been my first dead body. I still wasn't sure how I felt about being able to say that. “Anyway, are you sure about going over there?”

“Mom, I go to PHS every day, and there was a murder, an attack, and an abduction there last year.”

“True,” I said, “but if you change your mind or want to talk to your therapist again, just let me know.”

“Will do,” she said. “What about you?”

“Wait, I'm the mother. I'm supposed to ask these things.”

“I could call G-Mom and get her to ask.”

Phil, who wandered through the living room at that point, cleared his throat.

“Or G-Dad,” Madison said.

“I'm fine. Living with a walking, talking dead guy takes a lot of the scare out of it.”

“I get that, but I meant going to McHades when you've got a thing about haunted houses. What's the story with that, anyway?”

Fortunately the phone rang, so I was able to dodge the conversational bullet.

“Thackery residence,” I answered.

“It's Deborah. The police say people can come get their belongings now. Be sure to bring something big enough to carry all Madison's
stuff
.”

“Message received.” I hung up the phone and said, “Time to go get Sid.”

T
hough it was just past one in the afternoon and the night's Halloween Howl festivities weren't due to start until four, there were more people out and about on the McQuaid quad than usual for a Saturday afternoon. A small horde of physical plant people and student volunteers were gathering debris and emptying trash cans, trying to get the grounds cleaned up before they all got messed up again.

The front door to McHades Hall was striped with yellow crime-scene tape, and there were signs that said
Closed until further notice
on the ticket tent and the front entrance. An extremely bored-looking Pennycross police officer was stationed at the door.

“Hi. My daughter works here and we were told she could come claim her belongings.”

“Can I see some identification?” she asked.

I pulled out my driver's license and Madison handed over her student ID. The officer radioed somebody, gave our names, then handed back our cards. “You're clear.”

“Is the press causing problems?”

She nodded, looking disgusted. “We gave them everything we could, and they still want to poke around. Head in and somebody will escort you to the greenroom.”

That wasn't good to hear. I didn't know how we'd be able to sneak Sid out with a police officer in attendance.

The building was chilly, despite the sunny afternoon, and the place was dark thanks to the blackout curtains hung over every window to maintain the spooky atmosphere. An officer was waiting just inside the door and he said, “Come on up.”

“I know the way,” Madison said.

“My orders are to stay with you.” He led us up the two flights of the main stairs, through a set of wooden double doors, and into a large room that looked as if it took up most of the floor. Despite all the dark woodwork, it was surprisingly bright, with skylights letting in the October afternoon sunlight.

“I think this was used for studio art classes when this building was first built,” I said, remembering an article I'd read in the college paper. “It started out as the McQuaid School of Art, and then morphed into the university.”

“I didn't know that,” Madison said.

There was a handful of other people in the room: Louis, yet another cop, Oscar from McQuaid security, Deborah, and an assortment of young people I assumed were cast members, though I didn't recognize any of them without their guts hanging out.

“Hey, guys,” Deborah said. “I hope you're not in a hurry. Louis says he has to inspect all the bags, despite the fact that they found the murder weapon last night.” She made a face at a table where Louis and a uniformed officer were searching through a cast member's pocketbook.

“So much for our rescue mission,” I said under my breath.

“Don't worry, I've got it covered,” Deborah said. “So this is the greenroom. Men's room on one side, women's room on
the other. A kitchen on the end. Lockers next to that for cast members to keep their stuff. I make them lock up their cell phones so they don't spend all night taking selfies and posting pictures of people looking scared on Facebook. There's always somebody on duty in here to help with makeup and wardrobe malfunctions, and somebody else mans the kitchen and the first aid kit. The crew takes breaks up here and waits for their shifts to start.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering why she was being so chatty.

“We've got chairs and couches for people to relax over there. Makeup tables by the wall, though a lot of kids do their own at home. That whiteboard by the door has the cast schedule and a place for them to sign in and out. They do get paid—not a lot, because the point is to raise money for the Scholars Committee—but paying them means they show up as scheduled. Most of the time. Everybody who was scheduled was actually here last night.”

“Right.” Looking at the list made me feel sorry for Louis. All of those people had to be considered suspects.

“Anything else you need to see?” Deborah asked.

“Like what?” Suddenly it dawned on me that she was assuming that Sid and I were going to investigate the murder. “Hey, what happened to ‘we'll talk about it later'?”

She tried to look innocent. “Hmmm? I just thought you'd be interested in a behind-the-scenes view. It might be useful someday.”

“Yeah, right.”

Madison intervened by saying, “Maybe I should get my stuff.”

“Good idea,” Deborah said.

Madison's backpack was shoved into a locker along with an assortment of clothing and makeup. “Should I take everything, Aunt Deborah? Or is the haunt going to reopen?”

“That's between the police and the Scholars Committee,”
Deborah said. “The cops want it shut—the committee wants it open.”

“Who's on the committee?” I asked.

“The McQuaid Quintet. Officially there are some others on the membership roster, but that's just for show.”

I'd never met any members of the family who'd given the university its name, but their presence was often felt in town. “In that case, I'm betting it'll reopen sooner rather than later.”

Madison hesitated, then put the spooky makeup back into the locker. Even high school students knew that when the McQuaids spoke, Pennycross listened.

Deborah checked the time on her phone. “We better get inspected. I think it's going to get really crowded in a couple of minutes.”

Madison carried her backpack over to the table and unzipped it. Louis was thorough but professional, and didn't even question why my daughter carried three different bottles of scented hand sanitizer.

“How about that?” he said when he was done, nodding at the duffel bag I had on my shoulder.

“It's empty,” Deborah said. “Some of the costumes and props need repair jobs, so I'm going to take them home. Is that okay?”

“Sure, that's fine,” Louis said.

Deborah took the bag from me, went to a couple of lockers, pulled out the contents, and shoved it into the duffel, leaving the bag about three-quarters empty. Then she took it over for Louis to inspect.

He gave it a cursory examination and returned it. “You're good to go.”

She promptly handed it back to me and said, “Here, make yourself useful. I've got to stick around, but one of the officers will walk you down. Bathroom break first, right?”

She shoved Madison and me in the direction of the ladies
restroom and closed the door behind us just as the officer from downstairs came in with seven or eight chattering cast members.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Working around the cops,” she said, looking at her phone again. “Okay, the next wave will be here in a couple of minutes. Come on.”

She hauled us out, and said, “Hey, Louis, can somebody—?” Then she pretended to notice that all the cops were busy searching bags. “Whoa, bad timing on your part, Georgia. Hey, Louis, you want me to walk Georgia and Madison out while you inspect those bags?”

“If you don't mind,” he said, looking harried.

“No problem. Come on, ladies.”

I expected her to sneak off once we were out of Louis's sight, but she went straight down to the entrance hall, where more cast members had just arrived. The officer stationed there was on the radio with Louis, looking overwhelmed, and even more so as more people came in.

Deborah said, “Jeez, everybody came at once? You want me to watch the door while you take this batch to the greenroom?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” he said. “Okay, guys, let's head upstairs.”

I saw Deborah mouth the word “stall” at a couple of the actors, who nodded and slowed to a snail's pace.

As soon as the cop was out of sight, Deborah said, “Madison, go halfway up and let us know when he's coming back. I'm hoping he'll stay up there to help search bags, but I can't be sure. I've got more people coming in as distractions, so I'll wait here. Georgia, you remember how we went last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Go back through the control booth, and then turn right instead of going straight to get to the room on the end of the
building. That's got to be where Sid is hiding. And make it snappy!”

“Got it!” The room where Deborah had sent me had a big sign on the wall—
Detention
—and was lined with cages. First up were cages inhabited by starved-looking mannequins clinging to the bars, then desiccated mannequins collapsed on the floor, partially denuded mannequins with red-eyed rubber rats in attendance, and finally, several cages of skeletons. Most of the cages had a single inhabitant, but the one on the end had two skeletons inside.

No wonder Deborah had sent me there—it was hard to beat the purloined letter approach.

“Sid!” I said.

Neither skeleton moved.

“Sid, it's me. Pull yourself together and we'll get you out of here.” Still no movement. “Sid?” Surely nothing could have happened to him. As long as his bones were intact, he should be okay. Shouldn't he?

I started to reach for him, but something touched my back and I yelped and jerked around. Sid was standing beside me. Grinning. Of course, he was always grinning, but this time it was wider than usual.

“Georgia, why are you talking to a prop?”

“I wasn't—”

“You thought that was me, didn't you? You know somebody over twenty years—
twenty years
—and she doesn't even recognize you!”

“It's dark in here!” I said, though it really wasn't. “Besides, you have to admit that guy looks a lot like you.”

“Please tell me you're kidding! Not only is that thing cheap plastic, not only is the spine one solid piece, not only is it a color not found in nature—”

“Sid, you're not exactly found in nature, either.”

He ranted on as if I hadn't interrupted.

“Even if you ignore that,
that
is a female skeleton!” He pulled it out with a look of disgust, then shoved it into the cage from which he'd emerged. “Here's your room back, sweetie.”

“Shall I leave the two of you together, or are you ready to go home?”

“Home, please. She's a lousy conversationalist.”

I unzipped the canvas duffel and laid it flat on the floor. Deborah had been careful. Even with the clothes in there, there was room for Sid.

He stepped into the center of it, then fell apart in an orderly fashion. One finger bone landed outside the bag, but his other hand reached outside to grab it and put it inside. Then he zipped himself in.

It would have been fascinating to watch if we hadn't been in a hurry.

“Where's your phone?” I asked.

“It's in my skull.”

Of course it was. I hefted the bag onto my shoulder. Sid's bones only weigh about twenty pounds, but added to the contents already there, it made a lot to carry. “Can you keep from rattling? I don't want anybody getting suspicious.”

“Of course.”

I'm not sure how he prevented it, but since I'm not really sure how Sid does any of the things he does, that was no big surprise.

I retraced my steps and just as I rejoined Deborah, Madison came down the stairs. “He's on his way back,” she said. “Did you get Sid?”

“I'm in here,” Sid said cheerfully.

“Shhh,” I said, and poked the bag. I thought I heard a muttered “ow,” but as long as the police officer didn't hear it, I didn't care. It wasn't like I could really hurt Sid anyway.

Once the officer was back at his post, Deborah said good-
bye, adding, “Tell Mom and Dad that if they don't have plans for dinner, I'll come over and we'll order pizza.”

“Sounds great,” I said, hoping I didn't sound as phony to the cop as I did to myself. As Madison and I went out, I kept waiting for the long arm of the law to reach for me, but we made it safely to the car.

I just hoped none of the police had taken pictures of the room where Sid had been hiding, or at some point they might wonder why there was one fewer skeleton than before.