Free A Bone to Pick by Charlaine Harris Page B

that Torrance Rideout had filled in for me. Looking around me more care- fully, I saw a few more; all were around bushes, or under the two benches. None were out in the middle of the grass, which was a relief. I had to just shake my head over this; someone had seriously thought Jane had dug a hole out in her yard and stuck the skull in it? A pretty futile search after all this time Jane had had the skull.
That was a sobering thought. Desperate people are not gentle.
As I mooched around the neat little yard, counting the holes around the bushes that had screened the un- attractive school fence from Jane’s view, I became aware of movement in the Rideouts’ backyard. Mini- mal movement. A woman was sunbathing on the huge sun deck in a lounge chair, a woman with a long, slim body already deeply browned and semiclad in a fire engine red bikini. Her chin-length, dyed, pale blond hair was held back by a matching band, and even her fingernails seemed to be the same shade of red. She was awfully turned out for sunbathing on her own deck, presuming this was Marcia Rideout. “How are you, new neighbor?” she called languidly, ~ 84 ~
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a slim brown arm raising a glass of iced tea to her lips. This was the movement I’d glimpsed. “Fine,” I lied automatically. “And you?” “Getting along, getting by.” She beckoned with a lazy wave. “Come talk for a minute.”
When I was settled in a chair beside her, she ex- tended a thin hand and said, “Marcia Rideout.” “Aurora Teagarden,” I murmured as I shook her hand, and the amusement flitted across her face and vanished. She pulled off her opaque sunglasses and gave me a direct look. Her eyes were dark blue, and she was drunk, or at least on her way there. Maybe she saw something in my face, because she popped the sun- glasses right back on. I tried not to peer at her drink; I suspected it was not tea at all, but bourbon. “Would you like something to drink?” Marcia Rideout offered.
“No thanks,” I said hastily.
“So you inherited the house. Think you’ll like liv- ing there?”
“I don’t know if I will live there,” I told her, watching her fingers run up and down the dripping glass. She took another sip.
“I drink sometimes,” she told me frankly. I really couldn’t think of anything to say. “But only when Torrance isn’t coming home. He ~ 85 ~
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has to spend the night on the road sometimes, maybe once every two weeks or so. And those days he’s not coming home to spend the night, I drink. Very slowly.” “I expect you get lonely,” I offered uncertainly. She nodded. “I expect I do. Now, Carey Osland on the other side of you, and Macon Turner on the other side of me, they don’t get lonely. Macon sneaks over there through the backyards, some nights.” “He must be an old-fashioned guy.” There was nothing to prevent Macon and Carey from enjoying each other’s company. Macon was divorced and Carey was, too, presumably, unless Mike Osland was dead . . . and that reminded me of the skull, which I had enjoyed forgetting for a moment.
My comment struck Marcia Rideout as funny. As I watched her laugh, I saw she had more wrinkles than I’d figured, and I upped her age by maybe seven years. But from her body you sure couldn’t tell it. “I didn’t used to have such a problem with being lonely,” Marcia said slowly, her amusement over. “We used to have people renting this apartment.” She waved in the direction of the garage with its little room on top. “One time it was a high school teacher, I liked her. Then she got another job and moved. Then it was Ben Greer, that jerk that works at the gro- cery chopping meat—you know him?”
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“Yeah. He is a jerk.”
“So I was glad when he moved. Then we had a housepainter, Mark Kaplan . . .” She seemed to be drifting off, and I thought her eyes closed behind the dark glasses.
“What happened to him?” I asked politely. “Oh. He was