tea and for once loaded it with sugar. I sat in my favorite chair and sipped it slowly. It was time to think. Fact One. Jane Engle had left a skull concealed in her house. She might not have told Bubba Sewell what she'd done, but she'd hinted to him that all was not well - but that I would handle it.
Question: How had the skull gotten in Jane's house? had she murdered its - owner? occupant?
Question: Where was the rest of the skeleton?
Question: How long ago had the head been placed in the window seat? Fact Two. Someone else knew or suspected that the skull was in Jane's house. I could infer that this someone else was basically law-abiding since the searcher hadn't taken the chance to steal anything or vandalize the house to any degree. The broken window was small potatoes compared with what could have been wreaked on Jane's unoccupied house. So the skull was almost certainly the sole object of the search. Unless Jane had - horrible thought - something else hidden in her house? Question: Would the searcher try again, or was he perhaps persuaded that the skull was no longer there? The yard had been searched, too, according to Torrance Rideout. I reminded myself to go in the backyard the next time I went to the house and see what had been done there.
Fact Three. I was in a jam. I could keep silent forever, throw the skull in a river, and try to forget I ever saw it; that approach had lots of appeal right now. Or I could take it to the police and tell them what I'd done. I could already feel myself shiver at the thought of Jack Burns's face, to say nothing of the incredulity on Arthur's. I heard myself stammer, "Well, I hid it at my mother's house." What kind of excuse could I offer for my strange actions? Even I could not understand exactly why I'd done what I'd done, except that I'd acted out of some kind of loyalty to Jane, influenced to some extent by all the money she'd left me.
Then and there, I pretty much ruled out going to the police unless something else turned up. I had no idea what my legal position was, but I couldn't imagine what I'd done so far was so very bad legally. Morally was another question. But I definitely had a problem on my hands.
At this inopportune moment the doorbell rang. It was a day of unwelcome interruptions. I sighed and went to answer it, hoping it was someone I wanted to see. Aubrey?
But the day continued its apparently inexorable downhill slide. Parnell Engle and his wife, Leah, were at my front door, the door no one ever uses because they'd have to park in the back - ten feet from my back door - and then walk all the way around the whole row of town houses to the front to ring the bell. Of course, that was what Parnell and Leah had done. "Mr. Engle, Mrs. Engle," I said. "Please come in." Parnell opened fire immediately. "What did we do to Jane, Miss Teagarden? Did she tell you what we did to her that offended her so much she left everything to you?"
I didn't need this.
"Don't you start, Mr. Engle," I said sharply. "Just don't you start. This is not a good day. You got a car, you got some money, you got Madeleine the cat. Just be glad of it and leave me alone."
"We were Jane's own blood kin - "
"Don't start with me," I snapped. I was simply beyond trying to be polite. "I don't know why she left everything to me, but it doesn't make me feel very lucky right now, believe me."
"We realize," he said with less whine and more dignity, "that Jane did express her true wishes in her will. We know that she was in her good senses up until the end and that she made her choice knowing what she was doing. We're not going to contest the will. We just don't understand it." "Well, Mr. Engle, neither do I." Parnell would have had that skull at the police station in less time than it takes to talk about it. But it was good news that they weren't small-minded enough to contest the will and thereby cause me endless trouble and heartache. I knew Lawrenceton. Pretty soon people would start saying, Well, why did Jane Engle leave everything