A Bone to Pick by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online

flecks of gray, and he looked like his beard would be heavy enough to shave twice a day. He had a craggy face, brown eyes surrounded by what I thought of as sun wrinkles, a dark tan, and he was wearing a green ~ 47 ~
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golf shirt and navy shorts. “My wife, Marcia, and I were real sorry about Jane. She was a real good neigh- bor and we were sure sorry about her passing.” I didn’t feel like I was the right person to accept condolences, but I wasn’t about to explain I’d inherited Jane’s house not because we were the best of friends but because Jane wanted someone who could remem- ber her for a good long while. So I just nodded, and hoped that would do.
Torrance Rideout seemed to accept that. “Well, I’ve been mowing the yard, and I was wondering if you wanted me to do it one more week until you get your own yardman or mow it yourself, or just what- ever you want to do. I’ll be glad to do it.” “You’ve already been to so much trouble . . .” “Nope, no trouble. I told Jane when she went in the hospital not to worry about the yard, I’d take care of it. I’ve got a riding mower, I just ride it on over when I do my yard, and there ain’t that much weed eating to do, just around a couple of flower beds. I did get Jane’s mower out to do the tight places the riding mower can’t get. But what I did want to tell you, someone dug a little in the backyard.”
We’d walked over to my car while Torrance talked, and I’d pulled out my keys. Now I stopped with my fingers on the car door handle. “Dug up the ~ 48 ~
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backyard?” I echoed incredulously. Come to think of it, that wasn’t so surprising. I thought about it for a moment. Okay, something that could be kept in a hole in the ground as well as hidden in a house. “I filled the holes back in,” Torrance went on, “and Marcia’s been keeping a special lookout since she’s home during the day.”
I told Torrance someone had entered the house, and he expressed the expected astonishment and disgust. He hadn’t seen the broken window when he’d last mowed the backyard two days before, he told me.
“I do thank you,” I said again. “You’ve done so much.”
“No, no,” he protested quickly. “We were kind of wondering if you were going to put the house on the market, or live in it yourself . . . Jane was our neigh- bor for so long, we kind of worry about breaking in a new one!”
“I haven’t made up my mind,” I said, and left it at that, which seemed to stump Torrance Rideout. “Well, see, we rent out that room over our garage,” he explained, “and we have for a good long while. This area is not exactly zoned for rental units, but Jane never minded and our neighbor on the other side, Macon Turner, runs the paper, you know him? ~ 49 ~
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Macon never has cared. But new people in Jane’s house, well, we didn’t know . . .”
“I’ll tell you the minute I make up my mind,” I said in as agreeable a way as I could.
“Well, well. We appreciate it, and if you need any- thing, just come ask me or Marcia. I’m out of town off and on most weeks, selling office supplies believe it or not, but then I’m home every weekend and some afternoons, and, like I said, Marcia’s home and she’d love to help if she could.”
“Thank you for offering,” I said. “And I’m sure I’ll be talking to you soon. Thanks for all you’ve done with the yard.”
And finally I got to leave. I stopped at Burger King for lunch, regretting that I hadn’t grabbed one of Jane’s books to read while I ate. But I had plenty to think about: the emptied closets, the holes in the backyard, the hint Bubba Sewell had given me that Jane had left me a problem to solve. The sheer physi- cal task of clearing the house of what I didn’t want, and then the decision about what to do with the house itself. At least all these thoughts were preferable to thinking of myself yet again as the jilted lover, brood- ing