The Skeleton Takes a Bow (A Family Skeleton Mystery) by Leigh Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

thing to be said for my schedule was that it would only last another month and a half until the semester ended. Of course, I had the added pleasure of not knowing whether or not I’d be hired for another semester. I could make out fairly well if I didn’t get anything in the summer, but if my “vacation” lasted into the fall, I’d be sunk, financially speaking.
    At least my life wasn’t boring.
    I made it through my Monday morning classes and headed for the adjunct office. My mailbox, one of a rack outside the office, was halfway filled with McQuaid internal memos, notes from students, and a few pieces of actual mail. First up was a reminder that parking passes were not to be given or sold to students. “If you paid adjuncts enough, we wouldn’t be selling them to the highest bidder,” I muttered as I tossed it into the conveniently located recycling bin.
    Next was a postcard announcing the date of the next Northeast Popular/American Culture Association conference. It was being held in Providence in October, and I would have given my left arm to attend. Well, Deborah’s at least. True, I had no paper to submit, but I knew of a dozen New England schools that would be screening prospective hires there.
    Most colleges began their hiring process for tenure-track positions at conferences, and some even provided grants for graduate students to attend and get a shot at those carrots of employment. Adjuncts like myself, on the other hand, only got grants when we had papers to present, which we rarely did because we didn’t have time to write papers. And of course we didn’t make enough money to pay our own way.
    I’d been hoping to take advantage of living at my parents’ house to scrape up enough money to attend a conference or two, but now that Sid had joined my household permanently, I had to plan for the future expense of a third bedroom once my parents returned and wanted their house back. That didn’t leave enough in my budget for conferences.
    Reluctantly, I put the postcard into the recycling bin and turned my attention to the messages from students. They were the usual excuses for late homework along with the late homework papers themselves. I added them to my satchel with a sigh—I really preferred that work come in electronically to cut down on the paper I was forced to carry and keep track of. But, no matter what I said, some students were convinced that actual paper, placed in a snazzy report folder, would give them extra points.
    As I continued to sort, somebody came up behind me and said, “Dr. Thackery, you’re looking well today.”
    I turned to see who it was. “Thank you, Dr. Peyton. You’re looking pretty natty yourself.”
    History adjunct Charles Peyton was in fact one of the more nattily dressed men of my acquaintance. Though he made no more money than the rest of us adjuncts, he once told me that buying classic clothes of quality is actually more frugal than buying cheap and trendy. What he didn’t tell me, but which I discovered for myself, was that squatting in unoccupied offices was a swell way to save money, too. He went to great lengths to conceal that fact, both because he was embarrassed by it and because he could lose his job if it were found out.
    I noticed an accessory Charles didn’t usually sport. “Why the black armband?”
    “Haven’t you heard? We lost one of our own over the weekend. Patty Craft succumbed to her illness.”
    Sara Weiss, an adjunct in biology who’d never heard a piece of gossip she didn’t like, had walked up as we were speaking and piped up with, “Yeah, mental illness. She killed herself.”
    Charles looked vexed. “It is my understanding that the authorities have yet to determine the precise cause of death. For all they know, it was the cancer from which she’d been suffering. Or perhaps she accidentally ingested too much of her medication.”
    Sara snorted and went inside the office.
    “An overdose?” I said. “I think I heard something