"What are you talking about? That face is about more than the skeleton."
The smile escaped and spread all over my face. "Oh, you know. Just thinking about how you'll have to report the find. To themayor."
Susan's entire body slumped, and she muttered something beneath her breath in Spanish that I was betting was not entirely complimentary to the newly elected mayor of Dead End:
My Aunt Ruby.
My overprotective, prone-to-nervous anxiety, Aunt Ruby.
The woman who'd raised me, loved me, and stifled me with a cocoon of caring, and who, when we went somewhere together, still—to this day—would ask me if I had to use the bathroom before we left the house.
"Heh. Does she ask you if you need to go potty before you leave the jail?"
Susan groaned, and a look of terror mixed with resignation crossed her face. "Not yet, but she asked me if I needed her to whip out her sewing machine and take in my uniforms for me, since they've been fitting kind of loosely."
Lucky glanced back and forth between the two of us. "Why is that bad? Sounds pretty nice, actually. I wish somebody—"
"When I was at work."
"But—"
"Interrogating a suspect."
"Oh."
"And then she asked my suspect how he thought his mother would feel about finding out he was robbing houses."
I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe by then. "And did he start crying and confess all? I know I always did, when I did something bad as a kid."
She shook her head in disbelief. "It's amazing, but he did. This hardened criminal, with a rap sheet longer than the line at Mellie's on gingerbread donut day, was practically sobbing, confessing to all, and promising to 'do better.'"
I sighed. "The strangest part of it is that he probably will. She has that effect on people. And, knowing Aunt Ruby, he'll be invited to Thanksgiving dinner."
"That, at least, you don't have to worry about. I shipped him back off to Michigan, where the authorities have a ten-year spot in a very nice jail cell waiting for him. He was breaking his parole. I emailed them the videotaped confession, and the police chief up in Lansing asked me if she could borrow Mayor Callahan for a few months to clean up crime in their city."
"She'd probably do it too, but don't let her go until after Thanksgiving," I told Susan, only half joking.
"No worries. Our new mayor is my secret weapon," she said, laughing.
"Okay. Well, you and Lucky and Yorick, there, should head on out now and do whatever you need to do, while I get the Lysol out and spray it all over the place, in case any residual death cooties have shed themselves in my shop," I said, making shooing motions with my hands. "And, Lucky? Please,please, don’t bring any body parts into my life or shop, ever again, okay? Just… no."
He grinned and held out his arms as if to hug me, but I wagged my finger at him and madeaanh, aanh, aanhsounds."Not a chance, buddy, until you sterilize yourself. Now, out! And tell Molly to call me. I miss her."
"She left to go play a few gigs in New England, but she should be home by Thanksgiving," Lucky said, an enormous smile lighting up his face so much that he looked like a model in a toothpaste commercial. He had itbadfor my best friend, and I was happy for both of them.
I just wished she could be around more.
I waved them off and went back to work, not really in the mood to watch the Great Skeleton Handoff of 2020, but not really in the mood to do anything that required focus, either, like payroll or taxes.
I was feeling uncharacteristically low and kind of lonely, to be honest.
Aunt Ruby was so busy with her new job that I hadn't seen her much, and Uncle Mike had been occupied with some secret project he wouldn't tell me about. Jack was… well, forget Jack. And Molly had been gone a lot, touring with her increasingly famous band, and even when she was home, she spent a lot of time with Lucky. They were still in the new-relationship-excitement phase.
Even my new sister Shelley was busy as president of both the newly formed robotics club and the newly formed history club at school that she didn’t have a lot of time to hang out with her big sister.
I stared unseeingly at the new, professionally printed sign taped to the customer-facing side of my cash register:
WE DO NOT DEAL IN VAMPIRE TEETH, EVER
