The Skeleton Haunts a House

by Leigh Perry

  “No, not perverts. I mean, of course I’m glad you’re wary of things like that, but I was talking about bullying.”

  “What about it?”

  “I know there’s a lot of online bullying going on, and it can be really upsetting.”

  “Well, yeah. Some of my friends have gone through it.”

  “Not you?”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Okay, first let me say that I have not been snooping, but Sid—”

  “Sid’s been snooping?”

  “No. Well, yes, but not snooping into your stuff. At least not on purpose.” I took a deep breath. “Have you had problems with online bullying?”

  “Me? No.”

  “No? You’re sure?”

  “No—wait, there was one time. Back around December or January, I got some Facebook messages that said the only reason I’d gotten that solo in the Christmas concert was because I’d given Coach Q a . . . Because I’d orally pleasured him.”

  “Madison! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It wasn’t that big a deal, Mom. I blocked the account, and reported the abuse to Facebook, and that was it. I did ask Samantha if she’d heard any rumors like that around school, but she hadn’t, so I forgot all about it. How did Sid find out?”

  “He’s been seeing what he can find out about Kendall, and it looks like she was your Internet bully. In fact, she and those three girls from the haunt had special accounts that they used to harass people anonymously.”

  “Seriously? What a—! Can I swear?”

  “You have special dispensation.” Not that I believed Madison never used profanity, but we had an agreement that she wouldn’t do so in front of me, Deborah, or my parents. Her fluency with the vernacular both impressed me and confirmed that she did a fair amount of cursing when I wasn’t within earshot. “Feel better?”

  “Much better, thank you.”

  “Good. Now I don’t want to sound as if I’m blaming the victim, but do you have any idea why Kendall targeted you?”

  “Not a clue. I only met her the one time after the choral ensemble’s holiday show. She said she thought I did a terrific job on the solo, I thanked her, and that was it.”

  “What about her sister?”

  “Bianca and I have never had any problems. Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “Bianca tried out for that solo, too, and Samantha heard her telling somebody that she was sure she was going to get it.”

  “Do you think Bianca blamed you?”

  “Why would she? Coach Q made the call. And she never said anything to me about being mad about it.”

  “Kendall could have been mad, even if her sister wasn’t. Like that time you invited Julie Hu to your birthday party, but when she had a much bigger party two weeks later, she didn’t invite you. You didn’t care, but I was outraged.”

  “Mom, tell me you’re not still mad about that. I was six. Let it go.”

  “I’m over it now. Mostly. But the point is that sometimes people get angry on a loved one’s behalf, whether or not the loved one does.”

  “But you didn’t do anything to Julie. Did you?”

  “No, of course not. But Kendall was already an experienced Internet bully, so maybe she was glad to have a fresh target. Good for you for not letting her get to you.”

  “I just wish I’d known it was her so I could have told people about her. At least I can spread the word about those other three losers. Samantha said the year before last, she got a lot of online garbage making fun of her being in a wheelchair and saying her mother should have aborted her instead of giving birth to a cripple. A cripple! Who even uses that word anymore? Anyway, I’m going to tell everybody I know.”

  “You can’t, Madison, not yet anyway.”

  “Why not? I know it’s not cool to dump on dead people, but those other three need to be taken down.”

  “I know, but Kendall being a bully may have something to do with her murder.”

  “You think one of the people she harassed retaliated?”

  “It’s a theory, anyway. But while it looks as if she trolled on a lot of people, the only one we’ve found who was in McHades Hall the night of her murder is you.” I held up a hand. “Not that we suspected you for a millisecond, of course.”

  “If I’d known for sure that she was the one to go after Samantha, I might have. Whoever did kill her was probably justified.”

  I didn’t say anything, and after a second, Madison looked chastened.

  “Wow, what am I saying? Of course she didn’t deserve to be murdered. Smacked around, maybe, but not murdered. Can you forget I said that?”

  “Said what?”

  She grinned. “Seriously, I can’t believe I even thought that, let alone said it out loud.”

  “That’s what happens when bullies attack people. They turn everybody mean.” I stopped. “That sounded amazingly pompous.”

  “You’re a mother. You’re allowed to be pompous now and then.”

  “Thanks so much. I will now pompously remind you to get some sleep.”

  “Don’t overdo it.”

  I started for the door, but Madison said, “Hey, I had a thought. I could talk to some of the other people at McHades Hall, see if any of them had problems with Internet bullies.”

  “No way. The killer isn’t likely to admit it, is he or she? And if he hears you asking questions about Internet bullying . . . No, you are not going to do that.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “That’s right. And nothing could be more careful than not bringing up the subject. At all. Ever.”

  “Then how are you going to find the killer?”

  “We’ll think of something. Sid’s on the job, and I am too pompous to fail!”

  29

  After such a heavy conversation, I was exhausted emotionally if not physically, but I knew Sid would be waiting to hear what had happened. So back up I went, only to find him typing away with no apparent signs of concern.

  “You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”

  “Just to the first part,” he said. “Once I heard that Madison hadn’t been upset by the Divas, I made myself scarce.”

  “There are times when I want my conversations with my daughter to just be between the two of us.”

  “Understood. If you tell me that, I will abide by your wishes. Cross my chest cavity and hope to crumble.”

  That was the best I was going to get. “I assume you’re delving into the Divas’ deviltry. Any other leads?”

  “I’ve got a few names, but nothing that looks familiar, and I’m not seeing any signs that anybody had figured out who the Divas were. It must go back a while, anyway, because like I said before, Kendall hadn’t been posting much in the group.”

  “I guess even bullies take time off. Though it seems strange that somebody discovered Kendall’s deep dark secret while she was inactive.” Then I thought of something I’d been told. “Sid, when did Kendall stop posting in that list?”

  He started scrolling through entries. “About six months ago. The last one was kind of incoherent, too. She said she’d been out drinking. Why?”

  “Remember how I spoke to Kendall’s English instructor, Caroline? She said Kendall was a real party animal the first part of spring semester, but seemed to turn herself around about six months ago. Go back to her public Facebook page. I want to check some of her status updates from around then.”

  He got to the right spot, then moved aside so I could share the chair with him.

  “Look at this one, back around the first of February. ‘I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ And this one the next day: ‘I only have to change one thing—EVERYTHING.’” I scrolled on. “‘First Things First.’ ‘One Day at a Time.’ ‘Gratitude Is an Attitude.’ ‘Pain Is the Resistance.’
”

  “She could have had a great career creating bumper stickers.”

  “She didn’t come up with any of these, Sid. They’re all Alcoholics Anonymous sayings.”

  “Are you sure?” He opened up another window on the laptop, and searched out a few. “You’re right. How did you know that? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “A woman I knew in grad school was in recovery, and she had a lot of these slogans posted in her apartment. If Kendall was a twelve-stepper, it would explain why her grades were starting to improve.”

  “I would think Bullies Anonymous would have been more appropriate, if there is such a thing?”

  “Not that I know of, but I do know that twelve-step programs have a step about apologizing to people you’ve hurt.”

  Sid’s phalanges flew across the keyboard. “Got it! Step Eight is to make a list of people harmed, and become willing to make amends to them. Step Nine is to make amends to the people you’ve wronged. That’s how the killer found out that Kendall was a bully! Kendall confessed so she could apologize.”

  “And that was why she wanted to meet with Linda. I bet she’s one of the people the Divas bullied. Ms. Rad said she was lonely and depressed in high school, which would have been the Diva equivalent of waving a red cape at a bull.”

  “Wait, do you think Linda killed Kendall after all?”

  “Not necessarily. The Divas bullied a lot of people. There’s no telling how many people would want to kill them if they found out who they were.”

  “Okay, then I’ll go back into the muck to find more names.” He cracked his knuckles in preparation. “At least I can skip the most recent victims, since only the other three Divas messed with them.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t stop or at least slow down when she went on hiatus.”

  “Not these vicious beasts. They enjoy their games too much. You may as well go on to bed.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Unlike me, you need your beauty sleep.”

  “Was that a crack about my beauty?”

  He grinned. “Sleep well.”

  “Thanks, Sid. I couldn’t do this without you.” I started down the stairs, then stopped.

  “You okay?”

  “What did I just say?”

  “That you couldn’t do this without me.”

  “Which is true. Everybody who knows us—at least everybody who knows both of us—knows that we’re a team. Now what did you call the surviving Divas?”

  “Vicious beasts.”

  “Vicious beasts who like their little hobby, and part of their fun is that nobody knows who they are.”

  “Right.”

  “But everybody who knows them, knows that the four of them were BFFs. Madison immediately figured out that if Kendall was a bully, then so were the others. Therefore if Kendall confessed to being an Internet bully, it would come out that the other three were, too.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Do you think that possibility would make Vanessa, Nadine, and Alexis happy?”

  He snorted. “I bet they were enraged. Wait, you don’t think—?”

  “Do I think that a vicious beast would kill in order to keep from having her fun spoiled? And then frame one of her previous victims? It sounds like just the kind of thing a Diva would do.”

  “Maybe they teamed up and killed her together.”

  “Was any mention made of it on the Divas’ list?”

  “No, but surely they’re not stupid enough to put something like that on the Web.”

  “They were stupid enough to put all their bullying plans on the Web. Even if they were more circumspect, I think they’d have said something about things being clear or how now they can keep going. No, I bet the murder was a solo act. But which one was the killer?” I gave Sid a meaningful look. “If only we knew more about the three of them.”

  He cracked his fingers again, with more enthusiasm. “Go to bed, Georgia. I’ve got work to do.”

  After all that, I didn’t expect to be able to get to sleep, but it had been a long day and I was out in minutes. It was a good thing, because Sid woke me up an hour before my alarm was set to go off, and waking to a skull hovering over you is never a good sign.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I just couldn’t wait any longer. Sleeping really eats into your time, doesn’t it?”

  “You were the one who said I needed beauty sleep. What have you got?”

  He held up three neatly printed dossiers. “You tell me.”

  “Is this another competition?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Hand them over.” They made for interesting reading, even at that hour of the morning.

  “Well?” Sid said when I finished the third one. “Who’s your pick?”

  “Vanessa goes to college in Connecticut, and according to what you found on her Facebook page, went back to school immediately after Kendall’s funeral. That means she couldn’t have framed Linda, so she’s out of the running.”

  “I concluded the same thing.”

  “Nadine’s school is in upper New York state, but she was so upset over her friend’s death that she stayed in Pennycross a few extra days. Therefore she could have set up the frame. But according to her Facebook posts, she didn’t get to town until late Friday afternoon, just before the Divas went to the Howl. So she’s out, too.”

  “I concur.”

  “That leaves Alexis. She attends McQuaid, so she was in town in time to case the haunt and plant her weapons, and she had the best chance to frame Linda.”

  “Alexis lives in the same dorm as Linda, as a matter of fact.”

  “Can’t get more convenient than that. Of course, we don’t know how she snuck into McHades, but—”

  “I bet her mother has a key.”

  “Her mother?”

  “Somebody wasn’t reading carefully,” he said in a sing-song voice.

  “If you’d have waited another hour to wake me up, I might have.” I flipped back to the first page of Alexis’s dossier. “How did I miss that?” Alexis’s full name was Alexis McQuaid Primo. “Is one of the Quintet her mother? No, don’t tell me. It has to be Vivienne—Beatrice said Vivienne knew Kendall’s parents, and of course she would if their kids were close friends.”

  “Bingo! As part of the Scholar’s committee, Vivienne would have had access to a key to McQuaid Hall and Alexis could have ‘borrowed’ it. Plus Alexis being a McQuaid gives us her motive for deciding to frame somebody. She probably didn’t know about the weird bequest until after she’d killed Kendall.”

  “So she framed Linda to make her mother happy?”

  “Maybe, though I’m not willing to put even that much of a positive spin on it. I’d guess that she’s got that whole family pride thing going, or maybe her mother’s fussing was getting on her nerves. Either way, she probably got a kick out of framing Linda. She was handy, and Alexis could claim she had a motive for killing Kendall, which she actually did, even if she didn’t know about it.”

  “So that’s it? Alexis killed Kendall?”

  I looked at Sid—he looked at me—and though we didn’t turn on any music out of consideration for my sleeping daughter next door, we did indulge in a brief but enthused dance party.

  Finally we collapsed onto my bed, out of breath. At least I was out of breath. Sid had as much breath as usual, which upon reflection, meant that he too was out of breath.

  Reflection also put a damper on my spirits. “So what do we do now? We don’t have any proof. I suppose we could point the cops at the Divas’ Facebook group, but that would just confirm that Linda had a reason to hate Kendall. As for Alexis being a McQuaid, that would make the police suspect her less, not more. We can’t prove her mother has a key or that Alexis used it to sneak into the haunt bef
ore the murder, or that she snuck into Linda’s dorm room to plant the bloody gloves. What can we do?”

  “No worries,” Sid said. “While you were a-snooze in your bed, Sherlock Bones was on the case. I have devised the perfect solution, a way to fool Alexis into incriminating herself.” He sat up, the better to make grandiose hand gestures. “Picture this . . . Tonight, at dusk, Alexis gets a private Facebook message. From her murder victim!”

  “You can do that?”

  “Of course. The message says, ‘Why, Alexis? Why did you betray me?’ An hour later, another message. ‘I don’t like being dead, Alexis. It’s dark, so dark.’ Another hour. ‘It hurts. You hurt me, Alexis.’ Next up, ‘I’m coming for you, Alexis. I don’t want to be alone.’ Every hour, another message, until just before midnight, I send the final one: ‘I’m waiting for you, Alexis. Look outside.’”

  I started to say something, but Sid put his bony hand over my mouth to stop me and went on.

  “Alexis fearfully looks out the window, and sees a shadowy figure wearing a Brandeis hoodie, just like the one Kendall was wearing when she died. She gasps in terror! A hand beckons to her.

  “Of course she doesn’t come down right away. She’s too scared. She hides from the window until the next text: ‘Come down, Alexis. Or I’ll come up for you.’ Swallowing her fear, she forces herself down the stairs of the dorm, belting her robe around her long, flowing nightgown. Or maybe a short, revealing one. I’m not sure what she sleeps in.

  “Anyway, as she approaches ‘Kendall,’ the apparition turns and walks away. Alexis follows her across the darkened college grounds until she realizes they’re in front of McQuaid Hall, with the McHades sign dangling over the wide-open door.

  “Kendall gestures for Alexis to follow, and then disappears into the gaping darkness. The murderous coed swallows visibly, then steels herself. Maybe she’ll belt that robe again.

  “As she goes inside, she finds a line of candles tracing a path into the building. We’ll use electric candles, by the way—they’re safer. She follows, follows, follows, and finds herself in the zombie party room. The lights are on—not house lights, but the disco ball and strobes. A blood-stained baseball bat is on the floor in front of her next to a pair of rubber gloves just like the ones she used to frame Linda, and just a few feet away is Kendall, her back turned.