Riddle in Bones: An Abishag’s Third Mystery (The Abishag Mysteries)

by Michelle Knowlden

  “Donovan’s here.” Kat poked her head into my bedroom. I had finished packing an hour ago and had been staring at the nightstand clock. Dog and Sebastian had cleared out Henry’s room the day before, but I hadn’t been in it since he died.

  I sighed. Slinging the satchel over my shoulder and cradling the last potted calla lily, I dragged the 32-inch wheeled suitcase down the hall. After Sebastian had collected a bag of clothing from my housemates, I had plenty to wear the last weeks of Henry’s life without Sebastian’s sister-in-law’s wardrobe.

  I missed her clothes.

  I also missed Henry. I’d been married to him longer than my previous husbands: 39 days. As if sensing the fall quarter would start Monday, he died last Thursday either not wanting to live through another academic quarter or not wanting the students who attended him to miss it. Or maybe he was weary of the Camelot songs I sang every night. Or maybe because we finally finished the child’s history of King Arthur’s court.

  His organs began to fail Wednesday night. As he had everyday, Sebastian gave him the mule bone study status that night, Kat’s translation of a Swedish Oasis Springs harness maker and his ‘unique’ back-band design which probably explained the hip and spine displacement. As the Institute and museum grant funds had ended, it was the final report including a plan for a museum exhibit in the spring. The institute had asked Sebastian to write an article for their journal including a tribute to Doc T and his final project, which he agreed to do. Maybe that’s why Henry decided it was time to go.

  Dog said that I shouldn’t attribute reason to the comatose, but I couldn’t help it. I’d only worked for Doc T eleven days. I learned he had lived a lie, allowing people believe that he’d had an affair with a married woman, that he had been responsible for her husband’s long vegetative state, that he had been the father of an abandoned daughter. He had somehow fixated on being his Guinevere’s Lancelot when he had been something entirely different. Not that I believed in fate or Karma, but I believed in the consequences of wrong behavior. His silence led to him being shot.

  I had been Henry’s Abishag wife 39 days, more than three times longer than as his assistant. Henry should have been Merlin in Richard Eaton’s Camelot. He had been a sage advisor to the president, but unable to stop DiToro and Jennifer from having their affair. He had been unable to stop Elaine from shooting him, leaving him imprisoned in a comatose state. Detective Salinger told us that Elaine Eaton had been the “old friend EE” having dinner with Doc T that night. He also said that she’d changed her name to Didderly when Richard Eaton died. On advice from her lawyer, she hadn’t spoken since.

  I suppose she suffered from her own traumatic past. It could only have been madness that drove her to stalk Doc T last year, to pose Sirach’s solution to his riddle, and to shoot him in the midst of his beloved mule bones.

  In the Crowder desert house, we had lived as if on an island surrounded by the mists of the violent past. Hopefully, with the support of so many others, my fallen enchanter had found a measure of comfort from his Abishag wife.

  Humming I Loved You Once In Silence, I smiled at Donovan who paced by the door, an unfamiliar look of uncertainty on his face. The others had melted into other rooms, giving us space. When Kat urged me earlier to drive back with Dog and her, rather than return with Donovan, I’d told her no. Donovan was probably my last chance for a normal, non-Abishag wife-type relationship.

  Since he still seemed to be searching for something to say, I settled the calla lily on my suitcase and said, “Dèsirèe packed us snacks for the drive back and lemonade too. She left a bag for you.”

  He looked vaguely towards the kitchen. “She’s not here?”

  “Her last day was yesterday, you know, to help clean the house after Henry died. She didn’t have to, but she came this morning to make breakfast and say good-bye.”

  “And Crowder? Where is he?”

  “Probably in his room. Henry’s college asked him to create a small display case showing the shoebox bones and the most likely theories about each of them. He’s having a hard time deciding what to say about Elaine and the saint’s heel bone without making Doc T look bad.”

  Donovan flinched when I said Elaine’s name and averted his head. He hadn’t spoken about that night in the handful of times I’d seen him since. I’m sure he was embarrassed by what Kat, not very nicely, called his screaming like a girl. I tried to get him to talk about it at the reception after Henry’s memorial service, a brief and sparsely attended event as most of his colleagues planned something larger at the college later in the fall.

  He’d only given me a withering look. “Leslie, I blame the events of that week entirely on you. If you had restricted your activities to proper Abishag duties, then that violent incident would never have occurred. I trust that you will avoid future Abishag contracts as I have too many times advised.”

  Which was really unfair on so many levels. Donovan had pressured me to take this contract. By unmasking Elaine, we had resolved injustices and captured the woman who had irreparably harmed Doc T. Poor Frankie DiToro fled the desert as soon as the police released him, and we hadn’t seen him since. His lawyer had called me the day after “the incident,” and warned me against making any comments harming Doctor DiToro’s reputation. He needn’t have bothered. An Abishag wife is always discrete.

  I suspected others who had been there might not stay silent. In the past weeks, Kat had uncovered rumors about DiToro’s past and present misdeeds.

  Donovan still refused to look at me. I sighed. “Are we okay?”

  His lips thinned. “I’ve asked myself that very question, Leslie, and the answer is troubling. I believe your attention now lies elsewhere.”

  I stared at him. “It does?”

  He shrugged. “So it appears.”

  I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, but lawyers think in odd ways. It’s sometimes best to keep probing till an answer appears.

  “Where do you think my attention lies?” I asked. If I did my own analysis, I knew that my entire attention had been on Henry. Since Henry died, Donovan could scarcely be objecting to my care of him. Florence Harcourt had praised my work in a long email, and he never disagreed with her.

  Did he think I focused too much time on my studies? That had never been an issue in the past. Maybe he thought I would consider another Abishag contract, but Florence had already asked me. I told her no. In a few days I would start my last year at UCLA, and I had enough funds to finish my degree and even go to graduate school if I wished. In any case, Florence would have told Donovan if he asked. They were rather tight.

  He must have seen my confusion as he impatiently said, “Crowder. You’re obviously smitten with him.”

  I protested, “Thomas has been dead for over a year. I assure you that though I felt affection for him, I did not…”

  “Sebastian Crowder.”

  I gaped at him. “What?”

  “He threatened me at the theater when I said as an ex-Abishag wife you made a grateful girlfriend. Then I saw how he lunged at that woman to save your life, and how you put yourself in danger to rescue him. And other times too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I suspected something was going on with you two while you were married to that artist. He was forever in that house all Christmas.”

  “He knew Jordan, Donovan. We needed help, so he stayed. Not for me. For Jordan.”

  Donovan sneered, which really wasn’t attractive. “He procured that job here for you. I think his interest is obvious.”

  For a moment, I felt pity for Donovan. The poor man was obviously jealous over nothing. Lawyers didn’t have much experience with nice people doing nice things. Then I wondered if Donovan was using any excuse to get out of dating me again, grateful girlfriend that I had been.

  “If you don’t want to see me…” I began, but Donovan interrupted.

  “I won’t have it, Leslie. It’s time for you to choose. Me or him.”

 
; “Trust me, Donovan, Sebastian would be surprised if…”

  He glared at me. “Me or him?”

  “Him.”

  I’m not sure whom my response surprised more. Donovan broke the silence first. “So be it.”

  With rigid control, he opened the door, heat washing thickly over us. He returned to grab the bag of snacks Dèsirèe had prepared.

  When the door banged shut, I stared mortified at my suitcase. What had I done?

  Someone broke into applause behind me, and I spun around. My humiliation was complete. Standing in the doorway of the middle room, Kat clapped loudly while Dog stood next to her, staring at me in a bemused way. My heart sank further, seeing Sebastian standing in the shadows further back. I couldn’t see the expression on his face.

  “Stop it.” I told Kat. “This isn’t funny.”

  “No,” she said, swooping forward to hug me. “Rather a cause for celebration. You’re finally shed of him.”

  Dog, who rarely comments on anyone, said, “Guy’s a jerk. Glad to see the last of him.”

  Sebastian finally emerged from the shadows to join us, his expression unreadable. “Don’t worry about what we said,” I said quickly. “I know you don’t like me that way.”

  One eyebrow rose. “I don’t?”

  “You hardly spoke to me when we drove out here a month ago.”

  “All you talked about was your plans to date Reid again.”

  “I did?”

  He nodded. “I thought about asking you out after granddad died, but Donovan beat me to it.”

  I felt breathless. “You did?”

  “I would have asked you out last Christmas after Jordan died, but you seemed overwrought about losing Donovan. I thought I should wait till you got over him.”

  I frowned. “I wasn’t overwrought.”

  “Don’t give her time to over-think,” Kat said. “Ask her out quick.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked, outraged.

  “So you want to go out?” Sebastian asked.

  I shifted warily. “Are you asking because you feel sorry for me? Or out of loyalty to your grandfather? Or because you asked me to be Henry’s Abishag wife and now you feel you owe me…”

  He leaned forward suddenly and kissed me. And not as a grandson kisses his step-grandmother. An entirely different thing that left us breathless. My pulse quickened triple-time when I saw the expression in his eyes.

  “That’s why.” His hand lightly brushed my cheek.

  Although, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Sebastian, I felt Kat behind us, palpitating, wanting me to say something.

  So I did. “Okay then.”

  Which might not be enough for Kat’s romantic notions, but it seemed to satisfy Sebastian. The look in his eyes certainly helped this romantic rationalist hope in princes and glass slippers.

  Maybe in happily ever after too.

  Coming Summer 2014

  An Eggshell Present

  The Final Book in the Abishag Mystery Series

  An Excerpt from An Eggshell Present in the Abishag Mystery Series

  “Are you listening to me?” Kat demanded.

  Staring at the third eggshell present Sebastian had given me, a butterscotch-colored eggshell with crushed mule bones frosting the shell in swirls secured inside a crevice of a six-inch plaster replica of the Matterhorn, I dragged my attention to Kat. “Sure.”

  She glowered. “I’m trying to help you. Sebastian’s going to ask you to marry him tonight, and you have to have a response.”

  He was twenty-five minutes late. He was never late.

  “The trick is to look receptive. Dog would never have asked me if I looked at him with that stony stare of yours.”

  What she called my stony stare was really an Abishag wife’s look of serenity. After being an Abishag wife three times, my face defaulted to it whenever I felt confused. Which was most of the time. People in general puzzled me.

  Sebastian usually did not. Besides my housemates Kat and Dog, I felt most comfortable, most myself with him. I had known him for two years; he had been the grandson of my first husband, Thomas Crowder. We’d been dating since the death of my third husband, Professor Henry Telemann. Although I had to use Kat a couple of times to translate the nuances behind something Sebastian said, I’d never resorted to an Abishag face with him.

  “Hopefully you’ve resolved all your issues with your parents, your rational romantic views, and anything dysfunctional you’ve picked up as an Abishag wife. Do you want to practice your answer to Sebastian?”

  She meant romantic rationalist: rationalist being what I am with the romantic coloring the logic. As a romantic, I believe in love and prince charming, in glass slippers, dragons, and gingerbread cottages. As a rationalist, I don’t believe in Happily Ever After. Nothing lasts: not the love or the charming or the glass slippers.

  Over the past year, Sebastian had given me 95 eggshell presents: souvenirs of shared moments in the time we’d know each other, each a fragile, decorated eggshell enclosed securely in a painted plaster mold of a mountain. Someone else had made the mountains, but Sebastian had carefully blown the egg, decorated it, and installed it in its mountain fortress. Since each artifact stood about six inches high and four inches wide, the mountains filled the shelves of three living room bookcases and another in my bedroom. Kat made sure I understood that this was Sebastian’s way of showing that I could trust to a lasting future together. Hard not to when surrounded by 95 hefty reminders.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I caught Kat’s swift look at the mantel clock and knew she was worried too. Distracted, she refilled my teacup. “Maybe what?”

  “That’s what I’m going to tell him,” I said. “Maybe I’ll marry him.”

  Her teeth clattered on the mug as large as a soup bowl. “That’s not an answer.”

  With no intended irony, I said: “Maybe he’s not coming.”

  “Maybe you should call him,” she shot back.

  I pulled my iPhone from my thrift store messenger bag. Gone were the days when I dressed in name brand clothing and accessorized only with posh purses and jewelry to please my previous boyfriend, lawyer Donovan Reid. Although he came from wealth, Sebastian cared nothing about its trappings. Tonight I wore an old Anne Klein dress that Jen, another Abishag wife, had tired of and given to me: berry-colored, sleeveless with a midriff twist, nicer than what I usually wore. Sebastian told me that we were celebrating my graduating from UCLA so Kat pulled it from my closet.

  Besides all the turmoil of wondering where Sebastian was, feelings of loss and nostalgia filled me. Beyond whatever choice I made tonight, I would be leaving our university housing. As it was nearly August, we’d already lost most of our housemates in June when we’d graduated. I had lived here for four years, through times of poverty and wealth, times that included three comatose husbands.

  I’d miss the mystery stews, morning pop tarts, and Monday night pizzas. I’d miss the bad plumbing, leaky roof, and chance encounters with our mysterious landlord.

  I’d miss housemate Stanley talking about the latest science fiction convention while teaching me how to skirt past an internet firewall. Last weekend, he had moved into a Culver City loft, which would serve both as his office and living quarters. During our senior year, he already had enough clients to start his own business installing commercial and private networks and consulting on cyber security.

  My phone call to Sebastian went straight to voicemail. I left a message.

  Only Dog, Kat, and I remained, and the rooms seemed to echo hollowly. Although Kat had graduated this year also, Dog still had another year of medical school. Even with their sporadic jobs mostly working for the estates of my nearly-dead husbands, their school loans were colossal. Kat graduated with a double major in accounting and art, but hadn’t found a legitimate job in either field yet. Generally I ignored her freelancing in shady activities with a group of ex-felons called The Westwood Irregulars

  With an ominous tone
, Kat asked, “Why are you telling Sebastian that maybe you’re marrying him?”

  “I’m not even sure he’s going to ask me.”

  “I’m sure,” Kat said. When I sighed as I always did when she stated uncertainties as absolutes, she enumerated on her fingers. “One: when you’re in the room, he only looks at you. Two: twice he’s gotten involved in murder cases for you and saved your life each time. Three: he’s made 95 of those eggshell monstrosities. Four: he’s been hinting about it for a month. Five…do I gotta go on? The man’s obviously smitten with you.”

  My gaze skated past the bookshelves loaded with Matterhorns, Everests, Kilimanjaros, and McKinleys. “I know he cares, but marriage? He could be talking about just moving in together.”

  She made a rude noise. “I’ll be 22 in September and Sebastian’s 23,” I said. “Most marriages that young fail.”

  “I was 19 when I married Dog.”

  I shrugged. “You’re not most people. Sebastian and I didn’t have parents with great marriages.”

  “So you’ve learned what not to do.”

  “Sebastian still has two more years before he finishes his doctorate. He won’t want to marry till after that.”

  “Who says? Neither of you need the money. You could work on a graduate degree too.”

  “The only school that accepted me was in Missouri.”

  A tiny pause so fraught with tension even I could feel, then she asked, “Why did you apply to an out-of-state school when Sebastian had another two years here?” She spoke quietly, but something in her tight lips made me feel uneasy.

  “My back-up plan in case Sebastian broke up with me.”

  “You wanted to be far away ‘cause without Seb, your heart would break?”

  “Hearts don’t…”

  “Leslie.”

  I stood. “He’s over an hour late, Kat, and he’s never late. Since he’s obviously not coming, it’s a good thing I made a back-up plan.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Between 1992 and 2011, Michelle Knowlden published 14 stories with Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine that featured hypochondriac detective Micky Cardex and others that did not. The 1998 story “No, Thank You, John” was nominated for a Shamus award. Many of these stories have been included in anthologies and translated in multiple languages. She also published a science fiction story for the More Amazing Stories anthology published by Tor.