The Skeleton Stuffs a Stocking by Leigh Perry

Author:Leigh Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2019-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

On Thursday, I had plans to eat lunch with Mom and Phil at McQuaid before Mom and I went Christmas shopping. With Sid’s help, I’d found out what games would be a good match for the new Switch I was giving Madison, and Mom wanted me to go with her to make sure she bought the right ones.

Either I was running a little early or they were running a little late because neither parent was at the Campus Deli when I got there. I saw Oscar sitting at a table by himself, and went to say hello and poke at him.

“Hello, Oscar. I would shake your hand, but somebody might think we were arm wrestling or Kung Fu fighting or something. You know how things get exaggerated.”

He choked down a bite of his ham sandwich. “Look, Georgia, I didn’t mean to say that you and Brownie were doing anything untoward. I know a guy who works security there, and he was just patrolling—which is his job—when he saw you two eating together, and he mentioned it to me. That’s all I told Deborah.”

“Then how did Deborah get from our eating at the same table to ‘making out?’”

“My friend might have mentioned kissing.”

“Uh huh.”

“It wasn’t a secret or anything, was it?”

“We were in a public place where I’m known, and apparently so is Brownie. Of course it wasn’t a secret. I just never cease to be amazed by how quickly gossip travels between campuses.”

He shrugged sheepishly.

After that I let him off the hook, and we chatted about the weather and the busyness of the season until I had an idea which called for a subtle conversational segue. Unfortunately, I was out of subtle conversational segues, so I went with my usual direct approach. “Hey, Oscar, can I ask for a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I’ve been looking into the case of that body our dog found.”

“I hoped you might be. The police around here can use a little extra brainpower, if you ask me.”

“They are stretched pretty thin,” I said, as if Pennycross had suddenly become a hive of mob activity. “I’ve got a name that might match the body, a woman who went missing in West Litchfield. The thing that has me confused is that as far as I can tell, the police there didn’t really look for her very hard, and I don’t know why. I don’t have an in with the police there, but since she worked for Bostock, I thought the security people there might have some information, but I don’t know who to ask and thought you might. I mean, you always seem to have your finger on the pulse of things here, and I’m hoping your counterparts over there are equally as efficient.” Poor Oscar puffed up his chest, which made me feel a little guilty, but he really did run a pretty tight ship at McQuaid.

“I could do that. Do you want an introduction, or would you rather I speak to my buddy?”

“I think it would

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