Murder Bone by Bone Read Online Free PDF

graduate student used to baby-sit for us, until we found out she was taking the children over to her place—” Claudia looked around— "here, and smoking dope with her friends while the kids watched TV.” She shook her head. “Real mangy group lived here then. Hippies, drug dealers, you name it. A lot of houses in this area were rented out to groups. Wild parties, loud music. Really, it was everywhere, even down the street from us. Alfred didn’t like it. He wanted to move to Crescent Park before Carlie started school, but the prices had gone up, and he decided we couldn’t afford to move. And I felt it gave the neighborhood vitality, even if you didn’t trust any of those young people as baby-sitters.
    Claudia’s house, though she didn’t keep it in very good repair, would be worth probably twenty times what they’d paid thirty years ago. Even my tumbledown little shack was worth a lot of money. I’d often thought of selling it and moving somewhere cheap. It’s just that nowhere seems particularly cheap anymore.
    “Do you remember anything about someone who disappeared and was never found?”
    Claudia wrinkled her forehead and then, when it delighted Moira, made more faces. “Not really,” she said finally. “I wasn’t real involved in community things then. Just coping with kids and trying to do some research.” She sniffed, and sniffed again. “Speaking of coping—”
    “I figured as much.” I stood up. “I’ll change her.”
    “Let me,” Claudia suggested, heaving herself to her feet while holding Moira a little away. “I haven’t changed a diaper in a long time.”
    “I won’t fight you for it.” I went to the back door and watched for a minute while the boys threw tennis balls for Barker, and he played keep-away with them, a game he much preferred to fetch. Then he started teaching them to fetch; after they threw the ball, he stood there, his head cocked, and they eventually ran to get it. It was as good a way as any I could have devised to tire them out. I left them to it.
    Claudia came back, holding Moira’s hand while she toddled tippily along. “I still know how to put a diaper on,” she bragged. “Such knowledge is never really lost. Maybe I’m ready to be a grandmother now, if my kids would only cooperate.”
    She’d used a cloth diaper, and it was snug, not drooping anywhere. "That’s great,” I said. “Can you show me?”
    She spent a few minutes showing me how to fold and pin a diaper. Then the boys came in, bursting with high spirits and followed by an excited Barker.
    They were glad to see Claudia, who must have seemed like an ocean liner of familiarity in a cast-adrift world, and showered her with fervent hugs.
    “Say, I know.” She gathered the boys into a huddle. “How about I take you fellows down to the Peninsula Creamery for a milkshake?”
    We were all enthusiastic about that. I just had one reservation. “Uh, Claudia—you will be walking, right? Not driving?”
    “If you insist,” she said huffily. Claudia’s driving was famous for its wretchedness. Considering her plunging, absent-minded method of progression, her actual lack of accidents was thought by her friends to be positive proof for the concept of guardian angels. However, I didn’t want to risk that this expedition would be the time that Claudia had the accident she’d deserved for years.
    I watched them down the street, Claudia puffing along pushing Mick in the stroller while Corky and Sam ranged ahead. Moira wept a little in a desultory way, but was placated by sitting in the high chair with Cheerios and apple slices on the tray. For a few minutes she ate happily while I swept a fresh accumulation of dirt off the faded linoleum, which was not much newer than my own ancient floor covering.
    Bridget and Emery hadn’t remodeled their early-l900s bungalow, although she was always talking about doing it. Except for a newish refrigerator, the kitchen probably looked much as it had for the past