The Skeleton Takes a Bow (A Family Skeleton Mystery) by Leigh Perry

didn’t work out that way. Instead, I was woken by Deborah shaking my shoulder.
    My sister knows that unless there’s an emergency, she’s supposed to warn me before coming inside the house. So naturally, I assumed the worst. “Deborah? What’s wrong?”
    “That’s what I want to ask you.”
    “We’re fine—I was asleep. Nothing’s wrong.”
    “Well, something’s wrong with you. Did you or did you not call the police again and give them that same cock-and-bull story that Sid dreamed up?”
    “It’s not a cock-and-bull story, and Sid didn’t dream it up.” Technically Sid can’t dream anything up, since he doesn’t sleep, but I didn’t think it was a good time to remind her of that fact.
    “Then you did call again?”
    “Of course I called again. I’m supposed to call the police when I have information about a crime—you know, because of being a responsible citizen.”
    “Is it responsible to keep wasting the police department’s time and resources?”
    “It’s not a waste of resources for them to investigate a crime. And how do you know anything about it anyway?”
    “Last night was our bowling league tournament. And Louis was late because he had to pull out his report from the wasted trip he took to the school the other week and confirm that there were no signs of violent death in that auditorium. We almost had to forfeit!”
    “Don’t you think a murder investigation is a little bit more important than a bowling game?”
    “It was the league championship, thank you very much.”
    “How’d you do?”
    “We won.”
    “Congratulations.”
    “Thank you.”
    “So why are you still here complaining if my call didn’t hurt anything?”
    “Because—because—because there wasn’t any murder!”
    “What about the disappearance? A teacher came to Pennycross for an interview and he hasn’t been seen since.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Louis told me all about it. The guy came for an interview at two in the afternoon. He met with the search committee for, like, an hour, then Principal Dahlgren and two of the other committee members—including the president of the PTO—walked him out. They were there when the guy drove away. They’ve also got a waitress who served him dinner at the River Inn several hours later.”
    “Why was he still in town? That’s suspicious, isn’t it?”
    “Not really. He’d been driving around looking at neighborhoods where he might want to get an apartment. Apparently he was feeling pretty confident about getting the job.”
    “And he just told all this to the waitress?”
    “Men do flirt with waitresses, you know. Apparently it was a slow night. They started talking and he asked her about living here. Since he wanted to know about specific apartment buildings, then yeah, he probably had just been riding around. When he left, he said he was heading back home to Medfield or wherever.”
    “Medford.”
    “Whatever. Anyway, he disappeared somewhere between the River Inn and Medford. It had absolutely nothing to do with Pennycross.”
    “Don’t the police think it’s suspicious that Irwin went missing on the same day, in the very place, that a murder was witnessed?”
    “I’m sure they would if there was any evidence—any evidence at all—that somebody was actually killed at PHS. Because a call from a lunatic—”
    “Excuse me?” I said frostily.
    “Fine. A call from an eccentric does not count as evidence. The evidence they do have includes four witnesses that saw Irwin leaving PHS—Dahlgren and the teacher and parent who were members of the search committee, plus the candidate who showed up for his interview just as Irwin was leaving. They also have a waitress who served him at a restaurant some time after that time. What they don’t have is anything that puts him back at PHS, a place he’d never been to before that day.”
    “Well, Sid knows what he heard, and he heard Robert Irwin being murdered—he’s positive about his