Skeleton in a Dead Space (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) by Judy Alter

even dragging out the notes I’d made, which he copied into a small spiral that he carried.
    “I’ll check it out, but I don’t expect much. It’s the worst kind of cold trail. I don’t suppose you’d take the girls and go somewhere?”
    I shook my head. “No, but I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my girls safe.”
    “You have an alarm system?” he asked.
    “Yeah, but I never use it. I guess I better start setting it at night.”
    “And get an emergency alarm button that you can keep in your pocket or someplace handy all the time.”
    “Yessir,” I replied. I was tempted to salute, but I didn’t think he’d find it funny.
    “We’ll keep all of you safe,” he said, but I wondered how he could be sure.
    ****
    Tired as I was, sleep wouldn’t come. The shattered door kept reappearing before my eyes and so did the skeleton in its box. And then, as I slept fitfully, the skeleton walked through the shattered door, trailing a chiffon-like gown in a floral pattern, bony hands pushing at the broken panels of the door. This time the brown hair was in an upsweep, as though she were going to her senior prom. I woke in a cold sweat.
    “Mom?” Maggie cuddled close to me. “You were making a funny noise.”
    Guilt. Now my children were scared. I threw back the covers. “I had a bad dream.” As I drifted off to more peaceful sleep, I thought, This is the way it is—the three of us against the world. Little did I know.
    When I went to get the paper, I gave a sort of half-wave to the man who sat in front of the house in a car, this one a new Toyota Camry. He didn’t even look my way. I supposed being invisible was one of the policeman’s responsibilities. Or maybe he wasn’t police but someone else watching the house. I was getting paranoid. Settled in the kitchen with coffee, I busied myself with the paper. Drive-by shootings often make the news but only if death was involved. Shattered front doors don’t make it, and I was relieved that there was no mention of the incident.
    The phone rang. A tentative, “Hello?”
    “Kelly, what in the world is going on down there?”
    “Hi, Mom. How are you?”
    An indignant voice. “Well, I’m worried about you. My goodness, I told you not to stay in Texas once what’s-his-name left. You should have come back to Illinois, where it’s safe.”
    Sigh. No sense pointing out that crime was a lot worse in suburban Chicago than inner-city Fort Worth. My mom has been a worrier since the day I was born and before. When she fretted that I would “take cold,” my dad always said, “Let the child be.” As a youngster, I longed for brothers and sisters, just to take some of Mom’s attention off me. Now, at thirty-six, I still had her full attention, especially since Dad died ten years ago. “How did you know something was going on, Mom?”
    “That neighbor of yours, the one I liked so much—I can’t remember her name….”
    I could see Florence Dodson, the eighty-something-year-old who lived three houses down the street and complained that the girls picked her flowers, when I knew that my girls were too well trained to do that.
    “Did Florence call, Mom?”
    “Yes, she did, and it’s a good thing. I can’t rely on you to tell me a thing.”
    “There’s not much to tell. We found a skeleton in a house, and then someone set the house on fire.”
    “And shot up your front door. Florence called early this morning.”
    That’s an understatement—it’s barely after seven now.
    “And she told me you had policemen outside your house all night.”
    If Florence Dodson recognized the policeman, so did the bad guys. So much for their cover.
    “Mom, it’s nothing. It’ll blow over in a day or two.”
    “Nothing, my foot. I’m getting the first plane reservation down there I can.”
    My backbone stiffened. “Mom, you can’t do any good, and you might only make things worse. I don’t want you to come. Wait till Christmas when you can enjoy the girls.” Cynthia