A Will To Murder by Hilary Thomson Page B

his hefty father was making.  But Cummings balked when his son tried to make him climb the attic stairs in the dark.
    “Hold on, where’s the damn light switch?”
    “There isn’t one.”
    “There has to be.  I’m not walking face-first into a bunch of cobwebs.  Here it is. And it doesn’t work,” Bert added morosely.  “Are you sure you saw a CD case?”
    “Yes!” Arthur protested.  He had already raced to the top of the attic stairs.
    With a sigh, Bert trod upwards while his son opened the attic door.  As the two stepped into the attic, Arthur bounced excitedly along the floor down to the boxes.
    But the CD case was gone.  Baffled, Arthur looked behind the boxes, and it wasn’t there.
    “Well?” said his father, fists on hips.
    “It was right here,” the boy insisted.  “A black guy with a gun on the cover.”
    “That describes plenty of rap CDs.  Are you sure you weren’t imagining it?”
    “I saw it!  Somebody must have taken it.”
    “And who could that have been?”
    Arthur’s eyes narrowed.  Briarly’s door was close to the black velvet curtain.
    “Briarly might have heard me.  Maybe she took it.”
    The two traveled down the stairs again.  Cummings knocked on Briarly’s door, then opened it.  The girl was lying on her bed, drawing in a coloring book.  A little dirt was already decorating her cheeks.  “Have you seen a CD case?” Bert asked lightly. “We’re looking for one and Arthur thought you might have found it.”
    The girl scowled at Arthur.  Plainly, she thought her cousin had accused her of theft.  Arthur made an ape-face in reply.                        
    “No,” Briarly said firmly.
    “Are you sure?” Bert smiled.
    “Yes!”
    “Well, Arthur, you must have imagined it.  Never mind us, Briarly.  And you might want to clean that stuff off your face before the lawyer comes.”  Hands in his pockets, Bert made his way back down the stairs.  Arthur was frowning.
    “You did that just to give me some exercise, didn’t you, kid?”
    “But it was there!”
    “Kid!  Don’t joke about CD cases right now, okay?  They’re a very sensitive topic in this household, especially ones by the name of Jazzy F*KU.  If you try to sucker me again I’ll spank hell out of you.  Got that?”
    Arthur was defeated.  Once his father threatened a spanking, no one could argue with him.  Yet Arthur knew he had seen a CD case in the attic, and that somebody had stolen it.
    “We’re getting ready for the funeral service,” Bert continued, “so don’t run off.  Now where did I put that glass?  It must have had at least a teaspoonful of drink left.”
    Arthur watched his father disappear.  He considered hunting for the CD case again, but there was another question he had to ask.  He found his mother in the kitchen and tugged wordlessly on her arm until she let herself be guided upstairs.
    “What is it, honey?”
    Arthur didn’t reply, instead urging her up to the third floor and into the schoolroom.  When they reached the skeleton, he asked, “Is that Grandad Boyle?”
    “No, that’s Herbert Maxillamus.  Or that’s what we named him.  He’s a skeleton your great-grandfather bought so his children and grandchildren could learn the bones of the body.  This is our old schoolroom.  Your uncle and aunt and myself all had private tutors back then.  No, your grandfather’s in a coffin at the Chichiteaux Cemetery, and we’re going to be burying him in an hour or so.”
    The boy felt much better.  He had been positive that the skeleton was actually his dead grandfather.  Now that it was nobody, he felt braver about it.
    “Is there anything else in this house that’s frightening you?”
    “I am not scared,” Arthur bellowed, puffing.
    “That’s good.  Now, we need to get ready to leave.  Try to behave, will you?  The service is probably going to be a little dull.”
    Humiliated, the boy followed his mother downstairs.
     
     
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