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

what he’d overheard at PHS. I had checked my phone several times during the day, and there had been no messages, but since he’d promised to text only in case of emergency, I still had high hopes. “So what was the scoop at school today? Did you hear anything?”
    “I heard so much I was afraid I’d forget stuff,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m taking a pad and pencil with me.”
    “Well?”
    “First off, Dante and Mina broke up.”
    “You’re kidding!” Madison said. “They were such a cute couple.”
    “I know, right? But she said he wasn’t paying enough attention to her. She texted him Friday night, and he didn’t reply until Saturday morning, so she knows he was out with somebody else.”
    “Maybe he went over his texting limit.”
    “The perennial problem of the age,” I put in.
    Sid went on. “No, because he texted Nikko Saturday afternoon to check on a homework assignment, which proves he still had minutes. So she texted him that night and broke up.”
    “That’s harsh!” Madison said. “The least she could do was to break up in person.”
    “It gets worse,” he said. “They were both invited to a party Saturday night, and she took another guy.”
    “You’re kidding! Did Dante freak?”
    “He would have, but he was with Rhonda. So apparently he was seeing her all along.”
    “Wow,” Madison said. “What else?”
    “Tristan wants to quit the softball team because he really doesn’t like it and he feels tired all the time trying to keep up the schedule, but his father says he needs a sport on his high school resume to get into college.”
    “Mom! Do I need a sport?”
    “You have drama and choral ensemble, plus a part-time job with your aunt and good grades. You’re fine.”
    “That’s what I wanted to tell Tristan,” Sid said, “but under the circumstances . . .”
    “Anything else?” I said impatiently.
    “One of the teachers is sneaking out every chance she gets to smoke. I couldn’t see which one it was, but I could smell the smoke on her when she came back. Just tobacco, though.”
    “That’s Ms. Gilstrap,” Madison said. “We all can smell it on her, so it’s no secret, and everybody knows she’s trying to quit.”
    “Good for her. Anyway, that’s all I got while in the locker. When I was backstage I heard Becca on the phone telling somebody that she’s having second thoughts about casting Holly as Ophelia because she isn’t sure she’s up to it.”
    “I could have told her that,” Madison muttered.
    “And I didn’t see who it was, but somebody was doing some serious kissing in the dressing room while you guys were doing act four.”
    “Really? Now I’ve got to think about who’s not in that act.”
    “Excuse me,” I said, “though this is undoubtedly valuable information, can we focus on whether or not you heard anything that might apply to the murder?”
    “Well, we don’t really know what could be important, do we?” Sid said defensively.
    “Did any of the voices you heard sound like the murderer? Or the person who came to help the murderer get rid of the body?”
    “No, not really.”
    “Was there any mention of anybody being missing? Like a teacher or any other adult who didn’t come in to work?”
    “No.”
    “Then how likely is it that any of this gossip is meaningful?”
    “It’s a lot more likely than a walking, talking skeleton.”
    I couldn’t argue with that. “Tell you what. Write it all up tonight so we can keep track of everything.”
    “Can I create a spreadsheet? Or would a database be better? Maybe a word processing file with tags, or—”
    “However you like.”
    “Oh boy,” he said, rubbing his bony hands together in anticipation. Then he gave me a look. “You’re not just assigning this as busywork, are you?”
    “Maybe a little, but the fact is we know so little now that we can’t afford to ignore anything. If you get it all down, we might find a pattern later.” I didn’t know if that made sense from an