Bloody Skeleton Series #1 The Monster in the neighborhood

6-Sleuth

'It's sad what happened to Old Man Jones,' Mikey's Mom said into her phone, coming out of her workroom. 'Do you really think he's dead? I didn't hear much about it.'

Mikey was standing at the top of the stairs, ready to go down and put on his console, but he watched and listened to his mother. He hadn't heard anything about Old Man Jones.

His mom paused with one hand on the door handle and listened intently. 'Uh-huh...' she was staring at nothing on the wall facing the door. 'Oh,' she gasped, shutting the door and moving. 'What did the police say? Have they said anything?'

She caught him standing there, eavesdropping, but didn't wave him to leave.

'Well, that's a given. Nobody's going to be careless at a time like this. Oh, no it's fine, I was just about to take a break anyways. Sure, we'll talk again later.' She laughed. 'Bye Helen.'

Mikey was almost bouncing off his feet with how much he wanted to ask about Mr Jones, but he waited until he was sure she'd ended the call.

'What happened to Old Man Jones,' he asked in a rush.

His mom put her hands on her hips. 'You hear that but not how you should clean your room?'

'I clean my room every week,' he countered. 'Did he really die? What happened? Was it old age?'

His mom sighed and walked over to him, ruffling his head. 'That's not something that should concern you,' she said and started downstairs.

Mikey wasn't going to let it go. He followed closely behind, talking too fast. 'But you just said that he died? Was it a serial killer? Is there a serial killer in town? Do we all have to carry stun guns?'

His mom got to the bottom and turned to look at him. 'Michael,' she called his full name, 'I don't want to hear a word of this from your mouth again, do you hear me?'

He didn't want to do that. 'You know hiding things in movies always goes wrong. It'd be better to just tell me so I can be careful.'

His mom looked at him sternly until he sighed and looked at the ground. 'Yes, mom.'

'Good. Now come help me set up the plates.'

He really just wanted to play games, but there was no way his mom would let him until he got the plates on the table. He didn't even know why he had to do that, it wasn't as if it was thanksgiving, and they were having people over. It was just him, her, and Marie. His dad was at work.

After the plates, there were the cups, then he had to help microwave some things, then he had to go to Lizzie's down the street to get Marie because she wasn't picking up the phone.

He glared at Marie from the door.

'What?' she glared back before swirling around and saying in a completely different voice. 'Bye Lizzie.'

'Sure, let's hang at Pete's tomorrow.'

He was practically stomping his way back before the idea struck him. Mikey slowed down so he walked right beside Marie who was already back to pressing her phone.

'What?' she hissed without looking away from what she was doing.

'Did you hear what happened to Old Man Jones?'

'Everybody's heard, you nerd. Nobody knows where he is.'

He lit up. 'Really? Mom thinks he's dead though.'

Marie stopped and looked at him. 'He's not dead. They said there was blood in his yard, but the police did their testing thing and said it was animal blood. So, they don't know where he is.' She looked back at her phone and started walking again. 'Besides, he's technically not yet missing yet.'

'How can he technically not be missing yet?'

Marie shook her head impatiently. 'You don't know anything. You can't file a missing person report to the police unless the person has been gone for three days. Since they only found out yesterday, it's going to be until like tomorrow before they can make it official or something.'

'Oh.'

They reached home and Mikey ran ahead.

His mom was experimenting with foreign food. Mikey didn't like looking at new food because sometimes he was very sure he wouldn't like how it tasted, but this week, she'd been experimenting with Spanish food. He was happy that it'd been a long while since he'd had to stuff boiled broccoli down his throat.

'Mom, I'm going to Pete's tomorrow.'

'Sure, honey, just be back by five.'

Marie paused and looked up. 'Five? I thought my curfew was nine.'

'That was before Old Man Jones went missing. We still don't know what happened, Marie, it's better to be careful until the whole thing calms down.' Mikey didn't point out that she'd said he was dead before.

'That's not fair! I mean, he's technically not even missing yet, you can't be missing until after three days.'

Mikey glanced between Marie and his mother as he chewed quietly. He wanted to know what was going on. 'He's been missing for close to two weeks, Marie. The last time anybody saw him was two Wednesdays ago. So yes, he is technically missing, and the police suspect that there was foul play. That means, your curfew starting today is five, when the sun's still up.'

Mikey smirked and glanced at Marie. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears were tomato-red the way they were when she was mad.

It didn't matter that his curfew was probably now five too, before, it'd been eight, an hour earlier than Marie's. At least now they were both equally miserable.

Mikey rushed the rest of his soup. It was spicy and made his eyes water, but he didn't slow even after his mom said something.

'Bye Mom, I'm going to Harry's,' he called after a large gulp of cold water, already running for the door.

'Don't forget, Mikey, be back—'

'Yeah, yeah, be back by five, got it.' And he was gone, practically flying to Harry's house texting for everybody to meet there.