Bones.
I recoiled. “Oh dear Lord.” Hope’s arm circled my shoulders.Oh, Charlie—how could you?A sob escaped my mouth.
“Wait.” Matt leaned in. “This isn’t human.”
“What?”
He moved the newspaper. “The head shape is all wrong, and so are the teeth.”
Teeth? Babies don’t have teeth!
“It looks like the remains of a dog,” Matt said.
“A dog?”Hope and I breathed the words at the same time.
“Yeah.” Matt held back the paper and Hope peered in. “See the jaw? And there’s some fur.”
“It’s definitely not a baby,” Hope said.
Not a baby.Not a baby!My own bones went limp.
“There’s something else in here.” Matt unwrapped something from the paper. As I watched, he pulled out an Old Crow whiskey bottle.
“Oh my. That’s what Charlie drank.” I felt my legs go weak. Hope grabbed my arms and helped me to a chair.
“Did you have a dog?” Hope asked me.
“No,” Gran said. “Charlie always said they were too much trouble.” Actually, his mother had said that, and Charlie had just accepted it, like he accepted most pronouncements from his parents.
“Did you know anyone who did?”
“Well, sure. But not in Mississippi. We didn’t really know our neighbors. We stayed to ourselves because of the false pregnancy.”
“This is the suitcase that was in the trunk of the car?”
“Oh, yes. I’m sure of it. I’d never seen a suitcase like that before.”
Matt continued to paw through the paper. “Look—here’s a dog collar and a tag!”
He lifted a cracked leather collar and read the tin tag. “Sonny. Fourteen Belmont Street, Cratchatee, Mississippi.”
“Where’s Cratchatee?” Hope asked.
“It’s a small town east of Jackson.” I sank back in the chair and pulled off my gloves. Tears filled my eyes.
“Are you okay, Gran?”
I nodded, but my mind was reeling. “I don’t understand. Whywould Charlie bury a dog? What happened to the baby?” Tears flowed down my cheeks. I tossed the gloves aside and wiped my face on my sleeve, my gut churning. “I was supposed to straighten out this whole mess. How am I going to do that now?”
“I thought the important thing was to find the suitcase and alleviate your fears,” Hope said.
“But this doesn’t alleviate them!” I clasped and unclasped my hands in my lap, rocking back and forth in a chair that wasn’t a rocker. “I still don’t know what happened to the baby!”
“Are you sure there was one?” Matt asked softly.
“Yes. Positively. And now... well, now I guess I’ll go to my grave not knowing.”
“Are you sure youwantto know?”
