A shadow fell across Lucinda as she sat at the bottom of the stairs.
“I got the breakfast sandwiches,” Dot called down from the top of the stairs. “What are you doing sitting down there?”
Dale turned and looked up at her. “Shhh,” he said.
“I’ll put them on the counter.”
Shooof. Uuumph—
“I got something,” the trooper said and leaned the shovel against the cellar wall.
Lucinda stood, Dale at her side.
They crept over to the excavation site.
Dale shone the flashlight beam into the hole.
In the dark earth at the bottom of the hole, white protruded from the wet black earth.
The trooper reached down with his fingertips to pick away at the earth around. Earthworms wriggled in the dirt. Beetles scuttled.
“Let me,” Lucinda said.
The trooper turned to look at Lucinda.
“Please,” she said.
The trooper stepped aside.
Lucinda knelt and with her fingers picked away at the edges to reveal more of the bone. A convex shape materialized, like an overturned bowl.
The cap of a skull.
Without the lower mandible.
“A child’s,” the trooper said from behind her. “I’d guess.”
Lucinda wilted. Dale righted her. “No,” Lucinda said.
“We shouldn’t proceed,” the trooper said. “We need to get a forensic team here right away. Follow procedure exactly.” He stared down into the shallow grave. “I have two daughters,” he said.
They turned to go up the stairs.
In the doorway at the top of the stairs, Lucinda’s father sat in his wheelchair looking down at them.
Then he wheeled away.
Dot was setting out the breakfast sandwiches on the table.
“Help yourself,” she said.
“You need to go,” Lucinda said.
“There’s coffee on,” Dot said. “And—”
“Ma’am,” the trooper said, “the deputy is right. You need to vacate the premises.”
“I don’t understand— When should I come back?”
“We won’t need you to come back,” Lucinda said.
“But your father?” Dot said.
“I don’t know how something like this works. Do you know how this works?” Lucinda asked the trooper. “Someone his age? So ill. Months, if not weeks.”
“I don’t know, Deputy. I don’t know.”
“Please tell me what’s happening,” Dot said, going pale.
“Ma’am,” the trooper said, “please, if you’ll just come with me outside.”
“I have personal belongings here.”
“We’ll see you get them.” The trooper turned to Lucinda. “I’ll put in the call from the cruiser. Don’t go down there again. We don’t want to disturb anything more than we have, now that we know.”