Amazingly, Uncle Dex confirmed it. “Oh yeah,” he said when we asked about the history of the building. Since we’d already had conversations with him about the dogs next door, and about Mrs. Strentz’s ghost, and the connection to the Battle of Fredericksburg, it didn’t seem like too strange a thing for us to bring up.

“These two buildings share a wall, and they both came down during the battle,” he said. He dragged out a photo history of the Civil War and showed us a copy of an old picture of downtown Fredericksburg.

“See that big pile of rubble, with a couple of walls still standing?” he asked. “That was all that was left of these two buildings after the shelling and the looting and the battle. The Union army stayed around for another day in Fredericksburg, withdrawing men who’d been trapped on the battlefield once they finally were able to negotiate a truce. General Burnside decided he’d had enough, after the debacle at Slaughter Pen Farm, and the awful slaughter at Sunken Road. The Army of the Potomac did more damage to the town before they left, not wanting to leave much behind for the Confederates and the citizens of Fredericksburg, just about all of whom — unless they were slaves — supported the Confederacy. There are probably soldiers still buried in places all around Fredericksburg, in unmarked graves, even untraceable graves. Or Confederate and Union soldiers both buried under the rubble of these fallen buildings. In a lot of instances they just built right back over the old foundations, not even bothering to clear everything away.”

That sounded creepy — bodies left all over — but with so many casualties, it made sense that they wouldn’t always have time to do right by the dead.

So it must have been what Greg said: Sally had died alone and been buried in the basement or cellar of what was now the Dog and Suds building, and never found. Until, sort of, now.

We thanked Uncle Dex. It was almost six o’clock, past time for us all to be home.

Something else occurred to me as we were walking out the door, though, and I turned to ask Uncle Dex one more question.

“I know you’ve studied a lot about the Battle of Fredericksburg and the history of the town and all,” I said. “And I was wondering if you ever came across the name Frank or Frankie Keegan?”

Uncle Dex gave me a funny look, and I thought for a second he was going to ask me why I wanted to know. He just smiled, though, and said, “Well, actually, yes. There was a Dr. Frank Keegan who moved here about ten years after the war. He’d fought in Fredericksburg on the Union side as a member of the Irish Brigade, then he stayed for several weeks working in the hospital across the river at Chatham Manor, helping with the sick and wounded. As I understand it, he became a doctor after the war, somewhere back up north, but I guess always liked Fredericksburg. Or maybe he had some other reason for wanting to move here and open his practice. But that’s what he did. Down on Princess Anne Street. And his son became a doctor here, too. And his grandson. And a great-granddaughter or two. There’s still a Dr. Keegan who works over at the hospital — she’s in the emergency room — who’s his great-great-great-great granddaughter. I went to high school with her. Or maybe she’s his great-great-great granddaughter. Anyway, it was one of those ironic things that happened here. Something good, I guess you could say, coming out of something so terrible.”

We rode silently for a few blocks toward Deedee’s house on Caroline Street down near the city dock — where Sally and the Irish Brigade had crossed the river back in 1862. I wondered if that might have had something to do with why Deedee could see and hear Sally, but probably there was no way to know something like that.

Deedee broke the silence. “Thanks for riding home with me. It’s getting pretty dark. I just wish Sally was here so we could tell her all that stuff we learned about where she ended up. And about how things turned out for her little brother.”

Greg responded. “Sometimes ghosts can still hear us talking, even if they can’t show themselves to us,” he said. “So that might have happened.”

Julie was worried, too. “I’d hate it if she missed out on what your uncle told us, Anderson,” she added. “It’d be terrible if Sally just suddenly ran out of time for us to solve the mystery.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” I said, which didn’t sound very helpful. But there was nothing else we could do.