Chapter 43 Adelaide
adelaide
I stared inside the suitcase, then pressed the back of my cotton glove against my mouth.
“What?” Hope asked, her voice quavering. “What is it?”
I couldn’t speak.
“Something covered by a blanket.” Matt moved aside so Hope could step up beside me. I continued to stare at the partially rotted pink-and-blue blanket, stained and dirty. A baby blanket—one I’d never seen before. My stomach and heart felt as if they’d swapped places.
“Do you want me to lift it?” Matt asked.
No. Truth was, I didn’t want to see what was underneath. I wanted to slam the lid and pretend we’d never found the damned thing. But I couldn’t do that. I’d done that for all too long.
“I’ll do it.” My hand shook. Covered in that flowered cotton glove, it didn’t even look like it was attached to my arm as I peeled back that blanket.
Inside, something was wrapped in what looked like it had once been newspaper, but now resembled papier-maché.
I tugged on it. It came off in big chunks. And underneath . . .
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.
Why would 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 you want to know?”
I actually hadn’t been sure before, but I was now. “Yes.”
Matt closed the lid on the trunk. “Well, then, I can track down this address and find out who was living there at the time.”
My chest fluttered with hope. “Oh, could you?”
Matt looked at Hope, and she nodded. He grinned at me, and he was so handsome, so confident, that for a moment it was like looking at Joe. “Sure thing, Miss Addie,” he said. “Sure thing.”