Chapter 5 - THE GRAVE WITHOUT A NAME
The police arrived forty minutes later.
They did not arrest us for disturbing the cemetery.
They did not ask many questions about the shooting.
They focused entirely on the unmarked grave.
The current sheriff was Raymond Calder’s nephew.
Sheriff Owen Calder was younger, heavier, and less skilled at hiding what he felt.
When he saw the name on the medical coat, fear passed across his face.
He quickly covered it.
“This could have been buried here for any reason.”
Jack stepped closer.
“Doctors usually bury their coats in anonymous graves?”
Owen ignored him.
He ordered his deputies to seal the area.
Then he tried to take the metal box from me.
I held it against my chest.
“It belonged to my father.”
“It may contain evidence.”
“Evidence your uncle failed to collect.”
His expression tightened.
“I am not responsible for investigations conducted before I took office.”
“Then you will not mind calling the state police.”
Owen looked toward the bikers.
“This is county jurisdiction.”
Boone smiled.
“Not if that grave crosses into the old church property.”
Owen’s face changed again.
The cemetery boundary ran directly behind the unmarked grave.
If the remains rested beneath church land, state investigators could intervene.
Boone had known that before he spoke.
Owen ordered everyone away from the grave.
We returned to the diner where the story had begun.
The owner locked the door behind us.
Her name was Dolores Price.
She had worked at the diner since 1989.
When I placed the photograph of the newborns on the counter, her hands began to shake.
“I knew this day would come.”
Jack stared at her.
“You knew about New Dawn?”
“Everyone who worked nights near Saint Agnes knew something was wrong.”
“Why did no one speak?”
“People spoke.”
Dolores looked toward the dark windows.
“Then people disappeared.”
She touched the photograph.
“I remember this baby.”
Her finger rested on Jack’s crib.
“Margaret brought him here before sunrise.”
Jack’s breathing changed.
“Here?”
“She sat in the corner booth.”
“The same booth where I was sitting today?”
Dolores nodded.
“She held you beneath her coat.”
“She was crying.”
“What happened next?”
“Thomas Mercer arrived in a blue pickup.”
“He gave Margaret an envelope.”
Jack’s eyes hardened.
“You saw money?”
“I saw an envelope.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Dolores turned toward me.
“Your mother did not want to give him the baby.”
“How do you know?”
“She refused three times.”
“Then Raymond came through the kitchen.”
The diner seemed to become colder.
“He placed a gun on the table.”
“He told Margaret that one dead baby was easier to explain than two.”
Jack looked at me.
“What did that mean?”
Dolores’s eyes filled with tears.
“I think he was threatening Laura.”
My knees weakened.
Margaret had stolen my child.
She may also have saved his life.
Both truths could exist at the same time.
Neither erased the other.
“Did Thomas know the baby was stolen?” Jack asked.
“Yes.”
The answer struck him.
Dolores reached for his hand.
“He also came back two years later.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to return you.”
Jack pulled his hand away.
“Why would he do that?”
“Elaine Mercer had discovered the adoption papers were false.”
“She threatened to report Raymond.”
“What happened?”
“Elaine died in a house fire three days later.”
Jack stared at her.
He had told us his mother died when he was two.
He had believed an electrical heater caused the fire.
“Thomas spent the rest of his life hiding you,” Dolores said.
“He changed towns whenever Raymond found him.”
Jack looked toward the medal on his chest.
“He never told me.”
“He was afraid the truth would get you killed.”
A pounding sound came from the diner’s rear door.
Everyone turned.
Boone reached beneath his vest.
Dolores moved toward the kitchen.
A woman’s voice called from outside.
“Laura Bennett?”
I recognized the voice.
Nurse Evelyn Shaw had worked at Saint Agnes the night Luke was born.
She was nearly eighty now.
I opened the door.
Evelyn stood in the rain with blood on her forehead.
She held a leather medical ledger beneath her coat.
“They know Margaret talked,” she said.
May you like
Her breathing was ragged.
“They are going to kill her before sunrise.”
