“I don’t know which is worse. A scandal hiding safely away, or a skeleton out in the open for all to see.”
“Didn’t you see the police at our place yesterday afternoon?” Mr. Keenan asked. “Quite a show, and the neighbors must think a crime was committed. Dead body in the attic, or a cat burglar swiped the family jewels, but nothing of the sort.”
Looking up to the ceiling, Nick imagined a corpse moldering in the rafters. Old man dread roiled again in his curdling stomach, warning him of the pending dangers the moment his parents left him alone with these people.
“Well,” Mr. Keenan continued, “we called them out to the house ourselves. There wasn’t any murder that we know of. But something dug a big hole on our property, and in it we found a bone.”
“A real human bone,” Mrs. Keenan said. “Washed up from the sea.”
Mr. Keenan seemed anxious to tell the story. “Actually, the arm bone from a child about Nick’s age or maybe a little younger, although the police seem to think that the bone itself is fairly old, judging from the erosion. But it is the damndest thing. Something must have dug it up during the night before Christmas, ’cause we saw it in the afternoon. Didn’t know what to do.”
Jack Peter bounced on the sofa. “I drew a hole—”
“So we called the police, that’s why you might have noticed the squad car parked—”
“—full of bones.”
“That’s enough, Jack,” Mrs. Keenan said.
With a sharp bang, Mrs. Weller cracked her empty cup on the coffee table, setting it down too hard, causing everyone to jump in their seats. A rill of nervous laughter flowed from person to person. Embarrassed, she lifted it again and set it down softly on the surface. “So, all that trouble about an old bone?”
“And a hole, big as a grave,” Mr. Keenan said. “The police think it might have been dug up by a wild dog running loose. That’s your coyote, Fred, a big white dog. We’re supposed to fill in the hole so nobody will stumble across it and get hurt. That’s what the trooper told us. You should have seen him, Nell. They’re making them younger and younger. A baby.”
Jack Peter piped up from the sofa. “What happened to baby?”
His mother put her finger to her lips just like a kiss. Jack Peter rocked in place, stifling an impulse, rocked so hard he nearly made Nick ill.
“The hole is still out there,” Mr. Keenan said. “C’mon, take a look from the kitchen.”
“Just one quick peek,” said Mrs. Weller. “And then we have to get going or we’ll miss our plane.”
Single file they followed Mr. Keenan into the kitchen and marched straight to the window that faced the sea. With the flair of a game show model, he waved his arm to present the scene below.
His audience leaned forward and strained to see what had been promised. Squinting and searching, the Wellers walked up to the glass, and Mrs. Keenan followed, laying her hands on Nick’s shoulders from behind. The beach was empty, rocks and sand leading to the sea, a stick of driftwood washed ashore, but nothing else. No hole, no grave, not so much as a small dent in the sand. Mr. Keenan had been watching their faces, and when he saw how puzzled they were, he turned to look out.
“I guess someone must have buried your body,” said Mr. Weller.
“Where did it go?” Mrs. Keenan asked. She looked as if she was running through the possibilities in her mind and rejecting every one.
“No,” said Mr. Keenan. “I’m telling you it was right there, six feet deep. Holly, you saw it. Jip, you drew a picture of it. And the policeman saw it, wrote a report. Officer Haddock.”
“Pollock,” said Mrs. Keenan.
But her husband was already halfway out the door. Moments later, he reappeared far below on the shore, a tiny mad toy soldier, coat wrapped over his robe, the cuffs of his pajamas jammed into untied boots. Darting from rock to rock, he searched the beach for the missing hole.
Jack Peter pressed his palms against the windowpanes. “There he goes again.”
“He’ll catch his death,” said Mrs. Keenan, and she peeled off from the group, heading for the mudroom for her coat and boots. Everyone but Jack followed, flying out into the morning wind, shocked by how cold and empty the world was. They blew around in crazy circles, looking for the nonexistent bones and the missing hole, until the whole bunch caught up with Mr. Keenan on top of a wet rock at the tideline. The hem on his robe fluttered like a flag. A fine cold spray coated his hair and clothing, and his eyes were frantic in their sockets.
“It was here just yesterday,” he said. “How could we lose a hole? You must think I’m crazy, but there’s no way it could have just disappeared—”
The others tried to talk Mr. Keenan down from the rock, urging him to come in from the cold, for the Wellers really have a plane to catch, and inventing for him a handful of plausible explanations. Nick had stopped listening to their fairy tales and turned his back on them and raised his gaze to focus on the boy inside the panoramic window, distant and indifferent as a god on high.