“All this because they were worried the little kid would blab?”

“Why not? I’m just brainstorming here, but it makes sense to me.

Didn’t you tell me Patrick packed the money in a gym bag he tossed on the side of the road?”

“Right.”

“So picture this. They leave Rain asleep in the park. They’ve counted the money so they know it’s all there. Once they get home they discover the bills are lighting up like neon. Either they meant to dump the cash or their intention was to get it out of sight until they felt it was safe to spend. Once the little kid appeared, they decided it was too dangerous to leave the money in that spot.”

“The dead dog’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think? Why not just fill in the hole?”

“They were setting up a cover story to explain what they were doing in the first place. Sure enough, the police exhume the dog and that’s the end of it. No big mystery. Someone’s buried a pet. Might have taken twenty-one years, but it shows you how wily these guys were.”

“ ‘Were’? Nice idea. Like maybe they’re dead or in prison.”

“One can only hope,” he said.

When I got home I decided to let Henry’s suggestions percolate overnight. I’d been overthinking the whole subject and it had only served to confuse instead of enlighten me. Meanwhile, something else had occurred to me. I realized I might have a way to find out if Hale Brandenberg was being honest about Aunt Gin’s sexual orientation. It didn’t matter one way or the other, but I’m a stickler for the truth (unless I’m busy lying to someone at any given moment). There might be evidence at hand.

I went up the spiral stairs to the loft. I have an old trunk at the foot of the bed that I use for storage. I cleared the top and opened the lid, removing neatly folded piles of winter clothing I’d packed away in mothballs. From the bottom I hauled out a shoe box of old photographs that I dumped on the bed. If Aunt Gin had a “special friend” whose existence Hale was trying to conceal, I might find glimpses of her in pictures taken at the time. Aunt Gin had socialized with a number of married couples, but she also had gal pals.