"Shouldn't there be hair and-skin?" Cynthia asked.

"And where would someone get clothes so old and dirty?" Fred added.

"Where's the package of cigarettes?" Dean asked.

"So what are you saying happened here?" his wife asked, looking from one to the other.

Dean sat back. "First off, I'd love to have Martha around to see this mess. I wish she'd call. But I agree-something funny is going on. I think the clothes are the same ones Martha saw. But I doubt the bones are the same."

Cynthia sat cross legged on the floor, her back to the wall. "We're putting a lot of trust in what a little ten-year-old girl said, aren't we? All three of us. Without even questioning it."

Dean turned to his wife. "That's what you do when you love someone-believe them and trust in them. Martha was very emphatic about what she saw."

"I wasn't disagreeing," she answered, "just making a point. But who would switch the bones? And why? It doesn't make any sense."

"That's an easy one," Fred answered, massaging his chin. "Fitzgerald. He's the guy who found 'em and now that he's running for sheriff, he wanted to embarrass David. Look at the way he made a production out of opening up the box."

"Even if that were true-and I don't think it is," Dean said, "it doesn't answer what happened to the real bones."

"He just ditched 'em."

"What's the Dawkinses' interest in all this? Tell me that," Dean continued, picking up a large bone and looking at it closely.

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to set this up. And tell me this: how do you conveniently come up with a full skeleton in little Ouray, Colorado over a forty-eight-hour weekend? That's no small chore."

"Fitzgerald was a state guy over in Denver," Fred grumbled, as if reluctant to let go of his pet theory. "He must have lots of connections."

"Maybe, but he'd have to be careful. This is no joke. If he did switch them and his little gag came to light, it wouldn't only cost him the election; it would cost him his whole career. That's tampering with evidence. If there was a real skeleton, there was a real crime."

"The Dawkins were ready to kill each other out there," Cynthia said. "But they didn't sound as if they had a clue about what was going on. They were too busy distrusting one another and, for whatever reason, trying to con the other out of the mine. They didn't show any interest in the bones."

"Maybe the 'gold digging bitch,' whoever she is, has something to do with it," Fred offered.




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