Page 37 of Promise Keeper

Anna's head jerked back in dismay. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."

"Listen, young miss," Roy said, shaking his finger at her, "it means what I want it to mean."

"Debris?" Logan asked. "It means rubble or refuse."

Roy cleared his throat. "Of course that's what I mean. Soapy wouldn't do nothing to make them bones refuse."

We'd gathered in the church basement and were off to a typical start for us.

"You pulled that one out of your ear," Johnna told him.

"Better than pulling it out of somewhere else," he said, and let out a loud guffaw.

"Let's go over what we know," I said, trying to rein them in. "The bones were taken to Soapy's dumpster in the middle of the night. He saw a person--man or woman, he couldn't tell which--running away. He found the bones and took them to the trash can in the park beside the gazebo where Monica and I found them. So our mission is to find the person who put the bones in Soapy's dumpster."

"Which direction did the person run?" Logan asked.

"He didn't say," Monica answered.

"Does he know what they were wearing?" Anna asked.

"Any footprints?" Johnna chimed in.

"He didn't say any of that," I told them.

"Sounds to me like he didn't say much. We need to get ahold of Soapy and ask him some questions before we can do anything else," Roy said.

"I think you're right." I grabbed my handbag. "Who's up for coffee? It's on me."

"If it's on you, sign me up!" Roy hopped out of his chair.

"I could always use something to keep my fingers nibble," Johnna said, stowing her knitting in her bag.

The six of us left the church and took our questions across the bridge to the Soapy Savant. Being mid-afternoon there weren't many people around, which made it easy for Soapy to step away from his work for a few minutes and sit at a table with us.

"I take it you've told the crew," Soapy said, glancing around the table. "I hope you all don't think too bad of me now."

"Stop that nonsense talk," Johnna said. "Somebody dumped a bunch of human bones in your trash. You're not to blame."

"Exactly," Anna said. "Did you see which way the person ran?"

Soapy pointed to the east. "In the direction of the grist mill and Fiddle Dee Doo. Over that way."

"Did ya see what he was wearing?" Roy asked.

"Not really. I don't know if it was a man or a woman, it was a shadow of a person really. If I had to guess I'd say tennis shoes and dark pants, maybe a hooded sweatshirt."

"Did you search for footprints?" Logan asked.

"No. That's not a bad idea, though." Soapy stood up. "I'm going to do that now."

"We'll come help," I said.

We hustled outside through the back door behind Soapy. The ground was wet and muddy, as it always was in early spring. "This could be promising," I said. "The ground wasn't frozen last week, and it's not baked into a rock by the sun like in the summer."

"Spread out," Soapy said, waving us apart. "Let's cover rows of about ten feet across and then the next person goes from there so we don't miss anything."

"I can make a grid on my laptop if it would help," Logan offered.

---