I was trying to maintain some optimism, but that was tough to do in this grim landscape. I mumbled to Rich, “After three months out here, all that’ll be left of Michael’s corpse will be ligaments and bones.”

And then, as if I’d telepathically cued them, the dogs alerted.

Conklin and I joined the sheriff in stepping cautiously toward the frenzied, singing hounds.

“There’s something in this bag,” their handler said.

The hounds had located a plastic shopping bag, the thin supermarket kind. I stooped down, saw that the plastic had been ripped, that the contents were wrapped in newspaper. I parted the newspaper wrapper. Saw the decomposing remains of a newborn child. The baby’s skin was loose and greenish, the soft tissues eaten by rats, so that it was no longer possible to tell if it was a boy or a girl. The date on the newspaper was only a week old.

Someone hadn’t wanted this child. Had it been smothered? Was it stillborn? At this stage of decomposition, the ME might never know. Rich was crossing himself and saying a few words over the baby’s remains when my Nextel rang.

I walked downhill as I answered the call, glad to turn my eyes from the terrible sight of that dead child.

“Tell me something good, Yuki,” I begged her. “Please.”

“Sorry, Lindsay. Junie Moon has recanted her confession.”

“No. Come on! Michael didn’t die in her arms?” My roiling innards sank. Right now, all we had was Junie’s confession.

How could she take that back?

“Yeah. Now she says that she had nothing to do with Michael Campion’s death and disappearance. She’s saying that her confession was coerced.”

“Coerced? By whom?” I asked, still not getting it.

“By you and Conklin. The mean ol’ cops made her confess to something that never, ever happened.”