He was the one who called, “Hold it,” sometime after we had gotten back to work after breaking for lunch.

“What is it?” Jack and I said almost in chorus.

“Hit something. Maybe a rock, but there haven’t been any rocks for a while.”

“OK,” Jack said. “Let’s just take a look.” He was all cop now, his voice a monotone, all business. He bent down where Joe pointed with the shovel and started pulling the earth away with his gloved hand as I knelt and watched. “Here we go. It’s not a rock. It’s—” He pulled some more earth. “Looks like a bone of some kind. Maybe a rib.”

“What?” Joe said, paling.

I said nothing, but my stomach didn’t like it.

“Looks like we’ve got a skeleton here, folks. I think this is the point when we stop working and call in the police.”

—

They came pretty quickly, two young men who looked strong enough to wield shovels. They were also pretty excited, never having experienced anything like uncovering human remains.

Mrs. Lewellyn wept when I told her and refused to come outside. We had built a fire in the woodstove in the living room, and the downstairs was now comfortable enough to walk around in without a coat on. She remained in her chair, determined not to view whatever was being uncovered in her tulip bed. I went out and watched the careful, slower progress being made by the two uniformed officers under Jack’s guidance. The bones were no longer held together, but I could see unpolished fingernails at the ends of fingers, buttons, teeth, a ratty-looking belt with a metal buckle.

“Hey, look at this,” one of the officers said, leaning over the hole, which was now about three feet deep. He reached down and pulled out a woman’s handbag.

It was dirty and wet, most likely black before the earth and weather attacked the color. The cop held it out and I walked over and took it from him. “Do you mind if I open it?” I asked.

“Go ahead. We need to know who it is. I guess it’s a woman, right?”

I took it from him and went over to the patio table with Jack. I had to carry it with my hand at the bottom because the seams were coming apart. On the table, we got it open without tearing it, and I looked inside, then reached in. A wallet came out first, the kind with a purse to hold coins and several pockets for bills and cards. The first plastic card I pulled out had a name on it.

“Natalie Miller,” I said.

“Not Gordon?”

“Miller,” I repeated. “And here’s a Social Security card. She must have had it laminated. It’s in perfect shape. Natalie Miller.”

“Keep looking.”

And then I found it, a New York State driver’s license issued to Natalie Miller, a color picture in the corner. The birth date made her about thirty-four now, and the face was one I had never seen a picture of. I took it inside and showed it to Mrs. Lewellyn. “Is that Connie?” I asked.

She barely glanced at it. “Not in a thousand years. Is this the girl who’s buried in my garden?”

“I think so. It’ll take a while to find out for sure, but it’s a pretty safe bet it is.”

“How’d she get there?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, reluctant to answer with what I believed to be the truth.

“You think Connie killed her?”

“I think there’s a very good chance.”

“Lord in heaven.”

—

“Can someone explain to me what’s going on?” Joey Belasco was waiting for me as I came outside, notebook and pen in hand.

“I’ll try,” I said.

“I thought we were looking for Connie Moffat.”

“We were, sort of.”

“And whose body is this?”

“A woman named Natalie Miller.”

“How’d she get here?”

“Probably she was murdered and buried here about five years ago.”

“You think Connie did it?”

“I think it’s likely.” One of the policemen had told us a few minutes earlier that the skull appeared to have been bashed in, probably by a shovel, making everyone very uncomfortable about Mrs. Lewellyn’s tools.

“So what’s happened to Connie?”

“I think she’s probably dead.”

“You know where she is?” He held his pen up, waiting for me to speak.

“No, I don’t. But I’m pretty sure I know who killed her.”

—

“I have made so many stupid mistakes, Jack, I just can’t believe what I’ve done.”

“Enough,” he said. “It’s only one mistake.”

“But I did it over and over.”

“Don’t tell me how dumb you are, OK? You found her. Nobody else even came close. Man, am I hungry.”

We had driven Mrs. Lewellyn back to her Albany house and then we’d gotten ourselves a room at an inn out of town. It was too late to drive home and we both ached from digging, so we were making a night of it. I was hungry, too, starving, in fact, and we had to hurry down before the restaurant closed. But I was furious at my mistake, repeated over and over, or at least a couple of times. And much as I was now looking forward to dinner and a night with Jack in a romantic inn, I was anxious to get back to New York and clean up the case of Sandy Gordon’s missing wife. But that would have to wait for tomorrow.

—

We drove straight to Manhattan when we left the inn on Sunday morning, and continued down to Gramercy Park. In front of Natalie’s old apartment house, Jack sat at the wheel and I got out. Coming down the street was Dickie Foster, children and husband in tow.

“You looking for me?” she called.

“Yes. Hi. Hi, Mr. Foster. Nice to meet you. I’m Chris Bennett. Do you have a minute to look at a picture?”

“Sure. We’ve just been walking around, it’s such a nice day.”

I took out a copy of the picture of Connie Moffat, aka Natalie Gordon, and handed it to her. “Do you recognize her?”

“I think so. Paul, look at this.” They put their heads together for a moment. Then Dickie said, “I think this was the girl who roomed with Natalie at the end, before she moved out.”

“Then this isn’t Natalie.”

“Oh no. Natalie’s small and blondish, nothing like this. This was a taller woman. I never met her; at least I don’t remember her name.”

“This is the woman I’ve been looking for,” I admitted.

“But you said you were looking for Natalie.”

“I think the woman in this picture killed Natalie and took over her identity. I never realized there were two missing women. You and I were talking about different people. I never showed you the picture or I would have known a long time ago what was going on.”

“What a story. What do you think happened?”

“I think this woman killed Natalie around the time of the move. I’d guess Natalie had no intention of moving, but when she got killed, the killer had to go somewhere else to establish her new identity.”

“Who would kill a nice girl like Natalie?”

“Maybe someone who wanted a good job and didn’t have the credentials for it.”

“I think we should move out of this city,” Dickie said.

“Next year,” her husband said. “I promise.”

—

We drove home. Now I knew exactly when and where the transformation had taken place and I had a motive. There might have been more to it than that, an argument, a temper not well controlled, maybe some promises given and then broken. I might never find out, but there was still a chance Connie’s killer knew, and I hoped he would tell me.

When we got home I went through my notes and then looked up a phone number. We had decided Jack would make the call while I listened on the upstairs phone.

It rang twice and then a familiar voice answered with, “Hi there.”

“Hi yourself,” Jack said in a bantering voice. “This Ted?”

There was silence. Then a far less happy voice said, “Who’s this?”

Jack and I hung up. I had hit pay dirt.

—

Jack tracked down Detective Evelyn Hogan at her home and told her he had information on the disappearance of Natalie Gordon. Then I got on the phone and we agreed to meet the next morning at her office at One Police Plaza.

She was a nice-looking woman in her late thirties, dressed smartly in a gray suit with a white, collarless blouse, more, I thought, like a woman going to work in industry than a police detective.