It started with a skeleton. Not a complete skeleton, shiny white, like in a HalloweenPlus store, no a shovelful of brown bones uncovered when they were putting in the new Walgreens. Carlos thought it was a dog until the round skull rolled out.

On tv, everything happens between commercial breaks. Real life is much much slower with less flashing light. After a few newspaper articles, those brown bones lay in a brown paper bag in the Taggert Police Department evidence room. They laid there for decades. Until Lucy Bennett.

Lucy was a cop with Taggert PD. An avid knitter with a bit of a temper, Lucy cared about every member of her little town, living and dead. Unknown Project, a volunteer-run DNA genealogy investigative group, had solved a 40-year-old Jane Doe case in Havertown. Lucy contacted them before her coffee went cold.

The investigators tried to set reasonable expectations. DNA sequencing wasn’t that kind of magic. Reeves, the lead investigator, made sure to keep Lucy up to date. Birth certificates, yearbooks, DNA sequencing, the brown bones told their story slowly. The bones gained gender and race and age but not a name. They had even done a forensic E-fit, giving the bones a face. One percent DNA matches were too tiny pieces of the puzzle. Then Cassie Crow got a 23andMe kit for her birthday and the Unknown Project suddenly had a corner piece.

The team called Cassie and began to build a family tree. Matching the bones to Cassie’s relatives. Reeves called Lucy when they narrowed down to one name, Shepherd Westin. Shepherd had been a full-time painter and part-time plumber. He had been his Meemaw’s favorite. And his family lost him in the opioid wave that flooded the Northeast. They hadn’t heard from Shepherd in years, but knew he would come home someday. Once the DNA tests confirmed the identity, Lucy called the Westins.

Lucy and Reeves took the South Ferry to Spring Island. They could have shipped the cremains, but they didn’t. Lucy and Reeves had planned to Uber to the Westin home. The extended family would be gathered. Reeves was nervous. Big crowds overwhelmed him. Without making a big deal of it, Lucy held his hand. As the pair crossed the roaring river, they noticed a figure waiting for them on the other side. The face on the other side was so like the E-fit that Lucy grasped. More faces waited at the dock. Shepherd was coming home.