Bones Beneath the Redwoods

Gus and Millie Harmon had been married for twenty-five years, but that wasn't even the most interesting thing about them. They were private investigators by trade, semi-retired and running their agency out of a weathered A-frame cabin deep in the redwoods outside Crescent City. Their unofficial office mascot was an epileptic goldendoodle named Sputnik, who spent most days either napping beneath Gus's desk or chasing flies through sunbeams in the kitchen.

Together, Gus and Millie had solved more than their share of missing persons, insurance frauds, and even the occasional jewel heist, though the latter often resulted in a bottle of local pinot and a late-night giggle fit after reading the crime scene notes. Life in the woods offered them a break from the city's relentless hum, a place where the oddness of the world could be observed at a safe, leafy distance.

But it was also, as Millie liked to remind Gus, "a magnet for the spectacularly strange."

Case in point: On a chilly October morning, with fog knotted in the treetops and Sputnik barking at an invisible squirrel, Gus dug up what appeared to be a human jawbone from the flower bed beside their porch.