Wishbone's rump sported a wagging tail as it stuck up from the hole in Wanda's garden. He was digging up her flowerbeds, ostensibly to solve some mystery about some photo, but also just to be an annoyance.

"Wishbone! Bad dog!" Wanda threw a spade at Wishbone as his adorable head quirked up to look at her. The spade hit him and he died instantly.

"Fuck! What the fuck are you doing, Wanda?" Joe picked up the tiny lifeless body of his beloved companion.

"What's going on? Wanda," Joe's mom said calmly, arriving to see what the ruckus was about, "Is Wishbone causing you any problems?"

"Joe, I'm so sorry," Wanda said placatingly, "I saw him digging there, and I just reacted."

"It's too late for apologies! You killed him!" After a tense moment, Joe dropped Wishbone to the ground and picked up the trowel, or whatever it was. He stabbed Wanda in the gut. He looked to his mother, eyes wide in shock at what he had just done. Then he ran away, staggering slightly under the metaphorical weight of his terrible deed.

"Wanda," said Joe's mom, approaching her neighbor's prone body, "Are you alright?"

"Oh Ellen, I think this is it. But I want you to know, it was me. I was the pregnant girl in that old photo that Joe and Sam found."

"But you don't have any children, Wanda."

"No. I had the baby out of wedlock when I was 15, then I smothered him and buried him right over there." Wanda's voice was barely a whisper as she managed to lift one finger in the direction of the flowerbed that now featured Wishbone's body.

Wanda slipped beyond the mortal realm. Mrs. Joe clasped her neighbor's hand and wept. She wept for Wishbone, for Joe's bleak future, for Wanda and the dark secret she had kept locked inside for so many years.

"Yeah, well. Another mystery solved," said Wishbone.

The End.