Between the Studs (Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge)

People who mine old buildings for the materials in them often find interesting things in the walls. Old railroad stocks used as wallpaper. Copper pennies dropped through a slot in the paneling. Jewelry and silver utensils hidden behind long-forgotten secret doors. Sometimes odd things were used for insulation. For instance, old clothes and lingerie. 

Not much R-value in undies.

Far more common, of course, are wadded newspapers and the skeletal remains of commensals whose meal-ticket expired when the human residents of the building moved away. 

In the Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge this week, I "flashed" on these hidden treasures and mysteries waiting in the walls of abandoned buildings:

May 20, 2015 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about an old mystery in the current time. Is it a discovery? Is it solved? Does it no longer matter, or does it impact innocent generations in between?

My mystery is probably unsolvable, given the lapse in time. Still, it's interesting to think about.

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Between the Studs

We drove up to the old Koober place; its weathered siding and shingles were the reason we bought the ramshackle house. We set to work right away, ripping out planks, saving hand-made 19th-century nails for other projects.

I was taking down the wall of the only bedroom when I found it: an infant's skeleton wearing a tiny bracelet. I shouted to my partner, "What did you learn about the Koobers?"

"Nobody's lived in this place for ninety years," he replied. "And it was just old man Koober and his dog for decades before that." 

Then who was this infant?