Buried Secrets

Sheila was digging in the garden when her spade struck something metal.

           She released the spade handle as if it were a hot coal and scuttled away from it like a crab on the dewy grass. She didn’t need to see what it was her spade had struck – she knew. Leaving the seedlings and garden tools where they were, Sheila hurried indoors to wet her face and try to still her racing heart.

           With a hot coffee in hand she stood at the kitchen window looking out over the garden. Her poor petunias were starting to wilt as the sun climbed higher. She tried not to look at the spade standing upright in the soil like an accusing finger. Could her mind have caused her to find it? She’d been mulling over the past as she was digging, thinking of her beloved Ian, wondering how anyone could believe he would hurt a fly, let alone kill someone. And he had really loved Elona. He’d been shattered when he came home to find her murdered, shot three times in the back. With typical police incompetence they had of course suspected him – people said it was always the husband. But there was no evidence – no powder residue on his hands or clothes, no murder weapon and nothing to indicate Ian had ever owned a gun. Still, they’d badgered him mercilessly until he’d almost lost it. Fortunately he’d turned to her, Sheila, their neighbour of two years and Elona’s best friend. He’d confided in her, sharing his fears that the police would find a way to make him guilty. She had comforted him, reminding him that he hadn’t done it and nothing could prove he had, and together they had cried and laughed over memories of Elona. They’d spent more and more time together, until now, a year later, she was considering his proposal of marriage.

           Looking out the window at her garden, Sheila remembered how the police had questioned all the neighbours and searched all the gardens. She remembered how they had dug through all her borders, and it was all she could do to stop them ruining her immaculate lawn. She’d insisted they get a metal detector if they thought someone had buried something under the grass without making a mark on it. They’d conceded that it was unlikely and left it at that. And they had never found the gun or the killer.

           But today she had decided to make a small round bed in the middle of the lawn, and now her precious seedlings were dying out there because she couldn’t face going back and finding out for sure what was buried there. There was no way the gun could have been under her lawn the whole time but Sheila knew she would have to go out there, would have to force herself to uncover it – whatever it was – just to prove to herself that it wasn’t the gun. It couldn’t be.

           But what if it was? What if she scraped the dirt away and there it was, that evil thing, looking back at her from its shallow grave? What would that mean?

           And as the question entered her head her stomach knotted and she knew.

           Only one other person had been in her garden since the murder. Only one.

           Stop it! she commanded herself. Anyone could have climbed the back fence and planted it after the police had gone. And you know him. You love him and you couldn’t love a killer. You know he didn’t do it. But as she forced herself back out through the kitchen door into the bright sunlight, a small voice whispered back, Really? Are you absolutely certain?

           In the midday heat she ignored the traitorous words in her head and reached for the spade. The metal handle burnt her palm but she gripped it fiercely, welcoming the brief stab of pain that didn’t come close to the fear in her heart. In a sudden frenzy she dug and scrapped and shifted soil, not recognising what was under it until suddenly, suddenly, it was revealed.

           Sheila gasped. She flopped onto her back on the grass and laughed till she cried.

           Nothing more than an old toffee tin her niece had buried years ago, how had she forgotten that? And how had she mistaken the clink of a rusty old tin for the clunk of a murder weapon? What was she thinking?

           Her laughter faded but the tears continued as she realised, not what she’d been thinking, but what she’d been desperately refusing to think, what she had buried deeper in her subconscious than the old tin beneath its six inches of soil.

           She didn’t believe him after all.

           And with that realisation came the certainty of what she must do now.

           Inside again, she scrabbled through the drawer of her desk until she found Detective Wainscow’s card. Funny that after all this time she still remembered his name. She dialled the number and as she waited to be put through to his office she thought of what she needed to tell him. There was the shirt that was missing, the one she had given Ian for Christmas the week before the murder, the same one she was certain she’d seen him wearing when he left the house that morning. He had waved at her as she was watering her hanging baskets, and she remembered feeling pleased that she’d guessed the right size. The same shirt that hadn’t been in his wash basket a few days later when she’d brought it over to her place to do his laundry for him. And she was sure it hadn’t been anywhere in his closet when she’d packed his laundry away. But no one had asked her what he’d been wearing that day and she hadn’t thought to mention it.

           And then, a few days later, he’d arrived for dinner – not that either of them ate much then, they were both too distraught – and the knees of his trousers were muddied as if he’d been kneeling in soil. He’d said he had been to put flowers on Elona’s grave and she’d thought no more of it. But now she wondered if it was someone’s garden he’d been kneeling in, maybe burying something other than his wife.

           “Wainscow,” said the familiar voice in her ear.

           “Detective, this is Sheila Millar, Elona Grey’s neighbour.”

           “Yes, Miss Millar,” he replied and Sheila was amazed he remembered she wasn’t married. “What can I do for you?”

           “I need to see you. I think I’ve remembered a few things you should know. Can we meet?”

           “My afternoon is free,” he said. “I can be at your place in about twenty minutes, how’s that?”

           “No, Ian will be home soon. Meet me at Chico’s, the coffee shop in the mall.”

           “Fine,” the detective replied, “I’ll see you there then.”

           As Sheila replaced the receiver she heard a slight noise and turned.

           Ian was leaning against the door jamb, arms folded, keys dangling from a finger. He was watching her with a wary expression and she wondered how much he’d overheard.

           “Who are you meeting at Chico’s?” he asked.

           “It’s an old school friend,” she lied, “Miriam Jacobs. She’s in town overnight and wanted to come around but I know there’s a game you want to watch so I put her off.”

           “She can come round if you want,” he smiled, “I can always watch the game at my own place. Call her back and tell her to come here.”

           “I didn’t think to take her number.” Sheila hoped her own smile didn’t look as false as his did. “No, I’ll meet her at Chico’s, we’ll have a latte and talk about old times for a bit. I’ll bring home some take-out for supper. That okay?”

           “Fine,” he said, straightening up and turning back towards the front door, “call me when you get home.” Then he hesitated and turned back. “Just be careful not to share any of our little secrets, okay?”

           “I will,” she said, smiling at the promise that could go either way.

           He closed the door behind him but Sheila didn’t move until she heard the squeak of the gate. Then she double-latched the front door, the only one he had a key to, and checked everything else was locked up tight. Maybe he truly wasn’t guilty, or maybe he was just supremely confident that nothing she said could implicate him. Either way, she wasn’t hanging around to find out. With a hastily stuffed hold-all and her passport in her handbag she left through the garage. Whatever happened with Detective Wainscow, Sheila knew she wasn’t coming back here in a hurry.