The Good Man

It’s been one of those evenings, you know? My hands were shaking and I couldn’t get my head around what just occurred, over past few days. With my partner - Jake, we’ve been standing on the parking lot under one of these blinking lanterns and with shaking hands covered in mud, clothes ripped and shoes partially falling off our feet. He was passing me one of his sweat soaked, half-broken cigarettes and was trying to start off his favorite lighter. After sixth attempt that rusty, metal trinket finally took off and a flame lighted up my smoke. Couple puffs later, I passed, the faintly shining orange light of burned tobacco that was slowly disintegrating into ash and smoke, back to Matt.

“Kate… I am so sorry I pulled you into this. I knew you were the only one who would understand me, I am so sorry, please forgive me…” He said with shaking voice while trying to smoke - so unlike him.

“Cut the crap Jake, you knew exactly what you were putting us into. How would you even think that this would end up with us being on a run?” I asked probably more myself than him, as I felt equally stupid about the actions of past couple days.

“I swear! It was supposed to be a simple job! Matt said he would give us all the support we need and all the tools we need… You know Matt, right? How could I not trust the guy!?” Jake started explaining himself, but his words were fading away.

In my head, I was reliving the events of past week, trying to identify how could I have avoided all of this mess we were in now.

***

It was about ten days ago, when I was shopping in my favorite grocery market and while I was grabbing a bottle of milk I got a phone call from Jake. Pushing the shopping cart with my body, I grabbed my phone with one hand and started reaching out for the dairy with the other one.

“Hey honey! How are you? Did something happened?” I asked a bit worried, as he never called me during the day. He usually would be too busy working as a gardener at Humsworth’s Villa estate.

“Hey love, it’s okay, I am all okay, nothing to worry about. I wanted to call you about this small side job I was offered. I wonder what you think about it?” He asked.

“What offer? You haven’t said anything about any side job to me before. Is this something for mr Humsworth?” I was hoping he would get nicely paid as the landlord of that villa had couple private houses around and it is been said that, whoever worked for him privately, would end up with nice salary increase and even end up in some managerial positions!

“Well, yes and no… You see, Matt came to me, that he needs some help with one of the estates of the landlord. He said it was a bit more than he can chew on, so he needed extra pair of hands. He said, we will split the salary fifty-fifty and that we can use his tools for everything that needs to be done. I mean it’s not directly for mr Humsworth as you can see, but it is close enough. If I could shine on this project a bit maybe next one will be completely mine you know? What do you think?” asked Jake.

Couple facts that I have to bring to your attention here. Mr Humsworth was an aristocrat, he had huge investment, in the meaning of the the villa estate, that he was using as a hotel for prominent guests and some VIPs, that would have to personally request access to it. It was one of those old villas that looked like a Victorian castle, with thirty rooms, private helipad and located in the middle of a huge park with hardly any neighbors nearby. That estate would hire ten to twenty gardeners to make sure that the grass around the estate looks pristine, the flower rebates looks like they have been taken out of the magazine and that there is absolutely no pests around. My Jake was one of those twenty guys.

Matt was one of his best friends from work. Not that I approved of him, but I don’t choose my partner’s friends. They knew each other for years. They grew up on the same street, went to the same schools and so on. There was, however, one subtle difference - Matt was very reckless, like he had no imagination what could happen if he acted in certain ways. This mix in general isn’t that scary, unless you pull other people into this madness, then suddenly bad things happen. We’ve heard stories, about Matt getting into some side job business ending up completely broke, or buying a car that was supposed to be working like a charm but ending up being just nicely looking empty shell without engine.

So as you can imagine I wasn’t too thrilled about the side job that my partner got. On one hand he would be working for Humsworth’s property with some prospects for the future, but on the other hand, Matt was involved. I felt in my stomach that weird unsettling crumble crawling for a brief moment, but I have only said:

“Matt, it sounds like a good opportunity” words that would be hunting me and my consciousness for next years to come.

On the other hand I knew we needed some extra money, with me loosing my job about three months ago, we couldn’t afford to miss opportunity to get some extra money for our savings. As the day passed by, on my unemployed housewife’s day, I forgot about the quick call we had and went on with my daily chores, never suspecting what consequences it will have.

Day was like every other end-of-summer day - it was sunny, but the warmth of holidays has been visibly fading away. Matt was working in the front of the Winter House - the name that mr Humsworth gave to his brand new property sounded a bit misleading as it was located at the coast of Florida that usually doesn’t have any winter whatsoever! One would think that this place belonged to some hermit, it was in really bad shape, poison ivy was crawling through the walls and weeds were spreading on the sidewalk. The windows were broke open in few places and the shades were hanging miserably on last rusty screw. There was absolutely no lights coming out of the windows, however the house was very lively - a construction crew was busy with renovation.

Jake walked to the front door and pushed them gently. He was expecting to meet some friendly faces, but everyone seemed preoccupied. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice.

“Jakie-boy! How long it has been?!”a man in a gardening suit greeted him almost running with open arms. It was Matt.

“Hey Matt, how are you? Yeah, we’ve been missing each other constantly! Last time I saw you we’re still looking for that rake at the Villa. So how are you?” Jake recollected his memories and welcomed back his old friend.

“It’s all good, man. It’s all good” he smiled “let me walk you around so you know what we need to do”.

Both men walked out of the house and while putting on their working gloves they started walking around the property.

While they were on the back of the property, Matt explained that the owner would like to keep the house a bit wild in a distance, but the immediate garden needed some upkeep. He also mentioned, that mr Humsworth wasn’t really passing by too often, since he gave the directions to the crew and that they were expecting him to show up maybe over the weekend to check up on the progress.

Matt indeed delivered if it comes to tools. Not necessarily his own tools, but there was a set of working tools for both Jake and his friend. Without hesitation they started working on the lawn and pulling out weeds from between the stones, in the sidewalk.

***

As time passed by and sun was slowly setting, Matt and Jake were really lost in time. They would have a lunch break normally throughout the day, but having a lot of fun together, they completely forgot about this godly world. Before they even noticed, the construction crew was already done for the day and it became pleasantly quiet in the property.

With hoot hooting owls around, Matt and Jake were having some lively, political discourse, when a new sound caught their attention. Someone was in front of the property. They heard voices and heavy boots walking on a wooden construction planks.

Jake peeked into the house quietly and he saw mr Humsworth with his casual black cape, holding his leather gloves and pointing at something. A moment later a group of some strong, lifting guys walked pass the house owner and carried a big, wooden box through the future living room and went out through the balcony side. They have placed the box on the grass behind the iron fence of the little garden patio and went away. Humsworth walked to the chest, opened the lid with a bit of effort, looked inside and said more to himself:

“It’s good to see you’re still there my friend, don’t worry, it won’t be too long” and walked away after closing the lid back .

Jake decided it was time to show his face just to make a good impression for the future, so he walked to the front door, like he was finishing the work for the day and said his hellos to the passing aristocrat. Humsworth only waved his hand and drove away in his limousine while saying through the open window:

“Oh, James, please don’t mess with the chest while I am away.”

“James?!” thought Jake for a second, but he knew that the rich people don’t really care about names of their servants, he was happy that at least two letters of his name stuck into memory of his employer.

Once the car was gone, both friends of course went to the chest, but without having extra tools they couldn’t open the chest without damaging it, so they only speculated what could’ve been inside and knocked on the sides and lid but they got no answer from the inside.

After brief goodbyes, they took off in their old cars and drove away to meet the next day again.

***

“I am telling you Kate, this chest was weird. It was in a size of human body. Looked heavy too” Jake was babbling about his work as always.

“It stayed in the patio for like four days and then it was gone over night. We’ve tried looking for it with Matt, but apart from some broken soil beside the patio, we couldn’t find anything. I have bad feelings about it love, I feel like I should call the cops. What if it was some dead body?” this made me a bit worried, but I didn’t wanted to show my feelings too openly.

“Jake, don’t be ridiculous. Why would Hemsworth have dead body? He doesn’t strike me as a bad guy or murderer in a fact” I said with serious face, “if you’re so scared I think you should have more evidence before calling cops, they might take it seriously and if there is nothing out there, you will be pulled into the brig as a whistle blower and you will loose your job for sure”.

I was worried about my partner. He’s a good guy, but Matt always makes him really hot headed. I was scared that he might actually blow up this job and come from it after all, worse than he started, so I decided I would try to help. We agreed with Jake that we will go to the mansion at night and check that pile of fresh soil to make sure we have some evidence for the police.

That was yesterday.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that there was a camera installed on the patio Jake? Why?!” I almost shouted.

“How would I know?! It wasn’t there last time I was in the garden! They must’ve put it on when I was going back home… Kate, we have to do something, I don’t want to put us in jail or anything…” Jake was almost crying at this point.

I have finished the cigarette, dropped the bud on the asphalt of the parking lot and made sure it won’t smoke anymore, with my shoe.

“Let’s go home J, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day” I said and went back into the car behind the steering wheel, as my partner clearly wasn’t in position to drive at this point.

While my beloved gardener was babbling away in the car about the unforeseen consequences, how stupid it was and that he will kill Matt, I drove us back home silently thinking about the events of the night.

***

We’ve arrived to the Winter House shortly after midnight, it was pitch black I remember. Jake passed me a shovel from our car’s trunk and we walked to the pile of dirt that was presumably covering a wooden box with a body.

As we were digging through the ground and finding nothing but fresh soil, worms, seeds and some old foliage, we started wondering why we can’t see any trace of the box anywhere around.

As time passed, we kept thinking that perhaps Matt was wrong? I mean the box could have contained anything but the body. It could have been some tapestry, or money, or other furniture. Why would it be body? No one in their right mind would dig in a body in their own backyard, right? I mean Humsworth wasn’t even doing hunting as a sport, so where this thing even came from?

While I was thinking about it, I remembered we have been good meter or meter and a half deep into the ground. The soil was wet from the moisture in the air and the dirt was all over our clothes and shoes and faces even. I got out of the hole and looked around my surroundings. It was in that moment, I noticed that, there was something shiny attached to the roof of the patio. It was some dark, black object with a rounded shape. It must’ve been unmistakably a camera, one of those fancy looking ones that can see all around. I thought I saw a little light indicator on it, that would mean the camera is recording.

I loudly whispered at Jake that we gotta go now, we’re being observed. He looked at me in panic, dropped everything he was holding and started desperately climbing out of the hole making more mess than it was there before. I saw the fear in his eyes when I pulled him out of the hole and ran towards our car.

We drove quickly away knowing that we have left our shovels behind, but that wasn’t the thing that worried us. The problem was - the footage. I stopped on a parking lot as I was too distracted to drive further I asked Jake for a cigarette as I wasn’t a smoker myself or at least not in normal circumstances. This was like the worst nightmare in my head, I was shaking, I needed answers.

I started slowly convincing myself that, maybe, somehow we are going to be okay? That maybe our faces don’t show up on the footage. After all it was really dark out there and there was no additional light anywhere. Only our tiny, phone flashlights were in use, but you never know with those cameras, they can see at night too. I didn’t knew, what to think about it, I just wanted to get home at this point and just sleep through this thing. It was all too much for me.

***

The very next day, Jake went to the Winter House, he looked like a ghost, he couldn’t sleep the whole night. When he arrived to the property, Matt was already there.

He ran to him and seemed very excited, but also looked like he wanted to laugh his socks off.

“Jakie-boy! You won’t believe what happened over night! It’s crazy! I just spoke with mr Humsworth and the workers here. Remember that wooden chest we saw and spoke about?” almost burst into laughing Matt.

Jake was frozen. He thought that this is it. That’s where he’s loosing his job, his head, his future.

“I… it’s not my fault… I didn’t know…” he started explaining himself, but noticed that his friend had only one big question mark on his face.

“What do you mean? Never mind, anyway! Mr Humsworth came today morning for inspection and was a bit shocked that the soil beside patio was digged. In the afternoon there was another gardening company passing by and they planted seeds that mr Humsworth had in that chest. Apparently it’s some rare tree, they shipped it with some special soil and manure for it, so the chest had to be closed tightly or else the manure would spoil!” said Matt.

It was this moment, when Jake thought, he will pass away. The seeds he saw last night, the foliage, the weird muddy soil he was digging into.

He thought he’s gonna get killed Kate, all of the stress of the night has passed in this instance and he just started laughing with Matt along.

Mr Humsworth was a good guy after all.