Bones in the Begonias

by Dale Mayer

  Instantly Goliath appeared midjump and landed on the tarp, loving the sound it made. After Doreen’s heart started beating again, she enjoyed watching her huge cat play with his tail, like he was a kitten again. Mugs sat nearby, staring. He probably thought Goliath was strange too.

  “Never a dull moment,” Mack said.

  Doreen wondered if he was talking only about her pets or was she thrown into the mix too. As she stared at the spot where they had dug into the begonias the first time here, she said, “You never did tell me about that bone.”

  “What bone?”

  She motioned at the begonia bed. “The one we found here.”

  “Did I say it was a bone?”

  “You did.”

  He shrugged and went back to work.

  “Or have you not found out yet? The lab should be able to tell almost immediately if it’s human or not.”

  “I’ve been a little busy. I haven’t checked on the results.” He dug in the bed where they would move the begonias. Goliath and Mugs helped by digging their own holes.

  “I don’t think the animals can dig deep enough to do any harm to the begonias.” Then she nodded. “Maybe you should call the lab.”

  He shooed away the animals before stabbing the shovel into the dirt beside her and asked, “Why?”

  She glanced up at him and shrugged. “Because what if it’s human? We just found an arm and a hand near my place. What if that was a toe bone or a foot bone here at your mom’s?”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “So, because we found an arm in the creek, you think my mother’s garden bed will have a foot?” With shock and laughter in his voice, he said, “Better get back to the gardening job. Leave the police work to me.”

  “Okay, fine. So it’s a little far-fetched. But you have to admit it is interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?” He wasn’t giving an inch, but he had stopped to pet Goliath and Mugs.

  They were eating up the attention. Apparently Thaddeus got jealous and waddled over. Mack stroked the bird’s head, murmuring something to him.

  “Think about it,” Doreen said to Mack. “What are the odds we’d find another human bone?”

  “Considering it’s you …” He let his voice trail off.

  At this point the animals decided it was time to run wild in this backyard.

  She snorted and carefully picked up another large group of begonia bulbs. The bulbs themselves looked healthy. But the roots were small, stunted. She laid them carefully on the tarp, though Goliath seemed intent on rearranging them but gently so she kept on working. She looked at the bed. “Do you think I’ll always see a six-foot-long garden bed and think a body is buried in it?”

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  Doreen watched as her trio suspiciously calmed down, lying together near the garden. She frowned, wondered what was up. “Any updates on the ring by the way?”

  He was back to shoveling. “No, none.”

  Just then the kitchen door opened, and Mack’s mother walked out. Considering Mack’s size, his mother was tiny. She probably didn’t even reach four feet ten.

  Doreen waved. “Good morning. I’m Doreen, and I’m here with Mack,” she said by way of explanation.

  The woman stared at her in surprise, then shifted to see Mack walking toward her. She didn’t seem to mind the strange animals in her yard. Or maybe she hadn’t seen them yet.

  “Good morning, Mom. How are you feeling?”

  The frail-looking older woman had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. But she gave him a bright smile. “I’m feeling much better, thank you.” She turned to Doreen again. “You’re the body lady.”

  Doreen’s jaw dropped. “I’m who?” She’d half expected to get some kind of a nickname but wasn’t at all sure she liked this one.

  Mack turned to his mother. “Mom, this is Doreen. She’s the gardening lady,” he said with firm emphasis.

  His mother chuckled. “That’s what you call her.” She smiled at Doreen. “I’m glad you like gardening. Considering the amount of bodies you’re finding, I’d have thought it might have turned you off the hobby.”

  Doreen gave her a bright smile back. “The fact is, it’s made me more intrigued.” She motioned at the garden around her. “You’ve spent a lot of time and love on this garden.”

  Mack’s mother nodded. “Call me Millicent. And, yes, I have indeed. It was a shared hobby with my husband. It makes me sad that I can’t come outside and do the same work anymore.”

  “I understand. I’m now living in Nan’s house. And, of course, it was the same thing for her. I have my work cut out to get her gardens back to the glory days they were.”

  “Oh my, you’re Nan’s granddaughter.” Millicent clasped her hands together in delight.

  Doreen looked at her and sighed. “I gather you know my grandmother?”

  Millicent laughed. “Of course I do. Everybody knows Nan.”

  That’s what Doreen had been afraid of. Now the real question was, was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Mack patted his mother’s shoulder and said, “Mom, why don’t you go inside where it’s warm?”

  She waved him off. “It’s lovely out here.”

  “But you haven’t been feeling well, have you? We don’t want you to catch cold.”

  She looked at him and smiled. “I know you’re trying to keep me safe, but it’s really lovely out here. And I do love gardening.”

  Doreen understood. It would be hard for her too. It had always been hard for her to let others do the gardening she wanted to do. “Well, maybe if you had a hot drink, and you sat in the sun close by, you could watch us,” she suggested.

  Millicent ignored Mack’s look. “That’s a lovely idea. I’ll make a pot of tea, and then I’ll come out.”

  Doreen smiled and returned to her digging as Millicent hurried back inside. Doreen heard her animals getting frisky again but didn’t dare look up because Doreen was intent on ignoring Mack too, even though he loomed over her.

  “You really didn’t need to invite her out here, you know? The reason we’re here doing the work is so she doesn’t.”

  “If she sits and watches, she’ll feel like she’s more in control and not like we’re taking over her garden,” Doreen said quietly. “A garden becomes a living thing. She’s attached to it. Her memories from years past are here. To have someone else doing things in her garden without her knowing about it will be very painful and intrusive, like it’s no longer her garden.” She sensed his surprise. She turned to look up at him. “Letting her sit here surely can’t be harmful, can it?”

  “She’s not allowed to get her hands dirty,” he warned.

  Doreen nodded. “Fine.” She pulled up another big pile of begonia roots, but she felt something hard underneath. “I’m surprised rocks are in here. This bed’s been established for a long time.”

  “Maybe that’s why the bed isn’t doing very well,” he said. “Although I don’t see any rocks. It’s all dirt.”

  She stuck her spade back underneath and hit something solid. She turned to look at him. “Really?”

  “You’re making me paranoid these days.” He stooped beside her.

  “I don’t think we’re paranoid. Just wary.”

  He rolled his eyes and helped to remove the loose soil.

  The animals, again curious, huddled together with them.

  Depending on the climate, begonias were usually removed every winter. But these bushes hadn’t been pulled out in decades. So they had a massive connected root system. Moving gently, Doreen and Mack cleared a spot a good foot long.

  “I’m surprised so many bulbs are here,” Mack noted.

  “Another reason why the tubers need to be divided and moved,” she said. “When they’re growing in on top of each other like this, the bed gets too crowded, and the plants have to fight for nutrients.”

  He got the bigger shovel, and, using his heavy boot, he pushed the shovel into the area where
she had hit something hard. He hit the same thing. He lifted the shovel so he could brush some of the dirt off the top of whatever it was. Within minutes he had a larger area opened up, and Doreen scrambled to pull out the begonias as he loosened the dirt. Typical male. Everything done fast but without too much care.

  She had removed a pile of rocks too. “Why the devil would rocks be in here and dirt thrown on top?” She frowned. “They seem to cover this section here. Like a small cairn.”

  “Don’t say that word,” he said in an ominous tone.

  She frowned. “Cairn?”

  “Cairn. Cairn. Cairn,” Thaddeus added.

  “Yeah. They’re created by heaping rocks over bodies to keep animals from getting at them.”

  Doreen looked at the relatively small pile and laughed. “If it’s a body, it’s a cat or small dog. And, either way, the rocks must be removed before we can put any plants back in here.”

  He brought over the wheelbarrow and removed the rocks. Goliath jumped in the hole, for all the good he did. Each rock was a good six to eight inches across. Then Mugs jumped in. She lifted both of them out, gave Mack a hand removing the rocks, then froze at the sight of a wooden box. “Did your mom ever have cats?”

  He shook his head. “No, she’s allergic to them.”

  “By the size of this box, a pet is probably buried here.”

  With the rocks gone, he loosened one portion of the long box, but the end was all rotted and shifted. When he lifted the box, all the wood fell away, leaving something inside the hole.

  She dropped to her knees as the air sucked out of her chest. She tried to find oxygen, but it just wasn’t there. She sat back on her heels and gasped, like a fish.

  A hand slapped her on the back. “Breathe,” Mack ordered.

  She took a great big gulp of fresh air and nodded. “I’m fine,” she gasped. “I’m fine.”

  “Good for you,” Mack said morosely. “Because I sure as hell am not.”

  The dog, the cat, and the bird stood at the edge of the hole. Together the humans and the animals stared at the item in the box. It was close to two feet in length, maybe a hair smaller. And what Doreen could see appeared to be bones—foot bones. “Are you sure you don’t want to check with the lab now to make sure that the bone we found the other day wasn’t human?”

  He groaned. “And only one foot is here. That means, we’re still missing the other one.”

  She pointed to the bones. “It’s missing several bones, especially the big toe.”

  He nodded.

  At that moment she turned to look at Mugs sitting nearby with a big grin on his face and something small and white between his front paws. “Don’t look now, but it looks like Mugs found it.”

  Chapter 16

  Mack insisted on his mother staying inside as he made the necessary phone calls.

  Doreen pulled out the rest of the begonias, knowing the officers would do it anyway, and, in doing so, they would hurt the bulbs just as they had damaged her own.

  Now that the box was uncovered, the animals had gone off to find other adventures.

  “Doreen, get away from there,” Mack roared at her.

  She twisted and said, “They’ll dig it up anyway. I might as well save Millicent’s begonias first.”

  He glared at her. In the background she could hear his mother persuading him to let Doreen continue. The fact of the matter was, Doreen hadn’t stopped. She was almost done. And no wonder that section of the garden hadn’t been doing very well. It wasn’t like the bones themselves would have hurt anything. As long as there was no disease in the flesh, then it shouldn’t have impacted the bed. Except the rocks on the rotten box had stopped the roots from reaching the nutrients in the soil. It would have been better if there had been no box involved. Then the plants could have feasted on the rotting flesh. Obviously the begonias weren’t terribly happy with the injustice done here.

  When she thought she had the last of the begonias dug up, she straightened and groaned, putting her hand on her lower back. Then she grabbed one edge of the tarp with all the tubers and dragged it off to the side of the garden where she would replant them. The craziness would start soon enough. They had to get the bone away from Mugs too, but he wasn’t being very cooperative.

  She figured, if she got a chance to sidle up to him quietly and to distract him, she could take the bone back. When the cops got here, they’d want to tie up Mugs until they got the evidence from him. Mugs didn’t appear to be chewing it, more like protecting the bone. And she could appreciate that.

  Finally, with the begonia tarp over on the opposite side by the neighbor’s fence where the bulbs would be replanted, she walked toward Mugs. As she casually bent to pick up her spade, she scooped the bone from between his paws. Mugs barked at her. She bent down and gently stroked him behind his ears. “It’s fine, buddy. But Mack needs this.”

  Mugs barked and barked again. She got up and took a few steps back. Something about this bone really bothered him. Then again, something about this bone really bothered her too. It seemed so small, forlorn. She stared at it, not sure which bone it was, but it appeared to be something connected to the toe or the longer foot bones. She’d seen images of feet but not enough to identify the individual bones. She turned toward the flower bed and just stared at it.

  With her cell phone she took several pictures because she knew Mack wouldn’t let her get any later. When she pocketed her phone, she headed toward the house, where he stood on the deck, talking into his phone, glaring at her.

  He cupped the mouthpiece of his phone and said to her, “I saw you take pictures.”

  She shrugged. “I am the one who found it after all.” She held out the bone. “Here, and you’re welcome, by the way.”

  He looked into her hand and nodded. “You got it away from him?”

  “Yeah, he wasn’t chewing on it. It was between his paws. I know it probably sounds foolish, but it’s like he was protecting it.”

  Mack sighed. “With your critters, who knows?” He pulled a little baggie from his pocket and held it out as she gently dropped the bone into it.

  “Doesn’t it seem odd how nice they act around your mother?”

  “Odd?”

  “Yeah. Like they are on their best behavior when she comes out here.”

  Mack only gave her a one-shoulder shrug.

  “Animals can sense emotions. Some can sense disease. I’ve been reading about it on the internet. Maybe my animals realize Millicent needs a calm environment, to heal, to get better.”

  “With your critters, who knows?” Mack repeated with a little grin.

  She motioned at his pocket. “Do you always have little bags stuffed in there? Just in case you find evidence of crimes?”

  “Ordinarily not. But when I’m hanging around you, then definitely.”

  “How’s your mother handling this?”

  He sealed the baggie and tucked in into his pocket. “She’s not. She’s quite upset.”

  “Do I get to come in and have a cup of tea, or am I supposed to go home and stay out of the way?”

  “Come in and have a cup of tea. It might make her feel better.”

  In the background Doreen heard his mom call out, “Doreen, please do come in for tea. I’m so sorry. I forgot my manners.”

  She motioned at her animals and asked Mack, “I know she’s allergic to cats, but what about a dog and a bird? How would your mother react to them?”

  Millicent’s head popped out around the corner. “That’s right. You have a dog and a cat, don’t you?”

  Thaddeus took that moment to land on Doreen’s shoulder.

  The older woman’s eyes widened. “Oh my. I thought he was just an odd bird on the fence over there.”

  Doreen laughed. “How about we sit out here on the deck? That way they won’t come into your house and get hair everywhere.” Doreen then whispered to Mack, “It will make it more normal for her.”

  Millicent nodded gratefully. “Mack, show her to the
table. I’ll bring out the tea.”

  Mack rubbed his temple. “You realize this is hardly a teatime activity, right?”

  Doreen dropped her voice again. “Not that there’s anything normal here, as, yet again, we did find a body part. Still, if we’re lucky, it’s part of the same body.”

  He stared at her. “I hope it’s the same, but this doesn’t make sense. Why? Why here?”

  “I was thinking about that. Any chance that everyone here used the same landscaper back then? Maybe he cut up Betty, or assorted dead bodies, and buried them in various gardens?”

  Mack stepped back ever-so-slightly. “You heard Mom say that she and Dad did all the work all the time. You’re not suggesting my father had anything to do with this?”

  She laughed at the suspicion in his voice. “No, of course not. But, if it was anybody else’s garden, you wouldn’t even question the suggestion.”

  “True enough. But it is my mom’s garden.”

  Doreen nodded, turned, and chose her seat at the deck table so she’d have a bird’s-eye view when the policemen arrived. She called out to Mack, surveying the most recent crime scene, “Maybe they won’t damage as much of your mother’s garden with you standing here, watching over them.” She gave him a flat smile. “I’m sure they’ll be a little more careful than they were at my place.”

  He groaned. “You’ll never let that go, will you?”

  She shook her head. “Why would I? Your guys left a hell of a mess at my place.”

  Millicent stepped outside the house, carrying a teapot and cups and cookies all on a platter.

  Mack quickly intercepted her and took the serving dish, following her to the deck.

  Mack’s mother sat beside Doreen and patted Doreen’s hand, grinning. “Like I said, the body lady.”

  Doreen shook her head. “Not by choice.”

  “Some people just have a nose for that stuff. Did you ever consider being a detective, like Mack?”

  Mack joined the ladies at the table, frowning at Doreen.

  Doreen chuckled. “I think your son would be horrified to have me join the police force.”