Миранда Джеймс - Digging Up The Dirt

“You have quite a job on your hands,” Dickce said.

Hadley offered them a wry grin. “Yes, my brother really let things go, as you can see. My plan is to restore the gardens to basically what they were in my mother’s time. Do you remember what they looked like then?”

An’gel nodded. “Yes, your mother had the most incredible green thumb. She could get anything to grow.”

“Our mother was always jealous of her.” Dickce giggled. “She loved to garden but she didn’t have the knack Mrs. Partridge did.”

“Mother loved her garden, I think, even more than she loved her family.” Hadley smiled. “I’ve found pictures from that period, but I confess I don’t know the names of all the plants. I’m sure you can help me identify them.”

“We’d be glad to,” Dickce said. “An’gel is the real expert, though. I mostly do what she tells me when she needs help with weeding or planting.”

Benjy startled them all by yelling, “Peanut, you come back here!” Benjy turned to their host. “If you’ll excuse me sir, I’d better go after him. He might try to dig up something.”

“By all means.” Hadley laughed. “Though I doubt he can do much damage.”

Benjy nodded, then took off after the dog who had headed toward the side of the house where the massive oak had fallen. Endora clung to his shoulder.

“Come on in.” Hadley turned and gestured toward the front door. “It’s a bit damp and chilly out here. After we’ve looked at the pictures, perhaps we can come out and have a look at the grounds.”

“Sounds good to me.” Dickce climbed the few steps to the small porch and walked through the open door, followed by An’gel and Hadley.

When their host had shut the door behind him, Dickce asked, “Is Mrs. Turnipseed still the housekeeper?”

Hadley shook his head. “No, she retired when Hamish died. He left her a nice pension.” He grinned. “She never liked me, and the feeling was mutual. She always reminded me of that ghoulish woman in Rebecca .”

Dickce and An’gel laughed, then Dickce explained, “That’s what I said before we came over.”

Hadley chuckled. “Well, great minds and all that. Come, let’s go into the parlor. I’ve got a fire going in there. The new housekeeper I hired will bring us hot coffee in a few minutes. I hope that’s fine, or I could ask her to make hot tea.”

The sisters assured him that they were happy with coffee and followed him into the parlor.

Dickce noticed that the room appeared clean, though the furnishings were shabby from years of neglect. Such a shame. This was such a beautiful house . The drapes appeared threadbare, as did the furniture, and there were holes and dark spots in the antique carpet. Fire burned brightly in the fireplace, however, and Dickce approached it, grateful for its warmth. The room felt a bit damp away from the fire.

Hadley had set three chairs near the fireplace, and he seated the sisters in turn, An’gel first as befit her status as the elder sister, before retrieving an album of photographs and seating himself beside her. He opened the album and turned a few pages.

“Here,” he said as he handed the album to An’gel. “There are four pages of photographs of mother’s gardens taken not long before she died forty-two years ago.”

An’gel accepted the album and set it in her lap. Dickce inched her chair closer in order to view the album along with her sister. Dickce pointed to one photo. “Here are roses. I’m not sure what the varieties are, though.”

“Hybrid tea,” An’gel said. “The inner ring are grandiflora.”

Before An’gel could continue identifying more plants in the photos, Benjy burst into the room with an excited Peanut alternately barking and whining.

“Benjy, what on earth is going on?” Dickce said, alarmed by the young man’s strange expression.

“I think you’d better come outside.” Benjy paused for a couple of deep breaths. “Peanut started digging around that tree that came down, and he found bones.”

CHAPTER 10

As the first shock of Benjy’s announcement began to pass, An’gel said, “They’re probably quite old. If they were under the tree, they’d have to be. That oak is at least a hundred and fifty years old.”

Hadley nodded. “I think it was planted by the ancestor who built the house, and that was in 1827.”

Benjy looked confused for a moment. “I don’t think the bones were actually under the tree. Not under the roots, anyway. More like beside them. Come look.” He turned and led Peanut out of the room.

“That’s odd.” Hadley rose from his chair. “I’d better go have a look. Why don’t y’all stay here where it’s warm.”

“No, I think we’d better come with you.” An’gel lay the album aside on a nearby table and stood. She was concerned by Benjy’s assertion that the bones were in the ground beside the tree. That brought an unsettling thought to mind. “Come on, Sister.”

Hadley shrugged before he turned and strode out of the room. An’gel and Dickce followed right behind.

“Who do you think it could be?” Dickce whispered her question near to An’gel’s ear.

An’gel shook her head. “Not now.”

Hadley quickly outdistanced them, and when they caught up with him and Benjy, the two men and the dog stood staring at the ground near where the magnificent oak had once stood.

“The wind must have been really strong to bring it down like that,” Benjy said.

“Had it been healthy, it might not have fallen,” Hadley replied. “But it was dying, and it had evidently been hit by lightning at some point in the past few years.”

An’gel saw the massive trunk had snapped about four feet from the ground, and the fall had shifted the stump at a thirty-degree angle. The ground near the stump was disturbed, and An’gel understood what Benjy meant.

“Here are the bones.” Benjy, his hand firmly on Peanut’s collar, stepped closer and pointed down at a spot twelve inches or so from the exposed root.

An’gel and Dickce came nearer, while Hadley squatted for a closer look. “That’s a hand,” Hadley said, his tone subdued. “A human hand.”

An’gel saw the delicate bones of the fingers jutting out of the soil and felt a wave of sadness. She thought immediately of Callie Partridge. Then a flash of movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Endora on the ground nearby playing with an object of some kind. She hoped fervently that it wasn’t a bone.

“Dickce, look at Endora,” she said. “See if you can get whatever that is away from her.”

Dickce turned to see what her sister was talking about. Endora was slapping at something in the grass a couple of feet away from them on the other side of the tree stump. She made her way around while the others watched, talking to Endora the whole time.

“You clever kitty,” she said in a soothing tone. “You found something, didn’t you? You’re such a smart girl. Will you let me see what it is?”

When Dickce, still talking, reached the cat, Endora stopped playing with the object and meowed. Dickce bent down to retrieve the cat’s erstwhile toy. She stood, her palm extended toward the others. On it lay a ring.

“Let me see that.” Hadley’s harsh tone startled An’gel. He reached for the ring and almost snatched it away from Dickce. An’gel watched while he examined it and would have sworn he paled under his tan.

The ring was a small band of what looked like gold, and there were stones mounted on it. They were encrusted with dirt, however, and An’gel couldn’t tell what they might be. Hadley pulled out a handkerchief and rubbed some of the dirt away. An’gel caught her breath as the sun hit the now exposed stones.

An emerald, surrounded by diamonds. She recognized the ring.