The Gardens of Digby Green: Drone
Crouching beside the body, Digby stripped it of jewelry and watch. He tucked the items inside the shoe and set that beside the corpse. A quick scan of the space showed him an abundance of sand burr plants. If he positioned Rosalie beneath one of the arms of his original cross planting, and transplanted enough burrs to fill the spread of both cross arms, the result would be pleasingly symmetrical.
He jogged to his pickup and got the shovel from the truck bed. Then, he paused and opened the passenger door. Rosalie had a purse. Digby snatched it from the truck seat.
When he returned to the garden, he opened the purse and took out the phone. Digby brought it to a nearby chunk of broken concrete, laid the device on top, and crushed it. Best to be careful.
Rapid shoveling produced a planting area beneath the left arm of the cross.
Digby wiped his brow with his shirt. He climbed out of the hole, swept the smashed phone pieces into her purse, zipped it closed, and flung it into the pit.
The shoe…her jewelry and watch gave it weight, and he walked to the edge of the hole. Hesitated. It’d been highly amusing to distribute his mother’s rings, bracelet, and watch between assorted boxed lots at several garage sales in a different state, and he’d left those sales with some high-quality antique implements. Easy to scatter these items the same way.
He tipped the jewelry into his palm, before slipping the cool metal down one pocket. The shoe went into the hole with the purse. Digby scooped the blood-soaked soil over them, dropped into the hole, and pounded the covering earth flat with the back of his shovel blade.
Rosalie’s garden plot was ready for her.
He returned to the corpse and hoisted the limp mass over his shoulder. Digby eased the body down, feet first. He wasn’t as angry with Rosalie as he’d been with his mother, not enough to dump her in on her head.
Shovels full of soil hissed as he refilled the plot. The earth mounded slightly, but that was to be expected. It would settle eventually. Then, he returned to his truck for his pair of heavy gloves. Time to transplant the sand burrs.
When he’d finished, traffic had thinned. Digby tossed the gloves, trowel and shovel into the truck bed, closed the passenger door, got into the driver’s seat, and rolled down his window. As he left the vacant lot and his newest gardens, Digby heard the irritating buzz of a remote controlled drone.
The Gardens of Digby Green is a serialized story that posts on Fridays.
Next week, part twenty-six, Big Marsh.
Find a link to purchase Heartland Treasures anthology here.
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