The Gardens of Digby Green: Perplexing Letters
Ray pulled into his usual space behind the morgue and turned off the Buick’s engine. It ticked as it cooled, too much like a clock, and emphasized that his Rose was still missing. He mopped his damp eyes, and got out of the car. While swiping his key card at the door lock, Ray hoped his deputy wasn’t in the hall.
He didn’t want to face the guy’s cheerful enthusiasm just yet.
From the sounds in the hall, his deputy was already at work on a body from the cooler. Ray ducked into his office to hang up his windbreaker and tackle paperwork left over from the day before. He sighed. The forms stacked and strewn across his desk reminded him that the kitchen table was still buried under papers from Rose’s shop.
There had to be a clue somewhere. Until he could go home and find it, the work here could crowd his loss from his mind. Ray dug into the process of preparing his testimony for an appearance at the circuit court.
On rare occasions, he would mention oddities of a case to Rose.
His mind replayed the nervous laugh she was prone to produce. This unexpected saponified corpse, for instance. He’d bet the entire stack of poker chips he’d possessed at that last game night, that she’d focus on the recovered signet ring, rather than the bizarre chemical change which had happened to the body.
Ray examined the ring again. Jostling during transport had broken the soap-like digit from the hand, allowing the ring to slip off. The man who’d worn it apparently didn’t take much care with his jewelry. A deep scratch marred the table of the onyx stone set in the textured white gold. Was that lettering carved around the bezel? Ray turned on his lighted magnifying lamp. He squinted, and tilted the ring in hope that an angle would cast shadows enough to reveal something.
“P… M… C… C, I think. But what’s that?” Still holding the ring, he turned to his computer and entered the perplexing series of letters. The site his search engine brought up first showed options ranging from a mining company in Australia, to a church denomination, and a Postmark Collectors’ Club, as well as several medical conditions.
None of the results looked like organizations that would award their members commemorative rings. How would he start searching for people with four initials, rather than the more ordinary three? He shook his head and set the ring back into the evidence tray. Ray checked his email and sighed. “The partial prints I managed to take are still going through database matching.”
The phone rang, and he lifted the receiver. “County Coroner.”
“Mr. Wilkinson, this is Sergeant Bixby. We’ve got a messy crime scene with more than one body, in Whistler’s Woods.”
Don’t let one of them be my Rose. “I’m on my way.”
The Gardens of Digby Green is a serialized story that posts on Fridays.
Next week, part thirty-two, Whistler’s Woods.
Find a link to purchase Heartland Treasures anthology here.
Ruth
Heidi Kortman