The Gardens of Digby Green: Voicemail
Late that afternoon, Sheriff Erwin Jessup re-entered the Madison County Sheriff’s Building. He closed his office door behind him and dropped into his chair. It’d been an ugly crime site.
The corpse exposed, a woman past middle age, wore a dress with crocheted lace, a stained apron, and worn loafers on otherwise bare feet. Her skull had been crushed. Most of the pieces weren’t much larger than the Sheriff’s thumb.
She had had a full upper denture, but the lower jaw, though broken, retained several teeth.
Forensics teams gathered the evidence and took it away. Odds were, the test results would take several days. Also in the grave, the team found a deformed shovel blade, and the implement’s broken handle. It might have been the murder weapon.
Jessup didn’t expect any useful prints from either item, given the length of time they had apparently been buried.
He opened a computerized case form. Date, time, GPS coordinates, and a list of uncovered evidence, he entered them all, but then turned away from the keyboard and picked up his phone. He dialed the number for the detective in Illinois.
The phone rang until voicemail activated, and Jessup left a terse, thorough message for Detective Marquez.
#
The sun’s angle shifted, rays passing the storage shed to shine into Tim’s face. He groaned, raising his left hand to finger his jaw. A lump had risen. He squinted, shook his head, and wished he hadn’t. “I’m going to give Digby a beating, and then I’m going to get him fired.”
Tim fumbled with the seat belt buckle, opened the truck door, and slid out. Dropping to the crumbly asphalt of the Garden Center parking lot, he took a slightly weaving track toward the back door of the building. He went into the men’s room, cleaned up his bloody face with wet paper towels, then, feeling steadier, returned to the parking lot.
Most of the other employee’s vehicles were gone. So was Digby’s truck. Tim grunted. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
The Gardens of Digby Green is a serialized story that posts on Fridays.
Next week, part fifty, Alabama Plates.
Find a link to purchase Heartland Treasures anthology here.
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