The Gardens of Digby Green: Destination
Spicy aromas venting from the restaurant kitchen stirred Ray’s appetite even though it hadn’t been that long since he’d eaten. Did he want tacos, or enchiladas? He flipped open his wallet, and started counting the bills inside.
Ray heard an engine, and looked up. Whew. The passing vehicle wasn’t Green’s pickup.
It was no time to succumb to distraction, or he’d lose track of the guy. He shoved the wallet back down his pocket. If he wasn’t fifty miles down the road at supper time, and the restaurant was still open, he could come back. The place appeared to be popular with the neighborhood residents.
After a while, Ray became uncomfortable. Some of the customers were eyeing him as they clustered near the door.
One teen, on a skateboard, called “You oughta lower that thing,” as he zipped toward the Chrysler’s left front quarter panel before executing a stop that spun his board on its axis and flipped it up into his waiting hands.
Two more cars passed before Green’s pickup appeared at the top of the driveway into the Hillside Cottages lot. Digby Green headed northeast on State Road 30.
Ray put the Chrysler in gear.
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Digby chuckled as he rolled down US 30. The woman in the personnel department at C.J. Futures Lawn and Landscaping had swallowed his story and taken his faked references like a ravenous carp. With hardly any effort he’d already scored a job, and reserved one of the Hillside Cottages units.
The road split acres of undulating terrain, and traffic thinned. A farmer on a John Deere tractor approached in the opposite lane, towing a wagon stacked with hay. Digby slowed, reluctantly.
On an impulse, he dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out the garrote.
Smirking, he draped the cord over the truck’s rear view mirror, so that the weapon’s handles dangled. Soon, he’d use it. He was on his way to FloRa’s house.
Twenty-two minutes later, he entered Woodbine, a place even smaller than Missouri Valley. When his GPS announced “You have reached your destination,” Digby shook his head. Poor FloRa Woodbine’s property definitely needed a gardener’s help. Her two-story farm house, at least a hundred years old, sat on a grass covered hill, without so much as a shrub or tree.
He pulled over at the bottom of her driveway. An assortment of colored brochures from C.J. Futures littered the passenger seat. Digby chose the two largest, opened his truck window, and stuffed them into FloRa’s mailbox. Then, he drove up her driveway.
The Gardens of Digby Green: Destination is an installment of a short story which posts on Fridays. You can find the first part and read from the beginning, here.
Ruth
Heidi Kortman