Page 15 of Two Couples

I pulled out a short-handled shovel and a small pick. Scanning the front of the property leading up to the house, I didn’t see any obvious places where someone would bury a body. It was too risky, even if they’d moved some of the decorative river rocks to cover the disturbed soil. There was a single, enormous Ponderosa pine in the front, but digging around that would damage the roots. Surely that was obvious to anyone, even a cold-blooded killer.

I carried the tools to the back of the house. There was a cluster of randomly spaced sugar pines and more Ponderosas growing like a fence of sorts between the two pieces of property. The pool was fenced with glass panels. The back deck was a few feet above the pool area. Samantha, Emily, and Keith were sitting there now, watching me survey the area. It would have been nice to receive an offer of help, but I knew that wasn’t coming.

Beyond the pool area, the rest of our half acre was filled with more pine trees of several varieties. The ground was hardpacked dirt covered with pine needles. There were scattered boulders in open areas and quite a lot of scrub brush. Closer to the water, there were some dips and swells in the terrain. Beyond that, the terrain grew rockier.

Despite my initial belief that no one would dig close to the roots of the Ponderosa in the front yard, the most likely spot where the man might have been buried was among the trees. The rest of the space was open enough that I could see, despite the heavy rain, that none of the ground was disturbed enough to suggest a large, fresh hole had been dug.

As I walked into the row of trees, I felt three pairs of eyes on me, even though I could no longer see them clearly. Where did they think that man had gone? I hadn’t asked Samantha that question because I was upset that she’d sided with her friends over doing what was right—over standing by me.

A few feet ahead of me was a pile of pine needles with a shape that looked like it concealed a body that hadn’t even been buried. Was it possible a wild animal had dragged him away from the pool? But how would it access that area with the solid fence? Maybe the gate had been left open.

Fallen pine needles often gathered into large mounds, but this one seemed different. There was something about the oblong shape that made it feel arranged. I immediately discarded that thought. No one trying to hide a body would build up a small hill of pine needles to announce the location of a grave.

Still, I couldn’t stop looking at it. Maybe the killer thought making it look like other piles of needles would somehow disguise it. Using the shovel, I pushed the pine needles to the side, letting them scatter in a thin layer to my left.

“Did you find something?” Samantha’s voice was loud and clear as she called from the deck.

I held up the shovel, not sure what I meant to signal with that gesture, but also not concerned about how it was interpreted. If she was curious, she should come over to help me.

With the pine needles brushed to the side, I saw that the muddy soil was loose. It didn’t look freshly dug, but it was disturbed in a way that was different from the terrain I’d walked over so far. There was a sick, solid lump in my gut as I stared at the ground. Did I really want to do this? I didn’t want to face what might lay beneath, but it had to be done. The others were right in that respect—without a body, the police would dismiss everything we said. They might accuse us of being high. Or assume we were riddled with guilt because we were the perpetrators.

I dropped the shovel to the ground and used the pick to loosen the soil further. There were a fair number of rocks that pinged when the iron pick hit them, scattering as I dug. I heard Keith yell something at me, but I ignored him. They were sitting there like they were courtside at a basketball game.

When I’d loosened an area of about three feet square, I put down the pick and began digging. I went slowly, intensely conscious of what my shovel might strike.

ELEVEN

SAMANTHA

Watching Patrick drag his shovel and pick along the property line between our house and Linda’s was horrifying. Did he really think someone had dug a grave on our property? Maybe he did. Maybe he was right. What other explanation was there for a man’s body disappearing as if it had never existed?

Even though I knew I was out of my mind for thinking this, it felt as if the storm had carried him away. It was so absurd, I felt a hysterical laugh bubbling inside me each time it passed through my mind. No matter how wild the winds had been—gusts up to sixty miles an hour—or how tremendous the downpour of water that had left large puddles at the front of the house, storms didn’t carry people away. It must have been some bizarre, lingering imprint from too many childhood memories of repeatedly watching The Wizard of Oz.

“I don’t know why he’s doing this,” Emily said. “Can’t you make him stop? If he finds…” She put her hand over her face. “I can’t even think about it.”

Keith stood and walked to the edge of the deck. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called to Patrick. “If you need to use a pick, it’s not a new grave, buddy.”

Patrick didn’t look up, but I could tell by the change in his rhythm, he’d heard.

Keith turned away from the railing. “This is a waste of effort. Whoever killed him was probably interrupted by your arrival. Or something. They came back and dragged the body to the lake and pushed him off one of those ledges.” He waved his arm toward the slope that led away from our property, ending at the edge of the lake where there was no sandy shore, just granite and boulders. “He’s going to drag us into a bottomless pit of something that has nothing to do with us.”

“You know how he is,” Emily said. “He needs to be a hero.”

“Don’t say⁠—”

Keith interrupted me before I could defend Patrick. “There’s nothing heroic about this. If we were looking for someone who was still alive, sure. But this?” He waved his other arm toward the row of trees and Patrick, now digging with his shovel, hunched over as he drove it into the earth for each scoop of dirt.

Emily turned to me. “Can’t you please make him stop?”

I stared at her, then directed my attention back toward Patrick. What did she expect me to do? Yank the shovel out of his hand?

“He’s creating trouble,” she said. “What if he does find… They’ll assume we buried him.”

“He’s upset because he thinks the family and friends deserve to know,” I said. “He thinks what we’re doing is morally wrong.”

“He’s obviously never had a cop throw his weight at him. Accuse him of lying. It’s not a fun experience,” Keith said.

“And you were just a kid,” Emily said.