San Diego Noir

“Oh, Nancy, this is beautiful! A secret garden! It’s like being in another world.” My previous trip through the garden had been too brief and panicked to notice much. I twirled around and around, enchanted and bewitched by all the flowers and vines. The scent of jasmine and roses and blooming cacti filled the air and swaying grasses danced with towering blue delphiniums. Bright orange canna lilies stood tall.

Nancy stepped under a bower of bougainvillea and grape vines and came out with a battered cardboard box. I ran up to see a tiny brown puppy with black spots on his back and big floppy ears.

“I got him yesterday. He’s part beagle and part lab. And he’s all mine.” She pulled out a greasy paper bag containing pieces of last night’s dinner and this morning’s bread and fed it to the puppy, who whimpered and then chowed down like he was starving. “His name’s Spot! Here, you take him and I’ll put on his leash,” she said.

He was soft, warm, and wiggly as I held him. I looked skeptically at the length of cord she was attaching to his collar. When she was done, I put Spot down and he ran in circles around her, tangling her feet with the rope. She tried to step out of it, tripped, and sprawled on the ground. The little dog took off and we tried to catch him. He thought it was a game and kept on running, then stopped abruptly, sitting, tongue out. He caught a new smell, lifted and twisted his head, ears swinging, and suddenly took off again.

“Oh no! If Mrs. Smith catches me with Spot, I’m ruined,” wailed Nancy. “It’s just I’m so lonely here and the beggar boy said his papa was gonna drown the whelp, so I had to take him.”

I was scanning the yard, looking for the little dog, dreading discovery by the landlady, when I saw him digging busily in a pile of dirt in the far corner. I trotted over there and scooped him up, then looked at where he’d been digging. For a small dog, he’d pawed pretty deep into the dirt pile. I saw something white and angular sticking out. A horrible idea formed in my head, but I didn’t want Nancy involved. I knelt down and swept dirt over the object.

“Here he is, safe and sound,” I said, and handed Spot back to her. “Let’s get going, we don’t want to be late for work.”

Nancy stashed Spot in his box and we ran for the bus.

I spent the day pacing back and forth in the office, working up my courage. I had to go back and see if my suspicions were true. The white thing in the dirt looked like a bone, and not a soup bone, either. I was terribly afraid that I’d found Mary, dead in the backyard.

I taped several layers of newspaper onto the lens of a flashlight and took it into the closet to see how well it worked. It gave off a sickly light, just barely enough to see by, and I hoped not enough to violate the dim-out regulations—or be noticed by the Smiths.

Five o’clock found me back on the bus, heading up the hill to 20th Street. I was so nervous that I could barely hold up my end of a conversation, but the other girls had enough silly chatter that no one noticed. I got ready for bed like everyone else, but then changed back into my dungarees and shirt and lay silently on the bed waiting for the darkness to be complete. The sap was in my back pocket, and I could feel it pressing into my behind. By eleven o’clock it was pitch black out and I couldn’t hear anyone moving in the house. It was time for me to get to work.

I grabbed my shoes and carried them as I slid my feet slowly over the wooden floor. The door opened with a tiny noise, and I paused there for several minutes until I was sure I hadn’t woken anyone. I crept down the stairs, staying close to the wall to keep the steps from creaking as I gently lowered my weight onto them. I glided through the kitchen and eased myself out the back door.

The garden was fragrant in the night, and the air was cool. A car ghosted past with only its running lights on. I sat in the damp grass and slipped on my shoes, then walked back to the corner and felt my way over to the dirt pile. I turned on the flashlight and laid it in the dirt angled downward. I found the hollow I’d partly filled in and began digging. The dirt was sandy and moist in my hands. I carefully brushed it sideways until I saw the bone. A dainty triangle of bone, a fingertip, still attached to the next joint by tendons. As I excavated further, I saw shards of flesh clinging to the bones. The smell of decay was overpowering. I felt sick to my stomach and lurched off to one side and threw up.

I brushed the dirt back over the remains of the small hand, picked up my flashlight, switched it off, and walked gingerly through the blackness toward the side gate. Now I had evidence—proof that at least one of the girls who had “moved” was really murdered. I couldn’t wait to hear what Mike McGowan thought of my find.

As I reached out for the gate latch, something snuffed in the shadows. I turned, not so much startled as expecting to feel Nancy’s puppy brush up against me. But there was nothing.