Page 22 of Pepper, the Biker & the Vanishing Body

Danny crossed his arms over his chest, a tell-tale sign I had learned when I was young that he was about to think he out-smarted me.

“What do you think Dad will say when he finds out you not only lost the body again, but didn’t have your phone on you to at least get a picture and solid proof that a vanishing body even exists?”

Okay, he had me on that one.

“Please, Pepper, let this be. I have enough to worry about with the baby on the way. I don’t need the police here and crowds of curiosity seekers.”

Danny was right. I had no proof, and he didn’t need the hassle.

“Do you mind if I take some pictures of the area?” I asked, though I didn’t need his permission since I was part owner of the garden center.

His arms fell away from his chest. “Thanks, Pepper, I appreciate it, and you know you don’t have to ask me if you can take photos, but thanks for doing so anyway. Now to figure out what to tell, my wife.”

“That’s easy. Tell her I accidently knocked over the rubber tree plant and created a mess and I worried she might try to clean it up, which would then have you mad at me.”

“Good one, Pepper. So, this stays between you and me?” Danny asked to make sure.

I scrunched my face. “I will tell Ian. We’re in this mystery together, but he’ll keep it between us.”

“Ian is a good guy. I trust him and Amy as well. She always keeps your secrets,” Danny said, then went to a barrel filled with planting soil.

“Amy is a given. If I know, she knows,” I confirmed and watched him scoop up some soil with his hands and looked about to throw it around the area where I saw the body. I quickly stepped in front of him. “Stop! Let me get some pictures first.” I reached for my back pocket only to remember I didn’t have my cell.

“My phone back pocket,” Danny offered. “Take what pics you want, send them to yourself, and then delete them.”

While I did as he said, I asked him, “Why are you throwing that dirt around?”

“I know my wife and she knows me even better. She will assume I did not meet her standard of clean and she will hurry here to see for herself. This dirt is just enough to satisfy her expectations.”

I had to laugh. “You two are a perfect pair.”

Danny grinned. “That we are, and I am proud of it.”

“But you might want to mess up the dirt around the rubber tree plant or she’ll get suspicious,” I suggested.

“Good thinking, Pepper.”

We were barely finished when Kelly entered the greenhouse. “Mrs. Johnson kept me, though she made a huge purchase of plants. Thomas is loading her truck now. What’s going on here?”

“My fault,” I said.

“Oh, you had an accident with the rubber tree plant, and that’s why you wanted help. I knew I should have sent someone to help you get it. It could use more soil,” Kelly pointed out and Danny was quick to oblige her as she grabbed a broom and started sweeping.

I spotted a slip of paper sticking out alongside a barrel and to keep the two of them distracted so I could grab it, I said, “Are you filling that pot with too much soil?”

Kelly turned to see, and Danny was quick to scoop some soil out, giving me enough time to grab the paper and shove it in my back pocket.

It was almost an hour before I was done at the garden center. The bed of my truck was loaded with plants for my place and thankfully Dad’s plants were being put aside to be delivered with other plants my mom had picked out for the police station.

I didn’t get a chance to look at the slip of paper until I was home. I pulled it out of my back pocket once I got out of the truck and unfolded it. It was a page torn out of the book on the history of Willow Lake. It was a picture of inside the mausoleum and scrawled across the tomb of Verbena were two words…not there.

The sun had yetto set when Ian and I took our glasses of wine out on the front porch to sit and enjoy. It had been a busy day for us both and it wasn’t until suppertime that we got a chance to talk and discuss the torn page I had found at the scene of the body that had vanished yet again.

“It’s more a guy that keeps vanishing than a vanishing body we’re looking for,” Ian said.

“True, but what was he doing in the garden center? That’s a strange place to be when his interest is in the mausoleum. And how does he know whatever he was looking for is…not there?”

“And what isnot there?” Ian asked. “I had no time to ask you this morning what Stone wanted with you.”

---