Page 47 of One Last Breath

Well, I can’t judge him for that, anyway.

After a long moment, he shakes his coat off and tosses it angrily away. It lands on the bush I’m hiding behind, and the acrid odor of sweat stings my nostrils. Thank God the soiled coat didn’t land on me.

He leans against the fence, shaking with exhaustion and breathing out curse words. His portly belly squeezes like a bellow as his body tries to recover from what is probably the most exercise he's had in decades.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and looks at the padlock. He turns the base, and when it slides away from the severed ring of hardened steel that loops around the iron bars, he crows with joy. He catches himself a moment later and freezes, looking around anxiously. When he realizes no one is rushing to find out who made that noise, he relaxes and picks up the bolt cutter.

It comes apart in his hands, and he stares stupidly as one half falls to the ground. After a moment, he chuckles and says, “Should’ve just cut the damned bars. Would’ve been easier.”

He removes the padlock and opens the gate. He walks two steps, then stops. “Fuck! A shovel. I forgot a fucking shovel!”

He sighs and leans against the open gate, breathing heavily. He looks up at the sky as though begging it for an answer to why he’s so unprepared for the most important day of his life.

Finally, he sighs again and pushes from the gate. He shakes his head, sighs a final time, then heads into the garden. Apparently, he's decided he'll just have to forgo the shovel.

I check my phone. It’s now one-thirty. I presume he knows when the family typically returns from work and feels confident he can dig up what he needs before they arrive.

I have to act now.

I intend to do this after I uncover whatever’s under the geraniums, but there’s no guarantee I’ll have time to do that. In fact, I have to admit to myself that there’s no guarantee I’ll live long enough to tell anyone what’s under those flowers if I confront George.

And I will confront George. I have to. I can’t risk that he’ll destroy the evidence and escape justice.

So, I send a text to nine-one-one. It’s my understanding that most cities in America support that function for cases where a complainant is unable to make a voice call. I provide the address and report an intruder. I give directions to the geranium garden from the gate as clearly as I can, then snap a picture of the broken padlock and open gate and send that with the text.

I wait until I receive a response. As I suspect, the dispatcher asks if they can call me. I reply, No. My life is in danger. Then I put my phone on silent, just in case. This will have to be enough.

I stand and walk toward the open gate, gripping the shovel tightly. If I’m lucky, I’ll reach George and knock him out before he sees me.

I can hear sounds of digging as I walk through the short, hedged corridor that leads from the gate to the geraniums. George continues to mutter and curse as he digs, mostly complaints that he’s on his hands and knees digging through dirt and promises to ruin the Greenwoods as soon as he possibly can for not just giving him the damned document in the first place.

I round the corner just when George says, “Finally! Got you, you bitch!”

There are certain things in life that are too horrible to put into words. The sight of Lila Benson’s body as George drags it out of the ground is one of those things. The sound of her bones cracking and her clothing tearing as he forces the corpse out of the small hole he’s dug is another, and that is far worse than the sight.

I stand and watch the scene, too stunned to act. I have the shovel upraised, prepared to strike George with it, but I don't swing it. I suppose this is a blessing in disguise. I may be a petite middle aged woman, but a strike to the back of a middle aged man's head with a cast iron shovel requires little force to kill.

My mind shouts at me to move, to do something other than stand there and watch as George digs through the body, snarling, “Where is it? Where the hell is it? Damn it, I know you know where it is!”

Greed has driven him mad, just as it has driven Elizabeth mad. Perhaps in her case, it’s desperation rather than greed. I wonder if any part of him realizes what he looks like now, if any part of him cares that this is what he’s become.

Unless, of course, this is who he always was.

He curses again, then drops the body and starts digging through the grave. My stomach turns, and I force my eyes to remain on George and not the corpse.

“Where is it? Damn it, you have to know something! Where is that document? I know it’s here!”

This is when it occurs to me that I can’t just attack George. If I kill him, then I’ll be a murderer myself. I can moralize all I want about the fact that George deserved to die, but that won’t hold up in a court.

I’ve called the police already. The right thing to do is wait until they arrive.

My phone! God, I’m a fool! I could have recorded all of this!

I carefully lower the shovel and pull my phone out of my pocket. I open the camera and am about to record when George shouts. “God damn it!”

The sudden noise startles me. I flinch, and my foot comes down on a branch. It snaps, and George whips around to look at me. We stare at each other in shock for a moment. Then his eyes narrow.

He lunges for one half of the bolt cutter, and I shriek and pick up the shovel, dropping my phone in the process. “Stay back!” I cry out, holding the shovel in front of me.

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