Hartwell crouched near the remains of my rose bed and picked up a torn strip of blue plastic with his gloved fingers.
“Do you own a tarp this color?”
“No.”
He placed it inside an evidence bag.
Sloan shone his flashlight toward the rear fence.
“There are drag marks here.”
“Drag marks from what?”
Hartwell stood.
“A witness said a large metal container was lifted from the ground and loaded into a vehicle this morning.”
I stared at him.
“There was something buried in my yard?”
“That’s what we’re trying to establish.”
“And Bennett took it?”
“We believe so.”
I suddenly felt unsteady.
Bennett had not wanted space for a party.
He had wanted me gone.
The officers stayed for almost two hours. They measured the hole, photographed the soil, and asked whether the previous owner had ever mentioned anything hidden beneath the property.
His name was Orson Pike. He had sold me the house four years earlier after moving to assisted living.
We had discussed the roof, the furnace, and the old apple tree near the fence.
He had never mentioned a buried metal box.
Before leaving, Officer Hartwell warned me not to enter the hole or move any of the dirt.
“Are you looking for Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’ll come back?”
Hartwell hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
That answer kept me awake all night.
Every sound became footsteps near the side gate.
Around two in the morning, a car slowed in front of the house. I stood behind the curtain until its red taillights disappeared.
I kept seeing Bennett on my porch, smiling as he took the key.
I remembered every small kindness from the past two years and wondered whether any of it had been real.
The following morning, a detective named Nisha Calder sat across from me at the kitchen table.
“We located Bennett’s truck,” she said.
“Where?”
“At a storage facility about forty miles away.”
“Was he there?”
“No. But the container was.”
My hands became cold.
“What was inside?”
Detective Calder opened a folder.
“Cash, jewelry, several expensive watches, and old identity documents. Some items appear to be connected to a warehouse robbery from eighteen years ago.”
I stared at her.
“That was buried beneath my flowers?”
“We believe it was hidden there shortly after the robbery.”
She showed me an old photograph of two young men.
One of them was Bennett, although he looked thinner and had longer hair.
The other man had a broad smile and a scar above his left eyebrow.
“That is Caleb Pike,” she said. “The son of your home’s previous owner.”
“Orson’s son?”
“Yes. Caleb and Bennett grew up together. Both were questioned after the robbery, but nothing was proven. Caleb disappeared several months later.”
“Did Bennett commit the robbery?”
“We don’t know yet. He claimed he had no involvement.”
“Then how did he know the container was here?”
“That is one of the questions we intend to ask him.”
I thought about Bennett moving into the house next door.
“Did he come here because of the money?”
Detective Calder folded her hands.
“We believe he spent years trying to determine where Caleb had hidden it. He may have moved beside you because he had narrowed the search to this property.”
“He lived next to me for two years.”
“Yes.”
“He helped me. He borrowed things. He stood in my kitchen.”
Her eyes softened.
“I’m sorry.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“He could have asked whether anything had been buried here.”
“He probably believed you would contact the police.”
“He was right.”
They found Bennett that afternoon at a bus station.
He had cut his hair, bought a ticket under a false name, and carried almost $30,000 in cash inside the lining of his luggage.
The police believed he had removed some money from the container before abandoning the rest.
For weeks, my yard remained closed behind yellow tape.
Neighbors stopped to look through the fence. Reporters called twice. People I barely knew asked whether I had ever suspected Bennett.
I always gave the same answer.
“No.”
The truth embarrassed me, although I knew it should not have.
I attended Bennett’s preliminary hearing because I needed to see him.
He looked different in court.
Without his neat clothes and calm expression, he appeared smaller. His shoulders curved forward, and his eyes remained fixed on the table.
During a break, his lawyer approached me.
“Mr. Crowe would like to apologize.”
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