Read Caught Red-Handed for Free Online Page A

had saved this corner for last. A week ago, while pruning back the poorly tended honeysuckle that had overgrown this corner, she discovered something that had made her cry. Beneath the vines she had found something made of stone, broken in two parts. When she had realized it was a loveseat, it had suddenly come to symbolize her broken romance with Sam, and for the first time since the day he had told her of Marietta, she had cried. Four months of bottled pain and humiliation burst from her like champagne from an uncorked bottle, and cold, predictable, passionless Leila wept in her garden.
    The relief of it had been great. Later she called her old friend, Arnie, who was a landscape contractor. Arnie, who had benefitted more than once from Leila’s ability to chose investments, was happy to make arrangements to have the broken loveseat hauled off. The day after it was gone, Leila went back to work in the garden.
    On this warm June day, she had dug up about two feet of soil in the area of the corner, preparing to plant a last trio of rosebushes, when the shovel had rung out. She knelt down on all fours, picking up a small hand spade, and tried to clear away the soil that covered the metal object that was thwarting her progress. Thinking of Sam and Marietta, she dug with furious movements, showering dirt everywhere, some of it landing in her hair and on her clothes. Before long, the spade struck the object as well. She scraped aside enough of the soil to reveal a dark, rusty piece of metal. Curious, she continued to dig at the soil surrounding it. It was flat and smooth. She reached a curving edge and burrowed with her hands to grasp the edge of the object. She tugged and pulled, and suddenly it came free, causing her to fall back on her rump. Dirt flew everywhere, and she laughed as she looked at the heavy object on her lap. A frying pan.
    â€œWhy would anyone bury a cast-iron skillet upside down in the corner of a garden?” she wondered aloud. It was heavy and large, but there were no special markings on it. She set it on the brick walkway which curved past the area she was working on. She brushed herself off and looked into the hole from which she had pulled the skillet. A shiny object caught her eye, and once again she used the hand spade to clear the soil away. She soon had freed enough of the soil to see that it was the lid of a jar, and could tell that the jar was still attached.
    Feeling a certain mild excitement, as if she were a backyard archeologist, she carefully worked around the jar, finally freeing it. She brushed it off with a gloved hand and held it up. A Mason jar, filled with old-fashioned buttons. The glass of the jar was thick, and she wondered how old it was. She set the jar next to the skillet, trying to make sense of them, and of their burial.
    Unable to succeed in solving that puzzle, she stood up and went back to work with the shovel. But she had not been digging very long, when once again the shovel struck an object. She knelt again and went to work with the hand spade. This time, she found a small, crude wooden box, about the size of a shoe box. The blow from the shovel had splintered the lid, and inside the box was a small canvas bag filled with old marbles. She continued to use the hand spade.
    An hour later, she had an odd collection on the walkway: to the skillet, the button jar, and the marbles, she had added an old pocket watch, a wedding band wrapped in a linen handkerchief, a fragment of stained glass. The handkerchief bore pretty embroidery, and the initials “ CG ”; the inside of the ring was inscribed, “ Chloe and Jonathan, 2-22-41 .” There was no inscription on the watch, but the crystal was cracked and the hands stopped at 6:10. Again she wondered why this particular group of objects had been buried here. A child might bury marbles, maybe even buttons, but a skillet? A wedding ring or a pocket watch? Why hide such objects? It was unsettling.
    Leila continued to