Harlow showed him the small area she was working on and the spot directly behind Ginger’s headstone she hadn’t yet touched. “I have maybe another twenty minutes or half an hour and I’ll be done.”
Her father lingered, and for a second Harlow thought he would hang around until she finished so he could keep an eye on her. He finally left, promising to stop back by in case she needed an extra hand finishing up. He called Mort and he and the pup disappeared.
She watched him leave, certain he wasn’t thrilled she had taken over the project but had stopped short of asking her to leave.
Returning to the task at hand, Harlow cleared the debris around her mother’s headstone. The vases on both sides sat empty, and she scooped out the dead leaves.
As soon as she finished, she gathered the gardening tools and placed them inside the cart before returning to the spot where she’d covered the exposed pipes. “Good as new.” She started to walk away when she noticed a depression in the dirt parallel to the pipe.
Thinking another spot needed to be filled in, Harlow grabbed her shovel and moved the leaves aside. Sure enough, another section of piping appeared where the soil had washed away.
She grabbed the empty plastic planters and filled them with dirt a second time. Trudging back to the depression, Harlow lowered onto her knees and moved the dirt around the pipe to make sure it wasn’t leaking.
Her right knee hit on something sharp. Crying out in pain, she jerked back. A glimmer of metal glinted in the light.
Harlow tossed the small shovel aside and began digging with her hands, uncovering a pair of rusty metal snippers that looked like they had been there for some time.
“I wonder if Dad is missing a tool.” She cleaned the dirt off the best she could and set them in the cart. Harlow checked to make sure she’d picked up all the gardening tools and headed home.
She returned the tools where she found them, except for the snippers she’d dug up. Harlow left them on the workbench and ran to her room to clean up.
Making quick work of showering and throwing on casual clothes for another day of bumming around, she padded out of her room.
Harlow found her father in the kitchen, munching on the fudge she’d brought back from Peyton’s fudge sampling.
“You found Peyton’s fudge.”
“I taste cinnamon.” David took another bite and washed it down with a sip of milk.
“You would be correct. It’s cinnamon bun.”
“Did you finish cleaning around your mom’s grave?”
“For the most part. I found another spot where it looked like the dirt had washed away so I filled it in.”
“Thank you. I try to keep track of exposed pipes, especially in the spring. It’s a full time job.”
“I bet.” Harlow tucked her hands in her pockets. “While I was fixing it, I found a pair of rusty metal snippers.”
“Metal snippers?”
“I left them on your workbench.”
David finished his milk and set the glass in the sink. “I don’t remember losing anything over there.”
Harlow trailed behind, following her father to the garage and workbench. “These are the multipurpose snippers you found near Ginger’s grave?”
“Behind her headstone.”
An odd expression flitted across his face.
“What is it?”
He spoke as if he hadn’t heard her. “The sound. The clanging sound I heard the night of the fire.”
“You think this was making the noise?”
“It’s possible. We’ll find out in a minute.”
