Throw in the Trowel by Kate Collins Page A

basement,” Marco said. “Don’t even get me started on how someone was able to get inside that door. It’s a comedy of errors. And to make the situation even worse, the prints aren’t visible anymore, the excavation site has been smoothed over, and the shoe prints on the steps have been obliterated. I questioned my employees about the size of the prints, but no one except Rafe noticed them, and he isn’t sure whether they were male or female because they were mashed.”
    â€œWhy didn’t the coroner remove the bones when you first called them in?” Reilly asked.
    â€œThank you,” I said. “That was my question, too.”
    â€œI was told that he was busy at an accident scene,” Marco said. “He’s scheduled to come out tomorrow.”
    â€œI’m amazed the detectives didn’t close down the whole basement,” Reilly said. “You’ve got a crime scene down there.”
    â€œI think they were doing me a favor by not closing it,” Marco said. “They cordoned off the excavation site and trusted, I suppose, that I would keep it secure.”
    Reilly rubbed his face, thinking. “Did they take photos of the bones and collect soil samples?”
    â€œYes,” Marco said. “They haven’t sifted the dirt yet though.”
    â€œWell,” Reilly said slowly, “it’s not the best circumstances to conduct an investigation, but at least they have something to go on. Will you show me the hole?”
    I tucked Seedy into Marco’s office, then followed the men to the basement, where they were already standing at the edge of the concrete. As Marco and I had seen just before Reilly had arrived, the soil was smooth.
    Using Marco’s flashlight, Reilly crouched down for a closer look. “See this?” He pointed to the dirt. “See these faint ridges? They look like they were made with a tool of some sort, like a trowel.”
    â€œTrowels don’t have ridges,” I said.
    â€œHe’s not talking about a garden trowel,” Marco said. “He means the kind used in construction.” He glanced around. “There used to be an old one down here, but I don’t see it. Maybe the thief used it and took it with him.”
    Click.
The proverbial lightbulb went on in my head. “Marco, when we were down here with the plumber, Seedy dug an old garden trowel out of the dirt.”
    â€œYou didn’t tell me that,” Marco said.
    â€œI didn’t think anything of it at the time. I dropped it over there with other old garden tools. When you mentioned a trowel just now, it clicked!”
    â€œWhat clicked?” Reilly asked, as Marco went to find the tool.
    â€œThe curved dent in the man’s skull. I’ve dug enough holes in the clay soil of my grandma’s garden to know what kind of mark a garden trowel makes. It’s an arc, and so was the dent I saw on the top of the skull. It can’t be a coincidence that it was buried in the dirt near the body.”
    â€œIt’s fairly unusual for a murder weapon to be left at the crime scene,” Reilly said.
    â€œWhat better place to leave it than under a cement floor?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t see it,” Marco said, as we joined him by the pile of junk.
    I pointed to the other tools. “I laid it right there. It had the same long wooden handle that these have.” I picked through the junk to make sure the trowel hadn’t fallen behind them, but it was definitely gone.
    Reilly walked back to the hole, studied it for a moment, then turned to Marco. “You asked for my advice, so here it is. If it were my basement, I wouldn’t want a big hole in the floor over the winter.”
    â€œIt’ll take that long for the detectives to get over here?” Marco asked.
    â€œAll I can tell you is they’ve got a lot on their hands right now,” Reilly said. “Because of the robberies, they’ve