Free Thread and Buried by Janet Bolin

also.” Head turning right and left like she was scanning my hedges for more rogue craft supplies, Vicki walked away from me, down the hill.
    Curiosity conquered the queasies. I followed her as far as the yellow police tape surrounding the excavations in my yard.
    Last night around eight thirty when Haylee and I had walked Vicki to my apartment, the orange plastic mesh fencing beside the riverside trail had been upright.
    Since then, something had flattened it.
    In the pit that used to be underneath Blueberry Cottage, there was a . . . a
what
?
    A huge white cocoon, like a monster grub that had just emerged from the depths of the earth?
    I gasped.
    Vicki turned around. “Sorry, Willow.” And she actually did look sorry. “It looks like we’ve found a body in your yard.”
    A body? Against my will, I looked at the “cocoon” again. Someone had wrapped a humanlike shape in quilt batting, pinned the batting shut with knitting needles like oversized purple straight pins, dumped the thing into the pit, and then had tossed a few shovelfuls of dirt over it.
    “How do you know there’s a body in all that?” I asked.
    “I ducked under the tape and went down into that hole to find out what your dogs were finding so interesting.”
    “Are you sure the person is dead?” It was a dumb question, but someone could have been playing a prank, sort of like yarnbombing, but gruesome.
    “Are you kidding? That was the first thing I checked. It’s a corpse, all right, and it’s been dead awhile. It’s cold. Did you see or hear anything unusual out here in the night? Or more recently?” Again she eyed my hedges.
    No one committed suicide and then wrapped himself or herself in quilt batting. This person must have been murdered, and the killer might be hiding in those thick hedges. My heart outdid itself with scared, nervous beating. “Only Sally,” I managed. “Wanting to bring in those kittens. One at a time.” Had the kittens and the dog startled the killer? Was that why he hadn’t finished burying the victim? He must have hoped to cover the wrapped-up body completely, and also planned that no one would notice that the pit had become slightly shallower during the night. And maybe no one would have.
    My hand shook as I pointed at dirt heaped up around the excavation. The victim’s feet must have dragged, plowing a pair of wavering furrows in the sand. Doggie footprints were all over the place, but I thought I could see partial prints from shoes—sneakers, maybe—and boots, too. Police had swarmed this area yesterday, and some of the prints must have been Vicki’s from a few minutes ago.
    I asked her, “Do you know who the victim is?”
    She stared off toward the river. “We’ll have to get a positive ID and notify next of kin before we go blabbing names around.” She looked at me. My anxiety must have shown on my face. “Don’t worry. It’s not one of your close friends. It’s a male.”
    The gate leading to Lake Street from my side yard clanged. I jumped about a mile, and Vicki whirled to face uphill. She placed her right hand on her holster.
    Whistling, Clay strode down the hill toward us. I was so glad to see him alive and healthy that I had an urge to run to him and hug him, but my leg muscles felt like they’d been knit from cotton thread.
    Vicki challenged him, “What do you think you’re doing here?”
    Clay stopped and raised one eyebrow. “Checking to see if I can work here today, but I see you still have the yellow tape up.” He must have noticed the expression on my face. “Is something wrong?”
    “Don’t go near your excavation,” Vicki told him. “This is a crime scene again. I mean still. I mean an even
worse
crime scene than before.” She didn’t usually get this flustered.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “It’s not a what, it’s a who,” Vicki said. “Except now, it’s become sort of a what.”
    “She’s been sick,” I explained.
    Vicki brushed that aside. “I’m not sure