Isobel Asks The Internet

XXIV - The Excavation

I had a local garden excavated and discovered a dark secret about someone I knew! What should I do?

Hey everyone! 

So, the other day I was selecting lunch options in one of the more upscale refectories at the university, accompanied by Heini, Katie and Marlene (who we were in the process of initiating into our circle of friendly associates). Given that we are ladies with varied palates, we decided to each pick one sandwich from the refrigerated display compartment; it was CRUCIAL that none of our choices overlapped in order for our plan to be executed with success. We then held an brief discussion forum to review our selections, and discovered that we had, indeed, all made different choices. Subsequently, we advanced towards a table, and sliced each sandwich into four equal triangles, which would allow us to sample each filling. I was disappointed to see that Marlene had picked egg and cress, but besides this, our plan had been executed immaculately. 

After we had carefully arranged our plates to be equally representative of all sandwich fillings, we began to dialogue. We were discussing the progress of the hedge-maze regeneration project; after my successful fundraiser, building had been able to commence, and the foliage was being restored as we spoke. The conversation made me think of the words that Emma had spoken to me before she had been (indirectly) slaughtered by Brindie about Rhonda being pregnant when she died. My moment of thoughtful reflection then made me realise that I hadn't yet talked to Marlene (since she had betrayed Brindie) about her time working with Rhonda. I KNEW that the information she held might be the crucial key to something. 

I rotated my chair to face Marlene (the refectory has swivel chair options), and asked her whether she thought that Rhonda seemed like she was harbouring any secrets, prior to her involvement in a fatal traffic accident. Although Marlene was surprised at my mention of Rhonda, she told me that there were certain things that she always seemed cagey about. In particular, Marlene recalled a time when Rhonda was hosting a garden party to premiere her recently-pruned border shrubs. One of the guests grabbed a trowel, and starting rummaging around in a patch of earth, and Rhonda lost her shit. She grabbed a bottle of champagne, smashed it against a tree, and yelled at everyone to leave while thrusting the jagged glass towards her guests. Hearing this, I knew that something had to be buried in that garden, and that our security HINGED on uncovering whatever it was. 

After we had finished our sandwich configurations, and carried out an evaluation of the various selections, I headed to the car park with Heini and Katie; we were going to (what used to be) Rhonda's house to launch our investigation. Marlene had an afternoon class so she sadly was not able to join us. Heini and I had been to Rhonda's house before to investigate Katie's kidnapping, so we knew the way to go. As soon as we got there, we headed straight for the garden. 

After making entry into the garden, I was SO confused to see garden accessories such as deckchairs, plant pots and lawn flamingos scattered about. There was also a plot for growing vegetable carrots. I reasoned that this was probably because no one had filled in the landlord of the property about Rhonda's deceased nature. We started rifling around in search of potential clues, but it soon became clear that we would have to dig up the garden in order to uncover whatever Rhonda had been hiding. Initially, this didn't seem like it would be a problem as there was a well stocked equipment-shed on the property, featuring multiple shovels. Our jubilation was short lived however, as Heini screamed "omfg look into the house windows!". I gazed into the house adjoining the garden, and to my astonishment glimpsed human silhouettes trundling about their business. Thankfully they hadn't yet seen us, so we bustled back to my car in order to figure out how we could excavate their garden.

I quickly came to the frustrating conclusion that we would need to obtain permission from the residents of the house before we could attempt to unearth Rhonda's secret; luckily I had a plan. Our friend, Zelda-Mae, was a member of the university archaeology society, and could help us to convince the group that it would be of significant local and historical interest to excavate the garden in question. It also turned out that the president of the society (Ivo) was her cousin. I was initially excited by this development, but then I remembered that this meant that he was also Debra's cousin (who we HATE). In the end, Ivo agreed to our well-thought out proposal, as it turns out that he HATES Debra too! After Zelda-Mae had helped us to rescue Katie from being kidnapped, he was the only member of her family to side with her over Debra and not disown her, so he was incredibly eager to help us (a little too eager, if you ask me).