Torres listened with complete attention and asked questions I couldn't hear from where I was standing. Clare was standing beside me. She hadn't said much since we'd arrived. She was watching the activity around her property with an expression I couldn't fully read, not shock, not grief, not relief. Something more complicated than any single word.
Are you okay? I asked. I keep thinking about the garden, she said. I planted those tomatoes in April. I was out there almost every day.
And the whole time underneath me, she stopped. Daniel knew. He knew what was under this yard, and he still let me plant tomatoes in it. He had a padlock on the garage. He buried the evidence at the opposite end of the yard from where you gardened.
He was keeping you away from the part that mattered. She thought about that. He was managing my proximity to it, she said slowly. All those years, even the garden placement might be reading into it or might not be. She looked at the vegetable garden along the north side of the property as far as it was possible to get from the garage and the drainage line.
The man remembered the names of people's dogs. Caleb, he didn't do anything by accident. Before I could respond, Beckford came over and asked us to move back toward the street. They were about to open the garage. They didn't let us watch the garage opening directly.
Torres asked us to wait on the sidewalk while her team and two additional investigators worked the structure. We waited 40 minutes. Then Torres came back out and walked straight to Clare. She didn't say anything dramatic. She didn't build to it.
She just said, "Mrs. Bennett, I need to prepare you for what we found." Clareire straightened. "Tell me, there is an access shaft in the floor of the garage, concealed beneath a section of false flooring plywood over the original concrete with a trap door. It connects to the main drainage channel below." Torres paused. Inside the shaft and the immediate section of the channel accessible from it.
We found materials that are consistent with what was documented in your husband's evidence files. Containers. Some of them are still sealed, some are not. Another pause. We also found materials suggesting the shaft has been used recently for retrieval, not just deposit.
Someone has been removing things. Clare didn't move. Removing what? We'll know more once the hazmat team has finished assessment. But Mrs.
Bennett, your husband, knew about this access point. The map in the storage unit shows it. He knew the shaft was in the garage. Yes. Clare was very quiet for a moment.