The man from the septic company had come to pump the tank, something I’d done several times since moving into the house eleven years ago. But this time, he walked around the side of the house and asked me very carefully whether I was home alone. I said yes. He nodded, then calmly asked me to go inside, lock the door, and stay there while he made a phone call.
He wouldn’t explain what was wrong. His voice stayed completely level, but he wouldn’t look at the tank. I watched him through the window as he made two calls. The first was short. The second lasted nineteen minutes. He paced beside the house the entire time, occasionally looking toward the tree line as if he were waiting for someone to arrive.
Eventually, he came back to the door and asked me whether I’d ever noticed anything unusual around the septic tank. I said no. He asked whether anyone else had access to the property, and whether I’d bought the house from the previous owner or inherited it. His questions were becoming so specific that I finally asked him what he’d found.
He hesitated before saying that the tank itself wasn’t the problem. Something had been placed beside it, underneath the soil, and it looked like someone had deliberately buried it there years ago. Then he told me the reason he’d made those calls: the object had a name and date on it, and both matched information from an old missing-person report. He looked at me and said, “Ma’am, I don’t think you should be the one who digs this up.”
