Sawyer was pretty sure she hadn’t blinked since 6:45 that morning.
Between taking notes on her Kindle Scribe during a Teams staff meeting, filming a shaky demo reel with three bouncy-ball dogs, and cleaning up whatever unholy snack Russo dragged in from the yard, she was fried.
She sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by three suspiciously photogenic Cavaliers in slightly-too-small matching bandanas. The shoot had taken nearly an hour—mainly because Riggins wouldn’t stop barking at his own reflection in the sliding glass door.
Sawyer hit send on the email with the video attachment to the agent and let her forehead drop to the coffee table.
“Please let them be stars. Or at least marketable enough to cover gutter cleaning and tree trimming.”
The dogs, unaware of the burden of HOA dues and rising inflation, flopped onto the rug in perfect unison. Dem Boyz were done for the day.
She poured herself the last third of yesterday’s Black Raspberry Sparkling Ice and didn’t even pretend to add fresh ice. But before she could collapse on the couch, her phone lit up again.
Cheryl. Again.
Sawyer exhaled through her nose. The last time Cheryl texted this many times in a row, it was because she was convinced a raccoon was living in her mailbox.
This time it said:
“sawyer you need to come bring a flashlight”
No punctuation. No capitalization. Cheryl was always a stickler for grammar and syntax. Sawyer sat up straighter.
She grabbed her keys, slipped on her KEEN sandals, and clapped sharply—twice. Riggins and Russo ran to the door like it was a mission. Rafa remained clinging to “his” pillow on the bed. She scooped him like Derrick Henry holds a football and made her way down Goodman Way.
Cheryl was waiting at the edge of the overgrown garden lot, clutching a flashlight like it was a weapon.
“Swear to God, I haven’t lost it, but you need to see this,” Cheryl whispered…
“Well, you haven’t found it yet, either,” Sawyer quipped. “What now?”
Cheryl pointed toward a newly disturbed patch of soil. “That wasn’t like that yesterday.”
Sawyer squinted. The vines around the perimeter looked like they’d been pulled back and rearranged—intentionally. And the dirt? Fresh. Loamy. Like someone had dug something up… or down.
“You think someone’s burying something?”
“Or uncovering it,” Cheryl said.
Sawyer stared for a beat, then bent down to examine the dirt. As she leaned closer, Russo suddenly barked and lunged toward the patch.
“Russo, NO!”
But he wasn’t barking to chase. He was sniffing—intensely. Nose to dirt. Ready to investigate, or defend, whichever came first.
“Something’s down there,” Sawyer said. “Something old.”
And for the first time since all of this started, she didn’t feel like Cheryl was being dramatic. The air around the garden felt… different. Heavier. Like the ground itself was holding its breath.
Cheryl whispered, “What if it’s a body?”
Sawyer stood. “No one plants petunias over a body, Cheryl.”
Cheryl crossed her arms. “You don’t know that.”
Sawyer looked down at Russo, who was now pawing the dirt with real urgency. She didn’t know what was buried in the garden…
but she was pretty sure this wasn’t just an aesthetic choice.
Sawyer crouched closer, brushing some of the loose soil aside with her hand. The dirt was damp and soft, like it had been disturbed just hours ago. As she raked her fingers through the top layer, something caught the light.
She froze.
There—just beneath the surface—was the faint glint of metal. Not a Coke tab or an old screw. This was curved. Ornate.
“Cheryl… do you see that?”
Cheryl leaned in but stopped short of kneeling. “Is that… a handle? Like to a box?”
Sawyer didn’t answer. Her fingers moved on instinct, brushing away more soil until something sharp and brassy caught the light – aged but not broken, like a thing that had waited. The wood crumbled at the edges, soft with rot, but the shape was clear.
“It’s a lid,” Sawyer whispered. “A box. Or a trunk.”
Cheryl stepped back. “Nope. No, no. I’ve seen enough Dateline to know this is how dead bodies get found.”
Sawyer shot her a look. “You think someone did this to hide a murder?”
“I’m just saying,” Cheryl said, backing up another step. “This doesn’t feel… right.”
Sawyer hesitated. The air really did feel off—like it shifted the second she touched the object. Not ominous exactly, but definitely not normal.
Russo whined and started pawing again, more frantically this time.
“Okay, okay,” Sawyer said, brushing off her hands and standing up. “We’re not opening this right now. It could be trash. Could be nothing.”
Cheryl crossed her arms tightly, watching the dogs like they might explode.
“But if it’s something?” she said. “What if it’s important? Or historical?”
Sawyer nodded slowly. “Then it stays buried for now. I need to think.”
She looked down the street toward Maya’s house, barely lit in the deepening twilight. Still quiet. Still too quiet.
But then – movement. In the window of the house across the street, a curtain shifted.
Sawyer narrowed her eyes. Just a flicker. A shape pulling back, like someone had been watching them. She couldn’t be sure which neighbor it was, but they definitely weren’t alone out there.
“I’ve got a Teams meeting with Accounting in the morning,” Sawyer said. “But after that… we might need gloves. And maybe someone who knows about antiques.”
“Or we need to call the police,” Cheryl muttered. “I’m serious. There could really be a body…”
Sawyer turned to leave, the dogs trotting behind her in formation. She shook her head, “I’m not a fan of the police around here. They are a bunch of puffer nutters who love to flex. They’ll box us out so we’ll never know what’s going on, or if there is a body there, they’ll throw us in jail with zero evidence we committed a crime. Like that Officer “Placenta”. Not his real name, but close. Boy, do I have a story….”
But even as she walked away, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had just been unearthed in more ways than one. The only thing she was sure of? She wasn’t trusting this to the badge-toting nutters in Brentwood, Tennessee unless the sky fell and took the HOA with it.
Next time on DOOL: