The KOMATSU
Every morning, the KOMATSU waited over the same patch of earth.
It was starting to get under Bob’s skin.
Bob paused, hands on his hips.
Ever since the accident landed him on light-duty nights, he'd found himself thinking too much. Funny what silence—and quitting the booze—could do to a man.
His job was simple: guard the site, discourage trespassers, and make sure nothing walked off before sunrise. Most mornings, he stayed long enough to watch the day crew arrive. There wasn't much waiting for him at home anyway.
But that damned backhoe...
Every single night, someone moved it.
Grumbling, he climbed into the KOMATSU, joints protesting more than they should have. The diesel rumbled to life, and he eased the machine back across the site toward its proper parking spot.
Who the hell keeps moving this thing?
Beside the northwest tool shed, tire tracks crisscrossed the dirt.
Shouldn't be hard to figure out, Bob thought.
Just follow the tracks.
See where they stop.
See where the machine belongs.
He lined up the backhoe carefully. If you had half a brain, you'd lower the boom until the bucket rested right over that little patch of discolored dirt...just like...
...that.
Perfect.
He shut the engine down and smiled with quiet satisfaction. Whoever kept dragging the machine around would have to work a little harder tomorrow night.
The engine ticked as it cooled.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
The sun crept over the skyline, burning the fog away in pale ribbons. Night's chill surrendered to the heavy promise of another humid summer day.
Workers filtered through the gate without a glance. They never did anymore.
Then came the shouting.
The foreman stormed across the site, red-faced and wild-eyed. A hard hat flew through the air, clanged off the side of the KOMATSU, and spun into the mud.
"Who keeps moving that goddamn machine?" he roared.
Again?
Bob frowned.
It wasn’t a museum piece. Hell, he hadn’t hurt it. In fact, he'd parked it exactly where it belonged.
The foreman's anger seemed...off. Maybe things weren't going well at home.
Still...
This was the fifth morning in a row.
Same shouting.
Same machine.
Same panic in the man's eyes.
Bob couldn't shake the feeling that the foreman wasn't angry.
He was afraid.
Good thing it was Friday.
Two days off might be enough for everybody to cool down.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Let the dust settle.
Everything found its place eventually.
Bob could've murdered a cigarette. Funny how some habits refused to die.
Monday night arrived colder than it should have.
Yellow tape fluttered from the chain-link fence.
"What the hell?"
Bob looked through the fence toward the foundation. Nothing had changed. No fresh forms. No new concrete. No stacks of lumber. Three days of perfect weather and not a single day's work.
Didn't these guys have a schedule to keep?
He followed the tape until he found a gap where someone had pulled the fencing aside. Careless, he thought. He slipped through without a second thought.
The site felt different. Not abandoned—vacated.
Orange paint marked the dirt. Numbered placards stood beside tire tracks leading to the tool shed.
Toward the tool shed.
Toward the KOMATSU.
The backhoe hadn't moved.
Its boom stretched over the reopened hole, the bucket hanging there like an accusing finger stabbing at the earth below. Bob couldn't shake the feeling the machine knew something he didn’t.
Why does everyone keep staring at that spot?
He headed for the KOMATSU, but the earth beneath it stopped him.
The ground beneath the bucket had been opened again.
Fresh earth surrounded a dark, ragged hole.
For the first time since the accident...
Bob couldn't remember ever seeing it that way.
A gust of wind scraped something across the gravel behind him.
He turned.
A newspaper page had blown against the chain-link fence, caught beneath the yellow police tape. The headline was impossible to miss.
CONSTRUCTION FOREMAN CHARGED WITH MURDER
Bob frowned and peeled the damp page free.
Boston police arrested construction foreman Michael Donnelly after investigators uncovered the body of missing laborer Robert "Bob" Callahan beneath the Harbor Point construction site. Detectives believe Callahan was killed after an affair with Donnelly's wife.
Bob read it once.
Then again.
His name.
Robert Callahan.
His fingers trembled.
"No..."
The words blurred as fragments of memory crashed into one another.
A flashlight.
The foreman's face, twisted with rage.
Blood.
Pain.
Falling backward into a freshly dug hole.
The cold steel bucket of the KOMATSU hanging overhead.
The roar of the diesel.
Dirt striking his chest.
His face.
His mouth.
Darkness.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd drawn a breath.
Bob looked down.
There wasn’t a speck of dirt on him.
Slowly, he turned toward the KOMATSU.
The bucket still pointed at the grave.
The engine sat cold.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
The KOMATSU had been the only witness who refused to keep the secret.