Nobody really paid attention to the new tree she planted the day her husband went missing. It was her alibi and nothing more. If scent hounds ended up sniffing around it then it must have been squirrels or a cat up in the branches, even if they pawed at the freshly overturned earth and ignored the rest of the tree entirely.
Local children claimed they saw the missing man standing underneath the tree, staring at the ground as blood ran down his face. Nobody in their right mind would listen to playground superstition and call it a hunch. He was allegedly sighted in a town just south of the Mexican border and that was enough to close a case in those days.
Eventually the widow died, having lived a long and happy life, never remarrying and seemingly never knowing where her missing husband went. By this time, he was all but forgotten in name and little more than a vague urban legend.
Her house was purchased by a local man, someone who had grown up seeing the missing husband staring at the ground and saw him still there every night. He claimed he wanted the tree gone so he could build a summer house but everybody wanted a glimpse beneath it in case the rumours were true.
Sure enough, after hours of prying at the tree came free and tangled deep in its roots was the missing man.
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