Moonlight Gardener

What is Charley Crompton hiding? The police in a small town aren't sure, but when he is reported digging in his garden in the middle of the night soon after his wife disappears, it seems like something is up. This is the intriguing premise for Robert L. Fish's enigmatic, Edgar-award-winning short story "Moonlight Gardener." When we meet him, Charley seems both crazy and evasive. Why does he answer the door holding a bloodstained hatchet? And do we believe him when he claims that he was only digging up his peach trees "to let the roots breathe"? The police investigation is both an inquiry into…