As she looked up, she saw Arnold, working his way around the front of the car, hitching his belt up under his belly. “Arnold, you’ll need bigger shirts.” She motioned at the way the buttons were straining.
“Nope,” he said, with a big grin. “I’m changing my laundry detergent because my shirts shrank in the wash.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but Mack gently nudged her hip with his hand. She shot him a look, and he gave her a veiled glance in return. She nodded at Arnold and smiled. “That sounds like a good idea.” She pointed at the cruiser. “Are you here to pick us up?”
“Yep,” he said, patting his belly. “Come on in, and let me get you home.”
She and her animals hopped into the back seat, giving Mack the front passenger seat.
“Off we go,” Arnold said, pulling away from the curb.
Doreen heard the two men discussing the message Mack had found on Thaddeus. She leaned forward. “We also have to consider that it might have just been a prank.”
“Agreed,” Arnold said. “But why?”
“The printing was very precise,” Mack said. “It was hardly shaky or rudimentary.”
“So somebody with good handwriting then. That’s great,” she muttered, as she sagged against the back seat, Mugs and Goliath beside her, with Thaddeus firmly gripping her shoulder, as if he wouldn’t ever get off. He kept adjusting and squawking as they drove around.
“You know what? Thaddeus seems to be quite upset,” she said, studying the bird on her shoulder.
At that, Mack twisted in his seat and turned to look at him. “Hey, Arnold, let’s turn around and go back.”
Arnold pulled off to the side and asked, “Go back where?”
“To the area where we saw the little boy, to see if Thaddeus reacts at all.”
Arnold shrugged. “Hey, I’m off in an hour. As long as you take up my time for the next hour, I’m good,” he muttered. “Last thing I want to do is go back to the office.”
Mack sighed. “The trouble is, we still have tons of work at the office too.”
“Ha, there is,” he said, “but, as long as I’m driving you guys around, I don’t have to do it.” With that, he pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street and headed back to the bridge. He pulled out into the main traffic and, following Mack’s instructions, headed into the area they had just come from.
“What is this area called?” she asked.
“Not sure it has much of a name,” Arnold said. “High Road is off to the left. You’ve got one of the cross-through roads up here, and we’re close to Apple Park, which is the big park for the games,” he said. “The big ECO center is behind us, or, at least, it is now,” he said, as they drove past.
She nodded. “Okay, so where are we heading?”
“This is down in the High Road area,” Mack said, as Arnold took a few more turns.
“Huh. Would Thaddeus really have been this far away?”
“You’ve got to understand that the cemetery you were at is just over this hill here,” he said. “It’s not very far at all.”
“Oh,” she said, falling quiet. “That’s Spall Road, right?”
“Yes,” he said, “and High Road is just down here a bit farther.”
She sagged back. “I don’t know this area at all,” she announced.
“Which is why we’re here, taking a look now.” And slowly, with Mack watching Thaddeus for a reaction, he had Arnold move up and down several other blocks. But now Thaddeus had settled on her shoulder and remained quiet.
She looked at Mack and said, “You know how contrary he is.”
“I know,” Mack said. “I was just hoping that maybe, for once, he would cooperate.”
Arnold snorted. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Every time I try to get that bird to cooperate, he gets even more difficult.”
Doreen felt like she had to defend Thaddeus against these two guys and their accusations. “I don’t think he’s trying to be difficult,” she said, “but more like he thinks you guys have got this now, so he can sit back and not do anything.” At that, Arnold looked at her in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows shooting straight up. She sagged. “Yeah, I know. I hear you. That sounds ridiculous, even to me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mack said. “We’re only just learning what this trio of yours can do. And, so far, they’ve been one surprise after another. Look at how I got them from home to help me find you. Mugs found you right away.”
She stopped and stared at him. “Oh, my gosh,” she said, sitting straight up. “I forgot.”
He stared at her. “Forgot what?”
“I forgot that I wasn’t even at home. That I’d left the animals behind,” she said. “I was at the cemetery without them, wasn’t I?”
Mack nodded. “Nan called me to say she was worried about you. That she’d tried to call you several times, and there was no answer. So she’d walked up to your place and couldn’t find you. And your car was gone, which I’ve had returned by the way,” he said. “So I grabbed the animals, hoping they could help show me where you were, and they did. Knowing you planned to attend the funeral, I started there.”
“Well, how did you get Mugs to know?” Arnold asked Mack.
“Of course he knew, by his sense of smell,” she said, scratching Mugs’s head. “Thanks, buddy.” He woofed and stretched out his front paws, the big thick heavy pads landing on top of her thigh. She gently stroked his long silky ears, smiling down at his huge chocolate-colored eyes. “You are one heck of a good sniffer dog.”
“Well, you can’t forget Goliath either,” Mack said, “because he stayed right with Mugs. They brought us to the corner of the cemetery, where you were.”
“You’re pretty special too, Goliath,” she said. At that, Thaddeus leaned down and crooned against her ear. “Thaddeus loves Doreen. Thaddeus loves Doreen.”
Feeling her heart wrench and knowing how close she’d come to losing him, she reached up, kissed him gently, and stroked his head. Before she realized it, they were pulling up in front of her house. Mack got out, opened the back door to let out Mugs and Goliath, and then slowly helped her up and out. He thanked Arnold, and, after speaking with him through the front passenger window of the car, he straightened and nudged her toward the door.
“I’m fine,” she said. “You go off and do your thing.”
“There isn’t anything to go off and do,” he said, staying beside her. “I’m off work now myself.”
“Oh, good,” she said, and then she looked at Arnold. “Does he have to return to the office?”
“Sure, but his day is almost done anyway.”
“So, does crime stop when you guys are done?”
“As you well know,” he said, “it does not.”
“I’m surprised you guys get time off.”
He snorted at that. “Really?” he said. “We need time off. Particularly since you came into town.”
“I didn’t mean you personally. I just didn’t realize that there was less of a police force in the evening, when that’s when the crime goes on.”