And, true enough, she couldn’t see anybody around, except for in the distance, somebody mowing the lawn. She ignored him and kept following Thaddeus. When he came to the intersection, she stopped and watched to see what he would do. They had managed to get out of the cemetery through a side gate, and now they were on a street with a big intersection.
“I can’t imagine you crossed here on your own,” she said out loud.
He turned to look up at her and said, “Thaddeus helped. Thaddeus helped.” She looked at him in surprise, then bent down and gave him a lift onto her shoulder. “Is this help, big guy?”
“Big guy, big guy,” he said, throwing up his wings and making a weird cackling sound.
With the animals at her side, she pushed the button at the crosswalk. All the Tuesday morning rush-hour traffic stopped, which she imagined they weren’t terribly impressed with, but she crossed to the other side, animals in tow. She quickly realized they weren’t very far from Isaac, just approaching from a different perspective because they’d come at it from the cemetery.
She nodded. “If nothing else, that connects you and Isaac,” she muttered. As they kept moving in that direction, Thaddeus got progressively more anxious. She watched him carefully. “So tell me what’s going on, Thaddeus. Did you meet Isaac?”
He didn’t say a word about Isaac. In fact, he didn’t say anything, and that worried her too. “Did you make new friends, Thaddeus?” She wandered down blocks aimlessly, keeping track of the fact that the cemetery was at her back, so she could find her way home again. Plus, there was enough traffic noise from Spall Road, which turned into Glenmore Drive, to keep her oriented. She wandered up and down the blocks, looking for any reaction from Thaddeus.
When she stumbled upon one of the paths that looked like it led into a darker area, she studied it from all angles. “You know something? I think this is the same path we were at yesterday. Just a different entrance.” Mugs barked several times and woofed his way forward several feet.
“Mugs, come back here.” But then he caught sight of something, and, with his nose nearly dragging across the ground, he surged forward, Goliath on his heels. Doreen raced behind him.
“Come back! Mugs, come back!” She called out, again and again, but he wasn’t having anything to do with it. She passed a squalid-looking house, then realized the backyard area was lined with shack after shack, with sheds in the back, and lots of them were like that in here. She didn’t quite understand how that was allowed within the city, but it happened. She’d seen lots of places in her lifetime that looked this way, but they were in slumlike areas—not what she expected to see in Kelowna.
Something was sad and forlorn about them. She heard rustling in the bushes, as if maybe people were there, but it was more likely dogs or squirrels even. She kept walking through until they were at the same spot where she had met the rude protective stranger. Mugs immediately bristled. She reached out a hand and said, “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.”
At least she hoped it was. She hadn’t told Mack where she was going. She hadn’t told anybody. She kept walking, checking out several of the small pathways, and thankfully met no one. Only as she walked down the last one did Thaddeus immediately perk up and cried out, “Big guy, big guy, big guy.”
She stopped, looked at him, and said, “Is this important here?”
She looked around and found another one of those backyards full of what looked like shack upon shack upon shack. Some had plywood connecting these shacks, all different sizes, shapes, and colors—all kind of a mess. But somebody had tried to make it painstakingly neat. She looked at the fence, which was also dilapidated, and odd pieces of wood were screwed together against railings that had long since given up the ghost. So it was patchwork upon patchwork, but at least what was there was secure enough to hold something in.
She took several photos, trying to keep calm and quiet, in case anybody happened to be looking her way. She took photos of all of the houses along that pathway and kept walking forward. Even as they went past, Thaddeus twisted to look backward. On the opposite side of the path was another home with a mowed backyard; along one side was a shed, and on the other was what looked like a tiny toy house or a playhouse. She smiled at that because, even though the playhouse looked like it could use a good coat of paint, it also looked like it had served somebody well for many years. And that was worth a lot.
She kept walking until she came back out to another cul-de-sac. She stopped, reoriented herself, and used her phone to find out exactly where she was. Then realized that she had just come around the circle and was only a block away from where she’d started. Taking photos of the houses along these blocks as she went forward, she sent them to Mack along with a text. Thaddeus only perked up when we got here. She sent him photos of the houses on both sides.
He immediately called her. “What are you doing there?” he asked. “That’s where you had the confrontation. Are you telling me that you went back?”
“Yes,” she said. “I did. But there’s no sign of him today.”
He groaned. “Are you just asking to get into trouble?”
“Of course not,” she said, “but I woke up, and Thaddeus was really depressed. His tail feathers were hanging. He didn’t want to eat, and he didn’t do anything. It was just terrible.”
“Ah,” he said. “That makes more sense.”
“Mack, I just thought that if I could let him lead me to where he was when he went missing, it would help. I actually started from the cemetery. I’m sending you a photo of the corner of the cul-de-sac, the streets here,” she said, “so you can see where it is.”
“And I care why?”
She could tell from his tone of voice that he hadn’t had a great morning. “I’m sorry. I know it’s Tuesday, and you are at work, and I don’t want to bother you,” she said. “I just know that Thaddeus did disappear, and we did get that little message around his leg. I can’t guarantee it has anything to do with this corner. I just know that he perked up when we got here and only here.”
“Fine,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll take a look later today. I’m booked all morning, and I have to show up in court just before lunch.”
She winced at that. “Better you than me,” she muttered. “And, by the way, your brother phoned last night. I forgot to tell you.”
“He did? Why?”
“To tell me all the papers have been filed,” she said. She stood at the corner of the cul-de-sac, watching as the cars went up and down the streets. “He also didn’t know about the photos that you found. You know? The ones of the guy I identified, Snoz. Were you able to track down him or the other familiar-looking guy?”
“No luck yet. The one guy was seen in a gas station, but apparently the vehicle was leaving town.”
“Ha! I’ll believe that when I see it,” she muttered. “He could say anything you wanted him to, and you wouldn’t know for sure.”
“Believe me. We’re aware of that,” he said. “Now, would you go home and stay safe?”
She smiled and said, “Well, we’ll go home,” she said, looking down at the guys.