Chapter 15
Doreen decided to visit Nan tomorrow and to check out Mack’s mother’s garden today. When she finally located the address, it was within walking distance from Nan’s house. Just a couple blocks down, like Mack had said. In that sense, it would be perfect. She wouldn’t have to use the car to get to work, so the cost of gas wasn’t an issue.
She drove past the house slowly, looking at the front yard. It had a lovely front garden with a bed full of perennial bushes with a few annuals dotted around. A nice combination of colors. And it was in decent shape. The grass needed to be mowed, and that could present a problem as she didn’t have her own lawn mower.
Neither did she have the money to buy one. As for the weeds, well, some had definitely taken advantage and needed to be pulled. Many of the bushes were overgrown and needed to be trimmed too. She wanted to get out and wander around to the backyard, but she didn’t want to disturb his mother. Looking at the yard, she thought she saw an alleyway behind the house.
She drove around to the back of the house, parked and got out, then looked over the short fence at the backyard. She couldn’t remember if he had said both gardens or just the front. But the back garden was in worse shape. His mother probably tried to do what she could out in the front to keep up appearances. But the backyard required more than she had to give. Like so many people who owned homes, the work got ahead of them, and catching up was brutal.
Considering how much work Doreen had to do on Nan’s garden, she understood. In Doreen’s case, fences needed mending, the patio was overgrown with weeds, and likely the concrete blocks making up the patio weren’t worth keeping either. Not to mention the beds had to be redefined. She’d need a full-time paycheck just to get it back into shape.
But some of it had to be done, even without money, applying a lot of physical labor.
It would take a day or two to fix up the front yard of Mack’s mom’s house, but the back property would need a full week, and she could use some added muscle. Several shrubs needed heavy pruning. And some fallen garden logs needed to be replaced. Still, it was all doable.
A dog barked at her side. She spun in surprise to see an older gentleman staring at her, his nose in the air, a disapproving look on his face.
She glanced from him to the fence she’d been peering over and flushed. “I was just looking at her garden,” she rushed to say.
His gaze narrowed.
Flustered, she returned to the driver’s side of her car and quickly backed out the alleyway. As she came to the end of it, she realized she could have just driven forward past the older man.
“Crap,” she muttered, still flustered. But at least she hadn’t backed into anyone’s fences on her way.
Smack.
She froze, then closed her eyes and dropped her forehead on her steering wheel. Finally she raised her head and looked behind her. And grinned. She’d hit a harmless street sign delineating the road and alleyway. She hopped out and walked around the car to see the damage but could only find a scrape on her bumper. And it was hard to see because the bumper had been well decorated in the same manner long before she’d bought it.
Happier, she got back in her car and drove home. She pulled into the driveway, parked and let Mugs out. He barked immediately. She looked around but didn’t see anything. “Mugs, what’s the matter?”
He kept barking, then ran around to the rear of the house. She followed at a slower pace. In the back, she couldn’t see anything wrong, but she could hear Goliath inside the house, howling. Obviously he wanted out too. She made her way up the back steps to the kitchen door and opened it. Instantly Goliath shot out, screaming across the backyard property. Now the two of them were out there. She propped the kitchen door wide open to let some fresh air in, and, sure enough, Thaddeus flew out the door to land on the railing.
“Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
“Of course you’re here. I can see you,” she said in exasperation.
The bird cocked his head at her, and the big guy blinked. She tilted her head to the side and patted her shoulder. Instantly he hopped up. She threw her purse and keys down on the outside table and marched to the rear of the property.
For whatever reason, both the dog and cat were howling at something in the back corner. As she made her way to them, she assessed the manpower needed to restore the back garden to its former glory. And groaned. It would take a lot of work. A lawn mower would help a lot, but again she didn’t have one.
The fence wasn’t as bad as she had thought, if she looked past the multiple types of fencing that dotted the yard. The support posts were solid. A hammer and nails would put the sagging boards back in place. A can of paint would give it a face-lift. Part of the fence was an open-picket style, with just crossrails instead of solid wood. Several of which had fallen off. Still, she could see the neighbor’s house on the one side and out the back alley.
Alley? That was the first time she realized an alleyway was behind the house. In that case, it would’ve been easy for somebody else to access that side of Nan’s backyard to bury the body.
Nan’s property backed onto Crown land. One of the advantages was owning a home where you could open a gate and walk the dog for miles out on public property. Or a disadvantage if Mugs ran off.
“Mugs! Mugs!” she called out. As she reached the back fence, she found the gate was open. “Oh, dammit, Mugs. Come on, Mugs.”
She pushed the gate wider and stepped out. Instead of grassy fields, she found a good-size creek ran along here. She looked back at Nan’s house and the fence. “Why would you fence off the river? This is too pretty to hide.”
What she’d thought had been an alleyway was a bit of a walking path alongside the back of all the fences, which buffered the creek edge to the fence line. Plus a little footbridge was built over the water. “Oh my, this is beautiful.”
“Beautiful. Beautiful,” Thaddeus crooned in her ear.
It would be even nicer to get rid of the broken-down fence to open up the view of the creek to Nan’s house. It would also allow her to see the wildlife, as plenty of small critters of all kinds would gather at the water. That would be something she’d love to watch.
Feeling so much happier at the sight of the creek, she studied Nan’s house from here. A lot of bushes and trees blocked the view. But, with a good heavy pruning, she could turn this backyard into something spectacular.
She hopped up onto the little bridge and called out, “Mugs! Mugs?”
On her shoulder, Thaddeus opened his mouth and cried, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
“I know you’re here, silly,” she said. “But where’s Mugs?”
Suddenly Thaddeus made a great big screech and flew off her shoulder, down to the far side of the bank.
She ran after him. “Wait, Thaddeus. What did you find? Mugs? Where are you?” She ran over the little bridge. As she put her foot on the last board, it gave way beneath her. And down she went.
She cried out as one of her feet hit the water, her other knee buckled and her butt hit the little bridge. Taking a deep breath, she tried to assess what just happened. One foot was caught in the framework of the little bridge. She was forced to twist around, using her hands to clamber back up, afraid to put any weight on her ankle or the bridge.
She glanced down at her designer jeans and sandals and cried out, “And these are ruined now too?” She shook her head but was much less concerned over her outfit than her missing dog. “Mugs, where are you?” She whistled for him.
Still there was no answer from Mugs. Clumsily she stood on her feet and tried to shake the water off her sandal. But it and her jeans were drenched to her knee and covered with mud. Hesitantly she placed her weight on her sore ankle, grateful it could at least sustain her weight. Her leg was scraped by the broken slats, but her ankle didn’t appear to be sprained.
Now that she was on the other side of the creek, she could see a small pathway, overgrown by brush. She managed to get up onto the path and followed it after Thaddeus. “Come on, you guys. Where are you? Don’t make me search for you.”
Bedraggled and limping as she was, she hoped to heck she didn’t meet anybody. It was bad enough being Nan’s crazy granddaughter in the eyes of a few. But, if anybody saw her now, they’d have no doubt she was nuts.
In the distance, she heard a bark. “Mugs?” She ran, although lopsided. But at least she was moving. She got a few steps down the path when she heard Mugs’s barking go up a notch. She picked up her speed, broke through a pile of brush and came to a sudden stop, staring at her crazy trio. Mugs was still barking like crazy. Goliath sat on a tree stump staring up a tree, his tail making short hard twitches. Thaddeus wandered back and forth like a bloody little soldier. Marching ten steps, turning, and marching back again saying, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
She shook her head. “What is wrong with you guys? Why did you take off?”
Only Mugs wasn’t listening. He insisted on barking as he looked up a tree. She groaned and walked closer. She grabbed for his leash. As she looked up, eyes looked down at her.
She shrieked and stepped back. That set Mugs off again. She hesitantly took another step forward and peered up into the foliage. “Hello?”
“Hello” came the boy’s small voice.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Mugs won’t hurt you.”
“He’s barking.”
“Yes, he does that a lot all of a sudden.” She sighed. “I can’t seem to find a way to stop him.” She peered through the foliage to see a young child sitting on a branch way too high up for her to even reach. “How did you get up there?”
“I climbed.”
“You climbed?” She shook her head. “Do you need help getting down?”
The child looked down at her and said, “You’re the crazy lady, aren’t you?”
“I’m not the crazy lady,” she protested with a winning smile. At least she hoped it was. “I’m Doreen. I’m just a normal person.”
The child giggled. And pointed at her leg. “But you’re wet and covered in mud.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make me a crazy lady,” she protested. “I fell through the slats on the little bridge back there when I was chasing after my animals. Now that I’ve got my dog and Goliath, not to mention Thaddeus…”
At that moment Thaddeus flew up and landed on her shoulder again. He stared up into the tree. “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
“I know you’re here. Stop talking, for crying out loud.” She groaned. “Okay, maybe I look a little crazy. But I’m not, honest.” Then she shrugged. Why was she explaining herself to a child?
“Why do you call him that?”
“It’s his name. What’s yours?” she asked, wondering if he could get down on his own.
The child swept to the bottom branch and scampered down the trunk like a monkey. He stopped and looked up at her. “I’m Travis. And you look crazy to me.” And then, without another word, he ran full steam in the opposite direction.