Friday morning February 20th
I was out the door and headed to Whitehall as soon as Mel left for work herself. Feeling guilty about leaving Boo alone all day, I took her and her favorite toy and blankie with me. I didn’t figure on having to do much out of the car .
Traffic was heavy for so early in the morning. I got to Whitehall in just enough time to see Roman Bakula leaving his townhouse for work. “Right on schedule,” I told Boo.
I followed him and waited in a store parking lot as he stopped to get gas at the station next door. Instead of paying at the pump, he went into the station. A few minutes later, he came back out with coffee, got back in his car and continued on to work.
We sat in the parking lot at Jov-Tech for about an hour after he went into the building. Other workers poured in, none of them paying us any mind. Hardly anyone came out. The work day had officially started.
I drove out of the office park and found a Wendy’s that served breakfast. After letting Boo relieve herself out behind their building, we got back in the car, got into the drive-thru lane and grabbed breakfast. Boo got excited when we pulled up to the window. She’d never been through a drive-thru before but somehow I think she knew people food was coming.
We ate slowly...well, I did. I knew it was going to be a long day of waiting but I had another mission planned to occupy some of our time.
After we finished and disposed of our mess, I pulled up Google maps on my phone and let the beautiful mechanical lady voice guide us to the Italian Village just north of downtown Columbus.
Finding the Victorian wasn’t hard. It was well cared for but it stood out a little in a neighborhood of mostly brick homes and former homes that now housed businesses like professional law offices.
We drove right past the Victorian. There was no signage out in front of it to indicate that it was any sort of business and no overt indication that the two and a half story structure with a basement as well was any sort of apartment building as I had originally suspected.
There were only two outside entrances visible; one off of a traditional front porch and another at the right side as I looked at it, off the driveway. There were no outside stairs leading up to the second floor or the half story attic floor above the second like would have been necessary for apartments.
As we slid by I noted a single car, a white sedan, parked at the back part of the driveway in front of a single car, detached garage.
To my surprise, since I hadn’t studied the map of the area very closely, at the end of the street was a little community park. I parked there, got out and beckoned to Boo. She was sated from sharing my breakfast and stretched out on her favorite blanket on the front seat so she was in no hurry to get up and go out into the cold again.
It took a little coaxing and the promise of a chewy treat but I finally got her out and her leash attached. We walked through the park and then up the street, past the Victorian.
It was just after 9:00 AM by the time we were passing in front of it and warming up a little but I didn’t see any activity at all in the house. Sure, there was a car in the driveway but, if anyone was home, they didn’t seem to be up and about.
Dejected, I took Boo around the block and back to the car. As I worked to get her settled back on her blanket with the promised chewy, I got an idea. First, I made sure she was wrapped a little and would be warm enough and then I took up her leash, exited the car with only it and locked her inside.
I worked my way back up the street to the house holding only the leash. As I neared the home, I started calling for Boo and swiveling my head like I was actually looking for her.
When I reached the home, I stood on the front sidewalk for a minute calling out, “Boo! Boo, come!” I scooted back and forth and even edged up the driveway as I acted like I was looking for my runaway dog.
No one came out of the house. Realizing that the only way I was going to find anything out about the place at all was to be a lot nosier, I went and rang the bell.
An immaculately dressed woman in a burgundy skirt suit with knee high white boots on and a white turtleneck sweater answered my ring with one word, “Yes?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you. I live just up the road and I was walking my dog. She saw a cat and she slipped her collar and took off. She darted into your back yard.”
“There are no cats here,” she responded with just the hint of an Eastern Bloc accent.
“I don’t know where it came from,” I told her as I snuck a peak over her shoulder as she leaned slightly out the storm door toward me.
The front entry opened into a rather large foyer type area that seemed to be set up as a waiting room. There was even a desk I could see just behind her that was neat and tidy but unoccupied.
“I just know she chased it that way.” I motioned as if to point behind the house. “Can I please go and look for her back there before she gets too far?”
“Suit yourself,” she said and then tugged the screen door closed with a click. I heard the main door close with the firmer sound of a thud as I made my way off the porch and down the driveway side of the home that I now knew was really the office space for some kind of a business or professional practice.
I pretended to go looking for Boo around behind the structure. While I was walking back there, I called out for my dog but I paid as much attention as I could to the windows and other entrances into the place. The windows on the right side had heavy drapes and, toward the back, the last window on that side had internal shutters on the lower half. There wasn’t much I could see.
At the very back, to the left was a screen door atop a set of three stone steps that came down from the house to a tiny, empty patio. That set of doors was all closed up but I imagined it led into a kitchen or mud room. Set off from that, almost perfectly centered at the back of the house was the covered stairway entrance to an old root cellar; the kind with two double doors that opened up and out. One door was just slightly offset from the other. It appeared that the last time they’d been closed the wrong door had been pulled in first, leaving them slightly ajar.
Realizing I was staring that way, I turned to face out into the yard and called out, “Boo,” rather loudly while I contemplated whether I should try to gain entry that way. Now, after turning my attention away from the structure, I noticed that there was a board fence that started at the opposite corner of the back of the house, turned quickly at the property line to run along the side of the back yard and then turned inward again to run along the back where it ended at the back left corner of the garage. There was a gate at the very back near the garage that I presumed led to an alley.
The fence appeared to be more for privacy than containment since it didn’t encircle the yard but I could see no evidence that anyone ever spent time out there other than to do a little maintenance. It was still winter but it was obvious the few trees and shrubs around were tended to and the grass had been mowed to a reasonable length sometime in the late fall, before the snow started to fly.
I began to move in the direction of the gate and called Boo again when a sound behind me caused me to turn and look back. The woman who’d answered the front door was now wearing a long overcoat and she was coming through the back screen door.
I made a show of getting down on my hands and knees and looking under a slight dip under the board fence. “Boo seems to have gotten under here,” I called back over my shoulder. Is it all right if I go through this gate?”
She waved a hand at me dismissively. I trundled through the gate, into the ally and went right instead of left toward the park, calling for Boo as I went.