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“I think the key must be in those three rusty bikes, Max,” said Dooley. “You better tell Odelia to tell that diver to bring up those bikes so we can take a closer look at them.”

“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet, dismissing my friend’s comment out of paw.

“So you found this pond, Rufus,” said Brutus. “Which we’ll attribute to beginner’s luck. But you better step aside now and let the actual police dogs pick up the trail, okay?”

“I don’t understand,” said Rufus. “I’m sure that the trail stops here. I’ve walked all around the pond and nothing. I can’t pick up the girl’s scent anywhere. Plenty of other scents, mind you, but not Angel’s particular scent.”

“Almost as if she vanished without a trace,” said Fifi, then slowly raised her head to look upward. And since it’s very hard not to look up when one of your small company looks up, we all followed suit, and soon found ourselves staring up at the treetops—pine trees if I wasn’t mistaken—and that small patch of blue sky visible beyond the foliage.

“Aliens,” suddenly said Dooley. “Angel was abducted by aliens. And of course they left her phone, since that’s ancient technology for them.”

“I hate to admit it,” said Harriet, “but I think for once Dooley just might be onto something.”

“Aliens,” Rufus murmured. “What do you know?”

I saw how Shanille had joined her humans and was offering her support by giving them gentle nudges with the top of her head. I walked over and said,“Shanille, can I ask you something?”

“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something, Max?” she said.

“Your Father Reilly and Marigold,” I said, trudging on regardless. My curiosity had been piqued and it simply had to be satisfied, pronto! “Are they an item?”

Shanille looked up sharply at this.“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snapped.

“It just seems to me as if they’re very, um, well, tactile. More tactile than I would have expected from a priest.”

She glanced up at her humans, who stood staring at that pond, as if hoping Angel would suddenly pop up like the Lady of the Lake, holding perhaps not Excalibur but at least one of those three rusty bikes.

“Not here,” Shanille barked—if a cat can bark, of course—and walked off into the woods. And since I figured she meant for me to follow her, that’s what I did. Once we’d removed ourselves from the pondside melee, she turned and said, “You can’t tell this to anyone, Max.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering what could possibly be so big that she was swearing me to secrecy.

“But swear to it, Max.”

“I hereby solemnly swear I won’t tell anyone what you’re about to tell me, Shanille,” I said, deciding to go through the rigmarole and satisfy Shanille’s weird demands.

She looked off into the middle distance, as if wondering how to formulate her next statement, then decided to come right out with it.“Yes, Francis and Marigold are a couple.”

“And Angel…”

“Is their daughter.”

“And does she know…”

“No, she doesn’t—and that’s the thing. Marigold has been wanting to tell her ever since she was old enough to understand, but Father Reilly made her swear not to.”

“But why?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Max? The Catholic Church doesn’t allow its priests to have affairs with their housekeepers, and much less have kids with them. And so if this became known, and how could it not become known if Marigold told Angel, who would immediately post a heartfelt and extremely poignant update on Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Instagram, Whatsapp and Telegram, then that would be the end of Father Reilly as parish priest. He’d be suspended and would have to find another job.”

“But wouldn’t he be much happier being married to Marigold and officially recognize Angel as his daughter?”

“You don’t get it, do you? Father Reilly has given his life to the church. It means everything to him. His whole identity revolves around his position at St. John’s. Having to give that up would be like giving up a part of himself—the part that makes him who he is.”

“I think he would be fine.”

“He could always join another church,” suddenly a voice piped up behind us.

“Dooley!” Shanille cried, horrified that our friend had followed us out there.

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? He could join a church where priests are allowed to marry. There must be plenty of those around.”

“Yeah, the Protestants, for instance,” I said. “They’re allowed to marry, aren’t they?”

“It’s not that simple!” said Shanille, spacing out the words and giving them some bite.

“It is simple if you make it simple,” said Dooley. “Do you want us to tell Gran about Father Reilly and Marigold? And then she can tell Father Reilly to join some other church.”

“No, Dooley, I donot want you to tell Vesta—in fact I don’t want you to tell anyone!”

“What can’t you tell us?” asked Harriet, who also came wandering up now, followed by Brutus.

“Oh, my God!” Shanille cried. “Isn’t anything sacred!”

“What secret?” asked Brutus.

“I think she said sacred, not secret,” said Harriet.