Seaweed in the Soup by Stanley Evans

wing bars, the tiny bird tried to fly away, but it had a damaged wing. Instead of rising into the air, it thrashed around on the ground in circles, emitting a rapid series of husky distress notes.
    Wild animals don’t seem to experience fear in the same way as humans. The little creature seemed more bewildered than afraid when I cupped it in my hands and deposited it high in an escallonia bush, where it would be safe from roaming cats. Bathed in a self-congratulatory glow, I took a venison chop from my fridge and chopped little pieces that I suspended from strings in the escallonia here and there. The little bird was eating breakfast when I drove to town.
    I ate my own breakfast at a greasy spoon on Store Street before I went over to View Street and parked near the CIBC building. A man wearing a Bill Clinton mask was playing a saxophone on the corner, although nobody seemed to care. I went into the Bay Centre. The smell of food enveloped me as I took the escalator down to the grocery section. I bought eggs, a package of frozen Cornish pasties, a jar of Smuckers marmalade and a tin of Spam. I was trying to decide between bumbleberry pie and a pint of chocolate ice cream when my cellphone rang. It was Mrs. Nairn.
    â€œSilas, this is urgent,” she said, “CDI Tapp wants you to meet him at Lightning Bradley’s house right away. The CDI has been trying to reach Bradley by phone, but he isn’t answering. We know that there hasn’t been any outgoing phone activity from the house during the last 12 hours. Do you know where Bradley lives?”
    I knew where Bradley lived. I also knew that Serious Crimes had been monitoring his house phone and—using a frequency counter and a scanner—they had been tracking Bradley’s cellphone calls as well.
    I opted for the chocolate ice cream and lugged my purchases to the checkout. Time stood still while an old-timer, three customers ahead of me in the lineup, fumbled for change from a purse, one coin at a time. Time was a-wasting. I apologized to the clerk and left the store empty-handed.
    Lightning Bradley’s house was on a side street, a block away from Victoria’s Central Middle School. When I arrived, girls wearing white shirts and grey pleated skirts were playing field hockey in the school’s playing fields. The house, a small one-and-a-half storey with an attached garage, had a neglected, unoccupied look. The curtains were closed, and the grass hadn’t been mowed in weeks. Weeds proliferated between the paving stones leading up to the front door.
    Bernie was speaking into a cellphone when he showed up and parked at the curb. He put the phone away, and then got slowly out of his car. He was yawning when we walked up to the house together. Bernie rang the doorbell; nobody answered. I shaded the sides of my face with my hands and looked through a front window. It was dark inside, I couldn’t see anything. The back door facing the school was locked.
    Bernie had stopped yawning. “We’re going in,” he muttered.
    Using my Glock like a club, I broke a side window, climbed inside, and let Bernie into the kitchen. In the day’s scorching heat, Bradley’s house smelled foul, and when we turned lights on, we saw a scene of utter destruction. As we slowly advanced through the house towards the living room, the extraordinarily powerful smells of spilt blood, urine and feces became unbearable. We retreated to the kitchen, opened doors and windows, wetted handkerchiefs, held them to our faces and made a second attempt to reach the living room.
    The house had been thoroughly trashed. Papers, feathers and furniture stuffing was strewn everywhere. Fine suspended particles filled the air. Drawers had been pulled out of cabinets, and their contents dumped onto the floor. Cushions, pillows and mattresses had been slashed. Carpets had been drawn back to reveal bare boards. Cabinets had been dragged away from walls; hollow metal curtain