The 7:05 church bells rang. The church was just down the street, and Maddy used the bells as an alarm clock each morning. She never understood why they rang at 7:05 and not 7:00.
From the kitchen the automatic coffee maker was releasing its aroma as it perked.
She snuggled under the warm duvet. How she would love to stay there longer, but suddenly there was pressure on her chest and warm tongue licks from here seven kilo rescue mutt Pal.
She patted his soft fur, “I suppose you want to go walkies.” Pal jumped down and circled.
She threw on her sweats, headed for bathroom – after all, she couldn’t pee on trees and bushes like Pal. She needed a few sips of coffee and sipped slowly trying not to burn her mouth in the process before going out with the dog.
Once outside, Pal headed for the park across the street.
Maddy loved the park in autumn with its colored leaves and musty smells. She called it leaf-kicking weather.
She thought of the Law and Order show she had watched last night. In the opening, a woman walking her dog had kicked some leaves and found a body. From there Liv and Elliot had located the woman’s killer.
Pal started barking. Maddy thought he didn’t like leaf kicking, but he was barking at the leaves piled next to the path. A pile to kick the same way she’d done walking home from school, twenty years before.
Her foot hit something.
It was a body, a young woman, a red slash across her neck.
Maddy’s screams
brought other early morning dog walkers, who called the police, not Liv and
Elliot of course but a man and woman about the same ages as the actors that
played Liv and Elliot on Law and Order.
Back home in her apartment, her hands shook, as she tried to drink a cup of coffee, now cold.
The police had questioned her, but there was little she could tell him.
That night, after a hot shower, she crawled into bed under the duvet. She never watched Law and Order again.
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