For the first time since Maggie and I moved into our cozy first floor flat at Spruce Tip Trace, I was anxious to be anywhere but here. 

Somewhere in between discovering my elderly upstairs neighbor, Mabel, murdered in what should have been the sanctity of her own bathroom, and having a threat on Maggie’s life emblazoned across the wall of my own viciously vandalized living room in garish red spray paint, the blush had gone off the rose. 

Detective Mathers was on the phone trying to locate his partner, a detective named Sleezak, while Maggie and I threw the bare necessities into an overnight bag. 

“I don’t care if he is having tea with an impeccably dressed transvestite! Get him on the horn!” He barked at the dispatcher as he rounded the corner into the kitchen where I was snapping Maggie into the saddle bag harness that contained her kong, kibble and travel sized water bowl.

“If this is going to create too much trouble for you, Maggie and I can just as easily..”

“Na na no. It’s not you, it’s Sleezak. The guy hasn’t been my partner for three months and this is already the third time he’s been out of pocket, when he knows he’s on call. Cops going through a midlife crisis should be put on leave- not promoted to homicide.”

I could easily identify with the detective’s frustration, having lost my own husband to a red sports car and a twenty-something blonde named Iris only a few short years before, and was just about to commiserate with him in his plight, when his phone rang.

“Sleezak! Where the hell are you?” The detective roared into the receiver as he exited the kitchen, leaving Maggie looking at me with her head cocked slightly to the side and one questioning ear at attention.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” I said aloud in answer to her silent query as I busied myself with filling the teapot and setting it on the burner. 

“He’s on his way.”

“I was just going to make us a cup of tea.”

“I was thinking,” the detective started uneasily, “Well, I’d like to get you two in the car before he gets here. That is if the tea can wait till we get to my place.” 

“This is a bit out of the ordinary, isn’t it?” I interjected a bit too nervously, and then immediately wished I could retract it.

All the tension associated with the evening seemed to evaporate from the detectives eyes, and was replaced by an almost boyish glow as he smiled gently, and took my hand in his. 

“Nora, I just want you to know I have never done anything like this before. Twenty-seven years on the job and…”

“Neither have I.” Crossed my lips in almost a broken whisper before I realized my response made no sense at all. “I mean.. Well, you know what I mean..”

“C’mon Maggie!” he jumped in, quickly alleviating my awkwardness, as he snapped on Maggie’s lead and grabbed my overnight case. “We’re goin’ for a ride!”

As the three of us headed down the walk toward the parking lot, I noticed the telephone lines, usually laden with birds at dawn, were bare and the sun was much higher than I had expected it might be. 

“Wow! What time is it detective?” 

“It’s a little after eight, Nora. And I think it’s about time you started calling me Nick.”

This addition to Maggie’s Adventures was inspired by the three phrases provided by the OLWG #29. The phrases provided were:

1. Neither have I
2. An impeccably dressed transvestite
3. The birds at dawn

I also threw in Misky’s twiglet from last week’s challenge, ‘a broken whisper’, because when I heard Nora speak the line to me, that was how it sounded.

This is an on-going saga, the previous chapters can be found by following the Maggie’s Story category header.