From "Writing Multicultural Part 5" post
DISCLAIMER: Sorry if there are errors and other grammatical hiccups. I didn't have time for another pair of eyes to look at it. I read this out loud in class. Sorry I couldn't provide it as a 3 formats. Also, Blogger won't allow me to save multiple pages in the 3 required formats (PNG, GIF, and JPEG). Sorry for the inconvenience!
My title is a play off the movie, "The Usual Suspects"(TM).
Here's "The Usual Witnesses"...
The Usual Witnesses
There had been a no-contract murder.
An unauthorized death. And as usual, the neighborhood wasn’t talking. Neighbors
saw nothing, heard nothing, not even the hounds barking in the alleyway because
they had been woken by the disturbance and were, in their own way, joining in
the ruckus.
“And
you SAW nothing?” Simon Ominnous wrote everything down as fast as the
non-witness spoke.
“No
sir,” the hollowed eyed girl spoke from behind the door with it barely a crack.
“Not
a thing. I was in my bed, I was. Half past 10. Sleep like the dead, I was,
Sir.”
“And
STILL nothing?” Simon smiled in that ghoulish way of his.
“Not
even that horrid, blood-curdling scream at half past 10.” The girl said. “Not a
thing.”
Emmaline,
in a faded black walking suit, came up the steps of the brownstone.
“Anything
from this…witness?”
Simon
tilted the notepad to her; Emmaline did an imperceptive glance though her
partner knew she had read all the shorthand, taken in the info, and knew the
type of paper in the notepad.
Emmaline
looked directly at the young girl. The girl shrank more behind the door.
“The
Protectorate is here to serve and protect. I give you my word. I am Detective
DeathStone.”
The
owl-eyed girl, all round, pudgy face and innocence, drew in a whisper.
Even
her voice was too small for her age.
“I
heard of you, Missus…”
Emmaline
smiled and her arched, narrow eyebrow over her left eye punctuated her
sincerity.
For
the first time since Simon began talking to the reluctant witness, the young
lady did a smile and made it disappear as quickly as she did behind the door.
Emmaline
knew that she now had this witness’ trust. Out of her jacket pocket, she took
out a business card.
“You
have a cell?”
The
girl scraped the door with her forehead as she nodded.
“If
you clearly don’t recall anything, text your concerns to either myself or
Simon. This is my partner, Detective Ominnous, that you had the pleasure of
speaking to.”
“It
was a pleasure. Missus. Sir.”
The
door shut. Not abruptly, not in a rude way. But in the way when a person did
not want to be spotted. And even with most of her behind the door, Det.
Emmaline DeathStone saw that the girl had done a curt bow to them.
As
both detectives went down the steps to the sidewalk, Simon put on back his high
crown hat. Emmaline knew he was a clotheshorse if he could don that instead of
the police standard bowler.
“Delightful
girl.” He said.
“Just
your type.” She said.
“Unlike
you, I know when someone is far too young for me.”
“Touché’.”
Emmaline
looked a few houses down. The uniformed police were having trouble.
The
fourth house from the one they just left.
Emmaline,
always with her left hand, lifted her voluminous dress and ran ahead of Simon.
More
uniformed cops milled in front of the brownstone’s stoop, nervous as bees.
“Problem?”
Emmaline asked.
A
female officer, in her navy blue dress, turned to the newcomer.
“Pardon,
Missus?”
A
male officer whispered in the young woman’s ear, “This is Detective
DeathStone.”
“Oh!”
the female cop’s eyes widened and a sudden berth opened in the tight crowd of
police as silent as magic.
“Hostile
witness.” Another bobby offered, “We finally found someone that could talk when
‘e started up a fight with one o’ the lads!”
“Exactly
how?” Simon came beside Emmaline.
“Swearin’,
the usual lark. This guy’s a real fun time.”
Detective
DeathStone began trotting up the stoop, her left hand holding up her skirts.
The right hand clutched her signature walking stick, a rosewood cane.
The
hostile witness watched when a woman approached. He continued to peep from his
window. The same height as he, she was in a walking suit, long skirts and faded
jacket
with broad-shoulders and in a smart mid-sized hat with bow in the back. He
continued to peep from his window. “Mr…?” She looked at the nameplate to the
side of the door.
“Quill-Raven?
I wondered if you may offer me a few moments of your beleaguered time, if that
will be all right with you?”
It
pleased him to talk to her while observing her through the peephole. The space
between him and the outside world gave him an advantage. He glared at her
through the peephole. Even with the curvature of the peephole’s glass, the
woman had striking features indeed. A narrow face, hawk-like, dark eyes, and
her hair pulled back; even through this door, she emitted authoritative energy.
He didn’t like that. The civil lackeys had brought in a superior. “What of it?
What do you what?”
“It
has come to my attention that a credible witness of great import has been
found, and I believe that witness is you.”
He
watched her calmly await his answer by pulling an inch from each finger of her
right-hand glove in the manner of someone about to remove it. He knew she
didn’t look the type to pull her gloves off with her teeth.
Real
proper, stuck-up cow. He would fix her.
“Bugger
off!” he sneered as he said this though he knew no one saw. The look she gave
him reminded him of a trained falcon about to snap the meat from its owner’s
fingers. Satisfied, he walked away from his door.
A
banging that shook his house’s foundations quaked even through his floors. He
ran
back
to the door. What were they using, a battering ram?
He
took a peek through his peephole again. The woman had her ungloved hand raised and
was systematically banging her cane on the top part of his front door.
But
no ordinary walking stick this was, like what most gentlemen carried, with an
ivory shaft of a regular lion or eagle, but a thick rosewood cane with a large
creature’s head.
“What
the bloody hell?” Quill-Raven said to himself while he began sliding back each
of the eight bolts he had installed.
Let
him give her a piece of his mind. People had a right to have their property
respected, even by the police.
The
door opened barely.
“Now
what is you--?”
The
‘proper lady’ lifted a laced up boot. A violent kick in the door and
Quill-Raven felt himself thrown back into his foyer. He almost slid across the
tile.
He
barely got to his elbows when that woman stood over him and the cane’s silver
shaft drove into his Adam’s apple. She gave it a practice tweak and he watched
her face. If a falcon could grin before it swooped in for the kill, that’s how
this policewoman grinned.
Detective
Simon Ominnous rushed in with a contingent of the city’s finest in tow.
“Emmaline!
Emmaline! Can you spell…Police Brutality?”
The
uniformed officers in the room stared as frightened children. None came from
behind
Detective Ominnous, however.
“Oh,
I don’t think he will speak anything EXCEPT what he witnessed last night, am I
right, Mr. Quill-Raven?” her grin grew more raptor-like.
The
rosewood cane scraped from his throat to the side of his face. Now he could
smell the cane’s wood, scented by its owner’s personal affects. He could now
clearly see the shaft; it was a silver dragonhead in magnificent detail of
snarling rage.
He
barely moved his head from side to side in a ‘No’.
Detective DeathStone pulled back her
cane, hooking it over her right arm.
“I can’t abide bad manners.”
C.
Welsh 6 The Usual Witnesses THE END
