Neighborhood Watches

Farrell damn near flipped his desk over as he made a beeline into Sarge’s office. Ross called out after him, but it was too late. Farrell had already slammed the door behind him as the unfazed sergeant Florek looked over the rim of his glasses to meet Farrell’s glare.

“I’m assuming there’s a family emergency or some other dire set of circumstances that just transpired which caused you to come barreling into my office like you had a bad case of the runs and I have the only working toilet!”

Farrell knew he was probably overreacting, but he just watched their only viable suspect scuttle out of the squad room like a roach sensing a change in atmosphere.

“You just let her go?” He asked with less adamancy while gesturing towards the closed door.

“Well detective, maybe if you and your partner would’ve questioned her prior to her pulling that charade up in here, we may have been able to hold her on something. But we don’t have anything do we?”

Ross appeared next to Farrell and answered the rhetorical question.

“There wouldn’t be much she could actually tell us. Turns out she just had a baby. She wasn’t around to see anything, anyway.”

Farrell continued, “and T.A.R.U. said there hasn’t been any unusual phone activity at the house. You know Martin uses burners and he probably has Douglas usin one too.”

“Well looks like you’re both headed to the mecca of the neighborhood to all the stores that sell phones with mugshots, aren’t ya?” Florek ordered more than asked as he spun back around in his office chair much to the disdain of his detectives who smirked at one another then sighed as they left to go downtown. Ross held his hands for the keys and Farrell begrudgingly gave them to him as they walked out of the station to the garage across the street.

“Don’t act like that. We goin to that spot you like with the good home fries.” Ross muttered as if it were a .secret.”

Farrell’s face softened and his eyes widened with his smile. If he had a tail, it would have been flailing from side to side.

“Really?”

“Yeah somethin is gonna have to fuel me cuz I am not in the mood to be all up in the hood today getting ignored or worse.”

“There’s somethin worse than bein ignored?” Farrell asked.

But Ross wasn’t ignoring Farrell at all. He was leering across the parking lot to a corner where a woman was lightly jogging up to a corner boy. As if he saw her spit on the ground, Farrell wrinkled his face up and shook his head.

“You ain’t funny, Ross”

Ross shook him off, “Nah, I wasn’t tryna be. I just got sick to my stomach.

“You don’t wanna eat then?” Farrell asked with slight disappointment.

Ross laughed, “I’m glad you can still keep your focus in your famished condition.”

The was car parked, the detectives entered the diner, and pair made a beeline towards two empty stools at the end of the counter. A waitress who looked too fresh and happy began pouring coffee for the detectives when all of a sudden she became startled.

“I’ll be right back.” She said to Ross. “I gotta get more sugar.” The young waitress motioned to the empty dispenser with the fluffy part of her pen and then she disappeared into some folding doors that led to the kitchen.

Farrell smirked and shook his head, “She’s new. Everyone knows not to use the sugar dispensers at restaurants.”

“Nah, it’s not that she’s new. She probably ain’t from around here. Back where she’s from they probably don’t spike the containers with dope.” Ross sarcastically replied.

“And you think the junkies out here are wastin their stash by spikin the sugar containers at diners?” Chided Farrell.

Just then the waitress reappeared with a tray full of sugar options: dispensers, and little ceramic holders full of little white, pink, blue, yellow, and light green envelopes.

“Here ya go, Sorry bout that. We’re out of raw sugar, but I can get you some from my locker if ya desperate?”

For the moment, Farrell let the waitress off the hook, grabbed the ceramic holders and handed one of them to Ross as he took a handful of the white packets and began tearing the tops off the packet with his teeth. Ross frowned a bit as sugar crystals started bouncing all over the freshly wiped counter.

“What are you a savage?” Ross asked him.

“Possibly. Do you know what raw sugar is?”

“Sounds like somethin they’ll create a special unit for.”

“And then stick us on it.” Ross continued, “Speakin of being stuck on it, how do you want to handle our stroll downtown.”

The fresh faced waitress came back with menus but Farrell held up two fingers to the other waitress behind the counter,

“Two number fours, scrambled, no ham, veggies in the home fries.”

The waitress nodded to the cook who began cracking eggs. Ross raised an eyebrow at Farrell.

“Since when no ham?”

“If you’ve noticed, I never eat the ham. I actually can’t stand ham. I’ve been trying to eat ham for years and I don’t like it, so I wind up giving it to you.”

“Right, I like ham. So why didn’t you just order your breakfast sans ham and leave my plate alone!” Ross jokingly asked and then made eye contact with the cook. “Put more pig on the side for me.”