Neighborhood Watches

At this point, Farrell had his weapon drawn and pointed at Dennis who was handing the screaming infant to its screaming mother who ran out of the tight living room and up the stairs to lay the baby down. Then in a flash she reappeared with a seething look of anger on her face. Everyone witnessed a commanding whisper when Stacey’s lips stretched thin across her face as she hissed,

“Somebody better tell me why y’all are here asking about Malik?! Or one of you motherfuckers are fittin to drag me outta here in handcuffs!”

“Stacey!” Dennis yelled with a vigor he hadn’t had to use since he left the service. “Go the fuck upstairs and tend to Atiya. The officers were through until you came in up in here being all extra like a low budget Angela Bassett.” He pointed at the ceiling and, for whatever reason, this time Stacey followed his instructions. This left an exasperated Farrell and Ross with furrowed brows and twisted lips staring at each other and Dennis in disbelief. Dennis walked to the back of the kitchen, unlocked the screen door and held it open for the officers.

“As y’all can see, we ain’t seen nor heard from Malik. He’s one of the good ones though, chief. Got a good heart.”

Farrell smirked at Ross who sucked his teeth and as he made his way to the open screen door replied, “Yeah so good he blew his best friend’s head off at his grandmother’s wake.”

With that the door shut and the detectives heard Dennis lock several locks behind them.

“Told you this would be a waste of time,” Farrell said as he maneuvered his way through the tiny back yard to the alleyway which lead to the street. Ross was shuffling along behind him fumbling in his pants pocket for the car keys. He shrugged, “Not a complete waste. We checked this little task off of the Sarge’s to do list and now we can go back to the station just in time to get orders to follow another dead end.”

He then pressed a button which made the car in front of them beep, shocking Farrell a bit.

“I told you I knew what I was doin parkin over here.”

Farrell huffed but mechanically got into the passenger side of the car.

“Yeah but, what are we gonna do now? It’s not like we got any leads on the Martin family either.”

Ross let his head bobble back and forth in negation to his partner’s dismay.

“Au contraire, mon frere. Sometimes the appearance of lack of evidence is the evidence of a monstrosity of proof.”

“Da hell you tallem bout Ross? Instead of auditioning for the role of a French fortune cookie, why don’t you just fill me in on your twisted sense of reasoning?”

“He’s not stupid.” Ross quipped back.

“Who?” Spat Farrell.

“Douglas.”

“…Cause if he was , we woulda been caught him by now.” Farrell continued as if he were leaving bread crumbs for Ross to follow. But for whatever reason, Ross wasn’t picking up what he was putting down.

“No, I disagree.” Ross said as he pulled into the station parking lot again. He stopped the car but left it running as he tilted his head to look at his partner. “Douglas may not be stupid, per se, but he’s dumb as fuck for what he did. No one knows that more than Martin.”

He punctuated his statement by finally shutting off the ignition.

“Now this is where I disagree,” Farrell enthusiastically rebutted, “Douglas is dangerous enough to get away with it all.”