Three Times the Charm?

“What did you see? Be honest, don’t embellish, we are just trying to get to the truth, we don’t need a novella on this one. Short story version would be best as time is of the essence. The longer it takes to get our questions answered the more likely it will be that something is forgotten, changed, unremembered, or simply in an attempt to impress us, lie. Don’t do that.”

Sargent Grimes sat across from three people who would admit to having witnessed the shooting on Mayberry Street. Mayberry Street is one of those areas where everyone and anything could, and did show up on Saturdays, which is flee market day, even the kitchen sink, usually from an empty apartment.

The majority of things offered up to the God’s of junk, were just that. Some were blessed with memories long forgotten, some remained of value if you knew what value that might be, and some were brought out in hopes of making a little more room for what you might find interesting enough to bring home yourself.

“I will ask that you tell us in your own words what you observed. Try not to imply, the why, what, and wherefore, as that only clouds the picture we are attempting to paint, metaphorically of course. I will speak with you one at a time in our interview room so that your witnessed accounts won’t be influenced by another’s recollection of events. I will start with you Mr. Matsumoto. Please come this way. I will leave you two ladies in the capable hands of detective Jones-Smith. She will see to your needs. After Mr. Matsumoto has completed his statement, “I will call on each of you,” he said over his shoulder as he ushered Mr. Matsumoto into the interview area.

“Oh, and I want to thank you for your help in this matter. I know that there were more than three witnesses to this crime, but as usual for a variety of reasons, some rational, most not, you have overcome your fear of reprisal to do your civic duty. I commend you for helping keep our city safe. Mr. Matsumoto, please.”

Sargent Grimes led Mr. Matsumoto into the interview room. Mr. Matsumoto found the room to be unlike what he’d envisioned from his years of watching detective shows. The walls were a faded blue, where the humidity hadn’t softened the plaster and fallen to the floor. Calendar like advertisements, their dates lined through hung limply from rusting nails. At the bottom of one was scribbled, “Thank God. I made it.” Mr. Matsumoto could only assume its meaning. The floor was mixture of scalped tiles, skid marks, acne pitted places where cigarettes before the mandate, were crushed underfoot on the floor. A singular lamp hung from a cord looking like a petrified puffball mushroom. The windows were adorned with dust covered blinds, many of which were missing or wished they were.

“Mr. Matsumoto?” Sargent Grimes breaking the silence of the stale air.

“Please call me Matsu.” 

“Your name is Matsu Matsumoto?”

“Yes, Matsu Lotus Flower Matsumoto. I was supposed to be a girl.”

 “Thank you, sorry. When Feebee Blumkin had here purse grabbed, according to her account of the matter, and this youngish man according to her, was shot by Philip Strangelove, as he attempted to run from the table display in front of your store. Is that what you saw. In your own words. Just the facts please.”

Officer Grimes continued to mull over the Matsu Matsumoto name and how anyone could do that to a child, Matsu began his recollection. Grimes found himself having to catch up as Peter Franklin had skidded to a stop in the street, as a bus driven by Andre Allende couldn’t stop in time, and turned Peter into a rumpled ghost.

Grimes in an attempt to remain focused, “Would you repeat that first part, just after the purse was grabbed and Mr. Franklin ran down the street, but before Strangelove shot him with his unregistered gun.”

Mr. Matsumoto feeling as though he didn’t exist, once again repeated his detailed description of the shooting and subsequent bus incident. Matsu is a squeamish person having grown up with the nightmares of nuclear bombs being imprinted on his mind by the bedtime stories of his grandmother, whose store he now managed in her absence. 

“Well if there is nothing to add, I thank you for your statement and help in this matter. We attempt to get nothing but the facts so that justice needn’t be blind because we failed to do our jobs,” Sargent Grimes said while thinking, that was a waste of time. One, two, three, Franklin is dead, not killed by Love… whatever, and stomped to his reward by a twenty-thousand-pound bus. Poor Andre Allende. If love…would have been a better shot we could’ve cleanly swept another one under the rug. 

 “Oh, but what about that Applebaum guy that got hit when that Franklin guy shot back?” Matsu stopping in the doorway waiting for an answer.

Matsu had placed the first fork in Grimes soup. Who was Applebaum, why hadn’t he heard about Apple…, did he exist or was Matsu attempting to get his name in the paper, 15 minutes of fame?

“Thank you Matsu. Being that you didn’t see Mr. Applebaum shot, you will need to confine your statement to what you did see. We will talk to those that did observe the Applebaum incident directly. Thank you.”

“But I did see the Applebaum guy get shot. For God’s sake man, he was standing in front of me. It could have been me. You’ve got to do something about these armed idiots running around shooting people. You have to.”

Grimes handed a tablet and pen he pulled from a drawer to Matsu, and asked him to write down in entirety what he observed, and then they’d talk again. Almost...he'd forgotten his watch, no breakfast, the kid with the bakery stuff not here yet, coffee smells like dragon’s breath…

“Mrs. Williams, please come this way.” Grimes pulls out a chair for Mrs. Williams and seats himself across from her, remembering this time to have a note pad before him, procedure. If I could only find a pen. Mrs. Williams? She reached in her purse and pulled a pen from the Lancaster Hotel from her purse and handed it to Grimes.

“Mrs. Williams, please tell me in your own words what you saw, just what you saw, don’t embellish or guess. Just what you saw with your own two eyes.”

“You can call me Miss Williams. I have never been married and intend to remain that way. I find most men stuck on themselves, arrogant like, and gruff like they are attempting to intimidate you. For what reason, I have an idea, but I ain’t saying. You must get a lot of that in here. And I didn’t think much of that Jones…whatever woman. The coffee was cold, the donuts were old, would be better used for clay pigeons out on your range. You shoot much? You kind of look like the kind that shoots first, then… well you got the yellow pad don’t you.”

Donuts?

“We appreciate you coming in. I understand that a man grabbed a purse from an elderly woman, ran down the street where he was shot by a member of the community, and who then returned fire before falling into the street and being runover by poor Mr. …well it doesn’t matter.” Grimes quickly jotted down the name Williams, at the top of the blue lined paper.

“That is more or less accurate. You missed the part about the third shot having ricocheted off the pavement and hitting Mrs. McCurdy’s dog, Ephron. He died immediately which was a blessing, but I still had to explain to Mrs. McCurdy about the dogs demise at the hand of that evil black man.”

“He was a black man? First I’ve heard of that.”

“Well he might have just been dirty. One of those street urchins, but he was darker than usual I’d say. He might have been a Mexican. One of those that snuck across the river down there and is taking our jobs.”

“I just need you to tell me what you saw. Whether the man was of color or just dirty has no bearing on this matter. The dog however does. I was unaware of a dead dog. I’m sorry to hear about that. I like dogs.” More than most people, especially this one. Arrogant? Stuck up? Go figure.

“Are you positive that the shot that killed the dog came from the “Urchin” as you called him?” Grimes groping for the dignity he felt slipping from his mind, and mixing with bad coffee and lack of sugar coated doughnuts.

“Like I was going to say before you interrupted me, I was walking Ephron. I do that because Mrs. McCurdy was hit by a car while foolishly riding her bike in the crazy traffic of ours, and is now in a wheel chair. She loves her dog and she pays me, so yes, I saw him get killed by a bullet fired by the bus guy. It hit the sidewalk like lightning and then jumped into Ephron. Like I said, he was dead before he hit the ground.” Mrs., Miss Williams, you said, “bullet fired by the bus guy?”  Could you explain? You are saying the man that was runover by the bus, was the one who fired the shot that killed, your, Mrs. McCurdy’s dog.”

“No! I said no such thing. This coffee tastes like donkey p…, well you should know, you are responsible for it. No wonder people don’t want to come down here just to be misheard and nearly poisoned.

I said that the bus driver, I was standing on the curb with Ephron waiting to cross, when the door opens and this explosion comes flying at me. I jumped, the dog went down, and the driver stepped on it and sped off, running over that poor boy who was trying to stop this so-called bus driver from assassinating Mrs. McCurdy’s dog.”

“I’d like to thank you, for wasting, for taking the time from your busy dog walking duties to come down to give us an account of what you believed you saw. Let me show you out. I ask only one more thing. Could you please write down on this pad your recollection of events, as briefly and accurately as you can. It will be a big help in sorting this incident out and making sure justice is served.”

Miss Williams made her way to a table Jones-Smith set up in the breakroom. Grimes beckoned Isabel Allende to follow him into the interview room. He closed the door believing things couldn’t get worse, and then they did. In an attempt to break the ice and put his guest at ease, he made a comment he wished later, two seconds later, he’d omitted saying.

“Miss Allende, would you please tell me in your own words what you saw, not what you might have seen, or what you wanted to see, just the facts, please.” He looked at this small woman, her head covered despite the heat, her dress an explosion of color, her shoes, not shoes at all, but a few leather strings attached to what appeared to be pieces of car tires. Her feet failing to reach the floor, swung like a metronome keeping time with Grimes growing agitation.

“I always tell the truth. You one of those gestapo types? I’m used to your kind. You won’t frighten me, so don’t bother trying. I’m from what you call south of the world, no not that world, Batista Land. I’ve seen it all. Some good, some bad, but always involving those who thought they could beat the truth out of people, whether they knew the truth or not. It didn’t matter if what you said was a lie, so why bother. Keep quiet, and when you get out if you do; payback time. You live in the city?”

Oh God, will this ever end.  

Grimes wrote Allende on the top of his last remaining yellow tablet. “I’m sorry if you feel uncomfortable. I assure you no one is beating anything out of anybody. We just want to know what happened. So far, I have a dog, and a dirty man, dead. A vendor or shopper shooting the supposed thief, and a bus driver who shot either the fleeing thief or was shooting at the vendor-shopper guy. Please just tell me what you saw, please.”

Grimes knew when he was losing patients with not only people but himself. Drinking, the excuse for coffee flavored water didn’t help, he knew that, but found it created a distraction from the myopia he was being bombarded by.

He was about to skip the interview and push the pad across the table and let Mrs. Allende tell the story in her own words, assuming she can read...   

Just then the door was pushed open, and standing before them was Alejandro, the maintenance-janitor who normally worked the afternoon shift. Was it afternoon already?

It was policy not to enter the interview room when occupied. Grimes had forgotten to lock the door. Mrs. Allende looked up from her folded hands at the man standing in the doorway. “Alejandro,” she exclaimed in a surprised voice. 

“Mother,” Alejandro leaning the broom against the wall, continuing to not look at her. 

Mrs. Allende realized immediately something was wrong. Alejandro she knew, when attempting to hide something or pretend nothing happened, avoided eye contact. She left her chair and walked to him putting her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest, and whispering softly, “what have you done this time.”

Alejandro, not wishing to embarrass his anti-authoritarian family, had not told his mother of his working at the precinct. She had been so happy he’d found a job, she hadn’t until that moment, cared what kind of job, or where.

Grimes looked on knowing he should say something, but what? The way things were going, the dog would be found to not be dead, but was actually responsible for shooting at the bus driver, and Alejandro’s father, who had been hired by Mrs. McCurdy to shoot Franklin, who had been her previous dog walker, and was let go after losing her second favorite dog, was a member of the Guantanamo Cartel. 

Miss Williams would be found to be in on the hit, as she was having an affair with the bus driver, as she was writing a mystery love novel when not walking dogs, and needed some personal experience with someone who pretended he didn’t understand or speak English.

Alejandro backed out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. Mrs. Allende returned to the table and began to mumble something about Fascistas, as Grimes pushed the tablet across the table and said, “escribir, por favor. Escribir, escribir, verdad por favor.” Sargent Grimes had been taking night classes to keep from going to AA meetings which he had found depressing, as no one was ever cured. He was surprised by his newly acquired grasp of the language.

Mrs. Allende having immigrated from the Basque Region of Spain, had no idea what Grimes was attempting to tell her in secret, she believed. She knew from experience she needed to do something to indicate she understood, or risk consequences. She’d planned to leave her husband and run off to Miami with her landlord, Dimitri Moskovitz. He of course was married, that would take some...

She drew a picture of Pope Francis, hoping it would do the trick. It had in the past.