The small apartment ran with blood. The body of Mrs. Jones lay slumped on the couch, an arm severed and deep cuts across her body. ‘What kind of maniac did this?’ Det. Bluster murmured to himself. He had been twenty-five years on the precinct and had seen nothing like it before.
‘Don’t Albie don’t, don’t Albie don’t!’ a caged blue and green parrot squawked incessantly. ‘Can someone quieten that bird!’ Bluster hollered at the uniform cops. ‘Before I strangle it.’
‘Don’t do it Albie!’ the parrot squawked as a fresh-faced rookie carried it to the next room.
The forensics guy said there was no sign of a break-in. She must have let the killer into the apartment. Where was the murder weapon? It must be big, something like an axe maybe.
A crowd gathered out on the landing. Neighbours were both horrified and thrilled at the same time. It was a better drama than the movies, they all agreed. And Mrs. Jones was so young.
‘Don’t do it Albie!’ the parrot could be heard above the hubbub.
The widow Hindenburg might be in her seventies with her best days behind her but she still had her marbles. She knew the parrot well and was impressed at how quickly it always picked up phrases and repeated them.
Bluster dismissed her at first but her insistence and the parrot’s incessant squawking wore him down. Albie was the name of the victim’s husband, she told him.
Bluster’s eyes sparkled. ‘Better bring him in.’
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 