Brigits Flame, mini contest day 5, Yellow

Notes: This is a continuation of "Fade into White"


Yellow.  Her voice was yellow. Thinking back it was less lemony and more honey.  

I am after all a romantic, even when my knees are buckling under me after a blow to my head.  She must have brown eyes. Why? Because I like brown eyes.

“So you’re telling me that you never saw the dead woman before and that you followed some guy down the alley ‘cause  ‘he looked suspicious’?”

“Well, detective…Sorry I can’t remember your name right now, blow to the head and all…”

“Barnard”

“Well, Detective Barnard, that is exactly what I am telling you but there was someone else there, a woman, assuming it wasn’t the woman who was dead.  I mean before she was dead. I didn’t see her but I heard her voice. My head hurts by the way. I should probably be in hospital, this bump I got…”

“That bump is the only thing in your story that checks out.  And the only reason you aren’t under arrest. Do you think you would recognize the voice if you heard it again?”

“Sure. Well, I don’t know what sort of a witness I’ll make with this concussion and all…”

“Stick around town.  We might have questions for you.”

“What about the gun?”

“What about it?” Detective Barnard was standing a good 6’5” tall with his shoulders squared. His dingy shirt had permanent sweat stains around the neck and pits and one button was sadly hanging at the end of a thread, just about to fall off right about the place where the impressively large man was the largest, his gut. I reasoned that Detective Barnard’s life was pretty bleak, owing to a string of failed relationships starting with his mother and now his only joy was in intimidating low lifes like myself.

“Hey, I know you know it’s not mine.  I just wondered if you know who it belongs to. I mean, I got a right to know considering it was found in my hand and all…”

“You got a right to nothing.”

“How existential of you…” I couldn’t help tease him.  It is a character fault of mine.  See I was always small for my age.  Tormenting large guys with my razor sharp wit was my only joy, but he wasn’t taking the bait.  My comment just rolled off his back like water off a very large 300 pound duck.

 “You have two choices. Stay out of trouble and stay available should we need to question you further, or end up locked up.  I don’t like private detectives.  I think it is an excuse to consort with criminals and confound the police, both are things I will bust your ass for.”

“It sounded like three choices…”  I could not help it.  I was hoping he would say: Keep your nose out of police business.  I love old movies! Can you tell?  I left the precinct and headed back to the bar where all this started.  I was hoping I would hear that honey yellow voice in the crowd.  I also needed a drink.

Sure enough, I was holding up the bar for less than twenty minutes when I heard that voice. It was cello yellow, not a bit of lemon in it. It said, “I think you and I have some business to discuss.”  I held off looking for a moment.  Being such a romantic I really didn’t want to spoil the image I had created in my mind to go with that voice.  Lauren Bacall would do nicely.  I have no idea if her eyes were brown though, so it would have to be Bacall with brown eyes, nice soft amber, to go with that voice…

Of course it had to be a woman who looked more like my great aunt May.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love Aunt May, but not in quite the way I was thinking of this voice.  It did fit however with the blow to my head.  Aunt May had a strong left arm.  She could have easily knocked me out with a frying pan. 

I turned and smiled at her.  “Do tell.”

Ah that lovely voice again.  I gave my brain a minute to paste it to the body and face I was looking at while Lauren Bacall was sucked into a vortex of failures and disappointments.

“I want to hire you to find out who killed my grand daughter.”