Follow
us on Facebook
Chapter 1
The Station
The three of them were held together, as if quarantined from everyone else brought in. They were seated on a bench near the front desk in the upstairs of the station. Anna, the little girl, sat between two downcast and slouching figures who stared at the wall in shame and embarrassment.
They had been waiting for over an hour now; and Anna was getting very bored. There was not much else she could do but sit there swinging her feet. Everyone in the station was busy. Anna listened as phones rang and pages spit from noisy printers and fax machines. She soaked in the humming plethora of conversations that were far too numerous and tangled for her to follow.
A policeman was fingerprinting a woman in the back. Anna turned to one of the men seated beside her and asked excitedly, “Uncle Joe, are they gonna’ take our fingerprints too?!”
“Shhhh! Don’t give them any ideas. It is just a misunderstanding. As soon as we explain it they will let us go.”
“You think,” the other slouching figure interjected. Joe glared at him as if to say he was not helping matters. Vince rolled his eyes and went back to looking straight ahead.
Anna fidgeted a little, making sure her buttons were securely fastened to her Girl Scout uniform, and straightening the little hat that rested upon her head. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she kept telling them.
A noise came from the office behind them, but it was too muffled to identify. A muscular behemoth wearing a white shirt and loosened black tie, framed by his shoulder harness, walked through the door holding a sheet of paper. Anna sank low in her seat between the Uncles as the man looked down at them.
“This way,” he commanded in a firm tone.
They were taken to a small room and seated in individual chairs. Behemoth put on a suit coat and walked in, closing the door behind him.
“Is this the interrogation room?” Anna seemed ecstatic. “Are you gonna’ handcuff us? Oh! I can see through the mirror. Some people can’t, but I can. There are Bobbies on the other side. I see them. Or is that only in Britain?”
“Silence!” Behemoth said sternly.
“You must be the bad cop.”
“Anna!” Joe and Vince said at the same time.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Joe. He’s just trying to mess with our minds so we’ll break.”
“No, no,” Joe said. “I mean there isn’t anything to break. For—for us to—you know. Whatever. There isn’t.”
The man addressed Anna, “Which of these two men is your uncle?”
“They both are.” She patted Vince on the shoulder.
“Sort of,” Vince said. “Joe is actually the uncle, and I had nothing to do with anything. I’m a victim of circumstance.”
“Vince!” came Joe’s exasperated plea.
“Enough, alright? Look, there are a few things here that don’t make sense. I need some answers. First: my name is Officer O’Mara.”
“Mine’s Anna.”
“I did not ask for your name, did I?”
Anna crossed her arms and slouched with a pouted face.
“Thank you. Anyway, I know your names. You know mine. Let’s talk about what happened.”
“Well—” Joe’s hand smothered Anna’s words before she could finish.
“Look, we have all three of you at the scene with the Gypsies.”
“May I make a phone call?” Vince inquired.
“No, you may not.”
“Just my girlfriend— to tell her where I am.”
“You are not making any phone calls. We haven’t arrested you yet.”
“There he goes, talking about handcuffs again,” remarked Anna.
O’Mara took a deep breath. “Can you at least pretend you’re just a little girl, please? And for you other two, your girlfriends are here already. They heard the news of what had happened and got worried about you.”
“Really?” Vince said. “Hey alright!” He gave Joe a high five.
They turned back to see O’Mara looking blankly at them. He decided not to comment.
“First question: the report seems to say that it was the girl that—good Lord I can’t believe Johnson would write this—that the girl was the ‘brains’ of the operation?”
“I suppose technically that might be true,” Anna proudly injected.
“True?! You—wait—technically?”
“Well, I mean, we were only there because she was. Right, Vince?” Joe added weakly.
“The gospel truth—and epistle,” he said as he raised his right hand.
“Right. So you see it is true, technically.”
“Great High Kings of Erin! What is with you people?” He pointed at Anna. “She’s a baby.”
“I’m not a baby, and you watch your language you suppressor of the weak.”
“You’re killin’ us kid,” groaned Joe.
“Would ya’ all just shut up?” O’Mara’s patience was wearing thin. “This is unbelievable.” He scanned the report again. “You’re the Uncle, Joseph?”
“I am?—Yes! I am.”
“Have you recently spoken with the child’s mother?”
“Sort of. She is my sister.”
“Yes, I know that. I met her already. She is waiting downstairs.”
“She is?”
“Yeah, and she has quite the temper.” O’Mara gave a half smile. “Must be an Irish girl?”
“Actually we are Italian.”
“What?” O’Mara said in a more serious tone.
“It—German! We—we’re German.”
Vincent interrupted again, “Don’t you have to let a child’s mother have access to her or something?”
“What, to the ‘brains’ of the outfit? You have a few more questions to answer first. Like my next question: why does a mother send her daughter to live with her bachelor uncle?”
“Well that’s not exactly what happened.”
“What did happen, exactly? Furthermore, how does she wind up at the scene of the crime?”
“I don’t know. Blame the Gypsies.”
“I blame the Girl Scouts,” Vince said.
O’Mara wore a puzzled expression. “The Girl Scouts?”
Buy now on Amazon.com
Girl Scouts... And How to Avoid Them