Free The White Flamingo by James A. Newman

asked.
    “What…?”
    “Skip it. Do you love your mother?”
    “Yes.”
    “How much?”
    “More than anybody else, that’s how much.”
    “Do you think Tammy had a mother, perhaps she was a mother herself?”
    “She was.”
    “She was what?”
    “A mother. She showed me a picture of her kid, a seven-year-old boy. I forget his name. Listen, mister, I didn’t do this. It wasn’t me.”
    “What does 1888 mean to you?”
    “What…?”
    “Skip it. How do you feel about fish?”
    “I’m allergic to it. Can’t eat seafood.”
    “Birds?”
    “What?”
    “Animals with two wings and feathers?”
    “I never really…”
    “Wading birds, herons, storks?”
    “I like them, I guess.”
    “Ever caught the clap?”
    “What?”
    “Sexual disease. Crabs, genital herpes?”
    “No. Hale, give me some help here,” Sebastian rubbed his temples with his right hand. The Detective noticed a tear rolling down Bell’s cheek.
    “Just answer,” said Hale.
    “I’m clean. Apart from a little blister.”
    “Does the blister come up now and again, like, every few months?”
    “Well, yes.”
    “That’s herpes. And do you practice sexual intercourse with prostitutes while the herpes is evident?”
    “I…I…”
    “Well don’t. That’s how the virus gets in.”
    “The virus?”
    “Yes the big one.”
    “But she didn’t have…”
    “When was the last time that you saw Tammy?”
    Sebastian fell to his knees. The tears began to flow. He made a strange gurgling sound. If it weren’t for the bars between them, the Detective would have pulled him up and slapped him across the face.
    The Detective let him ride it out.
    “I’m here to help. I’ll ask you again. When did you last see the deceased?”
    “Last night. She came back. We slept together and then she left the apartment. About 2am. She had a telephone text message. She read the message and then she left the apartment. I wasn’t too bothered about it. Check the security cameras. You can see that she left the building. I am not a murderer.”
    “What does the name Jack mean to you?”
    “Look. We get on the telephone and call my Mom. She will sort this all out. She’s on her way.”
    “The name Jack?”
    “We once had a dog called Jack…It was a Jack Russell.”
    “Good. We will get you out of this can as soon as we can, son.”
    “Hurry, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
    “Be cool, kid.”
     
     
     
    SIX TEEN
     
    OUTSIDE, THE sun shone down onto a cracked broken courtyard where a woman stood shading the sun from her eyes with the palm of her hand. She was probably just south of fifty, wearing a pair of tight jeans and a pastel blue bohemian blouse. Very few women took style to the grave. This one had a chance. Her figure once walked runways and her intelligent face had been featured in the kind of glossy magazines that clutter up waiting rooms all across the rock. A face that was attractive in an intelligent professional way that was as rare as a straight lawyer in Fun City.
    She strode toward them. “Are you detective Joe Dylan?”
    He nodded. Her accent was British. Joe placed it to one of the suburban satellite towns that hugged the M25. Those that came from just outside London sounded much the same, clear vowels with a barely noticeable cockney twang when relaxed, drunk, or threatened with being too posh.     
    “Look, he didn’t do this. My little boy didn’t do this. He has never been the same since his father died, and well, he just couldn’t do something like this.”
    “What? You mean you are responsible for…that?” Hale said motioning back to the cells.
    “I could have done worse,” she said, eying Hale up and down.
    “I’m sorry , Mrs Bell,” Joe said.
    “ Miss Bell. He couldn’t murder a prostitute. Hell, he couldn’t sleep with one of those, those, women. There must be a mistake. I want you to find who really did this. I will pay you. Look, basically, I have money…”
    “Lady, go and see