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Notes Chapter four; a story for Angell. Please review, we love to hear from you! Thank you for all reviews, alerts and favourites :D Please continue reviewing! We hope you enjoy this chapter. 'Colly birds', by the way, are blackbirds. The line is sometimes sung as 'calling birds', but we've gone for the original.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Four colly birds
Three French hens
Two turtle doves
And a partridge in a pear tree.
Four Colly Birds
"And you have a stuffed snake on your desk because…?"
Jessica Angell lifted her eyebrows and felt her lips twitch in amusement at Flack's disconcerted expression. With two fingers she picked up the violently green object and held it aloft, turning it to take in all of its lurid plush appearance. Just returned from a scene in the Bronx, she still wore her winter coat, and the draughts in the precinct were not encouraging her to remove it.
"Messer felt the need to give me a Christmas gift." Flack shrugged, "Would've been rude not to accept."
"Say no more." Angell chuckled, "I know he'd appreciate you displaying it on your desk for all to see…"
Too quick for the grab Flack made at the snake, she twirled it out of his reach and studied its embroidered eyes and patterns of yellow diamonds; it was curled into coils with a lopsided velvet tongue hanging out of its mouth, and there was a definite look of Vaudeville wickedness in its face, possibly due to one eye being stitched slightly smaller than the other and its red thread lips curving upwards in a sly grin.
Angell dangled it in front of him, "You know, I don't think this is any old snake, Don."
"Really? What kind of a snake is it then?" He snatched at it half-heartedly, "And since when do you know so much about reptiles?"
"There's an answer I could give to that, relating to time spent in other precincts, but I won't bore you with the details." She gave him a wry grin, "Let's just say this creature's got nothing on some of the cops I've worked alongside for reptilian creepiness." With an exaggerated shudder, she flicked the little piece of velvet hanging out of the toy's mouth, "Or the inability to keep certain parts of their anatomy out of the equation."
Flack's face darkened, "Want to tell me who?
"They're long retired, and after I took certain actions, there was never any bother from them again." It was with much satisfaction that she remembered exactly how she had dealt with an older and very lecherous detective in the first precinct she worked in. Also satisfying was the nod of understanding, and approval, that Flack gave her.
"You going to stand there holding that thing all day, or you going to sit down and tell me about your case, as you were about to before Danny's gift distracted you?"
He hooked a chair with his foot and dragged it closer.
After dropping into it with a grin, she held the snake out to him, "Here, better take your anaconda and keep it safe. Don't want it tangling anyone up in its coils. Could prove fatal."
"It's an anaconda, huh?" He made no move to take it from her.
She smirked, enjoying his amused bewilderment, and that she had been able to bring a smile to his face; it had been missing too often in recent weeks.
"Absolutely. Very distinctive markings. You got yourself a predator there, Don."
"No way this thing's going to be preying on me, Jess. Messer, maybe. Should've seen the look on his face when he pushed this at me and told me I had to open it right there and then…"
"I can imagine the look on your face."
Angell finally dropped the snake back onto the desk where it seemed to slither by itself on its plush over to him. A final poke sent it over the edge and into Flack's lap, "Watch yourself. That little guy has a certain look. Probably wants to eat you…"
"Wouldn't like the taste of New York detective; too tough and stringy." Flack cocked his head at her and plopped the snake back in its original position, where it leaned drunkenly on its furry coils.
"You think?" Angell smirked, "On that theme, you want to grab something to eat? I can tell you more about the case over lunch."
"Sounds good." He grinned and stood up in an instant.
Leaving the grey of the precinct, they headed out in the silver glittered streets towards a diner they frequented whenever time allowed; its proximity to the precinct made it ideal, and the service - the owners knowing that most of their custom came from New York's finest - was speedy and reliable. They passed beneath trees bare of leaves and shivering, but as Angell looked up, she heard notes of song from an invisible blackbird.
Inside the diner, Angell placed their order before joining Flack in one of the orange leather booths; it took only a few minutes for their food to arrive.
"So tell me about your case." He leaned back and stretched his arm across the back of the seat after swooping a handful of fries into his mouth.
Angell picked up a napkin and began to fold it, "Scene was one of the community gardens in the Bronx, vic was a volunteer there."
It was still fresh in her mind as she described it; a small slip of land between two apartment blocks, overlooked by grim brown walls, but glowing with winter colour and carefully tended shrubs and plants. A plot not much bigger than a back yard, but one that was made great with the love and pride that was evident in the swept gravel paths and the smell of a recently painted fence.
The other detail that had struck her was the noise, or lack of it. Somehow, the situation of the garden cut it off from the cacophony of city traffic; and enabled the song of birds and the murmur of breeze through evergreens to be heard. A plane tree stood in a far corner and from amongst its boughs, a bird had flung joyful notes of song that trilled and echoed.
"We have a garden, we have trees, we have birdsong; sounds idyllic. What about your vic?"
"That's where it gets interesting." Taking a sip of coffee, Angell recalled him, "Seventy five, long retired, and according to himself, the garden is what keeps him going. No." She took note of Flack's tilted eyebrows, "I haven't been conversing with the dead, the guy was alive, if not at his best; attempted robbery, and assault, but something had scared them off. Which is the interesting part of my story."
"You got me hooked, Jess."
"He'd come down early morning to get in a little digging before lunch, and had been working away oblivious to anything else, as he told me, when a noise startled him…"
The old man had told his tale to her as they both sat on a rustic bench watched by four beady eyed blackbirds with orange beaks, who had settled in various positions around the garden; one of them had flown down from the tree and perched on the back of the bench, and seemed to have no fear of the two humans so close to him. If she was inclined to, Angell could have almost believed the tiny creature had assessed her, and found her to be no threat.
After refusing her offer of having his injuries looked over, the old man had insisted he was only a little shaken, and needed to tell her what had happened. He was old and frail looking with trembling leaves of hands and cobweb wisps of hair that his fingers ran through as he talked. But his eyes were bright even as he talked, and as he had waved his hand around at the work that was due to his hands alone in the garden, she could see the strength behind his fragile appearance.
As she told the tale to Flack, Angell continued to fold the napkin in her fingers, "Seemed he'd forgotten to lock the gate, which is his usual practice when working alone. He told me he heard the gate open, someone come up the gravel path, and as soon as he turned round to see who it was, he was knocked to the ground."
"He get a look at them?"
"First thing I asked him, and the answer was not really." Angell replied and her fingers continued their movement, "All happened too quickly. He remembers a guy in a light coloured jersey, dark pants, and that's about it."
Flack frowned, "Much as I'm enjoying listening to you telling me this, I'm still not hearing what was so interesting about this case."
"I'm getting to the good bit, Don." Her fingers stilled for a moment on the napkin whilst she took another sip of coffee, "He remembers looking up at the guy, not seeing much, as his glasses had been knocked off when he fell, then the next thing, a blur of feathers flew over his head."
"Feathers?" If Flack's eyebrows could go any higher, they would have disappeared off the top of his head. It made Angell grin.
"Feathers. Belonging to birds."
"Birds. Of course."
His look of outright disbelief was the same she remembered her own face falling into when the old man had told the rest of his tale. All the while, the blackbird perched on the back of the bench had watched her intently and his three companions had hopped their way closer and closer to them; until one had flown up to sit on the handle of the spade that leaned against the bench, the second positioned itself between the old man's feet, and the third hopped on top of a heap of leaf mould at the side of the bench.
Angell continued to relate the story to her colleague, "According to him, there was a lot of squawking, feathers flying, a guy yelling and then footsteps running away."
"Feathers flying?"
"What he said. I know what you're thinking, but I'm telling you, Don, this guy was sincere." She remembered his words exactly.
"They helped me; returning favours you see, Missy. I help 'em out by digging when the ground's too hard for their little beaks to hunt out worms, and in return, they helped me today. Got their beaks and claws out and saw him off."
She received the reaction she expected from Flack; a snort and a shaking of his head, "Birds flying to the rescue? Don't think so. Nice tale, but come on, seriously? You got an old man knocked on the head, something startles the perp away, and the old man thinks it was birds. Sounds to me as if he's been spending too much time on his own gardening with only wildlife for company."
Angell finished folding the paper napkin and covered it with her hands whilst she stared at Flack with a half-smile, "He knows what he saw, and if that's what he wants to believe, there's no harm in that."
Flack lifted his hands, "It's an interesting story, I'll give you that." He looked more closely at her, "You believe him."
"I believe what I saw, and I saw a man who believed what he was telling me." She had also seen, as she stood to leave after taking down all the man had to say to her, how the four little birds with jet black eyes and orange beaks had fluttered round the old man, hovering no more than a few feet away from him as he moved stiffly to accompany her to the garden gate. After walking away she had turned on impulse to see him standing watching, with a smile on his weathered features and three of the blackbirds lined up along the fence. The fourth, she saw with a catching of her breath, stood on the old man's hand which rested on the top of the gate. She had walked away with brisk steps, holding the image in her mind.
"Stranger things have happened in New York City, Don. You know that."
He humphed and swallowed the last bite of his fries, "Maybe. Doesn't mean I got to believe this though." He stood up, "You ready to go?"
Her coffee had cooled so she left the cup half-full on the table, and followed Flack, pausing only to pick up the folded napkin.
The walk back to the precinct was over too soon, and the instant they reached Flack's desk, Angell was handed details of a scene at the opposite end of the city.
"Could be an open and shut case…"
Angell snorted, "Nice thought Don, but I won't hold my breath." Giving a last spin to the stuffed toy on his desk, she grinned, "Catch you later. Enjoy your paperwork."
"I will, and make sure you watch out for predators." Flack picked up the snake and shook it at her
"Funny." She walked away shaking her head in amusement.
As she reached the doors, she glanced backwards at Flack; the sight of him carefully rearranging the coils of the plush snake on his desk put a smile on her face that lasted all the way to the crime scene. And on the dashboard of her car, waiting to be given to bring a smile to his face when she saw him later, sat a black paper napkin folded by nimble fingers into the shape of a bird.
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