"Let's step over here for a second…what is your name, Sir?"
Carefully ushering the excitable senior to the sidewalk and away from traffic, Mike shared a surprised glance with his partner, as both detectives gathered around their newest witness.
"Harold's the name. Harold Neem. I live on the…on the third floor in the building over there…"
Pointing at the downtrodden apartment complex on the north end of 11thAvenue, the man shrugged insecurely and licked his lips, before speaking up again.
"Well, I just don't know if it helps you folks at all, it's just that…I seen a car leave way too fast from here yesterday. I was…see…I live alone. Ever since my wife died and I had to move down here, life has been a lot quieter…"
Mike nodded in understanding, skillfully disguising his impatience in front of the old man, as he gestured for Steve to pull out his notebook and write down anything worthwhile.
"As I was reading the paper by my window, the ehm…the political section of the San Francisco Telegraph, Max started to bark. Max is my…my dog. Tiny little Maltese dog. I found him down here in that alley a year or so ago. Anyways, he never just barks. He must have seen something that upset him very much."
"So what do you think it was that he saw?", Mike tried in an effort to speed up the conversation, smiling faintly at his partner who was eagerly waiting to take notes.
"Well, I couldn't be sure. See, Max is a very diligent little dog. Whatever it was, it must have been bad. When he wouldn't quit barking, I got up to check on things, because see, my downstairs neighbor, Misses Ellis, she don't like him barking up a storm. One time, he barked at a prowler, I am sure it was a prowler. Middle of the night. But she complained about him at the rental office. And they told me to figure out a way to quiet him down or I would have to get rid of him. Anyways, I got up, put the paper down and looked out the window…"
"And what did you see?", both detectives asked in unison, the fight to disguise their impatience growing more unbearable by the second.
"Well…I saw a car.", Harold said, visibly shaken and ran a hand over his sweaty forehead, "It was green. Bright green. A Buick I think. A Skylark. It was just flying down our road and then turned west on Lake Street. Very, very rude."
"Sir, did you see the driver?", Steve asked in professional courtesy and wrote down the make and model of their suspect vehicle.
"No, son. See, if you look down from the third floor, things are very small, you know. And I can't see particularly well. I ruined my eyes working at the shoe store down on 4th and Carbillo for many years, running the sewing machines back in the 40's. You're too young, you wouldn't know Fletcher's Shoe Shoppe anymore. They closed down fifteen years ago I think."
"Did you notice anything else on the car perhaps? Dents? Any strange noises it made?", Mike tried, hoping to steer the conversation back toward their case.
"Nothing out of the ordinary, Lieutenant. Just that it was green and driving fast. See, I didn't think much of it, other than the fact that it was a very, very rude driver. I sat back down to take a nap and when I woke up, the entire street was shut down and there were police cars everywhere. That's when I knew Max had been right all along and something bad had happened."
"Mhm hm.", Mike mumbled, his blue eyes squinted to tight slats as he looked back and forth between the man's apartment and the road, "Say, why didn't you tell the officers about this yesterday?"
"Well, I was going to.", Harold justified and crossed his arms in front of his chest in obvious defiance, "Walked all the way downstairs, but Lew stopped me. Lew Riggs. He's the Senior Apartment Complex Representative, or at least he calls himself that…"
Glancing up, Mike caught his partner quietly mouthing the odd title and make a brief notation in his book, before shaking his head.
"He ehm…well, I don't know how to best say that in front of you folks…he told me to hold off. Said that the cop handling the case was a real prick. Very rude. One of those young chaps that have no respect for the elderly, you know. Not like the two of you. And you know how it is; one bad apple ruins it for all of them."
