Interrogation Of A Suspicious Citizen

Flash Fiction by Bill Kitcher

I was standing around, as usual, doing nothing, but this time in front of my house, when a cop car pulled into the driveway. Two cops got out of the car. They appeared to me to be as large as elephants, one even bigger than the other, with the same type of faces, but faces that didn’t reflect elephants’ intelligence.

They lumbered over to me. “How ya doin’?” said the bigger one who appeared to be the lead pachyderm.

“I’m OK,” I said. “How are you?”

“Never mind the smartass remarks,” said the other one, whose ears reminded me of Dumbo. I immediately thought of the lead as “Jumbo”. Jumbo and Dumbo. I liked the rhyme as well as the references.

“I’m just being polite,” I said.

“Let’s see your ID,” said Jumbo.

“This is Ontario,” I said. “You’re not allowed to ask me for ID. This might be a thing all across Canada, come to think of it. We’re not required to carry identification papers in this country, as is the case in some other countries, so I can conclude only that, if you’re not required to carry ID, it’s likely that police officers aren’t allowed to ask for it. I don’t know the technical and legal details. I don’t know if the Supreme Court has had to rule on this.”

That stopped them for a moment, then Dumbo said, “Do you have your ID on you?” He’d apparently tuned out about three words into my previous speech.

“No, sir,” I said. “I’m not sure I even have any ID inside my house.”

They looked at each other and then Dumbo took out his notebook and a stub of a pencil, and wrote something down.

Damn, I thought, the police can’t even afford pens. Or perhaps it was because he didn’t know how to use one – those “push” things are pretty complicated.

“So you’re saying you don’t have any ID.” It was way more of a statement than a question.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “May I ask what this is about?”

“You resemble someone we’re looking for,” said Jumbo. “There was a break-and-enter at the jewelry store around the corner last night.”

“I see,” I said. “May I see a photo of your suspect?”

Dumbo took his phone out, and pressed the screen at least a dozen times before a photo appeared which he put in my face. I have to say it looked a lot like me, but the man in the photo was twenty years older than I am. The suspect had a full beard and I can’t grow one at all. I had no idea if I could ever grow one so bushy.

“That’s not me,” I said. “For one thing, look at the beard.”

“Maybe you shaved it off,” said Jumbo.

I was about to respond to that idiocy when my dad came out of our house and said, “What’s going on, officers?”

“Do you know this young man?”

“Yes,” said Dad. “He’s my son.”

Jumbo and Dumbo exchanged glances. Jumbo said, “Do you have a criminal record?”

Dad sighed. “You could look it up if you wanted to, or knew how to do that.”

“No need for sarcasm, sir,” said Dumbo.

“I suppose not,” said Dad. “I apologize. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I have to drive my son to Cubs, so if you could remove your cruiser from my driveway, I’d appreciate that.”

We drove in silence for a while, and then I said, “Dad, where were you last night?”

He didn’t respond but just stroked his beard, which I think was an answer.

At Cubs, we learned a few knots that I thought might come in handy one day, and then we played floor hockey.

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Bio: Bill Kitcher’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Germany, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, the U.S., and Wales. His comic noir novel, “Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep”, the second funniest novel ever written, was published in 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing, and is available on Amazon.

Cover photo by Pexels/cottonbro studios

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