Ishmael Wallace

'Wassup?' she asked him turning around.

'If you don't mind me asking, V: why do you talk…' he browsed her up and down, '…and dress like that?'

She grinned. 'Talk like what?'

'Your vocabulary is a little…your English…' he was trying to find a way to say it more politely, 'Your English; it sounds like it's not from around here.'

'I grew up in Breechwood. Spent more than half my life there. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that there are more blacks than whites there. The blacks there use that kind of language. I don't know why but those are the kinds of people I was exposed ta. People like Doreen left the neighbourhood about ten, or was it eleven years ago with their word skills still intact. And as for how I dress…' she looked down at her feet. She wiggled her toes. 'I always feel a lot more at peace when I show a little more skin.'

'And another question…if you grew up with black people…why did you hate me?'

'I never hated you because of your colour, Murph. I only hated you coz you was weird.' She winked at him, turned around and began to walk away.

Sineas smiled, watching her bare feet softly pat the thoroughly polished floor, moving farther and farther away. If only you knew how weird I think you are, Bubblegum girl, he thought to himself. If only you knew.

'I don't believe this, sir,' Deputy James told his superior from the passenger seat. They were now only two minutes away from the neighbourhood of Belvet, the home of Ishmael Wallace, Janice Murphy's ex-husband. James flipped the letter over twice. He had read it fourteen times already. 'But who could have written it?' he asked the inspector.

Inspector Charles gently stepped on the brakes when they reached the traffic lights. They were now a minute away. 'Who knows, James? I can't seem to place my finger on it but I could bet it's the Murphys.'

'Sir, are you forgetting that we retrieved one of Sineas' class test papers, a hand written letter by his aunt and his mother's diary? None of them match this one.' He flipped it over again. He began to read it for the fifteenth time.

The lights turned green and they took a right. They had now arrived in Belvet. A few more seconds of driving and the inspector finally parked the car by the sidewalk.

James was still drooling over the letter. 'Do you think it's legit, sir?'

'What?' asked the inspector turning off the ignition.

'Do you think whoever left this at your doorstep is telling the truth or it's just a prank?'

He shrugged. 'But if there's anything of value I've learnt in this business, James, it's that no one is trustworthy. It could be a prank, it could be real, or it could be someone trying to shift the blame onto someone else, to distract our focus.'

'But after they've promised us compelling evidence, sir?' he said shaking the paper violently in his hand.

The inspector got out of the car and James followed suit. They both banged their doors shut.

The inspector said, 'I guess we're going to find out in two days just how compelling this evidence is. In the meantime, the investigations continue.'

James nodded in agreement, returning the letter inside the envelope.

The two police officers began to slowly make their way towards what was supposedly Ishmael Wallace's house, if "house" was even the proper term for it. All four windows of the flat had been broken and three had been plastered with masking tape. The fourth was yet to be repaired. The red colour of the roof had started to fade probably ten to fifteen years ago. The grass around the small heavily creviced driveway was now at least six inches high, a sign that the owner was neglecting his duties. Charles immediately remembered the lawn around his house. The lawn he had promised his wife he would cut… 'just let me close this case,' he had said. 'Let me close this case and you will see this grass no more.' His wife had begun to hate her husband's job. Especially this "case". It was taking away the time they would have normally spent together.

The two officers walked up the porch. Inspector Charles looked over his shoulder at James who was standing at the bottom step. He knocked twice.

There was no answer.

He knocked three more times.

No response.

He looked over his shoulder at his deputy. 'Are you sure we're at the right house?' he asked him.

James immediately began searching for something in his pockets. 'Positive, sir.' He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from one of his jacket pockets. 'Ishmael Derrick Wallace. Number 5 Reagon Drive, Belvet.'

The inspector turned to knock again. He heard a key turn in the keyhole from the other side of the door. He took a step back. He looked down at his deputy and nodded.

James nodded back.

The door was finally opened by a frail, white man probably in his early or mid forties. His hair was braided and had been dyed into a brown colour. He had a narrow, bony face with a black goatee and he was wearing a stained vest that was sagging on his body, khaki shorts, also stained and his feet were filthy brown and bare.

'Ishmael Wallace?' the inspector asked.

The man grinned and he rested his shoulder at the edge of the doorframe. He folded his arms. 'At your service. Or is it, "to protect and to service? Or serve"?' He shrugged, 'Never mind, I don't speak Pig. You must be the swine who wanted to talk to me about my ex-wife, Jenny, aren't you?'

'You mean Janice Murphy, right?' asked the inspector.

'I know what I said and what I meant, pig. I called her Jenny back when we were still married, about…' he turned his eyes to the sky, '...yeah, fifteen years ago. I was twenty-nine at the time and Jenny was a fine black rose at twenty-two.' He moved his shoulder from the frame and looked down at the two police officers. 'So, what can I do for you, boys?'

Inspector Charles said, 'Do you mind if we come in? We'd like to ask you a couple of questions.'

He leaned against the doorframe again, his arms still folded. 'You do know where you are, right, pigs? This is Belvet, the meanest neighbourhood in the city. Here, bringing a pig into your house is fellowship with one.'

'Can you please not call us that?' said James. 'We're respectable officers of the law, Mr. Wallace and…'

Ishmael immediately began to laugh. The laugh was not only spiteful, but it was very loud. It sounded more like a shriek than a laugh.

Charles and James waited patiently for him to finish. James looked greatly annoyed. It was as if he was beginning to regret having told the inspector about this man in the first place.

Ishmael finally said, 'Respectable what? As far as Belvet is concerned, you're both pigs!' he said still laughing. 'The cops here are as corrupt and respectable as a priest in a strip club.'

'So we'll have this conversation out here then?' asked the inspector.

Ishmael perused them up and down for a good while. He grinned, his hands outstretched in welcome. 'Come on in, pigs! I'll put the teakettle on the stove and I'll rustle up some biscuits too. I'd throw in some sausages but for you, that would be cannibalism.' He laughed again, stepping aside and opening the door wider for them. ' "Respectable officers of the law",' he chortled as they both walked in, 'You boys wouldn't last a day in Belvet. Breechwood used to be as tough as we are but I guess it grew soft.'