The Yellow Hibiscus

Tempest Under 1000 Flash Fiction

Image by Orlando Young

Chapter 4

From the mortuary, Willoby drove us to his office at the 49th Precinct on Eastchester Road between Pelham Gardens and Morris Park in the Bronx. A Peggy Bundy look-alike from “Married with Children” waddled toward us in a tiger-striped spandex full-body jumpsuit, with red hair to boot. She leaned into Willoby’s right ear, and I heard her say, “It’s in the desk drawer.”
He thanked her, and we headed to his office, which looked like a tornado had passed through.
Untidy with greasy brown paper bags all over his desk and on the floor, it smelled even worse than it looked. Empty soda cans spilling out of the greasy white paper bags left sticky spots on his desk. He swooped them up and placed them in a heap in the left corner of the room, seemingly embarrassed.
“Sit down,” he beckoned.
I did, after ensuring that the chair was clean.
He sat facing me, his gaze on the folder he’d yanked from the right drawer of his desk, and proceeded to open.
“Here,” he handed me a black and white photograph of a couple taken years ago. “Have you seen these people before?”
“No,” I responded, staring at two eccentrics decked out in clothes not even Whoopi Goldberg would be caught dead in.
“Okay, then what about these?”
“Oh, yes.” It was a color photograph of my parents when they were younger, much, much younger than I could remember…