The periodical parakeet

They were fighting again, but this time it was different. Don’t get me wrong. They'd had arguments that were violent in nature, but this was serious. Jim & Eileen were married three years ago to the day and both regretted it immensely. Jim knew what was coming next because she too predictable. Besides, Eileen had no idea she only had minutes to live. The arguments would end today in blissful silence save the occasional bout of chattering from the Parakeet cages. 

Jim had been doing some thinking lately. A lot of thinking and the planning meticulous. He would go about his morning ritual, but for the argument currently consuming the them, to stay on his schedule. He left her standing there mid rant and still in the curlers she wore the night before like some kind of medusa, then went to clean the cages and feed his babies before heading into the office to establish his alibi. He had to keep up appearances.

The office didn't have video surveillance and it was routine of him to work at the office all night without coming home to Eileen, so they wouldn’t even question it. There would be no way to disprove his timeline because he did not sign out of the office log the night before. Jim noticed the birds were a little more agitated than normal when he swapped out the newspaper covering the floor of the cage. Before he was finished, the little blue parakeet started to talk. It was clear as day, word for word, of the argument he had just departed from. The only part that this particular bird decided to share with Jim was his side and omitted his wife's entirely. When he heard this one sided version it alarmed him because the level and tone he engaged in was pretty ruthless and tactless. Anything she might have said in reply would be wholly appropriate.

He drugged her tea and soon he could stage her limp unconscious body into the chair with a little table setting next to it. He would pump her full of her narcotics once she was pliable in order to stage it like a suicide. He peeked into the living room and saw her laying down on the sofa with one arm over her eyes and one leg on the floor. The sight of her just disgusted him more. 

Three hours later, as if on cue, two detectives showed up at his office to inform him and question him so they could close the books on this tragic suicide. He’d arrived early enough to be the first there and once he was in his office there was no reason for anyone to have knocked on his office door with anything mundane.

He was set for the performance of his lifetime. He had an air of arrogant confidence and found himself humming all morning with his new found freedom. He led them in and seated them across his desk in an open gestured way for the sake of appearances. He thought smugly to himself that the sight of them was one big cliché. Trench coats with faded white shirts that looked as if they slept in them and a side arm neatly tucked in a shoulder holster. After cursory introductions they broke the bad news to him and watched him closely for his reaction. 

Detective Reyes started with softball questions to fill in a little history and to also set a pace that would put anyone off their game once subjected to it. He was a master at making people sweat if they were hiding something or thinking they were his best friend. His initial questions were also to ferret out lies and test Jim’s honesty because he already knew the answers. It got them every time.  So, imagine Jim’s surprise when he asked, “What’s the name of the talkative blue parakeet?” and “did his wife do any care and feeding of the birds?”

For once Jim was speechless and this raised the eyebrow of Detective Reyes for Jim to see. “Stick to the game plan.” Jim said to himself. He denied being home since yesterday morning and the bird's name was “Balls”, as in “Blue Balls”.

Again, with the eyebrow from Reyes! The Detective changed tact and asked if anyone would have been in the home during his absence that he would have been aware of? These were not questions Jim thought the police would ask in a routine suicide investigation. He got some of his swagger back and turned the table on Reyes. He started asking questions about the nature of the inquiry and probing. He asked with outrage since they are dealing with an obvious suicide. The eyebrow yet again, but this time Reyes held up his hand in his own gesture, silence.

Reyes got his message across and began anew. Now the questions came at him in rapid fire procession after a brief acknowledgement that they have a witness. It was as if he was reading them from one of those little spiral notepads they always carried, (thinking of clichés again) except the questions were more like statements he made in his argument with his wife. The same one the bird repeated verbatim while cleaning its cage. He instantly knew who the witness was, but was utterly helpless without tipping his hand that he knew it was a bird. Instead, Detective Reyes got all fatherly and told him a story. “When my son was eight, I got him 2 parakeets in a nice cage for Christmas because he asked for them. Do you know they can be trained to speak and mimic the things you say? It's the damnedest thing, they repeat everything they hear around them?  It’s quite astonishing the full range those little pea sized brains can recite! Those little birds would also get me in trouble every now and then because of my swearing out loud in front of them. Yeah, can’t say I really liked the birds around. It was like a bug we plant for someone under investigation.”

Reyes knew. He knew because of the damn bird. He should have wrung its neck, but sad to say, he didn’t think of that then. Jim started to change his story when Detective Reyes held up his silence hand and stopped him mid excuse. He reached down and picked up his briefcase, and then put it onto the table between them and opened it. He pulled out a couple of evidence bags he’d transported back to the station from the crime scene and threw them one by painful one onto the tabletop. All Jim could do was watch this parade, and his bravado that was so evident upon the detectives arrival dissipated in front of them like a smoke ring into oblivion.

His mind was racing and his armpits became drenched in sweat while he was trying to process the lies he told and how he would twist his way past this one. 

“So, this is what we know at the present” Detective Reyes began.

“Your alibi is on shaky ground Jim! You say you’ve been here all night and that there would not have been any reason for her to be with anyone else. She was alone. Yet, imagine our surprise when the bird started to talk. At first, we thought it was a little annoying, but it all started to make more sense the longer it spoke. You say that you are the only one in that household that takes care of the day to day care and feeding of the birds. Yet, the cage fully stocked. If there was no one else but you taking care of the birds, then why isn’t the cage littered with food and waste?” Reyes asked, while making an emphatic gesture with his finger on the plastic evidence bags containing newspaper pages with today’s date on them. 

“I can’t!”  Jim admitted

It was bad enough that he was brought down by a bird but it was worse when Blue started again with the one-sided argument in all its splendor and venom. 

Detective Reyes asked him to stand and turn around as he pulled out his handcuffs and started to read him his rights to remain silent.  He sure wished the bird had.