The Old Woman

Detective Bell stood outside the interrogation room thumbing through the folder. He had seen some sick things in his time, but nothing compared to this. How could anyone do such a thing? He heard approaching footsteps and glanced up. His partner, detective Roger End, was strolling down the corridor.

“Have you read this?” Detective Bell asked.

“Nope,” answered End. “Just heard the uniformed officers who brought her in bumped it over to us for some reason.”

Bell held out the file. “You should read this before we go in.”

End shook his head. “No time. I’ll read it when you start. Gotta wrap this one up quick. We’ve had a sighting of that Goldy Girl. SWAT is gearing up as we speak.”

“I really think you should look at the file first.”

“Oh, come on. It’s probably nothing we haven’t seen before.”

Bell sighed. End was too stubborn for his own good and he’d suffer for it before the morning was over. Bell opened the door and they both entered the interrogation room. An old woman sat behind a long, metal table. She was cuffed and chained to a hook in the centre. This normally made perps nervous. But this old woman seemed more amused than afraid. She reminded him of his grandmother, small and chubby, rosy-red cheeks and a smell of cookies.

Bell sat on a chair opposite her. Even though there were two chairs on this side of the table, his partner chose to stand, leaning against the wall next to the two-way glass mirror. Bell cleared his throat. He had to ask some standard formal questions first. But there was only one question on his mind: why would someone do such a thing?

“State your name?”

She smiled. “My name is Patricia Farm.”

Bell felt his blood boil. How could she be so calm? She knew what she had done. There was a witness who had seen it. Yet here she was, acting as if what she had done was normal.

Bell took a deep breath and continued. “And for the record, where do you live?”

“Oh, I live at 4333 Turnpike Drive, my dear. Yes, that’s where I live. It’s a lovely house, so warm and cosy. I take good care of it. You should come and visit some ti--”

Bell jumped up with such force the chair he was sitting on shot across the room and crashed into the wall behind him. “How can you act so normal after what you’ve done?”

“I don’t understand,” she said. Her face looked so innocent it deserved to be punched.

“You understand me perfectly. Do you deny what you did?” Bell slammed his hand on the table. “Don’t you dare. We have a witness. He saw everything. We’ve got you. We’ve got you real good.”

End coughed. “Bell, don’t you think you’re being a bit too hard on her. You can see she probably didn’t mean to do it. It was more than likely just a mistake. A mix-up. There’s probably a very reasonable explanation.”

Bell glared at his partner. “Oh, a reasonable explanation? You think there’s a reasonable explanation?” He turned back to the old woman. “Well, is there?”

“Well I just ....”

“Just what?” Bell shouted. “Come on, tell us? Admit what you did."

“Detective Bell,” End said, raising his voice. “Calm down, she’s just an old woman. Look how sweet and frail she is.”

“Well,” said the old woman all sweet and frail like, “it felt right.”

Detective Bell’s eyes widened. He had her. She couldn’t get out of it now. “So you admit what you did?”

“I just wanted to....”

Bell slammed both hands onto the table and leaned in towards her. “Go on, say it. Tell us what you did.”

The old woman looked up at Bell and smiled. “Well, my dear, I swallowed a fly.”

End dropped the file he’d been holding. “You did what?”

The woman looked at End. “I swallowed a fly.”

All the blood drained from End’s face. Then, without warning, he doubled over and vomited all over the interrogation room floor. Bell ran over and grabbed his arm to stop him from falling. End pushed Bell away so he could look the old woman in the eyes. “You sick, disgusting old woman. How could you?”

The woman chuckled. “I don’t know why I swallowed the fly. But I was sure I’d die.”