The two officers had their fingers looped around their belt loops and looked at Dante as if they were looking down on him, even though Dante was the one so clearly towering over the two.
The one on the left looked like a cop out of a buddy cop movies, very thin and frail with a handlebar mustache and opaque black sunglasses that were probably intended to make him seem more serious and intense, but came across comical.
The one on the right was the kind of police officer one would expect to meet, the stereotypical cop with the obvious beer belly and hairless head. His hand seemed almost incomplete without the donut.
Their muddy patrol cars sat in the front, driven into a bit of Mrs. Garcia's green lawn. These cops were nothing like the intense, buff cop that had pulled them over a couple of days ago, but the flashbacks still raced through his mind. He could only imagine what it must have been like in Freddie's mind.
"Hey Freddie, maybe you should go back inside. I got it from here," Dante said slowly, maintaining eye contact with the police and making sure his disdain was clear in his tone. Freddie mumbled something incoherent before backing away from the front door.
"Is there a Mr. or Mrs. Garcia home now?" The handlebar mustache policeman asked, trying to seem much more intimidating than he was. They hadn't even bothered introducing themselves to him, so he decided he would call them Officer Handlebar and Officer Donut.
"If you're looking for a Mr. Garcia, I can help you, but if you're looking for my dad, he's out of town. Mom's out too."
The two policemen whispered to themselves and came back to Dante, "Yes, you can help. We're looking for a boy named Manuel Garcia. We caught him on video robbing a corner store with his friends last night."
Dante chortled at the idea, "Yeah, I don't know who you think you saw, but it wasn't my brother."
"Really? Are you sure about that?" Officer Donut asked condescendingly. He pulled a photo from his black file and handed it to Dante. It was a still from surveillance video footage. In it, Dante saw a convenience store that looked like a tornado had run through it. The cash register was left open and three kids in hoodies pulled up over their heads were running out of the shop with fistfuls of cash as the owner chased after them with a broom, most likely the closest weapon in reach when he'd noticed he was being robbed.
Dante felt his stomach drop when he saw that one of the kids was, in fact, Manny. He was looking straight into the camera with a look of dread. Dante tried to speak, say anything, but nothing came out.
"Dante, is everything okay?" Naya asked, putting her arms on Dante's shoulder.
He hadn't even heard her sneak up on him, but he was glad she had. Dante put his arm around her waist as if he was grabbing on to an anchor to keep him from drowning in the rush of emotions he was feeling. He felt his anger and fear subside with her by his side.
"Uh," Dante cleared his throat, "They're saying Manny was in on some robbery. They want to know if he's here."
Naya was taken aback by the accusation. Questions filled her mind, the main ones having to do with this being a mistake, a simple misunderstanding, but she saw the black and white picture in Dante's hand that fluttered with the gentle breeze. There wasn't much room for interpretation in the image with Manny's face clear as day even though it was on a pixelated photo. Now wasn't the time to play judge and jury though, she thought. Naya put on a brave face and fake smile that Gloria would have been proud of and said, "Sorry officers, but he isn't here."
The two policemen shifted on their feet, fighting the urge to just push them aside and search the place themselves, but the case wasn't high profile enough for them to get away with that. Instead, Officer Handlebar, noticing Naya and Dante's comfortability with each other, and deciding that he didn't like Dante very much, asked Naya, "Miss, could we please see some ID. Just to make sure there isn't any funny business going on." Dante laughed with exasperation as the officer eyed him suspiciously.
Naya looked up at Dante with a knowing look. "Uh, my driver's license was in my phone case, and uh… my phone was in my back pocket last night. Did we happen to ever find it?" She asked, her code only making Dante seem guiltier of crimes he hadn't committed.
Gloria went into the nearby coat closet and pulled out a neatly stacked pile of her clothes and belongings from the night before. "Sorry hun, but we couldn't get the phone to work," Gloria explained empathetically.
Naya nodded her head understandingly. It's not like she was really expecting it to work after all that it had been though. She plucked her phone from the top and pulled the case open, producing a still wet drivers license. She gave it to Officer Handlebar, who examined it thoroughly.
His eyebrows quickly creased with tension and scratched the few hairs that made up his stubble. He whispered to Officer Donuts, who rubbed circles in his bald head, his face contorted with the same tension in his partner's face. The two whispered between each other, arguing with each other in hushed voices. Naya and Dante looked at the two incompetent officers with disbelief and anxiousness.
"Just making sure, but your name is Nandita Das?" one of them asked.
"That's what it says on the ID," Naya replied.
"Okay then. Just give me a minute." Officer Donuts excused himself back to his patrol car, and was communicating on his radio for another five minutes before he came back, looking like he was suffering an episode of IBS. Finally, he reached the front porch again. He looked wildly uncomfortable, rubbing the rolls on his neck nervously.
"Okay, I don't like doing this, and I wasn't expecting to do this today, but we got people looking for you right now. There was a hit and run on Maple Road. We identified the victims as your parents, Gautum and Sonia Das. We're so sorry, but they didn't survive."