Behind Closed Doors: a story in 60 seconds
You never know what's hiding on the other side
“911. Do you need police, fire, or medical?”
“Oh, medical, I guess,” the man squeaked through the phone. “But I wouldn’t call it an emergency. It’s just, well, I think my neighbor might be dead.”
The dispatcher asked, “Why do you say that?”
“Well, I haven’t seen her out in a long while, and her newspapers are piling up.”
“Maybe she’s on vacation?”
The man cleared his throat. “No, I don’t think so. Mrs. Birtle was never one for traveling.”
“Right. Okay, we’ll look into it,” the dispatcher replied somewhat reluctantly. “What’s the address?”
“362 Pine Bluff Road.”
“Got it. Anything else we should know?”
The man didn’t speak right away. “I’m not sure if this is relevant,” he began, “but Mrs. Birtle had two big dogs—Toffee and Mr. Rex.”
“No observation is too trivial,” the dispatcher remarked for what sounded like the tenth-thousandth time. “Alright, I’m sending a couple of officers over to take a look.”
An hour and a half later, two police officers rolled up to 362 Pine Bluff Road.
“Certainly, looks like the house of a dead lady,” one said to the other. He pointed to the stack of newspapers next to the front door. “Must be about two dozen.”
The other officer nodded quietly.
“God, I really hope she ain’t dead,” he continued. “I don’t want to deal with a compost heap my first week back from St. Barts.”
“You can wait in the car,” the female officer reminded him. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He shook his head and started up the cracked cement walkway toward the front of the house. He kicked away some of the newspapers. His fellow officer came up alongside him and rang the doorbell.
Nothing.
She hammered the door with her fist. “Mrs. Birtle? Police. Can you come to the door?”
No answer.
The officers looked at one another.
“Should we see if the back is open?” he asked.
“Let’s just go in the front. But you may want to put on some StinkBalm first.”
He nodded. “Good idea. I remember this one time a cat lady had been dead for a week, and by the time we got there, she didn’t have a face: no eyeballs, no tongue, no nothing.”
The female officer shouted one more time. ““Mrs. Birtle! You in there? It’s the police; we’re just checking in!”
No answer.
The male officer shrugged. He stepped back and prepared to ram through the door when, all of a sudden, the handle began to twist, and a shriveled old woman wearing a pink cotton t-shirt and wrinkled tan slacks appeared in the doorway.
“What do you want?” she asked in between coughs.
“Mrs. Birtle?”
“Yes?”
The female officers stepped forward. “Someone called 911. They were worried you might be in trouble.” She motioned toward the ground. “You haven’t picked up your mail in a while.”
Mrs. Birtle bent down shakily and grabbed a newspaper. Then another. Then another. She handed them to the officers. “They’re all from today, detectives.”
The two officers looked at each other.
The woman shouted over her shoulder: “Dylan! You come downstairs right now!”
A few seconds later, a man who looked around thirty stood before them. He began to bark and growl at the officers. They took a step back.
“Dylan,” Mrs. Birtle scolded. “Did you call 911 again and say mommy died?!”
“Mommy is dead!” he cried. “Dead to me! And my name isn’t Dylan! It’s Toffee!”