SUSPECT: A Murder Mystery

Copyright © 2017

All rights reserved.

*****

THAT MORNING

Alphonso, tired and annoyed, grumbled to himself and cussed Tommy for running off to Staten Island at the last minute and leaving him to handle the details of the job alone. Obviously, Tommy did not care enough about him – no - had not deemed his old dad valuable enough to stick around and watch his back this time. With a deep frown etched into his brow and his facial features set in determined, pained disappointment, Alphonso sighed and shrugged.

Everything will be fine, Tommy had said. To be on the safe side, just go in a few hours early – a detour from routine.

Now as Alphonso rode the highway through morning rush hour traffic, he chastised the windshield wipers with a tongue expert in the art of profanity for their uselessness in the face of such a light downpour because he was forced to squint at the blur of blinking tail lights in their frenzy of stop and go. He laid on his horn and rolled his window down to shout expletives at the car in front of him, grunting as he shifted his weight because his stomach was large enough to easily close the gap between himself and the steering wheel.

It was half past six by the time he left the highway – a chilly, November morning slowly coming to life while waiting for the sun to rise, and he yawned and scanned the street, taking note of the few people standing at bus stops on their way to work early morning shifts. When he made it to the nearly commercial district where he had worked nearly every day for the last twenty years, he began to whistle, turning on Osher Road, the street where his shop sat and where other businesses thrived as well – among them a children's clothing store, a diner, a hair salon, and even a small bakery. For now the street was silent, but later in the day the lane would fill up with people out shopping for the holiday.

Again thinking of Tommy - his only child - Alphonso sighed as he turned into the narrow drive beside his business and then ventured farther back into the old, paved parking lot which serviced the customers of his shop and the other surrounding stores. In his peripheral, a greasy paper bag sat propped up in the passenger seat beside him. After breakfast, he planned on napping until he had to open the shop at nine.

He parked as near to the steel back door of his shop as he could, and before hefting his heavy body from the car (not because he was worried but simply as a precaution) he quickly scanned the empty lot then grabbed Lucille's Special from the seat beside him and hurried from the car.

He didn't notice the men until he had rounded the hood of his sedan. He was only five paces from the door but there was no way that he was going to make it. How had he missed them? It was as if they had materialized from thin air. Tommy...

The right side of his jacket was heavy with the weight of his revolver resting in a pocket not far from his reach and his fingers itched to grab for it. What stopped him was the shotgun pointed level with his face, and though the guy holding the gun seemed a little too jittery to be a pro - or he was a junkie, Alphonso thought – but either way, he decided not to chance it. Shit. What a fine mess this was.

Alphonso slowly removed his watch while speaking to the masked man holding the gun. "Aye man, take what you want."

"Before you even reach for the piece, I'll blow your frickin' head off. I swear I'll do it, man," came the muffled reply.

"Is that you, Joe?" Alphonso paused and his brows rose with disbelief. "What the heck you doing?"

But Alphonso yelped in surprise as a clap of thunder sounded and his assailant fell to the ground at his feet. At the instant his head rose, another clap of thunder sounded, louder this time, and he followed suit, falling to his hands and knees before he was overtaken by dense darkness.