Daze Of Wine and Murder!

A quiet Friday Night...Sepia and I started to go to Josies and hang out...but somehow , we didn't make it... I had two bottles of wine in the refrigerator on tap just in case....As in just in case we didn't feel like going out like tonight... I opened a bottle of wine....POP!  was the sound of the cork coming off and wine bubbled up and ran down the side of the bottle.

''Ouuu Kevin!" laughed Sepia...

'It's on baby!" I laughed as I poured two flutes of wine for us both!

We lay in front of the fireplace , Sepia in my arms...both of drinking red wine.... Sepia had on an orange sheer slip and I was in my bathrobe...We kissed a little and sipped a little more...It seemed like the more we sipped, the more we kissed and fooled around... the less likely we were to get dressed...

"Mmmmmm..why so frisky tonight lover?" asked Sepia as I kissed down her neck and then up the side of her neck...

"You complaining?" I asked with a sly grin...

'Not at all....but it's already 11:00 pm...I don't think we are going to make it to Josie's tonight." she giggled as she began kissing me passionately.... I rolled over on top of her....

"No ,I don't think we are going to make it there either....That's okay...there is always tomorrow night." I smiled as I parted her legs and opened up my bathrobe and began to slowly enter her.....

''Ouuuuuuu..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...this feels good." she moaned...

"Yes lawddd." I exclaimed...

"Ohh shut up..." she giggled as I began moving in and out at a slow deliberate pace..I wanted to savor every moment!

''Ouuuuuuuuu Kevin, you feel so goooooooooood." she cooed.

It had been a good six weeks since my last cases....In which I was after a serial killer and helped Chinese Bob find out who was setting him up....It had been nice going to work, coming home...hanging out and eating with friends and not dodging bullets or trading blows with some enforcer or some playa...Peace was nice, but peace was also boring...A part of me longed for the call of the streets.....but probably not right now...Yeah,I'm conflicted!

Sepia and I had been married for close to four years and we still fooled around and made love all over our house as though we were teenagers.....We made love on the floor of our living room until close to three in the morning...Oblivious to anything goin on out in the street~!

Sometime after three..right when we had collected ourselves and was quietly heading for the bedroom...TO SLEEP!  We both heard three sounds that sounded like loud firecrackers...! a pop- pop-pop! sound! There was a commotion and the screeching of tires and then from a distance...we heard another loud pop!  It sounded like an M-80! Then....nothing! Just quiet! Eerie Quiet!

''What the hell was that?" I exclaimed to no one in particular...

"It sounded like firecrackers!" said Sepia..

"It's December...Not the fourth of July." I replied...

"That's the late respone you felt when I was giving you all that good lovin of mine." laughed Sepia jokingly...

I slapped her on her behind and laughed..

"Yeah baby."

We both laughed and quietly drifted off to sleep.

II-

I woke up a few hours later at six o'clock...Sepia was already up and looking out the window....

''Kevin...look outside...Cops everywhere....People all over the corner..." she said.

''Something must have happened last night." I said.

"Yeah.." she agreed.

Before I could do anything else...the doorbell rang....I threw on my trousers and a shirt and some slippers and went to the door...There was a Homicide Detective and three uniformed policemen at the door..

''You live here?" Asked the Detective.

"Yeah...What's going on?" I asked.

"I'll ask the questions sport." he said.

''Where were you this morning around 3:00 am.?" he asked.

"I was here...." I answered...

"Anybody vouch for you?" he asked.

"Yeah...My wife.." I said...

By now Sepia had come to the door....

'What's going on Officer?" she asked.

''We are going from door to door asking everybody where they were at 3:00 am....A police officer has been murdered...he was shot to death around three this morning and we found a second person , also shot to death just a few blocks away." he said.

Indeed, the neighborhood was crawling with cops going from door to door, questioning everybody...

"We were here the entire night officer...We were going to go out last night, but we decided to stay in." said Sepia...

"Did you hear anything peculiar or see anything?" he asked...

'We heard like three "pop" sounds...like a firecracker in sucession around three..and then a few minutes...we heard an even louder sound..." she said.

"But you didn't see anything?" he asked.

"No..we were uh asleep." she continued...

Just then another Detective walked over to our Detective....

''Hey Mikey....This other guy we found a few blocks away?  Well...we gotta run a ballistics check...but the gun on him matches the gun Officer Clark was shot with...Looks like he shot Clarkie and then killed himself  a few blocks later." he said.

"What?" said the Detective.

''Let's get to the M.E.'s office." he said.

"Okay...Thanks for your co-operation." He said and they left,.....

''Wow...The guy killed a cop and then killed himself.....Must of been a nut!" exclaimed Sepia.

''Yeah, must have been." I mused. I knew the officer who had been killed... Bobby Clark..We called him "Clarkie..." He patrolled the general area...Most of the local people knew him...I wondered who had killed him and why....A lone crazy gunmen who killed him and then killed himself seemed too neat...

III-

Saturday Night, We all were in Josies, Sepia and I, Sean Jackson and Sheila, Robert Foxworth and Bonita, Clerow and Corrie , Chess and Rell, Chris Thompson and his new lady friend, Donald  Smooth, Owen Todd,  Chance Howard, Anita Jenkins, Blake, Cherish, Paris and his ladyfriend and more...

Reed Nelson and 88 and the band was playing, So His girl Debbie was there, Delores and Downtown Rob Brown, Mabel Jenkins and even Ralph Scallion and Minay Jordan had joined us....Everybody was talking about the cop that had been killed..

"We didn't come out last night." said my wife,Sepia..."Just think if we had...We would've walked right into it." she continued.

''Well man..We did walk into it."Said  Harry Charles , who was just joining us with his wife, Bernadette the hair dresser.

"What?" I asked.

"It was a traffic stop... Bernadette and I were two cars behind the car that Clarkie stopped...I was a little agitated because it was holding up traffic and we really wanted to get home." he said.

'Yeah...and seemingly out of nowhere...This guy in a bright yellow hoodie and aviator shades came out of the alley, ran up behind Clarkie and shot him three times...Then he ran off!...." said Harry Charles..

''So you seen him?" I asked.

"Didn't get a good look at the face...It was covered by the hoodie and he was wearing a scarf to cover his lower mouth and the shades....He was about average height....slim build..had on jeans and white Nikes...and he ran....Hell, a lot of people seen him...but he was a blur." said Harry Charles...

"Anyway they got him ..thank goodness..He won't kill nobody else." said Clerow.

"What are you talkin about Clerow?" I asked.

'You aint read the papers today Kev?  They found the body of a man about two blocks away with what looks like a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head..He had on a yellow hoodie, black aviator shades, jeans and white Nikes...just like Harry said...They got a match..his gun was the murder weapon and only his prints was on it...He apparently went nuts and killed Clarkie and then turned the gun on himself." said Clerow.

"Wow! " said Bonita.....I looked at Robert Foxworth...He looked kind of funny...but he didn't say anything...I didn't say anything either...I just shook my head.


IV-

That night as we all headed to the parking lot to get in our cars...Robert Foxworth turned and said to me-

'Kevin...I been an attorney a long time." he said.

''Yeah?" I asked...I knew there was more to this.

''And I've learned that very rarely is anything neat..Life by nature is messy...so is death." he said.

"What you mean to say counselor is that this whole thing smells to high heaven...This thing with this cop?" I said.

"You don't think so?" he asked me.

"Way ahead of you counselor...It smells like a murder and like a set up." I said.

"Yup...just what I was thinkin." he said.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)