Murder Most Foul (standard:adventure, 30841 words)
Author: MysteryWriter	Added: Sep 06 2009	Views/Reads: 3725/2822	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A simple stalking turns into something much more sinister.

"Murder most foul, " the assistant district attorney shouted over and
over during his closing arguments.  It had to have been almost a year 
before I got fired.  It wasn't until that last year that I lost 
interest in my cases.  Obviously I had been a cop at the time. 

The words were just theatrics to me until the night I witnessed a
murder.  I saw it up close and personal and it was pretty damned foul.  
The victim was sitting in the back seat of my cab.  A year after 
leaving the police department, I was indeed driving a glorified cab.  
Glorified in that they called it an airport limo.  In reality it was a 
black midsize Ford sedan.  It would have been a compact car ten years 
earlier. 

The fare smelled bad from the start.  I picked him up at the overnight
airport parking lot.  One of those places where drivers leave their 
cars for a couple of days.  Usually they take the shuttle to the 
airport but this one had other plans.  "Take me to the overlook on 
highway 68." 

"You mean the reservoir overlook?" I asked. 

"Yeah I got a date," he replied.  It was after 9 PM the place would be
deserted.  I figured he would be meeting a married woman there.  I 
expected him to transfer himself and the small suitcase to her car and 
be gone.  That would be the most likely scenario. 

I expected that to happen right up until the man appeared from the
woods.  I saw him in the side mirror.  At that point it took on the 
feeling of a drug deal, except the man walking toward my cab didn't 
have a bag of drugs.  What he did have was something in  his hand held 
close to his leg.  He wasn't dressed in black but in dark clothing of 
some kind. At that point I knew that either my fare was gay or 
something was about to go terribly wrong. 

What the man approaching didn't know, was that the glass isolating the
rear seat of the cab from the drivers compartment was bullet proof.  He 
also didn't know that shoved between the seat cushions of my cab was a 
.38 Colt three inch barreled wheel gun.  He had no idea that he had 
been spotted by a man with a gun. 

I could have rolled out of the cab at any time and confronted him, but I
had a nice piece of bullet proof glass between us if I stayed in my 
seat.  I could bend around and take a couple of shot at him from pretty 
close range. 

Then he did the one things that changed the plan drastically.  He
approached from the passenger side of the car.  He, by complete 
accident, had chosen to approach the cab in the worst place for me to 
get a shot off.  In a stupid turn of fate the bullet proof glass was 
shielding him. 

Before I could reposition myself he walked up and shot my passenger
without saying a word.  Then took a shot at me.  I ducked of course 
even though the bullet bounced off the glass after cracking it.  I 
rolled out of the cab on the driver's side leaving it between me and 
the assassin.  I had only one advantage.  He did not know I had a 
pistol. 

He stood up to fire across the roof of the car.  I was ready for him I
shot first.  I am no marksman by any means.  Add to that the fact that 
I was terrified and it becomes a miracle that I shot him in the face.  
A 158 grain ball of burning hot metal entered his face just a little 
right of the nose.  That is what the autopsy would say.  He was dead 
before he realized his mistake. 

I knew that I was going to be making the only phone calls from the
overlook, so I wasn't in a great big hurry.  I reached into the cab for 
the small piece of luggage.  It wasn't even locked.  Probably for an 
easy show and tell.  I expected that a Drug deal had just turned into a 
rip off.  It there were drugs in the bag they would be useless to me.  
I hoped for huge wads of cash. 

It had been a long time since a fantasy came true for me.   I guess I
was due.  The case contained a lot of cash.  I didn't have time to 
count right then, but it was a lot. I knew that much. 


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