No tears for Sonya-An Excerpt

No Tears for Sonya

by

Austin Mitchell

Chapter One

         Sonya Brown was getting ready to go out with her occasional boyfriend, Mickie Harris, when her cell phone rang. Her boss, Chester Guthrie, was on the line. They talked for two minutes before he ended the call.

            “Who was that?” Mickie asked.

            “Chester, he wants me to come to the office tomorrow at ten o’clock. He says it’s an emergency.”

            “That damn fool, what does he want that can’t wait until Monday?”

            “You’re still bitter at him for firing you after that detective told him about you and Tanya.”

            “That guy was lying.”

            “Why did you have to go out with her when you know that she was Chester’s woman?”

            “She begged me to go with her for a drink. We never went to any hotel.”

            “I still want to know why you did it? I was calling you while you were with her and only getting your voicemail.”

            “That was almost two years ago and we’ve gone over it many times since. We don’t know why Chester wants you down at the store tomorrow.”          

            “Maybe he’s doing some stock taking, but I worked until three o’clock today and he didn’t say anything to me.”

            “You think he could have found out.”

            Sonya bit her lips.

            “About what?”

            “The apartment and the three taxis you have on the road.”

            “I don’t think it’s that. He can’t prove that I’ve ever stolen anything from any of his hardware stores.”

            “Still want to go out again?”                

            “No, I’m sorry. I want to know what he has up his sleeves.”

            “I told you to leave from about four years ago but you wouldn’t listen.”

            “Leave and go where? You know that if I resigned he would get suspicious. I’ve been with him, since leaving high school almost twelve years now.”

            Mickie patted the gun at his waist, hidden by his sports shirt.  Sonya also carried a gun in her handbag. It was a Smith and Wesson Colt .22. She had completed a firearms instruction course. She had been careful not to let any of her colleagues know about it.

            “Want me to get Carlos to bump him off? We made him take care of Judy when she got too nosy.”

            “Are you crazy? And as for what happened to Judy, you know that I had nothing to do with it.”

            Judy Binns had been one of Chester’s assistants and she had begun to ask questions. One day she saw Sonya writing receipts for customers in an irregular receipt book. She had threatened to go to Chester.

            Sonya had wanted to give the girl a good beating, but Mickie had suggested that they used Carlos to beat her up. God, she hated Judy. It was like Chester had set her to watch her. Sometimes she would burst into her office unannounced. She was still in shock when she heard that Judy had been killed in a hit and run accident. She had refused to give Mickie any money to give Carlos.

            She remembered Alton West. They had been going around for a year before she ended the relationship. Alton kept turning up at her house at all sorts of hours, begging her for another chance. He had lost his job, the bank had seized his car, in fact he was almost bankrupt with credit card debts of over half a million dollars.  True she had helped him run up the credit card debts, but she didn’t want any broke pocket men around her. One night, she had called the police on him. He got into a confrontation with them and was shot. He died the next day in hospital. His family and friends had blamed her for his death but she felt blameless. Nothing came out of the case and she felt that after eight years it was time to put the whole episode behind her.

  

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