The Case of the '61 Chevy Impala by Tom Meschery

Author:Tom Meschery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery. It’s the tumultuous month of April, 1968. Victor and Vincent Brovelli, identical twins, owners of Brovelli Brothers Used Cars, have just repo’ed a 1961 Chevrolet Impala and driven it back to their car lot on East 14th Street in Oakland, California. Victor opens the trunk and discovers the dead body of the beautiful Winona Davis, their temporary part-time secretary, with a bullet hole in her head. The police arrest Sweets Monroe, the boys’ sometime friend and neighborhood burglar for the crime. In the past, Monroe had saved the used car business and their father’s life, so the twins are honor-bound to help him.
Victor takes on the principal role of detective. Two more murders occur, and both appear to be tied to Winona’s death. The ghost of Winona haunts Victor Brovelli as he attempts to find her murderer. Not even a violent motorcycle gang, the Black Panthers, a mafia drug dealer, a razor wielding local pimp, and a band of crooked cops keep Victor and Vincent Brovelli from discovering the murderer of Winona Davis.
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24: OUT OF SUSPECTS

The center will not hold.

W.B. Yeats

It was barely sunrise when I woke up, still tired. I made coffee and opened the Sunday Oakland Tribune. The previous day in the evening while I was hiding inside Furniture Discount, there’d been a shootout between the Oakland police and some of the Black Panthers. Little Bobby Hutton, one of the Panther leaders, had been shot and killed. I flashed on Dila and me walking out of the BPP office and passing Hutton. The paper said that the Oakland Police officers had stopped to question the occupants of several parked vehicles. When one of the officers stepped out of his cruiser, he was shot. The officers returned fire and the men in the car fled to a nearby building where a standoff proceeded until the police lobbed tear gas inside. According to the story, Hutton exited the building acting strangely and was told to get down on the ground. When he didn’t, the police opened fire. Another leader of the Black Panthers, Eldridge Cleaver, was wounded. The Oakland Police and Alameda Sheriffs were out on the streets in full force. Until now the Bay Area had not experienced the kind of violence other cities had. The killing of Little Bobby Hutton was definitely going to increase the tension. All over the U.S. there continued to be fallout from the Doctor King assassination - angry mobs roaming the street of the cities’ black neighborhoods. President Johnson had ordered the regular army into Chicago. The United States was in a state of chaos. I took my second cup of coffee into the living room and called Vincent at his home. He answered with a why-are-you-calling-me-so-early-yawn.

“I’m taking the day off, “I said. My twin didn’t argue. He can tell when I’m feeling down. The same goes for me. It felt as if everything in the world I knew was falling apart. As for Sweets, I’d run out of suspects and didn’t have a clue what to do next. The word incompetent came to mind. I’m kind of a compulsive guy, and hate it when I can’t get things right. I told Vincent I intended to do something constructive. I told him I was going to find our brother Captain Mario, Brovelli, Vietnam War vet, recently turned radical hippie, and take him to lunch before the FBI put him in prison for his Anti-War activities. After that I’d maybe play a round of golf. Or not. I wasn’t passionate about golf like Vincent was. The phone rang. It was Renee asking me if I wanted to go to a candlelight vigil for Little Bobby Hutton tomorrow night. Lots of the Mills College co-eds were going. I tried to imagine all those white chicks, mingling with the radical crowd, mostly blacks but lots of the usual anti-war folks. Personally I could see no point being jostled by people carrying candles, listening to speeches condemning the United States, singing “We Shall Overcome”, while being fumigated by weed.

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