Thirty Minutes or Less

Posted on Tue Apr 18th, 2023 @ 12:55am by Alonzo Blazevic
Edited on on Wed Apr 19th, 2023 @ 2:43am

1,205 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Bangor or Bust
Location: Bangor, Maine
Timeline: Monday, August 20th, 2010

Try as he might in order to live a good and Christian life as his parents had raised him to, Alonzo Blazevic was simply unable to do so for a plethora of reasons. None of which he cared to think about at the moment because his mind was hard focused on one particular thing. The story. It was only beginning to come together and it was the hottest thing to hit Bangor recently, and everyone knows that If it bleeds, it reads and a double homicide where the victims’ appeared to be mauled to death was exactly the sort of gory and grotesque shit that the general public discretely ate up.

Catholics had their Rolodex of patron saints and his own flavor of Christianity, or rather the flavor he was brought up with saw anyone as potentially being a saint if they lived their life a certain way. Alonzo had his own back pocket of saints, and while most Christians may have touched a rubber WWJD wristband they received from summer camp, Alonzo’s mind shifted to those back pocket saints. For him, it was WWBD – What Would Barbara do? Ah yes, his patron saint of Journalism, Ms. Barbara Walters. He loved many of journalists and reporters both real and fictional, but Barbara was the real deal and someone he admired. On the fictional side of things was Gale Weathers from the Scream films.

He needed to find answers and more importantly, he needed to find Ethan. If Ethan had been present the evening of the murders, then he was either the one who truly committed the brutal acts on his parents, or he potentially was a witness to it. If he saw what happened or found their bodies, that may be enough to spook him into running away thought Alonzo. He had interviewed the neighbor who gave him plenty of insight, some of which painted Ethan to be an otherwise normal teenager, not nearly the monster some sensationalized stories from the tabloids were making him out to be. Photoshopped pictures of an awkward boy with headlines like: Next Serial Killer on the Loose. The police were certainly not helping matters by making it clear he was a ‘person of interest’ and though not outright saying ‘suspect’ it spoke loudly.

I need to get in there thought Alonzo as he dug through his closet looking for the right change of clothes. He knew that the house in question was closed off by crime scene tape as he had driven by it before. It was under surveillance by the police department to keep the lunatics and oddballs from breaking in and grabbing photos of the blood-stained furniture and carpets. Great, I’m the lunatic oddball he thought with a sigh. At least for him, it wasn’t to seek fame or fortune…nope, he couldn’t think about it anymore. The more he did, the more he realized that was kind of what he was doing. If he could solve this case or even make a dent in it and release information to media outlets albeit under the protection of his identity otherwise, the police would have something to say about him interfering with an open investigation let alone a dozen laws he was about to violate.

“I’m going to hell for this,” he muttered as he pulled out something he had not worn since he was about Ethan’s age. It was a Domino’s Pizza uniform. He had worked there for about a year and some change before moving on to better things, but his mother had told him to keep it for a memento. What she nor he had ever expected was to make use of it again. He wouldn’t be firing up the oven this time though, but he did hop onto his laptop and order a medium pizza and used the tracker to keep track of the status, having it delivered straight to his doorstep. The driver, Matthew certainly looked confused when Alonzo met him at the door wearing a Domino’s uniform, but said nothing of it.

He got into his Vibe and drove for a bit, close to Hammond Street where the house was, but far enough away that he could not see it, and therefore, not seen by the police. Dressed in his old Domino’s uniform, even able to locate his old hat, he walked the streets carrying a Pizza until he reached the area of Hammond Street where the taped-off murder house was, and parked right in front of it was a marked police car with two officers sitting in it. There were no other vehicles marked or unmarked around that appeared to be occupied, and at this hour he suspected these two were the ones that drew the short straws of watching the vacant house.

Alonzo noticed their driver side window was down a few inches. Great, they can definitely hear me then he thought as he walked down the street and then strategically stood a few feet from the driver’s side of the squad car. He placed the pizza box on the top of another car and took out his phone and pretended to make a call. “Yeah, so, I’ve been out here like ten minutes and I don’t know what you want me to do about it. The address doesn’t exist. Probably some dumbass kid putting in the wrong address.”

Good, make Barbara proud. Embrace the role he thought to himself as he used his best high school drama club experience to commit to the role and sighed with mimicked frustration. “It’s two in the damn morning, I’m not eating a medium pizza at this hour. I don’t care how damn delicious it smells, Carl” he said using his old boss’ name because it was just natural to do so. “Fine, I’ll throw it out at the nearest garbage can and head back to the store. I’m sure the raccoons will love it” he said and ‘ended’ the call, sliding the phone back in his pocket and picking up the pizza box.

“Hey, you just goin’ to throw that out?” said the officer from the driver’s side. When Alonzo explained that was the plan because it couldn’t be delivered, the two officers eagerly staked claim to it, and Alonzo acted thankful to them. He handed over the box containing a medium pepperoni pizza with some parmesan sprinkled atop of it, and of course the secret ingredient, some crushed-up tablets of diphenhydramine. Hopefully, enough to make them drowsy enough that they’d be out after a few slices.

“Bon Appetit, officers, and thank you for your service,” Alonzo said to them, walking away trying not to feel guilty for intentionally drugging two of Bangor’s finest. However, it was what needed to be done if he was going to get into that house unnoticed. He didn’t care about taking pictures of the grotesque crime scene inside. No, where he wanted to go was on the second floor – Ethan’s bedroom.

 

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