The Mystery Hour...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas | Sundown lurked as police looked for the cold-blooded killer. Someone had ambled into a pancake eatery and killed two employees and three customers. Only the early-arriving evening-shift cook, a fat, tattooed guy said to be a Vietnam veteran who'd run into the cooler, had survived, is what cops were telling the story-hungry press.

Who and why loomed as large questions as the community reeled.

Scared was a word being passed around freely. A lanky Mexican man in a red, long-sleeve polo shirt and a thin, semi-attractive woman had strolled into the 24-hour joint and walked up to the counter, where they sat for a half-hour nursing black coffees and a single order of Macadamia & Banana pancakes.

Francisca "Fran" Falcon, the day manager, had another half-hour of work before she'd be heading home to her disabled husband. The bullet blew away her throat. Shots followed in a crazed manner, a chubby waitress went down at the far end of the counter, her soft whimpering dying slowly.

Wheeling around, the killer hit three customers as he sprayed the dining area. One was a local politician in for his usual short stack of syrup-soaked blueberry pancakes and tall glass of iced tea. He was hit squarely in the back of the head and dead-center in the back.

One booth over, a balding, elderly man had likely seen his killing bullet coming at him. He was face-planted on the coffee-splattered table, his red, checked polyester sportscoat soaked almost to the armpits.

Behind him, a woman wearing a wide-brim, bright-white summer hat had been thrown backward by the three bullets that ripped her upper body. She looked fully at peace, blue eyes wide open, meaty mouth agape, with her fleshy back lifted to the top of the booth's cushioned back. Their names were as yet not known.

The killer and his lady friend had split like loose-roaming dogs into the falling light of day...

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