The Coffee Clutch Conundrum

Richard Ferrum had everything you could ask for, by the time he was the tender age of sixteen, at the same time his school chums were fretting over which gal they were going to take to the Martinwood High School formal, or how they will explain all those C's in Geometry and Earth Science, young Richard was by now acquiring major shares of his family's nationwide Iron Works business. Richard would not have to don any such cap or gown to be in like Flynn and to sit pretty on luxury's lap;  one of the plethora of perks of being born into money, old money, blue-collar money but it was $$ alright. At the time of his seventeenth birthday, Richard was about to inherit this veritable family empire. And although Richard would never have to get his hands or any part of his person dirty and the fact that you would never find a solitary bead of perspiration atop his brow, he did have the arduous responsibility of dropping off his company's takings at the local bank. The parking was just terrible. How much can a mere mortal endure? Richard owned both underpants and  cars that represented each day of the week - Tuesdays were  faithfully assigned to taupe colored y-fronts and a 1934 Ford Window 3 Coupe. How he just j'adored that Ford - which was practically a jalopy in comparison to his other more extravagant vehicles that he would sport Mondays. Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

In the autumn of 1940, a great influenza epidemic was spreading furious and fast, a local plague infecting all of the employees at the local Ferrum and Sons branch who in turn would take sick leave en masse and now young Richard who was in his latter Twenties now, unmarried but in contention with a couple of gals he had on the go. A murder investigation commenced the summer before when Richard's father Alfredo was found dead of a questionable overdose. Alfredo was discovered by his faithful maid of thirty years, Beatrice Johnson, slumped over his morning coffee on June 3, 1939. There was nobody at the office to brew a pot at the time of the great flu epidemic. Richard at last realized the value of a good cup of coffee.