3 comments/ 6730 views/ 0 favorites Murder in Magnolia By: Maximillian_Excaliber This is my first posting of a non-erotic story. This is actually a story taken from a new Matchmaker Bandits novel I currently have being edited. I have removed the Bandits and adult content leaving this, the PG-13 rated version. After four attempts, I have found all the errors I could. Please let me know what you think of it; rate it, leave feedback (even bad) and point out errors if you find them. *********** This story is fiction. According to my internet search, there is no town in Georgia named Magnolia. The events never occurred. With that in mind, please enjoy the story. *********** Chapter One -- "The Death" July 1993 "Stupid bitch!" Jimmy Oglethorpe screamed as he produced a switchblade from his pants pocket, opened it and lunged dangerously at Becky Daily's midsection missing her by a mere fraction of an inch. Meanwhile, as Becky was attempting to reason with Jimmy, his two brothers, Sammy and Bert, had moved to blocking positions on each side of her boyfriend, Ethan Barns. He was surrounded on all sides. To his front was his candy-apple red 1968 Mustang, to the rear Jimmy's pickup truck and on his sides were Jimmy's two brothers. When Ethan attempted to jump over the rear of the car so he could get to Jimmy, the two grabbed him by the arms and held him forcefully at bay and, it seemed to Ethan an almost horribly surreal moment compared to the calm tranquility of a few minutes ago when he had arrived there. Ethan Barns loved his high school sweetheart, Becky Daily, and would have married her after graduation had they both not had the good sense to know that neither of them was ready for that kind of commitment. Both of them knew how hard it was to raise a family on the limited incomes provided by the few jobs available in the small rural farming community so they decided to wait a few years and build a nest egg before starting a family together. When one lives in a small town like Magnolia Georgia, job prospects are limited and they really had very few choices, either work at the local chicken processing plant or join the military. Since the only time Ethan liked dead chickens was when they were on his plate covered in barbeque sauce, he chose the military. It almost broke Becky's heart when Ethan told her that he had joined the Army after high school hoping to save up enough for a future for the two of them. She cried in his arms as she said to him, "I just know you're going to meet someone and never want to come back! You're going be just like everyone else and forget about this shit hole town and me." But he took her in his arms and assured her that he would return to take her away with him. When he did leave her, she honestly thought she would never see him again. She felt hopeless that day. She couldn't even join the Army herself, a childhood injury to one ear had left her with a hearing loss and made sure that would never happen. So there she was, stuck in that awful little town, facing whatever nowhere low-paying job she could find to survive on. Of course, the first thing the Army did was ship him out and, as fate would have it, for most of the seven years since his enlistment, other than on the occasional leave, he was stationed too far away from Becky to see her. After Basic Training, he had taken his A.I.T., Advanced Individual Training or job training in the civilian world, at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Maryland for eighteen months and then was stationed at Fort Ord, California for six months. That was followed by three years in at Fort Benning Georgia, then three years in Germany, and then a year in Korea. Until finally, after spending the last year in Korea, Ethan had been shipped stateside to Fort Benning where he was to spend the last six months of his eight-year military career. Ethan loved her so much and had spent too much time away from her. His enlistment was almost up and so, the first thing he did when he hit stateside was to take his leave. Ethan drove back to Magnolia so he could ask Becky to marry him. During the trip he ran over and over in his mind how he would propose to her only to forget everything. Instead, he simply asked her as soon as she opened the door. She accepted without reservation and the two of them decided to go out for the night and celebrate. After Becky went inside and retrieved her purse, the couple began walking to the street where Ethan's car was parked. Just as they were about to get into it, Jimmy and his two brothers, Sammy and Bert, the town's resident bullies, pulled up in an old beat-up black pickup. They were such troublemakers that some of the local town's folk had not so affectionately started calling them the "Red Tornados", partly because of the red hair they all had but mostly because everywhere they seemed to go violence and disaster followed them. Jimmy jumped out of the back of the pickup truck, staggered a bit, recovered his balance and then held the beer can he was holding upside down above him as he gulped down its contents. When the can was empty, he summarily threw the beer can directly at Ethan in a sign of utter contempt. All the while yelling at Becky, the enraged redhead started walking around the car until he stood in front of her. From the way he was acting, it was plain to see that the man was drunk which made him all the more dangerous. Ethan and Becky both knew this and Ethan could see the fear on her face. There had long been a rumor running around town about how Jimmy treated women. As the rumor went, Jimmy had gotten drunk one night after he picked up one of the local girls. Supposedly he had beaten and raped the girl. While he denied the rumor vehemently and would beat senselessly anyone he heard repeating it, it didn't help his case when she showed up three days later at school with several bruises all over her face and arms. Nor did it help when she showed up pregnant three months later and then suddenly disappeared. Another version of the sordid story added that the girl had been given an undisclosed some of money by Doc Harris and then "escorted" out of town by the local sheriff. "I told you not to see him any more. You're my girl now!" Jimmy yelled at Becky in a slurred voice that usually comes after several hours of consuming too much alcohol. Calmly she replied, "You're drunk Jimmy. Go home and sleep it off. Maybe when you wake up in the morning you'll remember that we only went out once." She hadn't known about his reputation back then so Becky had dated him. Now she regretted it though, for every time he drank, Jimmy would come track her down and harass her as he attempted to assert his ownership over her . But this time he was in rare form, Becky guessed he must have been set off when he heard that Ethan was back in town. Unfortunately, Jimmy's blood alcohol level was far too high for his brain to be functioning much higher than that of a rabid dog and he was enraged beyond belief. The inebriated man reached wildly for her blouse. It was obvious that he intended to tear it off, her leaving her exposed for all to see. "What are you doing with him? Didn't I tell you that you're mine?" All the while, Ethan was protesting loudly as he struggled to free himself so he could help Becky. "Jimmy, I've told you before that this cave man attitude of yours doesn't work with me. I can see anyone I want. Now go on home! I'm not going to argue with you any more." She told him flatly and started to get into the car. Jimmy grabbed her and when he missed her blouse, the drunken man reached for her arm as he yelled once more. "Since you want to act like a slut, why don't you show us all what a whore you really are and do me right here?" Becky slapped Jimmy hard on the left side of his face and pulled her arm away from him. From the force Becky's hand had impacted his face, there could be no doubt that he would have a large red welt the next morning. That's when Jimmy yelled at her "Stupid bitch! No body hits me! Nobody!" and took out the switchblade from his pants pocket and pressed the stud that exposed the knife's deadly blade. He was well beyond reasoning now and just seemed to be ignoring her as he thrust the knife in her direction. Luckily, the drunken man missed her midsection by a mere fraction of an inch, mostly because she jumped back just at the last second before impact. Ethan knew that Jimmy was going to try again; he had seen a few of his Army buddies get this drunk before and also knew that when they were in that condition, there was no reasoning with them. He feared for Becky's life but with Sammy and Bert holding him Ethan couldn't get to her. Ethan also knew that if he didn't do something fast Jimmy was going to kill her. Seeing what looked like a .38 revolver protruding from the right side pocket of Sammy's blue-jean jacket, Ethan tried in vain to free his left arm free from Sammy's grasp. Cursing the two men, Ethan began struggling violently with the two brothers but they held him tightly. In desperation, he stomped down hard with the heal of his left boot onto the instep of Sammy's right foot causing the man to wince in pain and momentarily loosen his grip. It was all Ethan needed and he suddenly broke his left arm free long enough to grab the pistol. Before either of the two men holding him could react, Ethan snapped off a single shot just as Jimmy lunged as he made another attempt to cut Becky with the knife for the second time. Jimmy grimaced for a second and then dropped the knife, which slid in the direction of Ethan's car and disappeared. Blood began pulsing from a dark spot in the center of his chest all over the Budweiser tee-shirt he was wearing. Jimmy fell to his knees and continued his downward decent face first to the ground and lay there motionless. He lay there with his life's blood pouring onto the ground, creeping ever so slowly around him until it found its way up to his face and hair. The two brothers ran to aid their fallen sibling but it was too late, Jimmy was already beyond help. Later, the coroner's examination would reveal that the mortal wound had entered the man's chest on the right side, penetrated his right lung, continued through his heart and then entered his left lung killing him almost instantly. While Ethan had been trained by the Army how to kill, they had never showed him what it would actually look like. The reality is that all the training in the world doesn't prepare anyone how to live with it afterwards. He just stood there stunned, unable to move as a sickening feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. Someone inside one of the nearby dwellings must have heard the gunshot because, just then people began coming outside into the street to see what had happened. There was the loud sound of a shotgun being fired followed by a hissing sound as the front left tire of Ethan's car suddenly went flat. That was followed by the noise created by several doors being slammed shut as people hastily sought the safety of there abodes. "Drop it Ethan!" came a loud commanding voice from somewhere behind him. Ethan recognized the voice as that of, Johnny Wilkins, the county's deputy sheriff and cousin of the three brothers. The lawman had been on patrol in the neighborhood at the time, heard the shot a few blocks away and pulled his squad car up at the end of the block unnoticed in all the commotion. Ethan looked over in the direction the voice had come from to see Johnny standing there holding a double-barreled shotgun now pointed directly at his midsection. Johnny Wilkins was about twenty-two years old and it was common knowledge that he had gotten the job when he helped the Sheriff break up a bar fight that had broken out between some of the local boys and a small gang of bikers. Since there was an opening at the time for a deputy, it probably didn't hurt any that the sheriff just happened to be his uncle on his mother's side either. Despite the deputy's youth, if the sheriff ever sent Johnny calling, nobody with any sense gave him trouble. Unless that is, they wanted a broken jaw to remind them while they were in the local jail of how stupid they had been. When Ethan saw the lawman's finger was on the trigger of the shotgun, he knew from the deadly serious look on the man's face the deputy wouldn't hesitate to pull it. Without saying a word, Ethan dropped the weapon to the ground and slowly raised his hands, palms outward, so that Johnny could see that both hands were empty. Probably given courage by the presence of the lawman, a few brave souls had decided to step outside once more and see what was going on. "Has anyone called 911 yet?" Johnny yelled in the direction of the crowd forming behind him. An unidentified voice called back, "Tim has, they said they'll be here three minutes." "How's he doing Sammy?" The deputy asked his cousin. Sammy, who was kneeling over his dead brother's body, looked up and cried out, "He's dead Johnny! That son-of-a-bitch killed him!" "Call Mattie!" Ordered the deputy. Everybody in the county knew that Mattie was the Sheriff's wife. Then added, "Tell her to wake Uncle Jack and tell him to get his ass over here right now and then tell Doc Harris to get over to his office." Just then, Sammy stood up and started walking in the direction of the pistol. There was a murderous look in his eyes and his face was crimson with rage. Ethan suddenly got very nervous. Even though he and Johnny had been friends most of their lives, the deputy, dead man, and the dead man's brothers were all cousins so he didn't know how things were going to play out. He didn't have to wait long to find out. "Sammy, cousin or not, if you pick up that gun I'll shoot you down where you stand!" Came the voice of the deputy. That was followed by the clicking sound of one of the hammers on the shotgun being pulled back. Bert began rising to his feet, as he did, he said to his cousin. "You've only got one barrel left Johnny and there's two of us! You can't get us both!" "You're right about that. And with you being related, I might even miss you. But I'll bet that Ethan will make it to that gun on the ground there before you can get to me. And since we already know he can shoot straight, I'm betting you two won't live to see tomorrow. You sure you want to take that chance?" Replied the lawman. Shocked expressions on their faces, his two cousins looked at him for several seconds. Then Sammy said to him, "You wouldn't let that killer have a gun after he just shot down Jimmy, would you?" "Well now, to tell you the truth. I trust Ethan a whole lot more than I do you boys! So yeah, I reckon I would!" Answered the deputy dispassionately. They both knew their cousin didn't like them and they also knew he meant what he said. The two cousins decided to back off rather than face two armed men. They were aware that the deputy was the only one that knew the full story about what happened the night Jimmy raped that young girl and he also knew that Jimmy wasn't the only one involved in it! No, there was no love lost between the three men at all. Squealing wheels as it came to a halt, the sheriff's car pulled up. All four wheels had barely come to a compete halt when the driver's side door swung suddenly open and a man about six feet three inches tall got out of the car. In less than one second he surveyed the situation, drew his pistol and aimed it in the direction his deputy's shotgun was pointing. The sheriff was a big man, weighing about 345 pounds with large shoulders and a massive chest. He had just a touch of a potbelly but you could plainly see he was every bit muscle everywhere else. His wasn't by any means a handsome man, with his pitted face and large bushy eyebrows. In fact, he was down right odd looking, mostly due to the fact that in wore one of those old handle bar mustaches you usually only see in old westerns. From the look of his clothes, you could tell he had dressed hastily for he was wearing the blue jeans, a white tee-shirt, with his badge pined to hit, no socks and of all things brown Scooby-Doo slippers! On his head was a tan Stetson rancher style cowboy hat and, of course, his gun belt. But, as funny as he looked, nobody was laughing. In an extremely deep voice, the man called out. "Everyone that did not see the what happened go home and stay there." Then he turned and said to his deputy, "You call the Doc yet Johnny?" "On his way!" Answered Johnny replied. The big man began walking over slowly as people started drifting back into their homes. "What happened here?" "Don't know sheriff. I haven't had a chance to ask yet. I've been busy trying to keep these two dumb-asses from getting themselves shot." The younger lawman said to his elder as he motioned towards the two surviving brothers with the barrel of his shotgun. Just then, Sammy spoke up, "He killed him Uncle Jack!" Shot him down like a dog. He didn't have no cause!" "You're damned liar Sammy Oglethorpe! You know full well Jimmy was trying to kill me when Ethan shot him!" Yelled Becky. The sheriff looked over at Bert and said, "Is that true?" Bert looked glanced at his brother for a second, hesitated another second, then replied, "Nope Uncle Jack! She's lying. Jimmy didn't have no knife. He was just telling her how pretty she looked when she got all 'bitchie' and slapped him. Then Ethan took out a gun and shot Jimmy dead! Jimmy didn't even lay so much as a hand on her." "Their both lying sheriff! Jimmy was drunk and tried to rip my blouse. That's when I slapped him in the face. Then he pulled out a knife and tried to stab me but missed. Ethan shot Jimmy when he tried to do it again!" Becky retorted. The sheriff turned to his deputy and said, "We'll just have to sort this out at the station. Cuff him and put him in the back seat of my car," he motioned towards Ethan, "and then put her in the front seat." Then he turned to the two brothers and said, "You two boys can wait here while I go see if anybody else saw anything." When the crowd dissipated, Ethan said to his friend, "Listen Johnny, I'm not lying. Jimmy attacked her with a knife. He dropped it when I shot him and it went under the car. Just look for it!" If there had been any other witnesses, they didn't want to get involved for when the sheriff turned around everyone else had gone home. "Hold on Uncle Jack, it'll just take a second for me to look under the car." The deputy said to his boss. Then he walked over and handed his shotgun to the sheriff and went back to his squad car. He retrieved a flashlight from the front seat. The young lawman then walked back to the side of the Ethan's car and knelt down. He looked under the car for several seconds, moving his flashlight from side to side as he looked intently for the fallen knife. He stood up and said sternly, "There's no knife under here Ethan!" As Ethan stood there in shock, the deputy walked over to him and said, "Ethan Barns, you're under arrest for the murder of Jimmy Oglethorpe." Two minutes later, Ethan found himself handcuffed and sitting in the back of the Sheriff's patrol car. Becky was sitting in the front seat. There was the distinct odor of vomit and cheap wine mixed with a very heavy amount of some type of disinfectant he couldn't identify in the air inside the car. With nothing else to do, the couple watched out the windows and waited for the sheriff to return. It was just about that time an ambulance showed up to be followed by a old gray ford sedan left over from the 1950's. The sedan was being driven by the town's doctor and coroner, 'Doc Harris'. The doctor was tiny, skinny old man with round glass. He must have be at least seventy-two years old and Ethan thought to himself that the man looked to him like a taller, skinner version of the actor Henry Fonda. Murder in Magnolia Most men would have retired at his age, but no, he just kept working. After all, how else could he keep control over the town and his investments? There was one other distinction he had; he was the grandfather of the deceased! As he sat there, Ethan realized that events had just spiraled out of control and an impending feeling of dread came suddenly over him. Chapter Two -- "The Town" Magnolia back then was a tiny, insignificant, depressing town that was at least a hundred miles away from every major city in Georgia. It was well known by anyone who visited Magnolia that the town was so dreary that it seemed to have a numbing effect on all hapless travelers that were misfortunate enough to enter its influence. Most people that either visited the place or were former inhabitants lucky enough to escape said that after a while, the town would slowly lull them into a state of melancholy which grew stronger the longer they were there. All this, of course, made the second leading cause of death amongst town's folk suicide, a close second only to alcoholism! It was so bad that people from the neighboring towns used to laugh every time they were asked for directions to the place saying, "Magnolia? It's a few more miles down the road a spell. Just look for the sign that say's Hell and then keep going south a bit. You can't miss it!" That was part of the problem with Magnolia; it was so insignificant that you couldn't even find it on a map. And if you did, it was probably an oversight of the map maker, for had he ever been to the place, he wouldn't have wanted to remember it let alone tell anyone where it was! Downtown Magnolia itself consisted of a town square and four large streets. Each street ran in some way parallel to the square and if there was a business in town, it could be found somewhere on one of those streets. Every street in the downtown area was lined with massive magnolia trees for which the town had been given its name over two hundred years ago by its founder, Jeremiah Harris, old Doc Harris's great grand father. At the center of the square was city hall, a building that from the looks of it must have been constructed some time just after the Civil War, or as some of the older townsfolk called it, "The Great War Of Northern Aggression", and next to that was the County Courthouse. Every major building from the town hall to the post office looked like something out of a 'B' version of Gone With The Wind, old, cheap, and badly maintained! There was one general store, one drug store, one doctor's office, one auto parts store, the local finance company, and one feed store, all of which were owned by Joshua 'Doc' Harris or one or more of the members of his family. Without a doubt Doc Harris was the wealthiest man in town for he also owned not only the town's one grocery store, but also the drug store and the town's only farm supply-general-hardware store. Hell, he even had half ownership in the town's only restaurant, the other half being owned by his brother. But even though his family owned just about everything, there had been times when it looked as if he was in danger of loosing control over it. About a year before, some of the locals had quite vocally started complaining to the town council about their inability to attract new business to the dying little community. Everyone was surprised when he showed up one day at and demanded the council reform and become more active in trying to attract new business to "our poor economically depressed, but quite beautiful little community" as he so eloquently put it. Two weeks later, his economic monopoly on the county appeared to be broken when out of town investors built not only a new convenience store but also a new drug store. The voices of the dissenters died down and finally disappeared. Had anyone ever bothered to check into it, they would have easily discovered that the same corporation owned both franchises; and, that the head of that corporation was of all people, Doc Harris. Before then, there had been only one gas station and one grocery store in the county. At the time, the only business he had never been able to acquire in the past was the town's one and only gas station. He had not only not given up his monopoly but, the sly old bastard had made it stronger by building the convenience store. And so, in the end, "Doc's" ability to undercut the man's price per gallon on fuel, would lead to the eventual closure of the small family run business. What only a very select few people knew was, Doc had been using his influence with his brother the Mayor, and the town council to make sure that no potential outside investor ever walked away with anything remotely resembling a favorable impression regarding the profit potential of the county. In fact, until the malcontents started complaining, the old doctor had found it very easy to maintain his monopolistic control over the county, probably due to the fact that most of the council members were either his nieces, or nephews or in some way related to him by marriage. The town and most of the county were totally dependent on 'Doc' and his family for just about everything from the food they ate to the mortgage on their homes. And the rural community around Magnolia didn't fair much better. The small farmer with fifty acres of land just couldn't afford the large machines and supplies like peanut diggers, hand shellers, cotton carts, poultry house cleaners, employee salaries, fertilizer, and insect spray any more. He just didn't have enough acreage to make it profitable. Many small landowners rented out what farmable land they had to the larger landowners and would take jobs at the local poultry processing plants or accept whatever work they could find. While the state of Georgia might rank first in production of frying chickens, peanuts and pecans, and second in the production of cotton and rye, farming is an expensive business. It just wasn't profitable to plant a crop and have it bring in $1100 an acre at market when you spent half that to get it there, assuming you didn't loose most of it to drought, unseasonable rains, unpredictable freezes or worse. No, the days of the small farmer were gone, having long ago been replaced by the professional businessman. But times were changing and the old doctor was finding it harder to rule in the same iron handed manner that he used to and he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep outsiders from threading his tiny little empire. To sum it up, Magnolia was a decaying little town being run by a corrupt old man and his family of fellow vultures, all looking for any opportunity to pick it clean to the bone of anything of value. Chapter Three -- "The Pistol" It was early in the morning the day after the shooting. Sammy and his brother were knocking at the front door of the trailer belonging to James Rollins. James lived in a broken down old trailer that looked like it was built in the 1950's. The trailer was located at the very end of a two-mile long dirt road in the back woods areas of the county laughingly called Route Three. The only sign of civilization, other than the tiny mobile home that is, were the power and phone lines running along side the road. As they got out of their pickup truck, they were greeted by the annoying sound of mockingbirds screeching in the background and the sweet smell of honeysuckle growing in the nearby woods. James's girlfriend, Cindy Benson, opened the door, still yawning as she pulled a rather flimsy house robe shut around her body, just not fast enough to keep the two brothers from catching a quick glimpse of her luscious young body. Cindy was the hottest girl in town and had a reputation for being the its easiest lay. She would sleep with anyone that showed up with a couple six packs of beer or some weed and had probably slept with half the males in the county. If the truth were known, she was personally responsible for taking the virginity of most of the boys and men between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. In a town that small, there was no hiding a reputation like that and James knew all about her abundant sex drive. He just ignored it. Partly because she was the only girl in town that would put out to him, but mostly because she also just happened to be the sheriff's daughter! And, when you're the local bootlegger, didn't hurt at all to have advance warning before 'John Law' came calling at your door! She just stood there, not paying too much attention to how much of her ample bosoms her two cousins could see. She was about five foot four inches tall, had natural blond, wavy hair that flowed almost to her waist, blue eyes, large breasts for a woman her size and very sexy pouty lips. The two brothers smiled at her lecherously. "Morning Cindy!" Said Sammy. His brother was still staring speechlessly at his cousin's tits. "What the fuck do you two pecker-heads want this hour of the morning that couldn't wait until later?" She asked, as she stood halfway in the open door. Sammy replied to her, "I need to talk to James. Wake his fat ass up and tell him to get out here." The young girl disappeared for about a minute, then came back and said, "He said to tell you it better be good or the next time you want some booze you're gonna have to drive all the way over to Newnan to get it." This was an especially hideous threat as Newnan was at least two-hundred miles away! The two brothers didn't respond. Sammy simply ignored her comment and Bert was still staring at her tits. The girl then she added in a softer voice, "Morning Bert, how's Tracie treating you?" Tracie was Bert's girlfriend. Seemingly entranced, Bert remained mute. Cindy giggled and said in a slightly louder voice, "Hey Bert, want some milk?" "What?" She had caught him off guard. He tried to recover and forced himself to stop staring at her magnificent tits, "She don't talk to me no more ever since she found my girly magazines. She got mad and told me she out to be enough woman for me." Cindy ignored her other cousin and said seductively to Bert as she ran the fingertips of her right hand slowly down the outer collar of her house coat as though she were reacting to the chill of the morning breeze. The movement revealed even more of her bosom for them to see before pulling it tightly around her, "That's no way to be. I look at them myself. They got some real interesting pictures in them. I wouldn't mind if you looked at them magazines if you was my man." Cindy had been after Bert since she was in the sixth grade. Despite his obvious attraction to her, he had never given in to her blatant sexual advances. "Yeah," he replied to her, "and your daddy would cut my balls off and feed them to the chickens down at the hatchery too if he even thought I was so much as looking at you!" As she purposely let her gown slip open just enough to show off a little more bosom, Cindy said to Bert, "What daddy don't know won't hurt him!" "Thanks Cindy," Bert said thoughtfully, "But I'm kind'a attached to my balls. I think I'll keep'em a little longer. Your Pa can find something else to feed to his chickens!" Her father, the sheriff, also owned the local chicken hatchery and the hatchery happened to be one of the two largest employers in the county, the other being the local cabinet shop. Just about everyone who wasn't farming, either worked at the hatchery or the cabinet shop. And a few that did farm, also worked at one of the two places just to supplement their meager incomes. Disappointment in her voice, she glanced over her shoulder and then said, "James is coming. Don't forget what I said Bert." And then she hastily stepped back out of the doorway. When she was out of the way, her current fuck-buddy, James Wilkins, stepped into the doorway. As he did, Bert and Sammy saw Cindy walking down the hall to the back of the trailer. A few minutes later, they heard the sound of a TV blaring away. James was a chubby man and stood there barefoot dressed only in a dirty sleeveless tee-shirt and blue jeans. There was a brown mustache on his face that and the 'peach fuzz' of a beard that he had been trying to grow ever since he was in the fifth grade. His tee-shirt didn't quite cover his hairy belly and there were several small holes of various sizes in it. The blue jeans he was wearing had rolled up pants legs that having never been hymned were frayed at the bottom and there was a large grease stain on each knee. "What's so damn important that it couldn't wait until after noon?" Asked the chubby man as he squinted and raised his left hand to block the early morning sunlight that was shining directly in his eyes. Stepping between the sunlight and James, Sammy said to the man, "I need to talk to you about the gun," Then he added, 'in private!" "Hey, I told you, I didn't know nothing about it! I bought it from an old wino that was looking for beer money. That's why it was so cheap. So, if it's broken, don't come lookin' to me for no refund. I aint got your money no more!" Sammy suspected the chubby man was lying but let it pass. When James started to close their door in the two brothers faces, Sammy stuck his right foot in the door so the James couldn't close it, "Unless you want to go to jail, you better let me in! Jimmy's dead! " As the unshaven man looked at the two brothers hesitantly, Sammy said to him reassuringly, "Don't worry none, were not here to hurt you or nothin'. Besides, if we was, we aint stupid enough to do it with Cindy around! Now let us in so we can talk." James opened the door the rest of the way and let the two brothers enter. For the next five minutes, Sammy told him about the events of the night before. James looked at him and asked, "What do you want with me? I'm right sorry Jimmy's dead, but it aint my fault!" "Well," Sammy began, "If you want to stay out of jail you better tell everyone the gun was stolen." With a look of confusion, James said indignantly, "I didn't do nothin' wrong, why should I do that?" "Because if you don't, Bert and I are going to tell everyone that you told us you traded it to Ethan for some beer and that your were going to sell the beer up at the high school parking lot after the football game Friday night." Sammy told him flatly. The bootlegger looked from one brother to the other angrily. "It was stolen the night of the killing! You understand? You didn't sell it to me. You left it in the glove compartment of your pick up truck that afternoon the way you usually do and you noticed that it was missing the next day." Sammy elaborated. The nervousness showing in his voice, James Wilkins said, "But what do I say when they ask me why I kept it there?" "Just tell them that you always kept in the glove compartment incase you came across an injured animal. Everybody knows that deer a getting hit all the time around here crossing the highways." Replied Sammy. James looked at him questioningly, "But they're going to ask me why I didn't report it!" "If anyone says anything, you didn't get a chance to report it because you didn't notice it until the next day when you went to get it so you could shoot up some old ammo you had laying around." Sammy answered. James was trapped and he knew it. If the two brothers went public about his bootlegging operation, he would be up on both federal and state charges. Hell, the D.A. would probably add 'Contributing To The Delinquency Of A Minor" just for good measure. If that happened, the next piece of ass he saw would probably be "Bubba" trying to rape him in prison! With no other choice, he nodded his head in agreement. As the two brothers were walking back to their pickup truck, Bert turned to Sandy and asked curiously, "I know Cindy don't got no high standards. But, what you figure she sees in him?" "Besides the free booze?" Sammy inquired as they both climbed into the pickup truck. "Yeah." Replied Bert. "Remember when we was showering after gym class?" Sammy asked. After he closed his door, Bert thought about it for a minute, then it dawned on him. James Wilkins might be seventy pounds overweight and sleazy looking as hell, but he was also hung like a horse! As the pickup peeled off down the dirt road with the sound of a Hank Williams Jr. song blaring loudly from the radio, Bert though to himself, 'Too bad her daddy's the sheriff. Cousin or not, I wouldn't mind tapping some of that a few times.' Chapter Four -- "The Conspiracy" Two months later, Ethan's case was about to come to trial. He had spent the entire time in the county jail. He had no confidence in the public defender assigned to him and almost hit the man when the shyster suggested that Ethan accept the plea bargain offered by the state. It was a shitty deal. The man wanted him to plead guilty to second-degree murder and with it a sentence of twenty years to life. Ethan told his lawyer that he was innocent, and to tell the D.A. to take his plea deal and shove it up his ass! At the very same time Ethan was sitting alone in his cell wondering what would happen to him, Ethan's friend Johnny was getting out of his squad car. The young lawman had been sent by the sheriff to get lunch from the town's only restaurant. The restaurant was a small whole in the wall place that specialized in fish that was so fresh you actually picked it live from one of the restaurant's large tanks before they cooked it the way you wanted. With the D.A. and sheriff inside waiting for him, rather than taking the time to put the car keys in his pocket, Johnny hurriedly sat them on top of the food containers and got out of the car. When he was out, he picked up the containers sending the keys sliding towards the ground. They bounced off the toe of his left foot and slid under the squad car. He bent down to pick up the keys but found they were to far under the car to reach them and had to lie on his back just to get at them. Once he was on the ground, he noticed something lying about thirty feet away under Ethan's car. Left on the street, it had been towed and was parked in the impound lot on the other side of the chain-link fence near where the police cruiser was parked. Even from that distance Johnny could tell that the shinny object glimmering under the vehicle was a knife! After setting down the food, he picked up his keys and got and evidence bag from his squad car. Johnny unlocked the gate leading to the impound lot, carefully retrieved the knife and placed it inside the bag. Then marked the bag as evidence and went back to his car to get the food. "Well how did it get there?" Asked Simon Randal, the town's prosecutor. They were all in the sheriff's office talking about the knife while their lunches sat on the desk getting cold. Johnny looked at him and said, "Hell, I don't know! I guess it must have bounced off the ground and got stuck in the undercarriage of Ethan's car somehow. It probably fell loose when the car was being lowered to the ground by the tow-truck." "This changes everything! That knife supports the story Ethan and Becky told. It also means that your two cousins perjured themselves on the stand. I have no choice but to notify the defense of this evidence. I might as well dismiss the charges now." Yelled the now red-faced prosecutor. His temper was renowned and he didn't like to loose. Johnny said to the sheriff, "Somebody better tell Doc before he hears about it. You bet he's going to be pissed!" "Don't look at me! I'm not going to be the one to tell him. He's already pissed at me because I wouldn't let Sammy and Bert go into Ethan's cell and work him over!" Exclaimed the sheriff. Randal spoke up just then and said, "Fine then, get him on the speakerphone and well all do it!" Murder in Magnolia A few minutes later after the three of them had explained what had transpired, the old doctor screamed into the phone, "I don't give a damn! I want his ass dead! He killed one of us. I don't care how it happened. Do you understand? Make it happen! Loose the knife if you have to. But make it happen!" "But we can't!" said the attorney into the speakerphone. "He's innocent. Besides, if it ever got out that I withheld evidence from the defense, I'd be disbarred." The old man bellowed back, "Listen to me Randal, you want to be governor some day don't you? How do you think you are going to get there without my help? If you don't do this, I'll ruin you! When I'm done with you, you won't be able to be elected dogcatcher! Am I making myself clear!" Just then Johnny spoke up, "Well count me out! He's my friend and I'm not going to see him die for something he didn't do!" There was a long silence and the two men in the room looked at the deputy in shock for nobody challenged Doc. "Didn't your wife just have a child? How are you going to feed them when Jack fires you? And where are you all going to live when I have him show up the next day and evict you from that brand new house of yours? Have you forgotten boy who's paying for it?" Came the voice of the old man from the phone. "Go ahead you old bastard, but I still won't let him die!" Replied the young lawman, rage in his voice. There was a much longer silence this time. Finally the doctor's voice was heard once more from the phone, "Suppose I had Randal take the death penalty off the table and guaranteed you Jack's job when he retires? Would that ease your guilty conscience boy and give you some piece of mind? Before you answer that, think about this... whether you go along with this or not, I promise you that knife will never see the light of day. You can either keep your job or you can be unemployed and homeless! Is it really worth it?" Now it was Johnny's turn to be silent. The two men in the room were looking at him expectedly. "Alright, but I want something in return. I want a clear title to my house. I don't want you hanging this over my head in the future." The old man agreed. From that day on, unless it was part of his work, Johnny never talked to his Uncle, grandfather or Randal again. What respect he had for them he completely lost along with most of the respect he had for himself. It was also the beginning of a lifetime of sleepless nights! With the knife missing and the two brothers testifying that Ethan had shot Jimmy in cold blood, poor Ethan didn't stand a chance when he went to trial. The jury came back with a guilty verdict in less than twenty minutes. To make matters worse, with no one except Becky to testify on his behalf, the judge was prepared to sentence him on the spot. He through the book at Ethan and gave him twenty years to life. Upon his conviction, the Army discharged him ending his military career. His DD-214, discharge form, had indicated that he was Unfit For Military Service. As far as Ethan was concerned, at twenty-five years of age, his life was over. Chapter Five -- "The Woman" But Becky Daily didn't give up on him. At first, she remained in the tiny little town of Magnolia. But it became quickly apparent to her that she would never make a decent living there. Even if she did, it wouldn't be enough to provide her the financial resources to both survive and mount a successful fight to see Ethan go free. After the trial, Becky had started saying quite publicly that it sure did seem odd how the only piece of evidence that would have backed up Ethan's story mysteriously disappeared. She must have said it in front of the wrong person, because that Friday she was called into her boss's office in the middle of her shift. He told her that she was being laid off from her job at the hatchery. Doc had told the man that she was developing carpal tunnel syndrome and her days were numbered. When she pointed out to her supervisor that she hadn't even been to see the physician! His reply was, "Sorry Becky, but if Doc says you don't work, you don't work!" As she was leaving, when she got to her car, she found that all four tires had been cut! It became obvious to her that someone was trying to run her off. Two years before when her mother died, Becky had inherited what could laughably be referred to as 'the family farm'. It wasn't a real farm any more, only about fifty acres of land, and only about a third of that was cleared and fit for farming, the rest being wooded. But it was just too small to produce enough crops for anyone to live on any more and she realized it was time for her to leave Magnolia. Becky thought about where she would go and there seemed only one logical choice, Columbus Georgia. There she might find better employment with which to finance her fight for Ethan's freedom. It was the largest city in the state of Georgia by area, if not by population, and was located near one of the country's largest military bases, Fort Benning. It certainly didn't escape her mind that the move to Columbus provided the added bonus of putting her closer to Ethan as the state prison was conveniently located just at the edge of town. She had a cousin, Joni, living in there who was working as a secretary for one of the local real estate brokers. Her cousin had had the good sense to get out of Magnolia two years earlier. Becky was pretty sure that Joni would put her up for a couple of weeks. So Becky called her, just to make sure she would and then, sold what wood there was on the land to Georgia Wood and Logging for $10,000. A week later, after the company had cleared the land of all its timber, she sold it to one of the local farmers for about $700 an acre. She went out of her way to choose one of the few men who openly despised the Doc because she knew the farmer would never let the old bastard buy the land from him. With her few meager belongings loaded in her car, she headed off to Columbus, stopping only in town long enough to fill her gas tank for the long trip. The store had a policy of prepaying and when Becky went inside to give the cashier twenty dollars, she realized that she had been in such a hurry she had left her purse in the car. As she walked back to her car, she discovered that all four of her tires had been cut once again. Furious, she left the car where it was sitting and walked to "Doc's" office at the other end of town. When she got there she walked right past the receptionist, and began looking around until she found him in an examination room with the Mayor's wife. From the looks of it, she must have caught him in the middle of giving the woman a pap smear. When he heard the door open, he turned around to look at her. With sweat dripping from her, she said, "Look you old bastard, I'm trying to leave this fucking town. If you want me to leave, tell your boys to stop slicing my tires!" Then on inspiration, she glanced over at the woman and said, "Otherwise, I'm going to tell everyone you were giving her more than a pap smear!" Without waiting for a response, she turned around and stomped out leaving the old man sitting there with his jaw wide open." When she got back to her car, it was to find that there was a note stuck with something stapled to it under the left windshield wiper. There were four brand new tires on her car. Shocked, she picked up the note and read it, "Don't come back! Doc". She looked at the paper stapled to the note, it was a receipt for four tires, one tank of gas, one oil change and a new fuel filter, all paid in full! As she pulled off onto the state highway, a road with a name that only those poor unfortunate souls who were misfortunate to live in Magnolia ever seemed to remember, Becky thought to herself, "This town hasn't seen the last of me you old fool!" Chapter Six -- "The City" The almost two hour drive to Columbus gave Becky time to cool off and it occurred to her, as she passed an especially pretty grove of Magnolia trees, that she was going to miss living in the small rural town. No, she wouldn't miss the people. With her mother dead and gone, she didn't care if she ever saw anyone from the town of Magnolia again. What Becky was going to miss was the landscape. She decided to enjoy the drive to Columbus, realizing that it would probably be the last time she would get to see in one place so much of the beauty that nature had to offer. Becky allowed her mind to think back of the pleasanter things she had seen, like how old man Nelson's peach trees looked when they were in full bloom. Becky remembered fondly how much the old man and his wife must have love those trees to get up at five o'clock on mornings when there was frost on the grounds just to make sure that heaters in their front yard were lit so the trees stayed warm. The old couple only had hand-full of them; and, the trees certainly did not produce enough to make a profit. Nonetheless, every day for six months, the couple would tend them as if they were children in need of care. Becky believed they loved the trees very much. Perhaps the trees even returned their love by giving their caretakers the largest, sweetest, most beautiful peaches she had ever seen. Despite herself, it occurred to her that she would even miss crying sound of those awful little birds that would wake her from their tree branch perches in the woods outside her bedroom window every morning. For months she had tried running the little buggers off without success until finally one day, she realized that she gotten used to them. Why is it when you are enjoying something it seems to go by fast, Becky wondered? Have I driven that far? She had just started enjoying the drive and was already passing a sign reading "Columbus City Limits". The city of Columbus Georgia is located almost dead center of the state's western border. On the other side of that border lies the small town of Phenix City Alabama and together they form the Bi-City area. You would think that two municipalities so close together would be virtual mirror images of each other but nothing could be farther from the truth. The town of Phenix City was small and economically depressed while Columbus was large and very prosperous. In some ways Columbus was very similar to Magnolia. Just a lot less of those similarities were visible. But, most of those similarities were geographical. For example, both municipalities had magnolia trees, but then, it's hard to find a place in the state of Georgia that doesn't have magnolia trees. And of course, as did Magnolia, Columbus also had an abundance of the red clay and pine trees. The big difference between the two cities was not geographical. It was, that in Columbus, the corruption was hidden far better to the point you could actually live with it! She was lucky enough to find a loft apartment for about two-hundred dollars a month in the area of the business district of Columbus known as Uptown. For most of the city's existence, the locals used to refer to it as 'Downtown' until someone advised them to rename it to the more politically correct, upbeat Uptown. Then again, because of the numerous fountains running along Broadway, Columbus used to be a known as the 'Fountain City' until a developer tore them all out the last time the business district was remodeled. The apartment, conveniently located directly across from the Federal Courthouse / Post Office, was actually the entire 2nd floor of a two story building. The bottom floor of the building was occupied by a small sandwich shop and was probably the only one of its kind in the business district. It had three massive glass windows that were about six feet wide and eight feet tall, ten feet high ceilings and was almost 1800 square feet in size. Except for a bathroom, it was all one really large room. As it was just two blocks away from the Government Center with its massive law library it was perfect for her. Becky's first order of business after finding a place to stay was to enroll in the nursing program at the local technical college, Columbus State Technical College. She had neither the time nor financial resources for college and then law school. So she enrolled in the schools nursing program. Becky had always been interested in nursing and there was the added bonus of the fact that there was a shortage of nurses, which meant that it would pay well. Becky was aware that if she were to have the enough free time to devote to Ethan's appeal, she could not take a job working for one of the local hospitals. So, when she graduated and became an LPN, she accepted a job working for a local family practice physician. In her spare time, she started studying law and became quite an astute paralegal. It became obvious to her that between school work and the legal research she was going to have to do quite a bit of writing and information gathering so Becky started shopping the pawn shops for a used computer. She was lucky enough to find one for about five hundred dollars and after spending two days trying to figure out how it worked it finally dawned on her to call her cousin and ask for help. Developing computer skills wasn't the easiest thing for her but at least she didn't have to learn how to type; she had acquired that skill in high school. Within two months she had learned enough Word Perfect to type out her homework and was already working on dBase so she could start storing the vast amounts of legal information she knew she would be accumulating. Over the next several years, Becky spent a great deal of money consulting lawyers and hiring private detectives for Ethan. Almost every one of them would take her money, work a few days on the case, and then come back and tell her that nothing could be done. Once in a while, one would string her along trying to milk her for every penny he could until she figured out what they were doing. Then, they would tell her that his case was hopeless and all the leads they were working on had gone dry. In 2006, the doctor she worked for changed her hours, working longer days but closing the office on Fridays. Which suited Becky just fine; it gave her more time to spend on Ethan's case. By the winter of 2008 she was almost broke for the third time and the trails were as cold as ice. Half the people involved in the case were dead and the only ones left alive were the deputy, who had became sheriff a few years back and the two brothers, Bert and Sammy. In the several attempts made to talk to him, the deputy never talked about the case with anyone. The two Oglethorpe brothers were now in prison and even if they chose to talk, and they wouldn't, no judge was likely to consider their testimony credible. To make matters worse, without some evidence to back up Ethan's story, no appeals court was ever likely to listen to them. Even to Becky, it was beginning to look as if she and Ethan were never going to be together and she knew that something had to break soon, she didn't know how much longer she could stand the awful loneliness of waiting for him. A few years ago she had had to have a full hysterectomy, and she wondered if he would still want her now that she would be unable to give him any children. She had to hope. Her youth dwindling, all she had left was her hope. That, and her love for him. Chapter Seven -- "The Prisoner" They say that prison is hard on a man, and even harder on an innocent man. A guilty man can resign himself at some point to the fact that at least in some way he deserves his fate but a truly innocent man never can. It takes a strong man to keep his sanity and not be tempted to take his own life under such circumstances. Ethan knew that it would take every bit of his strength just to keep prison from changing him into the kind of man he did not want to be. Locked up or not, he refused to become what they had accused him of even if never saw his freedom again. He convinced himself that Becky would be better off without him and he didn't want her to cling to any false hopes. And so, the last thing Ethan did before he left for the state prison at Columbus was to call Becky and tell her not to come and see him. "Forget about me," he told her as he struggled hard to fight back his own tears, "there's nothing you can do for me. Don't come see me, don't call, and don't you dare waste your time waiting for me." Then he hung up abruptly before she could protest. In prison, no one believed him when he proclaimed his innocence. The other prisoners laughed at him saying "Everyone's innocent in here!" Some even tried beating him, thinking they might get him to say otherwise. And for the next ten years, whenever a particually hard case would arrive at the prison and hear about the "Innocent Man", the new prisoner would brag that he was going to be the one to get Ethan to admit he was guilty. He started working out and lifting weights and it became an almost religious routine for him. He did it partly to have something to do, but mostly to keep his body in shape just so he would survive the beatings. As his body became more muscular and developed, the other prisoners thought that he was preparing to fight back; then when he didn't they became confused. At first, they thought he was a coward, then they thought he was just plain stubborn and eventually they thought he was crazy. A few speculated that it was because he was really guilty and the beatings had become some form of penance for him. Through all the beatings and trips to the infirmary, Ethan never fought back. No one, not even the guards understood why. How could they? The fact is that Ethan had changed the day he killed Jimmy Oglethorpe. Ethan wasn't afraid of the men that beat him, far from it, he was afraid he might kill one of them. Ethan had killed once and he never wanted to do it again, even if it meant loosing his own life. He had taken a human life and he hated himself for it. In the deepest part of his soul he felt guilty about it. His mind was tortured, torn between the guilt from what he had done and the reality of knowing that he had been given no choice. But it all changed the day Bert and Sammy Oglethorpe showed up one cold December day at the prison. Both men had been convicted of running a methamphetamine lab and each had been sentenced to ten years imprisonment. Thinking that it might gain them prestige, the first thing they did was to brag how they had helped railroad Ethan for killing Jimmy. It didn't have the results they expected. When word got around that Ethan was actually innocent, Bert and Sammy were visited by a few of the 'lifers' and ended up spending two weeks in the infirmary. Both brothers learned then that prisoners have their own sense of justice. Two things happened after that, no one ever beat Ethan again and the Oglethorpe brothers were moved for their own good to the maximum-security section of the prison! It seems the two brothers began showing up every day at the infirmary with various bruises and minor cuts and contusions. For reasons unexplained, it took the warden six months to make the decision to move them there. Maybe the warden had his own idea of justice too? After everything that had happened to him, Ethan was surprised when every 'jailhouse lawyer' in the prison began coming to him one-by-one offering to help him with his appeal, even the ones that had beaten him. And for the first time, he began to have hope that he might see his freedom again. But even with their help, his case looked hopeless. Ethan and his new found friends spent the next five years trying to find some angle for an appeal but there just wasn't one. You either had to show that the judge had made an error, a witness had committed perjury, or that the defense had been denied access to either a key witness or piece of evidence.