Dockside Cafe Part 15 (Blogophilia 49.13)

 As I got out of the car, Williams spun me around. “Jim Holden, you’re under arrest for the murder of Donna Bartlett.”

The whole charade with the girl had been to draw me to a safe place to do the arrest. I didn’t feel the click of the cuffs as they went around my wrists. The Miranda speech was just so much buzz. The cruiser smelled like the last drunk they brought in. These would be the memories of tomorrow.

That was five years ago.

It was supposed to have been simple. Jerry Herrington was in a bind with The Sunset and needed it to disappear. It wasn’t a problem. The Texas LLC had been set up years before and the registration fees were up to date. The phony bill of sale and a fake destination were the easy parts. I’ve never met a marina manager who ever looked at paperwork. All they care about is having an open slip to fill at higher rent. The dealer in Florida didn’t ask questions and had the dock space to keep it out of sight.

Herrington got spooked after the body turned up and torched the boat. Honestly, I thought Jerry would just found a buyer. I knew he was the guy in the picture the local yokel had shown me. I It didn’t care whether the insurance company paid or not. I wasn’t going to get anything out of it and ratting people out wasn’t something I did.

I still don’t know how Williams figured it all out. I was about half way through the motions of tracking the boat when she called me. Herrington had called threatening to kill her if she went through with the divorce. I agreed to meet her to distract her from asking too many questions and to figure out how I needed to handle Jerry.

I knew the resort was lax on security, so when the gate being open wasn’t surprising. The only car in the lot was a Mercedes with a Georgia Bulldogs plate frame. Donna was driving and I got in the passenger seat. She had her suspicions on what happened to the boat and asked if I was in on the scam. I lied, of course, telling her I had no idea where the boat was. Her hands flitted around like a hummingbird at a feeder to find something. I saw the gun and made sure I wasn’t the target. The bullet caught the aorta and had made a huge mess.

My car must have shown up on video and I didn’t know it. I chucked everything over a bridge and drove home. When Williams asked me where I’d left the gun, I told him it was somewhere off I-85. He asked if I had anything to do with Herrington’s or Delores’ death. I said no. Herrington had never contacted me after our initial meeting about the boat.

Delores and Herrington did turn out to be a Murder-Suicide, though. Herrington was the guy in the Audi and was one of her regular customers. She caught on to the scam and the blackmail attempt didn’t go over well. Herrington did what he had to do and then realized the cops were coming after him. Whether he knew he was in the exact same place, I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

I pled to Voluntary Manslaughter and got 15 years, 7 to serve. The D.A wanted 1st Degree, but charge reduction is why you pay the lawyers. It took the entire proceeds from the case to get what I got. A small price for some form of future outside this cell.

Aluminum skies through steel bars is my view on life now. It makes the world a little blurry. The current roomie is OK, at least for prison. There have been worse. He’s in for beating up his girlfriend. We spend most of the day bitching about women to stave off the boredom. It’s all you can do in this position.

I heard a rumor I might be going up before the Parole Board a little early because I’ve behaved myself while I’ve been in. Maybe there’s another boat out there for me. But you never get your hopes up here. Reality is too much of bitch.

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Topic-Michelle Marko King

Pic- Rebecca Revels

Pic guesses: Hummingbird (in blog) Feeder (in blog) sip, beak, breakfast, sugar, fast