Side(H)arm Read online

  Side (H)arm

  A STORY OF MURDER, BETRAYAL, AND REDEMPTION

  JAMES E. ABEL

  © 2019 by James E. Abel

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Joanna Williams

  Cover photo by Mary Cims

  Library of Congress information available upon request

  ISBN 978-0-9970808-4-1

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 paperback

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to those who work tirelessly to prevent drug abuse and dependency, to those who work tirelessly to help the victims, and to the millions of families that have suffered the consequences of this epidemic.

  Chapter 1

  People we don’t know, in places that we’ve never been, can impact our lives in ways we can’t begin to imagine. It’s a lesson I learned earlier than most. And no matter how hard we try, we can’t insulate ourselves from the unknown. All we can do is try to move forward… after the colors in our lives have been changed forever.

  The sweat dripped off their foreheads, burned their eyes, and fell to the floor. Their hearts were pounding so hard they were afraid the sound would betray them. Teenagers Billy Reynolds and Kevin Phillips were kneeling between two parked cars, frozen in place on the third deck of the Bryan Street Parking Garage in downtown Savannah, Georgia, watching as a cop passed directly in front of them. The best friends had a reason to be scared. They were there to jack a car…and not just any car. It was a brand-new yellow convertible Camaro SS—one that was owned by an officer on the city’s police force.

  As the footsteps faded away, the teenagers refocused on their target. The Camaro sat alone, having been backed into one of the few angled parking spaces that could protect it from a door thrown open by a careless neighbor. Billy, a freckle-faced, curly-haired eighteen-year-old with a muscular frame turned to Kevin and asked, “You sure you want to go through with this?”

  Kevin, a tall, lanky kid with long blond hair and blue eyes nervously said, “I don’t know man. I’m about to piss my pants!”

  Billy got a big smile on his face and said, “Hey! We’ve come this far, so we might as well go for it.” Then he pushed Kevin aside, stood up, and said, “It’s celebration time…so come on!” and took off running toward the car.

  What they were celebrating is the fact that two days earlier, they had both accepted full ride athletic scholarships to play baseball for the University of Georgia. Billy was the home-run hitting star catcher on St. Andrew’s School’s state championship baseball team, and Kevin was the best left-handed pitcher in the state. His fastball was already over ninety miles-per-hour, and he had a nasty slider to go with it.

  Kevin, nervously watching Billy sprint toward the car, jumped up and followed suit. He finally caught up to him just as they reached the car. There was no need to open the doors. The top was down. They both leapt into the car, Billy from the driver’s side; Kevin from the passenger’s side. Billy hit the key fob he held in his hand, signaling the car’s electronics, and when he pushed the ignition button, the engine sprung to life. Within seconds, the deep rumble of the engine and the squealing tires interrupted the quiet of the parking deck as the car flew around the corners on its way down the exit ramp. When they reached the gate at the bottom, Kevin nervously scanned the area while Billy fumbled around the center console until he found the plastic card and held it up to the electronic eye. The gate lifted, and they were free. The car heist was complete. Billy pointed the car toward Tybee Island, and they were soon on U.S. Route 80 and out of town. Kevin relaxed and looked around at the car’s interior. He was blown away.

  “Dude. This was worth it. Your old man just got it last week. Am I right?”

  “Yup. Right off the showroom floor.”

  “But what if he finds out? He’ll kill us!”

  Billy got a big shit-eating grin on his face. “You really fell for it, didn’t you?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Headline: Kevin Phillips caught stealing a cop’s car, loses baseball scholarship. Ha! My dad knew we were taking it. I just wanted to see you sweat it out, you know, enjoy the experience.”

  Kevin punched Billy on his arm and yelled, “Son of a bitch! You just wait, dude. Paybacks are hell!”

  They both laughed. Kevin turned up the music, blasting it out into the night air.

  Billy glanced over and asked Kevin, “Hey, want a beer?”

  “Yeah, right. Like we’re gonna score some beer!”

  Billy flashed one of his patented smiles.

  “You really have a lot to learn. I put it in the trunk before he left for work!”

  “You are the man!” Kevin said, as they exchanged high fives.

  Kevin asked, “So where are we headed?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Their first stop was the beach near Tybee Pier to meet some friends for a pick-up game of football. Kevin and some of the guys drank but not Billy. He kept his promise to his dad.

  A few hours later, Billy and Kevin said their goodbyes and headed toward home. They were almost off the island when Billy took a hard left turn off the main drag onto Catalina Drive, a small side street. Kevin, pretty much wasted, tried to focus. “Hey, dude, where are we going now?”

  “No place. Just a little detour. Okay?”

  Kevin smiled, took a drink out of the beer can he was cradling in his hand, and said, “Not a care in the world.”

  About a half a mile down the road, Billy slowed down, scanning the side of the road. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. It was a narrow, sandy lane that cut directly between two huge southern live oak trees. Billy turned onto it, passed under some low hanging Spanish moss draping down from the tree branches, between some dense underbrush, and continued down a slow incline. A hundred yards later, the road dead-ended into a makeshift parking area of sand and crushed seashells that fronted a large, U-shaped body of water.

  The locals knew the area as Wilson’s Swash. No one knew how it got its name, but the water was brackish, a mixture of salt water feeding in from the ocean and fresh water being fed by Chimney Creek. It would rise and fall with the ocean’s tides. One lonely pole light, seemingly off the grid, threw a dim light, just enough to warn unfamiliar visitors of the water that awa
ited them if they didn’t come to a stop.

  During the day, local fisherman and crabbers backed their trailers to the water’s edge to launch their jon boats. At night, the parking lot became the home to young lovers who would park at the far end, away from the light, and stay there for as long it took.

  When Billy reached the parking lot, he backed the car up to the water’s edge and pointed the cars headlights up the incline, lighting up a small grassy area between the car and the underbrush beyond. That’s where the locals parked their trailers after they launched their boats.

  As Billy rolled the car to a stop, Kevin looked at him through bloodshot eyes and asked, “Woah, where we at, dude?”

  “Wilson’s Swash.”

  Billy smiled, pointed to the empty beer cans on the backseat, and said, “How about if you clean up a bit. I’ll be right back.”

  “Gotta take a leak?”

  “Something like that.”

  Kevin nodded, turned up the volume on the radio, put his long legs up on the dash, closed his eyes, and started grooving to the music. He was just about asleep when he felt his legs getting shoved off the dashboard.

  His eyes rolled open to find Billy standing beside the car and reaching in to pop open the glovebox. He watched as Billy pulled out a roll of $100 bills.

  “What the? What are you doin’?”

  “No worries. It’s just something I gotta do on my own. Think for a minute. You’ll know what I’m talking about.” Billy glanced over at a nearby trashcan. “Now, toss out the empties, and I’ll be right back.”

  Kevin did know what Billy was talking about. Two years earlier, during Billy’s sophomore year in high school, his mother walked in one night and told his father that she had fallen in love with another man and was leaving him. Within weeks, before the divorce papers could even be filed, she had run off to New England with her new lover, a doctor from the clinic where she had worked as the receptionist. Billy’s dad was devastated. He started coming home drunk—or not at all. Without Billy’s mom or dad around, it wasn’t long before he came to the attention of a couple of new drug dealers in town.

  Their names were Lucien and Luke Baxter. Lucien was the older brother. He was an odd-looking man with oily black hair and dark beady eyes that peered out from behind horn-rimmed glasses. His lower jaw was undersized, leaving him with a weak chin and a bad overbite. But he was smart. He always had to be the smartest man in the room. Luke, five years younger than Lucien, didn’t have Lucien’s brains, but he was taller, more muscular, and better looking than his brother.

  The Baxter brothers’ business model was to hang around pizza shops, arcades—or any other place where teenagers tended to gravitate in their spare time. There, they would look for kids who were loners, getting into fights, or who looked like they came from a poor background or a broken home. They were easy targets. Lucien would reel them in with free weed and then gradually raise the price. Later on, he’d try to move them up the food chain, usually to cocaine. Once kids were hooked, he’d offer them discounts if they helped him recruit new customers, kids with money in their pockets. It was the classic pyramid scheme, and it worked like a charm. On the rare occasion when there was a payment problem or a customer tried to leave the fold, Luke would step in. He was the enforcer.

  So, with Mom gone, and Dad drowning in his sorrows, one of Lucien’s disciples introduced Billy to the Baxter brothers. At first, all that Billy wanted was weed—a way to escape. But he quickly moved onto cocaine. It made him feel better. And that’s when Kevin took notice. When he confronted Billy, he denied it. Kevin went to Billy’s dad. It was the toughest thing he’d ever done, but it eventually worked. Getting his son straightened out gave Billy’s dad a purpose again, a reason to come home after work. He got his drinking under control and got Billy into counseling. After a lot of hard work, Billy had gotten himself straight.

  That night at the swash, Billy was taking care of the last piece of unfinished business, the remainder of a $6,000 tab he had run up with the Baxters. For eighteen months, he had been paying Luke once a week, whatever he could scrape together. He was there to make the final installment, $1,500 in cash.

  Lucien had insisted that the payment take place out there, at night, and away from suspicious eyes. Billy didn’t like it, but he knew that he could take care of himself. And Kevin was along for backup, at least in theory.

  As Kevin gathered up the empties, Billy walked up the slope toward the clearing, guided by the light from the Camaro’s headlights. As Billy neared the edge of the headlights range, he heard a voice call out from the shadows.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for some time now.” Lucien Baxter walked out of the darkness and approached Billy. Billy held out the roll of bills and said, “Well, here I am, and here’s the last of the money I owe you.”

  Lucien took it and shoved it in his pocket.

  Billy asked, “Aren’t you gonna count it?”

  “No. I trust you, Billy.”

  “Have it your way. But we’re done here. And I mean done.”

  Billy turned to walk back to the car when Lucien jumped in front of him and said, “Not quite yet, kid.” And then he sucker-punched Billy in the gut as hard as his scrawny body was capable of. Billy doubled over in pain, but as he did, Lucien brought his knee up into Billy’s face and pounded down on the back of Billy’s head with both of his fists. It was Lucien’s only chance in this fight—a full-scale sneak attack.

  Billy fell to the ground, blood pouring out of his nose. When he looked up, he found Lucien standing over him like a victorious gladiator.

  “What the hell’s with you, man? That’s every last penny I owe you.”

  Lucien didn’t answer right away. He looked past Billy into the shadows and gave a small nod of his head. Luke Baxter appeared, carrying a baseball bat.

  Lucien looked down at Billy and sneered, “Ain’t about the money, kid.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  “Your old man, he’s a cop, right?”

  “So what?”

  “You ratted me out.”

  “No. No way. I swear to God.”

  “Yeah? Well I don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “That’s for you to figure out.”

  Lucien gave a second nod of his head and turned away.

  Luke, standing directly behind Billy, took the bat with both hands as if he was at home plate and Billy’s head was about to be the ball. He pulled the bat all the way back and was about to swing when BANG, a gunshot rang out.

  Lucien and Billy stared into the glare of the Camaro’s headlights, looking for the shooter. And then came the THUD from behind. They both whipped their heads around just in time to see the final twitches from Luke’s body, sprawled out on the ground, still clutching onto the baseball bat. A small trickle of blood dripped from a bullet hole directly above his left eye.

  Lucien held his arms out in front of him as if they could stop the next bullet. He took a few steps backward, pleading “No. No. Don’t shoot!”

  Then, like a cockroach when the lights go on, he turned and ran as fast as he could, zigzagging his way back into the darkness. But there was no second shot, and Billy was left staring into the headlights of his father’s car, wondering who had fired the first one.

  Chapter 2

  My fondest memories go back to the times I spent on Tybee Pier. That’s where my mother first taught me how to paint. I remember those days with all the colors of the rainbow.

  Three Years Later

  Jordan Nichols looked over at the man in the passenger seat of his black Ford F-150 pickup truck and said, “Wow! Can you believe this weather?” Jordan was a thirty-five-year-old police officer with the Savannah Police Department, and the man he was talking to was Tommy Reynolds, his forty-seven-year-old partner, best friend, and chief jokester on Savannah’s police department. They had just used the first half of their lunch hour to drive the eighteen miles across U.S. Route 80 from police headquarters in down
town Savannah to Tybee Pier on Tybee Island, Georgia, on a beautiful October day.

  Jordan was a man’s man, with a solid six-foot-two-inch-tall frame, piercing light blue eyes, thick brown hair, and a dark stubble of beard that highlighted a strong jaw. Tommy had a round face, curly salt-and-pepper hair, a stocky frame, and huge forearms attached to hands that looked like they could crush someone. Unfortunately, the past few years had been tough on him, and he’d acquired a good-sized beer gut, trying to drink away some bad memories.

  Jordan jumped out of the truck and said, “Wait here, partner. And no more of that crap you’ve been dishing. You got it?”

  Tommy smiled and said, “No way. You’re not getting off that easy.”

  Jordan slammed his door shut and walked away from the truck as Tommy jumped out of the passenger’s seat and ran to catch up.

  While they both wore the suits and ties that their jobs as police investigators called for, they couldn’t have looked more different. Jordan’s white shirt was tucked neatly into his thirty-two-inch waist, his jacket fit to perfection, and his light blue tie was pulled up tight to his neck. He was one of those rare people whose proportions always made his clothes look the way they were supposed to.

  Tommy was more like the rest of us. As he ran, he struggled to hitch up his black suit pants and tuck in the wrinkled white shirt that had worked its way out of place. He didn’t even bother to button the top button of his shirt or to fix the tie that was pulled loose.

  Jordan didn’t wait. He needed to talk to his wife, Casey, and Molly, their twelve-year-old daughter. Casey was the center of Jordan’s universe and for good reason. She was intelligent, beautiful, exciting, and forgiving. What more could a man ask for? As for Molly, maybe Jordan had wished for a boy back when Casey first got pregnant, but he didn’t remember. Molly took after her mother, and he wouldn’t have traded her for anyone in the world.

  Jordan glanced back to find Tommy close on his heels. “I told you to wait in the truck!”

  “Not gonna happen! I’m just honored to be in your presence, officer…sir!” Tommy ran past Jordan, turned, and stopped in the middle of the nearly empty parking lot. He waved his left hand to the sky, tucked his right hand under his gut, and gave Jordan a deep ceremonial bow as he called out, “Your majesty!”