Jagged Edges Read online

  Jagged Edges

  RON JOHNSON

  Jagged Edges

  Copyright© 2016

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination, real or unreal are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Jagged Edges

  In the cramped and frigid Midwest town she grew up in, Courtney Lane struggles to raise her three young children under the tyranny of her abusive husband Tommy.

  One afternoon, she comes home to find him sprawled on the floor, in a pool of blood, dead. The abuse record and brutal nature of the crime are enough to charge her with her husband’s murder. Two weeks before trial, terrified at the thought of losing her children, Courtney sets out to find the real killer.

  Convinced the murder is related to her husband’s drug-dealing, she blunders into an underworld of meth-labs, strip bars and hired killers. Her digging will uncover a crime ring, but the murderer in the shadows has set a trap and she’s walking right into it.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  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

  This book is dedicated to those persons whom without this telling would not be possible. First, to my father whose longing for adventure blazed a daring and indelible trail, and my beloved mother whose love of mysteries and “good words” handed down the lantern allowing me to peer into the shadows and alleyways of delicious darkness. Next, the special lady who inspired it all, whose love, fortitude, and dedication to those near to her has brought an ocean of beauty and grace. Finally the Creator of all things, giver of life, love, and author of our faith, Yeshua.

  Ron Johnson is an author, screenwriter, and freelance writer. He grew up under the Southern California sun, a slingshot’s lob from the beach. The birthplace of his dreams, where the salty sea air enticed him to sail off for squally adventure. It’s where he rode a wild mustang named Schwinn, embarked on perilous expeditions over backyard fences, and fought a pack of killer Saint Bernards with nothing but a lucky rabbit’s foot. Today, he resides in the Southern Nevada desert working on his next tale.

  Also by RON JOHNSON:

  DUGAN’S PRAYER

  One

  You know me. At least you think you do because you’ve seen me—my type. That girl trudging up the sidewalk behind a grimy stroller with two toddlers in tow, and all of three dollars and thirty eight cents squirreled away in her purse. My gait as slow-lumbering as a mama elephant. I have all the enthusiasm of a head cold or someone on their way to be hanged. But I’m actually on my way to the market for diapers and formula, or the dollar store for cheap reading glasses that I’m always breaking. Ah yes, my eyes; miserably nearsighted, stony, vacant.

  What you should know about me is that I’m a survivor. By that I mean that I don’t really live each day so much as get through it. I don’t make plans or think about tomorrow, God no. It’s one day at a time, cross each bridge as I come to it.

  What you don’t know about me, but could possibly guess if you looked closely, is a nasty habit I had picked up a long time ago (so it seems) when I was twelve. The same year I was relocated to The Duchamp House for Rehabilitated Girls. A very nice name for a very ugly place for very troublesome young ladies indeed. Juvy. But don’t worry. I’m not a five-alarm case. I usually only have perhaps a scabby line and a scar or two on some hidden part of my body. Nothing serious. And no, I don’t know why I do it. Who the hell does?

  In case you’re wondering, my youthful incarceration came by way of a joyride with my, at the time, fifteen-year-old neighbor who jacked his step-father’s ‘86 Volvo wagon, whom subsequently called the cops. We ran out of gas and were just sitting there when the black and white rolled up.

  Guilty by association.

  I didn’t really do anything wrong. But then we had pills in the car, speed that my friend Allen pilfered from his mother’s medicine cabinet. It wasn’t my first time either. I was growing rather fond of the little yellow candy-capsules.

  Another thing you surely don’t know about me‒‒and neither do I really but was told by the psychiatrist that interviewed me at Duchamp, or Douche-bag House for the Retarded, or The Big House, or Prison, or Hell House, as we called it among other things‒‒is that I have what’s called a borderline personality. Some call it a dissociative disorder. One of those dubious mental conditions that’s hard to classify. It has to do with escaping reality (I call it a vacation) that interrupts my perception of others and my own personal identity, so I’m told.

  But thankfully, according to my former shrink anyway, I’ve not fallen that far off the rocking horse. Merely a mild case. However my personality is somewhat malleable. A jellyfish that squirms when attacked or put under too much pressure, or just on the run.

  And I run a lot.

  Not so much physically, though I’ve done that, but mentally when life is just too overwhelming.

  Overwhelmed.

  That’s how I feel most of the time. That’s a good word for it. And jagged. Thin is another. Like butter spread over too much bread. I read that somewhere. Oh yeah… JRR Tolkien. I like to read it’s my other escape. The first time I read that line I thought it was written just for me, one of those, how did they know? Moments.

  But I digress (a word I never use but picked up in my reading) and so here it is… what I want to tell you most of all. That I’m writing this from my jail cell. Yup, another stint in the pokey, only this time it’s for something much more serious. Yeah, that most heinous of crimes, as serious as it gets.

  * * *

  The dungeon masters came for me the way they always do, stomping down the row with concrete shoes echoing off canyon walls. Arriving at my little cage as casual as union plumbers going to work, while concealing a glint of danger behind steely eyes as if they had forgotten I’m a twenty-two-year-old girl and not a grizzly bear. It was Officer Thompson leading the way, my least favorite of jailers, wearing that permanent scowl of disapproval pronouncing me guilty before proven… well, you know.

  “Courtney Lane… roll it up!” he bellowed, waiting for the other officer to unlock my cell, which he did by punching a keypad on the far side of the corridor. There was a loud buzz like thousands of angry bees and Thompson hauled the door open and stepped barely inside, jangling shackles that he held out for me. I knew the routine by now and extended my wrists, then opened my stance so he could apply the leg irons; jangle-jangle. It made me feel like a mountain lion or some other wild animal, even though I’m harmless as a kitten. But it didn’t matter, they’d be following protocol to the letter. I was heading out today. Yippy! I was h
eading to court.

  Robert Frink, my attorney was waiting for me in the small gray room looking ever so lawyerly in his tailored suit, and not so lawyerly shining a big-ass cheeky smile. “Courtney! How are you?” He chimed winsome, like we were heading out on a dinner date I had forgotten to dress for and not a court appearance. Never mind the jumpsuit, the leg-irons and such. Flowers? Oh you shouldn’t have. No really.

  Actually, I appreciated his stalwart optimism. It seemed he took it upon himself to keep my spirits up perhaps even more than keeping me off death row. I preferred the latter. But it helped. Believe me it helped.

  “Are you ready?” Robert said beaming.

  I half-expected him to extend a gentleman’s arm for me to take. But what am I supposed to say to that? No? Put me back in my cell? Of course I’m ready. “Absolutely,” I say. I’ve never been more damn ready in my miserable life.

  After some wasted time over small-talk and prepping—which is just Robert repeating everything he’s been telling me for weeks now—we finally head out. Into the crisp, cool, green-smelling air of the real world I emerge, dazed at the gaggle of reporters huddled outside the jail. Cameras raised and popping like firecrackers, some flashes blinding my eyes, fighting my natural inclination to look away or down at the ground. But always obeying my lawyer’s strict instructions to glide on; head up, calm, collected, sure as a southern senator in election year. All the while voices shouting, did you kill him Courtney? Was it self-defense? Did your husband force you into it? None of them from my small town. All visitors from other planets, aliens in search of a host to bloodsuck and devour.

  Jesus oh Lord help me. Such a pointless and noisy exercise. They should damn well know I won’t break as much as a syllable. My attorney is at least of some fair repute, any lawyer worth a bottle of six dollar bourbon will instruct their client not to talk to the media on their way to court‒‒duh.

  We make it to the unmarked car and I duck into the back, finally shutting out the rabble. We roll through downtown Lafayette, a mile and a half strip of brick buildings that were once nice and important (way before my time) but now just look old and beyond their years. But then, the whole town pretty much does. Worn-out. It looks the way I feel.

  God I hate this town.

  Two

  BEFORE

  I had forgotten something at the store. Damn, I always do that. Milk too. Oh well, Tommy’s the only one who really drinks it, except for little Joey. I’ll probably get wacked for it when Tommy pours his Cap’n Crunch tonight and sees there’s none in the fridge. I’ll have to remember to tell him I forgot beforehand so he doesn’t come uncorked‒‒smack!

  Life in the Lane household.

  The apartment complex looked as lovely as always. Sand-swept, grime-blotched sidewalks (I call perma-grime) and weeds shooting up from the ancient planter boxes that I guess someone at one time thought would add a touch of beauty. I often think I should yank them out and plant some flowers, but then who really gives a rat’s shit, ya know?

  I enter the complex, it’s small, like eighteen units and Jimmy and Beany‒‒not his real name but that’s what his parents call him‒‒the McMillian kids, come screaming around the corner, running wild and unsupervised like escaped zoo monkeys. They are three and five. I pass an open window looking into the hallway and I’m struck with the sweet pungent odor of drugs‒‒The Henleys. But then it could just be burnt popcorn in the microwave and the fact that I know they’re stoned out of their minds ninety percent of the time. The central courtyard (no one calls it that) is empty as I pass more doors and windows; the Millers‒‒tweakers, the Adamses‒‒crackheads, the Rodriguezes‒‒drunks. Pretty much everyone in the building is on something and on some kind of government assistance. It’s the happiest place on earth.

  I headed to where my kids are, at Jarod and Delaya’s, the only ones in the building not on drugs. He and his fiancé watch my three little ones sometimes when I need a break, and I needed it this morning. It’s also good for them to be around a couple that doesn’t throw things at each other. But I decide to take in the groceries first which goes so much smoother without the adorable munchkins poking into everything.

  I trudge on to the farthest, dark corner hauling the two heavy bags and duck into my doorway, number 17. Inside I close the door behind me, turn, and am immediately assaulted by a flash of terror. A murky, spurious sense that some dark fiend is waiting for me in the shadows. Then the horribly fetching vampire wraps me in his velvet cloak and takes me down into the dark void. Nothing but the hot sting of needle-fangs tearing into my tender lily neck-flesh.

  For a split-second I’m paralyzed with insensible horror. Then cast it away, deleted like unwelcome spam. Too many horror movies like Freddy Kruger and that glorious Texas Chainsaw guy. Or maybe just too much horror in general (the real stuff is so much worse). I headed for the kitchen wanting desperately to ease my biceps of these anvils I’ve been carrying. I notice a few things out of place but then that’s normal. Tables, lamps, sofa cushions are alive in this house, shifting restlessly like the rodents that interminably inhabit the walls; yeah, the exterminator comes but once a year. Trying to keep up with the munchkin’s antics is just impossible—the adorable little rats.

  After I shelve the goods it’s off to Jarod’s to retrieve the kiddies (I affectionately sometimes call the Rat Pack). It’s amazing how they explode with glee at the sight of me, as if I were the Easter Bunny, then two minutes later, back in our apartment are whining like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. I thanked Jarod and Delaya and led the train back to our apartment, linking hands like elephant’s trunks; me, Joey then Bugs (that’s our nickname for Bobby, all of three and prone to wander into the dirt to look for…).

  The afternoon was nice, fighting down to a minimum. I managed to get some stuff done and even watch an old episode of Breaking Bad on the quack-box—a crappy tube-job we got for free but still not too bad because the faces aren’t blue like the last one we had. It wasn’t really watchable. This one is. Thank you God!

  Honey Bun, or Bun Bun, which evolved from Dust Bunny, my baby of ten months whose real name is Dusty is wailing again (Dusty Lane, I know… he’ll get ribbed in school for sure). He’s teething and the screaming angel is all mouth and three jagged teeth. The scream is so loud the neighbors know our routine like the buses that rumble-whoosh by every thirty minutes.

  I fished into his tiny mouth, rubbed on the gunk and cradled him with sweet love. He quiets at last, and the crises is over. A moment of peace while I at last get to… clean out the cat-box. Oh yeah, we got a cat. A dark bluish-gray Russian Tabby mix (I think) named Mercy. Joey named her. I know, a four-year-old naming a cat Mercy, right? As if he knew something innately profound. But then I went through a stage when they acted up I’d say mercy me, not wanting to cuss at the darlings. So I peel open a can of cat meat that stinks like the devil’s crotch itch—don’t know how she eats it—and I have to hold my breath to keep from yacking. Dump it into the bowl and watch her gobble it up.

  Now bottle-feeding Bun Bun, watching Judge Judy, loving every minute of it, (oh the tangled legal disputes we weave…) except that I’m craving a smoke. Joey’s tired of the floor and crawls like a lizard up onto the sofa to snuggle mommy and say hello to his baby brother. Little Bobby follows like a chick as he always does and the four of us huddle together on the food-stained, kitten-peed, sagging couch, AKA the fabulous sofa. “Can we watch cartoons mommy?” Joey whines.

  “Sure,” I reply. And dig for the remote lost under the shabby cushions. Then hit the Cartoon Network. “Hey!” I shout, “Scooby Doo’s on! Yay…”

  “Yay!” The boys sing. The living room now filled with the zany boing—zap—crump... and bouncy music of toons. All of us chuckling. And the gentle laughter of my children is soothing like a warm bubble bath I never get to indulge in. But I’ll take this any day. I take in the moment like a bride walking the aisle, and thank God for my children. They are my life—but then I never had that moment
walking the aisle. No moony butterflies, no champagne reception. Can you say Vegas beer wedding?

  At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, held at the world famous Chapel O’ Love. A guy decked out in full Elvis regalia presiding over the nuptial; porkchops the size of canned hams leading up to a severe raven pomp wig. “Do ya take this here lovely woman to be your lawfully wedded sweetheart mama?” he crooned in his best Elvis voice (not bad really). I was gushing all the way like a contestant that had just won American Idol. But then I was barely eighteen and had never ventured out of my little cow town before. Not really. This was an adventure. Then the words, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” and the game was over. Reality set in, my fate sealed in holy (or otherwise) matrimony. My heart dropped into my bowels and tried to escape like a mouse down a snake’s belly—I felt suddenly faint and ill-intestined. Then did what I do best, rolled with it. I was with child after all. Little Joey who had yet to be named. I could tough this out, I thought. Yes I could.

  My name and thus identity, changed from Courtney Woolrich to Courtney Lane. It’s so nice they let you keep your first name isn’t it? Ever since I could remember, I couldn’t wait to rid of that horrible Woolrich, but now… but now. Mercy me.

  * * *

  After dinnertime is down time. Somehow the kids just know that daddy doesn’t want a ruckus while he digests his fodder. His routine is so damn predictable; tired and ornery the moment he steps in from work, perks up at dinner, limp again until eight thirty. Then he’s horny. Most nights he collapses in front of the tube staking his turf, getting pie-faced on cheap beer, lilting over sloppy as a sedated moose the rangers have just tagged (love those game warden shows on Animal Planet). The kids run amuck until the volume reaches hurricane levels and he unloads on them, and me, to quiet them down. This is my cue to exit stage right and take them into their room and retreat into the west wing, the only other room in Lane Manor.