Last post, I talked a bit about the newest addition to the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles: Kelly Marshall’s Justice.
In this post, I thought you might like to take a read of a portion of chapter one. Something to wet your whistle. Something to get a feel for the excitement and tension Ms. Marshall packs into the first chapter.
So, without any further advertising, I give you Justice by Kelly Marshall. Book 8 in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles.
Chapter One
“Take it easy. Catch your breath.” I reached out and touched his shaking shoulder. What could possibly have frightened him so much?
He dropped his head down on his chest and sucked in several more breaths. When he looked up at me, tears had made a muddy path from his eyes to his chin. “La chica esta muerta.” The girl is dead.
I stood and reached out my hand to help him up. “Donde esta ella? Take me to her.”
He staggered up and leaned against me for support. How quickly he morphed from a tough teen into a frightened youth.
We threaded our way through red cedars and bald cypress trees. The teen pointed to a spot approximately twenty yards ahead.
His voice quavered. “She’s over there.”
Blow flies buzzed and circled a slender, pubescent body. She lay facedown, her brown legs and arms outstretched. She wore one frayed tennis shoe and no clothing. Heavy bruising and welts dotted her legs and arms. I checked for a pulse, but it was clear the child was dead.
I noticed a blue band secured around her wrist like those attached when someone enters the hospital. Odd. There was no identifying information on the band.
The lack of putrefaction and rigor on the corpse told me this girl died very recently. I carefully stepped away from the body to preserve the scene. Her ripped clothes lay in a pile next to her corpse. Bloody cotton panties hung from a nearby tree.
Behind me, I heard the teen gag, and turned to find him bent over, hands on his knees, vomiting.
I keyed my shoulder mic. “10-79. 10-79. Body of female juvenile found at Ink Lake. Request CSI stat at 3630 Park Rd 4 W, Burnet. Repeat. Request CSI at 3630 Park Rd 4. I’m a quarter mile in the tree line from dock. Notify Wylie Garrison to contact the Medical Examiner stat.”
My teenage companion barfed until all that was left were dry heaves. He insisted he wanted to leave.
“What’s your name?”
“Julio Mendez.”
“Julio. You found the body and that makes you very important to this investigation. I’m gonna let you slide on not having a license. But make my job easier by sticking around. Otherwise, I’ll have to come find you and that wastes my time and may embarrass you in front of your friends. You’re a hero.”
He stood up taller. “Estas seguro?”
“Yes, I’m sure. You’re a key person. We need your help.”
He nodded toward the body. “I don’t want to see that. Those flies are eating her.”
I agreed with Julio. The incessant buzzing of the ravenous insects disturbed me as well. As bad as that was, at least the body had yet to omit the overwhelming odor of putrefaction.
“Let’s move back away and wait for my guys to arrive.”
While we lingered at the edge of the tree line, I took a statement from Julio and recorded it on my phone. He admitted running away from me, fearful because he had neither a driver’s license nor a fishing license.
“I can let you slide on the fishing license but driving without a license is a more serious matter.”
“But you said, I’m a hero and you’d let me slide.”
I lied and deflected. “Let me talk to my boss and see what I can do.”
He seemed relieved and continued his statement that he stumbled on the girl running away from me and immediately turned and ran back to the dock to report finding the body.
The team hustled to the lake within a half- hour. I waved them over.
The Burnet County white forensic van screeched to a stop in front of us. Doors flew open, and four agents spilled out toting canvas bags filled with the necessary tools of their trade. One of them lugged a body bag and a lightweight metal board to carry the corpse away from the crime scene.
Sheriff Blanton’s black Charger announced his arrival with a piercing siren, lights pulsing, and a thick dust storm trailing behind him. He braked behind the forensic van. Buck Blanton grunted as he emerged from his cruiser.
The massive man stood to his full six- foot-two height and put on his gray Stetson. The hat, his Ray-bans, and black quill Justin boots were the man’s signature. You never saw Buck without them. They were as much a part of his uniform as the khaki-colored shirt and pants he wore.
Blanton power walked toward me. “You found the body, Miss Jackson.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fill me in.”
I nodded toward Julio. “We’d had some words, and he decided to leave.” As he was running from the area, he stumbled on the body.”
Blanton put his big hand on Julio’s shoulder. “You need to show Officer Jackson more respect than that. Don’t you know that, boy?”
Julio shrank beneath the man’s grasp and didn’t answer.
“Answer me, son, or I’ll lock you in my car.”
Julio’s surly attitude surfaced. “I found the body and reported it. You need me.”
Buck’s smile spread from ear to ear. “Is that right? You need to think about your answer, boy.”
Blanton grabbed the teen under the arm, marched him to his Charger, pushed his head down and shoved him in the rear of the police car. A twerp, then a click from the sheriff’s fob locked the boy in the caged backseat of the car.
Blanton marched towards me. His smile spread-eagled across his face. He pontificated, “Now that, Officer Jackson, is how to handle a smart-ass gangsta wannabe. He needs to spend some time thinking about his shitty attitude. Now let’s go see the crime scene.”
“He’s mine, Sheriff. You can park him in your ride until we’re out of here. But he’s leaving with me.”
Blanton’s teeth flashed white. “I like the hell out of you, Madison. You got your Daddy’s gonads.”
“My daddy wants grandchildren someday, so I’m not sure he’d be happy with your description.”
“Just sayin’ he raised you right. Don’t get your panties in a wad.”
“Who says I wear them?”
Buck threw back his head and roared his approval of my quip. He charged into the trees leaving size-twelve shoe imprint as he crashed through the underbrush beside me.
What was once an eerily quiet death scene bustled like a beehive with the white-robed forensic team combing the grounds for clues and placing yellow evidence markers on the ground.
They had already bagged the victim’s hands. The girl was laying on her stomach, long black hair draping down her back. I noticed bruises and scrapes along her arms and broken fingernails, indicating she aggressively fought her attacker.
The victim’s slim brown legs were spread apart suggesting a sexual assault and murder. What a desperate, sad way for a young life to end—her last moments on earth filled with frantic fear and pain and knowing she was marked for death.
Justice of the Peace Wiley Garrison trudged in behind us. The JP was a weenie of a man—slight build with wire-rimmed framed glasses that seemed to be set cock-eyed on his face. I thought he must have been teased mercilessly in grade school and later as the town one-hundred-pound weakling.
He nodded at me and moved closer to the body then announced he’d attend the autopsy in Austin when the medical examiner scheduled it.
Wiley spoke to Dan Caruthers, the forensic team leader. “Can we turn her over?” A nod from the supervisor gave permission for the investigators to reposition the body.
“Shit.” I covered my mouth.
Blanton agreed. “We’re looking for an animal.”
Dried blood covered her face and pubic area. Deep cuts marred her cheeks, and her lips were sliced and dangling from the corner of her mouth.
Bruises around her neck indicated strangulation. Both lower legs had been snapped and the tibia on her right leg protruded through her skin.
I turned away from the grisly scene momentarily to gather my resolve and swallow my gorge.
Buck spat on the ground and nodded towards the girl’s panties on the tree. “That’s the signature of the pervert coyotes. The killer’s started a rape tree. I’m bettin’ that’s hymen blood and this kid was trafficked out of Tenacingo, Mexico.”
“How can you be sure?”
He shrugged his beefy shoulders. “Tenacingo is the biggest source of sex slaves in the US. I’m a bettin’ man that this is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG as they call themselves. See that band on her arm? The cartels tag these girls so everyone knows which gang owns them. These bastards work with families and buy their daughters for twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars.” He nodded at the child on the ground. “A virgin like this can fetch even more. Then they traffic them north and make prostitutes of them. The girls are forced to have sex with ten to fifteen clients a day, and they work them six days a week. The cartel rakes in millions.”
Looking at the child on the ground, I was aghast and couldn’t imagine this pre-teen being raped repeatedly, day after day. I wondered if she had tried to run and that’s why her killer mutilated her so viciously.
Wiley stood up and addressed the forensic team, “When you’re done here, I’ll drive her to Austin.”
“I’d like to attend it, too.”
Wiley looked at me. “Suit yourself, but I’d call the medical examiner and let him know you’re comin’.”
“Will do.”
Blanton eyeballed me. “Why put yourself through an autopsy? Ain’t this bad enough? When he gets that saw out and lops off the top of her head, you’re gonna be pukin’ your guts, Miss Jackson.”
“It won’t be my first, Sheriff, or my last.”
***
I hope you enjoyed that sample of Justice by Kelly Marshall. You can, of course, find the book on Amazon.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.
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