The J D Bragg Mystery Series Box Set

by Ron Fisher

  “Eloise,” I said, “I’ve been thinking. I want the Cadillac, if it’s all right with you. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to get it.”

  She looked at me in pure amazement. “I thought you said you didn’t want it because it reminded you too much of Granddad.”

  “Would that be such a bad thing?” I asked.

  Eloise smiled and handed me the cake.

  EPILOGUE

  Atlanta, a few months later.

  On a nice, crisp, Autumn day, I sat in my car at the downtown Varsity drive-in, eating a hot dog all-the-way and reading the newspaper. “Golfer Found Dead in African Hotel,” the headline read. The story said that world famous pro-golfer, Barry Beal, was found dead in a Johannesburg hotel, a cheese knife from a room service tray plunged in his neck. A young woman with a swollen eye and clothes in disarray was seen leaving his room earlier, her name or whereabouts unknown.

  A curb hop came over and took my tray from the car window, scooped up the tip, and dropped the refuse into a waste-can below the large metal hanging menu.

  “Nice ride,” he said to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, “I get that a lot.”

  I backed out and slowly drove my vintage 1959 black Cadillac Eldorado onto North Avenue, then immediately turned on Spring Street toward the offices of SportsWord magazine and a job I recently reacquired—hired by the new publisher, my old editor Joe Dennis.

  As I pulled into the parking garage, I tried my damnedest not to smile, and failed. “Cheese knife,” I said to myself. “Who says Lady Justice doesn’t have a sense of humor?”

  DARK CORNER

  © 2019 Ron Fisher.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Fisher, Ron. Dark Corner (J.D. Bragg Series Book 2). Published by MysteryRow.

  “Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend.”

  Agatha Christie

  This book is dedicated to Chip, Mike, and Mackenzie.

  My life’s bragging rights.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank all the people who helped me so much with DARK CORNER, the second book in my J.D. Bragg mystery series. First, my Beta Readers, Jeff Upshaw, Patrick Scullin, Joanne Wanciak, Joyce Crowe, Tom Douglass, and Elona Smith. THE FISHER GROUP—Hal, Mary Ann, Travis, and Wil Fisher—for all their design and production wizardry. My Tasmanian friends Jason and Marina Anderson at Polgarus Studios for their excellent formatting work and advice, and finally, my incredibly smart and talented family—sons Michael and Chip Fisher and daughter Mackenzie Fisher Squires and her husband, Jamie. You guys are the greatest.

  PROLOGUE

  Northwest Spartanburg County, South Carolina.

  Jamal Johnson walked down the deserted two-lane blacktop, mad as hell, and getting madder with every step. The only light along this stretch of the country road was the full moon in the midnight sky above, but the spreading limbs from the thick stand of hardwoods on either side of the road arched over him, blotting out even that. He could barely see the tarmac beneath his feet and was having to straddle the center stripe just to keep from walking into a ditch.

  Damn you Willie Tee, Jamal thought, I can’t believe you went off and left a brother like that. I come with you, and you knew I expected to leave with you. Did you think I wouldn’t mind walking home? It’s five freaking miles, bro. You and me gonna have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting when I see you again.

  Jamal thought back to the dinner party he and Willie worked tonight at the rich folk’s house on Hunting Club Road, just over the line in North Carolina. He’d stayed a few minutes afterward to help clean up, and when he came out to leave, Willie was gone. He probably went off with Della Wiggins, the water girl, Jamal thought. Willie was hitting on her all night, with her giggling and swinging her little round butt and flirting right back. For a second, he wondered if he would have gone off with her if he’d been in Willie’s shoes. Della Wiggins was hot.

  But he knew he wouldn’t have. First, he was going steady with Monique, and even if he weren’t, when Jamal Johnson said he’d do something, he would do it. Unlike Willie Tee, who he’d learned the hard way, wasn’t a man of his word.

  Jamal wished he could have called his mom to come and get him, but she was visiting her sister in Charlotte. He was glad he was seventeen now—his birthday just a week ago—and his mom could now sign for him to get his driver’s license. Somehow, he’d find a way to buy a car, even if it was a piece of crap—as long as it got him around. He was saving up for it, but it was hard to juggle working with school, as it limited his job opportunities.

  He had held an afternoon and weekend job at a stable, but he got let go. The man told him he didn’t need him anymore, said he had enough full-time stable hands. Now he was having to find odd jobs to do, like tonight, waiting tables at the parties the wealthy horse people threw at their big houses. He liked horses, and hoped he could pick up another job working at a stable, or when there was a horse event at USEC—the Upcountry Steeplechase and Equestrian Club—where they held the big Upcountry Steeplechase every year, which was coming up soon.

  He occupied himself thinking about dumb things, mostly to pass the time as he walked—like a question he had about USEC. With the “US” tacked on the front, it sounded like a government thing. Not an exclusive club for horse lovers and Steeplechase racing. He’d expressed that thought to several people in the past, who, if they were the rich white folks who were USEC members, looked at him like how that could be any of his business. He finally decided to keep his mouth shut about it. They were rude, but they were right. It wasn’t his business, and it wasn’t like he’d ever be a member there, anyway.

  Jamal looked up at what few small patches of sky he could see through the cover of tree limbs spread over the road. People called the part of South Carolina where he and his mom lived, the “Dark Corner.” Well, it certainly was dark tonight, he thought.

  He was hoping he could make it into Landrum before the Pizza Shack closed. That was probably where Willie Tee was. It was where most of the kids hung out. If Willie wasn’t there, maybe he could find someone else to give him a ride the rest of the way home.

  He had tried to flag down a couple of guests leaving the dinner party, but they drove right by him. He could serve their food, wash their cars, and work in their stables, but he wasn't one of them, and never would be. But it wasn’t just because he was black, he thought, with some irony. Most of them were color blind. It was because he was poor—which to them, especially some of the ones he’d heard called “trust fund babies,” being poor was worse than being black. They looked down their noses at the poor white locals the same way they looked at him.

  The headlights of a car suddenly appeared behind him, and he moved over to the shoulder to try to wave it down. He was surprised when it actually pulled to a stop behind him. He tried to see the driver behind the wheel, but the headlights blinded him. He could tell that the car was a big SUV, like a Chevy Suburban, but that didn’t say much. Big SUVs like Suburbans, Tahoes, and Yukons were the choice of automobiles for almost every horse person in the area. He didn’t care who it was, as long as they would offer him a ride.

  Suddenly, the driver floored the vehicle and came speeding directly at him. The unexpected move shocked him so that he was a moment late jumping out of the way. The automobile hit him squarely, knocking him into the weeds and underbrush beside the road.

  He lay there in shock and pain, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth. Breathing was a struggle, and his ribs felt like they were on fire.

  He heard the ca
r door open and close, and through blurred vision, watched a shadowy figure come up and stand near him. All he could see was a pair of all-weather duck boots, but he couldn’t lift his head high enough to see who was wearing them. They were like the ones he wore to muck out stables, and common with all people, man or woman, who spent time around horses. Whoever it was brought a shovel with them. It was resting, digging end down, on the ground by the shoes.

  Jamal tried to speak, but the sound that came out was indecipherable to his ears and unrecognizable as his own. He watched as the shovel lifted out of view, and he heard what sounded like a grunt of effort, then a terrible pain exploded in the side of his head. It was the last sensation Jamal Johnson would ever have.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Atlanta, a couple of weeks later.

  When I heard the name Jamal Johnson, it was on a late Sunday evening, when Kelly Mayfield, the love of my life, asked me what I thought happened to him. I was lying on the sofa in my apartment with my head in her lap, thinking about trying to persuade her to move the arrangement into the bedroom. Although the name had a vaguely familiar ring, Jamal Johnson, or what happened to him, was the last thing on my mind.

  “John David Bragg,” Kelly said. “Do you even read the newspaper that bears your name as publisher?”

  She thunked me on the head using her thumb and forefinger like she was checking for ripe melons at the supermarket.

  “If you did,” she continued, “you would know that Jamal Johnson has been the Clarion’s front-page headline for the last two weeks.”

  The Clarion was the weekly newspaper in Pickens County South Carolina I inherited from my late grandfather, Garnet Quincy Bragg, who had owned and published it for most of his adult life. The paper was now seventy-five percent mine and my sister Eloise’s, and twenty-five percent Kelly’s—which I sold to her for much-needed funds to pay off debts, keep the financially troubled paper afloat, and provide my sister and niece with an income. Kelly, who was already working as the editor, bought her share a year ago, after my grandfather died.

  Kelly was still the editor—and, truth be told, the real publisher. I was publisher in name only, and an absentee one at that. My sister Eloise was the CFO, office manager, and head of advertising sales. Even Eloise’s teenage daughter Mackenzie was on the staff as a cub reporter.

  The Clarion was making a small profit now, unusual in the era of the shrinking printed word where so many newspapers were having a hard time or going under. The success was due to Kelly’s move to a digital publishing version, and my sister’s new-found talent for procuring advertising—something my late grandfather abhorred.

  I couldn’t claim credit for any it, other than having enough sense to leave them alone to do it. I was an investigative reporter and feature writer with an Atlanta-based national sports magazine called SportsWord, with no interest what-so-ever in working at a small-town newspaper, especially one in the place where I grew up. Luckily, neither my sister nor Kelly needed or wanted my help with the Clarion any more than I wanted to give it to them.

  The only problem with the whole thing was that Kelly and I were trying to carry on a relationship while living a hundred and forty miles apart.

  “My mailman is always delivering my mail to the wrong apartment,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t get my copy of the paper.” That was a lie. She knew it, and I knew she knew it.

  She thunked my head again.

  “Jamal Johnson is a teenager from over in North Greenville County who went missing. The police believe he shot someone’s thoroughbred horse as an act of revenge because the owner fired him from his job as a stable hand. They think he’s run off because of it.”

  “The look on your face says you don’t buy that,” I said.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t. Everyone I’ve talked to who knew the boy, including an old friend who lives over there, has convinced me he’s innocent. They all say Jamal is a sweet kid who would never shoot anyone’s horse. They believe it’s a case of ‘blame it on the black kid.’”

  I suddenly remembered how I knew the name, Jamal Johnson.

  “Do you know if this kid’s mother is Millie Johnson?” I asked.

  “How did you know that?” she said, surprised.

  “I know her oldest son, Taylor. We played college football together.”

  I sat up and leaned back against the sofa, a memory of those days filling my head and throwing a wet blanket on any fire I may have had about shuffling Kelly off to bed.

  She saw the sudden change in me.

  “What’s wrong, J.D.?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Maybe I have,” I said. “Taylor Johnson got badly hurt in a game and I was responsible for it.”

  She gave me a hard look, her dark eyes boring into mine.

  “You’re going to have to explain that one to me,” she said.

  I would have preferred not to, but I brought up the subject of Taylor Johnson, so I probably owed her the story.

  “It was my junior year, toward the end of the season,” I said. “I’d won the starting quarterback job by then and Taylor was one of my wide-receivers—and my friend. I called a passing play, with Taylor the target. It was a crossing route pattern, a physically tough pass because the receiver must be prepared to take a hard hit from the secondary the instant the ball touches his hands. Taylor knew what was coming, he’d done it many times, and was as tough as any receiver I’d ever seen, despite his smallish size. I took the snap, faked a handoff to a running back, and threw the ball to Taylor, but it went high. Taylor made a leaping catch, which put him in the air and off his feet as their cornerback hit him from behind like an oncoming train. They both went down in a heap, and Taylor didn’t get up. I stood and watched as they worked on him until an ambulance came out on the field and took him away.”

  I took a deep breath, and paused before the next part of the story—the part I’d never get over, the moment indelibly etched on the walls of my memory.

  Kelly sat patiently, waiting for me to continue. By the look on her face, she already knew the worst was yet to come.

  “After the game,” I finally said, “Coach gathered us all in the locker room for an announcement. He told us Taylor had suffered a spinal cord injury. Early diagnosis was, he was paralyzed from the neck down.”

  “Oh my God, J.D.,” Kelly said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it tightly.

  “To this day,” I said, “he’s lying in a bed in a facility in Greenville South Carolina, with someone having to feed, bathe, and help him with the bathroom necessities. His paralysis was so severe, his phrenic nerve stopped stimulating his diaphragm, and it quit functioning. A doctor explained this to me at the hospital later. He needs 24-7 assistance with his breathing and has a breathing pacemaker surgically implanted in him. It has an electrode in it that stimulates his phrenic nerve and causes his diaphragm to contract. Otherwise, he couldn’t breathe at all. It gives his speech a start-stop effect with sudden short gasps of breath. It’s heartbreaking to listen to him try to talk.”

  “And now the younger child is missing,” Kelly said. That’s too much for one mother to take.”

  “Taylor won’t take it too well either,” I said. “He’s crazy about that kid. He’s always bragging about his younger brother Jamal—how good he is at running track, how smart he is in school, what a great kid he is. It’s like Taylor is living his life through his younger brother now. If something has happened to that boy, it will kill Taylor.”

  “So, you still see him?”

  “Not as often as I should,” I said.

  Kelly fell silent. “I interviewed the mother,” she finally said. “She told me she is a maid and a cook for a wealthy family. Maids don’t make a lot of money, and don’t usually get insurance from an employer. I wonder who pays for Taylor’s care. It must be terribly expensive.”

  “A moneyed-alumni started a nonprofit organization called the Taylor Johnson Foundation, which raises the money to pay
for his care. I’ve never been too broke not to donate something to it every year.”

  “Did you ever meet her?” Kelly asked. “Mrs. Johnson?”

  “Yes, I did. Several times before the accident when Taylor and I shared rides home for holidays, and a few times since, when she’s been there on my visits to see Taylor. I’m ashamed to say, though, I haven’t visited him in months.”

  “Is there a father in the picture?”

  “When we were sharing rides home from college there was. I gathered that Jamal, who was just a baby then, was an unplanned surprise, there is such a gap in his and Taylor’s age. But the father died not long after Taylor got hurt, leaving Mrs. Johnson, a widow.”

  “Mrs. Johnson doesn’t believe Jamal would just run away like that without telling her,” Kelly said. “They appear to have a close, loving, relationship.”

  Most mothers would think that of their children, I thought, but I didn’t voice it. “I liked Mrs. Johnson. She was always sending Taylor these terrific peanut butter cookies, and he would share them sometimes. The first time I met her, I told her how much I liked them, and she began sending them to me, too. She didn’t stop when Taylor got hurt. I kept getting those cookies until I graduated.”

  Kelly looked at me silently for a minute.

  “You blame yourself for Taylor’s injury, don’t you?” she eventually said. “But I don’t see how it was your fault. Football is a dangerous game.”

  “I try to tell myself that,” I said. “But it doesn’t work. After all, I called the pass, then made the bad throw. I’ll always wonder how things would have turned out if I’d been more on target with it, and not over his head. I made him expose his blindside to the hit.”