Mama Tried (Crime Fiction Inspired By Outlaw Country Music Book 1)

by J. L. Abramo

  Before leaving the office, Jamie called David Westerfelt and asked to meet him and Roland Carter outside The Ravenwood Club instead of back at her office. Her clients were hesitant at first, but relented when she reminded them that the evidence pointed to someone at the club being involved. She needed to check out the club on her own, which wasn’t going to be easy. Gentlemen’s Clubs like Ravenwood were notoriously close minded when it came to the fairer sex.

  No girls allowed.

  It seemed that some boys never really grew up.

  It wasn’t a hard and fast rule, though. Women were strictly forbidden to be members, but the waitresses, masseuses and professional companions were always women, always leggy, always young and usually eager to curry the favor of a wealthy patron. Jamie had seen too many places like The Ravenwood pop up over the past few years and disliked them greatly. She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but Jamie took a perverse thrill in pushing her way inside the club on official business.

  She walked into The Ravenwood Club on Westerfelt’s arm, with Carter following behind them. Carter was always following his friend’s lead, she noted, but he did not seem happy about it, especially not today. Carter reminded her of a volcano, pent up and ready to blow. She wondered if it was the blackmail that had him on edge. Carter was nowhere near as wealthy as Bishop or Westerfelt. He hadn’t had the fifty thousand to pay off the blackmailer and had to take a loan from his friends. That must have stung.

  The club was not what she had expected. It was like stepping back in time to an old library. Bookshelves with thick, old tomes lined the walls, broken only by the occasional picturesque window or painted portrait of one of the founders of the club. The first she saw was of a handsome man named Ravenwood so she assumed the club was named after him.

  It was quiet, with men, mostly over fifty from the look of them, sitting around talking softly while others sat alone reading the newspaper or a book while others sat staring widely off into space. She recognized many of them, business leaders, pillars of the community, and a few politicians as well. The club served as a refuge for them, Jamie assumed, a place to escape their daily lives and relax. Begrudgingly, she started to sympathize, until she realized that, if not for blackmail and murder, she would never have been allowed inside. Her sympathy began to fade at that point.

  Westerfelt motioned toward a secluded room where they could talk privately. Like the rest of the club, the room was nice, although a bit more modern than the public area they had walked through. There was a couch along one wall and three large chairs spaced perfectly for conversation. A table filled the center of the room. A young lady wearing a cocktail waitress outfit two sizes too small for her supermodel thin frame sauntered in behind them and placed a decanter and three glasses on the table. Smiling at Westerfelt, she poured all three before asking if they required anything else. Jamie imaged that at least one of them only drank top shelf booze.

  “I assume you have some information for us, Miss Southern?” Westerfelt said as he reached for a glass. “Have you figured out who is behind the blackmail or who killed poor Alex?”

  “I believe I have.”

  “Oh?” That brought both men upright in their seats.

  “Who...who is it?” Roland Carter asked, a stutter in his voice.

  Jamie smiled. She had suspected, but now she knew. “It was you, Mr. Carter.”

  Westerfelt let loose a big belly laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, girl. Roland here couldn’t hurt a fly, much less a friend like Alex. And he doesn’t need the blackmail money.”

  Carter shot him the dirtiest of looks.

  “What?” Westerfelt said. “Tell her it’s ridiculous.”

  “You old fool,” Carter said. The words were soft, but enough to shut down Westerfelt’s boisterous defense. The volcano was ready to erupt.

  “Roland? What are you...is she right? Is that what you’re saying? How could you? Did you kill poor Alex?”

  Carter shot to his feet. “Poor Alex? Poor Alex? Sure, why not? Poor Alex who used to torment me...torment both of us. Is that the poor Alex you’re talking about?”

  Westerfelt set his glass back on the table and stood. “You little cockroach,” he said, anger burning red in his cheeks. “Torment? You don’t know the meaning of the word, Roland! We were kids! Kids prank one another. That’s all it was.”

  “Not to me!” Carter spat.

  “That’s because you’re weak,” Westerfelt said with a dismissive wave. “You always were.”

  Carter lowered his voice. “Not always. Just ask Alexander.”

  “You sonuva—” Westerfelt took a swing at his friend, caught him on the chin, and knocked him against the wall.

  “That’s enough,” Jamie said.

  Westerfelt backed off.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I’ve lived with this so long. I thought all of that was behind us, just kid’s stuff. Alex was my friend. I loved him.”

  “But...”

  “He kept photographs. One night, he brought them out and showed them to me and he laughed. Some of them...some of the photos I’d never seen before. Things they did while I was asleep or passed out drunk. I never knew. I never...” he looked at Westerfelt. “I thought you were my friends!”

  “They were just pranks,” Westerfelt said.

  “No,” Jamie said. “I saw the photos. They weren’t just pranks.”

  “What happens now?” Roland asked.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That will be Lieutenant Chase,” Jamie said. “He’s here to arrest you on charges of blackmail and murder.”

  Carter nodded. He knew he’d been beat.

  “And I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you as well,” she said to Westerfelt. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “We were just being funny,” Westerfelt pleaded.

  Jamie opened the door for Chase and his men.

  “Do you hear anyone laughing?” she asked Westerfelt.

  “Getting your own clients arrested isn’t a smart way to run a business, Miss Southern.”

  “No it is not, Mr. Chase.”

  They sat on the balcony outside her office and watched as the sun started to set on the horizon. She was on her third glass of wine. Chase was on his fourth beer. It had been a long day.

  “Reminds me of something my dad used to say when he ran the business and a client didn’t pay...Ain’t livin’ long like this.”

  “Your old man sounds like a smart guy.”

  “He was,” Jamie said.

  Chase clinked his bottle against her glass. “Here’s to living to fight another day.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Back to TOC

  DANGER AND DREAD

  Delilah S. Dawson

  Daddy always said ugly don’t hurt—it’s the teeth you got to look out for. He was the one who taught Emma Lee how to raise a dog mean enough to kill. Most good game dogs were ugly, whether by birth or brawl. Some grew into their teeth, and some turned into bait. But ugly ran deep, and it never went away.

  Emma Lee was born pretty, but then...something happened. Daddy said it was Mama’s fault, letting a juicy little baby toddle out among the cages at the wrong time. He said that was why Mama was gone—because she didn’t do her job. But Cousin Jerry sometimes chucked Emma Lee under her scarred chin and called her Bait, so Emma Lee had her doubts about where to lay the blame. Mama was just a word she’d learned on the TV, along with things like school and reading and illegal. Emma Lee didn’t like being pointed at, so she didn’t mind staying home.

  The dogs didn’t care what she looked like, so long as she kept feeding them.

  She walked past the cages at first light dragging a big plastic bucket, same as every morning. As she passed each chain-link kennel, she tossed a package over the top of the fence. Old men’s shirts and pillowcases tied tight around Ol’ Roy dog food and chunks of whatever Cousin Jerry brought home from the chicken plant. The dogs went crazy for it, their crazy barkin
g going quiet, one by one, as they fought through cheap fabric to get to their food. Crazy-Eyes, Killer, Grill, Murdergirl, Snaggletooth, Shovelhead, Ripper, and then the pups from Murdergirl’s most recent litter, all cowering together in cage eight. They hadn’t even earned names yet and still whimpered at being separated from their mean-as-hell mama. They’d either learn to get mean like her or become supper. Either way, they contributed to the family.

  At the end of the row, the bait dogs in the shed woke up, pawing at the padlocked door and whimpering. She did her best to ignore it.

  Sitting on the trailer’s rotting step, Emma Lee watched each of her charges, looking for weakness or unfortunate sweetness or a collar of heavy chains going loose or cutting too deep into bunched muscle. Everything was as it should be, half falling down but still held together with duct tape and more chains. The birds were waking up, the cicadas were droning, and the hills were filled with the sound of slurpy swallowing and the clink of weighted chains. One of Murdergirl’s pups whimpered, and Emma Lee walked over to check on the white pit poking his nose through the fence, his scabbed over, stubbed tail wagging and his eyes big, black pools of something that Daddy wouldn’t like. She glanced back at the house, real quick, then rubbed his nose gently.

  “Girl, you know better. You make ’em hate you, or they get soft and turn into meat.”

  Hearing that voice from the kitchen window, a chaos of growls went up along the line. Emma Lee swallowed and pulled her hand away from the pup straining toward her.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  “Go on and do it.”

  Her eyes closed for just a second, holding back tears. Pulling back her fist, she punched the white pup in the face. He tumbled back, whimpering, butt tucked as he cowered and pissed himself. It was the first time he’d been beat, but it wouldn’t be the last. Just last week, she’d been allowed to hold him right before Daddy took off his tail, and he’d licked her with a black-spotted tongue.

  “Good, girl,” Daddy called. “Now come inside and help me with these goddamn kittens.”

  Emma Lee wiped up her tears and went inside.

  The day got hot quick, and Daddy stayed mad. Hornet mad. Emma Lee was too slow taping the bait dogs’ mouths, and she got slapped. She accidentally dropped Daddy’s can of beer while he was working the jump pole and got slapped again. She almost got bit holding Ripper down for his shots, and Daddy popped her so hard she saw stars.

  “It’s a hard life. Get used to it,” Daddy told her again. “Gotta be tough if you’re gonna be dumb.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  She didn’t want to get popped again, so she grabbed the hose and went to spray out the kennels without being asked.

  When she came back, Daddy was in the kitchen. On his best days, he joshed around and gave Emma Lee a stick of gum and told her stories about when he was a boy and they’d lived up at the big house Mr. Gooch had bought from the bank. Sometimes Daddy would pull a ripped photo out of his wallet and show her what she’d looked like as a baby, when she was still pretty and he still smiled, and she’d draw a sweaty finger over the faded picture and leave a wet streak over the other pair of hands holding her, their long nails painted bright pink.

  Today was not one of his best days. Daddy had a big pile of pink hamburger on the counter and was wet up to his elbows, making smushed-up patties. His white undershirt was the color of old bone and ripped in the underarms, and his gray sweatpants were splattered in rust-red stains. Sweat dripped down his shaved head, plunking onto the pile of meat.

  “Go wash up, girl. We got company tonight. I put out a dress for you. Look as pretty as you can.”

  She watched him, considering. “Daddy, how old are you?”

  Daddy’s head slashed around like a snake. “Why are you asking?”

  “Because I don’t know.”

  “I’m twenty-five. And you’re nine. And that means that you owe me for nine years of putting up with your ugly face. So do as I say.” Daddy turned back to the rickety old oven, opening the door and pulling out two wads of cash wrapped in rubber bands. A heavy black gun squatted on a burnt cookie sheet on the bottom rack. “I said move!” he shouted, kicking the door shut with his bare foot when he caught Emma Lee watching too close.

  Emma Lee ran for the bathroom before he could pop her with wet-meat hands. She shut the door quietly, turned on the shower, and stepped out of her old tank top and shorts and worn-out panties. The water never got very hot, and the soap was just a slippery sliver, but she got as clean as she could and rinsed her hair with baby shampoo. The towel was still wet from Daddy’s shower, and when she wrapped it around her middle, it hung to her knees.

  The mirror was speckled and dirty, but she had to look at herself as she combed out her hair. She tried to figure out how the dog must’ve bit her to leave the marks. One rip from her forehead down over her eyebrow like a flap, always making her look surprised. One rip up her jaw and cheek, a white line curving her mouth up stupidly. The traces of old stitches, ragged and pink. She could almost picture the jaws opening in slow motion and closing on a baby’s head like it was an old football. Silver claw marks raked down her neck, up her shoulder, over her belly. Whenever she asked which dog it was, Daddy said it was long dead, and that was that.

  Emma Lee had seen what a good fighting dog could do in the pit, and she figured that if she was still alive and had all her parts, somebody must’ve loved her enough to snatch her away from a dog in a killing frenzy. If that wasn’t love, it was something close.

  Back in her room, she closed the door and locked it and knelt to check the box hidden deep under her bed. Everything was where she’d left it, and she sighed her relief and checked the door over her shoulder and shoved the box back in with the dustbunnies and outgrown shoes. The dress Daddy had laid out on her mattress was a thin, flimsy thing with straps that tied over her shoulders, but it fit pretty good. She tiptoed into the kitchen holding up the ties, feeling foolish. The oven was on now, and the kitchen was hot, which meant Daddy was baking a frozen pie, which he normally only did on Christmas. The money was gone, and the gun was in Daddy’s waistband as he chopped up a watermelon and cussed to himself.

  “Daddy?”

  Daddy jabbed the big knife into the melon and turned to face her. “What?”

  Emma Lee held up the ties on her dress. “I don’t know how...”

  With a sigh, Daddy wiped off his hands and took up the ties and made tight bows that dug into Emma Lee’s shoulders something fierce.

  “Who’s coming over?”

  Daddy shook his head and stood back, inspecting Emma Lee like she was a dog about to go in the ring. “We’re gonna have us a fight tonight. Uncle Jerry’s bringing some big men up from Atlanta, thinking about buying some of our dogs. We do good enough, we might could get out of here and move to the city. Wouldn’t that be good?”

  “Yes, sir,” Emma Lee said, not because she wanted to go to the city, but because she knew that was the right answer, and Daddy had plenty of wooden spoons within reach.

  “Now you get on out of here. Don’t mess up your dress, but don’t be around, either. I don’t want you to scare ’em off.”

  She took a few steps toward the laundry room where they kept stray cats or unwanted kittens, whatever the local rescue needed to get rid of. Taking care of the kittens was Emma Lee’s favorite job, and she had a few weeks yet until the current litter would be big enough to give the dogs any kind of challenge.

  “Let them kittens be. You get too attached. It’s bad, to do that.”

  Emma Lee nodded and hurried out the door, past the long line of snarling dogs, and down the curving dirt drive. It got quiet, once she rounded the corner, just tall pines and the hot sun. She scurried across the cracked black asphalt of the road and ducked into the trees across the way. There was a small path here, made by her own flip-flops. Daddy didn’t know, but Mr. Gooch was a nice man, and he had given her permission to be on his property, so long as she didn’t bother the
cows or get in anybody’s way. He even gave her a butterscotch, now and then, when he caught her sitting quietly, watching the new calves. When he called her Honey, it felt more real than when Daddy and Uncle Jerry did.

  As she picked her way down the narrow deer path, she pretended she was something that belonged in the woods. She touched a fuzzy bumblebee on a purple flower and twirled around a yellow butterfly and laughed when a blue dragonfly tried to sit on her hand. When she saw a copperhead sunning on a flat stone, she walked wide around him. Emma Lee had a clear understanding of what was and was not dangerous. She knew how not to provoke.

  The stream was mostly dried up, and she hopped over the mucky trickle and squeezed through the wooden flap-door into the cow pasture. She took a deep breath and pushed it back out, and it felt like the whole world floated up off her shoulders. Here among the gentle cows with their sweet, dark eyes and big, twitching ears was where she felt the most herself. Even the bull was a tender sort, settling his mighty bulk down by the most tired mama with the newest calf and watching over his herd with sharp but still kind eyes. He could’ve trampled her to guts, but instead he just blinked at her and chewed his cud, and she loved him for it.

  Emma Lee had named every critter in the herd by now. Her favorites were Dove and Chocolate and Velvet and Lacy and Baby Bones and Mrs. Butterworth and her new, toasty-brown baby, Pancake. The bull she called Sweet Daddy. She’d been coming here for a couple of years, and she knew that, like the dogs back home, the cows had jobs to do. You couldn’t get attached to ’em. They came and went, and new calves were born, and when Daddy brought home a big tray of hamburger meat for the fights, she hoped it wasn’t anybody she knew personally.

  Time passed strangely in the bright green pasture. Emma Lee didn’t know how long it had been, but she shivered when the sky went purple and she heard the sounds of big trucks burning down the road, breaking the quiet up into sharp, glittery shards like what was left of the mirror taped to the back of her door. Her legs prickled when she stood up, and she could tell that there was a wet spot on the back of her dress from sitting too long on ground that was wetter than it looked. If she’d gotten grass stains on the dress, Daddy would make her fetch a switch. Or worse: Make her be the one to hang kittens and weak pups from bait chains and so he could dangle them into Killer’s cage to make him jump high.