Godammit! Jelly went out to his county-issued gray Buick sedan and slumped into the front seat. He had a list of people to see, cases to investigate and he just didn’t need this kind of intrusive psychobabble horseshit from the Chief. Overhead the clouds of November were running low, thick air from the Gulf moving up from the Panhandle of Florida. A hurricane warning in effect for later in the week. Light rain spattered his windshield as he pulled out of the garage and entered the side street next to the new consolidated city and county police station.

Downtown on the square the beautiful old white courthouse with its four sides of dark tall windows and its varnished old wood interiors echoing with footsteps called his name. Courthouse lawyer. So much history had passed through those doors and trial rooms. Every known human tragedy had entered the dusty county books over the past century and a half. And his family the Lovejoys and his mother’s family, the Russell’s, had been an active part of that. He sat at the light and stared at the clock on the north side of the courthouse, nearby the Confederate soldier statue stood at attention, a dun color in the morning rain.

There came a tapping at his passenger side window. Snake Roberts’ greasy face loomed in the beaded glass. Jelly ran down the window and eased over to the curb. Jelly had known him since elementary school. “What’s up, Snake?”

“Gimme a lift out to Sunnyside Projects, Jelly.”

“Get in…”

Snake slid into the seat and let out a deep breath and shook himself. Jelly smelled alcohol and something else off his skin and clothes…the faint whiff of crystal meth and body sweat. He was picking at his forearms, jumpy. Their eyes met and Snake looked away.

“I ain’t looking for no lecture, Jelly.”

“Would it do any good?”

The
Latest
Bloodshed

Chapter 1,

chapter 2