Chapter One

 

Atlanta, Georgia, December 27, 2000

 

Stanley Edwards walked through Sunset Street. He peered into the sky looking for stars. The moon slipped behind a dark angry cloud. Tree branches embarrassingly naked with frozen icicles on the tips. The air turned brisk. Moist evaporated from his chapped lips. He emitted a heavy breath. Stanley enjoyed the crisp December air crawling into his lungs.

Stanley’s body vigorous, he stood six foot tall with an ache in his vertebra. Intensity to scream out, but rubbed the poorer part of his back Stanley hauled his one hundred and seventy pounds down the pavement.  At twenty-seven-years-old with short blonde hair spiked up in the top, Stanley’s blue eyes appeared beady. He self-consciously rubbed the long-present scar on the cheek’s left side with his right fist. Then he scratched the mysterious itch in the dimpled of his chin.  Stanley’s walk resembled a rigid, military stride. People claimed he mirrored a Russian man and had the heart of steel.

The closer Stanley got to home, he couldn’t help but to reflect the stories told from the prison interior. The place swarmed with criminals.

 Governor Lucas Woods, a sixty-three-year-old man, on his way to retirement, the governor of Atlanta, Georgia where they lived. Apparently, a man with a vision and wisdom, proposed to the “Justice Complex” that would save money for the county and provide an “integrated” work environment. He had huge projects lined up for the municipality’s modernizations. With money spiralling in faster than a flying bullet taking care of demands, the idea involved building one vast complex housing the prison, the law enforcement station, and the courthouse, with shared facilities such as toilets, that would save taxpayers’ money, as would not having to ferry prisoners between facilities. With the added benefits of there being no opportunity for convicts to slip away from prison wagons, they voted the plan through.

In truth, as far as Stanley concerned, it meant having to walk past the law enforcement station with their surly officers then run the gambit of passing the convicts’ cages to get to the surveillance room. He dreaded that. Stanley worked as an undercover cop for Justice Complex.

Stanley recalled seeing Governor Woods at the Thanksgiving Parade last year in November. He looked like Santa Claus, with a tad bit of Humpty Dumpty, too early for Christmas and Nursery Rhymes. Stanley would never forget those dark gray eyes, which seen many terrible times. They looked bloodshot from a man inhaling many years of hard whiskey.

His hairless head caught the moderates of streetl amps and lights inside of buildings. The hair around the edges turned gray along with his mustache. His fat cheeks always crimson. Lucas Woods dressed well with his polished black shoes, invariably one size too big, and black suits with crisped white shirts underneath the jackets. He wore a pocket watch attached to a chain dangling from his left trouser pocket.

He had lifted his chubby chin toward the excited crowd saying, “Don’t y’all get too excited yet bigger things coming!”

Turning right on Parkside Row, Stanley headed three blocks toward a small, white house on the corner of Parkside Row and Queens Passage. His feet turned numb walking fifteen blocks from the Justice Complex on Marble Lane.

Finally, Stanley approached the front walkway of the house at 3:45 AM. He climbed the stoop fumbling through his jacket pocked for the keys. Then he realized he left his gloves at home earlier. Such forgetfulness left his hands painfully frozen.

Letting himself in and slamming the door, Stanley locked himself inside real good and tossed the keys on the dining room table going straight for the kitchen. A hot cup of cocoa what he desired. His damn feet and hands froze to a crippled state! At twenty-seven, he shouldn’t complain about walking fifteen blocks from work.

He made the cocoa and carried it to the living room. While passing a mirror on the wall in the dining room, Stanley glanced at his reflection. He opened his mouth showing perfect white teeth. His golden blonde hair glistened in the dining room chandelier.

After examining his looks, Stanley carried the mug into the living room, placed it on the center coffee table. Then he unzipped his jacket, tossed it on the sofa. He leaned forward, removed his boots, flipping them across the room near the front door. He twisted grabbing the mug again.

An urgent knock at the door startled him.

Interrupted once more from his cocoa, Stanley hopped to his feet. Who in the hell’s knocking on my door at this hour?

A second knock indicated someone’s impatience! A quick surge of rage flared up inside of Stanley. He shuffled forward, then stopped a few feet from the door. Silence disturbed him when a third knock didn’t materialize.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

No one answered.  

Then, bang, bang, bang!

Shots fired through the wood! 

A deafening blast of caps popped everywhere. Wood splinters from the door collapsed onto the foyer. Stanley heard the intruder reloading another round of ammunition. Then another bullet hit the floor. Stanley dived on top of the dining room table, flipping across it. He landed hard on the floor, squirmed under the table. Two aggressive shots exploded. One plunged into the flat screen TV. A shattered vase and picture frames exploded over the lush carpet. Stanley lowered himself face down covering his head.

“Shit,” he mumbled.

Finally, the gunshots ceased. Stanley’s living room hushed, He waited under the table for a few seconds. When he heard nothing else, he gradually emerged. Still crouched in a lower position, he wriggled over toward the living room on knees and elbows pressed his back into a corner. He positioned himself upright glaring in anger.

Stanley scrambled to his feet, ran toward the place where he tossed his jacket. Frantically searching the pocket, he plucked out a .22 Caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet Revolver. He promptly pointed the gun toward the door, peered over the dilemma of caps and glass shattered. Shell casings on the carpet and in the foyer appeared Carbon 115-gr. DPX+ P. They came from a 9 millimetre Browning Hi-Power gun. He stood in face of what previously had been a flat screen TV with a few gaps. Stanley suffered no fear. It never crossed his mind to become frightened.

Suddenly in a fit of fury, Stanley lashed out, “You’re a fucking, stinking coward! Why did you run away?”

The room, still silent and nothing sounded. Stanley let out a deep breath. His nostrils flare in a madness he couldn’t control!

Silence continued to spill over the house. After certain nothing else occur Stanley turned, bolted toward the staircase.

Stumbling into the bedroom, he hated admitting his knees buckled. Stanley leaned onto the towering oak wood dresser, shut his eyes. He promised to get the bastard opening attack on him.