Crime Drama

[mindless1]

This is one of my first attempts at a crime story. I hope it's enjoyable. It wasn't based on any other stories. I just kind of went with it.

Knifed

“That’s how it started. Well, I mean. I don’t know how it really started. He walked up to me, and he had this crumpled up ball in his hand. It was a towel or dishrag or something. I couldn't tell at first, and I barely got a look at him before I found myself gagging on it and gasping for air. He pushed me into a bush and then tied my wrists with rope. Then he grabbed this big knife from his trench coat. I was so scared." Miss Pleasant had already won over the courtroom with that angelic southern drawl.

"And what exactly did this knife look like?" Bob Tiller asked his witness to describe the weapon and how it had appeared to look.

"Well it was jagged and I remember it seemed to glow. It was a full moon too. I remember thinking he looked like a wraith in that trench coat of his. I couldn’t begin to think of anyway to react but to scream! But there was no sound. I had just screamed into that rag of his. He didn’t stab me even when I was scared witless. But then he slid that jagged knife against my throat, it left a scar right here." Miss Pleasant lowered her turtleneck so the judge and jury could see the scar.

"And you felt threatened, like he wanted to kill you." The Prosecutor implied.

"Maybe he wanted to kill me. I don’t know.” The witness replied.

“Don’t be afraid to continue, Miss Pleasant. The whole courtroom knows what this here fella is up to.” The Lawyer jabbed his index finger out angrily at the defendant.
Jack Thorn sat in the courtroom waiting for the testimony to end. This one in particular seemed to drag on for eons.

He tried to control an image of the knife sliding against that girl’s throat or her slashed wrists in a gurney or her being thrown off a boat or hit by a train. He could have gutted her clean like a fish. He could see the blood oozing out of her mouth into her dress. Then his mind went to the ocean. He could feel the breeze and taste the salty air.

/She’s been here to long, he thought, and then went back to daydreaming about another day, another time or somewhere far from here./

But he was ripped back to reality with the jerk of a hand on his shoulder. It was his turn to speak. He didn’t have time to hesitate.

“Percy Pleasant is an unusual woman; she makes things up because she’s crazy. I know because I lived with her for three months! She wouldn’t leave the house without making sure the windows were locked. The woman is a maniac!” Jack swayed a little while he talked as if he were drunk.

“Objection!” yelled the heavy-set prosecutor, Bob Tiller, who jumped up like he’d sat in a hornet’s nest.

“Is this pertinent, Mr. Tiller?”
“The defendant is harassing my witness!”

“Well as long as I don’t hear any complaints from Miss Pleasant then we shall proceed. Over-ruled.” The old Judge Henry Waites spoke as though he’d just puffed a two ton cigar.
But Jack Thorne was too busy in the clouds, he forgot where he was for a minute—even though he was only facing a two year sentence. He’d been in worse trouble than that, but that was in Australia, then Idaho, Ohio, Wisconsin, and now Texas the worst place to get in trouble.

Suddenly he was face to face with a mirror. It was cracked and he could make out the bloodied nose and scar on his right cheek. He had just gotten out of the roughest neighborhood, still active duty and looking for a warm place to stay for the night.

“Get off me!” Shelly howled, but just as she smacked him in the face with her fists Jack ripped off her sleeves, using them to tie her wrists down to the old furnace.
“It’s going to get awful toasty in here if you don’t shut up, or I’ll make you wanna!” He screamed, then he carefully pulled her shirt off to stuff into her mouth. “Shut up or I’ll do something you won’t want to forget.”

But she wouldn’t stop crying. After ten minutes or so of her whining, he grabbed a pistol out of his back pocket in the blue jeans and shot her. They never caught him. No one did. No one will to this day. Later he joined a cartel, transporting precious goods like ivory and cigars to name a few, between Europe and Australia. The hardest part of it all was getting out alive and moving back home to the states.

Miss Pleasant was crying. That waste was crying, poor baby. I’d shove a tissue up her---
“Will the defendant please speak up or I’m resting this case here tonight?”
Jack wasn’t really ticked off this time. He’d seen worse cases than this and he knew he couldn’t lose. There wasn’t sufficient evidence and for all the jury knows she is bat-shit crazy.

“Your honor, I've never carried a weapon in my life.”

“I don’t even have a dagger,” Jack continued defensively.

But then Miss Pleasant’s lawyer requested the CSI.

A younger man, had to be in his early twenties, pulled out a jagged knife from a case and presented it for the courtroom to see. He did this with surgical precision and grace. There was blood still rusted around the edges on the knife. Jack Thorne coulda sworn he'd gotten rid of that knife.