Emilio

By Clabe Polk

Tony Middleton has been left to dangle facing extortion and manslaughter charges in Oregon. He has no defense attorney until his mother, Amanda Middleton, has a change of heart.
Enlisting the aid of Harry and Jean Morgan, Amanda teams with defense attorney Martin Blaine to push a defense investigation into the allegations against Tony. With help from Detective Sergeant Roy Anderson, Harry Morgan identifies evidence showing events may not have occurred the way they initially appeared.
What they find is that murder has leaked through the net of routine police procedure. The result is heartbreaking beyond anything they could have imagined. A few animals kill their young; but do humans do the same?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clabe Polk
• Release date: Nov 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370364275

Clabe Polk

CLABE POLK is into a second career as a writer of fiction. So far, he has written four novels, three novellas, several short stories, and has a couple of other novels in process. He is a lifelong reader with a great variety of life experience.With a background in biology and natural sciences, Mr. Polk has more than thirty-seven years in professional environmental protection program management and law enforcement.He lives in Powder Springs, Georgia with his wife, two daughters, and the family’s Cockapoo named Annie.

Book preview

EMILIO

Books by Clabe Polk

The Detective Mike Eiser Series:

Backslide

Hot Summer Nights

Schism

Angelica

Fire on the Mountain

The Adventures of Harry Morgan Series:

The Adventures of Harry Morgan, Book 1 (A collection of three novellas: Collegial Conspracy, Emilio, and The Pirates of Cayo Pelau)

Christian fiction:

The Road to Armageddon

Short stories:

Short Fuse

Devolution

EMILIO

A Harry Morgan Adventure

By

Clabe Polk

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

ISBN-13:

Copyright © 2017 by Clabe Polk all rights reserved

Emilio and The Pirates of Cayo Pelau edited by

Monique Happy, Monique Happy Editorial Services

Published by:

Clabe Polk

Powder Springs, GA

[e-mail]

Dedication

To all of us…

may we always strive to be better than we are.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 Meet Laurel Jackson

CHAPTER 2 Laurel and Emilio

CHAPTER 3 Blaine for the Defense

CHAPTER 4 Oregon

CHAPTER 5 About Belts and Fingerprints

CHAPTER 6 What the Friends Said

CHAPTER 7 Interstate Travel to Commit Murder

CHAPTER 8 The Jacksons

CHAPTER 9 You Can Go Home Again

FROM THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

Meet Laurel Jackson

Her pillow dripping wet with tears, Laurel Jackson tossed and turned, looking for a comfortable position and a dry corner of her pillow. A part of her dull mind registered that the wet pillow was cool and soothing to her face, but it did nothing to soothe the torment in her soul. She was unable to tease the past forty-eight hours from her mind; a recurring thought dangled in front of her, just out of reach. Oh, if she could only use her father’s surgical tools to excise him and her mother from her life like all of the other diseased organs her father removed every day in his surgical practice. She was convinced she needed that to make her happy.

What a joy to tell her father about Emilio! Insulting his prejudice appeased her hostility and made her feel better. Her father! she thought scornfully, the man who never paid any attention to her or her friends; the man who couldn’t name one of her friends to win a bet had found out about Emilio—and all hell had broken loose at home. It was a great feeling. Her father, Mister High and Mighty Dr. Christian Maurice Jackson, M.D., Board Certified Surgeon, and member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles County Medical Association and of the exclusive Punta de Angeles Golf and Country Club, and racist of the first magnitude; equal-opportunity bigot who hated Hispanics and whites with equal passion, a passion with which he’d battered Laurel unmercifully throughout childhood, not to mention throughout the weekend. Her mother, Yvonne Evie Jackson, whose tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth by her incessant chain-smoking, seemed to have only one phrase to offer in defense of either Laurel or Emilio. Laurel still choked on it. Listen to your father! He knows what’s important.

Finishing his rant by repeating to Laurel for at least the four-hundredth time, he reminded her why he had sent her to school in Oregon originally: to get her away from bad influences. He would withdraw her support if she continued to see Emilio! He jumped into his Porsche Cayenne and squealed rubber toward the country club where he downed two martinis before continuing to his office to see patients. On the way, he called Marcus Wicks, a friend he had known for years. He had one question; Are we still grilling steaks tomorrow night?

Yeah, man, answered Marcus in his street persona, what ‘chou mean? O’ course we’re grilling steaks. You good?

Yeah, Marcus, I’m good. Just making sure.

Okay, later, dog!

***

In his wake, Evie sat on the couch and chain-smoked. While she shared her husband’s racist views, she was weary of his constant caustic hatred and virulence at home. It never stopped with Maurice. His obsession was like a progressive disease.

She thought about Armand, her tall, beautiful Bahamian tennis coach from the club. She thought about his firm body and smooth skin. For more than a year, they’d enjoyed each other. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking about him, but her body betrayed her; she was powerless to stop so she sat on the couch like a zombie and smoked to ease the frustration.

***

While Evie smoked and daydreamed about Armand, Laurel fled the house to the beach where she sat in her car and cried until it was time to fly back to Portland. She, too, was sick of her father’s vitriol and even sicker of her mother’s two-faced philandering. She’d suspected her mother and Armand, but blundering into her parents’ bedroom in the middle of the afternoon and catching them together fixed it so solidly in her mind she could no longer deny it. They weren’t just having sex; they were flying high. Whoever said you can’t go home again was dead right! Reaching in her purse, she pulled out the small baggie containing the white powder she’d lifted from her mother’s purse earlier that evening. Maybe Beanbag could tell her what it was.

***

Laurel awoke to her alarm clock. She stared at it bleary-eyed. Damn! I must have cried myself to sleep! she thought as she carefully climbed down from the dormitory bed and stumbled to the bathroom to wash her face. On the other bed her roommate, Carol Cavander, stirred and spoke sleepily, Dibs on the shower! I have an early class.

You can have the shower, called Laurel from the bathroom sink. I don’t have a class until this afternoon.

I wish I didn’t. I can’t drink this much and make morning classes every day, Carol said, rising to sit up sloppily on the edge of the bed. She pushed herself off and landed on the floor, promptly falling forward on her face. Ouch!