Chapter Eight
Sitting behind his three by five-foot dark-gray metallic desk wearing his
tan-colored sergeant’s uniform, Officer Majors looked meaner than a pit bull on
steroids.
Before he joined the Guilford County Sheriff Department, Bill spent the previous twenty years as a roughneck in the U.S. Marines. And even though the U.S. armed forces now viewed him little more than a civilian, he insisted on running his department just as if he was still in the Corps.
*****
“Sergeant?” A young slender-built dark-brown hair deputy said as he carefully approached his superior’s cubicle. “The warrant for the kid we talked about in this morning’s staff meeting has arrived.”
“The one for Butch McGuire?” Sgt. Majors took a sip from the coffee cup held tightly in his hand, and he placed it on his desk in a position where its bright-red military insignia would be facing him.
“Yes, Sir,” Deputy Lee replied, displaying a zealous, eager-to-please nod.
“Good.” Bill rose out of his faded green vinyl rocker, while his lips simultaneously transformed into a sinister grin. He then turned to face the Guilford county map pinned to the bulletin board behind him. “I’ve been looking forward to the day I could apprehend this particular kid. Ever since we locked up his old man a couple of years ago he's been a major thorn in my side.”
“He has sir?” The deputy seemed puzzled.
“Yes, Deputy Lee. You see; you haven’t been on the Force long enough to get to know Butch McGuire the way I do. For example, the first time you see the kid, you would swear on your mother’s grave that he’s nothing more than a typical overgrown moron with a pile of stale dog poop between his ears for brains. And furthermore, you would probably think he wouldn't be able to fight his way out of a paper bag even if somebody soaked it for 24 hours. However, that and a whole lot more is only a false facade of his.”
“I know for a fact Butch was born with a non-stop ever-conniving supercomputer inside of that skull of his, and he knows how to effectively use it. … Every time he and that bunch of hooligans he calls his gang get into trouble; you can almost guarantee he’ll find a way to legalistically wiggle a way out of it.”
“Thus, for the past couple of years, except for a couple of minor misdemeanors I somehow managed to nail him with, the kid’s been getting away with almost everything short of murder, and we’ve never been able to do anything about it.”
“I know that’s bound to be frustrating sir. But by the looks of this warrant,” Lee replied, raising it to a position to where he would be able to read the charges. “I believe we’ve got something that’ll put him away, long-term.”
“Long-term you say?” Sgt. Majors turned to face his deputy. “Let me see that. I’d like to read for myself what Judge Matthews has agreed to charge Butch with.”
Quickly snatching the paperwork out of Deputy Lee’s outstretched hand, the sergeant’s eyes dropped to the section where each charge would be listed.
“Let see here. We got assault and battery – that’s nothing new for this kid. I’ve seen him maneuver out of that one at least a half a dozen times. … But what’s this?” Bill said, stopping to re-read the third highlighted item at least twice. “Hmm. Can this actually be true? Has our genius in hiding finally majorly screwed up?”
“It appears, he did,” Deputy Lee confirmed with a grin. “He’s looks like he managed to get an attempted first-degree murder charge.”
“Wow! That’s totally unexpected. I wonder what are the odds of getting it to stick? If we did, most likely Butch would end up doing five to ten years in the big house – barring no pussy-foot review board decides to parole him early.”
“At the moment I’d say the odds are pretty good,” Deputy Lee replied, taking the warrant back from his superior. “According to a number of sources, not only did Butch verbally threaten to kill his victim; he schemed for several hours how he would corner him in the school’s gymnasium and crush his sternum.”
“Butch did?” Sgt. Major raised an eyebrow. “That’s very unlike him. Butch usually tries just to hurt his victim, but not kill them. I wonder what could have set him off?”
“I’m not sure,” Deputy Lee stated as he stepped toward the hallway. “But if you give me a sec or two, I’ll get a copy of the incident report and see what it says.”
“You do that Lee.” Sgt. Majors said reaching for the mike sitting next to the police radio he kept on a shelf underneath the county map. “In the meantime, I’ll get a hold of Deputy Stevens. He’s supposed to be patrolling around Gibsonville today, and I’d like to know if he’s seen our hot-shot gang leader.”
“Yes, sir. … Ah. … That sounds like a good idea sir.”
*****
Twenty miles away almost due east from the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department in an extremely rural environment – a collection of teenage boys each wearing identical flannel shirts and bib overalls was gathering behind Gibsonville School for their normal Saturday afternoon routine of shooting hoops. However, unlike most weekends when they got together so they could do a bit mischievous scheming, this particular session was different. There seemed to be unspoken nervousness prevailing.
“Hey. Yo, Butch,” Stan yelled dribbling his faded orange basketball in a perfect symmetrical beat to the rap tune playing on his iPod as he approached the Yellow Jacket’s scoreboard. “Are you sure you want your ass to be seen out here man? I mean, considering what you pulled off recently, it wouldn’t surprise me that The Man’s out looking for ya. And this time he isn’t gonna play.”
Butch glanced at his friend and casually leaned backward on the gray wooden bench he had been resting on.
“Ha! That’s a laugh,” he said as his face reflected an I-don’t-care type of expression. “There’s no way the cops are going to run out to Gibsonville just because I roughed up a dumb computer geek. …You must be getting starting to get stupid on me, Stan.”
“Stupid?” James, a longhaired blond kid, repeated as he gazed at the two of them. “I don’t think so, Butch. Stan’s probably right. Have you forgotten what exactly you did to that moron? … You didn’t just rough Paul up a bit like you normally would do, you almost killed the kid. … Not only was he unconscious when the EMTs carried him out of the gym Monday afternoon, they even had to put him on a respirator.”
Butch vehemently shook his head. “Naw. I don’t think so, guys. Most likely, I only cracked a rib or two. If I would have accidentally killed him Monday, the Guilford County cops surely would have locked me long before now.”
“So that’s why you think you’re still free?” short and chubby Henry asked.
Ray let out a whistle. “I tell you what, Butch. If I would have done what you did, I would have already hightailed my ass a long way from here – possibly even to Mexico.”
Butch placed both hands on the side of his hips and slowly proceeded to give each of his gang members a long cold stare.
“What’s wrong with all you guys this morning?” he began. “There’s absolutely nothing to be scare about. … I swear. Just because I beat the living Hell out of a four-eyed computer geek this week, that isn’t a reason for all of you to turn into a bunch of diaper soiling wimps. Now straighten up. Okay?”
The gang members immediately started to mutter among themselves, while taking occasional glances at their supposedly fearless leader – and after a few moments had passed, Stan finally took a step toward him.
“Butch,” he said before stopping when a Guilford County patrol car suddenly came into view.
He then waited for it to pass before continuing.
“I really don’t think you fully realize what you’ve done, man. Not only did you break a cardinal rule by stomping the ass of one of the administrative staff’s kids. Word has it on the street; Paul could be dead this very moment.”
“Now I know that this is your turf … well, our turf … but do you really want to be hanging around here when it could cause you to end up in the can with a murder rap?”
Butch smiled and yanked a razor-sharp switchblade out of his pocket, then opened it. “Hey. My Dad learned how to take care of himself in prison – and I can too.”
Pete lightly chuckled. “Yeah. You’re probably right. But your ol’ man’s only a short timer and will be getting out next year. … If Paul Pontiac has ended up dying because of you’re stomping him, that’ll be a first-degree murder rap, and you’re going to be locked up for at least a good fifteen to twenty, unless they hand you the death sentence instead.”
Upon hearing these words, Butch looked upward and laughed. But soon afterwards, his pupils began to narrow as the truthfulness of his friend’s words began to sink in like the venom of a fully-grown copperhead.
“Maybe you guys are right. Perhaps I should lie low for a while – just to see if anything develops.”
Butch then stopped to examine the countryside surrounding him.
“Where do you think I should go – The cave?”
“The cave?” Pete looked at his friend and grimaced. “That’s not a good idea, Butch. If you recall, that’s where we stashed Gibsonville’s Regional Football trophy. If The Man somehow managed to find you there, he’d slap you with a charge for stealing it.”
“You really think pea brain Sergeant Majors would think to look there?” Butch said, gazing at Stan, Pete, and Henry to see their initial reaction. “I doubt if the dumb ass even knows about the place.”
“You might be able to stay at my place,” a scrawny sandy brown-haired kid named Curt suggested. “You know my mom is almost never around. And I haven’t seen my Dad in the last three months. I think he’s taken off with a young blond and headed for Mexico.”
“That’d be cool,” Butch initially stated. “But what if your mom sees me and starts asking questions. Or worse, what if for some unknown reason she gets pissed off and starts yapping? Before you know it, The Man would be all over me.”
“I think you’d be safer if you took off for Mexico. … Immediately,” Fred interjected, expressing himself for the first time since the conversation started.
Butch studied the expression of each gang member, and he grasped his chin. Making the right decision certainly wasn’t going to come easy.
Heading to Mexico would most likely be a sure guarantee he wouldn’t get caught. But, what if Paul wasn’t as bad off as everyone thinks he might be? Then he would have given up everything he had ever cared about – for nothing. … By staying and Paul being OK, most likely he would only get a probation sentence. However, if he was wrong and Paul’s dead – doing nothing could result in the death penalty or maybe even something worse, a life sentence with no chance of parole.
“I think I’ve made up my mind,” Butch announced, stomping his foot on the black asphalt below him. “I think I’m going to …”
Less than a half a block away, the blue lights on a couple of nearby Guilford County Sheriff’s vehicles suddenly began to flash, and a loud, ear-piercing siren started to resonate throughout the neighborhood.