Part 5: The Soldier

Prologue

Previously in our story, Ms. White and Mr. Black paid a late afternoon visit to the office of Dr. Mark Jennings in an attempt to steal rare artifacts from his antique vibrator collection.

Because Dr. Jennings had previously placed phony labels on his most valuable artifacts indicating that they were replicas, the two thieves walked away empty handed when in fact they had been holding the genuine artifacts in their hands the entire time.

The Matchmaker Bandits correctly deduced that Dr. Jennings would not leave his collection at his practice for them to come back again and find.

Having already set their larcenous hearts on the rare erotic coin collection of his new partner Dr. Victoria Mercer, they paid an after hours visit to her office in hopes of finding both collections waiting for them. Instead, all they found were replica vibrators and counterfeit coins.

In desperation, they decided to return to the scene of their first attempt only to discover the office was all but empty.

For months, the two robbers watched and waited while the two doctors moved their practices to their new building all the while looking for another opportunity to get a crack at the two doctor's collections.

When the office move was completed, the bandits finally thought their chance had come.

In hopes that they might drink from the cup of success, with Dr. Jennings safely out of town, they waited until the office was closed for the weekend to try again.

But the taste was bittersweet, for while they did find Dr. Mercer's rare coin collection intact, they once more failed to locate the prized pieces of Dr. Jennings's collection.

Four times they have tried to steal Dr. Jennings's elusive antique vibrator collection. Four times they have failed. Where has the good doctor moved his collection?

What would the Matchmaker Bandits do if they knew? Surely they would not be so fool hearty as to try again.

Find out now in this, the fifth and final part of 'The Great Hippocrates Robberies'.

Chapter One — "The Death"

July 1993

"Stupid bitch!" Jimmy Oglethorpe screamed as he produced a switchblade from his pants pocket, opened it and lunged dangerously at Becky Daily's midsection missing her by a mere fraction of an inch.

Meanwhile, as Becky was attempting to reason with Jimmy, his two brothers, Sammy and Bert, had moved to blocking positions on each side of her boyfriend, Ethan Barns. He was surrounded on all sides. To his front was his candy-apple red 1968 Mustang, to the rear Jimmy's pickup truck and on his sides were Jimmy's two brothers.

When Ethan attempted to jump over the rear of the car so he could get to Jimmy, the two grabbed him by the arms and held him forcefully at bay and, it seemed to Ethan an almost horribly surreal moment compared to the calm tranquility of a few minutes ago when he had arrived there.

Ethan Barns loved his high school sweetheart, Becky Daily, and would have married her after graduation had they both not had the good sense to know that neither of them was ready for that kind of commitment. Both of them knew how hard it was to raise a family on the limited incomes provided by the few jobs available in the small rural farming community so they decided to wait a few years and build a nest egg before starting a family together.

When one lives in a small town like Magnolia Georgia, job prospects are limited and they really had very few choices, either work at the local chicken processing plant or join the military.

Since the only time Ethan liked dead chickens was when they were on his plate covered in barbeque sauce, he chose the military.

It almost broke Becky's heart when Ethan told her that he had joined the Army after high school hoping to save up enough for a future for the two of them. She cried in his arms as she said to him, "I just know you're going to meet someone and never want to come back! You're going be just like everyone else and forget about this shit hole town and me."

But he took her in his arms and assured her that he would return to take her away with him. When he did leave her, she honestly thought she would never see him again. She felt hopeless that day. She couldn't even join the Army herself, a childhood injury to one ear had left her with a hearing loss and made sure that would never happen. So there she was, stuck in that awful little town, facing whatever nowhere low-paying job she could find to survive on.

Of course, the first thing the Army did was ship him out and, as fate would have it, for most of the seven years since his enlistment, other than on the occasional leave, he was stationed too far away from Becky to see her.

After Basic Training, he had taken his A.I.T., Advanced Individual Training or job training in the civilian world, at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Maryland for eighteen months and then was stationed at Fort Ord, California for six months. That was followed by three years in at Fort Benning Georgia, then three years in Germany, and then a year in Korea. Until finally, after spending the last year in Korea, Ethan had been shipped stateside to Fort Benning where he was to spend the last six months of his eight year military career.

Ethan loved her so much and had spent too much time away from her.

His enlistment was almost up and so, the first thing he did when he hit stateside was to take his leave. Ethan drove back to Magnolia so he could ask Becky to marry him.

During the trip he ran over and over in his mind how he would propose to her only to forget everything. Instead, he simply asked her as soon as she opened the door.

She accepted without reservation and the two of them decided to go out for the night and celebrate.

After Becky went inside and retrieved her purse, the couple began walking to the street where Ethan's car was parked. Just as they were about to get into it, Jimmy and his two brothers, Sammy and Bert, the town's resident bullies, pulled up in an old beat-up black pickup.

They were such troublemakers that some of the local town's folk had not so affectionately started calling them the "Red Tornados", partly because of the red hair they all had but mostly because everywhere they seemed to go violence and disaster followed them.

Jimmy jumped out of the back of the pickup truck, staggered a bit, recovered his balance and then held the beer can he was holding upside down above him as he gulped down its contents. When the can was empty, he summarily threw the beer can directly at Ethan in a sign of utter contempt. All the while yelling at Becky, the enraged redhead started walking around the car until he stood in front of her.

From the way he was acting, it was plain to see that the man was drunk which made him all the more dangerous.

Ethan and Becky both knew this and Ethan could see the fear on her face. There had long been a rumor running around town about how Jimmy treated women. As the rumor went, Jimmy had gotten drunk one night after he picked up one of the local girls. Supposedly he had beaten and raped the girl. While he denied the rumor vehemently and would beat senselessly anyone he heard repeating it, it didn't help his case when she showed up three days later at school with several bruises all over her face and arms. Nor did it help when she showed up pregnant three months later and then suddenly disappeared.

Another version of the sordid story added that the girl had been given an undisclosed some of money by Doc Harris and then "escorted" out of town by the local sheriff.

"I told you not to see him any more. You're my girl now!" Jimmy yelled at Becky in a slurred voice that usually comes after several hours of consuming too much alcohol.

Calmly she replied, "You're drunk Jimmy. Go home and sleep it off. Maybe when you wake up in the morning you'll remember that we only went out once."

She hadn't known about his reputation back then so Becky had dated him. Now she regreted it though, for every time he drank, Jimmy would come track her down and harass her as he attempted to assert his ownership over her.

But this time he was in rare form, Becky guessed he must have been set off when he heard that Ethan was back in town.

Unfortunately, Jimmy's blood alcohol level was far too high for his brain to be functioning much higher than that of a rabid dog and he was enraged beyond belief. The inebriated man reached wildly for her blouse. It was obvious that he intended to tear it off, her leaving her exposed for all to see. "What are you doing with him? Didn't I tell you that you're mine?"

All the while, Ethan was protesting loudly as he struggled to free himself so he could help Becky.

"Jimmy, I've told you before that this cave man attitude of yours doesn't work with me. I can see anyone I want. Now go on home! I'm not going to argue with you any more." She told him flatly and started to get into the car.

Jimmy grabbed her and when he missed her blouse, the drunken man reached for her arm as he yelled once more. "Since you want to act like a slut, why don't you show us all what a whore you really are and do me right here?"

Becky slapped Jimmy hard on the left side of his face and pulled her arm away from him.

From the force Becky's hand had impacted his face, there could be no doubt that he would have a large red welt the next morning.

That's when Jimmy yelled at her "Stupid bitch! No body hits me! Nobody!" and took out the switchblade from his pants pocket and pressed the stud that exposed the knife's deadly blade. He was well beyond reasoning now and just seemed to be ignoring her as he thrust the knife in her direction. Luckily, the drunken man missed her midsection by a mere fraction of an inch, mostly because she jumped back just at the last second before impact.

Ethan knew that Jimmy was going to try again; he had seen a few of his Army buddies get this drunk before and also knew that when they were in that condition, there was no reasoning with them. He feared for Becky's life but with Sammy and Bert holding him Ethan couldn't get to her. Ethan also knew that if he didn't do something fast Jimmy was going to kill her.

Seeing what looked like a .38 revolver protruding from the right side pocket of Sammy's blue- jean jacket, Ethan tried in vain to free his left arm free from Sammy's grasp.

Cursing the two men, Ethan began struggling violently with the two brothers but they held him tightly. In desperation, he stomped down hard with the heal of his left boot onto the instep of Sammy's right foot causing the man to wince in pain and momentarily loosen his grip. It was all Ethan needed and he suddenly broke his left arm free long enough to grab the pistol.

Before either of the two men holding him could react, Ethan snapped off a single shot just as Jimmy lunged as he made another attempt to cut Becky with the knife for the second time.

Jimmy grimaced for a second and then dropped the knife, which slid in the direction of Ethan's car and disappeared. Blood began pulsing from a dark spot in the center of his chest all over the Budweiser tee-shirt he was wearing. Jimmy fell to his knees and continued his downward decent face first to the ground and lay there motionless.

He lay there with his life's blood pouring onto the ground, creeping ever so slowly around him until it found its way up to his face and hair.

The two brothers ran to aid their fallen sibling but it was too late, Jimmy was already beyond help. Later, the coroner's examination would reveal that the mortal wound had entered the man's chest on the right side, penetrated his right lung, continued through his heart and then entered his left lung killing him almost instantly.

While Ethan had been trained by the Army how to kill, they had never showed him what it would actually look like. The reality is that all the training in the world doesn't prepare anyone how to live with it afterwards. He just stood there stunned, unable to move as a sickening feeling grew in the pit of his stomach.

Someone inside one of the nearby dwellings must have heard the gunshot because, just then people began coming outside into the street to see what had happened. There was the loud sound of a shotgun being fired followed by a hissing sound as the front left tire of Ethan's car suddenly went flat. That was followed by the noise created by several doors being slammed shut as people hastily sought the safety of there abodes.

"Drop it Ethan!" came a loud commanding voice from somewhere behind him. Ethan recognized the voice as that of, Johnny Wilkins, the county's deputy sheriff and cousin of the three brothers.

The lawman had been on patrol in the neighborhood at the time, heard the shot a few blocks away and pulled his squad car up at the end of the block unnoticed in all the commotion.

Ethan looked over in the direction the voice had come from to see Johnny standing there holding a double-barreled shotgun now pointed directly at his midsection.

Johnny Wilkins was about twenty two years old and it was common knowledge that he had gotten the job when he helped the Sheriff break up a bar fight that had broken out between some of the local boys and a small gang of bikers.

Since there was an opening at the time for a deputy, it probably didn't hurt any that the sheriff just happened to be his uncle on his mother's side either.

Despite the deputy's youth, if the sheriff ever sent Johnny calling, nobody with any sense gave him trouble. Unless that is, they wanted a broken jaw to remind them while they were in the local jail of how stupid they had been.

When Ethan saw the lawman's finger was on the trigger of the shotgun, he knew from the deadly serious look on the man's face the deputy wouldn't hesitate to pull it. Without saying a word, Ethan dropped the weapon to the ground and slowly raised his hands, palms outward, so that Johnny could see that both hands were empty.

Probably given courage by the presence of the lawman, a few brave souls had decided to step outside once more and see what was going on.

"Has anyone called 911 yet?" Johnny yelled in the direction of the crowd forming behind him.

An unidentified voice called back, "Tim has, they said they'll be here three minutes."

"How's he doing Sammy?" The deputy asked his cousin.

Sammy, who was kneeling over his dead brother's body, looked up and cried out, "He's dead Johnny! That son-of-a-bitch killed him!"

"Call Mattie!" Ordered the deputy. Everybody in the county knew that Mattie was the Sheriff's wife. Then added, "Tell her to wake Uncle Jack and tell him to get his ass over here right now and then tell Doc Harris to get over to his office."

Just then, Sammy stood up and started walking in the direction of the pistol. There was a murderous look in his eyes and his face was crimson with rage.

Ethan suddenly got very nervous. Even though he and Johnny had been friends most of their lives, the deputy, dead man, and the dead man's brothers were all cousins so he didn't know how things were going to play out. He didn't have to wait long to find out.

"Sammy, cousin or not, if you pick up that gun I'll shoot you down where you stand!" Came the voice of the deputy. That was followed by the clicking sound of one of the hammers on the shotgun being pulled back.

Bert began rising to his feet, as he did, he said to his cousin. "You've only got one barrel left Johnny and there's two of us! You can't get us both!"

"You're right about that. And with you being related, I might even miss you. But I'll bet that Ethan will make it to that gun on the ground there before you can get to me. And since we already know he can shoot straight, I'm betting you two won't live to see tomorrow. You sure you want to take that chance?" Replied the lawman.

Shocked expressions on their faces, his two cousins looked at him for several seconds. Then Sammy said to him, "You wouldn't let that killer have a gun after he just shot down Jimmy, would you?"

"Well now, to tell you the truth. I trust Ethan a whole lot more than I do you boys! So yeah, I reckon I would!" Answered the deputy dispassionately.

They both knew their cousin didn't like them and they also knew he meant what he said. The two cousins decided to back off rather than face two armed men.

They were aware that the deputy was the only one that knew the full story about what happened the night Jimmy raped that young girl and he also knew that Jimmy wasn't the only one involved in it! No, there was no love lost between the three men at all.

Squealing wheels as it came to a halt, the sheriff's car pulled up. All four wheels had barely come to a compete halt when the driver's side door swung suddenly open and a man about six feet three inches tall got out of the car.

In less than one second he surveyed the situation, drew his pistol and aimed it in the direction his deputy's shotgun was pointing.

The sheriff was a big man, weighing about 345 pounds with large shoulders and a massive chest. He had just a touch of a potbelly but you could plainly see he was every bit muscle everywhere else. His wasn't by any means a handsome man, with his pitted face and large bushy eyebrows. In fact, he was down right odd looking, mostly due to the fact that in wore one of those old handle bar mustaches you usually only see in old westerns. From the look of his clothes, you could tell he had dressed hastily for he was wearing the blue jeans, a white tee-shirt, with his badge pined to hit, no socks and of all things brown Scooby-Doo slippers! On his head was a tan Stetson rancher style cowboy hat and, of course, his gun belt. But, as funny as he looked, nobody was laughing.

In an extremely deep voice, the man called out. "Everyone that did not see the what happened go home and stay there." Then he turned and said to his deputy, "You call the Doc yet Johnny?"

"On his way!" Answered Johnny replied.

The big man began walking over slowly as people started drifting back into their homes. "What happened here?"

"Don't know sheriff. I haven't had a chance to ask yet. I've been busy trying to keep these two dumb-asses from getting themselves shot." The younger lawman said to his elder as he motioned towards the two surviving brothers with the barrel of his shotgun.

Just then, Sammy spoke up, "He killed him Uncle Jack!" Shot him down like a dog. He didn't have no cause!"

"You're damned liar Sammy Oglethorpe! You know full well Jimmy was trying to kill me when Ethan shot him!" Yelled Becky.

The sheriff looked over at Bert and said, "Is that true?"

Bert looked glanced at his brother for a second, hesitated another second, then replied, "Nope Uncle Jack! She's lying. Jimmy didn't have no knife. He was just telling her how pretty she looked when she got all 'bitchie' and slapped him. Then Ethan took out a gun and shot Jimmy dead! Jimmy didn't even lay so much as a hand on her."

"Their both lying sheriff! Jimmy was drunk and tried to rip my blouse. That's when I slapped him in the face. Then he pulled out a knife and tried to stab me but missed. Ethan shot Jimmy when he tried to do it again!" Becky retorted.

The sheriff turned to his deputy and said, "We'll just have to sort this out at the station. Cuff him and put him in the back seat of my car," he motioned towards Ethan, "and then put her in the front seat." Then he turned to the two brothers and said, "You two boys can wait here while I go see if anybody else saw anything."

When the crowd dissipated, Ethan said to his friend, "Listen Johnny, I'm not lying. Jimmy attacked her with a knife. He dropped it when I shot him and it went under the car. Just look for it!"

If there had been any other witnesses, they didn't want to get involved for when the sheriff turned around everyone else had gone home.

"Hold on Uncle Jack, it'll just take a second for me to look under the car." The deputy said to his boss. Then he walked over and handed his shotgun to the sheriff and went back to his squad car. He retrieved a flashlight from the front seat. The young lawman then walked back to the side of the Ethan's car and knelt down. He looked under the car for several seconds, moving his flashlight from side to side as he looked intently for the fallen knife.

He stood up and said sternly, "There's no knife under here Ethan!"

As Ethan stood there in shock, the deputy walked over to him and said, "Ethan Barns, you're under arrest for the murder of Jimmy Oglethorpe."

Two minutes later, Ethan found himself handcuffed and sitting in the back of the Sheriff's patrol car. Becky was sitting in the front seat. There was the distinct odor of vomit and cheap wine mixed with a very heavy amount of some type of disinfectant he couldn't identify in the air inside the car.

With nothing else to do, the couple watched out the windows and waited for the sheriff to return. It was just about that time an ambulance showed up to be followed by a old gray ford sedan left over from the 1950's. The sedan was being driven by the town's doctor and coroner, 'Doc Harris'. The doctor was tiny, skinny old man with round glass. He must have be at least seventy-two years old and Ethan thought to himself that the man looked to him like a taller, skinner version of the actor Henry Fonda.

Most men would have retired at his age, but no, he just kept working. After all, how else could he keep control over the town and his investments? There was one other distinction he had; he was the grandfather of the deceased! As he sat there, Ethan realized that events had just spiraled out of control and an impending feeling of dread came suddenly over him.

Chapter Two — "The Town"

Magnolia back then was a tiny, insignificant, depressing town that was at least a hundred miles away from every major city in Georgia. It was well known by anyone who visited Magnolia that the town was so dreary that it seemed to have a numbing effect on all hapless travelers that were misfortunate enough to enter its influence.

Most people that either visited the place or were former inhabitants lucky enough to escape said that after a while, the town would slowly lull them into a state of melancholy which grew stronger the longer they were there.

All this, of course, made the second leading cause of death amongst town's folk suicide, a close second only to alcoholism! It was so bad that people from the neighboring towns used to laugh every time they were asked for directions to the place saying, "Magnolia? It's a few more miles down the road a spell. Just look for the sign that say's Hell and then keep going south a bit. You can't miss it!"

That was part of the problem with Magnolia; it was so insignificant that you couldn't even find it on a map. And if you did, it was probably an oversight of the map maker, for had he ever been to the place, he wouldn't have wanted to remember it let alone tell anyone where it was!

Downtown Magnolia itself consisted of a town square and four large streets. Each street ran in some way parallel to the square and if there was a business in town, it could be found somewhere on one of those streets. Every street in the downtown area was lined with massive magnolia trees for which the town had been given its name over two hundred years ago by its founder, Jeremiah Harris, old Doc Harris's great grand father.

At the center of the square was city hall, a building that from the looks of it must have been constructed some time just after the Civil War, or as some of the older townsfolk called it, "The Great War Of Northern Aggression", and next to that was the County Courthouse.

Every major building from the town hall to the post office looked like something out of a 'B' version of Gone With The Wind, old, cheap, and badly maintained!

There was one general store, one drug store, one doctor's office, one auto parts store, the local finance company, and one feed store, all of which were owned by Joshua 'Doc' Harris or one or more of the members of his family.

Without a doubt Doc Harris was the wealthiest man in town for he also owned not only the town's one grocery store, but also the drug store and the town's only farm supply-general- hardware store. Hell, he even had half ownership in the town's only restaurant, the other half being owned by his brother.

But even though his family owned just about everything, there had been times when it looked as if he was in danger of loosing control over it.

About a year before, some of the locals had quite vocally started complaining to the town council about their inability to attract new business to the dying little community.

Everyone was surprised when he showed up one day at and demanded the council reform and become more active in trying to attract new business to "our poor economically depressed, but quite beautiful little community" as he so eloquently put it.

Two weeks later, his economic monopoly on the county appeared to be broken when out of town investors built not only a new convenience store but also a new drug store. The voices of the dissenters died down and finally disappeared.

Had anyone ever bothered to check into it, they would have easily discovered that the same corporation owned both franchises; and, that the head of that corporation was of all people, Doc Harris.

Before then, there had been only one gas station and one grocery store in the county.

At the time, the only business he had never been able to acquire in the past was the town's one and only gas station. He had Not only not given up his monopoly but, the sly old bastard had made it stronger by building the convenience store. And so, in the end, "Doc's" ability to undercut the man's price per gallon on fuel, would lead to the eventual closure of the small family run business.

What only a very select few people knew was, Doc had been using his influence with his brother the Mayor, and the town council to make sure that no potential outside investor ever walked away with anything remotely resembling a favorable impression regarding the profit potential of the county.

In fact, until the malcontents started complaining, the old doctor had found it very easy to maintain his monopolistic control over the county, probably due to the fact that most of the council members were either his nieces, or nephews or in some way related to him by marriage.

The town and most of the county were totally dependent on 'Doc' and his family for just about everything from the food they ate to the mortgage on their homes.

And the rural community around Magnolia didn't fair much better. The small farmer with fifty acres of land just couldn't afford the large machines and supplies like peanut diggers, hand shellers, cotton carts, poultry house cleaners, employee salaries, fertilizer, and insect spray any more. He just didn't have enough acreage to make it profitable.

Many small land owners rented out what farmable land they had to the larger land owners and would take jobs at the local poultry processing plants or accept whatever work they could find.

While the state of Georgia might rank first in production of frying chickens, peanuts and pecans, and second in the production of cotton and rye, farming is an expensive business. It just wasn't profitable to plant a crop and have it bring in $1100 an acre at market when you spent half that to get it there, assuming you didn't loose most of it to drought, unseasonable rains, unpredictable freezes or worse.

No, the days of the small farmer were gone, having long ago been replaced by the professional business man.

But times were changing and the old doctor was finding it harder to rule in the same iron handed manner that he used to and he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep outsiders from threating his tiny little empire.

To sum it up, Magnolia was a decaying little town being run by a corrupt old man and his family of fellow vultures, all looking for any opportunity to pick it clean to the bone of anything of value.

Chapter Three — "The Pistol"

It was early in the morning the day after the shooting. Sammy and his brother were knocking at the front door of the trailer belonging to James Rollins. James lived in a broken down old trailer that looked like it was built in the 1950's.

The trailer was located at the very end of a two-mile long dirt road in the back woods areas of the county laughingly called Route Three. The only sign of civilization, other than the tiny mobile home that is, were the power and phone lines running along side the road.

As they got out of their pickup truck, they were greeted by the annoying sound of mockingbirds screeching in the background and the sweet smell of honeysuckle growing in the nearby woods.

James's girlfriend, Cindy Benson, opened the door, still yawning as she pulled a rather flimsy house robe shut around her body, just not fast enough to keep the two brothers from catching a quick glimpse of her luscious young body.

Cindy was the hottest girl in town and had a reputation for being the its easiest lay. She would sleep with anyone that showed up with a couple six packs of beer or some weed and had probably slept with half the males in the county. If the truth were known, she was personally responsible for taking the virginity of most of the boys and men between the ages of fourteen and twenty five.