Murder in the D.A.'s Office
by: Anne Brooks Brauer


A young Italian girl is murdered at her desk in downtown Washington, D.C. much to the amazement of the District Attorney, who sat in his office adjoining the victim's outer office. This story moves through the District Government offices and officals all the way to Naples, Italy. The search was to find a drug connection to the murder. Northern Virginia Bootleggers become involved in the case and cause a third murder.

"String pushed the pedal down on his car reaching speeds of 85 to 90 miles an hour on the cruvy road. He knew this road like the back of his hand. This one day he wanted that Sheriff to get him for speeding and at just this time, to give himself the alibi he needed. Where was that damn Sheriff, who always tailed his car? A few of the local truckers gave String a honk when he rounded the curves at full speed as a warning, but still there were no familiar Sheriff lights in the rear view mirror. Suddenly a cloud of dust cut out of a side road and now String Bean had the attention he wanted. "Oh, boy what a good chase before I let him catch me," he said to himself. He began to smile and steady both hands on the steering wheel, he was a good river, with "nerves of steel", his buddies always told him that. "Always wished things could have been different," he mused to himself as he expertly worked his way over the hilly and curvy mountain road. "I would have been a hellava race driver, even giving Richard Petty a run for him money, if I could have raced him." Then as smoothly as he had accelerated to the high speed of 85 mph, he brought his auto back within the speed limit and then down to a quiet stop on a good straight stretch of road.

"You going somewhere, String.?" drawled the Sheriff as he poked his head into the car.

"I swear to you Sheriff , I didn't see you behind me till just now, and I was trying to get this accelerator pedal unstuck. See here --how the damn thing is stiff and I was afraid to reach down on those curves. I bet you thought I was speeding , now didn't you?" said String with a straight face.

"Yeah, I did and I still do."

Just then the radio in the Sheriff's car began to call "Emergency-Emergency. Oh, my God Junior-- where are you? Somebody has shot Cal Hill ---Junior come in, I know you are out in that area." continued the voice on the police radio.

"Damn, Junior it sounds like you got something important to do, better answer that call. I bet it was a bootlegger who got him," called out String as the Sheriff rushed over to get the radio call.

"I hear you Maggie and I am on my way down there. I just stopped String Bean for speeding over here on Cedar Mountain road about two miles from Cal's, so I'll go right over and you call the State Police, you hear?" said the Sheriff.

"Ten-four." came the response.

"Hell, I couldn't have planned that better --now they got a record of my time of arrest and all, so I got a good alibi," laughed String to himself. "What I told old Junior about the bootlegger's will sink in later, and that should put him on that track." String knew that still the most flourishing business in these hills was bootlegging "white lighting" and Old Cal Hill had been a neighborhood bootlegger for years. String also knew that some of the younger boys over in Caverns were giving him some competition and that Cal had told them to stay away from his customers.


The new BMW worked it's way over the roads toward the town of Warrenton, Va. String Bean actually felt good, he had stopped once and for all, the mouth of an old man who had gone to his home and told his retarded brother, that he was a crook. "Nope, old man Hill should never, never had done that," he mumbled to himself. All of Shorty's life since Mama had died, he had protected his brother and given him everything he thought that Mama would have wanted him to have. No common bootlegger, in these mountains was gonna tell tales on him, especially anybody as common as old Cal Hill, who wouldn't take care of his own family and chased women and sell bootleg to families who couldn't afford it. Using up the poor families food money. Not, that was a common man and his wife and children were gonna be a lot better off now without him.

Then String turned his thoughts to the two red haired children, that he was sure were his by Mabel. Come to think of it, they were pretty good looking children. The little girl had Mama's straight nose and pretty blue eyes, -what had Mabel named her? Alice, yea that was Alice, that's a pretty good name considering Mabel named her herself. The boy they called him Jake, short for Jacob. He must have been born about the time Mabel got religion and was going to church three times a week at the little church there at the creek. I felt the whole time she was just going to see that Preacher, but if she did pull him into her bed, I got there first, cause that Preacher had black hair and Jakes hair is red as Shorty's, he mused to himself as he drove.