Bethany Sutton Chapter 1

The night that changed Beth Greene’s life forever was an ordinary Friday night.

She was late getting off work from her job at Miller’s Pharmacy, which was in a small strip mall a few miles from her house. She hurried to the bank to deposit her pay check. The last thing she needed was a check to bounce. That would earn her a lecture from her father, which would in turn spark a fight. It seemed that was all they did since her stepmother passed away six months prior.

With her check deposited she left the bank drive through and headed out to Cooper’s market. She had a taste for some ice cream, and though it would have been more convenient, and closer, to shop at one of the bigger chains, she preferred to give her business to Mr. Cooper. The market had been in his family for seventy years, and he needed the business to keep it going.

The parking lot was full, but not with business for Mr. Cooper. Cars clogged the streets, spilling over from a revival service that was going on at the Zion Baptist Church across the street. She found a spot not too far away from the store and headed in.

“Evening, Mr. Cooper,” Beth said in greeting.

Mr. Cooper was old enough to retire, but he preferred to work the register himself in the evenings. He grinned at her in an odd way, as though relieved to see her.

“Evening, Beth! I haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

“I’ve been working at Miller’s. I also take classes online, so I’m usually too busy to get out and do much shopping.”

“You haven’t been going to that big chain market down the road, have you?” he said, peering at her over his half-rim glasses.

“I wouldn’t dare!”

He smiled playfully and Beth headed back toward the dairy section. She wasn’t surprised to see that Mr. Cooper’s niece, Mathilda, had closed down the kitchen for the night. Beth used to like to come and get hot dogs or cheeseburgers here.

She stood eying the selection of flavors of ice cream when she heard the door jingle from up front. She tried to choose between Rocky Road and Death by Chocolate. She was still trying to decide when she heard Mr. Cooper’s frightened voice.

“Please, Officer, I don’t have it all right now. I’ll have the payment in full on Monday, I promise!”

“Payday is now, not Monday, Cooper,” said one of the two men who’d come into the store. Beth peered cautiously around one of the aisles. She saw two men had entered, both wearing hoodies. She could make out the face of the man who switched off the open sign and slid the lock in place when he turned back to the counter. It was a cop named Martinez.

The other man was someone Beth couldn’t quite place. She thought his name may have been Nelson or Neil. He was a big brute of a man who dwarfed Martinez.

“Business has been really slow,” said Mr. Cooper.

“Yeah, that’s why you took the loan,” Nelson/Neil said.

“Mr. Negan, I promise you--”

“Martinez, does this song and dance seem familiar to you?” Negan asked.

“Sure does. He does it every single Friday night.”

“I honestly don’t have all of it.”

“Twenty-five hundred. That’s the payment amount,” said Negan.

“I’ve got a thousand in cash right now. I can have the rest by Monday, I swear it!”

“That’s really fucking unfortunate for you, Cooper,” said Negan. “Martinez. You know the drill.”

“Please,” Mr. Cooper begged. “Please, I’m begging you. I’ll have all your money on--”

Martinez pulled a gun and Beth watched him unload three shots straight into Mr. Cooper’s chest. She gasped in horror as Mr. Cooper slumped against the counter and then hit the floor with a heavy thump. She stood still, feeling adrenaline course through her veins, making her heart thud and her ears ring. She prayed they hadn’t heard anything but she didn’t figure her luck would run that good. Without wasting time, Beth headed for the storeroom in back. She had, on a few occasions growing up, helped load and unload product for a few extra dollars for summer spending when she was younger. She knew how to get out quietly.

“You hear something?” Negan said.

“I’ll go look.”

Beth hurried now, rushing for the back door. She threw it open, surprised by how warm and balmy the evening air was. It hadn’t seemed that hot or humid to her when she’d first entered Cooper’s Grocery. The sky was still a beautiful shade of blue, unmarred by a single cloud, and the sunlight hurt Beth’s eyes and made them water.

She ran for her father’s truck, a beat up old Chevy, and jumped inside. When she looked around she saw Martinez raising his gun. It seemed to happen in slow motion. She watched the barrel of the gun level with her before suddenly lowering. He only stopped when he heard the screeching laughter of a group of teenaged kids who were running off some excess energy as they left the church from across the street.

Beth hurried into the truck, started it up, and peeled out.

“Fuck,” she said, in a rare instance of cursing. She slammed her hands against the steering wheel. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

She’d witnessed a murder. The trigger man had seen her face. Even worse…he was a cop.

…

Beth sped up to her father’s house, laying on the horn as she came. She had to warn them. Martinez may not know who she was, but he’d get the numbers from the truck’s tags and find out where she lived. He and Negan would gun her entire family down to keep them from talking.

“Beth, what’s the matter?” Hershel Greene said, exiting the farm house with a look of concern on his wizened face.

“I saw them kill Mr. Cooper!”

“What?”

“Mr. Cooper’s dead, Daddy!” she sobbed, throwing herself into her father’s arms.

“Calm down and tell me what you’re talking about.”

“We’ve gotta get Maggie and get out of here. Daddy, we have to go now!”

“What--”

Beth was panicked. She was going to lose her mind if she couldn’t make him understand. She had no idea how long they had before death came riding up to their doorstep.

“I was at Mr. Cooper’s grocery. I was in back of the store. Two cops came in. They were off-duty. They wanted money from Mr. Cooper. He owed them. He didn’t have it so they shot him three times. Daddy, the guy who shot Mr. Cooper saw me! He’s got the tag numbers, he’ll know where we live.”

“Beth, tell me you’re not joking,” her sister Maggie said. She’d come out of the house at the sound of all the commotion.

“Of course not! I wouldn’t joke about something like this!”

“What do we do?” Maggie asked, looking pale and frightened.

“You saw two policemen murder Ed Cooper?” Hershel asked, and it infuriated Beth that he didn’t seem as panicked as she felt.

“Yes, Daddy! They saw me, too! They know the truck they know where we live.”

“Get in the truck. I’ve got to get my wallet,” Hershel said. He ran back inside the house while Maggie and Beth hurried to the truck. Beth trembled, taking up a spot in the center of the bench seat. Maggie tried to hold her but her touch wasn’t soothing. It just made her feel tied down.

“Hurry, Daddy…” Beth whispered.

Hershel finally came out. He carried a shotgun and nothing else. The lights were still on in the house, forgotten, as he climbed behind the wheel.

“Tell me one more time everything that happened. Try to stay calm,” Hershel said.

Beth went through it again, though it was the last thing she wanted to do. She kept her eyes peeled for any sign of trouble as he pulled out of their long dirt drive and onto the main road. She flinched in fear of every car they passed. He had both his daughters duck, just in case one of the cars was Martinez.

He stopped at an ATM and withdrew some cash before returning to the truck. In minutes they were on the highway, heading toward Atlanta. Thankfully no one seemed to be following them. It was dark before he stopped and parked the truck in an empty parking lot a few blocks away from a cheap motel of questionable moral practices that didn’t demand ID and took cash. He had Maggie and Beth wait outside, out of the view of the proprietor, and asked for a single bed. None of them relaxed until they were finally locked in a room.

“What are we gonna do?” asked Maggie. “Who polices the police?”

“I’m gonna call the FBI first thing in the morning,” said Hershel. “Until then, you girls take the bed and try to get some sleep.”

Sleep was unlikely for any of them. Beth lay and stared at the sickly yellow light that stained the wall opposite the bed like a pool of urine. She jumped at every sound, as did Maggie. Finally she slipped into sleep out of sheer exhaustion.

…

Special Agent Shane Walsh stood in the office of Cooper’s Grocery searching for the security camera footage. He wasn’t surprised to discover it was missing. That was the MO of the dirty cops he was investigating.

The body of Edward Cooper was wheeled out of the store at 3a.m. on Saturday morning. It had been flagged in the system as fitting the pattern set by Bruce Negan. Shane had been alerted and he’d come out first thing. He couldn’t, of course, trust the cops investigating Cooper’s murder since any one of them could either be as dirty as Negan, or simply too afraid of him to put a stop to him.

“Found anything?” asked Dt. Mercer.

“No, nothing. Security footage has been taken.”

“There’s footage from the church security cameras across the street,” she said. “I’ve taken the liberty of getting copies made.”

Shane smiled for the first time since waking up and hurrying out to the crime scene. “You don’t say?”

“I say,” Mercer agreed.

If there was a clean cop in the Senoia PD it would be Brigid Mercer. Shane didn’t completely trust her, but she’d come through for him before. He was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt as much as possible.

They headed out to his truck and she handed him a DVD disk which he slid into the laptop mounted to his dash. A few seconds later footage of the church lot came up. It showed, with fairly decent clarity for a security cam, Cooper’s Grocery across the street.

“Here’s the interesting part,” she said. “Notice this old blue truck.”

A young blond girl got out and walked around to the front entrance.

“We didn’t find an extra body in the store,” Shane said.

“Just watch.”

Five minutes later Negan and Martinez could be seen blocking in a couple of cars as they got out and headed into the store. There were flashes of light on the screen a couple of minutes after the open sign was switched off.

“Gunfire,” said Shane.

“Look here.”

A minute later the blond girl burst out of the back of the store. She hurried to the truck and Martinez came out. The only thing that saved her from being gunned down were some kids coming out to the church for a break, probably looking for somewhere to smoke.

“I’ll have the lab look at this. I want those plates,” Shane said.

Mercer nodded in agreement. “Look, Walsh, I know you have a job to do, and I’ll do all I can to help, but Negan and Martinez aren’t alone. They deal drugs, they run a prostitution ring…they’re dangerous. They make loans that people kill themselves to pay back and I think that’s what happened here. They killed Mr. Cooper to send a message to those who owe them money to pay up or die.”

“You’re afraid.”

“I’ve got two kids to think about. My ex-husband is a scumbag drunk that I won’t allow anywhere near them.”

“I understand, believe me I do. Just do what you can. I won’t let anyone know we’re working together.”

“I can’t make too much progress on this case. Negan will want it buried.”

“You do what you gotta do to stay safe and keep your kids safe. I’ll handle this.”

Mercer cocked a brow at him. “When this is over, what do you say you and I go out for a drink?”

“Sounds good.”

Mercer’s cell rang. She answered. “Mercer…I see…Okay, sir. I’m on it,” she said.

“Well?”

“That was Chief Negan,” she said. “There was a truck spotted at the crime scene that’s been located about ten miles outside of Atlanta. He wants me to locate the potential witness and bring her in.”

“Plate numbers?” Shane asked.

She called in for the tag numbers of the vehicle.

“It’s registered to Hershel Greene.”

“Hershel is a man. How did Negan know the ‘potential’ witness was a girl?”

“That’s a question to ask him in court, if this ever gets to trial,” said Mercer, before she climbed out of Shane’s truck.

“I’m heading to that truck,” he said.

“I guess I’ll run into you there, accidentally like,” she said, and shut the door.

…

From his vantage point in his room, Hershel watched as two unmarked cars approached his truck. Beth and Maggie were asleep, thank God. Hershel eyed his watch. It was five-thirty in the morning. If those cops were worth their salt they’d check every motel in the area. They’d knock on every door.

They’d find him, his girls, and take them to Senoia where the police there had been corrupt for a very long time. From there all three of them would have a terrible ‘accident,’ Hershel was sure of it.

“Girls, wake up.”

They were normally slow to awaken, but this time they sprung up, their faces fearful.

“What is it, Daddy?” asked Maggie.

“Two people are sniffing around our truck. They must be cops,” he said. “We need to go, now.”

“Go where?” asked Beth, wiping her eyes. “Shouldn’t we hide here?”

“They’ll ask around. They’ll have my name and most likely a description of me. I can’t use my credit card. It’s too easy to trace.”

“What do we do?”

“We walk. We keep moving until we can get in touch with someone from the FBI.”

Hershel led his daughters from the room. Without drawing attention to themselves, they quietly walked away from the motel and headed into the early light of dawn. 

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