"Last Castle in the Sky" Avaialble Now!!

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Chapter 1

Vernon Frank Bruce wasn’t listening to the gavel banging on the judge’s desk. He wasn’t even looking in that direction. He just lay his head down upon the cold wood of the table. As the judge’s booming voice handed down his sentence, he couldn’t hear the words. Vern could feel the emotions pouring from his nephew, Cliff Bruce, however. He could feel the teenager’s rage radiating from behind him, but there was nothing he could do. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

Cliff couldn’t contain himself as the judge pronounced the sentence of death for the murders. Murders that Cliff knew in his heart, that his uncle didn’t commit. He couldn’t have. In his fourteen years, since his father went missing and was presumed dead in Vietnam, Unc, as Cliff called him, was his life. He took him in, treated him like his own son. Now he was going to death row for someone else’ crimes. 

The teenager jumped to his feet, screaming at the judge, “He didn’t do it! You can’t kill him!”

The judge pointed in his direction while banging his gavel. A husky bailiff sprinted to catch Cliff before he jumped over the waist-high railing separating the audience from the trial participants. Cliff wasn’t going to give up easily, so the bailiff grabbed him from behind, forcing him to the floor. The entire courtroom fell silent as a sharp gasp escaped Cliff’s lips, crushed beneath the weight of the bailiff.

During the commotion, Vern’s own biological son, Casey Bruce, sat stoically. As the judge sentenced his father to death, his face didn’t change but for a small smirk that appeared but faded quickly. The boy’s mother, murdered about the same time as his father’s crimes, consumed him. He didn’t know how or why, but Casey, three years younger than his cousin at twelve, felt his father must’ve had something to do with it. He didn’t show it but deep inside he didn’t care if Vern lived or died. In fact, the boy felt his father had died along with his mother.

Vern kept his head buried within his cupped hands as the bailiff drug Cliff away. He couldn’t look his own son in the face. He may not be guilty of the murders, but he was certainly guilty of not taking care of his family the way a husband and father should. His wife, Patty Lee, died mysteriously at sea while running away with a South American drug smuggler. He may not have been the one to take her life in the literal sense, but he certainly pushed her into the position that extinguished it.

Vern rose, his head still low, and stood perfectly still as chains were attached to his arms and legs. He felt the cold steel on his skin and the pinch when they clicked shut. The feeling inside him wasn’t anger or sadness, but regret. Regret over how his actions led to this moment. 

Only a few short years ago he had a wonderful family, a business that was growing, money flowing in and a home on the emerald waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Hell, he had even held aspirations of becoming a congressman. As the thoughts of his short-lived political career entered his mind, he shook his head.

One of the crimes he was now convicted of was murdering his campaign manager, Lucky Clay. Clay, a silent member of a loose group of criminals roaming the Southeast United States known as the Dixie Mafia, was found dead in a Georgia swamp. Lucky worked with candidates that would help, or at least not hinder, the sinister organization’s interests and Vern meant to become one of the candidates that would not hinder their operations along the Gulf Coast, didn’t play along as the organization wanted. He held his own ideas and convictions, and it cost him the election by a landslide. Lucky Clay had paid with his life when he tried escaping with their money. 

Lucky, already afraid his ties to the Dixie Mafia were wearing thin after his failure, tried to loot the campaign and make off for a Caribbean Island before they caught up with him. He didn’t make it, but his body wasn’t the only one found in that Georgia swamp.

Dumped beside Clay was the dirty cop who performed the hit on the corrupt campaign manager. They both ended up next to each other on the bank next to the swamp’s black, stagnant water. Vern ended up taking the fall for both, as the gun used in both ended up in his hands, set up by the man who now took care of his nephew and his son, but, at this moment, he couldn't focus on Burt Williams. He did what he had to in order tokeep his boys safe and alive. 

Now, Vern sat alone in a small holding cell outside the courtroom. His chains were still attached, and he strained against them, but he couldn’t reach his eyes. He felt tears forming and wanted desperately to hold them back. Bruce men didn’t cry, but lately, he found himself surrendering to his emotions more often. 

He didn’t want to think about his fate. He didn’t want to think about prison, death row, or any of that. His tears flowed faster when he thought about Patty Lee, Cliff, and Casey. His mind drifted back. He thought about the years he was happiest. The years before his quest for power took over his life. Over the years that were the happiest for them. The days they ate breakfast at the little café over in Port St. Joe and spending the rest of the day on the beach with the boys. He closed his tear-stained eyes and thought about the white sand and wiggled his toes, pretending his feet were buried in the powdery grains. He could see his wife sitting beside him, smiling, and he reached for her but felt nothing but air. His mind turned dark and in the distance he could see her father, staring at the him with that look. The look of disappointment with his daughter’s choice of a husband.

When his ties to the Colombian cartels became more than he could handle, he took his own life, leaving his only daughter to deal with the aftermath. Patty Lee, growing tired of Vern’s timidness and obsession with his dead brother, ended up falling in love with one of them, ending with her murder beside the smuggler.

Vern jolted back to reality as the door opened and Cliff stood in the doorway. Instinctively, Vern lunged towards him, only to be jerked back to the cold steel of the desk by his chains. He winced as the steel cut into flesh. Despite the pain, he smiled at his nephew. Cliff stepped slowly forward, alarmed by the sight of his uncle bound like an animal, his feet and hands secured to the floor and table. His escort, a county deputy, followed him closely, his hand on the teenager’s shoulder.

Cliff broke free, racing to his uncle. “Unc, what are we going to do?” Cliff asked, vitriol dripping from his words. Vern tried to keep a smile on his face, but inside he wanted to die.

“First off, you are going to take care of your cousin. I know how he feels about me, blamed me for his mother, but I love him,” Vern said, his voice surprisingly strong, “I love you, Cliff and you gotta know I didn’t do this.”

Cliff straightened beside his uncle, reached down, and put his hand on his shoulder. “We also got to find my father.” 

Vern froze. Cliff had told him about the letter from his father on an earlier visit. His brother, Ronald Frank Bruce, didn’t die in the plane crash taking him to fight in Vietnam. There was no doubt now that the words of Rafael Demingo were true, for the most part.

Demingo was a dirty FBI agent that tried to get Vern’s cooperation. Dangling hazy information about Rof, his brother’s nickname, and warnings of his wife’s involvement with Christian Lopez. The agent claimed to have pictures, even showed them to Vern, but still he doubted his brother’s survival. Then came the letter. 

The letter, in Rof’s handwriting, came from a former Vietnamese Colonel that worked in the prisoner of war camp that held his brother. That was a while back and Vern tried to remain hopeful, but with every day that passed, his hope faded. He couldn’t hold the fake smile any longer and touched Cliff’s hand with his head.

“Cliff, he’s got to be...” Vern paused and considered his words, “gone.” The words left a bitter taste in his mouth—he didn’t truly believe them, but he knew his nephew couldn’t spend his youth clinging solely to hope. 

Cliff shook his head, and his anger began to reconstitute as sorrow with tears forming in his bright blue eyes. “I can’t believe that. I just can’t. But I’ve got to get you out of this, and we will find him.” 

Vern picked his head up, “Don’t worry about me, son. You gotta live your own life. My life is done and so is your father’s. You and Casey have your lives in front of you.”

“Time’s up, Bruce,” the cop barked and pulled Cliff away from him. “I love you Cliff,” Vern said with tears as Cliff muttered the same as the deputy grabbed Cliff by the arm and escorted him from the room. The slamming door echoed throughout the room and once again Vern was alone with his thoughts.

A couple of days later, Vern found himself shackled in a bus. The state of Georgia had extradited Vern to stand trial and now he was on his way to the state's death row just south of Atlanta. He savored each mile as the pines and swamps of the extreme southern part of the state gave way to seemingly endless open fields.

As the van made its way through countryside and endless fields of red clay northward to Atlanta, Vern thought back to his father and his love of the Atlanta Braves. He could often be found watching them night after night. The night his heart gave out on him he sat on a barstool watching them lose again. The official cause of death was a heart attack, but Vern knew his heart stopped beating because it was broken and he and his brother caused it. After Rof’s plane went down in the South China Sea, Pops was never the same. He often thought about how disappointed his father would be with the family now. As the fields passed, he wished he could talk to him one more time and seek his advice. The driver opened his window, and Vern took a deep breath, as the smell of the red clay filled the bus. He closed his eyes and, in his mind, thought this might be the last time he breathed in the outside air.

The joy was fleeting and the trip shorter than he had hoped. The sight of the prison, sitting on a hill, surrounded by two rows of razor tipped wires, sapped what little was left of the happiness he felt watching the scenery from his seat in the van. He was stripped, processed, and led to his cell.

It seemed smaller than the holding cell in the courthouse. He sat on the hard bed and held his feet straight in front of him. His feet touched the opposite wall. There were no windows, and the flaking grey paint seemed to match his mood. There were so many chips in the paint that it seemed there was more bare concrete showing than paint covering the wall. 

The door slammed shut and the when the lock engaged, Vern felt a shroud of darkness fall upon him. He wasn’t dead yet, but he might as well be. It would be more humane to kill him now than enduing years of being left alone with his thoughts that lay in front of him. He leaned back and placed his head against the wall. His lawyer gave him little hope on appeals and Vern knew that Georgia meant business when it came to executions. He reached his hands outward and ran his fingers along each wrist, following the scratches left by the handcuffs. He put his head into his hands and sighed. About that time, he heard someone yell, “Lights out!” and the room fell dark.

In the days following his entrance into death row, Vern had nothing else but time to think. He wondered if Burt Williams, the Dixie Mafia gangster married to Cliff’s mother, Susie, indeed set him up. Was Burt the killer, or did he hire it done? Was it Miguel Demingo the FBI agent that tried to coerce him with information about his brother? Was it his wife and her Columbian lover, Christian Lopez? How in the hell did all this spiral out of control so quickly? Even if his life was over, he wanted answers for Casey’s sake. With Cliff convinced of his uncle’s innocence and Casey certain his father was a cold-blooded killer, the two of them would soon be at odds. If they weren’t already. 

Susie Williams, Casey’s mother, had driven the two boys to the trial in Georgia and now they were headed back to West Palm where the Williams family had taken residence in Casey’s grandfather, Old Man Clark’s, mansion. Casey sat in the front seat with his mother and Cliff stared out the window from the back seat. Neither was in the mood to talk. She tried making conversation with the boys, but it never amounted to much, so she gave up the effort as they passed through Jacksonville and turned south. When they finally arrived back in West Palm and the two were alone, however, that quickly changed. 

“I hope the bastard gets what’s coming to him,” Casey said without a hint of emotion in his voice. They had walked out on the beach, away from everyone in the house, including Burt Williams, the Dixie Mafia enforcer who had set Vern up and stepped into his life.

Burt, ever mindful of the precarious grip he kept on the family, walked out onto the back deck of the enormous home, and sat in a wooden chair. He chewed on a fat cigar and watched the pair as they talked. He didn’t know their words, but he could read their body language, even from a distance.

Cliff pointed his finger at Casey, "You don’t mean that Casey. He’s your father.”

Casey kicked at the brown sand and turned away from his cousin, “Not anymore,” was his only reply. He didn’t want to talk about how Cliff knew his father was innocent or how he was a victim of circumstance. Casey loved his mother dearly, and her death affected him severely.

Casey thought about the past few months, and he whirled around to face Cliff. His cousin didn’t know what it was like to be dragged off a boat. He didn't understand how not knowing what happened to his mother was a nightmare that he couldn’t shake. He had no clue how it felt to be thrown in a boy's home and left to fend for himself. He didn’t know the embarrassment of his father’s mug shot plastered on the television every night. Cliff, sheltered from it all by his mother, just didn’t know. He used to look up to Cliff, but it had gotten to the point where he hated to hear his voice, much less look at him.

Cliff held up his hands in despair, “Look, I know you can’t see it right now, but we will find out the truth. How could he do that to your mother, Cliff? He was in jail, and you know that is a fact!” Cliff’s voice rose as he spoke. 

Casey pointed past the dunes where Burt was perched, “Burt told me he could’ve hired it done.” 

Cliff pointed up to Burt also, countering, “Unc told me not to trust him.” 

Casey laughed, “Of course he did.”

The conversation ended there. Casey walked back towards the house defiantly, and Cliff went in the opposite direction, walking along the beach. Burt watched as the two parted and chuckled to himself. He rolled the cigar around in his mouth, but he didn’t light it, he just rolled it around his fleshy mouth, chewing endlessly. He flashed a toothy grin as Casey walked up the steps and pulled the chair beside him closer and patted the seat. Casey flopped down, frowning.

Burt didn’t look over at the boy but leaned his head closer to him, "He still got the idea your daddy is a saint who did nothing wrong?”

Casey looked out over the Atlantic and reached his hand toward a distant gull, floating in the breeze. "Hell yeah, bastard killed two people and my mother. Still thinks it was pinned on him by somebody else,” he replied. 

Burt held the cigar between his teeth. “Every killer I ever knew always told anyone they could about their innocence and counted on weak minded people to believe that shit,” Burt sneered, “And don’t you forget that.” He rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth and motioned around him. “World’s full of crooks, Case. Your daddy just happened to be one.” He looked at Casey from the corner of his eye and saw the hurt in the young boy’s face. “He was always jealous of your momma. The money, the power, and he wanted every single bit of it for himself. Why he had her wacked. He wanted it all. But you listen here kid, stick with me and I’ll make sure all of this is yours.” 

Burt tried to fake a grimace, but the grin just wouldn’t leave his face. When these two boys go at it, he thought, they will take each other out and I’ll be the one who comes out on top. He laughed. He didn’t mean to and it caught Casey off guard. All he could picture was Vern, alone on death row and crying uncontrollably. The man is weak. If he wasn’t he’d be in this very seat right now talking to his son. Yet, here he was, chewing on a cigar, enjoying the ocean breeze, and feeding lies into Vern’s son’s ear.

The door opened and Susie stepped outside. She took a deep breath. She loved the salty air and these days she was always smiling. Her early days, after Rof’s death and the birth of their son, were hard for her. The young girl, still a teenager, fell on hard times. During one of her lowest times, she left Cliff with his uncle and asked him to take care of him. Susie missed most of his childhood while she struggled to get her life on track. Now, she enjoyed every moment she had with her son, and felt she gained another son in Casey.

She motioned for Casey to come in for dinner and looked around for Cliff. She held her hand over her eyes and could barely see him in the distance. She sat down in the chair vacated by Casey when he went inside to wash up for supper.

She reached out and put her hand on top of her husband’s. “I’m so worried about these boys,” she told Burt, “They’ve been through too much. You know it's got to be rough on them.” 

Burt shrugged his shoulders, “I had a rough time coming up and I turned out just fine.” He pointed to the ocean and around the Clark Mansion. 

Susie was not in a sympathetic mood and replied, “This, all of this, is all because of their suffering.” The tears started flowing and deep down somewhere Burt felt sorry for her. She had been used far more than she knew and for that Burt felt for her, but he could never let her know the truth behind it all. He’d take that to his grave.

Originally, he didn’t want to be associated with Vern Bruce more than he had to. He knew the plan and stuck with it. He looked around, admiring his new home, and thought to himself that it was worth a few tears. He reached over, put his arm around his wife and told her he would take care of it. It wasn’t the first lie he ever told.