Guilty by Association

  GUILTY

  BY

  ASSOCIATION

  BRAD COOPER

  Copyright © 2006, 2016 Brad Cooper

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise – without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by United States of America copyright law, or by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ALSO AVAILABLE IN TRADE PAPERBACK:

  ISBN-10: 1537712977 (Trade Paperback)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5377-1297-0 (Trade Paperback)

  Printed by CreateSpace, An Amazon.com Company

  Cover design by the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For the teachers whose influence has lasted a lifetime:

  Drexel Sammons

  Bill Hartling

  Tara Mullins

  Debra Allen

  Nelson Staples

  Dave Barksdale

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my parents and family, providers of a lifetime of memories.

  To Dave, a lifelong best friend and source of constant encouragement.

  To Kenny, my brother who has been there for me and with me my entire life, with support and encouragement.

  To Sarah, one of my best friends in the world. Despite considerable geographic distance, her voice is been a source of everything from entertainment to comfort and she is everything for which I could ever ask. She is with me always.

  To Judy, one of the most beautiful women in the world, who has always had complete faith in me and everything I’ve ever attempted. Without her, none of this could have been possible.

  To Aaron, a fellow Mountaineer and a close friend for whom I am grateful.

  To Julie, another amazing friend and one who has always been there for me. I am extremely grateful. Thank you for holding me up in times when falling was possible.

  To Tara, one of my first personal editors. Thank you for shooting straight with me. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  To Ashlee, a longtime wonderful supportive friend whose support I couldn’t possibly do without. One day we’ll get to Australia.

  To Bob, Tom, Kristi, and Chick for helping me start my mornings with a smile.

  To the Inner Circle, you know who you are. Thank you for everything. Thank you for believing in me.

  To everyone who doubted me. Your motivation was invaluable.

  Finally, I thank my Lord, my King, Jesus Christ. Without Him, I would have no talents, no purpose, and no salvation. John 14:6, Romans 10:13.

  A Note from the Author

  For nine months in 2005, I sat at my desk, night after night, listening to the Bob and Tom Show, working on a project that is still as special to me as anything I have ever attempted.

  It was ten years ago that Guilty by Association was first published in the summer of 2006.

  In the decade that has passed, some names and faces have exited my life while countless others have entered. Some people were blessings, others were lessons. It was a decade of accomplishments, victories, disappointments, challenges, new vocations, reunions, weddings, funerals, newfound passions, answered prayers, and adventures of every kind. Technology has changed and advanced, evidenced by the events in the book when compared to the capabilities of today, but whether those advancements are good or bad is subject to debate. Even as our society seems to crumble, even as we so often see the worst of humanity broadcast on every medium possible to a world that has had its fill, we still manage to find stability in the things that have always brought us joy, peace, knowledge, and wisdom, thereby proving the adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

  In the last decade, two questions have persisted more than all others:

  Where can I get your book?

  Are you going to write another one?

  I never intended to see a 10th Anniversary Edition, or anything along those lines, being produced, and yet that is exactly what is happening. This second edition is mostly the same as the first, with some edited dialogue, fixed typos, and handful of other assorted changes that, I believe, have resulted in a more polished project from start to finish. Most of the original readers have not visited Spring Creek in ten years, and the new readers will be headed there for the first time.

  I cannot fully express my gratitude to those who have asked, those who have supported, those who have read, and those who will read. It has been the thoughts, comments, questions, interests, and kindness that have not only kept Guilty by Association alive, but have brought it back one more time. Will there be another chapter in this story? That remains to be seen. As a writer, it would be a pleasure to dive headlong back into that world for a while. Regarding this work, I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed creating it.

  Until next time…

  Brad Cooper

  September 2016

  PROLOGUE

  I love this place, Clark thought, walking down the sidewalk, pausing to take in the scenery around him.

  Almost heaven is right.

  The thought was not an unfamiliar one to the young man traveling down the thoroughfare of his hometown.

  Historically, the state of West Virginia has found itself on the receiving end of many negative stereotypes, most of which have been either blown out of proportion or entirely fabricated. Ryan Clark had grown tired of them. No, the entire state was not one giant trailer park. No, everyone in the state is not related. Everyone wears shoes, most of the populace walks without a limp, and the vast majority of those living within the borders have no idea how to make moonshine. He found it ironic, even comedic, that so many of the people who parroted the same lazy jokes and insults also failed to understand that West Virginia and Virginia are entirely different states.

  The highlights of the state never reached the limelight with the same frequency as the preconceived and false notions always did. He also knew that he lived in one of America’s hidden gems, one that exists as both the northernmost southern state and the southernmost northern state and shares a border with six others. For every densely populated city there are numerous small towns. Some are incorporated, others are not, but they all share the same gentle qualities that have made the area so special to its residents since the state’s creation in 1863.

  Spring Creek is the archetypal small town in America’s Bible belt. The townspeople view their home as somewhat larger than Mayberry but not quite large enough to require more than five full-time police officers or anything more than a volunteer fire department and that is precisely the way they wish to keep it, untouched by most of the problems that plague the population centers within the state, not to mention the metropolitan areas of the country. What lingers is a quaint reminder of a simpler time, a pristine piece of land amidst a continent slowly descending into a status of reduced quality due to a combination of chemical pollution and mankind’s insatiable desire to destroy large portions of nature in the name of greed, all under the ultimately short-sighted guise of material growth and the smug, modern secular definition of progress. The overall well-being of future generations is dismissed as too distant to be a concern of the present while governments, large and small alike, continue to sacrifice the collective future of its constituents on the altar of the immediate.

  Main Street is an idyllic illustration of the town’s simplicity, a scene that visitors initially perceive as if they have stepped
out of a time machine and into an era that they believed had faded away with black and white episodes of Gunsmoke or the syndicated national radio broadcasts of Wolfman Jack. The creek flows parallel with the road on one side while the opposite side is still littered with Mom and Pop stores of every variety.

  Across the creek the land steadily ascends in the form of a hillside. Small houses in forty-foot lots litter the mountain sides in a scene that appears decades behind the times to all but those who call the former coal town home. Clothes hang from rusted wire clotheslines strung between posts in the backyard, secured to the line with old-fashioned wooden pins, signifying some of the public’s desire to hold on to the past as long as they can in spite of nature’s wind blowing them into the future. Much of the lifestyle remains frozen within that time period, evidence of a deficiency of willingness to change as much of a lack of necessity to adapt. The day that the Japanese restaurant opened on Main Street was still considered by many to be an achievement and a disappointment, a sign of progress yet a sign of the ever-changing times.

  Each of Ryan Clark’s twenty-three years had been spent in his hometown. At six-feet-two-inches tall and just shy of two hundred pounds, Clark was accustomed to being looked up to but never reached the point of towering over everyone around him. His white skin retained a tan with minimal effort, which was apparent since it was the middle of summer. The dirty blonde hair of his childhood became light brown with passing years and his gawky glasses changed to contact lenses only to again share time with slim wire-rimmed glasses. Clark’s introverted nature and four-point-oh grade point average placed a bull’s-eye on his back for being known as the smart kid regardless of his above-average athletic prowess. Even when Ryan’s social skills, mostly navigating the waters of sarcasm and cynicism as a means of providing social commentary, began to manifest during junior high and into high school, he struggled to escape his image as the smart kid. His dry humor was better served to be whispered to a few rather than spoken loudly to a larger audience, in his estimation, despite his deeper than expected voice that some thought was suited more for broadcasting than a future as a counselor.

  Even his lack of a Southern accent drew the attention, and sometimes the ire, of many of his peers when took note of the proper enunciation and grammar that seemed foreign to them in everyday conversation. As a result, his role became that of the impertinent intellectual who could hit a baseball, shoot a basketball, throw a football, or employ a sharp, accurate forehand when playing doubles. The initial assessment of being a brainiac never expired but he found a way to be a friend, or at least a cordial acquaintance, to virtually anyone around, their clique or social status notwithstanding.

  Growing up in a semi-rural area meant the absence many things for Clark. Life in his hometown lacked the frenetic pace of larger cities but also absent was the crime and poverty of the New Yorks, Detroits, Miamis, and Chicagos of the world. Clark himself had endured a rollercoaster ride in his relatively short life span. His parents divorced when he was ten years old and with his mother’s move further south he elected to remain in Spring Creek with his father, the only home he’d ever known. The situation was strange at first, trying at times, but both he and his father adjusted as time progressed. The monthly trips to Tennessee to visit his mother were becoming perfunctory, and progressively more intermittent, with each passing year.

  By the time of his graduation from Spring Creek High School, life was regaining a sense of normality. The time once spent traveling to and from the mid-south was spent at home with friends. The season dictated the activity. In spring and summer, it was in the yard playing sandlot football and pickup basketball during the day and watching his Atlanta Braves play baseball at night. Autumn and winter weekends were comprised of road trips north to Morgantown to watch his West Virginia Mountaineers, on the gridiron or the basketball court.

  Many of the evenings in the interim involved less physical activity but contained irreplaceable sentimental value. Clark, his best friend, Adam Walton, and a select group of others would relax behind his home around an open fire, talking freely about whatever came to mind. The discussion turned to women if Kara wasn’t around. On other nights, the lead topic would be sports, politics, entertainment; anything that could be thrust to the forefront. Years passed and friends relocated, left for the college experience in a new place, or simply grew apart and yet the ones who had been together from the outset remained close, the bond unbreakable.

  For Clark, the day at hand was indiscernible from any other day during the summer break between semesters. He was only two full semesters away from graduation at West Virginia University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Some classes were taken at other schools and the credits transferred, while others were taken entirely at home. The innovation of distance learning programs had been a godsend. For now, it was time to relax. Five more weeks of the break remained before his classes resumed and not a second of that time was to be wasted with anything remotely resembling work.

  Even areas with comfortable weather have their miserable days and this was certainly one of them. The Dog Days of late July and early August had set in. The temperature was over eighty degrees for the fourth consecutive day and showed no signs of letting up before the start of the next week. To make it worse the humidity hung thick and heavy in the air, making Clark’s skin sticky and leaving his clothes clinging to his body. It was one of the things that made him truly uncomfortable.

  Big city or small, mid-afternoon is the height of the business day. A warm, steady breeze blew as Clark walked past the lone family-owned pizzeria in town when he heard the unexpected voice call him from behind. The voice was a welcome one.

  “This uniform must drive people away or something,” said a voice familiar to Clark. “You avoiding me because of my job or what?”

  Clark turned and looked, expressionless at first. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just always ignore cops. It’s my nature. Nice uniform by the way,” he said, half-smiling after looking his friend up and down, still growing accustomed to seeing him in a position of authority. “How’s it going, officer?”

  Born only five months later, Kevin Robbins was the practically the same age as Ryan. He held his hat in his hand rather than wearing it in the summer sun. He was two inches shorter than Clark but the height difference was negligible compared to his physical build. At two hundred and twenty-five pounds, he was thicker and more toned than Clark, a direct result of his weightlifting hobby.

  “Just screwing around until my shift starts. I’m already sick of this Barney Fife stuff.” He stretched the tension out of his back. “Then again, I could be a janitor somewhere cleaning up puke and God knows what else eight hours a day. Where you headed?”

  “Tochigi’s. Kara loves Japanese and I haven’t seen her since she got back from Jamaica. I think I can deal with the food long enough to see her after a week on the beach,” Ryan said.

  “Atta boy, soldier. Just keep playing that friend angle. Pay those dues. It has to work out eventually.” Robbins checked his watch and frowned when he saw the time. “Alright, I’m off to work. Shift starts in ten minutes. Take care, Ryan.”

  “Try to temper the enthusiasm there, Kev,” Clark said.

  Kevin looked over his shoulder as he walked. “Watch the attitude, Clark. You’re lucky I’m running late,” he said making his way across Main Street, “but not late enough to keep me from writing you a ticket for something.”

  Tochigi’s Japanese Restaurant was hardly a large operation but the business was always fairly heavy, the prices fairly reasonable, and the customers left fairly satisfied. There wasn’t a better five dollar lunch to be had for miles. Since its grand opening in 1991, the locals had not only watched the business grow as the Tochigi family grew along with it. Hotaka and Kazuko Tochigi immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, finding the freedom they had long desired and hoping to provide opportunities for the family they would soon build together. After several obstacles kept them from finishing
college, the Tochigi’s returned to the only thing they knew: their heritage. The planning, the hard work, and the sacrifice all came together with the opening of the restaurant in the unlikeliest of places. The small West Virginia town was the most economically feasible place to live for the new American citizens.

  Although vastly different from the rural, almost country, townspeople of Spring Creek, the Tochigi family was accepted over time. When their son, Ken’ichi, was born, it presented a new challenge for both the Tochigis and for Spring Creek. The majority of the local school system was extraordinarily pale. A student of any race other than Caucasian was a rarity and an Asian student was unprecedented. However, Ken’ichi began to fit in almost immediately, which removed any reservations that the Tochigis had about their choice of setting. He even decided to adopt the Americanized name of Ken in an effort to present a more normal, Americanized image. The small town nestled between the mountains quickly became home.

  Had the Tochigis not persevered for so many years, Ryan Clark would not have a destination for the day.

  Clark entered the small, dimly lit establishment just as his stomach growled with the hint of hunger. Japanese paintings hung on the walls and authentic light fixtures dangled from the ceiling at periodic intervals. A single chandelier was suspended over the buffet and seemed out of place when compared to the rest of the establishment. While the larger cities were filled with flashy, trendy enterprises where your food was cooked in front of you when it wasn’t being flipped into the air, Spring Creek was not afforded such amenities. Tochigi’s was considerably simpler, primarily a buffet but with a menu containing a handful of traditional dishes for those willing to foot the bill.