Blood on Their Hands by Bob Brink

A Black immigrant employed at a Florida computer store is beaten by police in 2008 for having an Obama bumper sticker, and a racist attorney unwillingly defends the victim pro bono from a false charge of resisting arrest, resulting in a mistrial and the attorney's fight to save his and his client's lives after he discovers incriminating evidence against the cops.

In the pivotal year 2008, a seemingly innocuous Obama bumper sticker on Alec Monceau’s car draws him into a terrifying ordeal of a savage police assault and an unjust charge of violently resisting arrest. Monceau is eking out a living as a computer salesman, striving to support his daughter’s family in Trinidad.

Across town, seasoned attorney Hiram Garbuncle balances his prideful criminal defense practice with an unquenchable thirst for money and liquor, supplemented by sports and sex.

Garbuncle, an avowed alcoholic and cynic, finds himself torn between his miserly instincts and a compelling pro bono case. His certainty of a triumphant defense makes him reckless, leading to a mistrial. But when he unearths damning evidence against the police officers, his mission mutates: It's no longer just about winning a case; it's about ensuring survival for himself and his client, while a new trial looms.

Blood on Their Hands forges a mesmerizing narrative from suspense and thrills, sharp twists and comic relief, and riveting courtroom drama. Amid the intense action sequences and scenes intimating lust, humor rises like a benevolent phoenix, lightening the deep pathos of a tragic love story.

This tale teems with vibrant characters, piquant dialogue, mesmerizing twists and turns, and a wrenching moral dilemma, delivering a message that resonates in our time.

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Excerpt from Blood on Their Hands © Copyright 2025 Bob Brink

Just beyond the urban reaches of West Palm Beach, twilight wrapped around a stretch of wooded grounds like a harem dancer’s diaphanous skirt.

Brad Hitchens meandered among the few tables laden with wares, attended by women in frumpy attire. They gazed out at the sparse gathering of people walking about the grounds. Now and then someone inspected the trinkets, costume jewelry, hunting paraphernalia, decorative wood carvings, and other unremarkable items offered for sale. Few purchased.

At scattered picnic tables, persons of both sexes and wide-ranging ages, including  children, munched on American comfort food: fried chicken, potato salad, cole slaw, green-bean and macaroni-and-cheese casseroles, apple pie, potato chips, washing it all down with assorted sodas. They chatted in tones ranging from subdued to boisterous, sprinkling their conversation with laughter.

Hitchens carried a notepad and pen, occasionally jotting something on the pad. After one entry, he looked up, and felt a presence behind him. Turning his head sideways, he was startled to find a strapping, six-foot-two fellow around age twenty, with dirty-blond hair, following him only inches away. The reporter whirled and faced the handsome guy, who stood staring. Hitchens returned the stare for several seconds, chilled by the cold eyes, clenched jaw, and stony expression. The reporter walked on.

Sauntering up to a table near the entrance to the grounds, where a man and a woman checked visitors as they arrived, he asked to be shown to the Exalted Cyclops.

“Do you mean the Imperial Wizard, Ronald Stanton?” asked the beer-bellied man, who looked hostile to Hitchens. The man wore a white T-shirt and baggy pants held up by an outdoorsy belt that had a metal buckle engraved with two crossed rifles. He’d allowed Hitchens in when the reporter said he’d never been to a Klan meeting, and was curious.

Hitchens fought to suppress a laugh, and smiled instead. “I’m sorry. I get the nomenclature a little mixed up.”

“Nom …?” the man said, looking bemused.

“I mean the titles,” Hitchens said. “I’m looking for the chief Klansman.”

“Whaddya wanna see ’im fer?”

“I’m a newspaper reporter, and I’m supposed to interview him.”

“I thought ya said you was just curious.”

“Well … yes, I am. But I’m on an assignment, too.”

The man regarded him momentarily, as if debating how to respond. “So yer one o’ them pinko librals, huh?”

Hitchens saw the contempt in the man’s face. “Well, I don’t know if … .”

“Never mind. Y’all wanna go straight back through them pines ’n’ turn left. Yull see a trailer hooked to a truck. He’s in the trailer.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Hitchens headed toward the pines, disquiet rising inside him at the same pace that the last remnant of dusk was settling over the grounds. He walked briskly while straining to see the occasional fallen limb, stumbling now and then on a piece of deadwood. A clearing opened at the end of the pines, and he spotted the trailer on the far side.

Darkness had turned the muggy early-autumn air balmy, a gentle breeze carrying its dampness toward the ocean, like a restaurant waiter gliding into the kitchen with plates of food scraps. As Hitchens approached the clearing, light from the trailer glowed ever brighter, just as a setting sun’s fading luminescence is sharper toward the horizon. He fought to suppress a growing apprehension, but his pulse quickened as his gait slowed.

“Halt!” The baritone bark came from his left, out of the woods. Shocked with fear, he whirled to face the voice. A bear of a man entered the clearing, pointing a double-barreled shotgun at Hitchens.

“Where the hell ya think yer goin’, mister?” He walked in a slow, deliberate manner toward Hitchens, who raised his hands even with his head, palms outward.

“I’m a newspaper reporter,” Hitchens said, his voice trembling. “Your public relations person granted me permission to interview Mister Stanton.”

“Whatsis name?”

“Stanton. Ronald Stanton.”

“I ain’t deaf. I heard ya the first time. I’m talkin’ ’bout the guy ya talked to.”

“Oh, sorry, you mean the PR person. Uh … .” Hitchens panicked as he fought to remember the guy’s name. “Sykes. Jerry, I think.”

The bear was ten feet away now, and Hitchens could make out his ruddy complexion with a nose made bulbous from rosacea, under a straw hat. He had lowered the gun to Hitchens’ feet.

“Empty yer pockets—real slow-like.”

Hitchens removed his wallet from one back pocket of his casual pants, his notepad from the other, and his set of keys and a pen from a front pocket, dropping them to the ground while he turned his other pocket inside out. “That’s all I have.”

“Step back,” the man ordered. He picked the wallet off the ground and inspected it. “Okay, that’s you. Reporter with the Hanoi Hawk. Figgers that’s what ya’d call it. Jes like you commies ta insult a noble fowl.”

He handed the wallet to Hitchens, who picked his other items off the ground. “Go on. When ya git through, ya might wanna stick ’round a bit ta watch the cer’mony over yonder”—he pointed west—“on ta other side o’ the woods.”

“Thanks,” said Hitchens, adding under his breath, “dipshit,” as he walked the short remaining distance to the trailer. The door was open. He slowed, then rapped on the door frame. A burly man with a crew cut, wearing soiled jeans and a black tee-shirt emblazoned with a white skull-and-crossbones, approached from one side. Hitchens perceived hostility in the man’s face and figured he was the Imperial Wizard’s bodyguard.

“Hi. I’m Brad Hitchens with the Palm Beach Hawk, and I’m here to interview Mister Stanton.”

The man walked away without answering, and Hitchens heard him talking in an undertone.

He returned. “All right. Come in and sit down on this here chair.”

Hitchens extended his hand to the man sitting in a leather recliner, who remained motionless. Ronald Stanton was gaunt, his dark brown hair flecked with gray, and he peered out of horn-rimmed glasses.