Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series

by Gen Anne Griffin

  Cal frowned but didn’t reply as Jo kept talking in an increasingly agitated tone.

  “I’ve never gotten a job because of a favor. When I applied at the bank they hired me because I had a great GPA and my work references were stellar. They called Mrs. Robertson for a reference, and she told them I never missed work and always did more than she asked me to. It was the truth. I busted my butt while everyone else was out partying on boats and in the woods, but you know what? Never calling in paid off. It’s still paying off. I’ve been promoted twice since I was hired. You know why?”

  “You’re a hard worker.”

  “I always go the extra mile, Cal. Mary Jean had to have back surgery last month. Guess who cleaned the bathrooms while she was gone? Not only do I do the things other people don’t want to do, I do them with a smile on my face. It may be a fake smile, but people can’t tell. No one has ever given me a job because of my last name.”

  He turned and glared at her. The last comment had stung. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  She blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone in town knows that the only reason I have my job is because of my last name.”

  Jo sank back against the seat of the truck, the fire and passion going out of her in an instant. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

  “You might as well have been. It’s not exactly a secret I work for my Pappy.”

  “It’s a family business. You’re going to inherit it one day. That’s different,” she backpedaled. “You have to know how it works.”

  “It’s a handout. Just like everything else in my life. I get paid 50K a year to work in a hardware store but only because my last name is on the sign. You just said the cops don’t pull me over because of my last name. If you really want to think about it, there isn’t much in my life that isn’t a direct result of being Joshua Walker’s grandson.”

  “Cal, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Like you said a minute ago, can’t ignore the truth.” He pulled the Chevy into the driveway of her parents meticulously landscaped and maintained double-wide and hit the brakes harder than necessary. Gravel went flying in all directions.

  “Cal.” She put her hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You know that.”

  “I know. It’s just-never mind. Can we watch the movie tomorrow?”

  Jo stared at him as if she had been slapped. “You don’t want to come in now? I said I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not that.” He lied even though they both knew the truth. “I’m just not in a great mood, okay? I need to go cool down for a little while.”

  “Mom’s probably baked you a double-chocolate cake.”

  “Your Mom’s baking is going to have me so fat I’m going to have trade in this truck for a bus if she doesn’t quit soon.”

  “She believes the way to the heart is through the stomach,” Jo shrugged, clearly unhappy that he wasn’t cutting off the motor or making any move to get out of the truck. “I’ve got about 30 lbs. of brownie I could stand to lose.”

  “You look fine,” Cal told her. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

  “You working in the morning?” she asked.

  “No. I’m supposed to be going over to David’s,” Cal admitted. “I need to change out my brake pads.”

  “Oh. Well...” she trailed off, frowning. “We’ll watch the movie tomorrow?”

  “If that’s what you want to do,” he promised, hoping she’d change her mind.

  “I do want to watch the movie. With you.” Jo offered him a slightly shaky smile. “I really didn’t mean-.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Sometimes the truth stings, okay? Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not something I could stand to hear. I love you. I’ll call you when I get done at David’s.”

  “Okay. Love you too.” She reluctantly closed the truck’s door with a frown that lasted long after his truck had backed out of the driveway and driven out of sight.

  *

  The bottle landed back on the particle board coffee table with a hollow thud. The few swallows of amber liquid left in the bottom swished against the sides. David Breedlove grimaced and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. An excitable big-breasted blonde on television was chattering mindlessly about extreme weight-loss, but David wasn’t paying any attention to her. His eyes were fixed on the dark paneled wall in front of him as he listened to the sound of Addison’s truck coming down his rough dirt driveway. His feet, still encased in his work boots, were kicked up on the ancient, torn sofa. He was considering taking them off when Addison shoved the front door open. He unceremoniously dumped a plastic bag full of to-go boxes on to the coffee table and knocked the almost empty whiskey bottle onto the floor.

  “What the hell happened to you?” David asked as he studied his friend’s furious expression and mud-caked, dripping wet uniform.

  “Fucking poachers.” Addy had slimy brown mud all over his game warden’s uniform. Mud was caked on his boots and even smeared across his jaw. “Same bullshit as before. Bright, multicolored lights shining out in the middle of nowhere a long ways from any trail a truck will fit on. This time I found dirt bike tracks.”

  “Who do we know who has a dirt bike?” David asked, sniffing at the food Addison had brought in with him. It had been a long time since the stale peanut butter crackers David had crammed down his throat for lunch between Julie Adkins metal-on-metal brake pads and Grover Shallowman’s clogged catalytic converter.

  “I was kind of hoping you would be able to tell me that,” Addison kicked off his boots next to the door, then proceeded to strip out of his socks, pants, shirt and undershirt. “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

  “Good luck finding a towel. The washer died last week, and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it.” David opened one of the boxes. There was a fat cheeseburger with all the fixings and a double-size order of french fries in it. His stomach let out a loud growl to remind him that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually sat down and eaten a meal. “You planning on eating this?”

  Addison paused in the hallway half-way to the shower. “Granny Pearl had fried chicken, okra, corn on the cob and biscuits sitting on the porch waiting on me when I swung by my place earlier. You can have it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll pay you back for it. You didn’t happen to bring any beer with you, did you?”

  “No beer, though I sure as shit could use one. Don’t worry about the food. It was free,” he called over his shoulder as he went into the bathroom.

  “That explains why there’s a phone number on the dessert box,” David grumbled. He frowned at the cheesecake before tearing into the burger with a vengeance. Addison turned on the shower and after a minute the old pipes in the trailer groaned and the water came on.

  Thirty minutes later Addison was seated on the floor in the hallway wearing a pair of David’s work jeans. He had David’s smallest tool box open on the cracked linoleum next to him and the washing machine’s internal guts in his lap. “You’re a lazy bastard, you know that?” Addy grumbled as David finished dipping the last of the fries in ketchup and set to work on the cheesecake. David was pleased that Addison’s latest conquest had remembered to include an individually wrapped plastic fork.

  “You repair things for a living, but I’m the one who always gets stuck fixing the shit in your house.”

  “I fix cars for a living,” David grumbled as he stretched out across the couch. “Not washing machines. Not mobile homes. Don’t try to blame me for making you fix the son-of-a-bitch either. We both know only reason you’re working on that motherfucker is because you want to use it.”

  “I’m on call and my uniform is covered in mud. I had to dry off with a t-shirt after my shower. Not to mention your jeans are about 4 inches too short on me and won’t fucking button at the waist because you’re a scrawny, starved bastard who doesn’t eat because you’re too lazy to buy groceries or even microw
ave anything. Yeah, it would be nice if the washing machine would work.”

  “You don’t live here. You sure as shit don’t pay rent. It’s not my job to supply you with working appliances. You have your own place.”

  “I don’t have my own washer. Or a clean uniform at the moment. Granny Pearl does my laundry, and I’ve been forgetting to put it in the hamper to bring it to her,” Addison admitted with a shrug. “If I try to wake her up now she’s likely to beat me over the head with that damned baseball bat she keeps next to the back door.”

  “I wouldn’t blame her, lazy bastard. You’re damned near 30 and your Granny is still doing your laundry?” David eyed Addison for a moment then dangled the cheesecake box in the air. “You want this number?”

  Addison shook his head no. “She looked like she was about 14. I swear to God they just keep getting younger and younger.”

  “Either that or you’re just getting old,” David laughed. He crushed the Styrofoam box in one hand and shoved it back into the plastic bag to join the now empty burger-and-fry box. “Alex came by earlier.”

  “Was he still panicking?” Addison asked, giving something inside the washer a hard yank and cursing when it refused to budge.

  “He offered to confess to killing Josie.” David scowled as he got up and walked over to the washer. He leaned against it while Addison occupied himself trying to yank whatever component had frozen up inside of it loose.

  “Oh Jesus Fucking Christ.” Addison looked up at him, holding a can of WD-40 in one hand. “Did you explain to him why that’s the stupidest idea he’s ever had in his miserable life?”

  “More or less.” David kicked the side of the washer. “I reminded him that you can’t have a crime unless you have a body. Twitchy Eddie is never going to be able to find that body.”

  “Alex doesn’t know where the body is, does he?” Addy asked as he gave the washer’s innards another yank and this time something turned.

  “No. Thank God. For that matter neither do I.” David put his hands on his narrow hips and surveyed the damaged belt Addison had just yanked free from the pulleys. “I have another one of those somewhere.”

  “Find it.”

  “I think it’s actually in that cabinet above you.” David gestured at the cabinet above the dryer. He stretched across the dead washing machine and opened the cabinet door to reveal an ancient bottle of bleach, a handful of old rags, a mummified mouse and a spare washing machine belt that was still in its package. He handed the belt to Addison and briefly considered cleaning out the cabinet. He took another look at the dead rodent and closed the cabinet door. Mummified mice were a task better left for another day. One with more whiskey. Or when the trailer finally burned down. Whichever happened first.

  “Twitchy Eddie Returns. It sounds like a bad B-rated movie. Nerd comes back to his hometown to seek revenge on the people who threw him onto the football field naked during the homecoming game.”

  “Naked?” Addison asked. His head was mostly enclosed by the washer as he maneuvered the belt into position and started putting the washing machine back together.

  “Josh Rikerson and some of his buddies on the football team thought it would be funny. They stripped him down and launched him out of the locker room butt-ass nekkid.”

  “Where was I?” Addison asked.

  “Serving Uncle Sam. It happened a couple months before your accident.” David shook his head for a minute. “I still haven’t figured out how you managed to break both your legs on a loading dock with a fork lift.”

  “I wasn’t exactly sober. I’m lucky I didn’t get a dishonorable discharge,” Addison grumbled as he finished with the washer and turned it on. The machine was once again working the way it was supposed to. He walked over to the door and picked up his uniform, carrying it to the washer. Before he dropped his clothes into the machine he fished a little black velvet box out of his pocket and threw it to David, who caught it out of reflex.

  “Awww. How sweet. You’re bringing me the prizes out of your Cracker Jack boxes now?” He smirked as he studied the little box.

  “Open it,” Addison replied as he dropped his uniform into the washer and dumped a liberal squirt of cheap body wash in on top of it. David didn’t have any laundry detergent. Or dish soap. Or any soap that wasn’t GoJo or in bar form. So much for dry clean only.

  David opened the box and revealed a very shiny diamond ring.

  “Addison, you really shouldn’t have.” David looked up at Addy and fluttered his eyelashes at him. He pasted on his best wise-ass grin as he stared down at the diamond ring. “You’re my friend and all, but I really don’t feel the same way about you as you do about me.”

  “I took that out of Cal’s glove box,” Addison said as he slammed the washer’s lid closed and ignored the gay innuendos. “He bought it for that godawful Jo Beth.”

  “Has he lost his mind?” David stared down at the ring in his hand. “How pissed off is he going to be when he figures out you took it?”

  “He knows I took it. I told him I was going to hang on to it until he got his head screwed back on straight, but then it occurred to me that I’ll be in a world of shit if any of the girls I hang around with find a diamond ring in my truck.”

  “Rumor gets out that you’re driving around with an engagement ring then all 15 of your girlfriends are going to start expecting commitment from you,” David said with a smirk as Addison turned to glare at him.

  “Which is why I’m giving it to you for safe keeping.”

  “Where the hell am I supposed to keep it?” David asked. He glared down at the offending object thoroughly irritated now that he knew it would be staying and hadn’t come out of a Cracker Jack box after all.

  Addison’s radio crackled loudly before he could come up with a good answer to the question. “Now what?” Addison snapped into the speaker. The dispatcher on duty informed him that everyone’s favorite local nut-job, Camilla Baxley, had a raccoon stuck in one of the floor vents on her trailer. “I fucking hate being on-call,” Addison snarled. He turned off the transmitter and glared at the washer. His uniform had just barely made it into the spin cycle. “You got a shirt and some spare boots I can borrow?”

  David rolled his eyes and jerked his thumb towards the bedroom as he held up the diamond ring in the light. “Help yourself. How can I refuse after a gift like this?”

  *

  Gracie had no idea how long she sat in the passenger seat of the BMW and watched the blood drip out of Austin’s mouth and nose. Individual drops of blood kept running down the steering wheel of the car and dripping onto his khaki pants. A pool of blood was forming on the driver’s seat itself. The blood itself was the same bright red color as the ruby hat pins Granny Pearl liked to wear to church on Sunday mornings.

  Gracie was pretty damned near certain that Austin was dead.

  She couldn’t find her cell phone to call for help. It was somewhere on the floorboards of the car along with all the other contents of her purse. She didn’t remember dropping it when he’d slid the car off the side of the road, but it wasn’t in the purse anymore.

  Austin’s phone continued to periodically chirp and chime from the depths of his pockets. Gracie tried to force herself to get it out of his pants and call 911 but burning hot bile filled her mouth anytime she worked up the nerve to touch his cool, clammy skin.

  Gracie was still trapped in the BMW. It was impossible to unlock the doors or open the windows without using the controls on the driver’s side door panel. The buttons were underneath Austin’s body.

  Gracie kept trying to gather her thoughts enough to paint a coherent picture of what had happened. One minute he had been trying to force himself on her and she’d been hitting him. The next thing she knew he was dead.

  She wondered if anyone would believe her when she told them that Governor Mitchell Putterling’s nephew had tried to rape her. She wondered if they would believe her when she told them that she had not meant to kill him. She had only been trying t
o get out of the car. She hadn’t even really meant to hurt him.

  Gracie fought to keep the panic from overwhelming her. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Austin was dead. Eventually someone was going to drive by and get curious about the fancy car sitting on the side of the road. She had no idea how to explain why she was sitting in a brand new BMW with a corpse.

  Gracie took a deep breath and forced the bile back down her throat as she reached down to the floorboards and felt around for her phone. After an agonizing couple of minutes, she found it directly next to the passenger’s side door. She should call an ambulance. Maybe there was still something that could be done for Austin. She stared at his cold, glassy expression and the blood dripping out of his mouth. She had never seen anyone die before but she it didn’t take much imagination to see that Austin was beyond saving.

  Gracie couldn’t come to terms with the idea of herself as a murderer. The logical side of her brain told her that she had no proof Austin had tried to rape her. She didn’t bruise easily and Austin had grabbed at her plenty, but he had never hit her. She had done all the hitting. Even in the dark interior of the car, she could see a purple bruise standing out on Austin’s jaw where she had punched him moments before he’d collapsed.

  Gracie had absolutely no proof that he had attacked her other than her torn shirt. In fact, the evidence would make it look like she had attacked him. Gracie was horrified by the thought that she might have broken his ribs or punctured something internal when she’d kicked him.

  She knew it was past time for her to call the cops. An innocent girl would have called the cops right away. An innocent girl would have performed CPR on him and called an ambulance when blood had started coming out of his mouth. Gracie didn’t think she was innocent, and she hadn’t tried to save him. She had been sitting in a car with a corpse for at least 20 minutes, praying that she was hallucinating. Praying that this was a nightmare. Praying that Austin would sit up and start laughing like this had all been some kind of really lousy practical joke.