Hot Southern Nights

by Gen Griffin

  “You may have a point,” Trish looked at Addison and then back to David. Her expression was thoughtful. “One of our professors used to talk a lot about the difference between practicing law in a small community versus taking high profile cases in a big city. I never paid him a lot of attention because I’ve spent my whole life living in a big city and Curtis wanted to go into criminal defense. I never thought about whether or not I might be better suited for a small town practice because I couldn’t imagine living in a small town.”

  “You live in a small town now,” David said.

  “I do,” Trish agreed. “And I’m filing my very first case. Good thing you don’t have to pay me. I’m sure I’ll screw something up.”

  David leaned down and kissed her. He couldn’t believe this beautiful girl kept second guessing herself so severely. “You’ll do fine. But you and I really need to talk more.”

  Trish let out a small laugh. “About my being a lawyer or in general?”

  “In general,” David said. “I care about you. I feel like crap for not knowing such a major detail of your life. How about you and I sit down tonight and play 20 questions? Fill one another in on all those background details we seem to have missed since neither one of us is any good at making small talk?”

  “You aren’t really the small talk type,” Trish reminded him. “You tend to just jump straight to the action. Head first and without looking at where you’re going to be landing.”

  “Or how many alligators are on the ground below me?” David quirked one of his eyebrows at her and she giggled.

  “Don't be awful.” Trish shot him a small smile that grew to a grin as he kept his eyes fixed directly on hers. “And I’d love to spend tonight playing 20 questions with you, assuming nothing else goes crazy in our lives between now and bed time. Your lifestyle is rubbing off on me. Instead of having my usual countless hours alone to reflect on the patterns made by the popcorn stuff that’s stuck to my bedroom ceiling, I have a lawsuit to get ready to file and I have to find Grover a new doctor. Face it David, you and I just aren’t the kind of couple that thrives on small talk.”

  He laughed. He was still laughing when she stuck her tongue down his throat and kissed him until neither one of them could breathe.

  Chapter 45

  Trish had just pulled out of the Possum Creek Public Library parking lot when her phone rang. She felt incredibly proud of herself for finishing the initial paperwork that she’d need to file a civil lawsuit against Deputy Kerry Longwood and his employer, the Callahan County Sheriff's Department. Seeing her name on the forms made her feel almost giddy.

  Still riding the endorphin high, she picked up the phone and answered it without looking at the display. David had promised he'd call her when he got done towing wrecked cars off the interstate.

  “Are you coming home soon?” Trish asked the phone.

  “No. I am home,” a familiar voice responded. “And I want you to come home.”

  Trish felt her heart drop with disappointment. Distaste filled her mouth. “Curtis. I thought I told you stop calling me.”

  “If you didn’t want to talk to me, why did you answer the phone?” Curtis asked.

  “Because I didn’t look at the name on the screen. I thought it was someone else.”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Trish. No one else is going to love you the way I do,” he said.

  “You don’t love me,” Trish said. “You want to own me. Its not the same thing.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t have wasted four years on our relationship if I didn’t love you,” Curtis snapped.

  “You wouldn’t describe the four years we spent together as ‘wasted’ if you did love me,” Trish countered. Her happy mood was dissipating with every second she spent listening to the sound of his voice. “Besides, you tried to kill me Saturday night. Do you really think I'm going to forgive and forget that you totaled out my car?

  “Trish, you were drunk. I didn't make you wreck your car. You wrecked your own car. You blacked out.”

  “No, I didn't.” Trish took a deep breath. The giant diamond on her left hand sparkled despite the cloudy weather. “Give up, Curtis. We're over and I've moved on. You have your career and your strippers. I have a new diamond ring on my left hand. I've found the man I want to spend the rest of my life with and he's not you.”

  “You would be referring to Officer Fuck Buddy?” Curtis asked scornfully. “He's not the kind of guy you're going to want to be with long term, Trisha.”

  “I'll be with whoever I want to be with,” Trish said. She didn’t see any point in telling him that she was actually marrying David, not Addison. In the long term scheme of things, the difference between David and Addison was irrelevant where Curtis was concerned. “I'm not going to spend the rest of my life listening to your lies, Curtis. You've hurt me for the last time.”

  “I wasn't trying to hurt you,” Curtis argued. “I was trying to get you to see sense.”

  “You were trying to get me to see sense by jerking my car off the road?” Trish asked. “Or was pushing me off your boat your way of showing your true feelings for me?”

  Curtis was silent for so long that Trish had to check the screen display on his phone to see if he had actually hung up. “Curtis?”

  “Your life is here in the city, Trish. With me,” Curtis said after several more seconds pause.

  “Actually, I think I'm going to be staying in Possum Creek for awhile. Maybe forever. I'm thinking I might open up my own independent law practice.”

  “You what?” Curtis’s tone went from surly to shocked in less than a second. “Trish, you can’t.”

  “I can’t what?” Trish demanded.

  “Any of it,” Curtis replied, sounding flustered and inexplicably angry. “You can’t stay in that shithole town because you and I are getting back together and I’m not willing to live there. You can’t open your own law practice because you’re not a good enough lawyer.”

  “I passed the bar,” Trish countered.

  “Passing the bar doesn’t mean anything,” Curtis practically spat the words through the phone.

  “If passing the bar didn’t mean anything, then the bar exams wouldn’t exist. I’m good enough to practice law. Maybe not at your law firm, but I’m good enough for Possum Creek. I’ve already filed my first case. It’s civil.”

  “You what?” Curtis sounded furious.

  “I filed my first case.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can. I did.” Trish decided it didn’t matter that she wouldn’t technically be filing the case until tomorrow morning. She’d had enough of Curtis’s negativity. “You spent the last year of marriage cutting me out of your life while I tried to stand by you. Now you’re mad because I’ve moved on with my life. Too bad. Sorry, but I’m not sorry. I have new fiance. I have hope for my career for the first time since we graduated. I have friends who care about me and a house I can basically call my own. I’m happy here, Curtis. You might as well move on with your own life because I’m happy with mine. I'm not coming back.”

  He was silent for a long time before he responded.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Curtis said. “You’re going to regret this, Trish.”

  “No, I’m really not.” She hung up on him.

  Chapter 46

  “Trish is really a lawyer?” Cal repeated the question for the third time in less than half an hour.

  “Yeah.” David nodded as he chewed on the end of a fat, cheesy burrito that Miss Loretta had jammed into a lunch box for him to take along on his evening of flood water towing jobs. He’d pulled the wrecker up to the side of the road and was waiting for an unhappy insurance agent to finish taking pictures of the flooded street so that he could go get the partially submerged car. The vehicle’s owner had failed to notice that the small bridge between her house and the larger road had washed out, putting her engine in four feet of water. Rain continued to beat down on the windshield of the big tow truck
. “Trish is a lawyer.”

  “Didn’t see that coming.” Cal had ridden along on the tow job because helping David gave him an excuse to get out of the house for a couple of hours.

  “Me neither,” David said. “But I needed a lawyer.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Cal said through a mouthful of his own burrito.

  “Just between you and me, whose body to you think Tate found under my trailer?” David looked solemnly at his best friend.

  “I don't know. It’s not Casey. I can promise you that much. Kerry’s barking up the wrong tree, as usual.” Cal looked almost bored. “The only way that body could be Casey’s would be if someone followed me when I buried her, dug her back up, brought her back to your house and reburied her without any of us noticing.”

  “We are living in Possum Creek.” David picked up his coke and took a sip. He wished he'd thought to add whiskey to the bottle. “Not that I really thought it could be Casey. I just want to know who Ricky killed. I always knew he was a monster but I never actually thought he would murder anyone.”

  “There have always been rumors about Ricky. At this point, I don't think it matters what he did. He's dead. He's been dead for awhile now.” Cal shrugged as the insurance adjuster began to wave at them. “You should quit worrying about the past and focus on Trish. That girl is a keeper.”

  “Tell me about it,” David said as he put the wrecker in gear. “She’s going to bat against Kerry for me. Not to mention that I just had to text her and tell her I won't make it home for dinner and she was cool with it. Told me to be safe and not to worry about what time I get home because she'll be waiting up for me.

  “She’s solid,” Cal replied. “You needed solid in your life. Now quit worrying about Kerry’s bullshit. We have real work to do.”

  Chapter 47

  Trish's phone was ringing in the cup-holder but she elected to ignore it as she turned Grover's truck onto the flooded road in front of her house. The big vehicle splashed through the puddles easily as Trish pulled into the driveway behind a very familiar silver SUV. A very familiar SUV that didn't belong in Possum Creek.

  Trish frowned as she cut the engine to the truck, grabbed her purse and ran through the rain to the front door. Her hair and clothes were soaked as she walked into the house.

  “Hello?” She called out. “Mom?”

  “Trisha, honey. Where have you been?” Nanette set her e-reader down on the ancient floral couch and stood up to greet her daughter. “I've been trying to call you.”

  Trish blinked at her mother. Nanette Shallowman Cruz stood in the middle of Grover's living room, wearing a shockingly conservative pink blouse with neatly pressed khaki capris and pink mules. Trish blinked at her mother through the dim light and wondered if she was hallucinating.

  “Trish?” Nanette brushed her fingers down the pretty pink blouse. There were little spots where drops of rain had landed on her chest and sleeves. “Honey?”

  Trish decided her mother probably wasn't a dream after all. “What are you wearing?”

  “We're in Possum Creek.” Nanette said the town's name as if it alone explained how a woman who only brushed her hair weekly and had worn a dress made entirely out of tie-dyed hemp to her daughter's college graduation had suddenly started dressing like a normal human being. She'd even taken out her nose ring.

  Trish made a humph noise.

  “Where is Grover?” She asked.

  “In bed. Finally. It took me 45 minutes to get him to stop ranting about how he doesn't really have cancer and all his doctors are conspiring against him. I think his meds finally kicked in.”

  “You're lucky you missed the fit he threw in the doctor's office earlier today,” Trish informed her as she walked into the living room and dropped her purse on the couch. “He threw a cup of his pee at the doctor. I'm pretty sure we're going to be served with a restraining order at some point in the next couple of days.”

  “Oh Trisha. I'm sorry.” Nanette closed the distance between them and wrapped Trish in a tight hug. Trish hugged her back mechanically. Her mother's hair smelled like lavender incense. “I should have come sooner.”

  “I'm hoping you're here because you finally succeeded at getting Grover into a nursing home?” Trish felt semi-hopeful.

  “I, well, no.” Nanette pulled back and shook her head wistfully. “None of the nursing homes I've spoken with are willing to accept him. The directors keep telling me that he'd be a hazard to the other patients due to his outbursts.”

  “I can see that.” Trish didn't even try to hide her annoyance.

  “As can I.” Nanette reached for Trish's hand. “I've been trying to call you for days. I was getting really worried about you. I thought maybe something bad had happened.”

  “I...” Trish frowned, unsure where to start in explaining the events of the last week. She swallowed nervously and then sighed. “I'm sorry. I haven't been keeping up with my phone. Everything is fine. Well, as fine as life with Grover gets.”

  “Life with Grover,” Nanette repeated the words more than a little bit ruefully. “I don't know if I should apologize or give you a humanitarian award. He's always been surly but based on what he was telling me today, I'm guessing his behavior has been far worse than I had anticipated it would be when I asked you to come stay with him.”

  It was on the tip of Trish's tongue to lie and tell Nanette that her grandfather really hadn't been all that badly behaved, but then she stopped herself.

  Nanette shifted her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “You know, this house hasn't changed a bit since my mother died. I walked in and felt like I'd stepped into a time warp. This living room looks exactly the same as it did in 1992.”

  “Grover won't let me move anything,” Trish said by way of explanation. “I tried to move the coffee pot across the counter and he threw a coffee mug at me. Put a hole in the sheet rock in the kitchen.”

  “I never knew how my mother put up with him,” Nanette confessed, staring at her reflection in the antique brass hallway mirror. “He was so rigid. Everything had a place and a way it was supposed to be. Nothing could be changed. Nothing could be moved. Your grandmother cut her hair once. She wanted to try a new style that had come out. My father wouldn't speak to her for three weeks.”

  “He's not a pleasant person.” Trish could only talk about Grover for so long before she decided that the solution to his attitude was beating him upside the head with the butt of David’s shotgun until the old man became agreeable. She was definitely not ready to forgive her mother for knowingly sending her into Grover's home without giving her fair warning.

  “No, he's not.” Nanette's facial expression seemed to be caught in between a smile and a frown. She toyed with her curls again and then tugged on the hem of her blouse. “I really am sorry for his behavior, Trish. I thought he'd mellowed over the years.”

  “He hasn't.” Trish looked away from her mother as her stomach growled. Being hungry was as good excuse as any to change the conversation topic. “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “No, but I could eat. I was waiting on you to come home. I saw you had hamburger meat taken out. I put it back into the refrigerator because it was thawed all the way through. Would you like me to fix something for us?”

  “Why don't we go to the diner?” Trish suggested. “I don't feel like cooking and I can't imagine that you do either. I can't believe you drove all the way down here in this weather.”

  “I thought my little girl might need me.” Nanette ran her fingers nervously through her blonde hair. “Trish, I feel horrible about sending you down here. I know you're not happy with me right now. We need to talk.”

  “Can we talk over dinner?” Trish asked.

  “Of course we can,” Nanette said with a gentle, meek smile. “Let me get my purse.”

  Chapter 48

  “I know you must be angry with me,” Nanette told Trish after the waitress walked away with their orders. “I don't blame you a bit for having hard feelings. It was
n't fair of me to ask you to come down here. It definitely wasn't fair to send you to Possum Creek without warning you about Grover's problems.”

  Trish nearly told her mother it was okay and that she hadn't minded, but her tongue got stuck to the roof of her mouth when she started to speak. She stared at Nanette for a moment, watching her sit across the booth from her with every graying curl neatly in its place. Her mother's unusually neat and publicly acceptable appearance was a clear sign to Trish that Nanette had known what she would find in Possum Creek.

  “You're right. You do owe me an apology.” Trish took a deep breath and tried to remember that she had the right to stand up for herself. “When you asked me to move to Possum Creek, you made it sound like I was going to have a wonderful time getting to know my dying grandfather. You talked about how important and meaningful it was for me to get to know your side of the family before I lost the opportunity forever.”

  “I know, Trish. I'm sorry. I had hoped he had changed.”

  “Changed from what?” Trish demanded. All the misery Grover had given her during the last two months suddenly came rushing to the front of her mind “He belittled me, insulted me and purposely threw trash on the floor just to watch me clean it up. He throws his food out the dining room window when he doesn't like it. He's lied to me more times than I can count. He hides liquor. He hides guns. He shoots at the mailman. He throws his pee at people.” Trish threw up her hands into the air. “You sent me down here without so much as a warning. You knew he was mean and awful, and maybe even dangerous, and you didn't tell me.”