Hot Southern Nights

by Gen Griffin

  “Are you hurt, sir?” Addison didn't want to listen to complaints about ruined shoes and crumpled bumpers. Insurance companies existed for a reason.

  “No,” the man said angrily. “But if my car isn't out of that creek within the next thirty minutes, you can bet your badge that I'm going to be filing a lawsuit against your department. Emergency services exist to help people in an emergency. So far, you haven't done anything to help me except stand there and stare like you've never seen a car accident before.”

  Addison debated telling the man that a one-car fender bender with no injuries didn't qualify as an emergency, but he didn't feel like listening to the asshole rant and rave. He'd already been awake for more than 24 hours straight. He just wanted to be home in his bed, snuggled up with the remote to his television and a loud movie on repeat to drown out the sound of the stupid rain.

  “I'll call the wrecker,” he said instead. He walked back over to his patrol car and decided he needed to cover his ass on this one. He picked up his radio and explained the situation to their new dispatcher, a girl who had been hired mostly to take Katie's place while she was on maternity leave and fill in during occasional open shifts.

  A moment later the new dispatcher called him back. “I can't get the wrecker,” she said.

  “What do you mean, you can't get the wrecker?” Addison hissed as quietly possible, hoping the angry vehicle owner wouldn't be able to hear him.

  “David is up at the west creek bridge pulling cars out of the flood zone,” the dispatcher replied, sounding annoyed. “He's not going to be able to get to your guy for a few more hours.”

  “Crap.” Addison quickly ran through his possible options. Under normal circumstances, he'd just hook a chain to the car and pull it out with his truck, but today's unhappy customer was already threatening to sue as it was. He would undoubtedly become even more litigious if Addison managed to tear the bumper off of the man’s precious Lexus. “Call Baker County Wrecker Service.”

  “Are you sure?” The dispatcher sounded noticeably surprised. “They're an hour and a half away from Cutter Bridge Road in good weather. Its going to take them quite a while to get to you.”

  Addy looked back over at his highly pissed off customer. The jerk was glaring at him with a look that said he bit the heads off puppies for breakfast and he liked doing it. “Yeah. I'm sure.”

  “Give me a minute and I'll let you know how long its going to be.”

  “I'll be waiting,” Addy replied. He leaned his head back against the headrest of his seat. Maybe he could get some sleep in his car while he waited for the tow truck.

  Chapter 54

  “Did you leave this door unlocked?” Trish asked her mother as they walked back into Grover's house.

  “I don't think so.” Nanette shook the rain from her umbrella. Her pink blouse was nearly soaked through because the umbrella had done absolutely nothing to protect her from the heavy wind that had blown the rain sideways into them as they'd made the made dash from Cal's truck to the front porch.

  “Well, it's unlocked now.” Trish frowned at the door knob.

  “I probably did forget to lock it. You know how I am. Besides, what would anyone steal in here?”

  “Oh, you might be surprised about the kind of items that are hidden in the nooks and crannies of this house,” Trish mused out loud. She was thinking about the stolen jewelry she'd found in her box spring as she walked into the living room and did a double take. The couch looked like it was sitting several inches too the left of where it normally sat and Trish was quite certain she hadn't moved the massive piece of furniture.

  “What is that comment supposed to mean?” Nanette asked as she followed Trish into the room.

  Trish debated whether it was worth confronting her mother about Grover's felonious past. She was really starting to hate secrets. “It means that you should have told me your father was a retired armed robber before you asked me to come live with him.”

  “Oh Trish,” Nanette blinked unhappily at her daughter. “How did you- never mind. David told you, didn't he?”

  “Yes,” Trish said. “But only after a million dollars in jewelry fell out of my box spring while we were having sex in my bed.”

  “A million dollars worth of jewelry?” Nanette gaped at her daughter.

  Trish held up her left hand ring finger. “Not that I don't like the ring, but you really could have warned me.”

  “I did wonder about that ring,” Nanette bit her lip anxiously. “Especially when I realized you were engaged to David Breedlove. His father was Grover's favorite partner in crime. And I do mean that quite literally. They robbed several banks together when I was just a little girl.”

  “They robbed banks?” Trish repeated the words because she had to be sure she'd heard her mother right.

  “I'm afraid so. Ricky went to jail for it, but he never told the police who his accomplice had been.”

  “Honor among thieves,” Trish muttered skeptically.

  “I can't help noticing you didn't call the cops,” Nanette said It was a statement rather than a question.

  “I couldn't see sending Grover to jail when he's already dying.” Trish crossed her arms over her chest.

  “You've always been such a good girl, Trish.”

  “I do try.” Trish went into the kitchen and got a coke out of the refrigerator. A stack of dirty dishes were sitting on the counter along with several empty cans and an open jar of mayonnaise. Trish tossed the mayonnaise into the trash can. Sitting out all night couldn't possibly have been good for it and she wasn't fond of food poisoning. “God I wish Grover would clean up after himself.”

  “He's always been a pig,” Nanette said. She frowned at the clutter on the kitchen counter. “I washed all the dishes yesterday.”

  “Not all of them, apparently.” Trish pointed at the dirty items on the counter and then began moving them into the sink.

  “Grover must have fixed himself a snack before he shot the Jehovah's Witness,” Nanette theorized. She leaned against the edge of the counter. “Can I see the jewelry you found?”

  “Sure. It's in my bedroom.” Trish abandoned the dishes and headed up the stairs with her mother on her heels.

  The stolen fortune was right where she had left it. Hidden in a shoe box at the bottom of her bedroom closet. She pulled the entire box out and handed it to Nanette. “I'm going to go ahead and get a shower.”

  “I'm going to have a look through all this, if you don't mind?” Nanette sat down on the mattress and opened the shoe box. Trish grabbed a towel and a change of clothes and then headed for the shower.

  When she came back out of the shower 15 minutes later, her mother was sitting on her bed holding the dirty ruby bracelet Tate had found with the body that had been buried under David's trailer.

  Nanette's skin was pale and her face devoid of expression as she ran her fingers across the heavy gold rosettes over and over.

  “Mom?” Trish hesitated in the doorway. “Are you okay?”

  Nanette turned and blinked at Trish. She held up the bracelet. “Where did you get this?”

  “Um, it's kind of a long story. Why?” Trish frowned at the dirty gold.

  “Trish, was this bracelet hidden in this house?” Nanette's brows were knit into a tight line and her lips were trembling.

  “No,” Trish admitted.

  “Where did you get it?” Nanette repeated.

  “Why?” Trish asked. She had a strange feeling of dread growing in her stomach.

  “Because it was Maureen's and I haven't seen it in 20 years.”

  “Maureen?”

  “David's biological mother,” Nanette clarified. “Maureen Bates. Maureen Bates Breedlove.”

  “That bracelet belonged to David's mother?” Trish felt her own jaw drop with shock. The floor briefly felt like it was swimming out from underneath her feet. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I'm sure.” Nanette blinked as tears welled up in her blue eyes. “Maury loved this bra
celet. Rubies were her birthstone. It was the only piece of real gold jewelry she'd ever owned and she was proud of it. Ricky gave it to her for her birthday the first year they were together. She never took it off. Never. Not even when she showered.”

  “Shit.” Trish stared at the dirty ruby bracelet in horror. “Mom, what happened to David's mother?”

  “I don't know,” Nanette replied. “She disappeared into thin air when David was just a baby. Ricky said she'd gotten high on drugs and ran off, but I never believed that story. I knew Maury better than anyone else did. I talked to her every day on the phone even when I was away at college. She wasn't happy being married to Ricky. Shortly before she supposedly ran off, she'd told me that she thought Ricky had gotten in over his head with some of the things he was involved in. She thought that someone might have died, a friend of theirs named Earlie, during one of the robberies Ricky had pulled. She told me she wanted to take David and leave Possum Creek for a fresh start. She'd even asked me if she could come stay with us for a little while until she found a job and got back on her feet. I'd told her she could. We had a sleeper sofa and I told Maury she and David could stay with us as long as they needed to.”

  “But she never came,” Trish had a sinking feeling deep in the pit of her stomach. Her mind was still stuck on the part where her mother had said that Maureen never took the bracelet off.

  “No. She never showed up. She was supposed to be selling her bracelet for enough money to buy a bus ticket out of here.” Nanette had tears trailing down her cheeks now. She held up the bracelet. “She was selling this bracelet, Trish.”

  “Oh god.” Trish sat down on the bed and stared at the bracelet in her mother's hand.

  “Trish, where did you get Maureen's bracelet?”

  “David's house burned to the ground last week.” Trish spoke so softly she wasn't even sure her mother could hear her. “The firefighters found a woman's body in the rubble. The bracelet was found with the body. They gave it to David because they thought he might be able to identify it, but he didn't recognize it.”

  Nanette closed her eyes and let out a muffled sob. Trish hesitantly reached for her mother's shoulder. “I'm sorry,” she told her.

  “Ricky killed her,” Nanette cried. “She was afraid of him. She'd told me she was afraid he wouldn't let her leave with David. She thought she had a plan but he must have caught her before she made it out the door. Oh god. I always thought he had to have killed her. Maury wouldn't have left her baby with Ricky. She never, ever, in a million years would have left her baby with Ricky. I knew she was dead when she disappeared without David but I never wanted to believe it. No one ever found her body.”

  “Mom, I'm sorry.” Trish hugged her mother.

  Nanette wrapped her arms tightly around Trish. “You need to call David,” she said. “He deserves to know that the body they found under Ricky's old house was his mother's. Maybe he won't hate her so badly if he knows the truth about what happened to her.”

  “I'll go call him now,” Trish said.

  Chapter 55

  The blue Nissan had six inches of water on its floorboards and a very unhappy owner with very wet feet. David was soaked to the bone as he unhooked the winch cable from the car and delivered the elderly driver to her worried great-granddaughter.

  “Nana, I told you not to go to bingo in this weather.”

  “I was bored,” the old woman admitted as she cast a pitiful frown in the direction of her car. “The water didn't look deep.”

  David sighed and scanned the creek for his next rescue mission. He and Cal had worked out a system that involved Cal rescuing the stranded drivers while David dealt with the vehicles. David figured the newspaper photos of Cal carrying stranded old ladies across the creek in flood conditions would come in handy whenever Cal decided to run for the title of mayor of Possum Creek.

  He had just decided to rescue an unoccupied Kia that had slid off the main road and into a ditch when his phone started vibrating from somewhere deep within the pockets of the waterproof hunting jacket Momma had bought for him to keep in the wrecker. He dug the phone out of his pocket, determined to turn down any more towing jobs that Frank Chasson wanted to send his way.

  Trish's name was displayed on the caller ID. He hit the answer button.

  “Hey. Is everything alright?”

  “Not exactly,” Trish replied. “But I need to talk to you.”

  “Tell me you didn't run off the road in Cal's truck.”

  “I- what – no. Mom and I made it home from the hospital fine. I just got my shower.” She didn't sound happy.

  “Good.” David watched a the driver of a silver pick up approach the flooded creek, survey the scene and perform a very smart u-turn in the middle of the road. “What's wrong?”

  “My mom went through the jewelry we found hidden in the bed.”

  “We already knew it was stolen,” David pointed out. He didn't see where she was going with this.

  “She recognized the bracelet that was found with the body under your house.”

  “Do what?” David thought for sure he'd heard her wrong. Cal walked up to the side of the wrecker, probably wondering why David hadn't moved on to pulling out the next car.

  “My mom recognized the ruby bracelet.”

  “She doesn't happen to have any clue who the dead girl is, does she?” David asked. Cal froze mid-step and tilted his head at David curiously. He gestured for David to put the phone on speaker. David did.

  “I don't know how to tell you this.”

  “Just tell me,” David said. “No need to sugar coat anything. Just say it.”

  “Fine. My mom says the bracelet was your biological mother's. She says she never, ever took it off.”

  David would have dropped the phone if Cal hadn't caught it right before it fell. “Can you repeat that?” Cal asked Trish.

  “Cal?” She asked.

  “Yeah. You're on speaker. I swear you just said-.”

  “I said that my mother thinks that the dead body that was found at David's house is the body of his biological mother. My mom was her childhood best friend. She says the bracelet that was found with the body was a gift from Ricky Breedlove to David's mom, Maureen.”

  “Fuck,” David said. His knees felt strangely weak as he leaned against the side of the wrecker.

  “You know, David's mother being buried under his dad's old trailer would kind of make sense.” Cal sounded damn near conversational about the whole thing. “My folks have been speculating about what really happened to Maureen Breedlove for years now.”

  “What do you mean?” Trish asked. She sounded upset so David took the phone back from Cal even though he still felt stupidly light headed.

  “He means that Momma and Dad paid a private investigator to find my mother when I was eight. Momma was afraid they were going to have custody problems when my real dad got out of prison. They wanted to get my mother to sign her parental rights over so that they could fight Ricky in court for the right to keep me. The PI they hired failed completely. He couldn't find any trace of her.” David took a deep breath and pulled himself together. “I reckon that makes perfect sense if she's been dead underneath the trailer for the last 20 years.”

  “David, I'm so sorry,” Trish said.

  David looked over at Cal. His best friend's expression was one of utter calm and absolute acceptance. This latest disaster had changed absolutely nothing. David felt instantly calmer. “It's okay,” he told Trish.

  “I feel like shit for telling you this over the phone,” Trish said. “But I thought you might want to call the sheriff and tell him. You were just a little kid when your mom disappeared so this should be more than enough evidence to get Kerry off your back.”

  “Yeah. It won't be that hard to get a DNA test done either,” David admitted as his brain shook off the last of the shock and began functioning again. “I'll be in the clear in no time.”

  “I'm so sorry, baby. So sorry.”

  “It's okay,”
David told her for a second time. “I don't even remember-.”

  “You what?”

  David chewed the inside of his lip for a moment. “Ask your Mom if my mother ever had blonde hair, will you?”

  “Blonde hair?” Trish repeated.

  “Yeah.” He heard her talking to her mother in the background as Cal looked over at him curiously.

  Trish came back on the speaker. “My mother says Maureen dyed her hair blonde right after you were born.”

  “Shit,” David cursed. He took a deep breath. “I need to talk to Grover. I want to ask him a few questions before we go to the sheriff with what we know.”

  “Do you want me to meet you at the hospital?” Trish asked.

  “Please,” David said. He told her he loved her and hung up the phone. He and Cal exchanged a long look between them.

  “What do we need to ask Grover?” Cal asked after several seconds pause.

  David swallowed the lump that had been growing in his throat. “My nightmares.”

  “Shit,” Cal said as the pieces of what David was thinking clicked together in his own brain. “You think your mom might be the blonde woman you've watched die in your nightmares?”

  “I've been waking up screaming since I was a little kid,” David said. “Maybe its because I watched my dad murder my mother in cold blood.”

  “You think Grover knows the truth?”

  “I'm sure of it,” David said flatly.

  “In that case, let's go. We can force him to tell us the truth. I promise.” Cal walked over to the driver's side door of the wrecker and climbed behind the wheel. David was so emotionally drained that he didn't even argue about who drove.

  Chapter 56

  Addison had just about fallen asleep waiting on the wrecker when the fat guy came knocking on his truck window again. Addy cracked one eye open, glared at the distressed citizen and debated whether or not he cared about whatever was wrong enough to roll down the window. The man knocked again and Addy sighed. He turned the key and lowered his window. “Can I help you?”