Drip. Drip. The blood kept coming out of Austin’s mouth and landing on his khakis. His arm was bent at an unnatural angle against the center console. If he had been faking dead he would have moved by now. No one would hold their arm like that for more than a couple of minutes.
Gracie took a deep breath and tried to force her brain to work. She had to take action. She had to do something. She should have tried to save Austin. Now it was too late. Austin was past saving.
The police were going to think she had meant to kill him. She never even called for help. She just sat there in the passenger seat and watched him die. It wasn’t going to look good on her part.
Almost 10 years ago a man named Geoffrey Briggs had fallen off his boat in the middle of the lake. He had not been wearing his life jacket. He’d had both his sons with him, but neither one of them had jumped into the water to save him. Gracie remembered that. Geoffrey Briggs was a wife beater and rumor had it he’d abused his sons too. Uncle Wally had said both the Briggs boys sat there in the boat and watched their Daddy drown. Uncle Wally said they claimed they just weren’t strong enough to get Ol’ Geoffrey back in the boat. Uncle Wally didn’t think they had even tried to get their dear old Dad back in the boat.
The Briggs boys had gotten away with letting their father drown because no one could prove they didn’t try to save him.
The police and the doctors would know that Gracie hadn’t even tried to save Austin. They might even think she had tried to kill him on purpose. He had bruises from where she had hit him. What other evidence would they need to prove she had meant to hurt him?
Gracie was going to jail. Manslaughter, at the very least, because she hadn’t tried to save Austin. Her life was over just four months after her eighteenth birthday. She had no one here to protect her. Addison had always protected Gracie. He’d taken the blame for more of her mistakes than she cared to admit. He wasn’t going to be able to save her this time. Her big brother was back home in Shiner’s Bayou and she was on her own with a dead body that she couldn’t explain away.
An old rumor came unbidden to the front of her mind. One of Gracie’s middle school classmates had gone missing in the network of trails and hunting roads that ran back behind David’s house. Some folks thought that David had killed her and disposed of her body somewhere in the woods. Gracie had asked Addison about Josie once. Addison had told her that there was no body and that no body equaled no crime in the eyes of the law.
“No body means no crime,” was all her big brother would say about Josie.
Gracie took a deep breath and forced herself to look at Austin’s body again. He was definitely dead. He wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving.
She squeezed the phone in her hand so tightly she nearly cracked the plastic casing. Surely it wouldn’t matter if she called Addison before she called 911. Not when Austin was already dead. Gracie clutched the cell phone with trembling fingers as she opened her recent calls and selected her big brother’s number from the top of the list. Addison would be able to tell her what to do. Addison always knew what to do.
*
The only thing separating Addison from a potentially nasty case of rabies was the flimsy, rusting grate of the floor vent in Camilla Baxley’s trailer. The stink of wild animal piss was strong enough to tell him the massively fat critter hadn’t just wandered into the ducts and gotten stuck. It had been living in there, and now it was apparently too fat to get back out the way it came in. Addison hesitantly poked the grate with the toe of one of David’s boots and was rewarded with a snarling hiss and the rattle of metal as the creature lunged at him. The floor was soft between his feet and sunk menacingly as he stepped back away from the grate to consider his options.
“Are you sure you’re really a police officer?” Camilla’s nasally voice grated on his nerves as he contemplated the odds of getting his face ripped off trying to remove the raccoon from the floor.
Camilla was in her late thirties and almost fat enough to be in the same predicament as the coon in regards to the trailer’s front door. She was standing behind him watching his every move as she gnawed her way through a bag of store-bought powdered sugar donuts. Powdered sugar was crumbling down her massive jowls and down the front of her worn, tropical print housedress. The housedress was missing several buttons and Addy had already been granted a view of her massive, drooping breasts and size XXXL granny panties.
“He’s not a cop. He’s the game warden.” Jo Beth was leaning against the doorway of the trailer with a look of total disgust on her face. Addison wasn’t sure if her expression was for him, Camilla, the food coated, soggy rotting floor of the trailer, or the raccoon.
“Don’t get smart with me, little missy. I’m just trying to protect my virtue. If he’s a cop, why doesn’t he have a uniform on?” Camilla sneered at Jo with apparent distaste. It was fifteen minutes after midnight and Jo still didn’t have a hair out of place. Her make-up was flawless, her skin blemish free and the pink hoodie and capris she was wearing made her look warm, invitingly round and friendly, which Addy knew was just an illusion created by Victoria’s Secret. Her perfume was the only thing keeping the stench of the trailer in check. He suspected she had sprayed it on extra thick before walking through the door. Jo Beth wasn’t normally the kind of girl you could smell coming.
“I have no idea. Maybe he’s moonlighting as a midnight mechanic.” Jo raised an eyebrow at Addy and gestured at the Breedlove Automotive t-shirt he was wearing. “Why don’t you have your uniform on?”
“Do you want this animal out of the house or not?” Addison glared at her. He was well aware of how he looked in a lime green t-shirt advertising David’s shop, a pair of grease stained work jeans that fit him like too tight capris and old, cracked Justin roping boots that were two sizes too big.
Jo abruptly shut her mouth, clearly deciding to refrain from any further comments until he had removed the potentially rabid coon. Addison turned and walked back outside while muttering obscenities. Jo Beth followed him all the way to his truck.
“Tell me you aren’t drunk,” she said. Her arms crossed over her ample breasts as she leaned against the side of Addison’s state-issue Ford.
“Stone cold sober, unfortunately. A double shot of whiskey might make that smell a little more bearable.” Addison turned to glare at her as he pulled on a set of thick metal lined gloves he kept for handling dangerous animals.
“Remind me again why the Game Warden is in charge of residential animal control?” Jo glared at him.
“Because Uncle Wally only has $700 a year in his budget for animal control, and I drew the short straw.” Addison scowled and grumbled something about it not being nearly enough extra money in his check to make it worth dealing with nights like this one. He turned to face Jo Beth. “Why are you here, anyway?”
To his surprise, Jo sighed and slumped back against the side of the truck. She held her hands up in the air. “This is one of my step-father’s rental properties. You know Matt. That horrible woman is a tenant. One I’m about to do my darnedest to have evicted as soon as possible.”
“Nice.” Addison pulled a long metal pole with a noose on the end of it out of one of the toolboxes that lined the bed of the truck. “That coon’s been in that vent for weeks. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s been feeding it. Want to explain to me why it became an emergency at 11:45 tonight?”
“She called the house at around ten. She said there was a raccoon in the trailer and that it had bit her when she was trying to feed it a fried baloney sandwich. Up until the coon bit her, she apparently considered it some sort of demented pet. She demanded Matt come do something about it. Of course, he just finished chemo and isn’t in any shape to be driving. I said I would come see what the problem was. Camilla’s a complainer. She’s always breaking something and then calling and demanding it be fixed. She’s destroyed that trailer. The only reason we haven’t evicted her yet is because Matt has been so sick it just kind of fell on the back burner. Anyway, I came ou
t here and saw what was going on. She told me she was going to sue us if I didn’t do something about it tonight. Matt doesn’t need that kind of garbage to worry about right now. I tried to call your cell but you didn’t answer it, so I called dispatch.”
“Ah crap. I think I left my damned phone at David’s. Either that or I dropped it in the mud while I was chasing poachers from one end of Lou Kramer’s pasture to the other.” Addison shook his head in obvious annoyance. “Why didn’t Cal come out here with you? I could have used the help. Hell, he could have done this shit himself. He was the one who used to catch varmints all the time when we were kids.” Addison checked the mechanism on the pole. It had been awhile since he’d used it.
“Cal,” Jo put extra emphasis on the name, “ditched me immediately after dinner.”
Addison stopped what he was doing and blinked at Jo in surprise. “What?”
“He was pissed off when he got back in the truck, and then I said something stupid without thinking. He got mad at me and told me he would see me tomorrow.”
Addison opened his mouth to tell her he honestly didn’t know what Cal was so angry about when a loud scream echoed from inside the trailer combined with a loud crash and the sound of splintering wood.
“Oh lord. What now?” Jo turned back towards the trailer and glared at it with a look of pure loathing as she started to head toward the door. “Could this night get any worse?”
“I don’t think so,” Addison admitted. He was two steps behind her with the metal pole in one hand as another scream echoed out through the night air.
*
The first time Gracie called her brother’s phone it rang six times before it went to voicemail. She hit the send button again immediately and got the same exact result. The third time she dialed his number it rang four times and a familiar but grouchy voice came on the other line.
“What do you want? It’s after midnight.”
Gracie nearly choked on the breath she had been holding. For a moment she was overwhelmed by panic. She needed her brother right now and Addison was definitely not who had answered the phone.
“Hello?” he repeated. “Gracie, are you there?”
She struggled to catch her breath. She realized who had answered the phone when he’d said her name, but the words she needed to say seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth. For a moment nothing but air would come out of her throat.
“Gracie?”
“David,” she choked on his name. Her voice was thick with panic. “David, I need to talk to Addy. Now.”
“Are you okay?” he asked. He sounded groggy. As if she’d woken him up.
“No.” It never occurred to her to lie to him. “I need to talk to Addy. Right now.”
“Are you hurt?” His voice was calm in contrast to the thick, panicked noises her own throat kept making.
“No, but please. Just let me talk to my brother.”
For a moment there was only silence. David sighed. “He’s not here right now, kiddo. He’s on call this weekend. He forgot his phone when he got called back out again.”
Gracie felt her entire world zoom out of focus. She had been counting on Addison knowing how to fix everything and now he was out of reach. There was no telling where he was or when she would be able to get a hold of him.
“Gracie?”
Three cars had already driven by. Thankfully none of them had stopped to see why the expensive BMW was on the side of the road, but eventually someone would get curious. She couldn’t stay here forever waiting on Addison. She had to take action. Soon.
“Gracie!” David’s harsh tone snapped her back into focus. “What the hell is going on?”
“Oh God. David. I’m in trouble. Really bad trouble. I screwed up horribly,” Gracie felt the words rush out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I’m going to jail for the rest of my life. I’m never going to see you or Addy or Cal ever again. My life is ruined.”
The tears that had not come when she had watched Austin die had begun to rapidly spill down her cheeks. She struggled to stop them. She was afraid that if she started crying now, she might never stop.
“Whoa. Gracie. Baby. Calm down and start at the beginning.” David sounded deceptively calm.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t have time. Someone is going to find me and call the cops and then I’m going to wind up in jail forever.”
“What the hell did you do?” he demanded.
“I...” she trailed off, unable to make herself say the words.
“Gracie, tell me what the fuck is going on.” David’s voice had a warning tone to it.
“I killed Austin,” she whispered the words so softly she could barely hear herself.
“You did what?”
“I killed Austin,” she repeated it louder this time. “I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. “Did you just say you killed somebody?” David asked finally.
Gracie nodded and then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Are the cops there?” he demanded.
“No,” Gracie whispered. “Just me. No one knows yet. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill him. Really.”
“Gracie,” David’s tone was calm, almost soothing. “Who else knows about this besides you and me?”
“No one.”
“I’m the only one you’ve called?”
She could hear the disbelief in his voice. She struggled to pull herself together enough to try to explain what had happened to David. “I wasn’t calling you. I was calling Addy.”
“That’s not what I was trying to say. I’m asking you- wait, why are you calling Addy?”
“I thought he would know what to do,” she said softly. “I thought he could help me.”
“Gracie, you need to tell me what the fuck is going on.” He was deadly serious. Gracie shuddered but tried to get her thoughts together. David was a logical person to turn to. She trusted him just as much as she trusted Addison and Cal. He could probably help her figure out how to get out of this mess. According to the rumors in Shiner’s Bayou, David was a murderer too.
Gracie took a deep breath and forced her sobs back down into her throat. “It was an accident,” she repeated. “I went on a date with this guy and he tried to force himself on me. He kept trying to jam his hand up my skirt and grope me. I wound up fighting with him. I hit him a couple of times, and then he just collapsed. He hasn’t moved since. He’s not breathing, David. He’s got blood coming out of his mouth.” She struggled to make her thoughts into coherent sentences.
“Where are you?”
“What?” She had expected him to ask for more details about what had happened.
“Where are you?” he repeated.
“At school. Off campus on some godforsaken back road. I’m not sure exactly where.”
David let out a long, hissing breath. “Are you alone?”
“Yes,” she said. “Well, except for Austin. He’s still in the driver’s seat. His pants are all bloody now.” She choked on a sob.
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“No.”
“So you’re completely alone? No witnesses?”
“Right.”
“Why haven’t you called the cops?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted with a frightened whimper. “I don’t want to go to jail, David.”
David was silent for so long Gracie had to look at the phone to make sure it was still connected.
When he spoke again the tension in his voice was thick enough to cut with a knife. “Are you absolutely, positively certain you killed this guy, Gracie?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.” David cursed loudly. “You said you’re in a car, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Come home.”
“What?”
“Start driving. I’ll be waiting for you when you get here.”
“Dav
id, are you sure?” Gracie’s voice was trembling, though she wasn’t sure if it was with fear or relief.
“Are you sure you’re going to be arrested for murder?”
“Yes,” she admitted so softly she could barely hear the word, panic welling up in her chest and threatening to squeeze the life out of her.
“Come home,” he repeated. “I’ll figure something out when you get here. Don’t get pulled over.”
*
“What’s it take to get some damned service around here?”
Cal twisted on his bar stool to see a burned out middle-aged woman leaning heavily on the ancient wooden bar beside him. She had plunked two thick glass draft beer mugs on the counter in front of Leon.
“Money, for starters,” said Leon, who owned the county’s nastiest biker bar and ran it seven days a week, barely bothering to cast his glance in her direction. He had been hassling Cal about crossing over onto the wrong side of the proverbial tracks when she had interrupted him.
Leon had always found it amusing to give Cal a hard time. The gruff bartender had been hassling Cal about being the future mayor of Shiner’s Bayou ever since the night Cal and David had guzzled down an entire fifth of Jack Daniels and puked all over the storage room. They’d been 14 years old at the time.
David was Leon’s third cousin.
The woman scowled at him. She had badly bleached blonde hair with large chunks of greasy gray showing through the dye job. Her eyes were severely bloodshot, and she had the broken blood vessels of a lifelong alcoholic to redden her nose and cheeks. She dug deeply into the pockets of her too tight shorts and extracted, with some difficulty, a pair of very crumpled dollar bills. She waved them at Leon’s face.
“I got money,” she said defiantly.
“Not near enough to pay the tab y’all have already racked up.”
“Leon, I been drinking here for how many years now? All of a sudden you want to get high and mighty asking if I can pay? Tell me you ain’t.”
Leon yawned. “You’ve been drinking here for years, but I can’t remember the last time you drank on your own tab. I ain’t seen that feller you’re with pull out as much as a quarter for the jukebox yet.”
Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series Page 6