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

by Gen Anne Griffin

“Your Dad is never going to go anywhere. I can’t remember the last time I saw him get out of his recliner.”

  “Me neither.” Gracie took a deep breath and then sighed. “I’m afraid of winding up miserable the same way they are. Sometimes Cal and I remind me of my parents.

  “You have to stand up to Cal sometimes, Gracie. If you don’t, he’ll run you the same way that Pappy runs Shiner’s Bayou.”

  “Last time I stood up to Cal, I lost him.” Gracie felt a spurt of fresh tears blossom behind her eyelids. She hurriedly wiped them away. “He’s stuck in his same old rut, doing whatever it is that he does. I’m spinning my wheels in his rut and getting nowhere fast. I tried to explain how I felt to him, and he blew up in my face.”

  “Oh, I think Cal’s fixing to get himself out of that Walker Hardware rut.” David smiled sideways at Gracie.

  “What do you know that I don’t?” Gracie asked.

  “I’m not telling you. It was a private conversation.”

  “You’re such an ass, David.” Gracie shook her head at him. “Mom is going to be royally pissed when she finds out I’m dropping out of college and moving home. I’m not looking forward to telling her. Do you think I could just kind of let her find out on her own?”

  “You’re dropping out?”

  Gracie nodded. “I can’t go back, David. I realized that last night when I was cleaning the house. I’m never going to be able to face Brittany. I don’t even want to try. I killed Austin. I can’t just go back to class Monday morning and act the same way I did last Friday before any of this mess happened.”

  “Gracie, that’s exactly what you’re going to have to do.” He grimaced at her, placing one hand on her leg. “I’m sorry kid, but you don’t have a choice.”

  “I’m getting sick to my stomach just thinking about having to walk back into that dorm.” Gracie crossed her arms over her tank top and tried not to cry. A knot of dread had been growing in Gracie’s stomach since she’d been woken up by her mother’s call. It continued to expand and tighten with every minute that passed. “How am I supposed to face my British Literature class tomorrow? Should I just sit there and listen to everyone wonder where Austin is when I’m the only one who knows the horrible truth?”

  “Pretend you don’t know the truth,” David said with a shrug. “Just push everything that happened during the last three days out of your mind.”

  “You say that like I could forget I’m a murderer,” Gracie shook her head at him miserably. “Between Austin and Cal, this was the worst week of my life. And believe it or not, I actually didn’t think things between me and Cal could get any worse.”

  “He’ll get over it,” David said confidently.

  “You keep saying that.”

  “It’s true. Cal always gets over it. Believe me, he wouldn’t be my best friend if he held a grudge. I’d have pissed him off to the point of no return years ago.”

  “He always forgives you.”

  “Yeah. He’s the only person in town who trusts me,” David shrugged his shoulders.

  “Not true. Addison trusts you. So do I.” Gracie frowned at him.

  “You’re not in town,” David skipped over the issue of her brother entirely.

  “I want to be. Please, just let me stay. Don’t make me deal with stupid Brittany,” she was surprised to find herself suddenly fighting tears. “I hate college, David. I hate it. I hate the stupid dorm rooms with their stupid community showers. I hate never having any privacy. I hate having to watch every word that comes out of my mouth because people are always listening and incredibly easy to offend. I just hate it.”

  David nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Please? Can we just forget about me going back?” she pleaded.

  He shook his head no. “It would cause too many problems,” he told her.

  “Like what? What problems?” she asked.

  “The cops are going look for your boy,” he said calmly. “From everything you’ve told me, I’d bet that they’re probably going to find out you were supposed to be on a date with him and were one of the last people to see him.”

  “They’re going to find out about my date with Austin whether I’m at school or in Shiner’s Bayou,” Gracie said softly.

  “Think about it, Gracie. It’s bad luck to go on a date with a guy the night he disappears off the face of the planet. But luck is luck. It’s hard to prove malice over luck.” David drummed his fingers against the old steering wheel. “If you go home, it’s going to look suspicious. Especially since you didn’t take your clothes or your car with you.”

  “We can go get my stuff.”

  “Uh huh. If you were a cop and one of your suspects immediately packed up her shit and hauled ass 200 miles away a couple days after the crime, wouldn’t you be a whole lot more suspicious about her?”

  “I guess I already knew that.” Gracie sighed and slumped against the headboard of the bed. “You think my alibi is solid right now?”

  “Unless there’s something we don’t know about.” David paused for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s solid. Whatever you do, don’t vary from it. Make sure you tell the same story every time. We can’t afford to have people asking too many questions.”

  She ran her fingers across the edge of the worn comforter. “I really just wish I could turn back time,” she told him.

  “I know,” he said. He held out one arm to her. She hesitated for a minute and then scooted across the bed so that she was pressed against his side. “Right now you don’t have a choice, and I don’t have a time machine. Finish out the semester. Let this shit blow over. If you still don’t want to be at State, I’ll come and get you myself. Okay?”

  “You will?” she asked, surprised.

  He nodded. “I will. I promise.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything, really. I love you.”

  “I love you too, kid.”

  *

  Addison pulled into David’s driveway while Gracie was loading the Toyota for the trip back to school. He was wearing a regular t-shirt and blue jeans. He had a plate full of food wrapped in aluminum in his hands. He handed the plate to Gracie. “Granny Pearl’s baked chicken, creamed corn, green bean casserole and peach cobbler,” he explained. “I figured you were probably in the mood for some home cooking after spending the weekend with David. Sorry SOB can’t cook to save his life.”

  “I know,” Gracie was glad to see her big brother. Her little chat with Momma had made her feel a lot better about Addison. “The fridge contains beer, lunch meat, string cheese sticks, and pickles.”

  “Don’t eat the pickles; they’ve been in there for six years,” Addison revealed. He had both hands stuffed down in the pockets of his jeans. He was watching her intently as she took the food and sat down on the edge of the porch with it.

  “Oh God, don’t tell me that. If I’d known that I’d have thrown them out while I was cleaning the rest of the house.”

  “You cleaned the house?” Addison blinked at his sister in shock. He wasn’t sure what surprised him more, that Gracie had actually cleaned or that David had tolerated someone else messing with his stuff.

  “She sure as hell did. It’s so damned clean I barely recognized it when I came back yesterday,” David grumbled as he came down the porch steps, carrying a basket of car-related fluids. He walked over to the Toyota and popped the hood.

  “Came back?” Addison raised his eyebrow at David.

  For a moment he didn’t respond, staring at the dipstick for his engine oil as if it were about to reveal the secrets of the universe.

  “From getting the wrecker out of the mud,” Gracie filled in awkwardly. “I cleaned while I was waiting on David and Cal to come back.”

  Addison shot her a look that said he wasn’t buying a word of it. The more Addison thought about what David had told him the day before, especially the part where he and Gracie had been involved for any length of time, the less likely it seemed.

  For the life o
f him, Addison couldn’t figure out what the two of them were hiding that could possibly be worth destroying Cal’s trust in them in order to protect. Addy was willing to bet his life it had nothing to do with love, or sex.

  He decided to test that theory when David walked back into the house a moment later to get another quart of oil for the Toyota.

  “You need to tell me what the hell is going on.” He didn’t waste time on the niceties of conversation. She opened her mouth to speak but Addison held his hand up to stop her. “Before you say a word, I’ll go ahead and let you know that I don’t believe you and David are sleeping together. I know you. I know David. There ain’t no way either one of you would do that to Cal.”

  Gracie hesitated for a moment and then she straightened her shoulders and gave him a smile he knew was fake. “Cal believes it,” she said.

  “Cal’s not thinking straight,” Addison replied. “He’s letting his hurt feelings stop him from seeing anything that isn’t right in front of his face.”

  “He’s acting like a total ass,” Gracie replied as she picked a piece of chicken up off the plate and bit it. Juices ran down her chin and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “You didn’t bring me any napkins,” she muttered.

  “Use your shirt,” Addy said, rolling his eyes at her. “He’s not the only one acting like an ass. You and David are doing a pretty good job of it as well.”

  “We’re not trying to,” Gracie admitted with a frown. “Look, Addy. I can’t talk about it right now, okay? I swear, I just can’t.”

  “Why not?” Addison pressed the issue.

  “Because I told her not to,” David came back outside with another quart of oil for the Toyota and a funnel. “This is between me and Gracie. You’re not a part of it.”

  “What? You two have some kind of a plan for- hell, I don’t even know what y’all would be planning.” Addison was truly baffled. He leaned against the hood of the Toyota. “Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “No.” David stuffed the funnel into the engine and shook his head at Addison. “The less you know, the better off you are.”

  “Why?” Addison asked. “Is this some kind of a crazy plan to get Cal and Gracie back together?”

  “No,” Gracie said.

  “Yes,” David said at exactly the same moment. They frowned at each other. Gracie shrugged her shoulders and went back to eating her chicken.

  Addison put his hands on his hips and glared at them. “Talk, dammit.”

  David finished adding the oil and closed the hood. “Fine. You nailed it, Addy. We think that the reason Cal hasn’t pulled his head out of his ass and asked Gracie to get back together with him is because he still thinks she’s going to come back to him on her own. He doesn’t think she’d really move on. We decided to see if we could shake him up a little bit. We’re hoping that he’ll get his act together if he thinks I’ve stolen the love of his life.”

  “Wow,” Addison rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He was thinking about growing a goatee. “I don’t really think that sounds like a very good plan.”

  “You have any better ideas?” David asked.

  Addison thought quietly for a couple of minutes and then shook his head. “No. I just don’t think your plan sounds like it’s going to work.”

  “I think you may be surprised,” David grinned at Addison and then patted him on the shoulder. “We’ve got to get going. It’s going to take me three hours to get her back to up school and another three hours to get back. I ain’t looking forward to that drive.”

  “I bet not. I’d go with y’all, but I’m still on call.” Addison scowled down at the radio on his belt loop. “I hate being on call.”

  “You’ll survive,” David told him. He gestured for Gracie to get in the truck. “Come on kiddo, we’ve got a long ride ahead of us. It’s time to go.”

  *

  “You want me to let you make an arrest based on what you thought you saw from a quarter of a mile away in the dark?” Sheriff Wally Hall crossed his arms over his broad chest and gave Eddie a skeptical look that made him feel about two inches tall.

  “I know what I saw Sheriff,” Eddie said timidly. The dead man’s name was Jarvis Shavonte Marquette. His prints had brought up what little information existed about him when Eddie had scanned them into the national system. Marquette was fifty-three years old and even his police records, which consisted of a handful of arrests for loitering and petty shoplifting, listed his address as unknown.

  “You saw a truck,” the Sheriff replied.

  “I saw an 80’s model Toyota,” Eddie clarified. “The coroner said Marquette had been stabbed fifty-seven times by a Buck knife with a four inch blade.”

  Eddie had asked the man how he could possibly know the make of the knife. Coastal County didn’t have the resources to attract the best of the best when it came to forensics and Eddie didn’t want some wanna-be CSI in investigator from the local funeral home screwing up his case by making too specific of claims.

  The short, fat little mortician had immediately handed him a Ziploc baggie. It held a four-inch long blade with ‘Buck’ engraved on it. The blade of the knife had broken off the handle when it had hit Marquette’s femur.

  “You saw an 80’s model Toyota,” Wally Hall repeated. “How many trucks do you think Toyota manufactured in the 1980’s? A couple million?”

  “Well, there aren’t that many in Coastal County,” Eddie said.

  “No, probably not. But you’re assuming there’s only one and you want to make an arrest based on that assumption.”

  “I saw the driver,” Eddie told him.

  “You saw someone. Could you pick them out of a line up based on what you saw the other night? There wasn’t much of a moon last night.”

  “I. Uh. Oh, well, no. But-.”

  “But nothing. You’ve had plenty of law education. More than enough to know damned well you don’t have probable cause.” The Sheriff scowled at Eddie.

  “But sir, it’s a lead. We do have a dead body here. We need to solve this man’s murder,” Eddie said sharply. Eddie didn’t understand taking the life of another human being, period. He’d gone into to criminal justice because it was the only way he could think of to make a concrete difference in the world. No human should have to suffer through the kind of death Jarvis Marquette had.

  “We need to make sure he was murdered first,” Sheriff Hall replied.

  “But I saw him dumping the body,” Eddie sighed and answered his own comment before the Sheriff got the chance. “Body dumping and murder are different crimes. Yeah, I know.”

  “You’re an intelligent young man, Eddie. At least that’s what all your transcripts say. Use all that knowledge you’ve got stored inside your noggin to make a real case. We go in and make an arrest based on a single eyewitness account of a truck that looks similar to our suspect’s truck being in the area but with no other evidence and even the worst lawyer in the state will still have him out in fifteen minutes.” The Sheriff studied Eddie with benevolent eyes.

  “I’m going to assign you this case, son. I want to see what you and all those fancy degrees of yours can do, but you’ve got to do it right. Right now all you’ve got is a quick glimpse of an old truck; we need more than that. We need to know who this dead fella was.

  I’ve lived in Coastal County my entire life and I ain’t never seen him before. That’s important. We need to know where he’s from and how he got here. We need to know if he was alive or dead when he got here. The medical examiner should be able to tell us that.

  We need to figure out why someone would have wanted to kill him, and how they did it. Then you need to worry about who did it.

  I know you think it was David Breedlove, and don’t get me wrong he’s probably a decent suspect. David has a nasty temper and a habit of bending, if not outright breaking, the law. He drives a truck similar to the one you saw. He’s definitely a possible suspect. You should question him, but you’ve got to keep your mind open and work the c
ase.”

  Eddie knew the Sheriff was giving him good advice, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was finally about to bring his arch-enemy to justice. David had teased, tormented, and harassed Eddie his entire childhood. He’d dreamed of the day he would get even with David for throwing him onto the football field naked in the middle of the homecoming football game.

  And now he’d set himself up for the fall.

  Eddie nodded at the Sheriff. “Don’t worry, I’ll do this right. I don’t want to take any chances of our murderer getting set free because I was too eager.”

  “Good boy,” Sheriff Hall said and held out his hand. “Let me know if you have any questions or need any advice, I’m here to help you.”

  Even as he shook the Sheriff’s hand and told him he would work hard to be a fair investigator, Eddie was dreaming of hearing a cell door slam shut behind David Breedlove.

  *

  “I feel sick.” Gracie stared up at the massive archway that lead through the courtyard and into Colloway Hall, the largest underclassmen dorm for women. She twisted sideways in the front seat of the Toyota. “I can’t walk back in there.”

  “You’ll be fine.” David wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either. He looked calm, if not relaxed. He pulled a pack of gum out of the pocket on the front of his t-shirt and handed her a thin stick. “Chew this until the urge to barf passes.”

  Gracie took the gum in trembling fingers. “Why does Austin’s death seem so much more real now than it did this morning?”

  David shrugged and pulled a pair of dark sunglasses down over his hooded green eyes. He smiled at Gracie. “It’s show time, Gracie Jayne. Put on your big girl panties and get out of the truck.”

  “I don’t-.”

  “Stop. Just stop. The time for changing your mind is over. You made your choice when you didn’t call the cops.” David reached across the cab of the truck, taking her chin in one hand. He pulled her close to him. “You made your choice and now you have to play the part. You can’t run away right now if you want to be able to walk away permanently. If you want to claim you don’t know what happened to Austin, you’re going to have to live your life like you never watched him die.”