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

by Gen Anne Griffin

  “I know. It’s awful. Most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, the way he stabbed that man,” Eddie shook his head in genuine sorrow, glad that the strikingly attractive African American lawyer was on his side.

  “I meant your case,” Keisha pursed her lips into a deep frown. “Not the crime.”

  “What?” Eddie blinked at her in surprise as he felt the tables turning underneath him. From in the hallway, he could see Addison grin.

  “Your case has more holes in it than a sieve. You have absolutely no evidence.”

  “I saw him dump the body,” Eddie protested.

  “You saw somebody dump something. Can you even prove it was the body?”

  “It’s common sense,” Eddie argued. “I’ll be able to when the forensics report on his truck comes back.”

  “I don’t think so,” Keisha’s scowl deepened. “You didn’t have enough evidence to get that warrant. I’m going to have any evidence you get from your illegal search of that truck thrown out.”

  Eddie’s jaw dropped. “You mean to tell me my eyewitness account is worth nothing?”

  “You don’t have any evidence,” Keisha repeated and let out a deep breath she’d been holding. “Actually, what you’ve done here is really infuriating from where I stand.”

  “What?” He was stunned.

  She put her hands on the hips of her flattering cream colored suit. “Eddie, I admire what you’re trying to accomplish, but if you’re going to fight an entire system, you’re going to have to do it by the book. Without letting your personal prejudices get in the way. You don’t have any evidence against David Breedlove except your own biased eyewitness account. Instead of taking your time to build your case the right way, you rushed it and blew it. Once I have your search warrant thrown out, any evidence that was in that truck will be inadmissible in court. It’s going to be your fault when David walks away with no jail time for killing that man.”

  “You think he’s guilty?” Eddie momentarily chose to ignore the rest of her comments.

  “Let’s just say I don’t put much past him, but you’ve screwed up this case so badly no one will ever get any justice.”

  “That’s not true,” Eddie protested, feeling two inches tall.

  “Prove it. The way it stands right now, in my eyes you’re no better than Addison Malone or any of the other backwoods rednecks in this office. It doesn’t matter if you fuck up a case for the right or the wrong reasons – you’ve still fucked up a case, and now the victim won’t ever see justice,” Keisha stared down at him coldly.

  “It’s getting late, and I have a long drive back to Baker County. I’d appreciate it if you would go ahead and tell Mr. Breedlove that he is, regrettably, free to go. Oh, and make sure the next time I have to come down here; you have enough evidence to convict. Cause as of right now, you’ll be lucky if we don’t bill Wally Hall for wasting our gas.” Keisha turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving Eddie feeling more dismayed and alone than ever before.

  *

  “Addison, my man, how are you doing?” Riley Ramirez raked his shaggy dark hair back off his face, brown eyes flashing brightly. If Addison hadn’t known what a talented actor Riley was, he would have actually believed Riley was happy to see him.

  He accepted the proffered handshake. Momma hadn’t raised a thug. As he shook Riley’s hand, he shot him a look that he hoped conveyed some menace.

  “I heard you might know something about some really strange poaching calls I’ve been getting,” Addison said flatly.

  Riley immediately deflated. “Ah shit, I knew it was going too good to last.”

  Addison wanted to be angry at Riley but he couldn’t seem to muster up the emotion he’d felt earlier as Riley’s shoulders sagged resignedly and he gestured for Addison to follow him onto an enclosed back porch, away from the girl.

  “So, what’d you hear?” Riley asked him as they stepped out onto the amateurishly screened in patio, and he tapped a cheap cigarette out of a crumpled pack with a brand name on it Addison didn’t recognize. He tapped out another one and offered it to Addison, who accepted it and the light he offered after it.

  “I heard folks are paying you to keep me occupied while they poach,” Addison said, taking a deep breath of harsh, rough smoke off the cheap cigarette and tried to avoid coughing and gagging.

  “Ah, well. Yeah.” Riley sighed, looking tiredly out across the scrubby yard and tangle of kudzu and weeds that threatened to engulf the trailer whole one day. “That’s about right I guess.”

  “You know that’s illegal,” Addison said, resignedly.

  “Not technically,” Riley smoked the cigarette as if his lungs were made of steel. “All I’ve been doing is going out into the woods and flashing a whole bunch of colored lights in the air. I haven’t made a single false police report, which would have been the illegal part.”

  “Technically, you’re an accessory to a crime,” Addison replied.

  “What crime?” Riley asked. “I know nothing except that I get calls to go give impromptu light shows at designated locations.”

  Addison glowered and considered running Riley down to the Sheriff’s Office anyway, just to pay him back for all the irritation he had been causing him lately.

  “Whatever it is, you’re about to stop doing it,” Addison said. “Understand? You’re wasting my time.”

  Riley nodded. “I need the money, but yeah. I understand. I’ll stop.”

  “Why don’t you just get a job?” Addison grumbled, watching the rain pour through the leaves.

  “I got one. Two actually,” Riley said, looking more tired than Addison had ever remembered him looking. “I’m a bartender up in Canterville at Los Tamales bar, grill and cantina on weekends, and I’m unloading trucks down at the shipping docks six mornings a week.”

  “And you still find the time to play poacher?” Addison asked, wondering why the few extra dollars would be worth the effort.

  “Rachel needs to go to college,” he said flatly and jerked his head back inside the trailer. “She’s a senior this year. Last year when she took her SAT she scored a 1480 on it. That’s almost perfect.”

  “She’ll get scholarships,” Addison said, vaguely impressed.

  “Sure, but she’ll need money for books and clothes. She deserves to have money for books and clothes. I want her to feel happy there, like she belongs. I want her to have the same things all the other girls have. I need to get the transmission fixed in that old Ford of her outside before she goes, but I don’t know if I’ll have enough.”

  “She work?” Addison asked.

  “Waitresses down at the Waffle House every day after school, but Rachel’s a bleeding heart. She spends all her money on clothes and snacks for the little ones. I’m the only one that spends money on Rachel. Mamacita sure as hell won’t.” His eyes closed as thunder rumbled through the air. “I’m sorry for scamming you, but that money goes to Rachel. If I do anything at all in my life, I’m going to get Rachel out of this hellhole.” He opened his eyes and looked around. “Sorry Addison, but you’ve got a little sister too. I’m sure you can understand.”

  Addison thought about Gracie, David and the State Police Lieutenant whom he’d talked to yesterday. He didn’t want to, but he understood perfectly.

  *

  “For the record, I still don’t see how running home to be by David’s side is going to help prove his innocence,” Cal had one hand on the wheel and the other resting causally across the back of the bench seat as he turned the truck into the southbound lane of the two-lane highway Gracie had last driven down in the middle of the night with Austin’s body.

  “It’s my fault he’s in jail to begin with,” Gracie sighed and leaned back against the seat. It had taken her roughly half an hour to gather up the clothing she wanted to take with her back to Shiner’s Bayou. Unsure if she would ever see her dorm room again, she also packed up her jewelry, favorite comforter, pillow, and a fat stuffed pony that Cal had won for her at a Carnival a
few years back. He’d seemed amused to see she still had it. “I have to do something to help.”

  She’d called Officer Smith of the State University Police Department from the safety of the cab of Cal’s truck. At Cal’s insistence, she’d informed him that couldn’t take the stress of being at college anymore or the rumors that were circulating about her following Austin’s disappearance. The cop had seemed annoyed but he hadn’t argued. He even admitted that all her alibis had checked out. Gracie took it as a sign that maybe Cal was right, and Austin’s body was still safely rotting in the depths of the swamp.

  “It’s Twitchy Eddie’s fault David is in jail. He’s hell bent on getting revenge on David for all the random evil shit David did to him in high school,” Cal said.

  “I don’t even get what it was that David did to Eddie.”

  “You don’t remember it because he was never mean to you, but David was a bully,” Cal rubbed his steering wheel with his palm. He looked tired and his jaw was set in a frown. “He had a grudge against pretty much anyone who had a better deal in life than he did. He’d take out his aggressions on the most offensive of the losers. Twitchy Eddie was a whiny little tattle tale. Tormenting him was guaranteed entertainment for David and a handful of other childish SOBs.”

  “It was high school.” Gracie shrugged her shoulders. “Who cares?”

  “I reckon Twitchy Eddie does,” Cal said with a frown and a sigh. “We were supposed to be working together to get rid of him. Me and David and Addison. That little project kind of got put on the back burner when Addison and I found out about you and David.”

  Gracie twisted in the seat so she was facing him. She couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “You can’t possibly still believe?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. After everything she’d told Cal today, surely he didn’t still believe David’s stupid little lie.

  “Believe what?” Cal scowled at her. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Me and David.”

  “What about y’all?”

  “He lied to y’all,” Gracie tried to keep her voice as steady as possible. “About me and him. Our so-called relationship is total bullshit.”

  “Oh Hell. That lying bastard.” Cal didn’t believe what he was hearing. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Cal held up his hand and gestured for her to be quiet. He was having a hard enough time making sense of this shit without her adding any more information to it.

  “He thought it made a believable alibi,” Gracie explained, hating every word of the lie she’d told. She shrugged her shoulders at him helplessly. “You wouldn’t listen to a word we had to say, so he decided that maybe it would work better to just go along with your version of things.”

  “I walked in on y’all, Gracie.”

  “You walked in on me bawling my eyes out to him. He’s my friend, Cal. I love him, and I trust him. Like a brother.” Gracie tried to keep the hurt out of her voice but failed at it.

  “David told me y’all were sleeping together because he thought it was easier than admitting the truth?” Cal nearly choked on the words as they came out of his mouth.

  Gracie nodded. “David was going to tell you the truth at first, but then you flipped out on him when you saw us together. You wouldn’t even listen when he tried to tell you about the car. By the time y’all had gotten rid of the car, David said he’d decided telling you the truth would be more dangerous than just letting you believe we were sneaking around. He said that this way, if the cops started asking questions, you would be able to give an honest answer.”

  “It’s all for my own good, huh?” he made no attempt to mask the bitterness in his voice. “Just what I needed, two more people making decisions for me, for my own good.”

  “Cal, are you okay?”

  Just give me a minute,” he said flatly. His normally pale face was flushed red with emotion. “You’re saying you’ve never slept with David?”

  Gracie hesitated for a moment. She could tell him no. She desperately wanted to tell him no. But it would be a lie, and she couldn’t stand to have any more lies between them. Not if she was going to have a prayer of making things right between them.

  “First tell me why you care,” Gracie forced the words out of her mouth. She wanted nothing more than to explain her own innocence to Cal, but somehow it didn’t feel like enough. She needed more from him. If they were going to stand a chance, she needed him to give.

  Cal frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Who I sleep with isn’t any business of yours,” she pointed out. “You broke up with me, Cal. Not the other way around.” Gracie crossed her arms over her chest. “You hooked up with Jo Beth. You. You always call all the shots and make all the decisions when it comes to me and you.”

  “I did not break up with you,” he snapped. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want me.”

  “No. Once again. You don’t listen to a word that comes out of my mouth. I said that I didn’t want you if you weren’t willing to give me a chance to explain how I felt!”

  Cal stared at her, completely dumbfounded. “You said you didn’t want to marry me.”

  “Oh my God. You need your hearing checked!” Gracie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You were drunk and acting like an idiot. You didn’t ask me if I would marry you; you informed me I would be getting married to you right after graduation, even though I’ve told you a million times that I don’t know what I want from life yet.”

  “Clearly you don’t want me.”

  “This is exactly what I’m talking about. You pick bits and pieces out of what I say and only hear what you want to. I do want you. I want you so badly I’ve spent the last eight months feeling like there’s a gaping hole in my life where you’re supposed to be. But damn it Cal, you don’t give. It’s always your way or nothing. You’re so much like your Pappy it isn’t even funny.” Tears were running freely down Gracie’s cheeks now. She made no attempt to brush them away. “I want you, but I also want you to let me breathe. You don’t care if I don’t know what I want from life because you have no intention of letting me make any choices anyway. You have everything all planned out forever, and it sounds boring as hell, Cal. We’re going to wind up exactly like your parents, and maybe you’re okay with turning into your Dad, but I don’t want to be your Mom.”

  Cal stopped, stunned silent. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered. The look on his face was so vulnerable Gracie couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to him. Her fingers brushed against his forearm. He immediately moved his arm. She nearly cried out when she thought he was pulling away from her, but he took her hand in his.

  “I’m not kidding you,” she whispered. “I want you. I want a future with you. I just don’t want every detail of it set in stone.”

  Cal hesitated for a moment before he nodded. Something in his expression changed and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “You want to hear something really stupid?” he asked her. He sounded incredibly calm. Gracie nodded.

  “Go ahead,” she told him, fighting the urge to fling herself against his broad chest. His hand felt so good holding hers. She’d missed his touch so badly.

  “Your brother and David have been trying to tell me pretty much the same thing you just did.”

  “Really?” Gracie was surprised.

  “Yeah. Addy especially. He keeps telling me I’m making myself miserable trying to do everything everyone else tells me to do. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was full of shit right up until I saw you standing there with David. Something about seeing you with him...” Cal trailed off, the pain thick in his voice. Gracie tightened her grip on his fingers without thinking about it.

  “Just so that we have everything clear between us, I’m going to tell you the complete truth,” she told him, taking a deep breath. It was less painful to rip the Band-Aid off all at once and get the pain over with. “You asked me if I’ve ever slept with David, and the answer
is yes. Once.”

  “Let me guess,” he said bitterly. “Last Friday night when I walked on you?”

  “No.” Gracie shook her head angrily. She wasn’t releasing her grip on his hand, and he hadn’t tried to pull away, so she took it as a sign that maybe this time he would actually listen to her. “I’ve already told you no. It was back in April.”

  Cal froze, clearly surprised by her admission. “What?” he demanded.

  “I said I slept with David last April. Remember that field party we had right before prom? Addison brought me with him, but then he got called out to deal with poachers. You were there with Jo Beth. She kept kissing you like you belonged to her.” The fury and pain that Gracie had kept hidden deep inside her soul since the breakup welled up to the surface. “You were all over her, and she was all over you. I was supposed to wait on Addison to come back and get me, but I couldn’t stand being at that party for five more minutes, so I called David to come get me. He showed up drunk off his ass and in one of his pissed off moods. He had a Mason jar full of moonshine in the center console of the wrecker. I took it away from him because he was lit. I was planning on pouring it out the window, but I was so mad and hurt I wound up drinking it instead.”

  “You got drunk and slept with David.” Cal nearly choked on the words. “That’s it? That’s all there is between you and David?”

  “Right. Once. On the bed of the wrecker in the middle of the woods. I threw up after we were done.” Gracie shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t proud of herself, but at this point there was no point in trying to defend herself either. Cal was either going to have to forgive her and move on, or they really were done. His next words stunned her.

  “I was only with Jo Beth because I thought you didn’t want me and I wanted to prove to you that I could move on.”

  “Yeah, well, congratulations because that means exactly one of us is capable of moving on,” Gracie glared at him, unsure whether she should laugh or cry. “I’m not. I miss you so badly I can barely breathe. I had to leave Shiner’s Bayou because I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you with her.”