by Devon Ashley
My mouth automatically frowned as I pulled into the best motel Berryville had to offer. Damn place was barely a step up from a roach motel. Norman Bates would fit right in. I grabbed my bag from the back seat of my pickup and entered inside, afraid to breathe deeply. When I got here earlier, the room I was assigned had stunk worse than the male locker room at the local high school. I had the guy up front trade out my room for another but this one reeked, too. So I had blasted the wall unit, opened the window and decided to clear out for a bit. It was the only reason I ended up at Sully’s close to midnight on a Thursday night.
Smack dab into Mel’s freaking web.
I stroked my eyebrows outward, repeating the motion, all the while praying for my headache to dissipate. It didn’t matter that I left the window ajar during the night. By the time I woke up, my stomach was so sour from inhaling the stench all night that I’d been begging to throw up all morning. I wanted nothing more than to pass out, but there was no way in hell I was going back to that hellhole any time soon. Sucking down on my truck’s diesel exhaust pipe was a better source of air.
“Mr. Michaels?” My head jerked upright, sunlight streaming in through the window so harshly I had to squint. “Mr. St. Claire will see you now.”
I nodded and approached the door the secretary was motioning to, opening it myself. Behind a massive, embellished walnut desk sat an overlarge, middle-aged man with bifocals and a thick, bushy mustache that matched his thinning grey hair. He stood as I entered, and I made my way over with an extended hand. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I said, shaking his calloused hand.
“Not a problem,” he replied, dropping hard enough in his leather seat to make it groan and expel a burst of air from the cushion. I sat before him in one of the brown studded club chairs, leaning forward with my hands grasped in the center. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“Well, I hope you can. I’ve already spoken to the other two attorneys in town and you’re my last hope for a quick resolution. I’m trying to find the attorney who managed my client’s grandmother’s will and estate. Her name was Joyce Montgomery and she died about a year ago.”
Mr. St. Claire nodded his head. “Yes, I knew Joyce, and I was the one who handled the legal affairs for the family. May I ask who your client is?”
“Her grandson and only living heir, Bradley Montgomery. He has yet to be notified of his inheritance and I’m here to rectify that.”
“Well,” he huffed, “first I need to correct you on two points. One, there is no estate, nor was a will necessary because the late Mrs. Montgomery sold all her assets several years before her death.”
“What? Why?” I interrupted, completely shocked that a woman with a seven-thousand square foot home and a hefty bank account would find it necessary to do so. She still had everything when Brad left after high school.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know the specifics of why, just that she needed the money for something. But I can assure you that at the time of her passing, Mrs. Montgomery had nothing left to give. Only a single life insurance policy–”
“For how much?”
“Two hundred-thousand. But your client wasn’t the beneficiary.”
That stunned me for a moment. “Not the beneficiary? Then who was?”
“This would be my second correction. Contrary to what he may believe, your client is not the only remaining heir in the Montgomery family. Bradley didn’t receive notice about an inheritance because he didn’t receive one. It was all given to the other heir. The sober one.”
My eyes narrowed. “So you do know Brad then?” It was a small town, so it didn’t surprise me. It made me wonder if Mr. St. Claire recognized my name as well.
“I remember him, yes. And I figured he’d be by one day to collect, but I never figured he’d be able to afford an attorney when the time came.”
“I was going to be paid using the inheritance,” I mumbled, leaning back in the chair, slightly annoyed this wasn’t going my way.
“And now you’re working pro bono. Rookie mistake. Always collect a deposit up front,” he said dryly.
“He’s a close friend,” I replied slowly, trying to keep my tone in check.
“One you’d do well to lose. That Bradley is bad news. Sour apple. Even his grandmother wanted nothing to do with him once he was gone.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. No one knew Brad like I did. No one witnessed how he fell apart at the seams. He’d lost both parents before the age of ten, his mom to cancer at three and his dad to a brain aneurism later. Living with his grandmother was difficult because she had a hard time looking at an exact replica of the son she’d lost. He put his whole heart into Mel and she dealt the death blow to what was left of a bleeding heart. The poor guy just wanted someone to love him, but he just kept losing. After Mel, he just slipped off the grid, hiding himself from everyone but me.
So no one knew what a mess he was. And it seemed no one even cared. All they remembered was the drunk he turned into.
“So who is this mysterious heir that’s never seen the light of day before?”
Mr. St. Claire just tipped his head to the side, glaring my way, questioning my reasoning. “Oh, come on. Brad has a relative out there he’s not aware of? Don’t you think he has a right to know who that is?”
“Can’t say I envy the man for who he’s about to inherit as a relative. Hopefully, he’ll be smart enough to wipe his hands clean of him like Joyce did.” After an additional grumble, he added, “But, that’ll be his choice. His name is Jake Montgomery.”
“There are no fucking Jakes in my family,” Brad barked over the phone.
“Think real hard man. Are you sure your father didn’t have a brother or a cousin or something? This Jake guy could be fifty-plus.”
“I’m telling you, I’ve never once heard of any Jake!”
“Alright then,” I replied calmly, rubbing my eyebrows again. This time it was Brad giving me the headache, what with the string of slurred expletives he shouted when I told him what money his grandmother had wasn’t left to him. I sighed heavily, then added, “Guess we’re going to have to research your genealogy a bit. Find out when Jake Montgomery came into existence.”
He groaned on the other end. I glanced at the dash of my car. One-fifteen and Brad was already on his way to plasterville. I really wished one of those rehab centers would’ve stuck. I hated hearing him this way. “Look, man. Give me a few days to figure this out. If we can find out who this Jake is, maybe he’ll be a halfway decent man and share some of the money with you. No promises though.”
Brad cursed again and muttered a thanks before the line went dead.
This wasn’t going to be fun. If Brad hadn’t been a close friend whose life I wouldn’t love to see turned around for the better, I would’ve walked away at this point. Unfortunately, he was, so I had to push forward.
I had no desire to do this on my phone and free WiFi in a small town wasn’t going to be easy to find. Guessing the library was probably my best bet, I drove over and went in. WiFi wasn’t even in their terminology there, so I had to pay to use one of their library computers. Freaking thing was barely faster than dial-up.
After three hours of neck-breaking browsing through ancestry and genealogy websites, I came up with absolutely nothing. Utterly exhausted and not wanting to retire to the motel for the night, I ended up back in the parking lot of Sully’s, where I sat in the car for several minutes wondering if she was in there, and if I should even go in to find out. Why did she have to work at the only bar in town that served food? I suppose I could’ve driven outside Berryville to find a place I’d actually eat at, but why the hell should I go out of my way because she fucked up?
Screw it. I was starving.
A quick scan of the room when I entered settled my nerves. The only girl behind the counter was most definitely not Mel. Still, I chose a round table in the far corner, hoping to go unnoticed. I really wasn’t up to fighting tonight. And I sure as hell di
dn’t want to get close enough to smell her intoxicating perfume again.
A blonde named Chelsie took my order and several minutes later I was stuffing my face with a burger and fries. My intention of going incognito was ruined when a guy my age came in and made his way over. “No way,” he said loudly, slapping his hands together and turning to pose as a batter, an invisible bat swinging in the air.
Matt Delaney. Shortstop. It took me a moment since his face was rounder and he’d put on a few pounds in the gut. I stood up, slapped one hand in his and smacked his shoulder with the other. “How you doing man?” I asked excitedly. It was nice to see a friendly face my age for once.
“Good. Can’t complain,” he replied as he took the barstool opposite me. Chelsie swung by and asked me if I wanted another beer – I did – and confirmed with Matt that he wanted his usual – he did. And by the way he was checking her out as she walked away, he had a little more than a drink on his mind.
“So what are you doing here, bro? Last I heard, you took that baseball scholarship to UT.”
“I did. Just graduated this past December. Now I’m in limbo until I begin law school next fall.”
Matt scrunched his nose. “Law school? The hell?”
“I know, I know. Believe me, your opinion is nothing new. So what are you doing here? Did you ever leave?”
“Nah. Went to work at the factory with my dad. It’s all good though. Pays well enough.” My mind was groaning at that. Paid well enough in this small town equaled crappy pay in the city. Good thing Berryville had a low cost of living. “So what’aya doing back in town?” he asked. “Didn’t your family move?”
I told him more about what I had been up to while we nursed our new beers, and how I was here to help out our old pitcher. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t heard from Brad since graduation, but he was familiar with the rumor mill and the downward spiral Brad had been on since.
“That sucks man. I can’t even imagine my grandma not hooking me up when she checked out. I mean, it wasn’t much, but it was something, ya’ know?”
I caught Chelsie’s attention across the room and motioned for two more beers. “I have no idea what went through that old woman’s mind when she did that. And I have no fucking clue who Jake is or how to go about finding him.”
“Well, maybe the ol’ bat felt guilty or something. Maybe this Jake guy is some kid she had a long time ago that she gave up or never told anyone about. It would make sense that she’d leave him some money if she felt bad about it.”
“Dude,” I said, highly impressed that a guy we nicknamed Dingbat Matt in high school came up with that, “that’s entirely plausible. And maybe if she had that kid here, there’d be a record of it at the hospital.” I checked the time on my phone and grumbled a curse. Already past five on a Friday. No way in hell I’d be lucky enough to find someone still working in their records department.
Chelsie returned then, lingering behind as Matt asked her what she was going to do for the weekend. I grabbed the glass and took a sip, immediately spewing the rank liquid from my mouth. Looking down, I now noticed that the liquid wasn’t amber in color, but dingy brown. “What the fuck is this?” I croaked.
“Dishwater,” the waitress casually replied, like she gave it out so often I should’ve known better. “She said you needed to have your mouth washed out.” With that, the blonde turned on her heels and went to bother another table. I suddenly didn’t give a rat’s ass about learning more about her.
My eyes darted toward the bar, where sure enough, Mel was leaning over the counter smirking my way. She cocked her eyebrows as a way of baiting me on, trying to get me to call her out on it. I set the glass down and just glared. She pushed away from the bar and flicked me off as she made her way along, disappearing behind the swinging door to the kitchen. Curious singles scattered across the main bar turned to figure out who she was addressing, so I returned my attention to Matt.
“I think that’s my cue.”
Matt lightly chuckled. “I see you and Melanie have reacquainted yourselves.”
“Yeah. Good times,” I sassed. He watched with amusement as I pulled a twenty from my wallet. “Good to see you, man,” I said, slapping him on the back of the shoulder again.
“You too,” he replied, but his eyes were back on the blonde.
On the bright side, coming here gave me a new lead. On the not-so-bright side, I couldn’t do anything about it until the hospital records room reopened on Monday. At least I could go home for the weekend and sleep in a real bed though. One that was in a room that didn’t have stagnant air that ripped my stomach linings a new one. One far away from a girl who was infesting herself too deeply within my mind.
“So why did we just pull the old dishwater trick on that man candy? ‘Cause there ain’t a whole lot of guys in town that look like that.”
“You want him? You can have him. He prefers the noncommittal type.”
Her eyes lit up as she said, “Ooh. That is my type. Just sex and none of that emotional crap.”
I chuckled as best I could. “Chelsie, are you sure you don’t possess a Y chromosome somewhere in your DNA? You can be such a guy sometimes.”
She just laughed and ambled off, already exaggerating her hip sway in tight faded jeans before passing through the kitchen door. She knew how to bring in the tips, I’d give her that. I followed her in, offering the male customers zero sway with my hips. I made my way to the back room, which was a small office I shared with Sully on the two days he actually came in each week. Sully was mostly retired, a big old man that had earned his weathered appearance through the years. He actually blamed each wrinkle on a different woman – and the scars on their boyfriends. I gathered the paperwork on the desk and stacked them neatly off to the side. I could deal with them tomorrow since it was one of my twelve-hour shift days. I grabbed my purse, made sure my cook, Marcus, and my bar hands, Chelsie and Tracey, had everything they needed for a Friday night, then hightailed it out of there.
My air-conditioner was still on the fritz on my ten-year-old Toyota Camry, but luckily, my house was only a three minute drive away. Still, summer was just a few months away, and in the state of Texas, you didn’t want to be without. I really needed to take on an extra shift each week to get that repaired before the heat began to stick. I pulled into the driveway of my twelve-hundred foot cottage, grabbed my purse and headed next door to Susie’s. For some reason her four cats preferred my yard to hers, and I clicked my tongue and cooed, trying to get the two calico furballs I saw to follow. Damn things kept eating my lizards and leaving dead birds on my porch.
Jogging up the cement steps, I knocked loudly on the metal screen door before passing through. “Coming!” she called from the back end of the house. Next thing I knew, my little guy was skipping down the hallway towards me, the front of his shirt damp, a red cape tied around his neck. I couldn’t help but smile at his eager face, blond hair bouncing with every bound. I bent slightly at the hips, knowing I was about to be slammed into.
He smashed into me, hugging my waist for a split second and crying out, “Mommy!” before skipping continuously around the living room sofa. Susie was right behind him, drying her hands.
“Hi,” she greeted, flashing a tired smile. I knew that exhausted look well, but neither of us carried it well, I feared. “Sorry. Chocolate milk incident. I tried but I couldn’t get it all out, so you’ll want to treat his shirt tonight if you want to salvage it.”
“It’s alright. Everything he owns is stained with one nasty thing or another.”
Lightly shrugging, she said, “Yeah, well, boys will do that.” She sat down at the steel diner’s table that looked like it was from the 1950’s and laid the towel aside. Susie was looking more worse for the wear these days. She was only in her forties but her constant sickness made her look more like fifties. I wasn’t sure what she had because she was such a private person, but I suspected some type of immunodeficiency disorder.
“You doing okay, Susie?” I ask
ed. “Because if you need to take a break from babysitting, I’m sure I could take on more hours at the bar and be able to afford daycare.”
By the look on her face, I was actually worried I might’ve offended her. “Don’t be silly. That little boy is what keeps me going each day. Besides, I’d never get my exercise without him.” She patted my hand as if I were the one who needed consoling. “Don’t you worry about me, Melanie. I may be a tired, old cat lady but seeing that smile of his gives me a reason to get out of bed every morning.” She stood up, her hand supporting her back, her face fighting the pain, and made her way to the counter to pour herself a glass of sweet tea. “Besides, you don’t get to spend enough time with that little cutie as it is. Now go on,” she instructed, waving me off. “You and Superman go make a night of it.”
I wasn’t about to argue with a woman that tended to go rescue a cat every time she felt a little moody – the eco-stability of my flower beds were suffering enough as it was. So I said thank you and goodnight and chased my little superhero all the way to the bath, readying myself to spend another night on the sofa watching yet another round of superhero cartoons.
Alright, I wasn’t ashamed to admit that since I finished school last December and wasn’t going to qualify for student housing again until the fall, I was crashing with my parents in Dallas. Yep. I was twenty-three and still living with my parents. Sure, it put a damper on my sex life, but the home cooked meals more than made up for it. However, it also put me on the front line, and I suffered from my mom’s constant attempts to know every little detail of my personal life. Helping her clear the table and clean up the kitchen, I knew it was just an ambush waiting to happen.
“So, tell me honey. Why do you have to go back? Didn’t I hear you tell your father that you found the lawyer for Brad?”