Famous in a Small Town Copyright © 2013 by Diana Anderson
Cover Copyright © 2013 by Diana Anderson
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Books by Diana Anderson
Faded Rose
(A Southern Country Novel) series
Happy Valley
Mississippi Gambler
(An Entering Southern Country Novel) trilogy
Famous in a Small Town
A Romance Novella
A Vanilla Christmas
Coming Spring of 2014
Remember When
www.DianaAnderson.net
Famous in a Small Town
An Entering Southern Country Novel
by
Diana Anderson
Since God forgives us, who are we not to forgive?
D. J. Anderson
to my best friend who is the love of my life, my husband
Thanks to all the people in my life who have supported me, and a special thanks to the most generous person I know, Roy.
1
Long bright rays filtered through the trees as the early morning sun crested over the horizon. The mid-south had sweltered from sunrise to sunset the last week of June and this morning was no exception. The air was heavy with humidity, and not a breeze could be felt.
A cloud of gnats hovered around Virgil Neal’s head. “There ain’t a blasted thing out here. Don’t know why I even bother with it,” Virgil said and swatted a mosquito that drew blood from his neck. He glanced down at his palm, and then wiped the smashed bug across the front of his faded and stained army green T-shirt. It left a bloody streak. He walked on, but thought he’d be better off back at the house than traipse through these God forsaken woods. In the hours before dawn, he’d stumbled upon an old washtub someone had dumped off on the side of the road near a creek. He thought later on, he’d come back in his truck for it. He’d had an idea to make a minnow vat, and it looked like just the thing he’d need for that project. He’d have to grab it before one of his neighbors did.
The squirrels chirped and chattered. Their incessant noise had sounded like they were making fun of him. Of course, that’s what Wanda Gail would do if he came back empty handed. He’d have taken out a few squirrels, but he had deer on his mind for days since a week ago his neighbor, Carl Gentry, had gotten a ten point buck. Besides, to shoot a squirrel with a deer rifle was a waste of money. Shells of that caliber were expensive, and too, there wouldn’t be much left of a squirrel. Although deer hunting season was months away, he didn’t care. It was his property, and he’d damn well do as he pleased.
He’d thought about building a deer stand. Now that’d be the thing to do. He could bring a cooler, with beer and some sandwiches on ice. Hell, even his girly magazine. He chuckled at his own thoughts.
He neared the fence line. The Gentrys’ place was just across the road. No need to go any further. Virgil stopped to catch his breath before he made his way back to the trailer. He leaned back against a large oak tree, rested his gun alongside of him, and removed his cap from his graying black head of hair. Sweat ran down his face and dripped off the end of his nose and his chin. He scratched his head and then grabbed his short shirt sleeve, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He snarled his nose and sniffed under his arm pit.
“Whew!”
He put his cap back on his head. Something moved on his forearm, and he looked down at it. He flicked the tick off of his arm with his finger and then took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He tapped one out, put it between his lips, and reached down to take his lighter out of the front pocket of his camouflage jeans. Twigs snapped under foot. His hand hovered over his pants pocket. The cigarette dangled from his lips as he scanned the area in front of him. His eyes stopped on movement about fifty feet away. He eased his hand down for his rifle and brought it up to his shoulder. He viewed the large cluster of briars and brush through the scope. A white-tailed buck stepped out of the brush into an open area under a tree. The gun would have slipped from his hands if he hadn’t gripped it tighter. He blinked several times.
The cigarette fell from his mouth and landed near his boot. “Son of a bitch,” he mouthed. Virgil counted to himself. Sixteen velvet points.
The buck took a step in his direction. Virgil needed a side angle to make a clean shot through the heart. His trigger finger trembled.
Wait for him.
The buck lowered his head and nibbled leaves on a small sapling. His head popped up, ears perked, and his white tail twitched. After a few moments, he took a step and then turned. The move had given Virgil a shot. Virgil steadied the rifle against his shoulder and lined up the cross-hairs in the scope against the buck’s lower chest behind his front leg. He squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Virgil swore under his breath as he eased his finger back and flipped off the safety. He put his finger back to the trigger. The buck had moved a few more steps. Virgil lined the cross-hairs again. The buck flipped up his white tail and bolted.
“What the … !”
Leaves crunched and twigs snapped. Virgil lowered his rife and looked around the area. He spotted two men as they plodded through the woods. He took a step away from the tree to vent his rage. The two men were dressed in black suits. One was taller than the other. The shorter of the two wore a ball cap. Virgil stepped back out of sight.
He tilted his head and wondered what to make of it. The taller one carried a large duffel bag and the other one a shovel. Virgil stepped back behind the tree out of sight and then peered around the tree.
The one with the shovel stopped and said something as he pointed toward the ground. They stood where the buck had been. The one with the shovel handed it to the larger man, and he began to dig. The smaller one glanced around the area and then pulled out a device from his suit jacket pocket and tapped it with his index finger.
Is that a GPS? Damn, I gotta get me one of those, Virgil thought.
It would come in handy when he hunted down around Sardis Lake. He’d damn near gotten lost one year and had gotten shot at too. Virgil didn’t care for the orange safety jackets and never had worn them. No need of it when he was on his own property. Nobody else had any business on his property.
The man shoveled leaves and soil. When he’d finished, he dropped the shovel on the ground and picked up the duffel bag. He chunked it into the hole, picked the shovel back up, and covered the hole with dirt.
That bag’s too small for a body. Unless it’s been chopped up. Virgil grimaced at the thought.
He squinted as he tried to get a better look at the two men. The one with the shovel was about as tall as Virgil’s five-ten, but the guy must hit the weight bench, but not at Big and Slim’s. Nobody down there owned a suit. The other guy was shorter, built sissy like, and looked fragile. He couldn’t see the shorter one very well because of the baseball cap; however, the taller one had black hair and looked to Virgil to be a Mexican.
Sombitches come on my land. Probably drugs.
He snarled his upper lip. His younger brother, Jimmy Ray, had gotten blown to a million pieces back a few months for manufacturing methamphetamines. Virgil had loaned him five hundred dollars for down payment on a used two bedroom trailer house that he’d moved onto Virgil’s property. He never saw a dime of it again. Virgil gritted his teeth as he remembered all those Mexi
cans and other scum in and out of Jimmy Ray’s trailer at all hours of the day and night. Hell, it wasn’t hard to see what went on there. Jimmy Ray lived not more than thirty feet away from his own trailer. When the blast went off, it had knocked the kitchen window out of the front of Virgil’s trailer. He and his old lady, Wanda, were right in the middle of some afternoon delight. He chuckled to himself as he remembered. He’d just come and thought that was the best he’d ever had until he’d heard the sirens.
Jimmy Ray wouldn’t have even known how to make drugs if he hadn’t been shown by a Mexican. It wouldn’t have been long before that old gal he was messing with would have brought all her relatives in. Ain’t that how they do it?
He focused on the two men again. The man tossed the last shovel of dirt and turned to walk away. The short guy stepped behind him.
Virgil seethed as stepped out from the tree and put the butt plate of his rifle to his shoulder to take aim. He sighted in the guy with the shovel and lined the crosshairs to his head. Before he could pull the trigger—CABOOM!
Virgil jerked his head up. The taller one timbered over face down on the ground. Virgil’s heart pounded. His eyes darted until he found the shorter guy. He watched him shove his weapon into the pocket of his pants, and then reached down, and picked up the shovel.
Virgil stepped back behind the tree and flatted his body against it. He strained his ears. The shovel sliced through the leaves and the soil. Virgil stayed in that spot, afraid to breathe, for what seemed thirty minutes or more. He’d never thought of himself as a coward until then, and he it embarrassed him. Shit, he had a damned deer rifle. What the hell did he have to be scared of?
He took a deep breath and dared a peek around the tree. Nobody was there. He narrowed his eyes, stepped away from the tree, and scanned the area. He caught his breath when he heard a twig snap behind him. He put his finger on the trigger, lifted the gun, and spun around toward the sound. A squirrel leaped from the ground and onto the tree beside him. Virgil jumped back. It stopped at eye level and watched him.
“I ought to kill you, you sombitch.”
The squirrel chattered and scampered up the tree.
Virgil glanced around the woods and didn’t see hide nor hair of the short Mexican. He eased away from the tree and light stepped his way over to where the men had been. He looked down at the ground at the makeshift grave next to the place where the duffel bag had been buried. The smell of fresh overturned soil was in the air. He stepped in front of the smaller of the two, knelt down, and laid his rifle on the ground. He stuck his hands in the soil and shoveled the dirt away. After he dug about a half of a foot down, he unearthed the handles. He tugged the bag loose from the soil and pulled it out of the ground.
From the corner of his eye he saw movement. He glanced toward the grave. He squealed and his heart leaped as he jerked himself backwards and landed on his butt. He gaped wide-eyed at a hand as it reached up through the soft soil. The fingers formed into a claw. After a moment, it relaxed and stayed motionless. Virgil eased up and sat on his heels but didn’t take his eyes off of the hand. It didn’t move. He looked around him and spotted a long twig. He picked it up, eyed the hand, and then poked it. It still didn’t move. After he had poked it several times, he was satisfied. He dropped the twig, grasped the zipper of the duffle bag, and slid it open. His eyes widened, and his mouth gaped. He felt his heart leap in his chest.
“Sweet mother of God!” He scanned the area and then shot to his feet. He reached down, grabbed his rifle, and the duffel bag. He glanced around once more and then headed back toward his trailer at a brisk pace. Every few steps, he looked over his shoulder. He hoped the short Mexican didn’t come back for the duffel bag until he was out of the woods.
2
Raven Sawyer’s fingers hovered over the keypad of her laptop as she waited for her brain to send some form of communication to her fingers. Her desk sat in front of a large window in her bedroom. She had a glorious view of Lower Manhattan’s skyscrapers in the distance against a vivid blue sky. Her coffee cup sat nearby with her third refill.
She picked up a pen, swiveled her chair around, and scanned the room. She tapped the pen on her lower lip as she tried to think about the next chapter, but all she could think about was her unmade bed and her clothes that she’d left scattered on the floor when she’d crawled into bed that night. She needed to clean house, but when she had an idea, housework had to wait. She had to get it all down and out of her head before it left her. Distractions were not on her to-do list.
The past few days, she’d had much uninterrupted time, and even to cook a meal was low on the list of things to do. A cold sandwich, or toast, or fruit had been her meals the past week. Her refrigerator was almost bare of necessities, but a trip to the grocery store would have to wait.
She swiveled her chair back around toward the desk.
The phone on her desk rang. With her eyes on the laptop screen, she reached for the receiver and brought it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Happy birthday!” a sing-song voice said.
Raven smiled. “Thanks, Becca!”
“I’ve got a birthday present for you.”
“Well, thanks, but you didn’t have to do that.”
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t get you this one.”
A small creased formed between Raven’s brows. “Okay. But I’m a bit confused.”
“Are you sitting down?” Rebecca asked.
“Yeah. What’s wrong?” Raven sat up straight. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, I just have some good news.”
“Oh, good. You scared me.” Raven breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve been sitting here, staring at a blank screen since four this morning.” Raven raked her fingers through her long black hair and glanced at the time on her laptop. Seven twenty-five. Rebecca had never called her this early.
“Four?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Raven said.
“Well, I’ve got good news, girl. We’ve got a hit.”
Raven rolled her chair back and looked out the window. She tried to not let her hopes soar too high.
“Raven, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sitting down?”
She took a deep breath. “I told you I was. Stop with the suspense and tell me.”
“Six figures.”
The phone slipped. Raven clutched it tighter. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t speak.
“You there?” Rebecca asked.
She took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she breathed.
Laughter came from the other end of the line. “Now, aren’t you glad you were sitting down?”
“Yeah. I doubt I’ll be standing for awhile.”
“I about wet my pants when I got the call. Switching genres was the best thing you ever did. Not that women’s contemporary fiction isn’t a hot topic, but you’re where the money is now, girl.”
Raven swiveled her chair around to face the wall that shelved her previous novels and scanned the volumes. Many she had written in high school and college but none were ever submitted to an agent until after she had graduated college.
Rebecca continued, “You know, you owe it all to your breakout novel?”
Raven’s eyes homed in on Shattered Lives. She felt a flutter in her chest.
“You’ve come a long way, Raven Sawyer,” Rebecca said. “A long way.”
Rebecca hadn’t a clue the distance Raven had traveled.
3
Callie sat on the edge of the pool, took in a slow deep breath, and then slid into the cool blue water for her morning laps. Her long blonde hair floated on the water as she glided across the swimming pool. She’d made it a ritual every morning since she’d moved into the house four years ago. She still had a firm body and intended to keep it that way. She didn’t want her husband to stray. It’d taken every effort to catch him. In his profession, there were too many young nurses around him every day. No doubt in her mind an
y one of them would love to get their claws hooked into him.
She made her ten laps and flipped over, and then floated on her back. The sunlight filtered through the branches of live oaks surrounding the two story estate. She smiled with pride. Her dark eyes took in its magnificence. She’d awakened to breakfast in bed every morning since she’d become Mrs. Theodore Wallace. She didn’t take that for granted, although she’d earned it. It’d taken her three years to snatch up the doctor, but it’d been well worth the wait. Six years since his first wife had died but Callie had been there to comfort him from day one. She counted her blessings every day and all his money as well.
His money. Him and his damned pre-nup.
He gave her a generous allowance every week; however, when he keeled over it would all be hers. He was sixty-seven, so it might not be too many more years. He’d been fit as a fiddle when they’d married, but with Maggie, the new housekeeper she’d hired six months ago to replace the nosey old bat, it shouldn’t take long. The tall black woman loved to cook with lard, and Ted had acquired a taste for her rich cuisine. Why, he’d put on ten pounds since she’d hired Maggie.
Callie had let Maggie know, right after the first meal that she’d prepared, to not serve her those fattening southern dishes if she planned on being employed very long at the Wallaces’ home. Callie had to watch her figure. Although it baffled Callie how anyone as thin as Maggie could cook such things. Although managing the large house had to be the reason she’d stayed so thin.
Before Callie’s first ship had come in, she had been employed as a housekeeper. She hated that job. But it had proved profitable in the long run. As luck would have it, she just happened to have a boss that couldn’t keep his hands off of her. Ted wasn’t like that though. She couldn’t imagine him and Maggie together. However, Maggie was attractive for her age. But Ted lacked sexual interest in Callie and that puzzled her. He hadn’t touched her in months. Callie didn’t care though as long as he kept his pants zipped around other women. Maybe she ought to keep an eye on Maggie though. She didn’t want her messing around with her husband or in her business.
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