Hot Southern Nights

by Gen Griffin

  “Exactly,” Trish confirmed. “He's the kind of guy who I'd check out from all the way across the room at a night club and then not make eye contact with if I accidentally bump into him on my way to the bathroom.”

  Gracie laughed.

  “I'm not kidding,” Trish said.

  “I know,” Gracie replied. “Why do you think I'm laughing?”

  Trish couldn't help smiling. “We're talking about a guy who taught me how to shoot his gun the first night I met him.”

  “And proposed to you the next day.”

  “He said the way I held his gun turned him on,” Trish said.

  “Tell me he didn't actually say that,” Gracie snorted.

  “He absolutely did say that.”

  “Oh God. David has no game.” Gracie was giggling hard now.

  “I know. That's what scares me the most. He's not like Addison or Curtis. He doesn't have a line he's playing. He doesn't have a game. He's not trying to be something or prove something or talk his way into my pants. I told him that I wasn't planning on having sex with him for a very long time and even that didn't seem to bother him.”

  “David could care less about sex,” Gracie said. “He's not worried about getting laid. He has plenty of standing offers for cheap and casual sex.”

  “Oh. That's lovely.”

  “He turns them all down,” Gracie replied with a smirk. “He's a much better guy than Addy. Really.”

  Trish laughed. “I actually do like David a lot, Gracie. I'm just not real sure about marrying him. Mostly because I really don't know him.”

  “And you were supposed to spend today getting to know him, but he's not here,” Gracie filled in the blanks.

  “He's off dealing with a dead body the cops found in his burned down house,” Trish pointed out. “Don't get me wrong, as excuses for ditching me go, it's got originality. But between this and Kerry's claims that David is a murderer, I have to admit that I'm starting to wonder?”

  “David isn't a murderer and he didn't kill Casey. I don't know whose body Tate found today, but I know David well enough to know he didn't put it there. Even if he had killed someone, he wouldn't be that stupid.”

  “I'm not sure that's the vote of confidence I was looking for,” Trish mused out loud.

  It was Gracie's turn to laugh. “Okay. Okay. I get you. David's a good guy but the Breedloves have always had kind of a crappy reputation around here. After David's dad died, he got a bunch of tattoos and really went out of his way to play up that bad boy reputation. He's mellowed out a lot in the last few years but Kerry is still fixated on the asshole that David used to be when he was in high school.”

  “David bullied him, didn't he?” Trish asked.

  “He had a temper.”

  Trish raised one eyebrow skeptically at Gracie.

  “Fine. I honestly don't know,” Gracie said with a humph. She rolled onto her stomach on the bed and propped her chin on her arms. “I'm three years younger than David and Cal. When I was a freshman, David was a senior. I was a pretty simple kid. I never thought much about David beyond that he was basically Cal's brother and therefore he was family. He always treated me the same way. You want to know what I remember most about David from high school?”

  “What?” Trish asked because she was supposed to.

  “I always woke up too late to eat breakfast before I had to go to class. By the time first period ended I was always, and I do mean always, absolutely starving. I remember that David had a class in the same hallway as my first period class during my first semester of freshman year. I remember that I was always really happy when I saw him coming in the hallway because I knew he would give me money for the snack machines. I probably cost him $1,000 in cherry cokes and chocolate bars that year but he just kept handing me money whenever I whined. If I whined really good, he'd drive me down to the diner for breakfast during second period. We'd skip class and go eat goulash and no one ever said anything to us even though everyone knew we were supposed to be at school.”

  “Oh fun.”

  “It was fun. That's what I remember about David from high school. We had fun. We skipped a lot of classes.”

  “I was a senior when my step-sister was a freshman,” Trish said. “We used to do pretty much the same thing. Skip class and go get iced coffees or spend a couple of hours poking through the shoe stores at the mall.” Trish smiled at the memories and then let the smile fade as a pang of regret hit her hard. She missed Nellie, but they would never really be sisters again. Trish's relationship with Nellie was another casualty of her marriage to Curtis.

  “See. You know then.” Gracie continued talking, unaware of the painful memories the conversation had just brought up. “I remember a former friend of mine, one of the other girls in my class, told me once that David was a jerk and a bully. She was dating this annoying kid named Ben who used to cry all the time. She said David had thrown her boyfriend into the trash dumpster behind the gym. I laughed and she got mad at me. She told me I shouldn't be friends with him because he was so mean to the other kids. I called her a liar. David wasn't ever mean to me and so I never worried about whether he was mean to anyone else.”

  “He loves you,” Trish guessed.

  “As a little sister,” Gracie elaborated. “Cal says David could be wicked cruel back then but I don't remember him being mean. Ever. I don't know. Maybe I was blind to it because I always felt completely and totally safe with him.”

  Trish mulled that over for several moments and then nodded. “I can see that. Feeling safe with him, I mean.”

  “You feel safe with him?” Gracie asked almost randomly.

  Trish thought for a second. “Yes. Actually I do. Kind of crazy considering I've only just met him.”

  “Not crazy,” Gracie disagreed. “You have good judgment when it comes to people.”

  “Not that good a judge. I did spend the last year of my life married to Curtis. Look how that turned out.”

  “We all have our screw-ups.” Gracie sighed and stretched out.

  “I need a drink,” Trish said. “Its been a long, long couple of days.”

  “You want to go drink?” Gracie asked. “I have a bottle of tequila and a really nice blender out at Cal's houseboat. We can go to the creek and spend the rest of the day laying out in the sunshine and drinking ourselves into oblivion.”

  Trish considered Gracie for a minute and then smiled at the other girl. “When can we go?” She asked.

  Gracie stood up. “How fast can you put your swimsuit on get in the truck?”

  “I don't own a swimsuit,” Trish told her.

  “You can borrow one of mine.” Gracie headed out the door.

  Chapter 30

  “Dammit David,” Frank Chasson crossed his arms over his beer gut and scowled at David with all the venom of an irritated uncle. “Your ass would be in hot water if he'd been on duty instead of disobeying my direct instructions.”

  “He accused me of murder. Again.” David glared right back at Frank. “I told you to keep him away from me.”

  “Don't blame me for this. I told him to stay at the office and work cold cases.” Frank shook his head in obvious disgust. “Now I have to take him to the emergency room.”

  “I didn't hit him that hard.” David could see Kerry in the passenger's seat of Frank's truck, holding his jaw and moaning.

  “You knocked three of his teeth out,” Tate said. “Not that I entirely blame you for doing it, but you may have dislocated his jaw.”

  “We don't know that for sure,” Frank sighed at Tate.

  “You do remember I have my EMT certifications, right?” Tate eyed Frank with some irritation.

  “Ah shit. I'd forgotten. You sure its that bad?” Frank asked.

  “I can't tell.” Tate shrugged his broad shoulders. “Breedlove may not have meant to hit him that hard, but the angle was a killer. He couldn't have done much more damage if he'd tried.”

  “I wasn't trying,” David muttered. “He just pissed me of
f.”

  “He pisses everyone off,” Addison chimed in. “Who here hasn't been tempted to take a swing on him?”

  No one raised their hand. Frank coughed and shook his head again. He looked directly at Addison and David. “Y'all can't just keep beating him up.”

  “Fire him and we won't have to,” Addison said.

  “I'm working on it,” Frank told Addison. “Believe me.”

  “Why is he still here?”

  “As tempting as it might seem, I can't just fire him for being an idiot. He's going to sue the county just as soon as he gets a termination notice. Y'all are all aware of his intentions. He's made them quite clear.”

  “So?”

  “He has to be careful about how he fires him,” Tate explained so that Frank didn't have to. “The way he fires Kerry is going to be the difference between a multi-million dollar lawsuit and a quiet dismissal.”

  “Correct,” Frank nodded at Tate.

  “What can we do to speed up the process?” Addison asked, clearly unhappy with the explanation he'd been given.

  “I don't want y'all to do anything. The more involved you are in his screw ups, the more likely it is that he'll blame us for them.” Frank tugged on the thin gray hairs of his mustache. “Y'all just focus on behaving your own selves. God knows the two of you have a serious talent for getting into trouble.”

  “No shit.” David sighed.

  Frank looked hard at David for a moment. “Son, if you have any idea as to whose corpse Tate just found, I'd greatly appreciate if you would go ahead and be honest with me now. On or off the record. I don't care which.”

  “Honestly?” David frowned at Frank.

  Frank nodded encouragingly.

  “I honest to God haven't got a fucking clue,” David said. “Believe me when I say that I wish I did.”

  “You sure its not Casey?” Frank said the words so low under his breath that David could barely hear him.

  “Regardless of what the Possum Creek rumor mill has to say, I didn't kill Casey Black and I don't know where her body is.” David took a deep breath and willed himself not to start yelling. “Even if I had killed Casey, do you really think I would be stupid enough to keep her corpse in my house?”

  Frank stared at him for a moment longer and then shook his own head “I reckon I better get Kerry to the hospital before he sues me for denying him medical care. Y'all call me directly if you think of any possible identities on that corpse. The sooner we put a name to that body, the sooner we can get Kerry off your back.”

  “Will do,” Addison promised.

  Frank turned and began walking towards his truck. He was almost there when David called out to him.

  “Hey Frank.”

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “I want that piece of trash hauled off my property immediately.” David pointed at Kerry's Audi.

  Frank glared at the expensive convertible for a long moment and then shrugged his shoulders. “His personal car ain't county property. You want it hauled off, it’s your problem. Have Addy write an abandoned property report and haul it to Baker County Impound.” Frank opened the driver’s side door of his own truck and climbed in. A moment later the big diesel was heading back towards the highway.

  “Damn that sounds like a lot of work,” Addison frowned at David. “I don't want to drive all the way up to Baker County today.”

  David considered his options for a moment and then shrugged. “Me neither.”

  “We could just leave it here,” Addison gestured at the burned out property. “Not like its going to be in anyone's way.”

  David smiled unexpectedly. “You got any crime scene tape?”

  “Yeah. Three whole rolls in my tool box. I don't use the stuff much.”

  “Lets mark this place off. No one goes in or out without permission,” David said as he headed towards Addison's truck. “And that includes anyone who might be willing to pull Kerry's precious car out of here.”

  “Oh man. That's evil.” Addison grinned at David. “Good idea.”

  “Y'all are too much,” Tate shook his head at them. “The man is already an epic failure at his job. He tries to do good and he's still going to be fired because he's incompetent. Y'all got to go out of your way to make things worse for him?”

  “He goes out of his way to make life worse for us,” Addison replied as David tossed him the crime scene tape. “The least we can do is return the favor.”

  Chapter 31

  “Wow. I'm officially impressed.” Trish stood at the edge of the creek and stared at the natural deep blue spring-fed swimming hole in front of her. Thick, green trees surrounded the entire swimming area and completely obscured it from view from almost any direction except the narrow path they had just walked down.“We have this place completely to ourselves?”

  “No one else has access,” Gracie explained as she walked over the the houseboat that was tethered to several thick cypress trees. She stepped onto the deck of the boat and tugged two fat black inner-tubes loose from a rack. She rolled one towards Trish. “Cal's Pappy owns over a thousand acres of land out here. Most of it is used for a hunting lease but not all of it. He divided off a hundred acres and cut it into 20 acre chunks right here along the creek. He offered one to each of his grandkids when they graduated high school. They could either take the land or the cash value of the land when it was appraised 15 years ago.”

  “Fifteen years ago?” Trish blinked.

  “Cal's the only one who took the property. Neither April Lynne or Leroy wanted it. Leroy bought himself a little cottage on the edge of town with the cash. I don't know what April Lynne did with hers but she still lives with her mother. Probably always will. Just as well in my opinion. Working with her is bad enough. Living next door would be downright painful.”

  “I take it you don't get along.”

  “I already told you, I don't do so hot with other girls.” Gracie dropped her own inner-tube on the edge of the creek bank and then headed back into the houseboat. She waved for Trish to follow her. Trish did.

  The interior of the boat consisted of a queen size bed, a battered floral upholstered couch, a tiny kitchen and a puny bathroom that didn't have a door to separate it from the rest of the living area. Gracie was pulling bottles out of the small, old refrigerator. Trish recognized the makings of a very potent margarita as Gracie dumped them into the blender with a load of ice. The machine whirred for several minutes and then Gracie deposited the contents into two huge thick plastic tumblers. She handed one off to Trish. “Drink up.”

  Trish took a tentative sip and blinked. “Nice, but strong.”

  “I'm good like that,” Gracie replied as she headed back out of the boat. “Thanks for coming out here with me.”

  “Thanks for inviting me,” Trish said. “This spring really is beautiful. I can't believe no one comes down the creek to it.”

  “Too far of a boat ride. Pappy's made it so that there aren't any public landings or boat launches for almost 15 miles in any direction.” Gracie spread her towel down on an old wooden chaise lounge that was resting on the creek bank next to the houseboat. She gestured for Trish to do the same with the second chaise lounge. “The only way anyone is getting down here is by coming through our property or because they have access to the hunting lease. Most of the guys on the lease don't bother coming down here because the boat landings on the lease all require four wheel drive to access. Too much trouble.”

  “Sounds intentional.”

  “It is.” Gracie slid into her inner-tube and then kicked off the bank, careful to keep her drink upright. “I can't wait until Cal finishes building the house.”

  “I can't believe he's built that humongous house all by himself,” Trish said, recalling the monster of a brick building near the front of the property. They had driven past the house on their way down to the creek.

  “David and Addison helped.”

  “I can't believe he's gotten that much work out of Addison,” Trish mused as she wade
d into the cold water. The temperature was frigid but it felt good against her hot, sweaty skin. “David, I can see because he clearly never stops. Addison is lazy.”

  Gracie laughed. “Addison is a mooch, if you haven't figured that out by now. Cal uses it to his advantage. Addy has to work to get anything out of Cal these days. You'd be surprised at how effective that approach has been. We're considering making it permanent. Install a roof, get a cookie.”

  Trish laughed. “What do you use to bribe David?”

  “Nothing.” Gracie slipped down under the water briefly and then resurfaced with her hair soaking wet. “David knows how awkward it is for us to be living with Cal's folks. Not that Cal's parents aren't great. Living with them is just kind of weird for me and David knows it.”

  “He said something to me about you the other night.” Trish unexpectedly recalled David talking about having to dress Gracie. “He told me you used to live with him.”

  Gracie nodded. “I did. Briefly. I was trying to prove a point to my mother.”

  “I'm almost afraid to ask what kind of point could be proved to your mother by moving with David?”

  “First tell me what possessed you to move to Possum Creek,” Gracie countered. “I can't fathom any reason why a seemingly sane girl would willingly move in with Crazy Grover.”

  Trish considered and then shrugged. She didn't see any harm in telling Gracie the truth. Addison already knew all of it anyways. “Grover is my biological grandfather, but I'd never met him until I moved here. My mother used to call and check on him once a month but she never even invited me to so much as talk to him until we got a call from Sheriff Frank Chasson. He told my mother that someone needed to come down here and help Grover out because he was no longer safe living by himself.”

  “You volunteered?” Gracie asked in disbelief.

  “No one warned me that he liked to shoot at unarmed civilians.” Trish ran her finger down the thick scar on her arm. “Besides, Curtis and I had been having issues for awhile. A week before Frank called, Curtis shoved me off the bow of his boat. Everyone thought it was an accident and I went along with that story because I didn't want to admit that I felt his hand on my shoulder when I went overboard.”