Metsy Hingle - Deadline

If she were superstitious and believed in omens, she’d be on her way back to the airport now instead of traveling on the interstate after nine o’clock on a Saturday evening feeling exhausted and hungry. She couldn’t help wondering, yet again, if her decision to come to Mississippi and dig up the past had been a mistake.

At the sound of her cell phone ringing, Tess reached for her bag and retrieved the instrument. “Hello.”

“Hi, kiddo. How’s Mississippi?”

“Hi, Ronnie,” Tess said, pleased to hear the sound of her producer’s voice. “At the moment I’m on the interstate heading to Grady, so Mississippi consists of a stretch of concrete and glimpses of pine trees. How are things up there?”

“They’ve been better.”

Tess tensed. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. But I thought you should know the senator gave me an earful this afternoon. He is one unhappy man, and my guess is he’s going to put a call in to Stefanovich.”

“I’m sorry, Ronnie.”

“Like I said, it’s nothing I can’t handle. How’s it going on your end?”

“Not exactly the way I’d hoped. I hit a brick wall at the prison and I haven’t had any luck reaching the prosecutor or defense attorney yet. But you know me, the more obstacles I hit, the harder I go at it.”

“That’s the mark of a good reporter.”

“Or at least a stubborn one,” Tess replied. “Either way, I’m not giving up yet. I’m going to Grady now to do some digging there, and then I’ll try the prison and lawyers again.”

“You sure it’s worth all this effort?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, once I got past the senator’s angry bark and him ordering me to call you off this assignment, I listened to all his reasons for not wanting you to go nosing around in the past. And the truth is, a lot of it made sense. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

“No.” Which was the truth. She wasn’t sure. And more than once during the past week remembering how much she’d upset not only her grandfather, but her grandmother, she had wondered the same thing. “But whether it’s the right thing to do or not, it’s something I have to do, Ronnie. I need to find out the truth and whether Jody Burns really did kill my mother.”

“Then what? Will knowing be enough?”

“I don’t know. But it’s a start.”

“All right, kiddo. But if someone else was responsible and they made your father’s death look like a suicide, they aren’t going to like you nosing around. So you watch your back.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” she promised.

“You’d better. I gotta run. Make sure you stay in touch, kiddo.”

“I will. ’Night, Ronnie.”

After she ended the call, Tess felt more alone than ever. Despite what she’d told Ronnie, she couldn’t help wondering if she had made a mistake by coming to Mississippi. While she wanted the truth, and was prepared to deal with whatever she did discover, she hadn’t given a lot of thought to how her investigation would affect her grandparents—in particular her grandmother. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt either of them. Yet, didn’t they deserve to know the truth, too? she asked herself.

Deciding she was too tired and hungry to think straight, Tess stared at the exit signs. What should have been a three-hour drive from Jackson to Grady had turned into four-plus hours because she had left in the middle of rush-hour traffic. And based on the exit number, she still had a good half hour to go before she reached the exit to the Magnolia Guesthouse.

So when she spotted the sign indicating gas and rest-rooms at the next exit, Tess flicked on her turn signal. She’d stop, refuel and grab something to eat, she told herself as she took the dark winding off-ramp from the interstate that turned into a blacktopped country road. She stopped at the end of the exit, looked both ways and noted the light to her left had turned red. She had just pressed on the accelerator when a beat-up old pickup ran the light. Tess gasped as she slammed her foot on the brake. The pickup sped by, narrowly missing her car.

“So much for Southern manners,” she muttered before starting on her way. Five minutes later when she pulled the Mustang up to the gas pumps at the Quick Stop, Tess thought she spied the old pickup parked in front of the store. She considered going over and giving the owner a piece of her mind. And doing so, she reasoned, was not the way to start off her stay in Grady.

Lester De Roach saw the little red Ford Mustang pull up to the gas pump as he shut off his old truck at Bobby Ed’s Quick Stop. Some rich bitch using her daddy’s car, he figured, and chuckled to himself because he’d probably scared the hell out of her back there at the interstate.

Served her right, he thought. She probably didn’t know the first thing about what it was like to have to work for a living. Unlike himself who had been working his whole damn life. Climbing out of the truck, he ignored the Mustang and its driver and headed inside the convenience store to grab a six-pack of beer.

“How ya doing, Mr. Lester?” the kid behind the counter called out.

Lester ignored him and went straight to the cooler at the back of the store. He eyed the six-pack of beer in the cooler, and debated whether or not to spend the extra buck and buy his brewskies cold. He wiped the back of his oil-stained hand across his mouth, barely noticing the dry, cracked skin that never lost the scent of car grease, or the stiffness of the whiskers on a chin that hadn’t seen a razor in days. He’d spent the past seven hours locked up in J.W.’s garage working on a busted engine for that penny-pinching slavedriver. He hadn’t finished it yet. But he was close. And hell, he deserved a cold drink for all his hard work, not warm-as-piss beer. But he also needed to eat, Lester reminded himself. That’s the only way he’d been able to get that skinflint J.W. to give him an advance on his pay—by telling him if he didn’t eat, he wouldn’t be able to work.

He was a damn fine mechanic—the best one in Grady. Hell, he was probably the best damn mechanic in the whole State of Mississippi. He’d just run into some hard times. Wasn’t his fault that bitch Loretta he’d been married to had robbed him blind and bankrupted his mechanic shop, then run out on him. And it wasn’t his fault that he’d banged himself up in that car wreck and had taken to drink and drugs to ease the pain. He’d kicked the drugs and the drink, but not before he’d gotten the bad rap of being a drunk.

Well, he weren’t no damn drunk. He was a top-rate mechanic and he deserved to be working for himself, not for the likes of a prick like J.W. Hell, J.W. wouldn’t even own the garage if it weren’t for his shyster of an old man who had been robbing folks in these parts for years by jacking up the rates on work at that old service station of his. Maybe if his own old man hadn’t cut out on him, his sister and momma like he’d done, he’d have known better than to trust that bitch Loretta with the books. Well, he’d know better next time. Sooner or later, his luck was going to turn. He was due a break and he’d catch one. And when he did, he was going to get his old shop back and then he’d tell J.W. what he could do with his job because he’d be working for himself again. Yes, that’s just what he was going to do, Lester assured himself. Just as soon as he got on his feet again, he was going to show them. He would show them all.

But right now. Right now, he needed a drink.

“You finding everything okay back there, Mr. Lester?” the Smith boy called out from the front of the store.

“Yeah,” he snarled in response. Lucky little bastard, he thought, glancing in the direction of Bobby Ed and Mabel Smith’s snot-nosed grandkid. The punk had it made. He got to work weekends at his grandparents’ convenience store and gas station. According to Mabel, the boy was smart as a whip and would be graduating from Ole Mississippi come springtime, then going on to law school. In the meantime, he didn’t need to worry about working for dickheads like J.W. just to pay his rent or buy himself a couple of beers.