Southern Fried Read Free Page A

tires spitting gravel.
    The spectators perched around staring, like we didn’t have anything better to do with our midmorning.
    Which I didn’t. I could’ve walked over to get Donlee Griggs sprung from county detention. Donlee’s alleged victim stood a scant twenty yards from me, jeans riding low on his skinny hips and brown locks stringing over the neck of his grubby flannel shirt. So avoiding a murder charge would likely be a formality.
    But I wasn’t in any hurry. Especially since that goofball had planned all this just so I would rush to his aid.
    Pudd’s laughter still burned my ears. I really should make a phone call to assure that the wheels of justice began to grind. But I needed a little while to nurse my pique—and my embarrassment. You really can’t go home again.
    The wrecker kept feeding cable to the divers.
    I couldn’t help being surprised at myself. True, the tense boredom and promise of drama here reminded me of a courtroom. But two weeks ago, Icouldn’t have imagined propping my rump against the hood of a car, staring across the lake and shooting the breeze with the guy who cuts my father’s hair. I’d been too busy calculating billable hours and buzzing around Charleston or Columbia in my black BMW from lunch meetings to hearings to late-night preps for morning depositions. Killing an hour or two in the company of a bunch of county employees and police scanner addicts wouldn’t have been on my agenda.
    Now I had nowhere to ran. And not much to ran around in since I had no leased BMW. My closetful of business suits hung in the only closet I could claim—in my old room at my parents’ house; the lake cabin boasted only wall pegs. And my most important client sat periodically stamping nose prints onto the window of a county cop car.
    The wrecker cable drew taut as the motor ground loudly. A few of the cops gathered at the bottom of the ramp, right where the wrecker would flatten them if its brakes failed.
    Out on the lake, the johnboaters positioned themselves closer to shore. They wisely stayed a safe distance away from the taut cable as it disappeared into the water. The onlookers stared, most not speaking now. Several minutes went by, filled only by the sound of the winch and the intermittent squawk of two-way radios. Then the water at the base of the boat ramp churned.
    In a bubble of muddy water, the car’s rear end appeared. Even with most of it still underwater, the car dwarfed the bobbing two-seater boat. The juxtaposition of the two objects jarred my senses. Cars aren’t routinely resurrected from watery graves.
    Slowly, as the truck’s winch continued to whine, more of the car lifted into view. The sheet metal had rusted to a mottled red-brown shade. The mudcaked tires hit the submerged end of the ramp.
    Johnnie Black stopped the winch, leaving only the car’s trunk and rooftop visible.
    The divers, belly-floating beside the car, seemed to be checking the underside of the car.
    “Good thing it ’uz right side up,” one of the amateur rescue experts standing near me commented. “Otherwise they’d’ve had to flip that sucker in the water.”
    Several watchers drew in closer, forming a tighter ring around the drama. Not close enough to get in the way, but eager not to miss any of the good stuff.
    One of the divers flipped a hand signal to the wrecker operator, who started pulling up cable again. Slowly.
    The car inched up the ramp. Water streamed down the sides in muddy rivulets. Reddish-brown stains coated the window glass, leaving a color like someone had tried to wash away dried blood. Distinguishing between the rusty parts and the red mud was impossible.
    I’m no good at identifying makes and models, but the sedan sported a boxy broad trunk and a mass of sheet metal that current gas mileage restrictions won’t allow. A Ford decal decorated the trunk.
    The car’s rear end crept up the ramp. The onlookers craned, necks extended like vultures’ for a better look. The front