I’m in the process of editing my next short story (which is also my first attempt at the science fiction genre) so for the next few installments, I’d like to share a preview of the novel I’ll be working on this summer. My intention is to release it on Substack as a serialized novel this Fall (Hopefully). It’s a legal thriller set in Southern Indiana about a disgraced attorney who returns home to care for his ailing father only to be pulled back into a decades-old murder case that’s up on appeal.
The other reason no one travels these roads anymore, aside from forced acknowledgment of rural poverty, is the speed limit. Every town, village, and community set their own. In the two minutes it takes to drive through Butlerville, past the Bar & Grill, past an old church that may or may not be in use, and past a pole barn grocery store, the speed limit drops to forty-five. Just outside of town, it jumps back to fifty-five and that’s where I glimpsed him. His white car was backed into a dirt path that dead-ended about ten yards into a corn field. I would have missed him if not for gusting wind creating breaks in the sea of green. I gave a friendly wave as I passed, missing my short time in the prosecutor’s office where I was one of them by association and never worried about speed limits.
Being a deputy prosecutor was like being a deputy “anything”, constantly proving yourself by taking on shitty assignments. Not only did I spend Monday nights arguing traffic tickets and Tuesdays arguing misdemeanors, but I did it all in the shadow of E. L. Montgomery, my father. As a child, I went everywhere with him. To the courthouse, the jail, his office, all the while pretending to be his co-counsel. In reality I was babysat by court reporters while getting to see my dad from the front of the courtroom like one of the important people. I ran around his office and colored on a huge, mahogany desk, gifted to him in the seventies by Judge Brooks after dad opened his own practice. I helped deliver pizzas out to the jail in the evenings, a way to ensure he was accommodated whenever he needed to meet with clients. He and an inmate would discuss their case, I would sit in the control room, wearing an over-sized deputy hat, eating pizza and watching twelve black-and-white monitors showing different views of the jail. I focused more on the small color TV the jailers hooked up to pass the time with reruns of Gilligan’s Island or the Beverly Hillbillies. Everyone loved my father in those days, until one day they didn’t.
Out of nowhere, a grey Pontiac Grand Am appeared in the mirror, closing the gap to my rear bumper before swerving into the oncoming lane and crossing ahead of me. I eased the 1500 over onto the imaginary shoulder, a strip of grass separating the road from the field. A minute later, the red and blue lights flashed in the mirror, appearing from a similar nothingness as the Pontiac. A white Dodge Charger with brown and tan decals flew past in pursuit. The driver of the Pontiac had about ten seconds left of their good day.
Dad paid my way through law school, though his practice was declining in those days. I offered to get student loans, but he refused saying college was still cheaper than what he paid in child support all those years. Even when criminal work dried up and most of his time was spent on estates and divorces, he kept supporting me. It felt like he worked harder in those days than when I was following him around as a boy. I told him I would work for him, get some of his criminal cases back after I graduated, but he said no at every turn. He told me not to come back, to practice anywhere else.
“I don’t want you dealing with what I’ve had to in this town. Find another town, be a corporate attorney, get in with a large firm. Anything you want, but don’t come back here.”
Every conversation ended like this in my final year. A warning from him, heeded much too late.
Back on the road, I caught up to the Charger sitting behind the Pontiac, lights flashing. The deputy was walking toward the driver’s side of the car, hat pulled down, hand on holster. The driver had both hands and a forehead on the steering wheel as I passed. The scene made me miss the life that bonded me with Dad, but finding my way back there was as futile as him trying to escape his clouded mind.