Crazy Like a Fox (Lil & Boris #3) (Lil & Boris Mysteries) (18 page)

Second, I’m a few years older. Not that much older, but I’m sensitive to that kind of thing.

Finally, I do not like feeling all fluttery and nervous. It’s annoying. And romance means flutter and nerves. Yuck.

On the other hand, I was already tied in knots. What was the worst that could happen?

I could talk to Bobbi and Aunt Marge. Which I did. At the same time. Proving I am darn near as stupid as they come. You’d have thought I’d shown them a diamond ring and a date on the calendar. Bobbi squealed and bounced and rattled off all the great double dates we could go on with her and Raj and the baby. Aunt Marge smiled and gleamed and said nice things about Punk’s upstanding character. I sat there and wished I’d never opened my mouth. It was like high school, only worse. My skin crawled.

“Roger will be so pleased,” said Aunt Marge. “He thinks highly of Punk.”

Well, so did I, but I’m very good at not thinking highly of men in a certain way. Last time I started to think that way, the guy turned out to be married. Before that? He dumped me right before the wedding. My track record’s not the greatest.

One thing to be grateful for. We were past Valentine’s Day.

I worked up my nerve the day before Kim’s hearing. She’d made a deal, but Harry wasn’t going to tell me a thing. She’d be making a full allocution, Harry told me, and he felt I should hear it from her. That was Harry’s brand of mercy, I guess. To me, I mean, not to Kim. Nobody had much mercy left for her.

I cornered Punk as he came in that morning. He was taking over Kim’s job for a while. Picking up extra hours, he’d said.

So, like an idiot, I started with, “Y’know, there’s a full-time job here now Kim’s gone. If you don’t mind doing desk duty.”

Smooth, Lil. Smooth like a forest service road.

Punk looked somber. “I’ll think on it.”

“It’s not a demotion,” I said clumsily. “I mean, God knows we still need you, and you’ll be out on patrol plenty.”

Some people trip over their tongues. Mine tangles around my ankles.

“You okay?” he asked.

I counted to ten. Aunt Marge swears that helps.

“Um.”

Nope, doesn’t help.

“You know how I’m your boss and all, right?”

Not much of a riddle why I’m single.

Punk waited. Confused. Well, that made us even.

“Want to come over for supper?” I blurted. “I was thinking of trying this recipe Aunt Marge gave me for falafel.”

Punk’s face scrunched. “Lil, I don’t mean disrespect, but you’re not making a lot of sense.”

This was all Aunt Marge’s fault. If she hadn’t been such a determined spinster, I’d probably have some clue what to do in these situations.

I decided, in not so many words, to say to hell with it. I sat down in my chair with a thump. “I like hanging out with you.” I managed not to sound like a teenager. “No strings. I know I’m your boss and all that. It’s just…‌You know.”

I hoped he knew. I didn’t.

Punk grinned. It’s always a little surprising when he does. “Yeah. I mean. I don’t mind if you don’t mind.” He paused. “Boris’ll mind.”

“He’s susceptible to bribery. He prefers brand name tuna, packed in water, no albacore.”

Punk chuckled. I wasn’t sure, but he might have been a little pink. “What do you eat with falafel?”

I felt something in me unwind. “I was figuring on picking up some pita bread at the store.”

“I’ll bring the pita bread. What time?”

“Six,” I said. I had, in fact, made the falafel the night before, so I’d really be reheating it, but I didn’t mention that. “I’ll be out Turner Gap Road.”

I said a little prayer I was not making a huge mistake or mess out of my life, put on my Smokey-the-Bear hat, and left while I still had some dignity.

***^***

Kim’s allocution was well-attended. Tom came, Tanya Hartley holding his hand. Aunt Marge and Roger came, and sat with me. Punk had to stay in Crazy to man the sheriff’s department, but Harry had promised him a copy of the proceedings. Matt and Naomi Lincoln were there, white, strained, already visibly older and thinner than they’d been a month ago. Kurt Danes showed up. So did a few McElroys and Winstons. Will Preston from the
Gazetteer
. A reporter from Charlottesville.

Judge Harper called the court to order. He read off the details of the plea agreement. Kimberly Louise Lincoln pled guilty to one count of conspiracy, one count of accessory to a felony, obstruction, hindering, aiding and abetting. She’d be allocuting over in Kurt Danes’s county next week. She’d pled guilty there to manslaughter in the death of Douglas Winston. In light of the information she had provided the police and prosecution, and a lack of evidence demonstrating malicious intent, she would be sentenced to no less than five and no more than fifteen years.

The allocution held no surprises. She had done it out of misguided dreams of marital happiness with John Emmitt. She had intended no harm. She did not know why she had been so blind. Blah-blah-blah. I didn’t know why Harry’d insisted I come in person.

Then she turned, and apologized to me. “I’m sorry, Lil. For everything. I was being stupid. I was thinking about what I didn’t have, and I made some really bad decisions, and I betrayed you, and I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t bring Boris into the courtroom, so I have no idea if she meant it. But it was something, to have her apologize.

“And I only killed Doug because he was going to hurt me.”

Now that I knew was a lie. The old BS-o-meter zinged right into the red.

“I never meant you to get hurt, Lil. God’s own truth.”

After, when she’d been led away, demure and penitent, Harry told me, “She’s claiming self-defense on Winston, and we’ll have to let her. It’s our only chance to get Emmitt.”

I suddenly understood. “Skip made a very good deal.”

“Very good,” said Harry, but his mouth curled up in a wicked grin. “We don’t get Emmitt until she gets her itty-bitty sentence. I have to say, working against me has been good for Skip. He’s getting sharp. Five years ago, he’d never have thought to use leverage like that.”

“Does she really know where Emmitt is?”

“For all her protestations to the contrary, yes, she does. As for Winston…” Harry’s hand waved carelessly. “I strongly suspect he demanded more money for his silence. Or perhaps, given he died a few days at least after his cousin, he simply posed a threat. And a woman is never more fierce than in defense of her beloved.” He paused, reconsidered. “Unless, that is, she defends her child. I understand Miz Turner could teach the lioness and mother bear a thing or two.”

“She could,” I agreed. “I better go. Bobbi’s got Boris at the salon, God only knows how much trouble he’s caused.”

“One moment. You’ve heard the Ellers had to give back the money.”

I had heard. I’d smirked a long time about that.

“You may not have heard that they are now being denied K&R coverage. Ellers and Eller Enterprises both alike. No company will touch them.”

I grinned. Harry grinned. Then, with a wink and a jaunty wave, he was gone, and I headed back to Crazy.

***^***

Kim also had to allocute over in Danes’s county. I went out of curiosity. She’d told us that Doug Winston wouldn’t hurt a fly. I wanted to see how her account of self-defense matched up to that.

It didn’t.

According to her, she’d confronted Doug about the abduction going awry. This was after I was safely out of the hospital, a bit of timing I found interesting. They’d met at the old cabin, said Kim, because it was out of the way, and now that the police were done with it, it was probably the safest place on earth.

Not for Doug Winston.

They had argued. Doug accused Kim and her boyfriend John of shorting him his share. Kim denied it. As far as she knew, John had handed the money to Craig and if Craig had stiffed Doug, that was not her fault. Or John’s. He should go talk to Craig.

He couldn’t talk to Craig, Doug informed her, because Craig was nowhere to be found. Wasn’t answering his phone. Wasn’t at home.

Well, there he had it, said Kim. Craig took off with the money. She turned to leave. Doug grabbed her arm. She remembered that he was a desperate man. He had helped kidnap a sheriff. He had left that sheriff to die. Terrified, Kim had fought to escape Doug. She had no clear memory of how it happened. It was blurred. She only knew that suddenly she was free and Doug lay still on the floor.

The judge wasn’t quite as kindly as Judge Harper. He pressed her. “This agreement will not hold without a full allocution, young woman. What did you kill him with?”

I’d seen the preliminary autopsy report. Danes had faxed me a copy. Doug Winston had died of blunt force trauma to the head. It was somewhat suspicious that the part of his head to be bluntly forced was the back.

“I guess there was something to hand. A log or something.”

I thought back to the cabin. There’d been a lot of things lying around that could fit her description of “a log or something”. I wondered how she’d grabbed one if Doug had hold of her.

I know loose ends never get neatly tied up, but just once, it’d be nice.

“I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I ran back to my car and I just…‌I ran.” She started to cry. “After what they’d done to Sheriff Eller, I just didn’t want to stay and find out what he might do to me.”

I had a hard time sitting still and shutting up through that. Tall, better known as Doug Winston, had been the one to leave me those comforters. To give me what little chance I’d gotten. But Kim’s allocution was the best chance at getting her to cough up John Emmitt’s location. I had to sit there and take it.

Danes met me outside the courtroom. We shook hands, the way professionals do, and he said immediately, “If it wasn’t for getting that New York guy, I’d never have let this go through.”

“I hear you,” I commiserated. I hunched into my parka. It was March, and down on the flat, there’d be buds popping, but here in the mountains, it was still February cold and gray. “If he turns up alive. I’m starting to wonder.”

Danes subjected me to one of those shrewd drill instructor looks. “You never know someone,” he said, “till you’ve lived with them, and even then they’ll surprise you. Only God knows what people are thinking, and I’m not too sure He pays that much attention.” He huffed out a tired breath. “Well, I got a domestic to testify at. You drive careful, Sheriff.”

“Go easy,” I replied, and picked my way down the courthouse steps. They were old, stone, and slippery even when dry. I noticed the Lincolns getting into their car across the street. Matt had apologized to me about eighteen times for what Kim had done, but the life-spark had gone out of the man. Naomi looked no better. Two more casualties. For what? Money and a man.

I went down the street a few buildings and picked up Boris from the pet grooming salon where he’d been boarding for the last hour. They’d given him a dog-sized suite, on the theory this would placate him. When I walked in, he was hanging from the chain-link fencing surrounding the outdoor run, his tail whipping back and forth like a flag in a hurricane. He was, as far as I could tell, attempting to bite his way through the metal to get at the bull terrier next door.

The woman at the front desk met me with relief. “That cat is a monster!”

I smiled proudly. “Yeah. Hey, Boris, time to go.”

Boris leapt smoothly down from the fence, trotted serenely past the woman to whom I paid an extra twenty dollars in the interests of cosmic harmony, and sashayed out to the car for all the world like he’d spent his time blamelessly asleep. I gave him a cuddle. Money and a man, I thought. What kind of fool hung their hopes on that? I’d sooner be poor with a furry deputy at my side. But then, Aunt Marge had always taught me you can’t put a price on conscience and self-respect. The minute you did, you’d already sold them.

19.

W
hat with warrants and all, it took a surprisingly long time to find John Emmitt. About eight days, in fact. He might have gone cash-only when he decided to cut and run, but he’d forgotten about the fury of a woman scorned. Particularly if the woman needed to bargain her way out of hard time. Kim gave up every detail of every plan they’d made for their future. People being creatures of habit, John Emmitt was cruising along right on schedule down in the Virgin Islands when the British police picked him up. He was back in Virginia before you could say “extradition”, and New York was right behind us in line. It’s true all they had on him was identity theft and regular old theft, but the fact he’d crossed state lines meant the feds could take a piece of him, too. That they chose not to was pragmatism. Why invite the paperwork?

A month or so down the line, New York decided to let Virginia have John Emmitt all to ourselves. We could hold him longer, on kidnap and assault and murder, along with miscellaneous lesser charges. “He could serve his sentence in Attica or Sing-Sing as easily as Sussex or Wallens Ridge,” was Harry’s remark, meant to be a lament. Complete BS, by the way. Harry was looking forward to a big juicy multiple felony. So was the prosecutor over in Danes’s county.

John Emmitt had dreamt tropical dreams. He’d be spending the rest of his life in a back corner of Appalachia. There was a chance he might go to Sussex, but if I knew my Harry Rucker, he’d see a special justice in sticking Emmitt in a max security facility with a view of nothing but trees and sky.

Meanwhile, back in Crazy, life went on as usual. Eddie Brady fell on a patch of late ice in front of Shiflet Hardware, and in lieu of threatening a lawsuit, he urinated all over the front stoop of the store. Which then froze, making a patch of ice on which Mrs. Shiflet slipped and fell, breaking her arm. We stuck Eddie in our cells for a week on the somewhat vague charge of “pissing people off”, and that was not the easy option, believe me. Even with Punk and Tom marching Eddie to the showers every day, Eddie gave off serious stink.

Punk took over Kim’s desk and salary, but kept the title of deputy and his twenty hours a week in the cruiser. We’d agreed not to date. This wasn’t to say we didn’t have supper two or three times a week, or go to the occasional movie down in Gilfoyle, but we were not dating. Too many ethical issues. So we did not date. Sometimes we even invited Tom and Tanya along to show how much it wasn’t dating.