Crazy Like a Fox (Lil & Boris #3) (Lil & Boris Mysteries) (9 page)

“Aunt Marge said,” I replied. “Everything okay?”

“Well, if I need money, I certainly won’t kidnap anyone for it.”

“Know anyone who would?”

Jack’s gaze turned sympathetic. That’s not easy for a Littlepage. “With your last name? Anyone with a county phone book would probably think…”

“If they’re in this county, they know I’m not really an Eller,” I pointed out. On the other hand, the feud didn’t get much press outside our immediate area. Even in the Valley, it wouldn’t be known. Which is where Craig McElroy had lived and, by the look of things, died. All that would be seen would be my last name.

In Rucker’s office, a shouting match had started between Punk and Rucker. I called Boris out from under the bunk. He came out sneezing and bright-eyed, so I warned my cousin he probably had a small rodent for a cellmate, and went to break up the argument. I had a nagging feeling I was missing something obvious about all this, but I had no idea why.

I hate that nagging feeling. I usually get it right before something goes very wrong.

***^***

One good thing came out of Rucker’s amazing idiocy in arresting Cousin Jack. Punk’s buddy Fowler faxed him a copy of the police report that had gone to the Ellers, for their use in filing the reimbursement claim with the insurance company. It was possibly the most grammatically incorrect, syntactically tortured, and usage-challenged police report in history, which is quite an achievement when I think about it. As for why Fowler risked his job and worse, Punk answered that.

“You work with Rucker long enough, you think sucking up can get you what you want.”

I stared at the faxed report in confusion. “He wants to get fired?”

Punk’s grin was startling. “He wants a job. Here.”

The whole of Crazy’s sheriff’s department laughed, me, Tom, Punk, Kim. Couldn’t help it. Even if I wanted another deputy, where would I put him? What would he do? How in God’s name would Maury find the money to pay him? Sure, we could use someone for nights, but I could use a hot stone massage once a week. Didn’t mean it’d happen.

When we’d gotten ourselves sober again, I settled in to read the report. It took doing. Rucker wrote worse than he talked. None of the report was news to me, except one detail that had me telling Punk to give his buddy Fowler my thanks.

The Ellers had provided two million in cash in the bag dropped at the mini-mart. The other eight million? The kidnappers had demanded that the balance be transferred into an overseas account. No number given, since it was provided only to Mr. Robert Eller Senior, confidentiality valued, et cetera and so on.

Eight million in an overseas account. If the kidnappers had the brains for that, which they apparently did, then they had the brains to skip town and stay gone. Maybe even the brains to never attract law enforcement attention again.

So why had they killed Craig McElroy? And by “they”, I had no idea if I meant a singular “they”, as in an unknown “he or she”, or an actual plural “they”.

Punk regarded me in puzzlement, a little like Boris when he watches me take a bubble bath. “Thought you’d be happier getting those answers.”

I frowned. I caught my finger tapping in sync with Boris’s idle tail-tip swishes as he glared at the universe. Punk was right. Answers should have made me happier. Instead, that ugly feeling in my gut was stirring again. Two plus eight made ten. So why did I still think nothing here added up?

9.

T
he more I thought about it, the more impossible it seemed for the pieces of the kidnapping puzzle to fit together. Not to say the pieces always do. I hate when you see some show or novel or movie where every loose end is tied up in a pretty little bow. In real life, you get loose ends all over the place. But this was ridiculous, even without Cousin Jack’s malicious little lawsuit against Rucker for wrongful arrest and detainment and emotional damages and what-all. The whole case was flapping in the breeze.

As we headed into dismal February, the big white board in my office remained depressingly white. We knew when I’d been snatched, and where I’d ended up, and we had a pretty good idea that Craig McElroy was heavily involved. Based on what Missy Campbell’s kid saw, and what was found in the truck besides Craig McElroy’s corpse, that is. Robert Eller Jr. had identified the leather bag as the one in which he’d dropped off the cash portion of the ransom. There was also a 2003 Chevy Malibu at McElroy’s house that could have been the one used to pick up the ransom. So far, so good.

Except there was one kidnapper missing, along with a lot of Eller money. And still no idea who it might have been.

Nor any word from the Ellers just how much money had been spent on the ransom. Had they really handed over the whole ten million? And how? A duffel bag doesn’t hold much. Nor did Steven Clay give me any information when I finally got in touch with him. He left a message on the answering machine at the office, stating that it was a private matter, already concluded, and none of my business, and in case I didn’t get the point, he further informed me I’d need a subpoena if I wanted anything more out of him. Given my chances for a subpoena were about as good as my odds of winning the lottery without playing it, I backed off.

As far as the missing kidnapper went, I wasn’t worried, but Aunt Marge spent a lot of time afraid the mystery man would return to finish me off. She took to sending Roger over at odd times to double-check that I’d locked my doors and windows. After he came close to getting his head blown off one night, she desisted, but for a couple of weeks there, I was scared to get in the shower without clothes on in case Roger popped up.

Just when I’d had enough to make me chew wood and spit nails, I ran into Josie Shifflett.

***^***

An ice storm hit right before Valentine’s Day, the kind of quick-moving system that glazes the world and turns it to diamond without toppling trees or power lines. I’d gotten cozy in my speed trap out Turner Gap Road by sunrise to watch the pink-gold light shatter on the ice. It was the most peaceful moment I’d had in weeks.

Until Josie Shifflett whipped past me at ten miles an hour faster than the conditions allowed. Sure, the ice wasn’t bad, but it doesn’t take much to make the roads greasy. That didn’t stop Josie. She had a new car, a shiny Toyota Camry, to test out. She tested it out so fast I only knew it was her by the fleeting glimpse I got of her too-permed hair, and her chronically sour expression. I’d seen it for as long as I’d been sheriff, and I gritted my teeth as I hit my lights and siren.

I pulled her over near the big curve that had stopped a lot of speeders, some of them for good. You could see the little crosses their loved ones had put up, with fake flowers that looked disturbingly cheerful under their thin sheath of ice.

Boris merowled happily as I cut off the siren. He loves a good traffic stop, especially if it ends in a ticket. Bloodthirsty little beast.

I stuck to the gravel on the side of the road, where I had better traction, and tapped on the passenger side window. “You know the drill,” I said to Josie. She did, too. She had her profanities all ready.

“Can’t you get a real job?” she wanted to know as she yanked her license out of her purse. “Or is it you can’t get a man?”

I’ve heard worse, some of it from her, so I ignored her as I jotted out her ticket. She’d gone six months without one, a record. Only reason she hadn’t lost her license forever was the fact our county’s justice system is underfunded. We tend to plead people down to the least possible offense to save on paperwork and jail expenses. Which explained why Eddie Brady still stumbled around as a free man.

“That’ll be a hundred-fifty, payable down at Gilfoyle courthouse,” I told her as I handed over the citation. Gilfoyle is our county seat and our biggest town. That’s not saying much if you consider Crazy’s size.

Josie’s mouth puckered up. “Why can’t I pay at Maury’s office?”

“You’re too far past the town limits,” I said with some regret. If she’d been closer in, I’d have been able to double the fine.

She slapped her license into the chaotic depths of her purse. “Chief Rucker’s right about you,” she spat. “You ain’t done any good for this town, not one bit.”

I stifled a yawn. Been there, heard that. “Mmm-hmm. You have a good day and drive safe.”

“You think you’re something, don’t you?” Josie snarled as she slammed her door shut. Not too smart, since it cut off what she said, but I heard enough that I yanked her door open.

“Say that again.”

“You think you’re so smart,” Josie repeated with a lot more enthusiasm than was called for, “well, you ain’t. Everyone in town sees it, but you don’t.”

I came very close to throttling the woman. “What is it I don’t see?” I asked. I was so angry I was nearly sick with it, looking at her smug little sneer. Too angry, when I look back on it. Maury had some right on his side when he said I needed more time off.

Josie said her piece with an airy smile so wide I could see her molars. “Inside job, Sheriff. Only thing that makes sense to anyone but you. Everyone knows that friggin’ cat of yours would’ve cut up anyone strange. So it had to be an inside job.”

Everything whited out for a moment. I ended up sitting behind the wheel of my cruiser, door wide open, but don’t ask me how I got there. Then I spun and threw up all over the road.

My first instinct, to call Tom or Punk, faded fast. What if Josie was right? What if Boris hadn’t attacked because someone in that room‌—‌Tall, presumably?—was someone he knew well enough to trust? Admittedly, for an ex-feral cat like Boris, trust comes hard, but he did see some people every day. Enough to think of them as not-threats.

Like Punk, and Tom. Neither of them really qualified as Tall, being too near my own height, but I didn’t know Craig McElroy’s height.

Rational thought returned after the nausea died down. Tom was too heavy-set. Punk had a prosthesis, which I would have remembered just by his stride. Harry Rucker was too short. I couldn’t rule out Roger, except for the fact he had a pretty good alibi in Aunt Marge, and I wasn’t about to consider suspecting
her
. That’d be even more nuts than listening to Josie Shifflett.

I’d driven about halfway back to the office when it hit me that no one said the insider had to be Tall or Shotgun.

I’ve had panic attacks before, but that one? It was fairly epic.

I came out of it when Boris curled onto my lap and started nuzzling. He had to be pretty worried to cuddle.

“It’s okay, baby,” I told him, and sat there parked on the side of the road until I was sure I wouldn’t end up in a ditch. Then I drove back to the office.

The office was deserted. Kim hadn’t come in yet. There’d been a lot of that lately. Tom went easier on her than I did, but then, he’d had a crush on her. That tends to soften up the brain. Besides, the fewer hours she clocked, the happier Maury would be about our budget.

My white board stood big and vast and too close to empty for comfort. I walked up to it, picked up the marker, and wrote in large black letters “Inside Help” followed by a big thick question mark. Then I erased it.

Inside help might have come from that very office.

There’s only a handful of people Boris would not have automatically gone for. I knew Aunt Marge was not involved. Other than her, I wasn’t sure who I could trust. Ten million dollars‌—‌especially split two ways instead of three‌—‌can ease a lot of conscience.

I put my hat back on, and drove to Aunt Marge’s house.

***^***

She heard me out with a cup of herbal tea clutched in her hand, then said with her lips pressed tight, “I would not like to think it of Roger. But you are quite correct, there are not many people who could have kept Boris from one of his little episodes. Bless his heart.”

I almost smiled. “Bless his heart” is, as far as I can tell, a sort of genteel Southern code phrase used to cover everything from “bless his heart” to “drop dead in flaming agony, pestilent vermin”.

Aunt Marge pushed her cup of tea away, went to a drawer, and pulled out a cheap note pad and a very old, gold fountain pen. “Who is on your list?”

Saying names was like putting knives in my own heart. I was nearly in tears just thinking of it. But I said them. Thank God there aren’t many people Boris would hesitate to attack. I don’t think I’d have made it through a longer list with my dignity intact.

First on the list was Roger. A military pension wasn’t a lot to live on, and he was also strapped by alimony to his bear of an ex-wife. Aunt Marge’s hand shook as she wrote his name.

Second on the list, much as I hated it, was Bobbi. She had a baby coming, and she’d had to stop doing dye jobs to minimize her exposure to chemicals, so she was not making nearly as much as usual at her salon.

Third came Bobbi’s husband, Raj. He was Boris’s vet, which counted against him in Boris’s eyes, but he was familiar enough that Boris tolerated him. With a baby on the way, and a modest living at best out here in the sticks, Raj might be tempted.

Next was Tom. He could pet Boris without being growled at. Tom was under pressure from his girlfriend to think marriage, and the town didn’t exactly pay big money to its law enforcement. Moreover, Tanya had a way of thinking above her income. It didn’t do her much harm living at home rent-free, but…‌I couldn’t rule Tom out with all that on his plate.

Fifth came Punk. That cost me a twinge. I thought of Punk as a good friend. But I had to be fair. Punk and Boris got along. Admittedly, it was a sort of uneasy truce like you get between people who have agreed the enemy of their enemy is at least an ally, but that was as close to friendship as Boris tended to get, except with me.

I was hunched up in knots by this point, and said “Kim” with a grimace. I hated to think I couldn’t trust her. Since Boris did, however, I couldn’t. I felt like I’d never get clean again, watching Aunt Marge add the name to the list.

“Maury?” suggested Aunt Marge.

I thought that over long and hard, stroking Boris’s soft fur. If I hadn’t had Boris to comfort me, I’d have probably been bawling like a toddler. “No,” I decided. “Boris doesn’t tolerate him that well.”