Stone Cold Crazy (Lil & Boris #4) (Lil and Boris Mysteries) (11 page)

A thousand responses flooded my head. One made it to my mouth. “How long before you ask me to stop being a cop completely?”

One reason Aunt Marge and I have always been close is our ability to understand each other. Apparently, it had taken a vacation.

Aunt Marge said, “Would that be so bad?”

I lost the power of speech. All my childhood, I’d loved cop shows and cop movies, and wanted to be either a federal agent or a cop. Other girls gurgled about movie stars; I’d wished I could meet the guys who’d caught Ted Bundy. Aunt Marge knew that. She knew, but added mournfully, “It hasn’t brought you very much happiness, dear.”

“I have work to do,” I said, and I left.

11.

I
t was Punk’s good luck that Agent Howard called me before I found him. A first look in the lab had shown what we’d already suspected. A guardian angel had worked overtime to see Quinn built that pipe bomb without killing himself. As it was, he’d needed surgery to remove some thumb tacks and glass shards that had penetrated his chest and abdomen. He’d escaped any serious harm to his spinal cord and organs, but only because he’d almost managed to make the pipe bomb directional. From what Howard said, by accident.

It’s amazing how the thought of perforated intestines adjusts your perspective.

Which didn’t mean I was calm. In fact, I was halfway to the office before I realized I’d left Boris at home. Where Aunt Marge no doubt was still waiting to talk to me about quitting.

I decided Boris could use a day off.

When I came through the door, Tom was seated at his desk. Hours before his shift. Wearing an expression that could’ve scared rocks. “Trouble?” I asked.

“Tanya’s idea of a small wedding.” He brandished a book at me. I looked closer. It wasn’t a book. It was a magazine for brides. “Everything she circled costs four digits!”

I craned my neck. There were three more magazines on his desk, neatly marked with post-it notes in baby-girl pink. “Tell me that’s not her color scheme.”

“No,” said Tom morosely. “She wants something called…” He consulted a post-it note on the cover of a magazine. “Autumn splendor. You’re a woman. What the hell does that mean?”

Bewildered, I shrugged. “Dang if I know.” I leaned in, scowled. “You’ll have to ask Bobbi. She knows this stuff, she’d be thrilled to be asked. Besides, you know she’ll end up doing the hair and make-up for the wedding party. Call her.” A second look at Tom, and I offered morosely, “You want someone to cry in a beer with, I’ll be your designated driver.”

“Thanks. What’re you doing here?” Tom looked around. “Where’s Boris?”

I gave him a very abbreviated version of the talk with Aunt Marge, and asked, “So, am I that lousy a sheriff?”

“No,” said Tom, after a reassuringly thoughtful pause. “No, I get crap too, it’s just not as extreme.” He managed to smile, though it looked like he had nausea. “I’m bigger.”

I sighed with relief. “Thanks. And thanks for not wanting my job.”

“You kidding me?” With a shudder, Tom held up his hands. “No. No way. I had enough hell filling in. One meeting with Ruth Campbell is about ten too many.”

Impossible as I’d have believed it even five minutes earlier, I laughed. We were still grinning when the phone rang. I grabbed it. “Sheriff Eller.”

“Oh, hey, hi.”

The voice rang a faint bell.

“It’s me.”

I waited for more clues.

“Leeza?” she said.

I remembered. I leaned back very slowly. “Not more trouble with Eddie, I hope.”

“That sorry-ass loser,” she snorted. “Nope, I thought maybe I’d help you out? Y’know? As a thank-you?”

Helpful citizens are not as common as I’d like. I snagged a pen and a note pad. “Help is always appreciated. What’s going on?”

“Well, now, I just heard this from my aunt, she works at the cafeteria at the high school.”

We have one high school. It keeps the trouble more contained. The way you contain radioactive isotopes.

“So what’d your aunt say?”

Leeza lowered her voice into that whisper people use when they’re about to impart information that isn’t really that shocking.

“That Miz Weed whose house blew up. She used to be having an affair.”

Of course, sometimes the information is worth the whisper. I waved urgently at Tom.

“What kind, exactly?”

Leeza’s giggle belied that whisper. “The kind her husband wouldn’t want to know about. My aunt says it ain’t been going on for a while but it was pretty hot when it was. Stairwell 3.”

That explained how the aunt knew about it. Stairwell 3 was the one where the cafeteria ladies snuck their breaks. It was almost never used by students. No kids had any compelling reason to go from cafeteria to second-floor faculty lounge. Not many teachers did, either. One of the great Senior Dare Day escapades of the last half-century had been a kid sneaking back there with a camera and snapping shots of two teachers, a janitor and the vice-principal sharing what looked suspiciously like a joint.

“Which teacher?”

“She didn’t say. Sorry.”

“What’s your aunt’s name and number? So I can confirm this with her?”

Leeza rattled off, “Bee May Perkins, she lives at Quarry.”

I thanked Leeza, hung up, and smiled at Tom with the first good feeling of the day. “Vicky Weed was screwing around.”

Tom’s face lit up. “So maybe we got us a personal motive to blow up the house.”

You know, when I think about it, it’s kind of sick, what cheers up a cop.

***^***

Bee May Perkins lived in a double-wide trailer, hidden behind a wilderness of ivy and the fencing that had collapsed under its weight. We parked beside a Buick so old it should have had antique plates, and sidestepped some hens. One look at the stupid malice in their little black-bead eyes, and I was suddenly glad I’d stopped at home for Boris. He was about the same size as the hens, and outnumbered a dozen to one, but the way he perked up, you’d think he’d walked into a room of three-legged mice. I left him to his fun and knocked on the door.

It popped open, giving me a fine view of a double-barrel shotgun.

“Miss Perkins,” said Tom, near my shoulder. “I called?”

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”

There’s a stereotype of the cafeteria lady you see in movies, but Bee May defied it. She was nearly my height, aggressively and brassily blonde, with black eyeliner I later realized was tattooed onto her lids, and she had skin the texture and color of leather. Freckles‌—‌or maybe incipient skin cancer‌—‌thickly spotted her chest. She bulged with muscle. Where a couch usually would be, we saw a weight bench.

She stomped into the kitchen. It’s not easy to stomp wearing flip-flops and a floral pink tank top. I admired her for pulling it off. “Y’all wanna shake?” She gestured at her blender, full of a thick, green pudding. “Wheat grass and soy, with electrolytes.”

As one, Tom and I said, “No, thank you, ma’am.”

“I know you,” she said to me. “You’re Miz Turner’s girl. She used to come give speeches at the school. How is she?”

“She’s doing well, thanks. Miss Perkins, your niece says you know something about Mrs. Weed that might be related to what happened to her house.”

One benefit of such a small county: I usually don’t need to explain what’s going on.

“Well, I don’t know about
that
,” said Bee May, pouring the green glop into a glass. She knocked it back in one swallow. “But I know what I know. We all know. Knew, I guess. It ended after…‌Must’ve been spring break.” She stepped onto a stair machine and cranked it up.

“Who was she having the affair with?” I asked. “Do you know?”

Bee May nodded. “Sure. Mr. Lloyd. Teaches history, I think. Good-looking.” She shot me a grin, between girls. “Kinda Tom Cruise with a little Liam Neeson, but with some Rock thrown in.”

Tom looked completely confused. I just grinned. “So he’s popular with the girl students.”

“You kidding?” Bee May laughed. “They hate his guts. He never grades on the curve, he makes them write essays, you should hear what they call him when they’re in lunch line.”

Tom harrumphed, eyes everywhere but Bee May. “When did the alleged affair start?”

Bee May kept stepping. She wasn’t even sweating. “I dunno, but first time I saw them in the stairwell…‌I just got back from my first triathlon, and I saw them getting all lip-locked…‌April, three years ago. I remember, because I placed third from last, I was so mad I went out and bought this thing.” She slapped a hand on the stair machine. “Made a difference, too. I placed tenth a couple months ago, same triathlon.”

Tom finally asked it, with one wary eye on the wall of trophies and certificates that covered everything but the television. “Miss Perkins, I don’t wanna be rude. But… How is it your Leeza’s aunt? When you’re. Um. You know.”

“You look the same age,” I said bluntly.

“Easy,” said Bee May. “Leeza fills her body with crap, and I’m the woman her uncle married when he dumped his first wife for hitting menopause.”

And here I thought
I
had no tact.

“That’s how I’m her aunt. I’m only eight years older,” Bee May continued. “We get along real well mostly. Just can’t understand why she puts that crap in her body.”

Tom’s face twisted in an agony of curiosity. I asked for him. “You’re not still married, then?”

“Widowed.” She shrugged without any visible sorrow. “I got over it. Anyway, that’s it. I can’t tell you much else.”

“There’s one thing. How do you know Mrs. Weed’s affair with Mr. Lloyd is over?”

“Easy. I never see him in Stairwell 3 anymore.”

I had to do it. It’s the curse of my job. “Do you still see Mrs. Weed? With someone else?”

“Sure, I see her, she’s always used that stairwell, but she ain’t been with anyone else, just up and down and all that.”

Outside, I heard frantic hen noises. Sounded like Boris was having fun. I edged toward the door with a last question. “Mind if I ask how you can keep track of the stairwell if you’re in the kitchen?”

She gave me a long, pitying look. “You’re older than you look, then,” she remarked. “They walled in the old custodian’s alcove with smoked glass
ages
ago, you can see it from the kitchen when we prop the door open, it’s like a mirror. You see
everything
going on, it’s better than TV.”

We thanked her, and left. It took me a few minutes to find Boris. He was perched atop the hen coop, right above the little door, with a chicken feather lodged in his whiskers. I counted quickly. All hens accounted for. As I scooped him up, the hens watched. I suddenly realized why I hate chickens. They’ve got the same blank greedy stare I see in most people.

12.

I
still hadn’t had a chance to talk to Punk about his little conversation with Aunt Marge. I admit, when Aunt Marge corners you with a proposition, it’s hard to turn her down. She’s very persuasive. Yet there really wasn’t any excuse in my mind for deciding I shouldn’t be sheriff without so much as talking to me about it. When I finally saw Punk at work, we made a date for the next night, to go up to Charlottesville for a relatively fancy dinner and maybe a movie. Away from the eyes and flapping mouths of Crazy. A real date, as Punk put it. He’d even made reservations. As gestures of conciliation go, I’d seen a lot worse.

I was in a good mood when I called Agent Howard with the information we’d gotten from Bee May Perkins. I laid it out while I flea-combed Boris and watched the flagman at the Grenville turn-off. I wasn’t worried he’d screw up traffic. I was worried someone would run him over, and I figured there’d be less chance of it if the commuters saw me there.

Agent Howard hemmed and hawed, before he confessed, “Look, Sheriff Eller, I agree, it’s a good lead worth looking at, but with two bombs and a possible political issue…‌I’m afraid I have to pursue our established line of investigation.”

“Politics,” I said with feeling. Bad, nasty, yucky, icky, stuff-that-grows-under-rocks feeling.

“You know how it is,” replied Howard, more diplomatically than I would have. “You’ll let me know if you find anything solid, I hope.”

“Will do.”

“Tell me,” asked Howard, “is it nice, not having to deal with the politics?”

I chuckled. “There’s still politics. Just smaller scale. Y’know. Instead of tip-toeing around Congress, it’s the church ladies’ auxiliary.”

Howard burst out laughing. “Sounds worse to me. About the Tyler guy. Freddie and his buddies. We may have something going on with them. We’ve also got some information there may be a demonstration of some kind.”

“They haven’t applied for a permit here.” I paused significantly. “I’d have told you.”

“I know,” said Howard swiftly. “Sorry, I meant to say…‌Well, we seem to have gotten on the wrong side of this Chief Rucker…”

My turn to get a giggle. “Every side of him is the wrong side. I’ll call a friend and see if anyone’s filed for permits. But I doubt they’ll ask permission.”

“You know the area, where should we look for them?”

“For a public gathering? County seat, either county. Outside the senator’s office or house. Or…” I consulted my mental map of the county. “There’s a bit of land next to the big highway, where the three crosses are. Someone’s been flying a flag there since 9/11. It’d be a good spot for a lot of public attention.”

“Thank you, Sheriff. And good luck with your history teacher.”

We hung up. My cell rang before I got it back in the holster.

I looked at caller ID. Cousin Jack. Uh-oh.

“Lil, where are you?”

“On my way to Gilfoyle,” I didn’t quite lie. I pulled out on the road to satisfy my conscience. “Got a lead I’m chasing. What can I do for you?”

“Explain to me again about Mr. Tyler, and why exactly his property is worth a hundred thousand dollars to me!”

No-brainer to me. “Because he was shooting at the work crews.”

“Have you got any idea what a pain in my backside he is? That old lunatic keeps calling the house and insisting I have to pay for this trailer!”

Jack’s rage made me twitch hard enough that the car swerved. “It wasn’t my idea!”