Crazy Like a Fox (Lil & Boris #3) (Lil & Boris Mysteries) (16 page)

World ordered to my liking, I searched for Boris and pulled him out from behind the trash can in the lunchroom. “Sorry, sweetie,” I told him. “Let’s go get some supper.”

***^***

I’d been hoping for peace and quiet at Old Mill, but I didn’t get it. I’d just started my salad and fries when Cousin Jack came in. Coolly elegant, of course, in the sporty way the Littlepages have. It’s hard to describe, but I always picture the Littlepages going in for tennis and polo. The Ellers are more martinis-by-the-pool types.

After we’d said our hellos, he sat across from me with a small nod for Boris, slurping at poached tuna. “I heard,” he said. “Need to talk?”

“Not about that,” I replied. “What brings you here?”

“Tired of eating alone. Well, alone in the room. I’m still alone at the table,” Jack modified. The waitress showed up at his elbow, and once he’d ordered, he continued, “It gets lonely at the house. I keep trying to tell the staff they can relax around me, but…” He shrugged. “Mother and Father trained them well.”

I managed not to make a wisecrack about subservience.

“I also heard about the Ellers. The money, I mean.” His nostrils flared. “Beneath contempt.”

“I suppose they thought the rules didn’t apply to them,” I remarked as neutrally as I could. “It’s a thing rich people have.”

He had the grace to blush. “Mea culpa, Cousin,” he sighed, hands spread wide. “You will at least admit it’s not a failing I personally suffer.”

My cynicism took over my mouth. “That I’ve seen.” I winced. “Sorry. Lots on my mind.”

He reached across the table and patted my arm, and then he stole a french fry.

Family.

“I’m sorry.”

I waved at the plate. “I’ll get more fries.”

“No. I mean…” Jack Littlepage, who commanded millions of dollars and had taken his father’s place in half a dozen boardrooms, looked like a kid who just forgot his line in the school play. “I mean about the Ellers.”

For a Littlepage, that was downright heroic.

“Thanks, Cousin,” I said, and pushed the plate of fries to the middle of the table. “You want malt vinegar or tabasco sauce?”

“Both,” he said promptly, and a little warm flush ran through me. I could finally tell Aunt Marge where I had gotten that taste from. It ran in the family.

***^***

Harry solved our problem of how to fit all interested parties into our lunchroom. Nothing as grand as hijacking a school cafeteria, which we’d been known to do. We simply all drove down to the county office building and settled into a conference room intended for use in times far more prosperous than our county had seen in, oh, sixty or seventy years.

On one side of the long, teak table sat Harry, Tom, Vernon Rucker, Kurt Danes, Lieutenant Breeden, and a stuffed shirt I took to be a representative of the Ellers. On the other sat Matt and Naomi Lincoln, Skip Warner, and Kim. By the head of the table, a court stenographer had set up, waiting patiently for a signal to begin. Someone had thought to set out a pitcher of ice water, another of iced tea, and a big urn of coffee, along with cups and various non-sugar sweeteners.

Someone had also provided a couple boxes of kleenex.

Boris and I sat at the foot of the table. No one had invited us. Of course, cats never wait for an invitation.

Everyone but Rucker had a list of questions for Kim. No surprise, Breeden and Harry had the best-organized ones.

It’s peculiar, but getting arrested takes the strain out of some people. The worst, they figure, is over. From there on out, it’s technicalities. Paperwork. The Day of Judgment may not be at hand, but it is in sight.

The way Kim looked, she’d have preferred death by fire ants.

“It all started because of Tanya Hartley,” Kim began, in a tone that I only then realized had been creeping steadily into her voice over, say, the last ten months or so. A vaguely mosquito-like whine of dissatisfaction. Nothing unusual about that. Crazy is a small town. Lots of unhappy to go around. But it was new in Kim.

Harry cleared his throat. “Go on, Miss Lincoln. It’s to your advantage to tell us everything.”

Kim’s eyes filled with more tears. Pretty eyes. Pretty girl. Only child. The water-swamped eyes moved from Skip to her parents, roved from Harry down past Breeden and Rucker to land on Tom for a microsecond or two, and then her gaze hit me.

It was a begging look. The civilian in me wanted to soften. The cop in me, which takes up a lot more room, gave back the Littlepage Glare, and then some.

Kim studied her hands, and told us…‌everything.

***^***

It started back around Labor Day, right after the girls of Crazy decided to imitate Lady Godiva and go gallivanting down Main Street in the altogether. Which is a long story in and of itself. So there Kim was, alone at the picnic, no boyfriend, no home of her own, and no prospect of either. Dead-ended in a dead-end two-stoplight town. And you have to be generous to give Crazy that second spotlight, since it’s technically out by the little Food Mart plaza. Come to that, the stoplight in town is just a four-way blinker where Spottswood Lane meets Main Street, and that’s only because Littlepage Elementary’s at that intersection.

So there sits Kim, single and no longer loving it, tired of county boys and county men and county ways. Thinking that she’s at the age when all the girls she went to school with are married with kids, or divorced with kids, some of them for a second time. Who else in town could say that? Only the sheriff‌—‌that’d be me‌—‌and Marge Turner. And even Miz Turner had a man. A divorced one, sure, but a man. And the sheriff had been engaged once, even if it’d been broken off not so long before the wedding.

I’ll say right here that, in retrospect, it was my pride more than my heart that took the beating on that one.

To make matters worse, there was Tanya Hartley, Doc Hartley’s lawyer daughter, parading Tom Hutchins around like he was a diamond bracelet. Flouncing and flaunting.
She’d
gotten herself off the list of “Poor Things” whose marital prospects had dwindled.

Then, as Kim poked at the potato salad, Tanya came over. Cheerful and charming and smug. Told Kim not to worry, she’d find a good man too.

Enough, Kim said, was
enough
. She was sick to death of her mother fretting about never being a grandma, and sick to the point of screaming over all the tut-tutting people had begun to do when they asked about her love life. Now here came Tanya Hartley, patting her on the head. It occurred to Kim that this would be the rest of her life if she didn’t get a man or get out of the county or both. Tsk-tsk, tut-tut, poor thing. Next thing you knew, she’d be collecting teacups or cats or worse, and then she might as well be dead.

And Tanya wasn’t even as
pretty
as her. Not really. She had better make-up and clothes, but she wasn’t really
prettier
. And no smarter. Just went to law school and all. That didn’t make her
smarter
. Fancier. That’s all Tanya Hartley was.

Tom at this point was looking more and more like a statue.

I’ll add here that Tanya and Kim were at high school at the same time, and, apparently, had some issues we didn’t know about.

We knew now.

***^***

Privacy at home being impossible, Kim decided to check out a few online singles sites down at the internet café in Gilfoyle. The Christian-only ones involved too many questions about faith and religion. The subscription ones asked questions that seemed silly. Finally, she ended up at a forum for professionals seeking relationships. It was much more informal, not quite like Facebook, but not nearly as clinical as a few of the best-known dating sites. A relaxed place to browse pictures, profiles, and interests. She privately messaged a dozen or so guys over the first few weeks, got a few private messages herself. Soon she was chatting to a couple of guys every other day or so.

One of these guys was John Emmitt.

Like her, he hailed from a town so small you couldn’t sneeze without hitting someone you knew. Unlike her, he’d gotten out of Nowhere, PA, which he had listed as his official birthplace. Gone to college, but there’d been no decent jobs, so he’d gone into the service. Something Kim respected, since around here at least half the men have done a stint in some branch or other of the armed forces. He’d done well enough, but there was no money in the military, at least not at his level, and he’d taken his skills to the civilian world. A buddy had hooked him up with a security consultant. He’d liked the work, the travel, the money.

I was sensing a trend with this guy.

By Halloween, Kim felt she’d met someone special. Someone who could offer her a lot more than anyone around here. He was ready to move to the next level, he’d told her. Find someone to settle down with. Use his savings to maybe buy a house someplace cheaper to live than the US, maybe down in Panama or the Caribbean. He had good savings, though he was only in his mid-thirties. Another five-six years, he’d be ready to head to his own patch of paradise.

By mid-November, he was telling Kim she’d be welcome to come along, in their now-daily hour-long phone conversations. She was fun, she understood the kind of place he’d come from, she had the same frustrations with all the expectations, the small-mindedness, the hemming in of hopes based on what was probable instead of what was possible. They both loved the beach, the ocean, the sight of palms swaying in the breeze, and think of the good life they could have, he’d told her, if they opened up some touristy little bar or boutique. With Kim’s great people skills, it’d be a sure success.

She beamed with pride when she told us he’d said that.

They met the weekend after Thanksgiving. Down in Key West. It had been perfect. They’d talked as if they’d always known each other. Soulmates, Kim said warmly. Incomplete people, at last made whole. She knew all about his co-workers, his uptight sisters, his neighbor who never turned down the volume on the TV. She’d heard every story about his childhood in a tiny town, so like the stories of her own childhood in Crazy. They had no secrets.

A couple of weeks later, John had called her. They’d been talking about saving up for a few years to make their dreams come true. What if they didn’t
need
to save up? What if they could put together a huge stake, all at once? It’d be easy, no one would get hurt, and no, they wouldn’t have to play the lottery. One of the things he did for work was deal with kidnap and ransom policies. Mostly overseas stuff. No one would really even be out any money. The insurance companies made more than enough profit to cover an occasional big loss like that.

Kim had laughed. He’d told her he was serious. If they were going to have the life they wanted, tropical bliss and ease, they’d need a lot of money. A few hundred thousand, minimum, to be safe. How much did
she
have in her 401K?

Kim had told him he was crazy. It was a crime. Something would go wrong. It’d be easier to wait, and save. Wouldn’t it?

And then she’d come over to my house, to return some yoga DVDs, and there I was with a little Van Gogh on the wall, and a Degas, a real one, not a print, and when she went home, what did she have? A Monet print she’d gotten at a department store. It wasn’t even a
good
Monet print. Not that she cared about art, but how was it fair some people had all that, and she’d gotten nothing?

It wasn’t fair. It also wasn’t an excuse.

I interrupted at this point to say coldly, “I’d have given you the damn Degas to sell, you know.”

She said something very rude about the Degas.

She’d called John that night outside the internet café, parked in her car with a cup of coffee going cold in her other hand. “What about a robbery? I know someone who has art, like good stuff. And pearls, antiques, worth a lot.”

My stomach flipped. Those were the pearls Aunt Marge had passed to me on my sixteenth birthday. They’d been in the Turner family for over a century.

John had contemplated it. He said he’d look into it, and took down my name and information.

He had called back two days later, excited.
Why
had Kim not told him I was not just fostered to someone rich, I was blood-related to someone rich? Two someones? I was perfect for the kidnap scheme. Kim knew my movements, my habits. I had family who’d pay up, and also happened to have a K&R policy at his very company, and what could be more perfect? I’d sit in some backwoods shack a couple of days at most, they’d have their money, and it’d be off to sunny St. Bart’s, or wherever they wanted. They could ask a million dollars for my ransom. Two, even!

Maybe, just maybe, Kim said, she’d have told him to go to hell. But that very day at work I’d told her off for coming in late, like there was any work to come in
for
. And John had gotten her Tiffany earrings. Real Tiffany. He’d used some of his precious savings. It proved he didn’t want money just for money, if he’d spend it like that. He wanted to make her happy. Make
them
happy.

“I didn’t just say yes to him,” Kim told us earnestly between sniffles. “It tore me up for days, thinking about it.”

Boris, lounging on the table in front of me, twitched his tail hard, twice.

***^***

For John Emmitt, the plan had been simplicity itself. He’d be easily able to get the ID and cell phone of the guy who handled the Eller policy. They went to the same gym. He handed in his resignation, two weeks’ notice, just before Christmas. He told them he’d lined up a private job with a fictitious someone in Key West. Nobody at work would think twice about him by the time the New Year rolled around. All Kim had to do was find a couple of local boys who knew a good hiding spot and didn’t mind tossing me in the back of a car or truck. It was even John’s idea to use a tazer.

It was Kim who said she’d have to go along, because Boris would cause trouble if she wasn’t there. He knew her. Trusted her. Took treats from her. John had laughed. How much trouble could a cat be?

Kim told him.

Finding local boys was not a good idea. Anyone in the county would hesitate. But Kim still talked to an old boyfriend now and then. Doug Winston knew some rough people. If there was money in it, he’d stay quiet. His HVAC repair business wasn’t doing too well. Out of two million dollars, she and John could easily spare half a million for the hired help. Even better, she knew Doug well from their dating days. He was not the type to let physical harm be done. He hated physical violence. Wasn’t in him. Not a mean bone in his body.