Gone Crazy (2 page)

2.

A
couple hundred years ago, a feud began between the first Littlepage and the first Eller to settle the area. What it came down to was a pissing contest for who got the right to call himself
the
Founding Father of Crazy, then called Pleasant Valley.

The town name changed for reasons I, at least, think are completely obvious.

Over the decades, as each family made its fortune, the feud deepened. If the Littlepages built a church, the Ellers built a church. If Ellers built a road, Littlepages built a road. And while Eller Enterprises has its HQ in Richmond, and LP Inc. is based in Northern Virginia, Crazy remains the battleground of choice. It doesn’t matter that they don’t compete in business‌—‌Ellers incline to tech and e-commerce, Littlepages to banking and investments. It matters that someone someday will win the fight for which family is top dog in Crazy.

Which is why the town’s name is Crazy. We value truth in advertising.

The feud between the two families came to a head when my mother‌—‌Helen Littlepage‌—‌met Mark Eller‌—‌my father. They fell in love. They eloped. They had me. They died. It’s very Shakespeare, without the reconciliation or remorse. Instead, the Ellers to this day blame my mother for seducing my father, and the Littlepages blame my father for seducing my mother, and neither family wants anything to do with me at all. My grandfather Eller did leave me a few million dollars, but it was purely by mistake. He’d left instructions for each grandchild to be provided for, and forgot to mention I wasn’t on the list. The Littlepages have yet to give me even a grudging dime, but my cousin Jack is kind and polite. Last fall, I did my best to solve the murder of his sister, who’d run afoul of their mother’s ideas of propriety and died for it. Like Harry said, however, it’s not a violent feud. Until looks can kill, I won’t be cleaning up any bad blood.

A Collier feud, now. That might be something altogether different.

My two best resources are Aunt Marge, and my best friend, Bobbi Rucker, who is a genius with hair and at listening to everything without revealing anything, except to me. She’s related to both Harry and Chief Rucker, divorced from the son of Crazy town councilwoman Ruth Campbell, and the only person who doesn’t ask me why I don’t get married. She also makes sure there’s always some half-and-half on hand for Boris, who lounges in the salon like a furry sultan whenever I come in for a trim and information.

The salon was empty when I strolled in. “Hey,” I said, and shed my neon yellow slicker with reflective stripes. “Closing early?”

“Might as well,” said Bobbi. She’s petite, adorable, and that day, a brunette with caramel highlights. Give her a week, it’d be redhead with purple stripes. When it comes to hair, Bobbi has no fear. “Myrna’s got allergies, and Deb’s mama had her surgery today.”

I’d heard about Mrs. Payne’s surgery. It was a straight-up gall bladder removal, but she wasn’t all that young, and she was in everyone’s prayers. It’s rare you see someone as genuinely benign as Joanna Payne.

“And you,” said Bobbi, leveling a perfect nail at me, “don’t need a trim. You’re growing out fine.” She reached up and fluffed the layers she’d cut into my hair. It’s Eller hair, dark and abundant and straight enough to use as a ruler. Bobbi longs to dye it blonde, just to see what’d happen. I know what’d happen. Aunt Marge would have conniptions. She doesn’t even let preservatives touch her lips. Chemical dyes on the head would send her over the edge.

“Sit on down,” she invited, and handed me a cup of decaf green tea. Like Aunt Marge, I avoid caffeine, alcohol, meat, and junk food, especially if it ends in -
os
.

Bobbi poured herself a mug of fermented black sludge that passed for French roast. “So what’s the story?”

Boris blocked her, tail lashing. His mismatched eyes, one green and one gold, glared up. Bobbi glared back, then laughed. “Just like a man,” she said, and poured him a saucer of half-and-half. “Wants what he wants.”

I told her that we had a Collier problem. Like any other native, she winced. “Oh damn.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I can tell you. Colliers stick to themselves, you know that.”

“Anything’ll help.”

We sat in silence, broken only by the slurping of Boris washing between his toes. Bobbi stirred. She pushed her hair off her face, which is pixie-ish, fair, a little like the fairies drawn on boulders by Heather Shifflett, whose graffiti indicates a talent for art as well as misdemeanors. “Well,” she said at last, examining her nails. She keeps them short, so she doesn’t claw anyone’s scalp, but they’re perfectly manicured. “Huh. You know that old you-know-what Vera had a little heart attack about five years ago or so. You were still up in Charlottesville.”

Ah yes, my stint as a city cop.

“Now, Buck was still in Afghanistan, and Marilee lives in Norfolk,” Bobbi ticked off on her fingers. “The rest are up there in the hollow.”

“Who else is up there? Besides Vera’s tribe, I mean.”

“Adam and Abel and some of their kids,” said Bobbi promptly. “And the Greenes who come from Mary Collier.”

I started doing math as Bobbi ran down the family tree of the Colliers. Old Collier had married Nora Hoyt, and they had four kids, two boys, two girls. The girls had married “out”, as the saying went. Old Collier being what he was, he left the hollow to his sons. Samuel had one boy of his own, Sam Junior, who married Vera. Tom had Adam and Abel, but he gave some share to his daughter Mary Greene; Cathy scored zero because she had married a Teague without her father’s permission, and no one, even Cathy, counted them as Colliers. Given that Vera had eleven kids, Adam had five, and Abel had three, and Mary had three, and all of them were old enough to have kids…‌I was facing about a hundred Colliers, and God help me if they were taking sides.

Two hours later, I woke Boris and headed home. Bobbi’s idea of “not much” was more than enough for one day. Tomorrow was soon enough to talk to Aunt Marge.

***^***

I came down to breakfast to find Roger Campbell at the table. That still came as a surprise to me. I tensed up for a minute, and Boris fluffed and hissed before he remembered he liked Roger. I was suddenly glad I’d decided to wear a robe over my PJs with the little sunflowers all over them. “G’morning, Roger,” I mumbled.

“Good morning, Sheriff.” Roger was unfailingly polite. He had a stillness to him, and a watchfulness, that made me wonder what exactly it was he’d done in the military. He never said, and somehow, no one ever asked. Roger’s little smile discouraged it.

“Lil,” chirped Aunt Marge. She’s never looked her age, but since Roger left his wife and started keeping company with her, she could pass for my age at least. For a miracle, no one in Crazy had anything negative to say about it. We’ve all met his ex.

We ate our oatmeal and dried berries in comfortable quiet, Boris inhaling his morning meal of tuna, chicken and kibble while Aunt Marge’s Natasha yowled unhappily to herself under a sofa in the front room. When I left for work‌—‌I take the seven to three shift‌—‌with Boris at my heels, Roger and Aunt Marge were sipping some herbal tea together on the porch, watching the mist dissolve in the sunrise. It gave me a pang for my own solitude, until Boris merr-rrowed and jumped into my lap for a cuddle.

I had scheduled an appointment to talk to Aunt Marge at ten, which gave me time to deal with the morning rush out of Crazy, such as it is. Boris looked eagerly out the windshield. He loves speed traps. I settled in behind the veterinarian’s office as a change. It’s a little closer in toward town than the garden center. Boris didn’t approve. He has a hate-hate relationship with the vet, ever since Dr. Mitchell neutered him and he bit Dr. Mitchell so hard the man needed stitches and antibiotics.

After a few cars zipped by, Boris calmed down, ears perked and eyes alight. His tail twitched. He watched the cars, meowing softly to himself now and then, as if he’d forgotten I was there. He probably had.

It wasn’t a speeding car that caught my eye. It was a Vespa motor-scooter. It was hot pink. And it was being driven by a naked teenager.

Boris said, “Merwl?!”

I said, “Damn. Senior Dare Day.”

Senior Dare Day is a tradition at the county high school, among the boys. Girls don’t bother with it, maybe because we have more common sense. Every year, usually late April, the senior boys do some of the dumbest things you can imagine. The year Bobbi and I were seniors, Chad McAllister passed into legend and nearly passed away when he jumped his father’s Harley over the little reservoir behind the flood-control dam on Mineral Creek. He didn’t let go when it fell short, and after he’d been dragged out half-drowned, his father almost killed him all over again. But the usual stunts were benign, things like wearing a bra, dyeing hair, shaving heads. When you’ve got as few people as we do around here‌—‌I think the county population is shy of fifteen thousand these days‌—‌you don’t have too many kids to deal with, let alone seniors on Senior Dare Day.

Nonetheless, here came Darren Mitchell, the vet’s oldest, naked as a jaybird, puttering down Piedmont Road on a hot pink Vespa. Which matched the color of his face. I had just decided to hit my lights, between snickers, when here came Danny Tucker and Rod Twigg Junior, also due to graduate that June, riding pink bicycles, and equally naked.

I was laughing so hard it took me three tries to hit the switch for the lights.

***^***

The boys weren’t as embarrassed as I expected. Well, Rod was, but Danny and Darren wanted to know if I had a dash-camera so they could post the footage on YouTube. I told them no, even if I had a dash-cam I wouldn’t let them have the footage, while I filled out paperwork and our dispatcher-secretary Kim tried not to giggle. I couldn’t blame her. We only had two blankets, and three boys sharing them while Boris sniffed impudently at their legs. It’s a miracle I got anything done at all.

The Twiggs had already left for work up at the resort in Wintergreen, and Rod’s uncle worked in Lynchburg. So did his grandfather, Otis. But his grandmother, Nancy, worked right across the street at Littlepage Elementary, in the cafeteria, and she showed up breathing fire and spitting nails. “Rodney Ellis Twigg!”

He shrank, if that was physically possible.

She flung a bundle at him. “You take your poor grandpa’s clothes and you get yourself respectable right now, you hear me?”

He looked wildly at me and at Kim. I said, “Go on,” and he scampered to the restroom clutching the clothes over himself. Mrs. Twigg turned to me, her eyes snapping like firecrackers. She used to look like that when kids tried to take extra cookies in the lunch line. “Sheriff, I tell you Rodney is a good boy when he’s not around these hooligans.” She glared at Danny and Darren, who gulped. “We will see to him,” she promised in a growl even Boris couldn’t match. “And we will have the reverend talk to him on Sunday, don’t you worry!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Twigg,” I said. “Now calm yourself, there’s no need to pop a blood vessel over this. Would you like some of Aunt Marge’s tea?”

“No thank you, dear,” she replied crisply, as Rodney skulked out in clothes twice as big as they needed to be. She hooked him under the arm in a pinching grip that had Rod‌—‌easily a foot taller‌—‌trying to walk tippy-toe to get away from it. “I will drive this heathen to school,” she announced. “Do I have to sign for his worthless behind?”

“Right here,” said Kim smoothly. Her eyes were dancing. Kim loves her job. What little goes on in Crazy, goes on where she has a front-row seat.

“You apologize to the sheriff for having to cart your naked behind in her nice clean car!”

Rodney, who’d turned a deep red, mumbled, “I’m sorry, Sheriff.”

She breezed out, Rodney in tow, as Dr. Mitchell roared in. He snatched the blanket clean off his son, then hurled it back. “Jay-zus!” he yowled, at a pitch that put Boris’s ears flat. “Well, you can damn well go home as naked as you left!”

Darren wasn’t expecting that. He yelped. “Dad!”

Dr. Mitchell turned his back. He nodded politely to Kim, detoured around Boris, and scrawled an angry signature where indicated. “Is there a fine or is he going to court?”

“Juvenile, first offense, I’m sure it’ll be a fine or maybe community service. Harry Rucker’ll be in touch.” I had to bite my own lip to keep from laughing at what Harry would say to all this. “I doubt it’ll go on his permanent record.”

He thanked me, then fixed his son with the same look he typically saved for those who abuse animals. “Go on, get up,” he said to his son, who clutched the blanket tight. True to his word, Dr. Mitchell tore it away, and left Darren trying to cover himself with his hands.

Poor kid. It worked.

Daniel Tucker’s parents work close to home, but took the longest to arrive. It was Gloria who came for him, crying too hard to see. He changed into the sweats she brought, looking helpless, and I wondered if Gloria was crying on purpose, knowing it’d make him feel worse than any lecture. He hustled out looking like he’d prefer death over five more minutes of his mother’s tears. She left tear-blotches on the paperwork, and went through half a box of tissues in record time as she sobbed her apologies for his behavior.

Then, at the door, she paused and hiccupped out, “I just don’t know if I can ever ride that bike again!”

When the door closed, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

***^***

Aunt Marge came armed. What she doesn’t know about a family in a five-county area is easy enough for her to find out by calling some of the other women around her age who run things without letting on they run them. It’s not that “Steel Magnolias” crap. It’s more like a perfumed church-lady mafia.

“The Colliers,” she said, sitting properly in the chair across from me, ankles crossed, knees together, hands folded elegantly. She went to a fancy European finishing school, the same my mother attended. I sometimes think Aunt Marge regrets that it closed before she could send me there. She certainly hasn’t had any luck teaching me to be a lady. According to her, I’m barely even civilized enough to eat at the table.

“The Colliers,” she said again. “Well. Which ones do you need to know about?”