Stone Cold Crazy (Lil & Boris #4) (Lil and Boris Mysteries) (9 page)

One of the hounds rose, stretched, ambled over and put his head on my lap. I scratched behind his floppy ears and he crooned happily.

Chipmunk stirred. He swigged from his jug. “Gotta ask, Sheriff. Any chance that Littlepage will change his mind?”

“Nope.”

“And if I use this rifle again, you’ll throw me in some stinking cell.”

“Yep.”

He exhaled in a gust. “Hell. Can’t have that at my age. I’m 80 this year, y’know.” The look he gave me was full of pleading. “Any chance at all for me here?”

“You’ve got fifteen acres, right?”

He nodded glumly.

“Pay your taxes?”

He nodded more glumly.

The idea came into my head full-sized, and out of nowhere. “Got much saved?”

He snorted. “You gonna ask me if my gains are ill-got?”

“No, I’m just asking if you’ve got much money on hand.”

Chipmunk heaved a sigh. He stood abruptly, walked into the cabin and re-emerged with, of all things, a checkbook. From the old bank down in Gilfoyle that’s managed to hang on mostly because no big banks have figured out our county exists. He showed me the last page.

He had $1,312 in his account. The address was a post office box down in Crazy.

I handed it back. “Think that’ll last you the rest of your life?”

He glared, without malice. “You know it won’t, missy sheriff. Won’t barely cover taxes.”

The words popped out. “Littlepage’ll pay five thousand an acre for your fifteen acres.”

I had no idea what Cousin Jack would say to me about that, but I didn’t doubt he’d pay it. He’d been willing to pay half that per acre to old Vera Collier for the 500 acres she’d owned. Of course, he might also tell me to pay it, in which case there’d be a serious problem.

“You’re lying.”

I kept going. Chalk it up to stress. “Let me call him.”

I walked away ten paces to get another bar of reception, dialed Jack’s number, and braced for the worst. A bullet in my head, maybe. “Lil,” he said briskly, “what can I do for you? And can it be brief? We’ve got a problem out at Grenville, apparently.”

“I know, I’m dealing with it. You willing to pay five thousand an acre for fifteen acres owned by Mr. Tyler?”

“Who?”

“Chipmunk Tyler.”

Chipmunk gesticulated wildly at me. I covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Yes?”

“My real name’s Harold.”

“Mr. Harold Tyler,” I said to Jack, “doesn’t believe the offer.”

“I don’t believe the offer. What the hell made you think you could do that, Cousin?” I winced at the sarcasm dripping off
Cousin
. “That’s outrageous.”

“Look, you were going to pay seven figures for the place, you’ll still be paying less than a hundred grand. And with seventy-five grand, even after taxes, I bet Mr. Tyler could pick up a nice chunk of land someplace nowhere near a campground.”

Chipmunk finally clued in.

“Or he could buy a little trailer down Quarry way, still have money left.”

The anger on Chipmunk’s face faded to thoughtfulness.

“Punk’s got one he’s been trying to sell. Just a little single-wide, but it’s got air conditioning and it’s only a few years old.”

Jack started to speak, stopped, then growled. “Damn it! All right, Lil, get his address, I’ll need it for the paperwork.”

“Got it,” I said and rattled off the post office box number.

“I’ll throw in some extra to compensate for the taxes on the sale. Figure an even hundred grand.” He snorted. “What the hell, it’ll get the men back to work tomorrow. Tell Mr. Tyler he can pick up his check tonight. Hand-delivered. I’ll be out at the road around…‌I suppose he doesn’t own a watch. Sundown.”

I relayed the information. Chipmunk glanced at his cabin. He asked, quietly, “This trailer. I’d have to pay for that electric and all?”

“Afraid so.”

“Hate to leave the old cabin…”

I prayed. Let me get something done. Solve something.

“A’right then. I can make it work.”

I told Jack. We hung up. Then Chipmunk Tyler waved at me. “C’mon in the place. Got somethin’ for you.”

I followed him inside. He handed me a wooden bowl from the mantle over the fireplace. “There y’go. Figure you earned it, makin’ that deal.” His eyes were shrewd. “That Littlepage didn’t know you were goin’ to do it.”

I blushed a little. “No, but I had a feeling he’d be okay with it. This campground’s important to him.”

He chuckled. “Heh. Guess it must be.”

I turned the bowl in my hands. “It’s beautiful.”

“Hickory.”

I thanked him again, and as I turned to go, I suddenly noticed a small pile of paper. I took a look.

It was the flyer.

My hand dropped to my gun. Pure reflex.

Chipmunk Tyler’s friendliness evaporated. “You got a problem, Sheriff?”

“That flyer showed up at a house that blew up.”

We locked stares. He blinked first. “Huh. Didn’t know about that. You think it’s important.”

“It could be.”

He fingered the papers. Then he handed them over. “Hell. Ain’t nothing. My nephew come up, asked me to stuff ‘em in the mailboxes when I got a chance. Went down a few nights ago on my way to the creek. Good fishing up above the bridge.”

Without a license, though I wouldn’t be busting him for it. “You mind your nephew gets a visit?”

Chipmunk shrugged. “He’s kin, but that don’t mean I got to like him.”

I laughed, against my will. “What’s his name?”

“Freddie. My brother’s boy. Lives up Buck Hollow. Comes hunting this side of Fox Mountain now and then.”

Poaching, I mentally amended. “Thank you, Mr. Tyler. For everything.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

I headed downhill at a quick walk. It’s a long way to Buck Hollow. I wanted to get started.

9.

B
uck Hollow lies more or less north of Paint Hollow, in the shadow of Sims and Fox mountains. The road up there is not what you’d call paved. More occasionally tar-and-chip, with bouts of washboard. In his cat seat, Boris uttered a few startled “Mrows!” when we hit a particularly bad patch.

Behind me, I saw the dust cloud raised by the FBI’s sedan. Yeah. I called them. Damn conscience got me.

Most of our county’s population lives outside of our few towns. The roads that snake out of Gilfoyle up and around the mountains have a house every hundred yards or so. Then you get to the entrance to Buck Hollow.

All of a sudden, there weren’t houses.

The road narrowed. It ran alongside Red Branch near enough you could park your car right there in the road, sit on the trunk, and cast a line for trout.

When we broke through the narrow gap between Fox and Buckle mountains, we saw houses again, off on dirt side lanes. They were pretty typical for around here, one-story ranch-style, an occasional old saltbox. At the bottom of each lane were clusters of mailboxes with house numbers on them. I slowed to better read them. Finally, not far from the end of the road, I spotted Freddie Tyler’s, and went up the lane at a crawl. I didn’t want the feds too far behind.

It didn’t take a lot to guess which of the five houses was Freddie’s. It was posted with “No Trespassing” and “Trespassers Will Be Shot” signs every ten feet, and I mean that literally. The whole lot was fenced off in barbed wire topped, I noted, by razor wire.

Definitely time to leave Boris in the car. Window down, but in the car.

As I stood there, Agent Howard came up behind me, and remarked quietly, “Not a friendly man.”

“He’s got cameras,” I said, without nodding to the house. “Front door, both windows, corners.”

“He’s at the window.”

I looked at the gate that led to the house. It was not topped with razor wire. I didn’t trust that at all. I stepped back, took a second look, and noticed that the plain wooden post had a very small brown-gray doorbell set into it.

“Well, he either answers or he blows us up,” I said, and pressed the button.

The front door popped open way too quickly. A voice rasped loudly, “Get off my property!”

Agent Howard started to say something, but I jumped in and hollered back quickly, “Ain’t on it yet! You want, we can go get a warrant.”

The sunlight glinted dully off something down by his leg. Howard didn’t have to mutter, “Gun.” I’d seen it. My pulse tripped into high gear.

“I don’t recognize your authority! It’s not given by the people!”

“Jesus,” murmured Newsome. “One of those.”

Howard silenced him with a look.

“Mr. Tyler,” I called, “I spoke to your uncle Harold.”

Freddie wasn’t speaking, yet there was a sense of a pause. A reassessment.

“What’d the old nut tell you?”

“Mr. Tyler, you heard what happened up in Crazy the other day.”

“Yeah. Goddamn fed got his house blown up!”

I wanted to walk up and slap some compassion into the man. “He’s a road engineer for the DOT, Mr. Tyler, and he has two kids never did harm to anyone.”

“He works for an illegal government, he gets what he deserves!”

There are times rational debate works. Then there are times you just have to play to their delusion.

“Look, you numbnut son of a bitch,” I hollered, “you’re one phone call from Armageddon, y’hear? Now you can get your ass out here and answer questions, or I can get the black helicopter boys and ain’t nobody gonna see you again till Judgment!”

“Sheriff,” Howard reproved, without much force.

Freddie Tyler stepped onto his front stoop. He had an assault rifle in his hands. A freakin’ AR-15. He wore the faded military surplus camo pants and old t-shirt to go with the rest of the cliché. Swear to God, it was embarrassing. Made me blush to be mountain folk.

He stormed down the walk to the gate. “You got no right to threaten me on my property!”

“Simple question, Mr. Tyler,” I said hotly, and waved the flyers at him. “I’ll let it slide you had your uncle stuff these in people’s mailboxes instead of springing for stamps.”

“I won’t contribute to a government that…”

“Taxpayer money hasn’t funded the US Postal Service since the 1980s, and it is technically just borrowing money from the Treasury, get your damn facts right.”

His face purpled. Not a good color on him. Brought out a touch of jaundice in his eyes. Or maybe that was bile.

“And keep your politics to yourself,” I added sharply. “These flyers all your idea?”

The dumb cluck brightened up with pride. It was the star moment of his day, maybe his life, that here came the Law, the big bad Government, to get him over his flyers.

“Yep. Wrote ‘em myself.”

“It shows,” I said, and Newsome choked into his hand. “So who all got ‘em?”

“I printed five thousand.”

That was more flyers than we had households in the county.

“Where’d you put them?”

“Half around here, other half over where that traitor lives.”

I took “traitor” to be Senator Weed.

While I took a moment to wonder what to say next, Freddie Tyler decided to declare his manifesto some more. “You can’t stop me, neither, it’s my right to free speech. The government don’t listen to the will of the people ain’t a Constitutional government and it’s right in the Constitution we got to take up arms against it.”

Howard shifted forward, shoulders tensing. “Mr. Tyler,” he warned. “Advocacy of armed rebellion can be seen as sedition.”

Wrong tack to take. The gun started to swing in Freddie’s hand.

I lunged and caught Freddie by the upper arm. “What he means is,” I rapped out, “please tell us if you believe in letting bombs speak for you.”

A tiny bit of fire died out of Freddie’s eyes. The biceps under my grip were so tight I thought they’d snap like over-tuned guitar strings. “I got no call to bomb some stooge. If I was gonna bomb, I’d go right to the top.”

Howard and Newsome both moved. I was leaning over that gate, with one hand on Freddie and the other near my sidearm, so I did what I had to do. I mule-kicked back. I caught someone’s shin. From the hiccup of pain, Newsome.

I kept fake-smiling at Freddie. “That’s what we need to know. Now, you can see we might not take your word for it, what with the flyers, so how about you let us take a look around.”

“You got no right.”

“That’s why we’re
asking
,” I growled, and dug my fingers into his bicep. “You look at me, Mr. Tyler.”

He did. Reluctantly.

“These boys behind me, they’ve got a lab report that tells them what to look for. We don’t find it, we go away. Deal?”

“How I know you won’t…”

I didn’t bother invoking my own reputation. “You seriously think Marge Turner raised a dishonest cop?”

He considered that. “No. I reckon she wouldn’t. A’right. But I get to go with y’all.”

I exhaled, very quietly, and let go of his arm and stepped back. “Thank you very much, Mr. Tyler.”

He pulled out some keys and turned one in the lock securing the gate. I smiled cheerfully. I knew how to take some of the spark out of Freddie Tyler. I’d tell Aunt Marge all about his cooperation. Within twenty-four hours, the story would be known by everyone in five counties.

Revenge is sweet.

***^***

We must have waded through half a ton of crap at Freddie Tyler’s house. Magazines about guns, conservative politics, fishing, vintage cars, golf. More types of fishing rods than I ever knew existed. A gun collection that made even Agent Newsome blink. Twenty-three handguns of various caliber, age, and type. A wall of assault rifles under glass: vintage AK-47, M-16, a French bullpup, a Heckler & Koch G36, even an Israeli TAR-21. I didn’t want to think how he’d gotten one of those. But nowhere a trace of gunpowder, steel pipe, cotton batting of any kind except on the ear swabs under the sink along with the roach traps.

As we retreated to our cars, Howard sighed heavily and put a hand on my shoulder. “Good thought, Sheriff. Good lead. Too bad it didn’t pan out.”

The mood I was in, he’s lucky I didn’t borrow a gun from Freddie just to beat him to death with it.

***^***

I was supposed to have supper with Punk, but the prospect did not brighten my day. Nor did my mood improve when I got a very irate voice mail from Steve, demanding to know what right I had to ruin his budget for Grenville. I was within one button-push of blocking Steve’s number forever when my phone rang, startling me into dropping it. I swerved onto the shoulder of Piedmont so I could reach down and grab it.