Stone Cold Crazy (Lil & Boris #4) (Lil and Boris Mysteries) (2 page)

The remaining ten carats’ worth of diamonds were being made into a choker for Aunt Marge.

Not far from Tom, I saw Punk, casually sipping a cold beer, and leaning on crutches. He usually wore a prosthesis, but now and then he gave his amputated limb a day off from it. He’d lost the lower half of the leg in a car accident on icy roads, and had been forced to quit his job with the county police. It’d been Tom’s idea to have him help with a case, and I’d been impressed enough to hire him on as a part-time deputy. After we’d lost my secretary to prison this past spring, he’d become full-time. It cost him his disability check, but Punk did not seem to mind. He gave me a half-nod, and kept sipping his beer as he watched some of the older men play horseshoes.

Boris meowed to be let down. I lowered him to the grass. He gave a sneeze, tail up and waving gently, and set off toward the food tables. Boris gets three squares a day, plenty of high-end food and tuna and salmon, but his inner feral still loves to scrounge.

I’d spotted Heather Shifflett, our resident graffiti mural artist, sitting by herself with a sketchbook when I heard Cousin Jack hail me. “Just the person I wanted to see!”

He sounded three sheets to the wind. When he grabbed me and gave me a big hug, I knew he was seriously drunk. Littlepages are not big on public displays of affection. “Cousin,” he caroled, eyes sparkling. “I want you to meet the man who is going to help me transform Crazy!”

I stifled a sigh. The Littlepages and Ellers regularly try to transform Crazy. Generally, we just end up with a very large, very nice public works project. Like our library, or the elementary school. That kind of thing. “Transform how?”

“Tourism,” my cousin beamed. He’s a typical Littlepage. Mousy hair, ice-blue eyes that I also have, average height that I don’t have, a little stocky, but good-looking because money means great medical care, and good medical care is a big boost toward beauty. “Really sustainable tourism, none of those flashy resorts, Lil. Good tourism.”

The only tourists we see in Crazy are the ones who get lost trying to find their way someplace else. I gave up trying to stifle that sigh. “Jack,” I said, “this is not a tourist destination.”

“It can be,” he said, and tugged me past a knot of barbecue-gnawing Shiflets. I hid my grimace. Aunt Marge raised me to be a vegetarian, and even the smell of meat tends to make my stomach do some ugly backflips.

“Jack, I’m on duty,” I said, in case he’d missed the fact I was wearing my uniform and silly hat. “C’mon, Cousin, don’t make me arrest you.”

Jack laughed. How much booze had he
had
? Littlepages don’t laugh much. It’s about the only thing they have in common with the Ellers.

He reached out and clasped someone by the arm. The guy was wearing a hat a lot like Jack’s, one of those sun-shading ones that crumples up into a pocket without losing its shape because it hasn’t got a shape to lose. The guy turned, lifted his head from his plate, and for a split second, I lost the ability to speak out of pure shock.

“Hello, Lil,” said the man, and in front of everyone in town, or at least the two-thirds of everyone at the park, he leaned in and kissed me smack on the lips like he had the right.

A lot of things went through my head, most of them profane, but the town was watching. A few of them with gleaming delight, and I don’t mean the good kind.

I could feel Punk’s stare like a blow.

Before I said a word, or kneed the man in the groin for his presumption, Boris arrived. Hissing, he scrambled up my trousers and shirt, and as I automatically cupped him in my arms, he yowled his war cry, tail lashing and ears flattened against his skull. It was bad enough Punk had lip-laying rights, but this was a total stranger. One who hadn’t bothered to bring an appropriate bribe.

The man drew back slightly, then chuckled, and put out a hand to pat Boris on the head.

Idiot.

Boris struck. He scored eight scratches before the man could jerk his hand back to safety.

Smiling sunnily, I said, “This is Boris. He’s my deputy. Boris,” I said to my cat, “this is Steven Kipling.” I rubbed his forehead with mine briefly and added a soft, “Good baby,” before I turned to my ex-fiancée and said, “He doesn’t like people invading my space.”

I could hear Aunt Marge approaching, by the clank of thermoses in her big shoulder bag. I could feel Punk’s presence, hovering, undecided. I could all but taste the whispers of speculation rushing around the park. Mostly, though, I could only wonder what I’d done in a past life to earn this kind of karma.

***^***

Seeing Steven Kipling made me sick. Shaking sick. I’d left a lot behind me in my life, and he was part of it. While Aunt Marge renewed their acquaintance, and the town whispered, I stalked blindly toward the creek. By the time I reached Bobbi, Raj had found another camp chair for me, and had made himself blessedly scarce. I dropped into the canvas seat and said in a shudder, “God help me.”

Bobbi’s face was pink, her eyes glittering as fiercely as Boris’s. Her arm came out and gave me a rough half-hug. She’s the only person who knows the whole story. Not even Aunt Marge had gotten all the truth. Only Bobbi. “Don’t you give him the satisfaction, Lil. Don’t you dare.”

My lips felt numb. I realized my jaw was clenched, and broke it free with a forced yawn that hurt. “God help me,” I repeated, and took the cup of lemonade she thrust into my hand. It was icy, sweet, and gone in two gulps. “I don’t think I’m up to this.”

“You’re up to it,” Bobbi told me firmly. “I know it’s a lot, but you got through this Kim thing.”

I was still getting through that “Kim thing”, as the town called my secretary’s part in the kidnap scheme that darn near saw me dead. Kim had been more than a secretary. She’d been a friend. One of the few women friends I had. Or so I’d thought.

“Look, you’ve got your job, you have your house, you’ve got Punk…”

I sort of had Punk.

“Look at me, hon. Look at me, you hear?”

I looked. When Bobbi gets all mountain twangy, it’s time to obey.

Her eyes bored into mine. “I know, okay? Or at least I can guess. And I may not be the one who did your highlights this last time, but that gal up in Charlottesville is a master for a reason, you look gorgeous. Okay?”

Aunt Marge had never taught me to value appearances over substance, but it felt good to think I looked good. Like a cozy Kevlar vest for the soul. I drew a deep breath and my head cleared of some of the fuzzy panic. I smiled and gave Bobbi a hug. “Thanks.”

She clung to me, shaking a little. Two shipwreck victims in the same lifeboat, that was us. Always had been, always would be.

“Now,” she ordered, “go get my husband back here, and maybe you better find out what that sonvabitch is doing here.”

I still felt my old life smacking me around like a twig in rapids, but I could control it now. I went to find out what my ex-fiancée was doing in my hometown.

2.

W
hen I first met Steven Kipling, he asked me where I was from. When I told him, he said, “Oh, like the Waltons,” and I burst out laughing.

Looking back, I probably took that as a better omen than it was.

Nobody was laughing Tuesday morning, when I met Jack for breakfast out at the Country Rose. It’s the bed and breakfast on the back end of Johns Mountain, owned and operated by Lynn Turner, a relation of Aunt Marge’s. She had recently gotten the idea to open the breakfast part to all comers, since the only restaurant in Crazy is Old Mill, and that’s only open for lunch and supper. She didn’t serve anything too high-end, pretty much a five-bucks-a-head buffet of oatmeal, fruit, juice, tea, coffee, and some wicked good cornbread with honey or molasses. Lynn served it all on gorgeous china with patterns of roses, in a very Victorian room with very Victorian furniture. Or, in nice weather, on her screened-in porch with the view out toward Bear Mountain. Not bad for a fiver.

I loaded up on the cornbread and fruit. Jack chose coffee, oatmeal, and a lonely banana. We sat at a small round patio table outside, covered in a white tablecloth. The napkins were white, too. Lynn loved her roses, but she wasn’t insane. She kept it tasteful. And tasty.

“I’m sorry, Lil, when Steve said he knew you, I didn’t think twice,” my cousin apologized, pouring cream into his coffee. “I thought it was just an FBI thing.”

“No harm done, I was just surprised. Haven’t heard from him since we broke up. That’s…” I calculated around a mouthful of cornbread and honey. “Ten years, give or take a lifetime.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. I poured some of the cream into a saucer and set it on a third chair for Boris. Lynn winced but shut her mouth.

“Look, I can get another adviser,” Jack said reasonably. “You’re family. He’s just hired help.”

The Littlepage arrogance grated. “No. I’m sure he’s a good adviser. What exactly is he advising you on?”

“Grenville.”

Oh Lord, spare me. Not Grenville. That is one hunk of property I would like to never have known existed. It lies out Piedmont Road, sort of opposite our mini-mall, and it was once owned by a Littlepage who thought he could make himself a fancy English estate. What he ended up with was a lot of nothing. Over the decades, the land had been sold off, but it had eventually wound up in one big parcel again. Grenville was last owned by Vera Collier, and ownership since Vera’s death had been contested by those of her heirs not disqualified from inheriting by reason of having been involved in her murder.

My first question was, therefore, “Grenville? How’d that happen?”

Jack’s grin was pure malice, in an indifferent, big-business way. “The Colliers didn’t pay the taxes. I saw it on the county website, and it only cost me twenty grand at auction.”

Considering he’d been willing to pay seven figures, that was some bargain. He also got one up on my Eller relatives. Grenville would’ve given them a route from Crazy to their land at Quarry, where geology had been delaying a development plan for ages.

I whistled. “Congratulations, but what are you going to do with it? It’s too vertical for much.” Not my most brilliant observation, but I’m probably the only Littlepage or Eller in a century to be raised in Crazy. I couldn’t bet Jack had ever seen the land. He had said often he’d like to settle here more permanently, but talk is cheap, especially to rich people.

I watched my cousin cut a banana into perfect little yellow discs and spear one with a fork. I’d never seen someone eat a banana with a fork. Even Boris stared. “Tourism. We’ll have a main lodge, lots of family activities, you know, Wii, and a big room of those bouncy things kids like, outdoor playground and pool, some little cabins for couples…‌Mostly tent sites, though. RVs wouldn’t be able to manage these roads.”

That was true enough. I shut my mouth before, as Aunt Marge would say, I attracted flies. “Tents?”

“Camping, Cousin,” he said, and stabbed a piece of banana. “What’s the most affordable vacation you can imagine?”

“Not leaving home?”

Jack paid no attention. “Tent camping! Think of it! We could have some with electric or water hook-ups, forty-fifty a night for rural peace and quiet, real country hospitality…”

“Have you
met
this town?”

Jack kept going, banana piece waving in the air in little circles. Boris watched, hypnotized, tail beginning to lash. Uh-oh.

“We can use the creek to feed the pool. Oh, not directly, I know there’d be health issues, but we can make it
look
that way. The tent sites would be simplicity itself, all we need is enough flat space. And imagine what it could do for the town, Lil!”

He’d reached a peak of enthusiasm with the word
town
, which was when his fork lifted up, Boris levitated, and my cousin’s fork went flying across the porch with Boris in pursuit.

Eyes boggling, Jack sat very still. Boris had caromed off his arm, but otherwise, no harm was done, except to his composure. “Th-th-th-that
cat
!”

“Sorry,” I snorted. I wasn’t laughing. Really. More that I was thinking how hard I could laugh when I got some privacy. “Ahem. Anyway, you were saying?”

From across the porch we heard the clank of a sterling silver fork hitting a metal table leg. Jack’s mouth turned down exactly like his late father’s. Or, come to think of it, mine on a bad day.

“I’ll show you the site, and Steve’s ideas. He knows his markets.”

Aunt Marge raised me to be kind. It didn’t always work. Nevertheless, I managed an honest compliment. “He always was good at white-collar stuff.”

“I try not to hire idiots. So, it’s all right for you to take the morning?”

“The joy of being sheriff,” I said, “and besides, I was on yesterday, I’ve got a day off coming. Let’s get rolling.”

***^***

The turnoff to Grenville is just a dirt track, used mostly by hunters and kids. Weed-choked. Thickets of sumac and what-all around it. Boris took one look and decided he’d rather stay in the car. He’s hell on paws in town, but out in the woods, he turns into a wimp. I left his window rolled down‌—‌like my cruiser, my car has mesh over his window so he can’t get out‌—‌and trudged up the track in Jack and Steve’s wake. Once we passed out of the weeds and into the woods, the temperature dropped about ten degrees, and I could suddenly see why Cousin Jack thought a campground would be a success.

Wow.

The hollow was beautiful. Here and there you could see where someone had taken an acre or two for timber, scattered with younger trees, or where a storm had toppled a giant and done the same work. Rhododendrons sported late blossoms and laurels flashed white. Along the stream tumbling its way to Elk Creek, ferns and mosses covered the ground in sun-dappled greens. The light poured through the leaves, and glinted gold off the water. As we moved upstream, a deer track veered off, and I padded along it to a boulder in which tiny garnets marched in perfect lines. I remembered a science teacher telling us that it was a sign of something to do with the formation of the surrounding metamorphic rock, but it looked like magic.

I rejoined the men where a long-ago Littlepage had planted the foundation markers for his house. You could still see the stones under lichen and moss and ivy. Jack busily kicked the growth away. “This’ll make a great lodge site.”