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

by Shannon Hill

  Nevertheless, Punk is a man. This means he is territorial. The fact Steven Kipling was such old news he was just plain olds did not matter. He was news to Punk, and Punk started our conversation Tuesday evening with, “Since when do you have a fiancée?”

  Lord save me from testosterone.

  “Ex-fiancée,” I sighed, and got very tempted to slam the front door on the man. If I hadn’t spent two hours on a very healthy homemade pizza, where the only thing I didn’t make from scratch was the friggin’ cheese, he’d have gotten a face full of good-bye. Instead, I let him in with a terse, “I didn’t bring it up because he doesn’t matter. You can tell it doesn’t matter because,” I continued with heavy sarcasm, “I didn’t bring it up.”

  He plunked down a can of fancy tuna for Boris, who said hello by washing his butt in Punk’s direction. “So who dumped who?”

  I pulled an Aunt Marge. Reassuring to think nurture has some sway over nature. “Whom,” I corrected. “He dumped me the night before the wedding. Best favor he ever did me.” I pulled the pizza out of the oven. I’d set the table nicely, gotten a bottle of fancy organic bubbly juice, lit a few candles, and for all Punk noticed, I could’ve served him cat food on a paper plate. “I gave back the ring, we parted ways, I never heard from him again till yesterday.” I glanced at Punk’s face as I started on my first slice. I was getting nowhere fast. I risked a bit of truth and trivia. “I didn’t even know he’d left the Bureau.”

  “Didn’t know he’d been in it.”

  My appetite fled for parts unknown. I sank my head into my hands. “Punk, swear to God, it’s no big deal.”

  Punk snorted. “Yeah, and when people tell me Leelee says hello, it doesn’t bring up anything.”

  If anyone is going to get insecure, it should be me when I think of Leelee Shiflet. Lisa Lee Shiflet Chalmers, that is. She is petite, naturally strawberry blonde, cuddly-curvy, and adorable. I’m a few hairs shy of six feet, my hair is a sort of generic dark color unless I get it highlighted, I am not terribly curvy, and as you know by now, I’m not terribly adorable, either. I’d lain awake a few nights already wondering if I was just the Rebound Girl. You know. The one the guy dates to prove he’s over the first one.

  I did not reply to Punk’s remark. I couldn’t. Seeing Steve did bring up memories I’d as soon forget. If I’d been smart, I’d have spilled the whole story to Punk then and there, but old habits die hard.

  Steve had taught me some of them.

  I did try. “Doesn’t mean you still want to be with her.”

  I’d caught him off-guard. “Well, no, I guess it don’t. But…‌Look, I don’t have to like that he’s here.”

  You’d think an adulthood spent in a male-dominated profession would’ve taught me more about the male brain. Hell, living with Boris should’ve been an education in itself on territorial tendencies. Yet I sat there too confused to come up with a better answer than, “I’m not asking you to like it. I don’t even like it. Just ignore him. That’s my plan.”

  Punk grumbled wordlessly. He sounded like Boris. Great. Like I needed two of that.

  ***^***

  What I needed was a crime. Something to take my mind off my troubles. I figured I could count on Eddie Brady. He’s been the town’s official nuisance for just about as long as he’s been out of diapers, and if our county judiciary had a decent budget, he’d be doing felony time. As it is, he averages one night a week in one of our two cells. After that not-date with Punk, I actually looked for Eddie.

  If that’s not desperation, I don’t know what is.

  If this was one of those complicated mystery novels, my ex-fiancée would turn up dead right around now. In fact, nobody turned up dead. Given the last couple years, that came as a relief. I’ve had a bellyful of corpses, if you’ll pardon the expression.

  What did happen was…

  Well, I’ll just tell you.

  ***^***

  It’s a rule of police work, or at least my police work, that whatever you’re prepared for is never what happens. I was braced for some sort of macho confrontation, popular protests, teenage hijinks to celebrate the coming end of the school year. I was ready for graffiti, feces in paper bags, some drunken stupidity, the usual start-of-summer routine. What I was not ready for was an explosion that shook the car six inches sideways.

  Okay, maybe one inch, but it felt like six.

  Boris’s fur stood on end. He clung to his car seat with all eighteen claws. His ribcage rose and fell with quick staccato breaths. His eyes rounded.

  I said, “What the hell?” and grabbed the radio. “Punk! What is it?”

  The radio squealed. I heard a squelching noise, then Punk’s irritated, “Son of a bitch! I got smoke and what-all on Spottswood.”

  “En route,” I snapped, and peeled out of my speed trap with all lights and sirens going. The siren at the VFD was already screaming. Our volunteer chief Hugh Rush was shouting, a garden hose forgotten around his ankles amidst the pansies. Being a volunteer fireman was considered a pretty safe civic duty around here. The VFD rarely got any call more thrilling than an occasional kitchen fire and car accident. Oh, they did the training, and they did take it seriously, all six-seven of them, but the county always lent a hand if it got more complicated than rescuing a kid from a tree. I hit the radio and Punk replied instantly, “I’ve got county fire on the line, a’right, Lil? I do know my job, dammit.”

  I covered pretty well, I think. “Which house on Spottswood?”

  “It’s the Weed house.”

  Number 23.

  “The Vogts called it in, they got some broken windows. I’m heading over.”

  “See you there.”

  My tires squealed as I turned onto Spottswood, just ahead of Punk as he jumped into our spare cruiser. I wriggled my cell off my belt and hit speed-dial for Tom Hutchins. Splinters of wood and siding and glass lay everywhere. A hunk of two-by-four had been driven clean through the windshield of Adam Weed’s sedan. I rolled to a halt on the shoulder just shy of the burning remains of the house. Punk pulled in across the road. He legged it to the Vogt house to make sure they were okay. They had two kids, both of whom would’ve been going to school that morning. I had a sudden, gut-twisting vision of what would’ve happened if the kids had been outside waiting for the school bus. Renee and Ryder would’ve caught shrapnel. Same with Shannon Hart’s boy, Eric. I waved at Punk as he came out of the Vogt house. He threw me an okay sign, and I pointed to Shannon Hart’s place. He nodded, understanding.

  Never assume you don’t have victims just because you don’t hear screams.

  I ran for number 23 and thanked God for topography. Spottswood Lane is technically a semi-circle, but it’s a semi-circle that takes a bend, and 23 sits on the outside of that bend. The inner part is an outcrop of metamorphic rock. I loved that hunk of rock. It had taken the brunt of the explosion.

  I like anything that reduces the number of potential victims.

  I hit what had been the front porch of number 23. Yeah, I know, you’re thinking “What an idiot!” Well, that’s the job. You go in when everyone else would be running out. Even when your survival instincts are screaming at you, which mine definitely were.

  I went through what would have been a front door if it hadn’t been blown to Kingdom Come. I had to find the Weeds. Vicky taught English down at the high school, so chances were she’d already gone to work. Not that I found much comfort in that. It still left me three potential bodies.

  The fire was gaining ground. I paused. I could run upstairs, but the stairs were missing. So were big chunks of the floor. Where the hell would the Weeds have been? This hour of the day? If they weren’t in what used to be upstairs and was now litter, they’d be in the kitchen. I started forward. The smoke was building big-time. There was also a huge geyser of flame spouting out of a wall. Blue flame.

  Natural gas?

  It took me a lot less time to think all this than it did for you to read it, and I was plunging toward the living room�
�—‌more or less intact‌—‌when two hands grabbed me and hauled me backwards. Punk screamed in my ear, “Leave it!”

  I’d have fought him if I could. Punk is not, how do I put this, a big-muscled guy. I mean, Tom could have thrown me over his shoulder no problem. Okay, not no problem, I’m at least 160, but he could’ve done it. Punk would’ve gone down in a crumpled heap of crushed vertebrae if he’d tried it. But he could get me going backwards, and down the steps onto the road again.

  I know his heart and his head were in the right place. I still came close to decking him.

  I tore free of his hands and ran around the house and into the backyard. Every McMansion on Spottswood has a big yard with a deck coming off the kitchen. Number 23 was no different. If the Weeds got out, maybe they’d have gotten out that way.

  The fire department arrived behind me. Somewhere, I could hear more sirens. Hard to hear anything over my heart. I shook so hard I have no idea how I got my muscles coordinated enough to propel me forward. I rounded the garage and saw the two doors in the ground.

  The thing about being sheriff of a town of merely 300 is, you get to know everyone. You carry their dossiers in your head.

  Adam and Vicky Weed had come here to live because they were country people. Liked a quiet, small, rural town kind of life. And they had come here from Tornado Alley. One thing houses around here tend to lack is cellars. It’s the geology. Granite you can deal with, but some of those metamorphic rocks? Forget it. I know for a fact that Spottswood Lane houses lacked real cellars. To the Weeds, that was unacceptable. They’d paid eight grand to put in a storm cellar, and most of that, by the way, was for blasting a decent hole in the bedrock. Explosive experts do not come cheap.

  I kicked part of their deck off the doors and yanked. One came up. I looked down into three terrified faces: Adam Weed, and his kids. Aida and Stone. Their eyes swiveled to the fire now consuming their house.

  “Anyone hurt?”

  Adam shook his head. “I smelled gas, and matches. I just grabbed the kids and ran.”

  “Smart man,” I told him as I helped Aida up and out. Typical teenaged girl, gangly and wearing too much eye make-up. Stone came next, clutching a backpack. Adam went last. “Vicky’s gonna cry,” he said. “She’s gonna cry buckets.”

  Punk brought blankets. We threw them around the Weeds, and led them gently to the minivan that passes for an ambulance. Dr. Hartley’s baby, suitable for minor trauma only, but it’d do. He and his nurse, Kris Spivey, had both gotten their EMT certs, and tucked the Weeds up and drove them to the Emergicare, which is also Dr. Hartley’s office. On the porch of number 24, Rachel Vogt sat and cried. Half the windows in her house, as in number 25, had been broken.

  I wiped my face with my hand. It came away coated in the greasy sweat of pure panic. I sat on the hood of my cruiser as the fire department rolled in. Their big house is on the highway at about the midpoint of the county’s north-south axis. They could get to Crazy in twenty minutes in a pinch. I couldn’t believe that much time had passed.

  Punk dropped onto the hood with me. “Jesus. We better call…”

  I nodded. The gas company. I took out my cell phone, got the number from information, and let them know they had to cut the gas to the area. That’d make people happy. Most of Crazy runs on natural gas for cooking and heat. One of those other bonuses of having Ellers and Littlepages here, like decent internet access and lots of cell phone towers.

  Punk exhaled gustily, wincing a little as part of the Weed house caved inward. “Damn,” he said. “You scared me.”

  I couldn’t reply. The shakes had me. I couldn’t breathe, the way I shook. Felt like someone had attached a jackhammer to my ribs.

  “Lil?”

  It’s not something I talk about. It occurred to me, sitting there, that there’s a lot I don’t talk about. Not to Aunt Marge, not even always to Bobbi. There’s some things only someone in the job can understand.

  I looked sidelong at Punk. In the cruiser, Boris was watching anxiously, mewing and scratching at the windshield. He wanted out, to be with me. The fire and noise scared him.

  I took a very deep breath. I said, “I wasn’t in the New York field office. I was one of the grunt agents they sent up after…‌You know. Some of it stuck in my head.” I tried to cage the memory with words. “It’s the smell that sticks most. What was left of some of the bodies. Their effects. The burning.”

  If Punk put his arm around me, I’d have never forgiven him.

  He passed me a bottle of water.

  I relaxed enough to function. “All right, let’s play this safe and evacuate Spottswood. I’ll park by the office, you catch the Madison Pike end. Last thing we need is rubberneckers.”

  4.

  After the fire department cut the gas to the house, the fire went out fairly quickly. The state police showed up to lend a forensic hand, not that we needed much of one. At least, that’s what we thought. Gas leaks happen, and they have multiple causes. Faulty fittings, faulty pipe, bad valve, you name it.

  Arson.

  I looked at the county fire chief. He was about my age, had the hardened eyes of someone who has seen people burned to a crisp. There’s no describing that look. You know it when you see it, and you’re grateful it’s not you.

  Unless it is you, that is.

  Chief Perry Teague led me around the side of the building, to a fair-sized crater. “Take a looky here.”

  I took a looky there. Two hunks of concrete block lay there, like pieces of puzzle. Put together, they still weren’t entire. Someone had drilled a pretty decent hole through the block. I frowned, sniffed at it as I bent close. Gunpowder?

  I remembered Adam Weed’s comment. “He smelled matches.”

  “Probably the safety additive to the gas,” said Perry. “It can be kind of sulfurish. Or the ignition source, either one.” He swiped an arm over his face, which ended up dirtier than it started. “This wasn’t just a prank, Lil. I don’t think this fucker… Sorry, I mean…” He actually blushed. Blushed, for God’s sake. “Well, we’re damn lucky there was nothing worse. This was a two-stage set-up. Pipe bomb goes bang, there goes the gas line.” He showed me a small bundle of something blackened. “And this was ignition for the fire. Probably cotton soaked in lighter fluid, something similar. That’s my guess, anyway.”

  He’d been fire chief and inspector and marshal for years. I’d take his guess over most people’s sworn word in court.

  “Why such a big boom?” I asked. “Half the house is all over the neighborhood.”

  Perry grinned crookedly. “Natural gas can do that. Google it sometime. There’s blasts take out a city block. In this case, though, I’m betting the homeowner was keeping old paint or something like that in the utility room. I saw some wicked smoke.” He glanced at the burned shell of the house. It was down to a very few timbers and some charcoal. “Cheap crap house,” he commented idly. “No interior insulation. Barely any exterior. Nothing to slow this up. Even the drywall…‌Stuff was so damn thin it might as well have been cardboard. Thank God this didn’t blow the whole damn neighborhood.”

  I agreed. “So who should I look for?”

  Perry shook his head. “Anyone with internet. You can find out how to build damn near any explosive on some website or other.”

  I bit back impatience, and coughed as the wind brought a gust of scorched house into my face. “Narrow it down, Perry. You said this was two-stage.”

  “Yeah. Concussion from an explosion can suppress fire, in a tight space like this would’ve been. There had to be secondary ignition to guarantee a fire.” He jingled a bag in which a few tiny shards rested, looking like confetti. “I can already tell you it’s gonna be common pipe. I’d bet Schedule 40 steel, and we had rapid pressure rise. Slower pressure rise doesn’t give you this kind of fragmentation.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You know a lot about it.”

  “I have four sons,” he pointed out. “My boys have blown up a lot of old stumps. State
lab’ll tell you the same thing about this, by the way.”

  They probably would. I jotted the information down. “Thanks, Perry.”

  I sighed as I walked away. I’ve never handled a case like this. Sure, we get the occasional ambitious teenager who clears a day off the class schedule by putting a pipe bomb in the school, but they’ve never detonated. I’ve never once handled a bomb or arson as sheriff. Or up in Charlottesville. I’d gotten some basics back in my Bureau days, but I’d never had to use the knowledge. Like my ex-fiancée, I’d been just one more shmuck in a suit, until I went into the anti-terrorism gig, and I’d spent most of that as a shmuck in a suit, too.

  I walked back to my office. My cruiser was still blocking the road. I left it there, and caught Boris as he launched himself indignantly at me. He was not a happy kitty.

  “Sorry, baby,” I told him and left him on my desk to sulk. “Hey, Tom. Sorry to ruin your day off.”

  Tom shrugged. “Talked to Adam Weed. Nothing unusual going on, according to him.”

  “We’ll talk to the neighbors. Someone drilled that thing, and someone had to light a fuse on it. Unless we find a detonator.” I smiled sourly at both my human deputies. “Guess what we’re doing all afternoon?”

  Tom groaned. “There’s bits of that house a quarter-mile away!”

  “More like an eighth,” I corrected. “Look, Perry’s already bagged what he thinks is important, and he’s not bad at his job, so let’s just think of this as a nice day in the fresh air, okay?”

  Tom rolled his eyes but clomped to the restroom to change out of his civilian clothes. Punk opened a filing cabinet and pulled out a lot of evidence baggies. I laid my head on my desk. Boris snuffled at my hair, sneezed, and begin to industriously wash me. He purred.

  Punk came near, surprisingly quiet on his feet considering one was a metal peg. “You gonna be okay, Lil?”

  I drew myself up, to be brave and tough and chipper. I sagged, and shook my head. “Dunno. I just keep thinking, if that whole line blew…”