by Shannon Hill
Across the table from me, Roger suddenly choked into his napkin and pointed. As one, we turned.
Boris entered the dining room. Carrying in his mouth, by the scruff of her charming neck, the demon-eyed calico. It took work, since she was about half his size and maybe a little more, but he did it. With a grunt, he dropped her at my feet, and when she moved, he slammed her down with a heavy paw.
Ignoring the laughter, I bent down and kissed the top of his head. “Good boy,” I crooned. “Now let her go, sweetie.”
Boris snorted. Clearly, he did not feel Little Missie had learned her lesson. He hunched over her, bopping her whenever she tried to move.
Aunt Marge fretted, “Aren’t you worried those federal agents will take it badly? That you’d be interfering?”
I shrugged. “Can’t bust me for looking into a trespassing complaint. Especially since it’s not only the Weeds who got trespassed.” I grinned. “He had to walk in from Turner Gap, and that means he went through Reynolds land. No federal jurisdiction applies.”
The little calico mewed. Boris growled. I reached down and stroked his fur, and after a considerable pause, he let her go. She slunk away.
“You’re going to get into trouble,” Raj predicted.
As if that has ever stopped me.
7.
I’d sounded confident to my nearest and dearest, but the truth was, I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew I wasn’t going to let the feds win. Not on my turf.
You think cats are territorial, you try law enforcement.
Not to mention, as Punk immediately did Monday morning, “On what evidence? They even took the cigarette butts!”
“I know, okay? Think it through, Punk. You too, Tom,” I added sharply in Tom’s direction, freezing him halfway to the door. “Think. Between the three of us, how many men do we know in this county who like to talk about defense of their liberties over a beer? Hell, over lemonade? And they usually talk about doing it with their home arsenals, right? And who’re they defending against when they talk up their apocalypse?” I waited for the little light bulbs to pop on in their heads, or above them. “When it’s not us, it’s the federal government.”
“Aw, Lil,” Tom temporized, less genially than he would’ve six months ago. Kim’s descent into felony had hit him harder than it had me, and I was the one who wound up in a car trunk. “It’s just talk.”
“Till it ain’t,” I snapped, and started to pace. There’s not a lot of room to do that in the office. The cells are each maybe ten by ten, the open office area is about ten by twenty. With three desks in it. I could pace the length of the office in six steps without stretching.
“You’re looking at an ex-fed, remember? Oklahoma City. Ruby Ridge. Waco. I know the mentality. It’s in your head that these people you’re trying to do right by are out for your blood. Or think they are, which amounts to the same thing. Now how long do you think it’s gonna be before some dumbass rabble-rousin’ boozer gets himself into a snit and decides it’s time to replay Fort Sumter? If we’re lucky?”
That registered. We get dumbass rabble-rousers just about every Saturday night as it is.
I made a tight turn at Boris’s condo, stalked past the fold-out couch. “Next thing we know, we get tactical assault teams in here. They won’t do it lightly, not with all the media watching,” I went on, “but they’ll do it if blood gets spilled. Especially with that damn flyer around making everyone in this county look like Timothy McVeigh.” I spun on Punk. “How many of those things were stuffed in mailboxes?”
“Everyone on Spottswood got one or thinks they remember throwing it out,” he reported, eyes a little shocked. I’m not usually much on speeches. “Most of the side streets, too, and out at the Elk Creek apartments.”
“Anywhere else in the county?”
Tom hesitated. I gave him points for courage when he asked, “Why not ask Miz Turner?”
“It’ll take till maybe lunch for the feds to know she’s the one to talk to. I’d as soon not put her on the spot between me and them. So, anywhere else in the county get those flyers, or are we special?”
Tom grumbled, “I’ll make a few calls to a few people who won’t yap about it.”
I nodded approval. “All right, that’ll do for a start. You two’re in a better position to know who might look to pipe bomb someone over their last name.” I didn’t need to say it was their sex that made them more likely to know. It’s amazing how few men, even drunk ones, will brag to a woman about their stance on defending the nation from its elected officials, at least on short acquaintance. “I’ll see what I can dig up about the flyers.”
Punk stirred. “How? I mean, without stepping on the feds’ toes.”
I smiled mysteriously. “I’ve got my ways.”
***^***
My way was to take the photocopy I’d made of the flyer up to Charlottesville that afternoon. The drive gave Boris a nice outing, and me some much-needed time alone. What with my ex, my cousin, my not-boyfriend and the bombing, I seriously craved a quiet hour with my own thoughts.
I’d not quite figured out what to do next about Punk, Jack or Steve when I pulled into the driveway of a brick house not too far from the university. I’d called ahead, though it was a safe bet I’d get the help I wanted even if I showed up unannounced.
Sure enough, Jerry Klemm was sitting in a lawn chair by his front door, in the shade of a beach umbrella planted in the marigolds. He’d thinned down since I’d last seen him, and his hair had turned white, but he still had the same old laser-beam gaze. He crowed when he saw Boris. “Delightful! I do love Southern eccentricity.”
“Hey, Jerry,” I said, and we shook hands delicately. His arthritis made his knuckles look like pebbles. “Thanks for letting me come on short notice.”
“I’m grateful for the break in my routine. The dreadful consequence of retirement is that one risks becoming as stale and, may I say, potted, as one’s plants.” He smiled and led us around the back of the house, to a small garden gazebo. Someone had left a pitcher of ice water, two glasses, and a plate of vegetables and dip under a plastic cover. Jerry sat gingerly in a cushioned wicker chair, and I perched on a padded bench with Boris lolling at my side, swatting at an occasional bug.
Once Jerry had done the hospitality bit, I told him what I needed, and showed him the flyer. “What do the mistakes tell you?”
It’s not something English teachers tell kids in high school—more’s the pity—but analysis of a text can be a forensic art in its own right. Mistakes and lack of them can indicate level of education, socioeconomic background, even whether or not English is the first or second or third language. Mistakes can also reveal regional tendencies, though in our over-wired world, those are getting rarer. In fact, the FBI and police departments will pay people for their expertise in the field.
That was how I knew Jerry. He’d consulted for the Bureau on one case I’d been part of, and with the local police on another when I’d been there.
“Officially, of course, I can’t say a word,” Jerry remarked, studying the paper first over and then through his reading glasses. “Unofficially, I’d make a few guesses. This is the only exemplar?”
I nibbled celery. “So far.”
Jerry hummed. Most people hum a monotone or maybe a few notes. Jerry hummed Bach. His hand wielded an invisible pen. After ten minutes, he said, “I can offer some guidelines. The first is, don’t believe someone who tells you this was written in haste. In our computerized world, we expect software to edit for us, and so even an educated person can miss glaring errors. Laziness, in other words, is common. In this case, note that there should be a period after the sentence ‘Senator Weed has ruined our country and the futur of our kids’. The periods appear appropriately after the other declarations. The misspelling of future, however, could go either way. It may simply show someone who relies upon software, or could show haste, or simple ignorance. You can infer more from the use of ‘kids’ for ‘children�
� and ‘here’ for the verb ‘hear’.”
I scribbled in my notepad. “What do we infer?”
“Informal tone in ‘kids’, and ‘here’ is an error no one with effective literacy at the high school level should make. This is not to say it isn’t made, and often, by those with doctorates, but in combination with the other errors, it is indicative of someone who very probably did not see his name on the honor roll. The use of ‘got’ for ‘have’ supports that.”
I wrote frantically to keep up. “Can you infer anything else?”
“Sex. Probably male. Women, in my experience, would say ‘children’, not ‘kids’. It presents as more maternal, you see. Evocative of apple pie values. I doubt you need me to tell you this is probably someone with a grudge, based on some event real or imagined, and is going to be very probably white. That emphasis on ‘Paid for by Americans’ is telling. Though,” Jerry continued smoothly between tiny sips of water, “I doubt this was paid for at all. The use of plurals is consistent, but it is a cheap way to imply greater numbers than exist.”
My hand cramped. I shook it out. Jerry waited patiently for me to work out the kink before I asked, “Would this person be a physical threat?”
“That I can’t tell you. I am not a psychiatrist. If I were, I might suggest anger management classes.” He smiled, and sagged. “Ah, it does me good to use the old thinking muscles.”
“In other words,” I said as I reviewed my notes, “look for a redneck with a grudge against Uncle Sam. That doesn’t narrow it down much, Jerry.”
“A very personal grudge,” Jerry corrected me gently. “All those capital letters in the modern world indicate anger. Emphasis. Passion. This is not someone who has stewed quietly in a back room. He will have spoken of his views, quite likely at some length, and at significant volume.” He waved a thin hand at the paper after he laid it on the tiny table. “The artwork is juvenile, the use of symbols obvious. Cheap fear-mongering. This person is appealing not to our higher intellect but to our hindbrains. Us versus an Other. The enemy as evil, as shown by the swastika. The call to arms, quite literally. Puerile propaganda, but propaganda nonetheless. He does not seek to persuade, but to terrify.”
I stowed my notepad and pen. “What kind of job?”
“One that requires mere functional literacy. Do not assume blue collar, however. Low-level white collar is also possible.” His smile faded. “And now, I must ask you to leave. I do not want to be rude, but I am very tired.” His eyes had lost their heat. “Chemotherapy, you know. It does terrible things to the body in the name of preserving it.”
I hadn’t known. “Is it…”
“Oh, it is terminal. Life is terminal. But I can expect many good years ahead, once we have routed the tumor in my liver.” He put out a hand to Boris, who for once responded with a polite sniff. “Striking eyes.”
“Thank you, Jerry. This means a lot to me.”
Jerry’s smile resurrected itself. “Thank you, Sheriff Eller. You have made me feel useful again, for a while.”
I drove back to Crazy in a somber mood. Talk about a perspective check. Here I was worrying myself into a tizzy over men, and there was Jerry, all that sick and doing me a favor without a single question of payment.
There are days I really wonder if anything Aunt Marge taught me stuck at all.
8.
There were a couple of pick-ups with logos on the doors at Grenville when I headed out Piedmont the next day. Domestic call first thing in the morning out at Elk Creek Apartments. Like DUIs, they’re a fairly regular feature of cop life in Crazy.
I could tell which apartment had the dispute by the screaming. Boris lashed his tail eagerly. He loves arresting people. It’s his idea of fun.
I didn’t have to knock on the door. It was open. Things flew out. Clothes. Shoes. I nearly got clipped by a bedside lamp that shattered on the hood of someone’s car after sailing over the railing and into the parking lot. Boris watched the trajectory with interest.
I banged on the door jamb. “Sheriff’s department! Hold your fire!”
The rain of stuff stopped. So did the screaming, after someone got in a nasty, muttered, “You got the cops called on us!”
I knew that voice. “Eddie Brady, you get your ass out here right now!”
Eddie slunk out, mean-eyed as only a drunk with a hangover and no booze can be. “You always blame me.”
I let that one slide. “Miss? You want to come out here, too.”
The woman came out, meaner-eyed than Eddie, clutching a fluffy too-short robe around her. “He’s throwin’ me out, and I did too pay my share of the rent, not my fault he drunk it!”
I stood bemused as Boris opened his mouth in disgust at the liquor sweat coming off both of them. It wasn’t hard to believe I was listening to someone rant against Eddie, but that someone had voluntarily co-habitated with him was a bit of a shock. I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend. Normally, that sort of information made the rounds fast, usually when his ex-wife Paula hollered about it at the top of her lungs. “And your name, miss?”
“Leeza.”
I had no idea how to spell that and opted for phonetics. “Last name?”
“Tompkins.”
I jotted that down too. “Did you pay your share of the rent in check made out to the landlord or to Eddie?”
She shot Eddie a glare that ought to have slaughtered him on the spot. “To him, and he don’t got to throw me out, I’m going. Soon as I get pants on, I’m going! And he can fuck himself!”
I nailed on a smile. “Do I need to put anyone in handcuffs?”
“No,” said Eddie quickly. He’d been keeping a careful eye on Boris. He has a certain respect for my cat’s eighteen claws.
“Okay then. Eddie, you go take a walk. Leeza, pack it up and go before he gets back.”
She thrust out a belligerent chin. “How do I know he’ll stay gone a while?”
I grinned nastily. “Because I’ll drop him off at Spottswood Park.”
Eddie opened his mouth. He looked at Boris. He shut his mouth.
Bradys run to stupid, it’s true, but not that stupid.
After I dropped off Eddie, I rolled into the office. “Anything new?”
Punk twitched a shoulder. “Some woman named Leeza just called, said she owes us one.”
“For what?” I asked as I settled in to fill out the report properly. I have an incurable tic about proper paperwork. Aunt Marge’s influence, though I let people blame my short stint in the FBI.
“She said once you got Eddie outta there, she found her credit card she thought she lost in Eddie’s wallet.”
Neither of us commented on Leeza hunting through Eddie’s wallet. That kind of thing happens to Eddie a lot.
Punk bent his head over a budget form that the town requires every month. “Nice to be thanked.”
A perfect opening. “Thank you.”
He looked up, startled. “Huh?”
“For…” I waved vaguely. “Y’know.”
He smiled briefly and went back to the form. I exhaled. Okay, all body parts still working. No actual physical pain. Some mild terror, but that was to be expected. Vulnerability is not something I enjoy, and relationships mean vulnerability.
I stroked Boris, who had perched in my out basket. Cats can be a pain in the ass, but they’re still easier than men.
***^***
My big challenge was to figure out how to ask questions when you have feds asking them. Even Aunt Marge, who is not precisely an isolationist, can bridle when outsiders show up and start “nosing around”, to use Maury’s phrase. We start sniffing, we’d be likely to get our noses bopped, either on principle or because we’d be seen as being in cahoots with the feds. Our chances of getting answers were pretty slim. Especially without Bobbi or Aunt Marge to help.
I was fuming about it as I left Bobbi’s at lunchtime. I’d gone over for lunch, and to reassure her that there was very little chance anyone would pipe bomb her house. She and Raj had he
ard about the flyer, and the language had her half-hysterical with worry. So did her impending motherhood, of course, but I didn’t bring that up. Raj had apparently tried to tell her that her hormones were clouding her common sense, and gotten a verbal whipping. I settled for handing her kleenex and mumbling “Mmm-hmm” a lot.
I’d maybe gotten as far as the elementary school when my cell phone chirped. Boris, who was sleeping off the chicken Bobbi’d fed him, opened one eye and made an irritated little noise before snugging his nose back under his tail.
I didn’t think to look at caller ID. I just grumbled, “Now what?”
“Lil, I was wondering if you’d do me a favor.”
“God, Steve,” I groaned, “don’t you ever go away?”
There was a moment of very offended silence. “It’s business, Lil. Could you meet me at the Grenville site?”
“Sure, fine, no problem, not like I have a job or anything,” I huffed, and hung up on him. I had feds doing God knows what, because they had yet to tell me a damn thing. My best friend was completely irrational. And I couldn’t even talk to Aunt Marge because I’d already heard the feds had paid her a call. If I had a tail, it would’ve been lashing hard enough to snap clean off.
My mind cleared a bit when I saw the windshield of a little backhoe. The glass had spider-webbed around a small round mark. “Oh hell,” I said, and met Steve with a scowl. “You could’ve just called in that you got shot at, you know.”
“I’m trying to be discreet, since we don’t know who did the shooting. Not exactly, anyway.”
I squinted behind my sunglasses. I could feel a headache coming on. “Could you tell me, exactly, what you do know?”
“Joey there,” Steve said, pointing to a guy in a chambray shirt and jeans, “he was up at the far end of this cove or hollow or whatever you call it.”
I turned my back on Steve and asked Joey, “What happened, sir?”
