Crazy, VA

by Hill, Shannon

  “I was wondering, dear, if you’ve considered the fair.”

  The county had its fair back in August. I blinked at Aunt Marge stupidly a few moments, then remembered. The Halloween Fair. The churches started it when I was a kid to avoid the Satanistic rituals corrupting innocent Christian youth, as the preachers called it. Things like toilet-papering yards, or using that string in a can stuff to decorate some cars. They came up with the Halloween Fair, to run the Saturday nearest Halloween in the calendar, and filled it with the usual small-town fair routines: safe candy handouts, hayrides, carnival games, and contests. These ranged from the costume contest to pumpkin carving.

  I groaned. “Already? It’s only the start of the month!”

  “Lil, dear, I don’t expect you to help organize it, I never do.”

  Somewhere in there, I smelled a rebuke. I scowled.

  “But I was thinking it would be nice if you could participate.”

  “Can’t,” I said promptly. “Traffic and…”

  Aunt Marge silenced me with a look. She can always do that. It’s got to be a parental thing.

  “Well, because of you and Boris…”

  Uh-oh.

  “There’s going to be a person-pet costume contest.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. People dressed up stupid I can deal with. People dressing their pets as stupidly induces nausea. I moaned. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me…”

  “It would be very nice if you and Boris were among the judges.”

  I try not to cuss in front of Aunt Marge, but this deserved some profanity. “Shit.”

  Unflappable, and therefore unflapped, Aunt Marge smiled serenely at me. Knowing, I suppose, she’d have her way. I owe her too much to refuse her.

  “I am not putting a cop uniform on him!”

  Boris, whose ears had gone back during this discussion, let out a loud “Merowl!” to indicate his agreement.

  “He’s wearing his uniform,” said Aunt Marge, without a single hint of sarcasm. “I’m very glad you’ve agreed, dear.”

  I wasn’t. I seethed. Finished the cantaloupe. Remained outside with Boris, breathing in the night, hoping for inspiration, so I could find answers to the question I’d been carrying for a month: Who killed Lisa Littlepage?

  CHAPTER 9

  October is one of the most beautiful months. The mountains turn to flame is a tourist-attracting cliché, and it’s a cliché because it’s true. The forest slides gracefully from summer greens to autumn reds and oranges, with bright gold here and there, dark patches of evergreens, all against a sky that goes from a pale topaz summer blue to a vivid sapphire. There’s no way to explain it, any more than there’s an explanation for why the Blue Ridge looks blue. Always blue, even in autumn, when it goes sort of purplish, and grayish-blue in winter, and various bluish-greens in spring and summer. People have said it’s pollution (but why then was it the Blue Ridge before anyone dreamt of steam engines, let alone cars?). Or it’s geology. Or it’s refraction. Whatever it is, it means that as you approach the mountains from either direction, there’s a blue tinge to them, while the Alleghenies to our west remain pleasantly, stubbornly green in summer and gray in winter. And somehow, beautiful as the other mountains are, the Blue Ridge in autumn is more. Just…more.

  I was up early the next morning, fueled by a bowl of oatmeal and a smoothie Aunt Marge makes with plain yogurt, real vanilla beans, and the fruit of the day. Blueberries with a hint of fresh rosemary. I left Boris snoozing happily on the bed, snuggled amidst the covers I’d thrown off, and ran out to enjoy the indescribable crispness of the air. Like biting into a cold apple. I went up the path behind the house, reveling in the golden streaks of sunrise, the rustles and scuffles of animals heading home for a day’s sleep and other animals waking up. I passed under the trees, sometimes stopping to stare up at the leaves, just beginning to turn. I know science tells me it’s about sugar and photosynthesis and all that, but it’s magic as far as I’m concerned.

  I’d climbed Turner’s Mountain a few dozen times in my life, and decided I’d do it that morning. Don’t ask me why. It’s a half-day’s hard hiking to the top, on a switchback trail that runs ten feet for every foot it climbs vertically. Turner’s Mountain is about 2500 feet high. Do the math. Still, I had the day off, and I thought it’d be worth it.

  I stopped halfway, suddenly aware I’d brought no food, no water, and no Boris. I was thinking I should trek back down and call it a morning when I heard a familiar yowl. I felt myself light up. “Boris!”

  I heard a second, less querulous yowl, and soon Boris came into sight, slinking and skulking, freezing at every crunch and clatter of leaves and branches. He’d huffed up all his fur, while simultaneously trying to shrink into invisibility. Once he spotted me, he ran over in that belly-low way cats have when unnerved, and climbed eagerly into my arms. His whole body said whew! His eyes reproached me. I’d left without him, and even worse, I’d come into the terrible Unknown.

  Aunt Marge had tied a tiny note to his collar. It read, in painfully small script, Kim called. Important.

  I’d been hiking well over an hour, but down is always easier than up. I put Boris down, and let him lead the way straight down the mountain, with detours for large boulders, and a snake. In half an hour, I was panting into the backyard, found Aunt Marge calmly dealing with the day’s business‌—‌Halloween fair, pet shelter, all that‌—‌and scooped up my cell phone from the table. Boris, overjoyed to be back, crunched some kibble he usually ignored, and drank water before flopping exhausted into a sunbeam to groom himself.

  Kim’s relief nearly knocked me down. “Lil! Thank God!”

  I expected the worst. “Another murder?”

  “No, a guy called about it!”

  I sat down, almost missed the chair. “Tell me he confessed.”

  “No, but he left a number. I think it’s a cell.”

  Probably. Damn things are convenient, but a bitch to trace. Not that I have funds for that, of course.

  I took the number, showered to calm myself down, and closed my bedroom door. Inhaling deeply several times, I punched in the number.

  “Hello? Who’s this?”

  It was a low voice, hesitant. Slight accent. I answered it slowly. “Sheriff Lil Eller. You called my office.”

  An indrawn breath. A moment of what I had to think of as evaluation. Then the plunge. “Sheriff? Eller?”

  Why is everyone so surprised I’m female? “Yes.”

  “My name is Raymond Gomez.”

  He might as well have some John Doe for all that helped me. I tapped an impatient finger on the file folder holding the medical examiner’s report, and all my own notes. “Yes, Mr. Gomez?”

  “I would like to talk about‌…‌Lisa.”

  I grabbed the opportunity in a choke-hold. “Pick a place. We’ll talk in person.”

  Another hesitation. “I’m not from here.”

  I picked a spot I liked, on neutral ground. Private, too. “Nelson County Wayside, off US 29.”

  I gave him directions from Charlottesville. The wayside’s not much, but people do pull over to look at the creek, read the Hurricane Camille marker, and stretch their legs. Though it was mid-morning, he insisted he could come right away, and I grabbed some snacks to take with me in case the interview ran long. Smoked salmon for Boris, granola bars and water for me. I kissed Aunt Marge, who was talking to someone about bobbing for apples at the fair, then bolted for my car. My civilian car, not my cruiser. I’d finally installed a seat for Boris in it, too, and he settled in with a look of smug contentment, as if to say, this is the only way to travel.

  I got to the wayside in record time, found it the usual level of shabby, and took a camp chair out of my trunk to wait in comfort. I warily let Boris roam free‌—‌he would, on a leash, promptly try to strangle himself in protest‌—‌and kicked back to use some of the calming breathing techniques I’d learned from Aunt Marge. I kept one eye on Boris, intently watching a rabbit by the trees, and knew I
had company when Boris whipped around, glaring pure challenge at the intruder into his fun.

  It was a small pickup, older, dark red with magenta and purple swirls along the side. At first I despaired. No flames. Then again, at night, those might look like flames. Or smoke. Not like my witness was entirely sober. I fought down that treacherous hope again, greeted him with a nod. “Raymond?”

  He did not put out a hand, eyed me uneasily. “Sheriff?”

  I nodded. He paced. I waited. It’s an effective trick. People often fill silences with things they might otherwise not mention. Little things that can be used.

  Boris had stalked over to sit by my feet, tail switching. He uttered a low growl when Raymond said softly, “Kitty,” and put out a hand. Raymond drew it back, eyes briefly touching mine before skittering away. He had a compact build, like a wrestler, or someone who works at a physically demanding job. He’d be about Lisa’s height, a coppery hue to his complexion, and only lacked a sombrero to fulfill the stereotype. Yet a second look‌—‌and cops take up to twelfth looks at a first meeting‌—‌I saw he was very neatly groomed, shirt tucked in, socks very white, jeans immaculate if faded. He had a tiny medal at his throat, of the Blessed Virgin. When he pulled a handkerchief out‌—‌ironed‌—‌I also saw the glint of a rosary, and his nails were very clean. A show, or reality? Hard to know. But his English told me right away he wasn’t an immigrant, or at least not a recent one.

  “Lisa‌—‌who killed her? The news didn’t say.”

  “We don’t know,” I admitted, hating it.

  His reaction intrigued me. A quick twist of hate across otherwise pleasant features. “Why not? She is, she was white and rich. You always care about that.”

  It took a second for my ears to scrub out the hinted accent, and then I said, coldly, “Why do you care?”

  Another twitch in the face, this one of rapidly quashed grief. “I am…” A gesture. “Her fiancée. We were gonna get married.”

  I confess, my eyebrows went up about as fast as my jaw went down. “You were engaged?” I blurted, then said the first (and consequently dumbest) thing that came to mind. “Did her family know this?”

  Of course not.

  He shook his head. “No. She wanted to tell them but I…” Another evocative sweep of the hand. “Not till she’s divorced. Make it proper.”

  “I get it,” I assured him. I’d almost married a Catholic, and understood the varying degrees of intensity with which someone might be a Catholic. “Okay, so they didn’t know. How long were you, ah, together?”

  A shrug. He turned away, showed me only his profile. “Six months, maybe a little more. I work at the place she takes her car.” He extended his hands. “I am good at fixing things.”

  Part of my brain swirled in disbelief. Lisa Littlepage to divorce Nelson Hunter for a man her family would hire to weed the garden? Impossible. The rest of my brain settled in for the hunt.

  “I’ll need your employer’s name and number,” I told him, while Boris circled him, in the classically unobtrusively obtrusive style of cats. Boris’s tail whipped back and forth a few times, stilled. I took the information, launched into the important questions.

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Day‌—‌no, the night she died.” His English broke at that, his accent thickening. “I picked her up from this big party, we went up to the mountains.” He gestured, wiped at his face with the handkerchief. “We got beer at the 7-Eleven and a couple burritos. She said…” A moue of pain over the memory. “She said she was sick of living on stinky cheese on crackers.”

  “And then?” I asked gently.

  “I drove her home. Not home,” he corrected. “I… She got out at the end of the driveway.”

  He could be telling the truth, or lying through his teeth. I had a hard time reading him. Then I saw Boris’s tail lashing.

  “Not the end of the driveway,” I said on a hunch, confirmed by the man’s flinch.

  “No,” he admitted. “We went into her house.”

  Boris’s tail remained still.

  “And?” I prompted ominously.

  He flushed bright red. Flustered. “We did‌…‌the‌…‌you know?”

  I knew. And now I’d need a sample for DNA.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  He shook his head. Miserably, I thought, checking Boris’s reaction.

  “You arresting me now?” He slumped.

  “Not,” I said, “quite yet. But you want to call someone to get your truck. I think you’d better come stay in my jail till I get this sorted out properly.”

  I was thinking that news of this lead would make it to the Littlepages, meaning Raymond Gomez’s life wouldn’t be worth spit in the wind, as the saying goes. Raymond flinched, then gave another little shrug. I handcuffed him, and stuck him in the backseat, with Boris glaring at him the whole ride home.

  ***^***

  My jail has two cells, I think I mentioned. Each one is about ten by ten, and can hold two prisoners, along with a toilet and sink. It’s probably the cleanest jail in the world, since the only people in it so far besides Eddie had been refugees from Fiona. Raymond looked lost, sitting on the lower bunk with his head in his hands. Boris appointed himself warden, and studied Raymond from my desk. I called Raymond’s employer up in Charlottesville, got a glowing report, and ran his name and Social Security number.

  The first thing I found out was that he had been born in Mexico, and came to the US at five with his parents, who did not have the proper documentation and paperwork to do so. But that was some twenty years ago, and he’d become a legal citizen. So had his parents. He’d been raised outside DC, in the suburban sprawl of Fairfax County, where he got fair grades, joined choir, and was on the wrestling team in high school. His credit score was about 750, and he had no judgments against him, only a few late payments on his MasterCard. He rented a so-so townhouse in a decent neighborhood in Charlottesville, and owned his truck free and clear. No arrests.

  I’d called over to EmergiCare for a nurse to come take a blood sample‌—‌Raymond volunteered it, thank God‌—‌and when the door opened, I expected to see Kris Spivey. I got Jack Littlepage.

  “Is that him?” he bellowed, rushing to the cell. “Is it?”

  I don’t like being invaded. I used my Big Voice. “Shut the fuck up!”

  I don’t think anyone has ever told Jack Littlepage to shut up, let alone shut the fuck up. He gawked at me as if I’d grown horns, and sputtered.

  “Sit down!”

  He sat down, seething a little, but mostly confused. “Sheriff…”

  “Shut up.”

  He shut up. Boris watched me with interest, then watched Jack. His tail was puffing slightly. He doesn’t like people who yell at me.

  “Mr. Gomez is here voluntarily. I put him in that cell,” I informed Jack icily, “because I knew you’d go for him, and I don’t have time for that. Do you hear me?”

  He’d regained his Littlepage arrogance. “You’ve no need to shout.”

  “Then listen when I talk,” I snapped in reply, then put my feet up on the desk just to irritate him. “Mr. Gomez may have information about Lisa’s whereabouts prior to her death. He has volunteered that information, and he’s in protective custody.”

  That’s the problem with thoroughbreds, human or horse. They can be almighty dense. “You shouldn’t speak to me that way.”

  Down came my feet. Swish-switch went Boris’s tail. I put my hands on my desk, leaned over it. Out came my Big Voice again.

  “I do not give a rat’s ass-end if you don’t like how I talk to you. Is that clear?”

  Jack sniffed. “You’ve no need to be insulting.”

  I have to give him points for testicular fortitude. My Big Voice usually scares people silent.

  I pulled that freeze trick with the eyes. “I am a Littlepage. I am an Eller. You will show respect.”

  The appeal to blood snobbery worked. He nodded slightly. “I am merely… anxiou
s.”

  I watched Boris’s tail. Sure enough, it twitched. Who knew? A feline lie detector. Though it makes sense. Lie detectors use respiratory rates, pulse, and blood pressure to detect falsehood. Boris could probably smell that. I scritched his chin.

  “When I know, you will,” I said, then decided I might as well drop the bombshell. It’d get out sooner or later, and sooner might work in my favor. “For now, let it suffice that Mr. Gomez and your sister were romantically involved, and wanted to get married.”

  There is no double-take in the history of comedy as juicy as Jack Littlepage’s right then. Not even the old Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin movies could match it.

  “Sh-she‌…‌sh-she…”

  He’d gone a peculiar color. I waved at Kim to bring water. It didn’t help.

  “M-ma-marry…”

  I waited. “Do you need a doctor?”

  He gulped air, wheezed, and clutched his chest the same way his father had. I wondered if it was a family mannerism, or a sign of angina.

  “M-marry a‌…‌a…” He hunted for a politically correct word, and failed, finally settled on a mendacious little, “…nobody?”

  Boris’s tail was swiping my desk like a metronome.

  “A highly skilled auto mechanic is hardly a nobody,” I purred.

  Jack Littlepage purpled. Not a good color on him. I started to worry.

  Kris Spivey bounced in, her bright jade scrubs neatly creased. “Hi, Lil, I…” At sight of Jack, she gasped a little, then rushed to him, fingers on his wrist to check his pulse. “Mr. Littlepage, take some breaths for me. Nice slow ones, real deep. There you go.”

  Eventually, Jack tottered out. Kris took the blood sample without asking any questions, and bounced back out. I sat back, surveyed those answered questions with profound satisfaction. I knew who she’d been with, and I knew why the beer and burritos were in her system. But I had even less idea than ever of who my cousin had really been.

  CHAPTER 10

  Raymond Gomez insisted he hadn’t killed Lisa. He insisted it to me, to the county police when some rat‌—‌I figured Jack‌—‌squealed to them about his presence at my jail, and to Chief Rucker. He insisted to Judge Harper at the courthouse when he was arraigned, over my strenuous objections, for Lisa’s murder the following afternoon.