by Shannon Hill
I went down the street a few buildings and picked up Boris from the pet grooming salon where he’d been boarding for the last hour. They’d given him a dog-sized suite, on the theory this would placate him. When I walked in, he was hanging from the chain-link fencing surrounding the outdoor run, his tail whipping back and forth like a flag in a hurricane. He was, as far as I could tell, attempting to bite his way through the metal to get at the bull terrier next door.
The woman at the front desk met me with relief. “That cat is a monster!”
I smiled proudly. “Yeah. Hey, Boris, time to go.”
Boris leapt smoothly down from the fence, trotted serenely past the woman to whom I paid an extra twenty dollars in the interests of cosmic harmony, and sashayed out to the car for all the world like he’d spent his time blamelessly asleep. I gave him a cuddle. Money and a man, I thought. What kind of fool hung their hopes on that? I’d sooner be poor with a furry deputy at my side. But then, Aunt Marge had always taught me you can’t put a price on conscience and self-respect. The minute you did, you’d already sold them.
19.
What with warrants and all, it took a surprisingly long time to find John Emmitt. About eight days, in fact. He might have gone cash-only when he decided to cut and run, but he’d forgotten about the fury of a woman scorned. Particularly if the woman needed to bargain her way out of hard time. Kim gave up every detail of every plan they’d made for their future. People being creatures of habit, John Emmitt was cruising along right on schedule down in the Virgin Islands when the British police picked him up. He was back in Virginia before you could say “extradition”, and New York was right behind us in line. It’s true all they had on him was identity theft and regular old theft, but the fact he’d crossed state lines meant the feds could take a piece of him, too. That they chose not to was pragmatism. Why invite the paperwork?
A month or so down the line, New York decided to let Virginia have John Emmitt all to ourselves. We could hold him longer, on kidnap and assault and murder, along with miscellaneous lesser charges. “He could serve his sentence in Attica or Sing-Sing as easily as Sussex or Wallens Ridge,” was Harry’s remark, meant to be a lament. Complete BS, by the way. Harry was looking forward to a big juicy multiple felony. So was the prosecutor over in Danes’s county.
John Emmitt had dreamt tropical dreams. He’d be spending the rest of his life in a back corner of Appalachia. There was a chance he might go to Sussex, but if I knew my Harry Rucker, he’d see a special justice in sticking Emmitt in a max security facility with a view of nothing but trees and sky.
Meanwhile, back in Crazy, life went on as usual. Eddie Brady fell on a patch of late ice in front of Shiflet Hardware, and in lieu of threatening a lawsuit, he urinated all over the front stoop of the store. Which then froze, making a patch of ice on which Mrs. Shiflet slipped and fell, breaking her arm. We stuck Eddie in our cells for a week on the somewhat vague charge of “pissing people off”, and that was not the easy option, believe me. Even with Punk and Tom marching Eddie to the showers every day, Eddie gave off serious stink.
Punk took over Kim’s desk and salary, but kept the title of deputy and his twenty hours a week in the cruiser. We’d agreed not to date. This wasn’t to say we didn’t have supper two or three times a week, or go to the occasional movie down in Gilfoyle, but we were not dating. Too many ethical issues. So we did not date. Sometimes we even invited Tom and Tanya along to show how much it wasn’t dating.
As for Kim, whose absence had grown less painful if not actually easier, well, she went to prison. She’d be doing five years before she was eligible for parole, and there were some, like Aunt Marge, who felt she’d gotten off entirely too light. Others, like Kim’s parents, worked hard on appeals. They came to me to ask if I’d write letters on Kim’s behalf.
I said no.
***^***
I yawned, and stretched. The sun bounced off the hood and into my eyes. I grumbled. In the litterbox in the foot well of the passenger seat, Boris industriously covered whatever it was he’d done. I’d find out when I cleaned it.
It was a couple of weeks before Easter. The weather had finally turned to spring, wet and green and rich with pollen. The dazzle of flowers almost hurt the eye.
Almost.
I rolled down the windows and took a deep breath. There is nothing as sweet as mountain air in the spring.
Next to me, Boris sneezed. City boy.
And there past me whipped Eddie Brady in what I knew was a stolen car, because Eddie does not own a car. I hit my sirens and lights, and rolled out at the vehicular equivalent of an amble. I knew what was coming. I’d been parked there next to the warning sawhorses for a reason. Sawhorses, I noted, that Eddie had turned to toothpicks. Well, they’d been cheap fiberglass anyway.
I rolled past the Littlepage Eller animal shelter. I rolled around a bend. In time to see the car—a blue Chevy belonging to his ex-wife, Paula—hydroplane gorgeously before it sank in the water that covered the road to a depth of about three feet.
Behind me, panting and wheezing on her son’s mountain bike, came Paula Rush Brady. Trembling, she pointed at the car, gesticulated at the world in general, and sat down. The bike clattered wetly into the ditch.
“Oh Lord,” I said, and walked to the edge of the water. It wasn’t moving fast. The culvert was blocked, that was all. “Eddie!” I hollered. “You okay there?”
Eddie was scrambling out of the driver’s side window. He clung to the top of the car, whiter than a sheet. “I can’t swim!”
I called Punk, and told him to get the volunteer firemen out here. They had the equipment for this. I didn’t. Then I told Eddie to stay put. He nodded enthusiastic obedience.
Boris and I went to Paula. “What’d he do this time?” I asked. “And don’t tell me he stole the car, I saw that for myself.”
“He…” She panted, wheezed, and finally managed, “He took Sean’s iPod. That I got him. For not getting. In trouble. For six. Whole. Months.”
“Take deep breaths,” I advised. “So…You chased him?”
Across the slow-gurgling water, Eddie hollered, “She hit me! She hit me with a spoon!”
I choked. I could laugh later. Right now, I had to say calmly, “You hit him with a spoon.”
Paula snarled, “The big wooden one, the damn thief!”
I took notes. It helped me keep a straight face. “The big wooden one, got it. And then he ran out?”
“And he stole my car! Took it right outta the driveway!”
It had to be asked. “How’d he get the keys?”
Paula turned an unamusing shade of red and pushed a little too close to me. A month or so ago, I’d have been too nervous to take that, but now I didn’t even blink.
“Well, fine, I left them in the ignition, but…”
I nodded. Paula and Eddie had a blow-up like this every year or so now. A major improvement. Before she tossed him out, it’d been every week. “Okay, Paula, we’ll arrest him once we get him on dry land. Your car insured?”
“Of course.”
“Then all you’ll need is a copy of the police report. Now do you want him charged with grand theft auto? Or just grand theft iPod?”
This is where police work deviates from the book. All the books. None of the books tell you about the lunatic requirements of amicable divorce and visitation rights.
Paula sagged. “No. It’d break Sean’s heart.”
I could hear the fire department arriving. I strolled back to my cruiser and pulled it further out of the way. I’d forgotten the mud. I pulled three feet off the road, and my car kept sliding, sideways, gently, inexorably, almost dreamily, right into a tree.
There was a soft, dainty “tink” when it hit.
The tree dropped its load of rain-sodden white-blossoms all over my car.
Boris voiced a startled, indignant, “Mrrrp!”
And I laughed. I laughed until I damn near cried. No matter how things changed, at least i
n Crazy there were some that remained the same.
THE END
About the Author
Shannon Hill lives in Virginia and treasures her privacy. Connect with Shannon online at www.shannonhillauthor.com
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About the Author