Gone Crazy

by Shannon Hill

  Ah yes, my stint as a city cop.

  “Now, Buck was still in Afghanistan, and Marilee lives in Norfolk,” Bobbi ticked off on her fingers. “The rest are up there in the hollow.”

  “Who else is up there? Besides Vera’s tribe, I mean.”

  “Adam and Abel and some of their kids,” said Bobbi promptly. “And the Greenes who come from Mary Collier.”

  I started doing math as Bobbi ran down the family tree of the Colliers. Old Collier had married Nora Hoyt, and they had four kids, two boys, two girls. The girls had married “out”, as the saying went. Old Collier being what he was, he left the hollow to his sons. Samuel had one boy of his own, Sam Junior, who married Vera. Tom had Adam and Abel, but he gave some share to his daughter Mary Greene; Cathy scored zero because she had married a Teague without her father’s permission, and no one, even Cathy, counted them as Colliers. Given that Vera had eleven kids, Adam had five, and Abel had three, and Mary had three, and all of them were old enough to have kids…‌I was facing about a hundred Colliers, and God help me if they were taking sides.

  Two hours later, I woke Boris and headed home. Bobbi’s idea of “not much” was more than enough for one day. Tomorrow was soon enough to talk to Aunt Marge.

  ***^***

  I came down to breakfast to find Roger Campbell at the table. That still came as a surprise to me. I tensed up for a minute, and Boris fluffed and hissed before he remembered he liked Roger. I was suddenly glad I’d decided to wear a robe over my PJs with the little sunflowers all over them. “G’morning, Roger,” I mumbled.

  “Good morning, Sheriff.” Roger was unfailingly polite. He had a stillness to him, and a watchfulness, that made me wonder what exactly it was he’d done in the military. He never said, and somehow, no one ever asked. Roger’s little smile discouraged it.

  “Lil,” chirped Aunt Marge. She’s never looked her age, but since Roger left his wife and started keeping company with her, she could pass for my age at least. For a miracle, no one in Crazy had anything negative to say about it. We’ve all met his ex.

  We ate our oatmeal and dried berries in comfortable quiet, Boris inhaling his morning meal of tuna, chicken and kibble while Aunt Marge’s Natasha yowled unhappily to herself under a sofa in the front room. When I left for work‌—‌I take the seven to three shift‌—‌with Boris at my heels, Roger and Aunt Marge were sipping some herbal tea together on the porch, watching the mist dissolve in the sunrise. It gave me a pang for my own solitude, until Boris merr-rrowed and jumped into my lap for a cuddle.

  I had scheduled an appointment to talk to Aunt Marge at ten, which gave me time to deal with the morning rush out of Crazy, such as it is. Boris looked eagerly out the windshield. He loves speed traps. I settled in behind the veterinarian’s office as a change. It’s a little closer in toward town than the garden center. Boris didn’t approve. He has a hate-hate relationship with the vet, ever since Dr. Mitchell neutered him and he bit Dr. Mitchell so hard the man needed stitches and antibiotics.

  After a few cars zipped by, Boris calmed down, ears perked and eyes alight. His tail twitched. He watched the cars, meowing softly to himself now and then, as if he’d forgotten I was there. He probably had.

  It wasn’t a speeding car that caught my eye. It was a Vespa motor-scooter. It was hot pink. And it was being driven by a naked teenager.

  Boris said, “Merwl?!”

  I said, “Damn. Senior Dare Day.”

  Senior Dare Day is a tradition at the county high school, among the boys. Girls don’t bother with it, maybe because we have more common sense. Every year, usually late April, the senior boys do some of the dumbest things you can imagine. The year Bobbi and I were seniors, Chad McAllister passed into legend and nearly passed away when he jumped his father’s Harley over the little reservoir behind the flood-control dam on Mineral Creek. He didn’t let go when it fell short, and after he’d been dragged out half-drowned, his father almost killed him all over again. But the usual stunts were benign, things like wearing a bra, dyeing hair, shaving heads. When you’ve got as few people as we do around here‌—‌I think the county population is shy of fifteen thousand these days‌—‌you don’t have too many kids to deal with, let alone seniors on Senior Dare Day.

  Nonetheless, here came Darren Mitchell, the vet’s oldest, naked as a jaybird, puttering down Piedmont Road on a hot pink Vespa. Which matched the color of his face. I had just decided to hit my lights, between snickers, when here came Danny Tucker and Rod Twigg Junior, also due to graduate that June, riding pink bicycles, and equally naked.

  I was laughing so hard it took me three tries to hit the switch for the lights.

  ***^***

  The boys weren’t as embarrassed as I expected. Well, Rod was, but Danny and Darren wanted to know if I had a dash-camera so they could post the footage on YouTube. I told them no, even if I had a dash-cam I wouldn’t let them have the footage, while I filled out paperwork and our dispatcher-secretary Kim tried not to giggle. I couldn’t blame her. We only had two blankets, and three boys sharing them while Boris sniffed impudently at their legs. It’s a miracle I got anything done at all.

  The Twiggs had already left for work up at the resort in Wintergreen, and Rod’s uncle worked in Lynchburg. So did his grandfather, Otis. But his grandmother, Nancy, worked right across the street at Littlepage Elementary, in the cafeteria, and she showed up breathing fire and spitting nails. “Rodney Ellis Twigg!”

  He shrank, if that was physically possible.

  She flung a bundle at him. “You take your poor grandpa’s clothes and you get yourself respectable right now, you hear me?”

  He looked wildly at me and at Kim. I said, “Go on,” and he scampered to the restroom clutching the clothes over himself. Mrs. Twigg turned to me, her eyes snapping like firecrackers. She used to look like that when kids tried to take extra cookies in the lunch line. “Sheriff, I tell you Rodney is a good boy when he’s not around these hooligans.” She glared at Danny and Darren, who gulped. “We will see to him,” she promised in a growl even Boris couldn’t match. “And we will have the reverend talk to him on Sunday, don’t you worry!”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Twigg,” I said. “Now calm yourself, there’s no need to pop a blood vessel over this. Would you like some of Aunt Marge’s tea?”

  “No thank you, dear,” she replied crisply, as Rodney skulked out in clothes twice as big as they needed to be. She hooked him under the arm in a pinching grip that had Rod‌—‌easily a foot taller‌—‌trying to walk tippy-toe to get away from it. “I will drive this heathen to school,” she announced. “Do I have to sign for his worthless behind?”

  “Right here,” said Kim smoothly. Her eyes were dancing. Kim loves her job. What little goes on in Crazy, goes on where she has a front-row seat.

  “You apologize to the sheriff for having to cart your naked behind in her nice clean car!”

  Rodney, who’d turned a deep red, mumbled, “I’m sorry, Sheriff.”

  She breezed out, Rodney in tow, as Dr. Mitchell roared in. He snatched the blanket clean off his son, then hurled it back. “Jay-zus!” he yowled, at a pitch that put Boris’s ears flat. “Well, you can damn well go home as naked as you left!”

  Darren wasn’t expecting that. He yelped. “Dad!”

  Dr. Mitchell turned his back. He nodded politely to Kim, detoured around Boris, and scrawled an angry signature where indicated. “Is there a fine or is he going to court?”

  “Juvenile, first offense, I’m sure it’ll be a fine or maybe community service. Harry Rucker’ll be in touch.” I had to bite my own lip to keep from laughing at what Harry would say to all this. “I doubt it’ll go on his permanent record.”

  He thanked me, then fixed his son with the same look he typically saved for those who abuse animals. “Go on, get up,” he said to his son, who clutched the blanket tight. True to his word, Dr. Mitchell tore it away, and left Darren trying to cover himself with his hands.

  Poor kid. It worked.

/>   Daniel Tucker’s parents work close to home, but took the longest to arrive. It was Gloria who came for him, crying too hard to see. He changed into the sweats she brought, looking helpless, and I wondered if Gloria was crying on purpose, knowing it’d make him feel worse than any lecture. He hustled out looking like he’d prefer death over five more minutes of his mother’s tears. She left tear-blotches on the paperwork, and went through half a box of tissues in record time as she sobbed her apologies for his behavior.

  Then, at the door, she paused and hiccupped out, “I just don’t know if I can ever ride that bike again!”

  When the door closed, I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

  ***^***

  Aunt Marge came armed. What she doesn’t know about a family in a five-county area is easy enough for her to find out by calling some of the other women around her age who run things without letting on they run them. It’s not that “Steel Magnolias” crap. It’s more like a perfumed church-lady mafia.

  “The Colliers,” she said, sitting properly in the chair across from me, ankles crossed, knees together, hands folded elegantly. She went to a fancy European finishing school, the same my mother attended. I sometimes think Aunt Marge regrets that it closed before she could send me there. She certainly hasn’t had any luck teaching me to be a lady. According to her, I’m barely even civilized enough to eat at the table.

  “The Colliers,” she said again. “Well. Which ones do you need to know about?”

  I waved the file Harry had xeroxed for me. “At a guess? All of them. But mostly Vera’s kids, and Vera, for that matter.”

  Marge poured a cup of chamomile-ginger tea out of a thermos, and opened a container full of her oatmeal-cranberry cookies. Kim gave up pretending not to eavesdrop and bolted over.

  According to Aunt Marge, Vera and her spawn were a little odd even for Colliers. Sam Junior had died not long after his youngest child was born, possibly of nuptial exhaustion. Vera, born a Craig, continued to rule her children with an iron hand. Ken, oldest at twenty, joined the Marines when his father died, and a drill instructor must have seemed like a soft touch after Vera. He had done well, come home, and gotten married, and dutifully begun to pop out more Colliers. In fact, only two of the brood hadn’t returned to the hollow. Buck was a sergeant in the US Army, a career noncom; Marilee had married a Navy man and lived in Norfolk. All had children but two. Davis had never married‌—‌he was what Aunt Marge called a non-practicing homosexual. Jeff was about my age, and was never married, nor intended to marry by all gossip accounts. No surprise with such a mother.

  As for Vera… Aunt Marge strove to be charitable, and had to be blunt. Vera had her good points‌—‌she was a hard worker and kept herself to herself‌—‌but she lacked what Aunt Marge called “compassion for others”. In other, less tactful words‌—‌mine‌—‌Vera was a right royal bitch. It was rumored she’d used a belt on her children well into their teens, she’d recycle paper towels if possible, and considered it a shame she couldn’t buy her panties at the secondhand shop along with everything else. The words “unpleasant” and “difficult” cropped up quite a lot when anyone mentioned Vera, but there were other words, too. Mean, miserly, vicious, hard-hearted. But the most descriptive phrase came from Harry Rucker, of course: “A woman full of all Hell.”

  I digested that along with the cookies. I slipped my notes into the file folder, and popped it into the drawer of my desk that has a lock on it that Kim hasn’t figured out how to pick.

  I reached out and scritched Boris along his spine.

  “Lil,” said Kim, “swear to God I’ll quit if you don’t tell why you need to know all this!”

  Boris’s tail shivered, then lashed twice. I grinned. No one believes me, but that’s his signal someone is lying.

  “Vera passed away yesterday.”

  Aunt Marge cooed sympathy. It wasn’t a surprise she hadn’t heard. Colliers by and large aren’t on the church-lady-mafia radar.

  I stroked Boris meditatively. “The kids are saying it was murder.”

  Aunt Marge’s coo turned into a choke.

  I grinned mirthlessly at them. Boris sniffed at me, as if he knew what I was thinking, and didn’t approve. “Actually, they’re each saying one of the others did it.”

  Aunt Marge squawked. Boris eyed her curiously, head tipped to one side. His markings make it look like he has a hat pulled over his upper face. He reminded me of some old Humphrey Bogart character.

  “You have to go to Paint Hollow?” she demanded. “Oh, Lil!”

  Kim looked pale and scared. “Harry can’t make you do it, Lil.”

  Boris meowed. I swear he sounded as worried as they did.

  “I will call Harry Rucker immediately,” said Aunt Marge, in mama bear mode.

  I hated to do it to her, but I had to. “Then it’ll be up to Chief Rucker.”

  We all fell silent. Chief Rucker’s idea of investigating was to decide who’d done it, and invariably it was someone he knew was “bad” or a passing, and invariably nonexistent, hobo.

  “Then promise me one thing,” said Aunt Marge, worrying the hem of her blouse. “You will wear your bulletproof vest.”

  “I promise,” I said, and Boris’s tail stayed perfectly still.

  3.

  Paint Hollow is one of the most beautiful places in the county, if not the state. Buckle Mountain shelters it to the north and east, Sims to the west, Hog Ridge to the south, and swirling mists hang heavy over the hollow in the morning like a protective veil. At that time of year, with green rising like a blush up the mountains and azaleas in bloom in big wild hedges, the hollow was at its softest and prettiest. The land around the creek was thick with new grass that a few horses and cows grazed in the first of the morning sun to break through the gap. The houses were tucked up off the road, mostly south of White Branch, where the land was gentler, and each one was tidy and well-kept. So were the cars and trucks in the driveways. The ditches were clean of sludge and litter. Along the dirt road on either side were broad pathways bordered in cheerful periwinkle and phlox. It looked like an advertisement for some rural Utopia.

  Welcome to Collier country.

  There were no numbers on the houses. Even the US Postal Service didn’t penetrate Paint Hollow. There were mailboxes at the gap, and a sturdy shack where packages could be left by UPS or FedEx, and Collier children waited for the school bus. A big satellite dish, like the one that gives Crazy its TV, rested on a small outcrop. I had no idea how the power company had gotten in to string electric, but other than that, there was no sign at all that Paint Hollow had ever admitted an outsider. It reminded me eerily and uncomfortably of those “compounds” built by survivalists, angry militia, and the occasional religious cult. It didn’t even need walls. It had the mountains.

  Boris fluffed his fur and yowled unhappily. My scalp itched. I knew there weren’t just eyes on us. There would be at least half a dozen guns, too. I myself don’t see how anyone reasonable or remotely honest can admit they need a semi-auto with laser targeting and power scope to hunt anything but other armed humans, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from buying up weapons meant for military operations and, in this case, keeping them trained on me.

  I was starting to wish I had a bulletproof helmet to match my vest when a man ambled into the road. He was wearing a red flannel shirt and a ball cap with a tractor company logo on it. He held up a hand, and I rolled to a stop. I had driven my cruiser, figuring I’d be safer if they knew I was a sheriff from the get-go. I was starting to wonder if maybe my personal vehicle, a bland Ford, might not have been better.

  He strolled to my window. His face was pleasant, but his eyes were hard with suspicion. “Mornin’,” he said. “Somethin’ I can do for ya?”

  I reminded myself I had spent a few years in the FBI, and more years on the job in Charlottesville, and faced far worse than a Collier. I fixed him with the famous Littlepage glare, made possible by the fact I have the famous Littlepage eyes: so pale and cold a
blue they’re ice. “I’m looking for Ken Collier. I’m Sheriff Eller, the county’s special investigator.” I flashed my badge at him. “Harry Rucker sent me.”

  The man’s face softened a little, and he peered past me at Boris, who nervously washed a shoulder. Then he grinned. “I’m Ken. Come on up the house.” He pointed up the nearest driveway, to a modest brick ranch-style house overshadowed by a huge white barn with red trim. “Didn’t expect you.”

  I exhaled in relief. “I’d have called, but your number’s not listed.”

  He chuckled as he walked away. I got the feeling he was pleased.

  I pulled into the turn-off. Dogs swarmed the car, barking and snuffling. Boris puffed himself out to twice his actual size. When a dog jumped against his window, he lashed out, his paws whap-whapping hard against the glass. His ears back, he hissed and screeched. He wanted a chunk of those dogs and he wanted it bad.

  Ken whistled off the dogs, and secured them to chains along the garage. Boris sneered at them as he marched up to the house behind me. I don’t know if “smug” can be a verb, but if it can, then that cat was smugging for all he was worth.

  ***^***

  Ken and May were in their late fifties, with all four kids grown and out of the house. Two were at college, the other two working in Richmond. May told me all this between attempts to pet Boris, who was crouched under the old-fashioned wood chair I sat in. She warmed a little milk in the microwave and slid the saucer to Boris, who guzzled it happily. So much for my lie detector.

  Ken sat across the table from me. An old heavy wood table, like the chairs. Lovingly cared for, I could tell. “Great-Grandpa made it,” said Ken when I commented. “He was a good man with his hands.” He studied the depths of a large black mug that read, in white, “Dad”. He sipped the coffee. It smelled like it’d take the hair off a hide.