by Shannon Hill
“Morning, Maury,” I said cheerfully. I stepped out into a breeze that promised a return of our heat wave, but I didn’t care. “Much damage from the storm the other day?”
“Nah,” he replied. “Just bits of trees and all. Look, Lil, I hate to do this to you.”
My stomach dropped, then bounced nervously. That’s not a good feeling. “Did Ruth decide to put term limits on sheriffs?”
Maury’s laugh wobbled. “Um. No. She is up to something, but that woman’s got so much devil in her there’s extra room in Hell, if you’ll pardon my saying.”
I scratched my cheek, where a mosquito had grabbed breakfast. “So what’s got you hunting me down?”
Poor Maury. He looked downright miserable. “Del.”
“What’d he do?”
“He’s gonna file suit against the town.”
It was too early for these kinds of mental gymnastics. “What? How? You work for the town!”
Maury shuffled in place. “Damn it, Lil, I know that, but…” He shrugged broadly. “You know Del. He’s all upset about his tattoo. Doesn’t look the same since Boris had at him.”
It was also too early in the day for rage, but I got ambitious. “He hit me, what’d he think he’d get, a medal?”
Maury hastily backed up, hands up and out from his body like he worried I’d shoot him. Man watches too much TV. “Lil, I tried, but he’s got his stupid hat on.”
“Does he own any other?”
Maury didn’t reply, deeming my remark too low to notice. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “He’s claiming damages on his ‘body art’.”
That was going too far. Del’s tattoo was of a woman posing suggestively along his forearm, with breasts like watermelons. It missed being porn by about two square centimeters of strategically placed ink. “Art?” I squeaked, high enough that Boris perked up his ears and pawed the window, probably thinking there was a chipmunk out there. “You’re kidding me!”
I’d seen faces like that a lot in my life. It was the expression of a man who wished he could do a little cleaning in the gene pool. “I wish I was. Look, just be prepared, okay? I’m sure it’ll come to nothing once the judge hears why he got ripped up.”
I fumed. Until the judge tossed it—assuming the judge did—I would need a lawyer. “Dammit, Maury! I don’t get paid enough for this!”
Maury couldn’t meet my eyes, never a good sign. “You know Del doesn’t think you really gave up all that money last year.”
If I hadn’t braided my hair up, I’d have grabbed it and torn it out in pure frustration. As it was, I had to crush my hat to keep my temper under control. “Del doesn’t think. No offense.”
Maury let it pass. He’d said worse about his brother. “Well, Andy and I had better get goin’. Gotta get on down to Gilfoyle before it gets hot. Supposed to hit ninety today.”
More bad news. I scowled my way back into my cruiser and pulled Boris close for a cuddle. He resisted until he realized he’d lose, and gave a miffed little snort, his tail thumping against my ribs. If only I had a tail to lash. I’d probably feel a lot better.
***^***
I’d just let Hal Johnson go with a warning about his floppy tailgate—held on by twine, duct tape, and a coat hanger—when my radio squealed. I snatched at it in surprise. I didn’t think Kim would be in before noon on a holiday. Not if she could help it. Her parents must’ve been particularly annoying that morning. “What’s up, Kim?”
“Got a disturbance at Bob Shifflett’s. House, not garage.” Bob Shifflett owned and operated his own gas station and service station, thus the distinction. “Where you at?”
“Three minutes out,” I said. I’d stopped Hal Johnson at Elk Creek Apartments. “Who called it in?”
“Tammy Lynn.”
One of our many Bradys, but more smart than vicious as a rule. She was one of Maury’s secretaries. His other was his daughter-in-law Linda. You’d think there wouldn’t be enough paperwork for two, but Maury saw to the trash removal and sewage of just about everyone in two counties. The man was up to his bald spot in permits and red tape.
I hit my bubble light and siren and floored it. Bob lived on Third Street, and when I pulled in just under four minutes later, I could hear the shouting and yelling for myself. The Shifflett family dog, a clumsy mutt, galumphed over to make friends with Boris, and I left Boris to educate him as to his folly. I saw Mike Spivey and his parents across the street on their porches, not moving, and Tammy Lynn waving at me with relief from her yard next door. I raised my hand in reply, and she pointed vigorously toward the back. I nodded and set off at a careful jog.
Domestic calls are the thing I hate most about being a cop. I didn’t get them when I was a fed, and if I miss anything about the Bureau, it’s not getting domestic calls. You never know what you’re going to find. It could be a screaming match or a bloodbath. No matter what it is, the police are usually not welcomed with open arms. Fists, sometimes, and occasionally a gun, and often a big pile of steaming BS, but not happy smiley faces.
I came around the back, avoiding Bob’s vegetable garden, and stopped cold in my tracks.
Heather Shifflett was hanging out her bedroom window—it opens over the deck—and was screaming, “Daddy, no! Daddy!” Her little brother Doug was pressed against the sliding glass door, watching with his mouth sagging open from the relative safety of the kitchen. Darren Mitchell was pinned up against the big fancy gas grill, so pale I thought he’d pass out. Bob Shifflett had a shotgun pressed to the kid’s chest. An old double-barrel. His face was red and his shoulders and arms were so tense they shook. You could tell he was thinking what any father thinks when he catches a boy near his nubile daughter. After all, he’d been a boy himself once, and knew what boys that age think about.
Heather saw me and stopped screaming. She flopped out the window onto the deck and ran over to me. “Sheriff!”
“Easy does it,” I said. I had to peel her off me. “What’s going on here?”
Heather hiccupped. “Daddy’s trying to kill Darren!”
A statement of the obvious. “Why would he want to do that?”
“I made pictures of him.” She must’ve realized I had no idea what she meant, because she snuffled herself to calm, and explained, “They were down at the creek, behind the vet’s office.”
I knew the spot. There’d been good swimming there since Aunt Marge was a kid, where the creek broadened out. I’d learned to swim there myself. “Okay. So?”
“I was sketching. Y’know? Like my teacher said to do.” She winced as her father called Darren something anatomically unlikely. “I didn’t want them to see so I hid and then I drew them because that’s what the teacher said to do, was sketch from real life, and…” She turned scarlet. “They saw me, but they didn’t catch me, I ran away, but…” She lowered her voice, and whispered the rest. Comprehension dawned. So did a completely inappropriate case of the giggles.
Bob Shifflett had seen me. He backed away from Darren, and took the shotgun with him. I don’t know about Darren, but I breathed easier. Fury had worn Bob out; he let the gun barrel tip toward the ground. I could see the whites of Darren’s eyes as he tracked the barrel’s descent.
“So Darren broke in my room,” Heather finished, as if that was the logical conclusion to reach. “He popped the screen. And I screamed. And he said to stop because he just wanted my drawings. He tried to take the whole book!”
I could guess the rest. “Your dad caught him.”
She nodded, and started to cry again. I gave her a one-armed hug and told her to go around the front of the house and see to the dog. Boris was trotting casually in my direction, so chances were the dog was either hurt or hiding.
I went up the three steps to the deck. “Hey, Bob,” I said casually. “Why don’t you put that down. I can take care of this.”
Bob shook. “He was…”
“He was after Heather’s drawings,” I said swiftly, and sidled between
Bob and Darren. “She sketched him swimming with his buddies.”
Bob let the shotgun droop more. I gently slid it out of his hands and got the safety flipped on. “Well, hell, who cares? Heather’s drawing all the time!”
I rolled my eyes to the sky and told him what Heather had said. “He was in the altogether, Bob. Skinny dipping.”
Bob whipped around. Darren tried to get small. The problem is, only cats can change their mass to suit the circumstances. Darren still looked like a hulking cauldron of adolescent lust, at least as far as Bob was concerned. I clamped my hand on his forearm. “Bob! It’s no big deal. Artists sketch nudes all the time. It’s how they learn how the body works. It’s no big deal. Happens all the time. Okay?”
Bob trembled. “He…”
Heather reappeared, out her window again. Bob was going to have to fix that. Fast. She thrust a sheaf of paper at me, the edges freshly torn. “There.”
I flipped through. Damn, that girl has talent. Even Bob quieted down. There was nothing in those sketches to alarm a father. She’d caught the quiet silliness of the boys hanging out, kicking and splashing, their genitalia tastefully blurred.
I patted Bob on the shoulder. “See? No harm done. I’ll take Darren home and I’m sure he’ll pay to get that window fixed.”
Darren nodded, gulped, and blurted, “I just didn’t want her showing the teacher!”
“Well, she can’t do that now,” I said in my most calming voice. I had to fight not to laugh. The kid rode a Vespa naked but worried what the art teacher would say about a sketch of him. “Bob, you want to go ahead and press charges here?”
Bob unclenched his hands. “No. No,” he repeated. “But he comes near here again…”
“He won’t. Will you, Darren?”
“No!” yelped Darren. “Never again!”
A few minutes more of getting Bob to see it was all a misunderstanding, and I grabbed Darren by the arm. Five minutes later, I had hauled him home and was explaining it to his parents. Corinne, a part-time realtor, was appalled to the point of tears. “Oh my God,” she moaned. “Breaking and entering! Darren! You could’ve been shot!”
Dr. Mitchell didn’t say a word. Not at first. Then he rumbled. “You’re grounded until you leave for college. You don’t even leave the house. Not even to mow the lawn. Not without me or your mother next to you. And you can kiss your Wii good-bye. I’ll talk to you in your room in a minute.”
Darren scuffed into the house. His sister Connie and baby brother Patrick were grinning. I got the feeling it was a nice change for them to see the young prince turn out to be a young pain in the backside.
“One more thing,” I said quietly to the veterinarian as he saw me to my cruiser. “Y’know I said he was skinny dipping.”
Dr. Mitchell nodded impatiently. He has all the time in the world for anything that has fur and four legs. The rest of us annoy him. “Yes?”
“Do me a favor,” I said. “When you talk to your son? Explain clothes.”
***^***
I had a pounding headache by the time I got back to the office. Kim handed me a message from Harry Rucker. The court was going to appoint an executor the next day: Tanya Hartley, Dr. Hartley’s daughter. She wasn’t much of a defense lawyer, in it more for the prestige of having her name followed by the word “attorney”, but she was smart and competent. She’d do fine. I stuck the message in the to-shred basket. “Anything else?”
“All quiet.”
That was a relief. I popped some ibuprofen and ate a granola bar, and flipped through the Gazetteer to see if any new real estate ads had magically appeared. No such luck. I wanted a place of my own so badly at this point I nearly ached. I loved Aunt Marge and I loved how she pampered me, but having Roger around had turned our cozy two-bachelorettes-together home into a couple with a third wheel.
Boris sprawled across the paper and shoved his head into my hand. I rubbed behind his ears and he flopped onto his side, purring and making little starfish paws of happiness. At least he was having a good day.
When the telephone rang, Kim got it on the first ring. I leaned back with my eyes closed. I’d have to go back out on patrol soon, but what I really wanted was a long nap.
“Lil, it’s Chief Rucker.”
Chief Rucker has even less regard for me than I do for him. I stared at Kim. She had her hand over the mouthpiece. “Are you in?” she asked.
I was tempted to run outside and yell, “NO!” but Aunt Marge raised me better than that. Well, she tried to, at least.
I ruled in favor of getting it over with. I told her to transfer it to my desk, which involved her walking the handset over. “Chief,” I said coolly. “What can I do for you today?”
He chuckled. Even his laugh is thick and fatty. Like his head. “I got you a present, Sheriff.”
I braced myself and tried to be witty. “You shouldn’t have.”
“We-el, I did.” I swear I heard him hitch up his belt. “I got Davis Collier down here at my jail. I arrested him myself.”
“Oh?” I said, scowling. I pushed Boris aside, earning a smack from his paw, and scribbled on my notepad. “On what charge? Snappy dressing?”
“Nope,” drawled Rucker. “Murdering his mama. And I’ve got the evidence to prove it.”
14.
All the way to Gilfoyle, I burned hot and froze cold with shock and humiliation and disbelief. One minute I’d be sure Rucker had screwed up. The next I’d be shaking at the mere thought he might have solved the case. I admit, not a thought for Davis Collier, or any Collier, passed through my head. I was all wounded pride and then some.
I carried Boris into the county police station with me. I knew they’d give me grief, but I needed all the moral support I could get. When I saw Harry Rucker waiting for me, I gave a huge sigh of relief. Boris loves me, but Harry can talk.
“Before you ask,” he said quickly, taking me by the elbow, “there was a very convenient anonymous tip, and I’ve already requested the telephone records.”
We had to walk past a couple of guys at the reception desk. One of them started making high-pitched “meow-mew” noises under his breath. The other looked like he’d rather be somewhere else. I ignored them. I had Vernon Rucker on my mind, which was more than enough to leave my brain crawly.
“Cousin Harry,” said the chief, rising from behind his desk. He shut the door behind us, and didn’t bother to offer me a chair. “Sheriff. Well now. Here’s your evidence, Sheriff.”
He handed me a baggie with a glass Mason jar inside. “Fingerprints?” I asked, shifting Boris.
“Nothing.” Rucker drew back as Boris landed heavily on his desk and hissed softly. “Smudges, no prints.”
“Cousin,” said Harry with a nasty undertone to his voice, “would you like to tell us just where you found this?”
Rucker leaned back. He smirked. “Got the call we’d find evidence in his office, and sure enough, there it was. Filing cabinet.” He shot me a pissy, piggy look of triumph, like he was telling me I had been too dumb to look there.
I held up the clear evidence bag and peered at the jar’s contents. Dried mushrooms. Impossible to identify at a glance, even if I’d been an expert, and they’d been fresh. Amanita looked harmless anyway. That’s what makes them dangerous.
“Male or female?” I asked.
“I don’t think mushrooms have sex,” Rucker guffawed.
“The caller, you jackass,” Harry snarled. You don’t see much rural good old boy in Harry until his temper frays. Then it shows. It’s the way he sets himself to start throwing punches, like a guy in a bar who’s had one bad day and one beer too many.
“Female. Prob’ly some poor little waitress.”
I gritted my teeth. “Where’s the paperwork?”
“What paperwork?” asked Rucker, but he was playing, and we all knew it. “Oh, you mean for you to take the prisoner and the evidence you couldn’t get yourself? It’s right here. Darlin’.”
Boris hissed again. Just rea
cting to the tension. But it made Rucker twitch. That’s my boy.
I scrawled my signature where I needed to and handed the paperwork back to Rucker with exaggerated courtesy. “Just so you know,” I said, “if there’s a single bruise on Davis Collier, I’ll call in every fed I know and get you for a hate crime.”
Rucker’s thick mouth twisted. Impossible to believe he and Harry shared DNA. “Wouldn’t get my hands dirty on a little faggot like that.”
“No,” said Harry viciously, “just the toe of your boot. Vernon, I pray every day to get proof you’re adopted, I truly do.”
I scooped up Boris and the Mason jar, and left Harry trading insults with his cousin. I had to sign more paperwork at the desk, but when Davis Collier saw me, you’d have thought I’d paid his as-yet-undetermined bail. He said nothing until he was in the back of my shiny new cruiser, with Boris sniffing curiously through the grating. Judging by my cat’s sneezing fit, Rucker’s boys hadn’t given Davis a chance to shower.
I cranked up the air conditioning. The cruiser felt like a pizza oven. I hated heat waves. It’s one thing to hit the nineties in July or August, but in early June it guarantees short tempers, and that means more work for me.
“We get to Crazy, I’ll see you get a shower,” I said. “Tom’ll be coming on-shift.”
Davis nodded.
“They treat you okay?”
“It was a very long night,” said Davis softly. “Thank you.”
That’s not something I hear too often from a guy cuffed in the back seat. I settled into the drive and let part of my mind do some wandering.