Crazy, VA Read online

  Crazy, VA

  by

  Shannon Hill

  Published by Shannon Hill

  Copyright © Shannon Hill, 2012

  E-Book formatting: Guido Henkel

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  To Betty

  Who loved this story first

  CHAPTER 1

  I was the only cop in town. Since there’s only 300 or so people in my jurisdiction, the town can boast a great citizen-to-cop ratio. But I was the only cop, and that means I was outnumbered 300 to one.

  As if that’s not bad enough, my name is Littlepage Eller. In this town, you might as well call me Screwed. Until my mother‌—‌Helen Louise Littlepage‌—‌eloped with my father‌—‌Mark Allan Eller‌—‌no Littlepage deigned to notice an Eller, and no Eller bothered to be polite to a Littlepage. Shakespeare would have written it as a romantic tragedy. Living it is a damn farce.

  And my life proves they’re right to call this town Crazy.

  I’m Sheriff Lil Eller precisely because I’m half a Littlepage and half an Eller. The voters figured that‌—‌given the circumstances‌—‌I’d be equally biased against both clans. So here I am at 35, single, disinherited, and driving a second-hand cruiser.

  Yeah, this town is Crazy.

  ***^***

  The official town history, given to our occasional tourists, states “This area was known to natives as the valley of the crazy birds, due to an unknown incident. Early European settlers adopted the name Crazy Bird, which in time became, simply, Crazy.”

  The truth is that when a surveyor came through back around 1800, he asked a farmer the name of the village. The farmer replied, “That place is crazy.” The surveyor, being a slacker and kind of stupid, jotted down opinion as gospel. The town got its name changed back to Pleasant Valley but Crazy stuck as a nickname, and was made the official tag in the 1960s. An Eller thought it would attract tourists.

  As for why Crazy stuck‌—‌that’d be the Littlepages and the Ellers.

  ***^***

  To understand anything about anything in my life, you have to go back to 1760, when the first Littlepage left the relative safety and security of what is now Baltimore and came into the wilds of the Blue Ridge mountains. He ventured up the stream he dubbed the Littlepage River‌—‌it’s Elk Creek now‌—‌and claimed the narrow valley as his own. He built at the base of Elk Hill (technically a mountain, by the way), and got started making a fortune. He trapped, traded, timbered, and generally did all that needed to be done, in the secure knowledge that he’d made a name and a place for himself and his many children.

  Then came the first Eller, in 1780. He poled a batteau up Elk Creek and decided he liked the look of this little valley of ours. He built a house in what is now Eller’s Hollow, and erected a sawmill at the mouth of the valley, and a gristmill that is now a restaurant behind the elementary school. Littlepage observed this with condescension and amusement, until he woke up one day around 1790 to find that Eller had made a small fortune, and had earned the same place in the town as Littlepage himself: Founding Father.

  Old Littlepage didn’t like that. So he got himself elected mayor. Eller retaliated by running for the state senate. By 1800, and the surveyor’s arrival, the town had divided into two equally passionate, partisan camps: those who sided with Eller, and those who sided with Littlepage. Then came the building sprees. The town needed a new school? Littlepage built the finest school in the state. The town needed a new hall? Eller built the finest town hall in the state. It became a contest, which man could spend the most money on civic improvements. By 1810, and the end of Old Littlepage’s life, he’d built First Baptist, the school, the bridge over Elk Branch, the road to Turner’s Gap, and a library. Old Eller, who passed in 1811, built the town hall, St. Luke’s Episcopal, the bridge over Elk Creek, and the Madison Pike. Their descendants carried on, making money and spending it in a bizarre contest, so that today, virtually every public building in town has a plaque expressing gratitude to either Ellers or Littlepages. With the exception of the sheriff’s office, which was built by the Turners.

  Let me express it succinctly.

  Littlepages insist that they are Old Money, and Ellers are parvenus, nouveau riche, out merely to make a buck. Littlepages, by contrast, are multimillionaires who choose to devote themselves to the values of small-town America, by way of rubbing elbows and greasing palms wherever necessary.

  Ellers contend Littlepages are snobs, who think graft and corruption are a legitimate way of doing business. Ellers, however, come from hard-working folk, who earned their millions honestly, and deserve the private jet.

  For the record, let me state that both families have net worth in the tens of millions, send their children to expensive private boarding schools far from Crazy, and have both bought and sold legislators on every level.

  I can expect to inherit none of these fortunes. Uncle Eller and Uncle Littlepage view me as an abomination. Each blames the other’s sibling for my existence. Their partisans tend to view matters a little less stringently, but there are still those who will, over a beer or a cup of coffee, sigh and say, “If only…”

  Fortunately, my Aunt Marge raised me right, and I can shrug it off. Then again, the Turners have practice in shrugging things off. They made their fortune in freight back after the Civil War‌—‌this makes them nouveau riche to even the Ellers‌—‌and have been marginalized throughout our little village’s peculiar history. When Nathan Turner arrived in the 1880s and built himself a fine mansion, he made a good first impression, then ruined it by remaining stubbornly neutral. Aunt Marge, who is the last living Turner, lives frugally in the ancestral home, and says she will leave the last of the Turner fortune to me. She says it would please old Nathan, and laughs.

  Do you still want to know why this town is called Crazy?

  ***^***

  But that’s all background information.

  Now imagine it’s summer. Hot, humid, the kind of weather Aunt Marge calls “ghastly” in her pseudo-British accent, learned by watching PBS out of Charlottesville. The sort of weather that leaves you sweating when you lie in bed with a fan blowing over you. It was July 5th, and I’d been awake for 22 straight hours dealing with fireworks, traffic, DUIs, and the inevitable idiot-kid-burns-hand-off incident. I woke up lethargic and sticky, cursing Aunt Marge’s refusal to get central A/C, and struggled downstairs for a quart of Gatorade. I yawned until I shuddered, greeting Aunt Marge with a grumpy, “Why can’t I get a window unit?”

  “Ruin the authenticity of the house?” she squawked, eyes wide. She put her hand to her throat. Way too much PBS. “Are you mad?”

  “Hot,” I retorted, and cracked open another quart of Gatorade to go with my two bowls of cereal and egg-white omelet. I gave the leftover milk to Natasha, my aunt’s cat. Color and coat of a Russian Blue but the oriental lines of a Siamese, and a dainty meow. She gave me her thanks in the form of a head-butt against my leg, then lapped the milk with a fussiness even Aunt Marge couldn’t match.

  “Bless your heart, child,” said Aunt Marge, lapsing into a rare Southernism. “What would we do if we all sacrificed standards for comfort?”

  I attacked my omelet with a glare. If there’s anything I despise, it’s “bless your heart”. Southern women use it to mean anything from “poor
darling” to “rot in Hell, bitch”.

  “Besides,” said Aunt Marge, stirring ice cubes into her coffee, “you have that lovely air-conditioned car.”

  I had, as I mentioned, a second-hand LTD Crown Vic. Enough horse under the hood to chase down just about any other car around, but black with white lettering. Even with the A/C maxed out, it was an oven. But God forbid we tamper with the authenticity of Italianate Victorian architecture. Hundreds of miles away from anyplace it looked appropriate. I mean, c’mon. Italianate in the Blue Ridge?

  “Don’t forget the animals, Lil.”

  I had already gotten the birdseed, didn’t bother to reply. I filled the feeders, then the hummingbird feeders, and finally the water bowls used by everything from the backyard squirrels to feral cats. We had thriving colonies of both. The squirrels got fat at the bird feeders. So did the cats. Somehow, the sight of the cats gathered at the base of the feeders always cheered me up. Maybe it was the expressions they wore, of hope that a squirrel would magically fall into their teeth. Maybe it was their patience. Or maybe they reminded me of the way I felt sitting at the speed trap at the curve where Main Street turns into Piedmont Road. I greeted them; they ignored me; and my day went on as usual.

  Showered and dressed, I went into the office. My dispatcher-slash-secretary said hello, and offered me a chocolate donut. Kim and I share a fondness for chocolate, animals, and the single life. It makes for a good working relationship.

  “Three noise complaints on voice mail.”

  “Who?” I asked, closing my eyes as I savored the donut. Krispy Kreme, chocolate covered with custard filling. Diet-buster special. Oh, yeah.

  “Huberts, Shiffletts on Fifth, and Shiflet on Third.”

  No, you didn’t read that wrong. There’s Shiffletts all around the area. Also their distant cousins the Shiflets. Local legend says the Shiflets changed the spelling as part of a family feud. All I know is that you can’t throw a rock without hitting one, with or without double consonants.

  “The Campbell party on Fourth,” I deduced. “It was over by 10:30. Town ordinance says it’s okay until 11.”

  “I’ll tell them,” said Kim, doubt shading her voice. “But you know they’ll fuss.”

  “Let ‘em.” I finished my last morsel of sweet delight, sighed, and stood. “Anything from county?”

  “No.”

  A refreshing change. The county police handled everything between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. as a rule, and liked to dump it on my desk at 7:01. I put on my silly hat with the token tassels, and moseyed out to my cruiser with a large water in hand. I headed out to the speed trap for the morning rush to work. Of the 300 or so people in town, half work either in Charlottesville or Lynchburg, a commute of 40 minutes either way, and they like to leave at the last possible moment. Piedmont Road, which leads to US 29, ought by rights be named Speedway.

  I settled in by Junior’s Lawn & Garden, radar at the ready, and finished filling out reports from the previous night. July Fourth had fallen midweek, so the mayhem had not gotten too bad, but paperwork breeds. In triplicate.

  I heard a tussle in the trash, poked my head out into the sauna we called morning, and spotted the source of trouble. A feral cat had squared off with a raccoon, and I winced. Animal control comes under my job heading for the town, and the feral had that look you see with some cats who’ve been raised away from humans. If he’d been a Confederate, he’d still be unReconstructed. But I liked his markings. He was black with white, just like my cruiser, and his face was the most striking thing. He had a white face below his eyes, and black above, just like he was wearing a hat.

  He also kicked the raccoon’s ass. Not by striking any blows, but by growling and snarling in that singsong way feral toms have that means “Mine! Mine! I’ll rip out your eyes if you come closer!”

  The raccoon went closer. The cat levitated, came down behind the raccoon, and struck, whap-bap-whap, like a champion boxer. Then the cat danced back, yowling, while the raccoon whipped around chattering its anger. I thought the cat was a goner for sure, but the cat levitated again, tail thrice its usual size, and came down right on the raccoon’s squat back. It ripped up the raccoon’s head, then launched itself to safety, all in a blur of motion. The raccoon and I were equally shocked. I burst out laughing, and the raccoon took insult atop injury by scurrying back into the woods. The cat sidled out of hiding on its paw-tips, back arched, eyes gleaming, and sat down to wash itself with that marvelous lack of concern only cats can pull off.

  I ran over to the Food Mart, bought the cat some tuna in water, and let the speeders go by while I watched him circle the food, sniff cautiously, and at last gobble it as if he hadn’t eaten in years.

  He looked at me with his mismatched eyes‌—‌one green, one gold‌—‌and seemed to me to smile. Then he sauntered off, tail up, in a rolling sailor’s gait designed to show off his testicular endowments. For some reason, the name Boris popped into my head, and I laughed at the idea of that wildcat coming to live with Aunt Marge’s precious Natasha. My radio squealed‌—‌fender bender on Main‌—‌and I forgot the cat in the rush of the day.

  ***^***

  A few nights later, I got home to find a message from my dad’s brother, Robert, who insisted I call him Uncle Eller. He wanted to see me, which couldn’t be good. Aunt Marge handed me the note with her lips in a thin red line, and stalked off to the kitchen to vent her feelings on the vegetables. The more finely minced, the worse her mood, and I foresaw pulverized veggies for supper.

  The note read: Ms. Turner, please let my niece know her presence is needed this evening at our home in Eller’s Hollow, at 7:30 p.m. Signed, Robert Eller Sr.

  I didn’t know there was a Robert Eller Jr., put it out of my mind, and slouched back out to my civilian car, a second-hand gray sedan him and him. As I drove, I dreamed of supper, and snatched a granola bar in quick bites at the stop light on Main before I turned up the road winding up the hollow to Eller House. At that time of day, the sun was casting a last golden light over our little valley, but the hollow was in shadow, like something out of a horror movie. I had the goose bumps to prove it.

  Eller House. I’d never set foot in it, though I’d seen it once or twice, sneaking up on my bicycle as a kid. Big, red brick, modified Colonial, said to have eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, two dining rooms, a kitchen with two stoves and four ovens, a basement rec room only a little smaller than the wine cellar. I might get to find out. First, however, I had to get past the security guard at the gate that cut the hollow off from the town, and kept the Ellers exclusive. That was new, and disturbing.

  Uncle Eller awaited me on the veranda. Not a porch, a veranda. Trust me, a porch would slink away in shame before this masterpiece of carpentry. The house looked as if it belonged somewhere far grander. Charleston, maybe, or Embassy Row in DC. Uncle Eller looked like a tall, thin, lord in some Merchant-Ivory production from the mid 1990s. I think the word saturnine fits perfectly.

  He put out his hand politely, as to a new-come stranger. “Miss Eller.”

  No Lil, and certainly no Littlepage. I smiled stiffly, replied, “Uncle Eller.”

  “Please, sit.”

  Ah. So I was to be denied the house. Lovely. I stood, leaning against a support carved to resemble a Doric pillar. “What’s up?”

  The informality jarred him. I love doing that to people.

  “What is‌…‌at hand,” he intoned, “is an unfortunate clause in my father’s will, which stipulated each grandchild receive his or her trust fund upon reaching the age of 35.”

  I waited for the relevance.

  “As you know,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “your father was, ah, disinherited. However, your grandfather did not change the clause of his will concerning grandchildren. He left it distressingly imprecise.”

  “And?” I prompted, when the silence became more oppressive than the heat.

  “You were removed from the direct line of inheritance, but as you were not specifically exc
epted from the trust fund stipulation, the attorneys established one for you.” Another nose-pinch. “I suppose one cannot blame them for following the letter if not the spirit of the testament. They have contacted me, now that you are 35…”

  “Yeah. I know. My birthday was months ago. I’m an Aries.”

  He flushed. Funny how it made him look like a scrawny old rooster.

  “Be that as it may,” he snapped, “there are papers to sign. For you to come into possession of the trust fund.”

  I asked the natural question. “How much is it?”

  “Roughly three million.”

  My legs went to jelly, and I for once stopped being a cop. “Oh.”

  “So, as you are here….”

  I thought about it. Fast. Grandfather Eller had disinherited Dad for marrying Mom. He had never asked to see me. He had not even gone to Dad’s funeral. The trust fund was pure oversight, not affection, not even familial obligation. He’d just forgotten to leave me out. That’s very different from being included.

  “Fuck him.”

  Uncle Eller went ashen. “Excuse me.”

  “Fuck him. It. You.” I straightened, legs still wobbly, my heart in my throat and my stomach close behind. “No one wants me to have it, you just don’t want me to sue if someone blabs about it. So fuck it. I’ll sign it over to a charity.”

  Uncle Eller grasped the only words that made sense to him. “Which charity?”

  No question, I knew which one. “County SPCA. They need a new building.” Another thought bobbed up, prodded by personal demons I didn’t know I had. “What’s the lawyer’s name and number?”

  He gave me a card, embossed and gilt-edged. I took it, forgot to say good-bye, and tottered back to my car in a state of trembling shock.

  By the time I hit Main Street I was nauseous. Three million dollars. I could’ve gotten out of here. Gone to live somewhere else in comfort and luxury on just the damn interest. Invested wisely and lazed my life away. Instead I had announced my intention to give it to the county SPCA. I could’ve cried.