Crazy, VA Read online

  Thank God I got a call from Kim. “Emergency, Wonder Woman,” she said. She only called me that when she thought something was a waste of time, usually ours. “Manager at Food Mart called. Said they’ve got a prowler.”

  Probably a teenager or two looking for a place to smoke or drink. I rolled my eyes to heaven, said, “Tell him I’m en route, unmarked,” and popped my bubble light on the dashboard just in case. Everyone in Crazy knew my civilian car on sight. Still, we get outsiders now and then.

  I rolled up quiet, lights out, and hit the spotlight. The prowler skittered behind the dumpsters, and I stepped out, groping for my backup. On duty, I carry a Sig Sauer that Aunt Marge got me. Off-duty, I carry the gun the town got me, a perfectly adequate Smith & Wesson. “Hands away from your body!” I yelled. “Come out into the light!”

  He came out into the light, and I knew instantly I had trouble. He didn’t stop and blink or try to shade his eyes. That’s what normal people do. And drunks. You have to be psychotic or flying on hard drugs to stare into my flashlight.

  That was when the second man rushed me. I thought, briefly, stupid stupid stupid and fired my Smith & Wesson at the man I could see before the second man hit me. I went down. So’d the first man. Reassuring. Sometimes a thirty-eight won’t stop them.

  The second man was not high, and I’d lost my breath when I hit the asphalt. He had a knife‌—‌I found out when he cut me‌—‌and I brought my gun up and around to cold-cock him. I missed, and scrambled away, got on my feet thinking I’d really have to get a deputy.

  My deputy arrived. Screeching like an animal‌—‌he was an animal‌—‌and wailing a war cry to chill the blood, Boris leapt onto the man’s head, his rear claws pistoning away at the man’s neck, his front claws hooked into the man’s eyelids.

  You ever hear a grown man scream? Especially a drug-dealing punk grown man? That is one sweet sound.

  The man went down shrieking like a toddler in a fit, flailing at Boris, who wouldn’t let go until after I had cuffed the man. Only then did Boris jump free, to stalk the man, spitting and hissing whenever the man moved.

  By the time the county police showed up, half the staff of the Food Mart was standing around, doing nothing productive. I was perched on the hood of my car, noticing that I felt oddly cold for such a muggy night. The county cops came up, took in the scene, and asked, “What happened?”

  I stood up to answer, and passed out. They told me later that Boris sat on my legs and refused to budge. The paramedic who tried to move him needed stitches. The other wisely left Boris where he was and sped toward Charlottesville.

  And that, Crazy-style, is how I blew three million dollars and gained a deputy.

  CHAPTER 2

  There are consequences to getting cut open by a jackass pot dealer. One of them is twenty-six stitches. Another is Aunt Marge in a tizzy. But I put up with the histrionics because I knew the motivation was love, until she said, “And that thing is not staying!”

  I stroked Boris, who had bunched himself up against my side, ears back, glaring malevolently at the world. While I was lying in bed on happy pills, he was getting neutered, and he was one pissed off tomcat. I know Aunt Marge did it for the right reasons‌—‌God knows we’ve got enough unwanted babies in the world, two-legged or four-legged‌—‌but Boris didn’t see it that way. I still didn’t know how Aunt Marge got him to the vet without needing hospital care herself.

  “He is a wild creature and has no place in this house!”

  She’d said that about an injured raccoon I’d brought home when I was ten. I bristled. “He’s my cat! Or I’m his human. Whatever. C’mon, Aunt Marge, he attacked that guy!”

  Aunt Marge softened. Hardened. “He is a terror to Natasha!”

  This was true. The pampered feline princess was scarcely seen since Boris came into the house. Boris considered himself king of all he surveyed, and Natasha did not appreciate the coup d’etat.

  “He’ll settle in. Give him a chance.”

  Boris showed his appreciation by spitting at Aunt Marge, whose hand had come far too close to him for his comfort.

  “He cannot be tamed. He is feral.”

  I cooed at Boris, who responded by rumbling a purr. Aunt Marge’s face twisted. “Do you know what he did to Dr. Mitchell?”

  Dr. Mitchell is the vet. I cringed.

  Aunt Marge drew a long breath, rattled out, “First he would not eat the tuna with the sedative in it.”

  “Smart boy,” I approved.

  “Then he attacked Dr. Mitchell when he came to perform a preliminary examination!” huffed Aunt Marge. “It took three people to hold him long enough for someone to sedate him!”

  I beamed proudly. That’s my Boris.

  “Dr. Mitchell had to get stitches!”

  Boris turned to me with a look that said plainly Served him right.

  “And after he performed the, ah, necessary operation,” Aunt Marge flushed, “do you know what that cat did?”

  I could guess. “Do I have to pay for more stitches?”

  “That beast,” snapped Aunt Marge, “came out of the anesthesia early‌—‌which is supposed to be impossible‌—‌and he bit Dr. Mitchell so hard the man has to take antibiotics against infection!”

  Boris yawned, to show off the teeth that had done the deed. He shut his mouth with a suggestive little click.

  “I’ll pay for it all,” I told Aunt Marge. I made only thirty grand a year, but when you don’t have to pay rent, it’s not too hard to accumulate some savings. “And Boris’ll settle down. He’s twitchy is all. This is all new to him.”

  “New to him?” whooped my godmother, whose cheeks now matched her fuchsia blouse. “Lil, dear, I know you are fond of that,” she pointed at Boris, now complacently washing his operation site, “but he’s cost you a thousand dollars already!”

  Boris glanced up at her, tongue protruding between his very white, very pointy teeth.

  “I’ve got it to spare,” I said complacently. “So did Uncle Eller talk to you?”

  Her whole face matched her blouse now. “That boor? Of course not. He was scarcely concerned about your injury.”

  Slowly, I explained to her the oversight that had given me the trust fund, and my intention to see it donated to the county SPCA. Aunt Marge listened with her mouth a fine red line, then said, “Nonsense. Why should the county have the opportunity to embezzle those funds? We’ll build a shelter in town. I’ve been longing for something to do with my so-called golden years, and a sanctuary for unwanted pets will keep me quite busy.” A grin spread over her face, showed me the charming impishness that had made my childhood a delight. “And for once this damn town will have a building with Littlepage and Eller over the door.”

  ***^***

  I was back on duty in a couple of weeks, by which time Boris had learned to use the litterbox, and the scratching post on his $300 cat condo. I hadn’t been out the door half an hour before my cell phone warbled at me. It was Aunt Marge. “Boris is sick!”

  I sped home, to find Boris racing around the house in a fluff-tailed panic, yowling as if he’d been tortured. The minute he heard me, however, he went silent, and began washing himself as if he’d done nothing unusual in his whole saintly life.

  I got halfway off the porch when I heard the yowling start up again. Aunt Marge, hands clapped over her ears, gave me an imploring look, and I picked up Boris, carrying him to my bedroom. He didn’t squirm‌—‌and he wasn’t a cat who liked to be picked up‌—‌but sat staring intelligently near my face. Never in my eyes. Ferals, like all wild felines, take direct eye contact as a challenge.

  “Boris,” I said, “I gotta go to work. I’ll come home, don’t worry.”

  He flicked his mismatched eyes. I could practically smell his doubt. Sighing, I stroked his back with a single finger.

  “I know, I’d like to stay home, too, but I gotta do my job. I’m the sheriff, sweetie. I gotta go.”

  Boris mewed. It was his first non-yowlin
g, non-growling, non-purring vocalization, and it startled me. This husky 11-pound brute had a meow like a tiny kitten’s.

  I left, and when I got home, Boris remained where I’d left him. He perked up once I was home, but Aunt Marge reported with concern, “He won’t eat or drink or anything if you’re not here.”

  I put this down to exaggeration and Boris’s difficulty adjusting to the domestic life. I didn’t want to let him go outside yet, certain he’d return to his feral haunts, but after a week, I had to wonder if maybe I should let him go. I’d still see him back behind the Food Mart. Sometimes. Maybe.

  After a second week of alternating tantrums and doldrums, Boris had begun to lose weight. He lost his bounce. The gleam left his eyes. I came home one night to find that Natasha had beaten the fur off him, and he’d lain there and taken it. Tears came to my eyes as I petted him, cajoled him into eating some canned salmon from my fingertips. “That’s right, baby,” I said softly, so Aunt Marge couldn’t hear. “I’ll take you home. I’ll come see you every day, okay? Okay.”

  Boris didn’t protest when I put him into a cardboard box lined with a towel. He didn’t even move. I placed the box in the shelter of the loading dock, but Boris didn’t stir, and I couldn’t leave him there. Instead, I took him to the vet.

  Dr. Mitchell, a lean man in his forties, took one look and shrugged. “He’s fine. His blood tests came back clean, and he’s got nothing wrong with him. Physically,” he added with a trace of acid. “He’s just pining. Leave him where you found him. He’s not meant to be a pet.”

  I couldn’t believe that. Boris, not meant to be a pet? The way he snuggled up in his sleep, the joy he showed when I petted him‌—‌as far as I could see, Boris loved being a pet. But I couldn’t deny that Boris was also miserable. I scooped him up in the towel, hurrying back to my car before the vet could see me cry. It doesn’t do much for a citizen’s confidence in the sheriff to see the sheriff bawling over a scruffy old tomcat.

  I left Boris under the loading dock, promising to see him first thing in the morning, and went to Shiflet Hardware on Main. I got the plans and the materials for a small doghouse, and spent half the night building it. I couldn’t keep Boris with me, I reasoned, but by God I’d keep him dry.

  The next morning, I woke to a familiar wail of desolation, bolted upright in bed, and ran downstairs. There, on the porch, forlorn in a warm summer drizzle, was Boris. His gaze reproached me for abandoning him, and he marched up to my bedroom to dry himself all over the clean sheets. He turned around three times, gave a small sigh, and curled up to sleep with the tip of his tail over his nose. Plainly, his demeanor said, I’d misunderstood.

  “I’m sorry,” I said humbly, “but you know what? I don’t speak Feline.”

  One ear twitched. After a moment, he began to snore. I sat and regarded him with awe, and (I admit it) joy. Boris liked me. He’d come home. But why wasn’t he happy here?

  “He came all that way?” gasped Aunt Marge over her coffee as I inhaled my usual egg-white omelet. “But it must be three miles.”

  “Just about,” I confirmed. “But now what?”

  Aunt Marge pursed her lips, stirring her coffee in her precise way: three stirs clockwise, three stirs counterclockwise, and back to clockwise. “We’ll know,” she said mysteriously. “It will come to us. I believe answers come to the patient.”

  For a woman who hadn’t been to church without complaining in forty years, Aunt Marge could sound an awful lot like a minister doing the theological side-step. I shook my head, grabbed my hat, and went out to face the day.

  ***^***

  I’d signed off on my trust fund, turning it over to the fund for the construction and operation of the Littlepage Eller Animal Sanctuary, and Aunt Marge was having the time of her life. She grabbed the project with both hands and ran with it, I mean ran with it. Within a week there were blueprints everywhere, and she was accepting estimates for clearing a drive off Turner Mountain Road to lead to the acreage she’d decided would “do” for the sanctuary. “Lots of air, lots of light,” she declared, waving her hands in the air. “Outdoor runs. All sorts of amenities. Oh and I’ll need volunteers!”

  I’d had another twelve-hour day, stuck in the cruiser or doing paperwork, or both, and I yawned around a mouthful of cherry pie. “How big’s it gonna be? You won’t have but ten or twenty animals I bet.”

  Aunt Marge’s bright blue eyes flashed excitement. “And they’ll want for nothing! Nothing, I tell you! No-kill, that’s our policy, and if we can’t find them homes, then by heaven we’ll be home!”

  Too much for me. I crawled upstairs, showered, and flopped into bed with Boris. He gave me another of those soul-piercing reproaches, but consented to be brushed and cooed at, before I finally fell asleep.

  Halfway through the night, I had a dream, probably brought on by Aunt Marge’s cherry pie. I was in the cruiser, and I was talking to a human deputy named Boris, some guy who looked like Dolph Lundgren back in that Rocky movie. I jerked awake, bewildered, and touched my Boris. He stretched happily in sleep, and I had The Idea.

  The next day was one of my two days off. I got every Sunday, and rotating weekdays. I drove clear to Charlottesville to get what I wanted, and spent the afternoon fussing and cussing in my cruiser until I got everything just right. When Aunt Marge came home from her monthly meeting of the Littlepage Library Ladies, I dragged her to the car. “Look!”

  She looked. Her eyebrows went way up, her mouth thinned and pursed at the same time, and her nostrils flared. “What,” she asked in a dangerously honeyed way, “is all this? Dear?”

  “Boris,” I announced. “He’ll ride with me.”

  The eyebrows scrunched a last millimeter closer to her hairline. “Excuse me?”

  “Boris. He’s bored,” I said excitedly. “Now he can ride with me. I ran to Charlottesville, and…”

  Aunt Marge nodded with a smile she usually reserved for my Eller or Littlepage relatives. “But dear‌…‌He’s a cat. They hate cars.”

  True. I hadn’t thought of that before I installed the cat seat‌—‌allowing Boris to either look out the window, or nap, as the whim dictated‌—‌and bolted a litterbox in the foot well of the passenger seat‌—‌so it couldn’t spill‌—‌and monkeyed a food bowl and water dispenser to the back of the seat. I’d even gotten a halter and leash, just in case, and a collar.

  “We’ll see,” I declared smugly, but my heart was in my toes. What if Boris hated it? What if Boris threw up all day? What was I going to do? I couldn’t turn him loose, but I couldn’t let him just pine. It wasn’t right.

  Still, the next morning I toted Boris to the cruiser. I rarely parked it at my tiny office. It doesn’t do to let townsfolk know when you’re off-duty. He sniffed everything without much visible interest, and I kept my head turned so I couldn’t see Aunt Marge’s patronizing smirk.

  Then Boris, with great care, settled into the cat seat. He turned around three times, testing the fleecy lining with his paw-pads, before he chose to sit down in a pose reminiscent of a statue of Bastet. Mouth dry, I started the engine, and drove about ten miles per hour to the office, waiting for hell to break loose.

  Boris never made a sound. But he sat upright, eyes shining, and stared out the windshield with interest. I cracked his window, and his nostrils worked as he tested the air for scents. He bore Kim’s exclamations with composure, and showed no sign of distress as I eased out to my favorite speed-trap by Junior’s. His tail tip twitched constantly, his eyes and ears alert, and he gave a tiny purr when I reached over and stroked his back. His mismatched eyes glowed. This, he seemed to say, was what he’d meant, and he was glad the idiot human had finally figured it out.

  ***^***

  Gossip travels fast in a small town. By midafternoon, a county cop slid up next to me as I finished a report on a public nuisance, also known as Eddie Brady. Nothing I could arrest him for. Just one more complaint on a long list, and if he didn’t behave himself, I’d toss him into one of
my two cells overnight just to make a point.

  “Hey Lil.”

  “Hey Tom,” I replied. Tom Hutchins was my favorite county cop. He never called me babe or honey or darlin’. Then again, he’d known me since high school, when I pitched a softball into his groin in phys ed. Pure bad luck, but he took it as a warning shot. “Trouble?”

  “Nope, but I heard you got a cat with you, and I had to see for myself.” He grinned, good-natured, beefy like a lot of the county cops, military muscle bulk going to flab. “Where’d you find him?”

  “Parking lot when I got into trouble.”

  “Oh,” said Tom, sobering. “I heard about that. You okay?”

  “Fine,” I shrugged, not taking my eyes off my report. It’s easier to control your reactions to asinine remarks if you don’t see the expressions that go with them. “Boris cut him up for me.”

  “Way to go, Boris,” Tom said, turned to pay attention to a squawk from his radio. “Ah hell. Fender bender. Take care, Lil.”

  “You too, Tom.”

  By the end of my day, I’d been stopped by half the rest of the county police force, a state cop, and a park ranger from the Parkway. Boris ignored them all, which was more than I could do. There’s something about grown men sniggering about pussy and kitties that makes my teeth grind.

  “So how did it go?” asked Aunt Marge anxiously when we arrived home. Boris, who’d catnapped all day, bounded inside and to his food dish, then chased Natasha into hiding. I stumbled yawning to the supper table and inhaled gazpacho without tasting it, before I could muster up the energy to answer, “Pretty good.”

  “Pretty well,” she corrected, but gently. “Dear, you need a deputy. A human one. There’s no way you can keep this up.”

  “I know. But no one’s applied since Spivey quit.”