Crazy Like a Fox (Lil & Boris #3) (Lil & Boris Mysteries) by Shannon Hill Read Free Book Online

goal is to get the victim home alive. Catching the kidnappers can wait. But the truth is, we don’t see many kidnaps for ransom in the US. It’s too hard to get away with it. Even small police departments like mine can rustle up the wherewithal to ambush a kidnapper when he comes to pick up the money, or at least have cameras pointed at him, or stick a tracking device in the cash bag. Something that ends with the kidnapper in handcuffs. Most kidnappings in our country are either parents in a custody fight, or they’re connected somehow to human or drug trafficking, as a very hostile way to force repayment of a debt. Not for ransom.
    Like I said, the goal in any kidnap is to get the victim home in one piece. Catching the kidnappers can wait. Except for Chief Rucker, who might in this case have bought them a steak dinner. So paying the ransom, or negotiating a bit, would’ve been the best way to play it, in my opinion.
    Which, it turned out, was what the insurance company told Cousin Robert. I hadn’t known it, but K&R insurance often comes with a consultant who’ll tell you how to handle the situation. He was on his way in from New York. He’d be there around lunch on Monday, and they’d just have to wait till then.
    As Harry phrased it, Punk “took that badly”. He stomped off‌—‌no mean feat for a guy with one leg‌—‌muttering words even Harry claimed not to know. Harry begged a bed for the remainder of the night from Aunt Marge, and everyone more or less went home in a bad mood.
    Come Monday morning, while I was watching the last logs dwindle to ash, Vernon Rucker painstakingly, lovingly interviewed everyone in Crazy who might have a grudge against me. In his mind, that list included every resident of the town, and a good number of those who lived outside town at the apartments on Piedmont Road. Since he had court, Harry had rambled home early, but heard from a frustrated Punk later in the day that Rucker was moving at the speed of molasses in a January freeze. Rightly claiming no idea how to get his fat cousin to accelerate, Harry asked not to be bothered.
    “What happened after that,” he finished, “you’ll have to ask someone else. I didn’t hear another peep until you were on your way to the hospital.”
    I saw him out, locking my door tight, and went to bed. Boris cuddled against me, sighing happy little cat sighs now that everything was back to normal. Whatever that was.

5.
    I was technically off-duty for another week, but I showed up at work first thing Monday morning armed with a legal pad of questions. Tom and Punk weren’t expecting me. I could tell by the way their eyebrows crawled up their foreheads.
    Boris bounded to his cat condo in the corner for a good scratch, detouring around Kim’s legs with a scrabble of claws on the way. Kim squeaked a surprised hello, and hustled to bring me a cup of decaf green tea. “Does Miz Turner know you’re here?”
    Miz Turner‌—‌no one calls Aunt Marge “ Miss Turner” —did not. I smiled sunnily at her, but didn’t say a word. Boris’s tail twitches twice in the presence of a lie, and while Kim may not believe me on that, I wasn’t taking any chances. “Boys,” I said to Tom and Punk, both of whom were slinking door-ward. “Sit.”
    They sat. There’s this about being Eller tall, with the Littlepage glare: I do get results.
    “Now,” I said, tapping my pen on the legal pad, “who wants to pick up where Harry left off? Say, last Monday morning maybe?”
    They squirmed. Tom inched a foot toward the door. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on the traffic.”
    I stared at him. He sank back in the chair and uttered a single, useless, “Um.”
    I tried Punk, who seemed to find his prosthesis suddenly fascinating.
    I stopped tapping. They both jumped. “Well? What happened?”
    I let them run out of hot protests about Vernon Rucker, and exhaled hard. “What did he do?”
    They’d both worked for Rucker as county cops. I usually