Gone Crazy by Shannon Hill

not released to the public‌—‌she said, “Jeff or Davis.” To which Boris’s tail twitched exactly twice, but I already knew she was lying, so it did me no good.
    By lunchtime, Harry and I were exhausted. Boris was sound asleep on the windowsill. Kim brought over food and drinks from the Old Mill, and we uncuffed everyone so that they could feed themselves because I frankly didn’t feel like dealing with complaints of brutality on top of everything else.
    My brilliant idea had gotten us nowhere.
    I munched a lukewarm french fry sprinkled with malt vinegar. “We’re screwed,” I told Harry. “They’re so mad they’d sooner kill me than admit the sky is blue.”
    Harry fastidiously wiped his fingers clean and tossed his napkin into the trash. “It’s odd,” he said.
    “Tell me about it,” I groused.
    “No, Lil, think for a moment. We’re letting our own frustration get in our way.”
    That was true enough. “Keep talking.”
    Harry started to light a cigar, caught my eye, and stuck to chewing its end. “When you spoke to them before, they were all pointing fingers every which-a-way. Now we can’t get them to point any fingers at all, except at Davis and Jeff.”
    “The two outcasts,” I said slowly. “So either they know something we don’t…”
    “Oh, I am quite confident of that,” Harry purred.
    I shot him an icy Littlepage glare. “Okay, so either they really do blame Davis and Jeff, or…” I groped for the rest of the thought, but it wasn’t about to get snagged. “Dammit! They’ve closed ranks because they do know who it is! They know! They didn’t before, and now they know!”
    “They know,” agreed Harry grimly. With the cigar wagging, he looked ridiculously like Groucho Marx for a minute.
    I had to take several calming breaths. You’d think I’d be used to human ill-nature after all those years, but I never have gotten comfy with the way people throw their loved ones to the nearest devil. “Those’re their brothers.”
    “Davis is a deviant as far as they’re concerned,” he reminded me, “and Jeff is conveniently absent.”
    I scowled and finished the carrot and pineapple juice in my thermos. Aunt Marge had added fresh ginger and enough cayenne to melt my sinuses. It didn’t help me think but it sure kept me awake. “I was going to say innocent men don’t run, except sometimes they do. If they’re afraid.”
    Harry checked his notes. “So far Ken is the only one who hasn’t tried to throw blame onto either Davis or Jeff, but then, he didn’t say anything at all.”
    I recited an old adage. “Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is conspiracy.”
    “Indeed,” said Harry. “If I was not a good Baptist…”
    I snorted.
    Harry serenely ignored me. “I would bet dollars to doughnuts that we’re going to hear the same refrain from the rest of our Greek chorus. Fair Lily, I fear we are wasting our time.”
    “Damn right we are,” I replied with as evil a grin as I could. I’d been taking lessons from Boris. “But we’re giving Tom and Punk as much as they need.”
    Harry popped to his feet. “Good enough. I’ll round up our next victim, and first thing Monday I will work on Judge Harper’s sensibilities in the hopes he will eventually give us warrants for financial records.”
    “We’ve got Vera’s,” I pointed out. “If she had money, it probably is buried in the yard. It sure wasn’t in any bank. Tom checked with the utilities and she even paid them by money order or cash.” I grinned. “One time, all in dimes.”
    Harry laughed. “I would have loved to have seen that. Who shall we torture next? Robert or Laura?”
    “Oh, Laura,” I said airily, and leaned back to rub Boris’s shoulders, where new fur had finally covered his scar. “Let’s see what glad games Pollyanna can play in handcuffs.”
    ***^***
    It was just as well I didn’t expect Laura to veer from the new Collier party line. After informing us she was innocent and