Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 02 - River Mourn

by Bill Hopkins

  Ollie went to get a bottle of booze. We’ll have picnic in here. In the dark. Fried chicken and booze. What a great picnic.

  After an eon of struggle—the floor still angled upward—Rosswell reached the dot of light.

  Calmness. That’s what he needed to quiet the ragged breathing. After he’d centered himself and lowered the volume of his wheezing, he leaned up to the illuminated hole and peered in. The room he saw was lit to the approximate strength of the noonday sun. His view, although restricted, was clear.

  Tina lay on a bed. Someone was delivering her baby. His baby.

  Chapter 28

  Saturday Night, continued

  Before Rosswell could scream loudly enough to crumble the walls, he caught hold of one tiny sliver of sanity.

  He had to think. He couldn’t rescue Tina by screaming and pounding.

  Center, Rosswell, center.

  He needed help. He had to go back and get Ollie. What was taking him so long? If only he could see.

  Wait a minute!

  His cell phone could light the way. He could turn the settings down to low, have enough light to see, and make the battery last longer.

  Rosswell reversed course and headed for Jill’s house. Fearful that whoever may have been on the other side of the hole in the wall would notice the light from his cell phone if he powered it up now, he plodded on until he could no longer see the pinhole. It seemed the spittoon was growing heavier, although he had enough sense left in his overworked brain to realize that he was getting tired. Stepping carefully, he kept the clanking down to a minimum.

  He had to stop. Bending over with his hands on his knees, he drew a few deep breaths. He straightened, then reached for his cell phone. It wasn’t there. He’d left it plugged into the charger in his truck.

  Rosswell gave up. No flashlight. No phone. No gun. He could go no further. He would die in the tunnel. His time had come.

  But first, he decided to take a nap, finding the thought of dying while exhausted unacceptable. Death circled in his brain like a hungry buzzard awaiting the last breath. He backed up to the wall and slid to the floor. If exhaustion didn’t kill him, his heart would. Snap, crackle, pop, and the muscle quits working faster than spit, faster than you can say Jack Robinson, whoever the hell he is.

  Rosswell had heard that dying from your heart stopping was as easy as falling down. He felt for his gun. A second’s action would end everything. The gun was still gone. His head hit his chest and he fell asleep.

  Something snorted and Rosswell awoke to the sound of his own snoring.

  He told himself he could sleep later. Yet he still needed a short break. A saying he heard in the military flew into his brain: “Take a break but don’t let the sweat dry.” He had to get back and look through the peephole again. Facing reality, whatever the reality turned out to be, was the right thing to do.

  Casting aside every excuse, Rosswell levered himself up, oriented his body toward the pinhole, and shoved off. After another eon, he arrived at the light and again stuck his eye to the tiny hole. Everyone had disappeared. Maybe it was his angle of view.

  Keeping his eye to the opening, he stretched up and then slunk down, hooked a left, then a right. Finally, he could once again see a slender woman, obviously pregnant, straining to give birth. A pair of arms, belonging to somebody he couldn’t see, worked on the woman. A doctor delivering the baby? The pregnant woman was the same height and same coloring as—

  Tina?

  No. Although the woman resembled Tina, it was not her, yet the freakishness of a coincidence slammed into Rosswell’s consciousness, shoving and kicking aside the piddly stuff he’d been worried about—thirst, exhaustion, pain, death. Instead, his mind considered this strange set of happenings: The woman tossed from the boat. Alessandra. The pregnant woman delivering as he watched. And Tina. All the women looked similar. Slender. Beautiful. Strawberry blonde. Tall. He’d noticed that before but the absolute absurdity of the coincidence finally smacked him in the face with cold, bitter hands.

  Why did all the women look similar? He didn’t believe in coincidences. Something in the way the women looked was a key factor in explaining why they’d all showed up here, in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, close to a bastard named Nathaniel Dahlbert. What did the women have in common? Other than their looks—and he was sure glad they didn’t look like Nathaniel—they had nothing in common. Except Tina and the woman in the room were having babies. But Alessandra didn’t have a baby and she didn’t look pregnant. The woman tossed off the barge looked pregnant and had given birth by the time he found her body in the cave. What did all those women have in common? Had Alessandra delivered a baby? Was Nathaniel selling babies birthed by women who looked like Tina? If so, why?

  Rosswell drew himself away from the view to digest this new information. It led to a realization about knowledge that he’d had all along. When the person delivering the child moved into view, Rosswell stifled a gasp. Karyn. One of Mabel’s waitresses, the one with granny glasses designed by John Lennon. Karyn Byler and Jill Mabli had quit the restaurant to take midwife tests, yet had come back to help when Mabel pleaded with them. And here was Karyn practicing her midwifery on a woman who resembled Tina.

  Karyn moved out of his vision. Another person—was it Jill?—dressed in black and standing closer to the hole, blocked his view for a moment. Rosswell clutched his throat. The necklace Maman had bestowed on him still hung there, the star’s edges sharp as ever. With the gentleness of a nurse picking up a sick child, Rosswell scoured the inside of the hole with the star until it widened enough to allow him to see more of the room. He launched a prayer to The First Available Deity that he wasn’t dumping sawdust into the delivery room. The folks in there would find it odd to see sawdust dribbling into the room from a hole. Someone would have to go investigate. The someone would find him. And kill him.

  The hospital bed where the pregnant woman lay had been situated away from the wall. The sheets, blanket, and pillowcases were all white. Rosswell thought he smelled a whiff of Clorox with a touch of Lysol.

  The mother was hooked up to an IV drip. Other than the occasional labor pain, the woman appeared to be happy. Or content. There was no indication she was being held against her will. She appeared fully alert. If she was under the influence of any drug, Rosswell couldn’t tell.

  Close to the head of the bed, he recognized lines running to oxygen and anesthesia tanks. A combination infant warmer and resuscitation unit stood at the ready in one corner. The delivery room—similar to the ones he’d seen during his military stint—was devoid of any decoration. No pictures on the walls he could see. No carpeting on the hard wood floors. No windows. No magazines. No television. No radio. The room was built for cleanliness and safety, for the birth of the baby and tending of the infant following its transition from the safe world of a mother’s womb to the scary place called Life.

  Karyn appeared calm, as if she knew what she was doing and was in control of the situation. She also didn’t appear to be under any coercion or threat.

  Rosswell judged the delivery suite worthy of a small-town hospital. Nathaniel had supplied everything needed to deliver babies. But why? Was he running a home for unwed mothers? But only if the unwed mother looked like Tina?

  Because he represented the legal system, Rosswell had often spoken at fundraisers for such homes, but he’d never heard of one in the Ste. Gen area that matched the description of River Heights Villa. Wouldn’t such a well-equipped facility be advertising and asking for money? And wouldn’t Rosswell have heard of such a place, especially considering that he’d been holding court in the county on and off for months now? Many of his cases involved a pregnant minor who needed a place to stay while awaiting the birth of her child. Rosswell had familiarized himself with the homes providing such services in that part of the state. Nathaniel’s place had never been mentioned.

  Rosswell didn’t get it. Wouldn’t pregnant girls and women in a home for unwed mothers use a hospital like everyo
ne else? Or maybe the unwed mothers didn’t have money or insurance and needed a charity to pay for their delivery. Nathaniel was running a charity? Why did Nathaniel have to kill Mary Donna Helperen? And Ribs Freshwater? Charlie Heckle gave Turk Malone a file of some kind. Then Charlie got spooked and jumped a train for who knows where with Rosswell’s silver. All that to cover up a charity for unwed mothers? An invisible elephant in the room stomped and roared because Rosswell couldn’t see it.

  A hand, emitting a scent of ginger, clamped over Rosswell’s mouth. Something cold and round nestled in his right ear. The barrel of a gun wasn’t hard to recognize. Instinctively, his hands sprang into the air.

  In his left ear, he heard a voice whisper, “If you make the tiniest sound, Nathaniel will kill you, me, and Ollie. You understand?” Rosswell nodded in the dim light, hoping whoever held him hostage understood his agreement. “And if he kills us, it will take us a long time to die. You understand?” Rosswell nodded again. “And painful. It will be a very painful death. You understand?” Rosswell nodded once more. “I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth and my gun from your ear. Don’t talk and don’t make any noise.” Rosswell nodded a fourth time. The hand left his mouth and the gun barrel left his ear. Rosswell remained silent as a day-old rock concert.

  His captor flicked on a dim light, played the beam over him and, still whispering, said, “Do you know you have a spittoon on your right foot?”

  Rosswell, taking it literally that he wasn’t to talk, nodded one more time.

  His captor motioned him to follow.

  After he realized he hadn’t been breathing, he sucked in a lungful of air, stood tall, and followed Jill.

  Chapter 29

  Sunday Morning

  Ollie, fettered from head to foot with an orange plastic rope, spoke volumes with his eyes when he glared at Rosswell. In addition to the rope, Jill had used three rolls of duct tape, no doubt to assure herself that the research assistant wouldn’t escape. Locking him in a hallway closet had sealed the deal that Ollie would stay put.

  Jill handed Rosswell a knife. “Cut him loose.” Her almost invisible black eyebrows arched. “You do know how to use a knife, don’t you?”

  Rosswell suspected sarcasm, explaining his choice to stay shut. Jill hadn’t reached the level of trustworthiness in his short book of people he could rely on and he didn’t feel up to testing her. She’d lost the crinkly blue waitress dress. Her outfit now comprised black tennis shoes, black socks, tight black ski pants, and a black hoodie. Rosswell approved. He thought it was a good choice of gear for someone slinking around in the dark and taking a judge hostage.

  Rosswell flicked the knife through the ropes, then gauged the placement of the duct tape. “This is going to smart.”

  Ollie screamed each time Rosswell ripped off a piece of the gray tape. When Rosswell finished, Ollie stood and did the shimmy shake. He whimpered. “Houdini didn’t cover duct tape.”

  Rosswell said, “Sorry about that. The best way to get it off is pull it quickly.”

  “Good thing my body hair is at a minimum.”

  “Mabel would be ashamed of you, screaming like a little girl.”

  “Do you know you have a spittoon on your right foot?”

  “Take it off.” Rosswell eased himself into a chair to allow Ollie room to work the nasty thing off. When Ollie jerked the spittoon hard to the right, Rosswell yelped. “Gently! Gently!” Ollie tried wrenching it off. The thing wouldn’t budge. Ollie twisted it hard to the left, then hard to the right, causing Rosswell to yelp. Success! That popped the spittoon from the foot. Dried brown stuff fell onto the floor. Rosswell ordered himself not to think about what the brown stuff might be.

  Ollie said, “Sorry about that. The best way to get it off is pull it quickly.”

  Jill interrupted. “Save it, boys. We’ve got a situation.”

  Rosswell said, “No crap. Tell us what’s going on.”

  “Karyn’s the bad girl, not me.”

  Rosswell saw an objection forming in Ollie’s face. “Quiet.” Rosswell snapped his fingers and pointed at Ollie. “You wouldn’t believe what I saw down there. Jill, I need a glass of water.” He smacked his dry lips together to emphasize how thirsty he was.

  She walked down the hallway, Rosswell limping behind her, and showed him the kitchen where clean tumblers dried in a dishwashing rack next to the sink. After filling a glass from the tap, Rosswell took a long time sipping the tepid water, hoping he wouldn’t throw up. The only rebellion his insides evidenced was a loud growl, complaining about missing both supper and breakfast.

  Ollie asked, “Isn’t anyone going to tell me what’s going on, or was my near fatal imprisonment all for naught?”

  Jill searched Ollie’s face, probably a quest for the source of his whininess. “Judge, is he always that crabby?”

  “He’s got a bustle in his hedgerow.”

  “I always wondered what that meant.”

  “Unadulterated bullshit.”

  “No,” Rosswell said forcefully. “That’s not what that means.” He finished the water and stared at the empty glass. His stomach lurched but the water stayed down.

  “Listen,” Jill said, “time’s running out. Nathaniel may already know that you all have caught on to his scheme. That means he’s searching for you.”

  Ollie said, “He’s been searching for Rosswell a long time. In fact, he captured both of us one time. We barely escaped with our lives. Let me tell you about it.”

  Rosswell said, “Not now. I want to know what the scheme is.” He deposited the glass gently in the sink under the tap, hoping the tumbler didn’t tumble out of his weakened grip.

  “His guys pick up young pregnant runaways who sell their bodies and their babies to Nathaniel. It’s human trafficking.”

  “It’s slavery.” Rosswell drew another glass of water. “Do you have any whiskey?” He held the water up to the kitchen light. Pure, no dancing motes, and, as water is supposed to be, tasteless. A shot of booze would round out the taste. Maybe two shots to make it an even number. Was Jill telling the truth? Why should he believe her story? It sounded like something Nathaniel told her to say.

  Ollie glared at Rosswell. “No, she doesn’t have a drop of booze in the whole place. I already asked her. Not even NyQuil.”

  “Judge, tell Ollie what you saw in the tunnel.”

  Rosswell recounted the story of the delivery suite. He finished at the same time he drained the glass of water. “Did you deliver any babies?”

  Jill rinsed out the tumbler Rosswell had placed in the sink. “Yes, until I found out what Nathaniel was doing with the children.”

  Ollie said, “And you found this out how?”

  “I overheard Nathaniel talking about it one day.” She wiped the sink out with a dish rag. “Let’s say that I was someplace he didn’t expect me to be, so I did a bit of snooping. He never suspected a thing.”

  “Sneakiness,” Ollie said. “I like that in a woman.”

  Rosswell steered the conversation back on course. “I need to know two things.” He held up two fingers. “Where were you and what did you hear?”

  “I overheard Nathaniel selling a pregnant woman on giving birth at the Villa and letting him put her baby up for adoption. He told her he’d give her twenty-five thousand dollars cash so she could start a new life.”

  “And where were you when you heard this?”

  “Hiding in Nathaniel’s office. I’d been searching it for info, in case I needed something I could blackmail that bastard with. Insurance, I call it.”

  Ollie said, “My admiration grows.”

  Rosswell said, “I’ve got a message and pictures on my cell phone, which is in my truck. Let me get it.”

  “Don’t bother.” Ollie pulled the cell phone from his pocket and handed it to Rosswell.

  “My gun?”

  Ollie handed it over. “It’s loaded and ready to go.”

  Rosswell pointed to the phone. “Listen.” He punched a button.


  “Rosswell, come get me. I’m—”

  “That call is from Tina. Tina Parkmore, my fiancée. She’s missing and I think someone kidnapped her. She made the call from Sainte Gen. We tracked it back to a payphone on the square.” Rosswell clicked through several photos on his phone. “Did you ever see her?”

  Jill reviewed the photographs. “No. That voice doesn’t sound familiar and I’ve never seen the woman in your picture. Sorry.”

  Rosswell said, “I’m almost positive that Nathaniel has her,” while thinking, I’m not almost positive about anything. But Jill would never hear that from his lips.

  Jill shook her head. “Never saw her although she resembles some of the other mothers we’ve had.”

  Ollie’s forehead and eyebrows—where his eyebrows would’ve been if he hadn’t shaved them off—furrowed. “We? Then you’re as guilty as Nathaniel and your sister.”

  “Yes, I am. But hear me out. Nathaniel is selling those children. When I found that out, I told Karyn. We had a huge fight. She said that Nathaniel was merely running a private adoption service. I told Karyn that Nathaniel was dealing in human flesh. He literally bought and sold kids. The mothers get sold, too. Obviously, Nathaniel lies to them about what their new life will be like.”

  Ollie said, “He’s paying the girls for their kids and then selling them to people who want a baby and the mommas become sex toys.” He ground his teeth. “Nathaniel is a huge pile of human excrement.”

  Rosswell asked, “Did you see every woman who was in Nathaniel’s house? Every pregnant woman?”

  “I have no way of knowing that. Nathaniel is a secretive creep. When we—Karyn and I—visited River Heights Villa to check on the expectant mothers, either Nathaniel or Turk would follow us to a room, let us in, and then escort us out when we finished.”

  Ollie said, “Turk Malone? You know him?”

  “Yes. He makes Nathaniel seem normal.”

  Rosswell said, “Jill, if you’ll go to the sheriff and tell him what you’ve seen, we could bust that place wide open.”