by Bill Hopkins
Chapter 17
Thursday Afternoon into Shortly after Midnight Friday Morning
"I 've had it for today." Rosswell's energy faded with the setting sun.
Ollie placed himself between the sun and Rosswell, casting a long shadow. "Why do you think Sheriff Fribeau is connected to Nathaniel?"
"Let's walk." Rosswell also stood. "I don't think that. I didn't say that Gustave and Nathaniel were connected."
"That's exactly what you said."
"Let me modify that. Lazar Fribeau knows that you talked to Charlie Heckle. That means that Sheriff Gustave Fribeau knows it, too. Charlie spilled his stinking guts to Nathaniel." Rosswell blinked rapidly. "Charlie Heckle said something. What was it?"
"Charlie said lots of stuff."
"Gustave knows Charlie. Maybe that connects him to Nathaniel."
"That's your suspicion talking. You don't have any proof."
There was something odd in the conversation between Ollie and Charlie, but Rosswell had crunched down on something in his mouth, shutting off his detective mode before he could discover the oddity. Was an ant in his mouth? It tasted bitter. He spit before he spoke. "Gustave said he knew all about our visit to Maman before it happened. Who do you think told him?"
"Lazar. Doesn't mean Gustave is connected to Nathaniel."
"You're right."
"And one other thing."
"What?"
"If Gustave already knows I talked to Charlie, then if I don't tell him what Charlie said, he'll find some excuse to throw me in jail."
"The law doesn't work that way."
Ollie guffawed.
Rosswell said, "I mean, it's not supposed to work that way."
"Then what do you suggest we do? Keep a look out for someone who knows about caves?"
Rosswell clapped when he recognized the oddity in Charlie's conversation. "That's it. What you said. Ollie, you're a genius."
"I already know that. If you're fishing for compliments, the water is dead."
Mabel relented, allowing Rosswell and Ollie to eat supper in her storeroom.
Rosswell said, "First we go find Frankie Joe Acorn. It's Daylight Saving Time. The sun won't set for a while." He smacked a couple of times, tasting the remnants of the rib roast he'd chowed down. It went a long way toward diluting the ant taste lingering in his mouth. He thanked God his stomach had settled enough to eat a full meal. "Let's go."
"You have your pistol?"
Rosswell patted the Smith & Wesson 442 Airweight .38 Special, normally holstered in a suitcase under his bed, now resting at the small of his back under his shirt. "The deputies let me detour around the metal detector at the courthouse."
Even as Rosswell hefted the gun, he told himself to forget it. He wasn't going to shoot anyone again. Not today. Not next week or next month. Not ever again. Shooting someone changes a minimum of two lives for the bad, not to mention that it generated a lot of paperwork.
When they reached the trailer, Frankie Joe answered the door.
"You the guys who've been asking questions all over the county?"
Rosswell said, "Yes," and Ollie nodded in agreement.
Frankie Joe sized up the pair. "Come on in. Take a load off."
Susannah-again dressed head to toe in black-inclined her head slightly toward Rosswell and Ollie. "Coffee?" She sniffed a couple of times.
"I'd love some." Rosswell hoped he and Ollie didn't smell too rotten. "The stronger the better. And I need lots of sugar."
"Thank you, yes." Ollie smiled. "I've been practicing my manners."
Rosswell, gathered with the other three around the kitchen table, spoke first. "Tell me what happened on the ferry last Sunday."
Frankie Joe blew on his coffee. "Turk Malone and I were standing by my car, talking about the weather, how hot it was. This was around 6:00 AM. I'm pretty sure it was the first run of the ferry for that day."
Frankie Joe picked up a pitcher of cream and poured it in his coffee. "Anyway, I heard a banging noise on the other side of the boat, the side where the tug was. A guy standing over there yelled, like he was scared of something. I ran over to see what the problem was." Frankie Joe stopped speaking and clinked a spoon in his cup, probably trying to remember something. "The deck hand-Jasmine LaFaire-was messing with some ropes. She didn't seem concerned at all. I asked her if there was a problem but she said it was a log or something. The river's up and the same thing happened several times the day before. No big deal." Frankie Joe added more cream. "That's all I know about it."
Susannah lit three candles, no doubt the odor eating kind.
Rosswell's nose went to work. There was a cinnamon scent in the air. He thought he remembered vanilla candles from their previous visit and wondered if Susannah lit different scents on different days. He yanked his mind back to the reason for their visit.
"Did you know the guy who was at the side of the boat?" he asked Frankie Joe.
"I didn't then, but I know now that his name was Charlie Heckle."
"Was?"
"Is."
Rosswell said, "How do you know that now?"
Susannah cleared her throat. "Small towns. You know how people talk."
"Right." Frankie Joe looked at his wife. "I heard it around."
Ollie said, "Did you see an Indian there on the boat?"
"Yeah, I did. Ribs Freshwater. Everybody knew him. He was a friendly guy. Too bad he got murdered."
Ollie said, "Murders are generally bad."
Rosswell said, "Do you ride that ferry much?"
"Practically every day during the growing season."
"The growing season?"
"I'm a farm machine mechanic. Those bottomland farms in Illinois are flat and big. They have lots of machinery that's always needing fixing."
Rosswell memorized the guy's physical description, especially his hands, before he continued the questioning.
"Does Turk Malone work in Illinois?"
"He goes over there a lot. I don't know where he works." Frankie Joe laughed. "I don't know if he works."
"He doesn't work on farm equipment?"
Susannah said, "He's a dope pusher."
Frankie Joe said, "If I were a betting man, I'd bet on what my wife said."
Ollie said, "Why's that?"
"Turk Malone smells like a doper."
Heading out of Bloomsdale in the growing darkness after the interview, Rosswell broke the silence.
"Someone's been prepping Frankie Joe."
"Sure enough." Ollie stared into the darkness. "Who do you think did it?"
"His father-in-law."
Ollie scratched his nose, which Rosswell took as a sign of thought. "Frankie Joe lied about the time. You saw the body tossed off about seven, not six."
"And he lied when he said it was the first run. It was the second run."
"Notice his hands?"
"Soft as a baby's." Ollie faced front and changed the subject. "Damn, it's hot. Doesn't this truck have an air conditioner?"
"Yes, it's hot and yes, it's got an air conditioner, and, no, I'm not turning it on. Gas is too expensive."
Ollie bitched under his breath. Rosswell thought he heard the word "skinflint" before Ollie continued speaking aloud.
"You're saying that the Right Honorable Sheriff Gustave Fribeau is coaching his daughter's husband how to answer the questions of a snoopy judge and his faithful research assistant?"
"I am."
"For what reason?"
"Something's happening here that we're not seeing. Frankie Joe is supposed to steer us in some direction with his lies, but I don't know which direction we're supposed to go." Rosswell turned on the truck's headlights. "Lazar somehow makes contact with Charlie Heckle-or whatever his name is. Then he sends Charlie to us. Gustave knew about that. He had to. Gustave knew about us going to see Maman Fribeau before it happened. And Gustave knew every detail down to how much silver we took her."
"We've got three or four versions of what went on when the ferry was
crossing the river."
"I've told you before that eyewitness testimony is worthless." Rosswell dimmed the lights to oncoming traffic. "Everybody's lying. I aim to find out who is lying and who is telling the truth."
"And you think we're going to stumble around in the dark tonight and find answers?"
"I do."
Ollie pinched his nose. "It's better than sitting on our thumbs."
"That's a disgusting simile." A feedlot on Rosswell's left demonstrated the concept of disgusting, with its smell of fresh manure. The cows mooing sounded like sick babies crying in the night.
"A simile likens one thing to another dissimilar thing. It used to mean resemblance or similarity."
Ollie brought out evil thoughts in Rosswell, causing him to bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. He wondered if he could claim that Ollie had accidentally fallen from the truck while it was speeding on one of the many curves in the road. "A disgusting metaphor, then." Sometimes he thought the world would be better off without Ollie. Then he again faced the reality that his research assistant was indispensable. He wanted to sigh loudly, but stopped himself.
"A metaphor compares two things, pretending they're identical. Then it substitutes one for the other."
Rosswell said, "Okay, then, a disgusting saying. How's that?"
Ollie hung his head out the window for a moment after they passed the feedlot, then noisily sucked down a deep lungful of air before he brought his head back in. "What's disgusting is us playing detective. I'm all for dumping this whole thing in Gustave's lap. You and I are outsiders in this county. Someone's playing us for fools."
"Yes, they are. Someone's also trying to get away with murder. Gustave hasn't shown the least interest in pursuing this case. It was you who said he was bent."
"You think he's the murderer?"
"I doubt it." Rosswell slowed to go around a sharp curve. He wasn't ready to dump Ollie after all. "Nathaniel is the big gun behind this assault. There's got to be something he's holding over the sheriff's head."
"The big gun is holding the poisoned sword over the lawman's head."
" 'And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.' " Rosswell stared through the darkness. "King David saw the Angel of Death, flourishing a sword dripping poison."
Ollie said, "When you try to sound like me, you come off as a big gas bag."
A full moon hung in the midnight sky, hidden by thick clouds. The humidity must've been close to a hundred percent and the temperature had cooled only a fraction after the sun had set. Sweat dripped down Rosswell's face. Driving in a night deprived of all light lulls a man into ignoring his surroundings.
"Many lie in unmarked graves in unknown places," Rosswell said. "When a woman you've made love with dies, part of you dies with her."
Ollie shifted in his seat and leaned toward Rosswell. "Speak up. I can't hear you over the roar of this truck."
Rosswell didn't realize he'd spoken the words he'd once read in some book. Oddly, for him, he couldn't remember the name of the book. All he could remember were those depressing words.
"Nothing. Talking to myself." Hoping to distract Ollie from asking more questions about the quote, Rosswell let off the gas for a second and then floored it. The truck's muffler made a sound like a dragster's car out of a 1960s teenage flick. "The guy at the shop said the glass packs made it sound cool." Rosswell could smell the stink of the exhaust through the open windows.
"Very cool." Ollie coughed but didn't sound convinced. "Sounds better than those weird quotes."
Rosswell slowed as he passed River Heights Villa. "Most likely everyone's asleep." Orange sodium lamps burned on half a dozen poles. In the huge house, dim light showed from a couple of windows. None of the outbuildings was lighted.
Ollie said, "Let's hope your glass packs didn't rouse them from their slumber."
A quarter of a mile down the highway, Rosswell pulled off onto a field road. He reversed the truck, pointing it toward the highway, and backed into a grove of trees. "This makes for a fast getaway."
"If we live through this, we'll need a fast getaway. Tell me what we're doing here."
"When you were in the alley asking Charlie where the cave with the dead woman was, he said, 'There's that big bluff with all the trees and shit on it. Look out-' "
"Yeah, that was when the garbage truck arrived. And?"
"But he didn't say look out, he said lookout."
Ollie sucked in a deep breath and rubbed his head. "Not a verb but a noun!"
"Exactly."
Ollie stretched his arm out, down the highway toward River Heights Villa, now hidden from their view by the trees. "That place has two towers. In other words, two lookouts."
"Let me return the favor, Ollie Groton. The cigar is in the mail." Rosswell drew out two flashlights from the glove box and handed one to Ollie. "This has two AAA batteries and a little bitty light. I've got my grandfather's radium dial watch tucked away in a lead lined box. That watch puts out more light than these do."
"It's enough. We're not filming a movie out here in the dark. All we need is enough light to keep from tripping over something."
Rosswell observed the mansion for a few moments. "There. The tower on the north end of the building, the one closest to us, is above the face of the bluff. That's where we need to search, because if it were daylight, we could see the cave of one eye."
"No, we couldn't."
"The cave of one eye holds treasure. Treasure needs to be guarded. The towers have guards. Below the towers is a cave with one entrance. One eye."
"You don't know that."
"Ollie, that indeed is what I don't know right now. But something is what I aim to find out."
Rosswell and Ollie, poised for action at the base of the dark cliff, inspected the antebellum chateau. Fortunately, no nasty critters (human or animal) had attacked them on their hike from the truck to the house.
"Rosswell, this is not a good idea."
"We'll just sniff around a little bit."
Keeping to the woods, they tramped up the backside of the cliff. Great caution was Rosswell's byword. The last thing he wanted was to trip and sprain his ankle. If Ollie had to carry him back to the truck, he'd die from embarrassment, not to mention he loathed the thought of being up close and personal with Ollie. At one point on the climb, Rosswell heard the snuffling of a feral pig thrashing in a dead fall covered with kudzu. A wild pig is a treacherous animal to meet any time, but especially dangerous in the dark. When he shined his flashlight toward the noise, a reflection from beady eyes met his gaze. Rosswell flapped his arms and hooted. The beady eyes disappeared.
Now, shoulder to shoulder with Ollie, Rosswell silently appraised their goal.
"Judge, you know that place is loaded with burglar alarms."
"There's a good way to trump a burglar alarm. A fire alarm."
"We're going to start a fire? Now that sounds freaking frost brilliant."
A rhythmic whooshing noise overhead caused Rosswell to cringe. His breathing quickened while nausea conquered his stomach. But the noise wasn't the faint sound of a helicopter in the distance that would bring death as it had during the war. Only an owl, flying overhead, answering Rosswell's hoots.
"I didn't say anything about starting a fire. If we set off a burglar alarm, then we trip the first fire alarm we find. Everyone will run from the building and we'll have five minutes to search before the fire department arrives."
"Search for what?"
"An entrance to the cave inside the house."
The odor of rotting leaves underfoot mixed with the fragrance of new, rampant growth. A not unpleasant smell. The forest was a place where humans rarely visited. Between the farm fields below and the house on the cliff, the land belonged to wild animals and untamed vegetation. Humans were trespassers.
Ollie tapped a finger on his lips. "You know for a fact that
there's an entrance to the cave in the house?" Ollie tapped his lips more rapidly.
"No."
"Why're we going in there then?"
"I told you. To search."
"And how do we get into the house to trip these alarms?" Ollie commenced to wringing his hands, clearly demonstrating his reluctance to trespass.
"We open the door. I doubt that the rules on residence homes allow locked doors."
Rosswell put his finger to his lips as they crept toward the house. In the illumination cast by a pole light, Rosswell saw Ollie nod.
When they passed a large garage and reached the back of the house, Rosswell put his hand on the doorknob of a sunroom. This was it. Open that door and in they'd go. A simple flick of the wrist and the deed would be done.
Locked.
"Damn!" Rosswell whispered. "I guess they want the place locked up after all. Now what?"
Ollie clasped him on the shoulder, making a motion with his thumb, jerking it backward, indicating his desire to leave. Rosswell mouthed, No, and pointed to a window next to the door. The windowpane was raised about three inches. Only a screen prevented Rosswell from reaching into the house and opening the door.
Rosswell whispered into Ollie's ear, "Do you have a pocket knife?"
Ollie's face grew pained and he again used his thumb to make the plea to leave.
After searching his brain to remember what he could use to burgle, Rosswell removed the necklace that Maman Fribeau had given him. He felt the points of the star and nodded. The points were sharp as a new nail. Within a few seconds, he cut the screen enough to allow him to reach inside.
Ollie whispered, "I'm pretty sure you just committed a felony."
Rosswell replaced the necklace and whispered back, "I'm pretty sure you're right."
Snaking his hand through the slit screen, Rosswell turned the knob, pulled open the door, and jumped when a burglar alarm beeped a warning that it was fixing to blow its top. Enough glow from the pole light seeped through the windows to allow him to find a fire alarm. He pulled it.
Both the fire alarm and the burglar alarm exploded into a rage at the same time, shrieking up and down the scale. To Rosswell, the sound aroused memories of the screams he'd heard on television, watching the Twin Towers fall.
Rosswell and Ollie hastened their butts to the garage and knelt behind a car.
Within milliseconds, people poured out of the house from every exit, running as far away as possible once they cleared the doors. More than half of them wore pajamas. The rest had donned jeans and tee shirts. The noise level made it impossible for Rosswell to make sense of the shouting he heard. Most of the people screamed or cried, disregarding the directions of the staff to remain calm. At least twenty flashlights bobbed in the dark. Rosswell counted six women who resembled Tina and all were showing pregnant.
One woman, stick thin and homely as a mud fence, couldn't have been any older than Tina. She looked like an ugly stick. Rosswell had seen that woman before. Where? Had she been to court? Had he seen her in the shops? He didn't remember. The concern flew away.
Sirens whined in the distance. Disaster training was paying off. Everyone eventually fled to the same place far from the house.
Except for one person.
His arms akimbo, Nathaniel towered in the doorway of the sunroom. Rosswell watched as the white man with orange hair swept his gaze everywhere, scowling like a hawk searching for a mouse. Nathaniel stopped his survey of the pandemonium, peered down at the cut window screen, then swept his head left and right, obviously searching for someone who didn't belong there. Someone who was the type of person who'd slit a screen.
"That would be me, Nathaniel," Rosswell said. "Me and my sharp star from Maman Fribeau." Buried in a pit of noise, Nathaniel made no response to Rosswell's words.
Going around the house to another entrance was impossible. Too many people were in the yard surrounding the place. Nathaniel was blocking their only way in.
Ollie cupped his hands around Rosswell's ear and yelled, "You have a Plan B?"
