by Bill Hopkins
Chapter 23
Saturday Noon, continued
Betourne and the deputy assessor conferred, seemingly oblivious that Rosswell hovered next to them. The two men hunched over a drawing of some kind, spread out on the table. It crinkled when Betourne flattened it with his hand.
"We run into this all the time." The assessor used his chubby finger to highlight things to his deputy. "It's something you'll have to be aware of. It's not a big deal, but the first time you see it, it knocks you off kilter."
Rosswell cleared his throat. "Ready to order?" The men looked at him.
Betourne blinked. "Judge Carew?"
"That's me."
"What are you doing waiting tables?"
"Community service."
"I see." Betourne folded his hands and stared at something on the table, perhaps unsure about Rosswell's sanity. "Let me finish up with Allgood here. It'll take a second. Then we'll order."
"Okay." Rosswell didn't move. The order would be the last one of the day. He couldn't hang around in the restaurant all afternoon. Detective work awaited him. "I'll wait here."
"Yeah, that's fine." Betourne returned his attention to Allgood. "Sometimes these lines"-he pointed to a couple of lines on the piece of paper on the table-"can be ten or even fifteen feet from this line." He pointed to a third line.
Rosswell pretended to write on the order pad while scrutinizing the assessor's paper, trying to glean its purpose. It appeared to be a stylized diagram showing a bird's eye view of the plan of a building.
"Yeah," Allgood said. "That's weird."
"You find them," Betourne said, "in the old places a lot. I always explain this to the new people who start working for me."
"What was their purpose?" asked Allgood.
"Passageways behind the walls in the house were a fad back then."
Rosswell gasped and dropped his ticket pad and pencil. I'd make a damn lousy spy.
"Judge," Betourne said, "are you okay?"
Rosswell said, "Tell me about those secret passageways."
Betourne stared at the paper a moment before he spoke. "They're not secret." He returned his gaze to Rosswell. "About a hundred and fifty years ago, passageways were all the rage among folks who could afford to build big houses. There were a lot of rich river men in this county before the Civil War. When my predecessors measured the houses that have them, they noted the discrepancies between the outside walls and the inside walls."
"What did they use the passageways for?"
Betourne said, "I was about to tell Allgood here that rumor has it that before the war, a few of them were used in the underground railroad, holding slaves until they could spirit them out at night and sneak them across the river to Illinois."
Allgood offered, "I've heard that rumor ever since I was a kid. People said a couple of the houses were connected by a tunnel."
Betourne said, "Those bluffs along the river are limestone. They're honeycombed with caves."
Rosswell said, "How many of these houses are there?"
"In this county?" Betourne scratched his chin. "Five or six with passageways. That's all I know of for sure. I'd have to go through every single real estate assessment to give you an exact number. I've never heard of any with a tunnel connected to another house. Do you want me to look up that information for you?"
Rosswell thought a moment. Could Ollie search for that on the computer? Eventually, he said, "No, that's okay. I don't need the info. I found it curious. It would be interesting to know. That's all. Nothing more. I'm a history buff and tidbits like that are worth knowing when you're a history buff. Don't you think that's interesting?"
Rosswell told himself to shut up, that he was babbling like a spring-fed brook after a heavy thunderstorm.
Betourne and the deputy stayed silent, exchanging a quick glance, then staring at their menus.
Maybe Rosswell could venture a couple more questions. "If I wanted to look at the history on a particular house, your office would be the place to go. Right?"
Betourne said, "Right."
Rosswell pushed a little further. "What houses have these passageways?"
"Let me think." Betourne sucked his lips, then shut them tight and focused on the ceiling before he answered. "In town, there's one down on Gabouri. One on La Porte. There are a couple north off 61 Highway toward the river. Owned by two sisters. Then there's also that mansion in the same area where that red-headed guy runs a rehabilitation center."
"Nathaniel Dahlbert?" Sweat poured down Rosswell's face. His heart ran the Kentucky Derby in record time.
"That's him." Betourne leaned around, watching something behind Rosswell. "And right there are the two sisters."
Rosswell glanced and witnessed Karyn Byler and Jill Mabli, replete in their waitress outfits, receiving their marching orders from Mabel.
"Another thing, Judge. You're staying in one."
"The Four Bee?"
"That's the one."
Rosswell stopped on his sprint for the door long enough to dump the apron, pencil, and ticket pad into Mabel's arms.
"What's your daddy's cell number?"
Mabel told him.
"If you see him and I haven't talked to him, tell him to call me immediately. Oh. And I don't think Betourne is going to give you a tip."
"Why not?"
"I forgot to take his order."
Rosswell's hunger intensified when he hurried out of Mabel's into the hot afternoon sun. He'd faint if he didn't soon eat something. Instead, he punched Ollie's number.
The phone rang three times and went to Ollie's voice mail. Rosswell cursed, disconnected, then tried again. When Ollie's number rang the second time, Rosswell caught sight of his research assistant traipsing out of the courthouse. Ollie stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and began tapping keys.
Rosswell again punched the phone off and hollered, "Ollie!"
Ollie swiveled his head until his gaze fell onto Rosswell, who darted into the street, and narrowly missed being run down by a carload of gawking tourists. The car had Ontario tags with a bumper sticker that read: I'M FROM TORONTO! KISS ME!
"Judge, you're going to get run over if you don't start watching where you're going."
Rosswell panted for a few seconds before he could talk. "I've been trying to call you."
"Phone reception is lousy in the courthouse. Especially in the vaults." Ollie stared at his phone for several seconds. "Also, I've been getting texts from Candy."
"Candy Lavaliere from Marble Hill?"
"Yep."
Rosswell had known her for a decade. Big woman. Premature silver hair with a gentle, stunning face, soft and clear almost to the point of translucence. Tanned and buff, she smelled like Ivory soap. She wore big charm bracelets on her arms that rattled and clanked. Rings on every finger. She was an expert shooter who also lifted weights and had read every book in the public library...twice. Ollie's intellectual equal was Candy, the cosmetologist who loved to dance.
Rosswell whispered, "So you two are doing the-"
"We're talking. That's all."
"Yeah, talking. Well, where have you been this morning? Talking?"
Ollie straightened to his full height, puffing his chest out. "I'm your research assistant. I've been researching. They usually close right on the dot of noon on Saturday. I had to give them twenty bucks under the table to stay a few extra minutes. You owe me."
"Researching what?"
"An interesting tidbit I found in The Complete History of Sainte Genevieve County, Missouri by Marie Vienneau." Ollie stretched his neck, craning to see what was shaking at Mabel's. "What a crowd. Let's go to McDonald's. I'm starving."
They ate in silence. After two quarter-pounders, Rosswell munched on a chocolate chip cookie. "What was so interesting that you ran off from Mabel's on her busiest day ever?"
"The French have always been hosts, no matter who came through. If it was German traders, they set out a feast with lots of beer. If it was Irish miners, whiskey flowed freely. During the Ci
vil War, when Union troops marched through, the French hoisted the Stars and Stripes and had a grand old time. When the Confederacy came through, they hung pictures of General Lee and feasted until dawn."
"That's not helpful."
"Farmers say that you can eat as long as you own some dirt. The French say that you can eat as long as you own a restaurant."
"You're babbling."
Ollie made a face as if he'd sucked on a rotten lemon. "Try this. Passageways in the houses of Sainte Genevieve County."
Rosswell choked. "You knew about them?" He coughed a few cookie crumbs onto the table, then sipped water from a plastic cup.
"Everybody knows about them. I thought you would have said something before now."
"Me? Why?"
"Rosswell, try to keep up. You said there was an entrance to the cave in Nathaniel's place."
"I didn't know there would be actual passageways. Maybe a door built around a cave entrance. Not an actual passageway."
"Rosswell! Where do you think the noises were coming from when we were in the cave?"
"Ah! From the passageway."
"Besides, they're in the book. You have read the history book haven't you?"
Rosswell coughed again, spewing more cookie crumbs onto the table. "I've been kind of busy." He drank more water. "There were a few pages I glanced at."
Ollie positioned his right forefinger in front of Rosswell's face. "That's the number one reason why you hired me. Good thing you did."
"Listen, in fact I did find out something about passageways." Rosswell detailed his conversation with the county assessor.
"That jibes with Vienneau's book."
"Exactly."
"And you think Nathaniel is using the passageways to stash bodies or dope or something."
Rosswell shrugged. "I don't know what he's doing, except that it's illegal."
"Argumentum ad ignorantiam."
"I was absent the day they discussed that in law school. What are you talking about?"
"Argument from ignorance. You lack evidence to the contrary, therefore you assume something else. You don't know what that bright light in the sky is, consequently it must be a visitor from another galaxy. You don't know what Nathaniel is doing, thus, it must be illegal."
"Do you know how many times you've read my mind?"
"Once? Twice? I give up. Tell me."
"Nathaniel buys a house that has guard towers and secret passageways."
Ollie held up the forefinger again. "Wait one minute." He riffled through a file folder. "Here." He plunked down a document similar to what Betourne had shown his deputy assessor. "It's not a secret. It's filed at the courthouse. It's not exactly a house plan. It's measurements of the house. See this line here? It's almost five feet from this line. You know what that means now, don't you?"
"Yes, I said I heard the assessor explaining it. Don't tell me all that crap again. I got it, okay?"
"Then how do you propose we search the passageways? False alarms are out. Maybe we could go out there and ask him real nice."
"We go to The Four Bee first."
"And your landlady will pat our heads and let us search her house?"
"Listen to this." Rosswell sketched his idea.
When he finished, Ollie said, "Judge, sometimes I think you might be the genius in this relationship."
Rosswell reached a hand over his shoulder and patted himself on the back.
"Although," Ollie said, "I don't know why you're so short."
"I was taller but when I was in the military, they beat the crap out of me."
