by Bill Hopkins
on her private line. Same thing as calling the sheriff. Almost.
“The car came in about an hour before you and Ollie got here. It didn’t stay long.”
Rosswell moved closer to Hermie to ask a question. “You let them go through?”
The beginnings of a pout started on Hermie’s face. “Y’all didn’t put up any yellow tape or crime scene signs around the area. The sheriff didn’t declare it off-limits. That’s a rule, you know.” He focused on his shoes, hiding his hangdog look. “How was I supposed to know that people couldn’t go up there?” Despite Hermie averting his face, Rosswell could smell America’s favorite drug on his breath.
“No one’s blaming you for anything.” What Rosswell really wanted to ask him was where he was hiding with his bottle when the car came in. Frizz should’ve given Hermie instructions on what to watch for before the crew packed up and headed for town that morning. Here was another reason the sheriff needed Rosswell on his team. Rosswell wouldn’t have forgotten a detail like that.
Hermie didn’t raise his head. “Silver.”
“What?”
“It was a silver car.”
“What kind?”
“Pretty new. Had a chicken claw. Maybe a Malibu.” Hermie swiveled his head to stare at a large oak tree with squirrels running up and down its trunk.
Rosswell said, “Chicken claw?”
Hermie let fire an alcoholic belch. “Yeah, one of those things.” He made motions with his fingers that Rosswell couldn’t follow.
This interview ranks up there with the Titanic.
Rosswell said, “You mean the make of car?”
“Maybe not a Malibu,” Hermie said. “Could’ve been a Lexus or a Kia or an Infiniti. Maybe a Taurus. They all look alike.” Still inspecting the tree, he expelled a huge sigh. “No imagination anymore. I could spot your orange car a mile off, but today everyone else has to drive a car that looks like every other car and a dull color to boot.” Hermie shook his head and his jowls flapped. “Back in my day, we had cars that were colorful, and you could tell a Ford from a Chevy or a Plymouth. I remember when my dad’s car—”
“Did it have Missouri tags?”
“Yes, he always bought Missouri tags. He lived in Missouri.”
“I mean the car that drove out of here.” Rosswell ground his teeth. Hermie answered immediately. “I don’t know, but it was silver.”
“The license plate was silver?”
“No, the car was silver. I just told you that.” Hermie’s explanation was growing harder to follow.
Rosswell said, “Where were you when the car came into the park?”
“See . . . I . . . I was checking on a few things back yonder.” He waved an arm in the direction of the woods. “I didn’t actually watch them come in.”
“Them? Did you see the car leave?”
“Oh, yes, sir, I was right here.” He pointed to the gazebo. “I saw the car leave all right.”
“Them. You said them. How many people were in the car?”
Hermie closed his eyes and then rubbed his eyelids. Maybe that’s what he did to make answers appear in his head. “One.” His eyes popped open. They were still as bloodshot as they were that morning.
“Did you see who was driving the car?”
“You got that straight. Couldn’t miss that.”
“Tell me.”
Hermie said, “Big. The driver was big.”
“Woman or man?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Race?”
“No, they were driving pretty slow.”
“I mean was the driver white, black, brown, what?”
“Oh. I couldn’t tell. I guess white.”
Rosswell said, “There was no one else in the car besides the driver?”
“Not that I could tell.”
That narrowed it down to maybe several hundred suspects: A big person, maybe white, driving a silver car that looked like a Chevy or Plymouth or Ford or some other brand with tags from somewhere, maybe Missouri. Rosswell pondered how many actual cars there were in the area that fit that description. And how many people fit that description. No maybe about it. There were several hundred suspects on his suspect list but none on the really good suspect list.
Hermie said, “Besides that silver car, I saw a Cadillac with a big driver.”
“You know for certain that this car was a Cadillac?”
“Oh, yeah. A big Cadillac. A big driver.”
Rosswell said, “Was it silver?”
“No. White.”
“How about the driver? Male? Female? White? Black? Asian?”
“Couldn’t tell. The windows were those smoky ones you can’t see through. I thought those were illegal.”
In his effort to be helpful, Hermie kept losing Rosswell with his roundabout way of speaking. “How did you know the driver was big if you couldn’t see the driver?”
“Shadows. The driver was big.”
Hermie’s too drunk to make sense. How could he have seen shadows in a car with dark windows?
“I don’t guess you got a tag number.”
“No. Sorry.”
“Hermie, did the white Cadillac leave before or after the silver car?” Surely, there weren’t a lot of white Cadillacs in Bollinger County. Hermie may’ve given a good lead and not even realized it. Rosswell silently ticked off the owners of white Cadillacs he could recall. Ambrosia Forcade, a lawyer he suspected of withholding client funds. “Turtles” Rasmussen, a man who owned lots of real estate with no visible means of support; Rosswell couldn’t recall his real first name. Susan Bitti, owner of a successful furniture store. Trisha Reynaud, president of Marble Hill National Bank. None of them was a particularly big person.
“The Caddy left first, I’m pretty sure.”
Tina Parkmore pulled up behind Rosswell and honked her horn, scaring the hell out of him.
“Hey, Hermie! Hey, Judge!” She’d driven her silver Nissan Sentra with Missouri tags to the park. Fortunately, she wasn’t big. Rosswell mentally crossed her off the really good suspect list.
Rosswell patted the hood of Tina’s ride and asked Hermie, “Was this the silver car you saw?”
“Oh, no. I’d have recognized Miss Tina.”
“I hope so.” She flipped her hair and threw her head back in what the old-time movies called a coquettish gesture. “I come out here a lot to sunbathe.”
Hermie grinned. Fond memories, Rosswell supposed, of watching Tina sunbathe.
“Judge, why wouldn’t Hermie recognize me?”
Rosswell explained, as kindly as he could, what Hermie had said about suspicious cars that had left the park not that long ago.
“Ah.” She extracted a plastic tub from the back seat of the car. “I’ve got plenty of Plaster of Paris.”
Hermie said, “Paris?”
Rosswell said, “For the tire impression?”
Tina said, “True enough.”
They left Hermie scratching his head, and each drove to the crime scene. Ollie’s eyes grew wide when he saw the dispatcher. “You talked Frizz into letting Tina come up here?” Tina tugged on Rosswell’s sleeve.
“We need to talk.”
They walked out of Ollie’s earshot.
Tina grabbed Rosswell’s elbow. They had their backs to Ollie. “Why do you have him with you?”
“He’s my research assistant.”
“So you say.” She leaned closer, put her forefinger on his lips. “I thought I was your research assistant.”
“You are.” Was his face as red as it felt? “Ollie does a different kind of research.”
“How many times have you thrown him in jail?”
He grasped both of her hands. “Don’t you believe in rehabilitation?”
Tina released herself and pushed away. “Frizz said that I could take the tire tracks for you, but that’s it. He doesn’t know about Ollie helping you. He’ll be pissed.”
“Meaning?”
“Rosswell, he doesn’t want you involved in
this, much less Ollie. Right now he’s swamped with coordinating the search team. This weekend he’s got traffic problems all over the county with the Hogfest coming. In fact, there’s a bunch of Harleys already here. You can’t get involved.”
“I am involved.” Gesturing toward the crime scene, he said, “I found the bodies. I’m the main witness.”
“Just be involved for this one thing, okay?” When he didn’t say anything, Tina said, “Please? Just this one thing? The tire track? Promise?”
“Damn it, Tina, two people were murdered. They were human beings with lives that they wanted to live. Frizz needs my help.”
The beginnings of a pout started on Tina’s face. That morning, Rosswell had made Hermie pout, and now he was making the sweet Tina pout.
“Tina. . . .” Words mixed up in his brain. He wanted to please her but he also had a duty to the legal system. Yes, he was a judge and not a cop. But he needed to help preserve law and order. What better way to do his duty than to catch the murderers of the two people? Murderers? Did I say murderers? I’m assuming again. “Tina, I can’t promise you anything.” He didn’t like the expression on her face. Pouting, glaring, the whole nine yards, plus a couple of other yards. “Except that I love you.”
“I love you, too, but that’s not what this is about.”
“Let’s do this. Take the tire impression and we’ll talk to Frizz when we get back to town.”
“Deal.”
They rejoined Ollie. Tina whipped out a tape measure and laid it alongside the tire track. “Wow. Three feet of good track. Where’s your camera?”
Rosswell grabbed the Nikon. “Reporting for duty.”
“I need a million pictures taken from every possible angle. From way down low to as high up as you can reach. Left side, right side, all around the town. I need a lot of ninety degree angle shots to make sure there’s no distortion. And keep
