Courting Murder

by Bill Hopkins

that sword you’re so proud of.”

  “That sword is in the evidence locker.” Rosswell explained about his weapon being found stuck through Hermie, Frizz’s search of Vicky, and the knife Frizz found under his couch.

  “Holy shit,” Ollie said. “Why aren’t you in jail?”

  “Because I didn’t kill anyone. Frizz is smart enough to see that.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  Rosswell shoved the gun back in the holster and then pocketed his weapon. The oily cartridges in his pocket gave off a metallic clicking sound when he walked. “The smell of a clean gun in a new leather holster raises the spirit of courage in me.” Rosswell smiled.

  “That’s scary.”

  “Ollie, we need to see a man about a dog.”

  “You need to pee?”

  “No. The dog in that Sherlock Holmes story.”

  “The one that didn’t bark in the night?”

  “The same. The one that isn’t there.” Rosswell corrected himself. “I mean, the ones that aren’t here.”

  They set off to track the killer.

  The streets of Marble Hill were crowded. A good place to hunt for the murderer.

  The Harley riders, as expected, made up the bulk of the traffic. When bunches of people show up in a little town year after year, other people also show up to sell things to them. It’s called capitalism.

  The lemonade and sweet tea vendors were dipping up drinks as fast as they could pour. Ollie and Rosswell stopped at one stand and each got a large sweet tea. Rosswell’s caffeine and sugar levels had fallen to a precarious low since breakfast. Watching some of the local artists sketching portraits of a couple of motorcyclists took up more of their time, as did buying two cheeseburgers from a sandwich vendor. The smell of frying onions had prodded Rosswell’s taste buds into a slobbering fit that could only be quelled by cheeseburgers. Boy Scouts demonstrated their signaling skills with mirrors and semaphore flags. A woman who specialized in making copper jewelry had sold out of nearly everything she’d brought to town. Crafters who had made all kinds of wooden do-dads hawked them to the crowd. Scented candles perfumed the air. The cotton candy guy had a line twelve deep.

  In general, there was a street fair going on.

  “Ollie,” Rosswell said, “how do we find two people who aren’t here?”

  “My grandpa said when he was a kid that if someone left Bollinger County for a visit to somewhere else, everyone knew it. It’s not like that anymore. Now people go to Europe and no one ever knows it until they get back and spread the word.”

  “Why is that? The population hasn’t gone up in this county for a hundred and fifty years.”

  “Simple,” Ollie said. “Cheap cars and cheap gas. The population is mobile. You don’t even realize how much people travel anymore. It’s too common.”

  “Gas isn’t cheap.”

  “Comparatively speaking, it is.”

  Since Rosswell knew he was going to lose the argument, he shut up.

  They stopped on a street corner and soaked in the view. There might have been five hundred tourists in the little town, running up and down the streets. Money on the hoof.

  Who, if anyone in that crowd, was suspicious? No one. At least on first inspection.

  Rosswell reassessed everything. Harley riders. Portrait artists. Jewelers. Boy Scouts. Crafters. Cold drink vendors. Sandwich sellers. Cotton candy guy. A mass of confusion. In his mind, he separated each person or each group, scrutinizing them anew.

  When Rosswell watched several people standing still, moving their arms in slow motion, a glacial coldness slugged him in the gut.

  Rosswell pointed. “Ollie, they have our dog.”

   Chapter Eighteen

  Thursday morning, continued

  Three Boy Scouts, standing a half block down from the courthouse, brandished semaphore flags. An Eagle Scout in charge of the demonstration faced the other two scouts. Rosswell approached the black-haired leader and told him, “I want to show you two positions. You tell me if they’re semaphore signals.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s see them.”

  Rosswell stood erect with both arms pointing downwards at a 45 degree angle, the same as the male corpse. “What’s that?” Sweat ran from his armpits down his torso, tickling him.

  “The letter Y.”

  “Great,” Rosswell said. “What’s this?” He pointed his left arm upwards at a 180 degree angle, his right downwards at a 180 degree angle, the same as the female corpse.

  “That’s an E.”

  “Thank you very much,” Rosswell said to the boy before he motioned Ollie to head out. “Ollie, that tells me something.”

  “The letters E and Y. What does that tell you?”

  They skedaddled back to Rosswell’s office where they reviewed the pictures of the bodies on Rosswell’s camera. “Check that out,” Rosswell said, indicating a photo with both corpses visible. “I’ll be right back.”

  The fountain in the hallway gave him a cold pint or so of thirst quenching water before he returned to his office. Heat exhaustion wasn’t on his agenda. Cold water would dampen the possibility.

  Ollie said, “The bodies are giving semaphore signals.”

  “Exactly. Y and E. Or, if we look at it the other way, E and Y. All we have to do is figure it out.”

  “If it means anything.”

  Rosswell considered giving Ollie one of his own squeaks. Instead, he said, “Of course it means something. There’s nothing accidental about the way the corpses were arranged. Bodies don’t just fall into the positions that I found those two.”

  “I’ll assume that. Tell me what it means.”

  Rosswell chewed on the inside of his lip for a few seconds until he bit himself and tasted blood. “Oh, crap!”

  “What? What does it mean?”

  “I bit myself.”

  “You’re not helping here.”

  Rosswell massaged his cheek. “Now, listen, E and Y don’t make any words. E and Y, Y and E. Nothing.”

  “YE is Old English for the and also for you.”

  “That’s pretty esoteric.”

  “I’ll tell you something else. YE is the Internet notation for Yemen and YE is also a common Chinese surname.”

  “Yemen?” Visions of terrorists danced in Rosswell’s head. “China?”

  Maybe a band of Commies was behind the dual murders. “What about EY?”

  Maybe Commie terrorists planted that knife under my couch.

  “EY,” Ollie said. “Election year?”

  The sounds of the street fair conjured up memories of political rallies, complete with hot air and noisy speeches signifying nothing.

  Rosswell admitted, “Election year is scary, but the word or abbreviation has to be something common, very common. Let’s assume the murder or murderers arranged the bodies that way.”

  “Assuming here.”

  “Yeah, you know you don’t really have to say it that way when you’re agreeing with me. Nod your head or say okay or something.”

  “Agreeing here.”

  Rosswell’s head hurt. Sometimes, instead of talking to Ollie, he’d rather rub his head against a cheese grater. He closed his eyes for a beat before he started again. “Since those letters don’t spell anything, then they must be an abbreviation.”

  “Initials.” Ollie had segued into one of his pissy moods, obviously hoping to distract Rosswell from doing anything completely stupid.

  It was an old trick the snitch used. When, in the past, Rosswell had started thinking goofy, Ollie pissed him off and then Rosswell came up with good ideas.

  “A name,” Rosswell said. “My thought exactly.”

  “Who do we know who has the initials E. Y. or Y. E.?”

  They consulted the telephone directory. Yes, it could be someone who didn’t have a telephone or had a cellphone. They could check the voter registration and tax rolls during regular office hours. Now, Rosswell suggested Elizabeth Young, Yancey Eberhardt, and Yardley Edgeworth, names he�
��d spotted in the phone book.

  Rosswell said, “Do you know any of those people?”

  “All of them. Elizabeth Young is a teacher who regularly screws up her computer at home and at school. Yancey Eberhardt works at a saw-mill. He doesn’t own a computer. Yardley Edgeworth is from London, England. Quite computer literate. How he found Marble Hill, I don’t know.”

  “Are they all present and accounted for?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Ollie handed Rosswell the desk phone. “Start calling.”

  Rosswell dialed each of them. Elizabeth Young’s answering machine picked up, but he left no message. Yancey Eberhardt didn’t answer and didn’t have an answering machine. Yardley Edgeworth picked up on the first ring. Rosswell put the call on speakerphone.

  “Are you there?” Eberhardt said, in a proper British accent.

  Well, yeah, I’m here. What did that mean?

  “Umm . . . yes,” Rosswell said. “I’m here. Is this Mister Yardley Edgeworth?”

  “It is.”

  “This is—”

  “I know who it is, Judge Carew. I have caller ID.” Damn. Rosswell hadn’t thought of that. Good thing I didn’t call from my cellphone. He didn’t want that number made public.

  Rosswell said, “Mr. Edgeworth, have you heard of the unfortunate deaths we’ve had here in the county?”

  “Beastly.”

  “Yes. They were pretty bad.” A mint that he’d previously missed on his desktop begged him to eat it. Rosswell obliged. The sharp cinnamon flavor cleared his sinuses. Breathing made him happy.

  “When I moved here, I didn’t realize we’d be competing with St. Louis and Kansas City on murder rates.” There was a distinct sniff from Edgeworth.

  “I’m working on a press release and, for additional human interest, I’d like to know how you, a Britisher, feel about