
### _Praise for_ Courting Murder __

### the first Judge Rosswell Carew Mystery by Bill Hopkins

"Here comes the judge—he's stubborn, cranky, a bit sarcastic and completely charming. Bill Hopkins nails the voice! This is a big-time mystery in a small town—and you'll fall in love with the place. Courting Murder is guilty—of being terrific." ~ _Hank Phillippi Ryan_ , Agatha, Anthony and Macavity-winner; author of The Other Woman

"Bill Hopkins' debut mystery Courting Murder introduces characters who are truly characters—in the most entertaining sense of the word. Even the judge turns every stereotype you may have about judges on its head. And to think Marble Hill, Bollinger County, MO, is a real place! Hopkins' zany, delightful adventure turns this unsuspecting burg on its head, too." ~ Chris Roerden, author of Agatha winner Don't Murder Your Mystery

"The verdict is in. Courting Murder is a winner! In his entertaining debut mystery, Bill Hopkins transports us to Bollinger County, Missouri, where Judge Rosswell Carew and a cast of colorful characters track down missing bodies, drug dealers, and murderers using their wits and a few extra-large dollops of homespun charm. A fun read!" ~ Alan Orloff, Agatha Award-nominated author of Diamonds for the Dead and the Last Laff Mystery Series

"Courting Murder is a promising series debut by judge-turned-novelist Bill Hopkins. Lively characters, a crafty plot, and an off-the-beaten track setting in Missouri make for a good read. The protagonist—plagued by allergies, illness, and a cantankerous nature—is a humorous departure from the typical macho-man mystery hero. I've got my eye on Courting Murder's Judge Rosswell Carew." ~ _Deborah Sharp_ , author of the Mace Bauer Mysteries

River Mourn by Bill Hopkins

Copyright©2013 by Bill Hopkins

Cover picture by Gregg Hopkins, a photographer and a musician with The Melroys www.themelroys.com

Cover and interior design by Ellie Searl, Publishista®

www.publishista.com

Edited by Patricia D. Smith

Smashwords Edition

"Shoshiku" by Shoshana Kertesz © 2011 Shoshana Kertesz

Foliate Oak Literary Journal, November 2011

www.foliateoak.uamont.edu/archives/november-2011/poetry/shoshiku-by-shoshana-kertesz

All rights reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Bill Hopkins.

River Mourn is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, dialogue, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Deadly Writes and the Deadly Writes image and colophon are trademarks of Deadly Writes Publishing, LLC.

Print Book ISBN-13: 978-0989345606

Print Book ISBN-10: 0989345602

Print Book LCCN: 2013938471

www.judgebillhopkins.com

www.deadlywritespublishing.com

Deadly Writes Publishing, LLC

Marble Hill, MO

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my first readers Christine Gunnin, Sondra Gockel, Carolyn Begley, Dawn Rhodes Lincoln, and Tim Bollinger. And to those folks who patiently answered my questions, including Patricia Winton, Frank Elpers, Terry Rottler, Mark Halacy, Melody Scott, Captain Joe Kent, Marian Hutchings, Charles Hutchings, Michael Strong, Erik Klein, Steve Rahm, Karla Smith Adams, Van Riehl, Mark McKinney, and Ken Steinhoff. Thanks to my talented cousin, Gregg Hopkins for the great cover photograph, Patricia B. Smith for her extraordinary editing, and Ellie Searl for her computer magic.

Thanks to Jill Mabli and Karyn Byler for lending their names. Although they are portrayed here as evil, I assure you that they possess spotless reputations.

None of this would've been possible without my wife, Sharon Woods Hopkins, who is my toughest editor and most honest critic. She's also the best writer I know.

All the mistakes are mine

I love Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. I hope that the kind people there will forgive me for changing some of the geographical details and otherwise taking liberties with their beautiful town and picturesque county..

# Chapter 1

## Last Sunday Morning

A skinny man tossed a body off the ferry.

The woman's face loomed in the binoculars. "My God, she looks like Tina!" Judge Rosswell Carew shouted, although no one else was on his balcony.

He bounded from his room in the bed and breakfast almost before the body sank. His presence of mind allowed him to pat himself down, making certain that he had his cell phone, and also to clutch the binoculars in one hand so that they wouldn't bounce up and smack him in the face.

His lodgings were in a building that roosted on a cliff over the flood plain of the Mississippi River. It would take too long to drive down the road from his rooms to the ferry landing. Instead, he chose to use his military training to scurry down the less steep parts of the bluff. That would be faster than using his car.

He stumbled through the brush. Thorns tore at his face and arms. He jumped sideways several times to keep himself from taking a headlong tumble. Gravity was his friend as long as he kept his momentum under control. The successful downhill maneuver was to maintain an erect posture, lean forward a few degrees, and move with short, quick strides. It worked.

Until he fell.

Halfway along, he lost his rhythm, plunging face downward, his cheek connecting with a log, bruising his arms, scratching his palms. Blood seeped from his hands. "Shit!" Rosswell wiped his right hand on his pants leg while holding the binoculars in his left, resumed the pace, and then switched hands, wiping the left one. His face stung.

At the bottom of the bluff, he shuffled down one side of the steep road ditch and scuttled up the other side. After he crossed the asphalt road, he halted on the gravelly sand of the ferry landing.

The scent of dead fish littering the bank stuck to the inside of his mouth and nose, strong enough for him to taste the vile stuff. Asian carp, the exotic scourge of the river, were caught by the dozens and allowed to rot on land. Rosswell wheezed and gasped, sucking in as much air as he could. He craved the oxygen. Someone on the ferry must have seen the woman go overboard, but no one on deck appeared to have noticed. Binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the boat. The skinny man climbed into the passenger side of a white van. He focused on the van. The tags were smeared with mud—an old trick for anyone who didn't want to be identified.

Unable to signal any other way, Rosswell waved his hands, losing a grip on the binoculars. "No. Tina, no!" It was futile. No one paid any attention to his efforts. The ferry was a third of the way across, leaving Missouri, heading for Illinois. Rosswell scolded himself for not knowing better. Even if the man or anyone else on the ferry had superb hearing like Rosswell's, no one could ever hear him over the noise of the engine, especially not at this distance.

When he called out the name of his beloved, his eyes teared up. Five months earlier, someone kidnapped Tina from a hospital bed where she lay recovering from a gunshot wound. Since then, searching for her consumed most of his work time and all of his free time.

He returned the focus of the binoculars on the ferry, particularly on the three vehicles it carried. The late September morning brought another day of unusual scorching heat. The boat plying the river wavered in the hot air, much like a mirage. An aroma of baking vegetation

increased with the rising of the day's heat.

What had happened? Rosswell knew he'd have to write this incident in the journal he kept concerning every detail of his quest to find Tina. The points clicked in his mind like the tumblers of a lock opening.

He replayed the scene, mentally formulating the entry he'd make later.

Rosswell had been perched on the balcony of the third-story room he'd rented at a bed and breakfast in Sainte Genevieve. Instead of glimpsing the rare Golden-Crowned Sparrow he'd been seeking, he spotted the ferry. A loud thump sounded when the boat was leaving the dock on the Missouri side. He'd checked his watch at 7:00 AM, which was an hour after the first scheduled ferry run. That was when he'd seen the corpse dumped in the river by the skinny man with dark hair dressed in Levi's and a blue work shirt.

The woman's face burned in his mind. So familiar. So much like Tina. The woman was tall and slender. Strawberry blonde hair. Blue jeans and a white tee shirt clinging to curves. Definitely female. Definitely pregnant. Definitely looked like Tina. After the man dropped the body into the river, he lounged against the guardrail, studying the water for a few seconds before he climbed into the van.

Questions about the other people on the ferry chased each other in Rosswell's mind. He hoped the guy wouldn't get away with the crime. None of the other passengers paid heed to what the man had done. In fact, the other passengers clustered in a knot on the other side of the deck, their heads bent, staring into the water.

What was so interesting?

Rosswell refocused the binoculars where the woman had been dropped. Nothing. He broadened his inspection to the area around the ferry but couldn't see her. Perhaps the body had been weighted down and sunk to the bottom. Again, he tried to focus on the man who'd tossed the body, but he wasn't visible inside the van. Except for the steady chugging of the vessel's engine, Rosswell could not have sworn that there was any traffic at all on the river. Besides the sound of the rolling water, little else made any noise in the morning air. Even the birds swooped up and down without sound.

It wasn't an option to stand on the ferry landing close to the swirling current doing nothing. He had to do something. But what? He removed his glasses and wiped his face with his hands. And sobbed.

Since Tina's disappearance, Rosswell had taken to chanting a mantra urged upon him by a New Age counselor. "Center. Center. Center." He played a game with himself in such stressful circumstances. Graph paper ran from his brain like a seismograph reporting an earthquake. All Rosswell had to do was inhale until his lungs filled, close his eyes, and allow his brain to carry him to a secret calm place until the line on the paper inked itself horizontally. The guru had called it centering.

The main problem was that centering didn't work. Plain old thinking worked. Not only were the facts of what he'd seen stamped in his mind, he knew what else he needed.

Rosswell wrangled on his tri-focals so he could punch 9-1-1 on his cell phone. Tried to punch. His hands shook. Working his fingers was impossible. After two more tries, he punched the three numbers in the correct sequence.

"What is your emergency?" the operator answered before the phone finished ringing one time.

Rosswell swallowed. "I witnessed a..."

Recollection turned murky. Had he seen a murder? Someone hiding the evidence of a murder? What?

After a few more moments of staring out across the river without speaking, Rosswell heard the dispatcher ask, "Sir, what did you witness?"

Rosswell did an about-face, showing his back to the river and closed his eyes. "I witnessed a man throw a woman off the ferry."

##

After the call, Rosswell marked a line in the riverbank with the tip of his shoe. There was no turning back. What had he committed himself to with that call? He pivoted and chose the road, the easy way up the bluff. The dispatcher had assured him that someone would arrive at his location soon. In fifteen minutes or so.

Plodding back to his room exhausted him. He regained his place on the balcony to continue mulling over what he'd seen. Tina's absence drilled into his gut as it had from the moment of her disappearance. The only things he was sure of were that the woman tossed off the boat was not Tina, Tina was still alive, and that he would find her. How did he know that? He didn't know. Details, he assured himself, would follow.

Rising fog marred the view of the water. Roswell scanned the riverbank again. No one else was near. No cars. No body washed ashore. The thump, he surmised, was someone slamming a car door or trunk shut. Although he wondered why anyone would do that if he were dragging a body from a vehicle to throw into the river. Wouldn't that bring unwanted attention? Like his?

Or had something happened to the ferry? Although Missouri struggled in the grasp of a vicious drought, the river was swollen with runoff from rain up north. With the water so high, maybe a big tree racing downstream had slammed into the boat. That could account for the thump.

Would anyone believe him? There was not a single piece of proof in the entire story, only his eyewitness testimony. Roswell wasn't even forty and his eyes were already packing it in, but so what? He'd been wearing his glasses when he saw the man throw the woman into the river. He hadn't been sucking down any booze, either. Tina's absence had been a sore test, but he wouldn't let himself go anywhere near the stuff, not while she was still missing. Above all not after he got her back!

If he got her back.

About fifteen minutes later, Mrs. Bolzoni, the owner of Bolzoni's Bluffside Bed and Breakfast, commonly known as The Four Bee, knocked on his door.

"Yes?"

"You open the door," came the reply, spoken with an Italian accent.

As ordered, Rosswell opened the door to discover the short barrel, which was Mrs. Bolzoni, regarding him through Coke-bottle eyeglasses. She nodded. He admired what she'd done with her silver-gray hair, piled on her head in a circular arrangement with nary a loose strand. Her ancient shoes and dry scent befitted a senior citizen. There had to be a place where elderly women bought those clunky shoes with about a hundred eyelets that laced halfway up the calf. And that old lady powder that smelled like a nursing home. Where did they buy that stuff?

"Good morning, Mrs. Bolzoni."

"Here's you espresso. I am out of the Pepto-Bismol last night and the insides, she is in uproar." The squat Italian woman had the habit of starting most conversations with a report on the state of her bowels. She waved her hands and shook her head several times. "Much pain."

"I'm sorry to hear that." He sipped the extra strong brew laced with enough sugar to make it syrupy. A dash of salt added a bit of flavor. The concoction worked a number on his acid reflux. No matter. If the hair on his scrawny mustache had been a centimeter or two longer, the black drink would've curled the 'stache into a real handlebar.

"The police, they come and want the Judge Carew." Mrs. Bolzoni failed to disguise the delight in her voice. She loved gossip more than life itself. "I tell them you I get."

"Would you send them up? I need to show them something."

"You not cooking the menthol, are you?"

"No, I assure you that I'm a peaceful and law-abiding citizen." Rosswell suppressed a smile. "And I'm not cooking meth."

"As if." Mrs. Bolzoni primped her hair although there wasn't the slightest disarray.

She clopped down the steps and, in a few minutes, Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff Gustave Fribeau—despite what Mrs. Bolzoni had said, it was one cop, not a "they"—marched into Rosswell's room.

"Judge Carew." Gustave pulled a slim black cigar out of his pocket, unwrapped it, stuck it in his mouth, and threw the cellophane to the floor. "You called 9-1-1?"

The sheriff, standing a shade over five feet tall, had a square jaw that matched his square body, and blonde hair that gave him movie star good looks. Admiring the sheriff's mustache, as thin as an ant trail, Rosswell wondered if he could trim his own sickly caterpillar mustache in the same fashion.

"Yes, I called 9-1-1."

"You made me climb up here. What do you want to show me?"

"Let me show you what I saw. Look over here." Rosswell escorted him onto the balcony and pointed to the river. "I saw somebody throw a body into the water."

"You saw a body go in the river?"

"Yes. Didn't I say that?"

"Who did the throwing? Man or woman?"

"Man."

The sheriff took in the view, staring all around. "Where was this man who did the throwing?"

"On the ferry."

Gustave chewed on the unlit cigar. "Moving?"

"The man or the ferry?"

"Ferry."

Rosswell rubbed the back of his neck. "The ferry. It was headed across the river."

"The body—man, woman?"

"Female. Young woman. I think."

"Why do you think that?"

"She looked like a woman. And the impression I got from her clothes, hair, and what little I could see of her face made me think she was young."

"Impression?"

"She was pregnant." Rosswell practiced his withering glare until the Sheriff caved.

"How do you know she was dead? Could she have been unconscious, knocked out?"

"I don't know that she was dead when she went into the river, but she wasn't moving." Rosswell fingered the binoculars. "Her eyes were closed when she went in the water."

"How do you know that?"

"Take a look for yourself." Rosswell offered up the binoculars. "These are powerful. I could see her face."

Gustave waved the binoculars aside. "What did this guy look like?"

"A dark complexion. Skinny. Dark hair. Wore Levi's and a blue work shirt."

"That narrows it down to ten or twelve thousand people within a hundred miles."

"Ah!" Rosswell recognized the tactic. Tear down the eyewitness's testimony so there's nothing to go on. Then you can forget about the whole mess. "I'd recognize him if I saw him again."

"Maybe." Gustave grasped the balcony's ledge. "Kind of foggy out there this morning." The sun, rising from the Illinois side of the river, caused the sheriff to shade his eyes. "It's about...oh...a half mile from here to the ferry dock. How did you see anyone doing anything on the boat?"

"Nikon 10.5x45mm Monarch X. None finer." Rosswell handed the binoculars to Gustave. "The fog is rising now, but there was no fog when I saw it."

Gustave held up the black-bodied field glasses, examined the lenses, and then turned the binoculars end over end. "Nice." Gustave fixed the binoculars to his eyes and aimed them at the landing. "Still pretty hazy down there. How can you be sure of what you saw?"

"I told you that it was clear when I saw her go into the water. I was bird watching. Looking for a rare sparrow that's allegedly been sighted in these parts. I focused on the ferry when I heard it start up. That's when the thump came. It sounded like—"

"Bird-watching?" Gustave inspected the binoculars again. "You checked into The Four Bee to watch birds?"

Rosswell removed his spectacles and rubbed his face again. "Besides holding court up here, I'm looking for Tina. Remember?" He replaced his glasses.

Rosswell couldn't decide if Gustave was dense or playing bad cop/bad cop. He was aware the sheriff judged him an intruder who had upset the quiet balance of the small riverside town. This situation needed a real cop like Jim Bill Evans to help him find Tina, not a bumbler like Sheriff Gustave Fribeau. Then Rosswell remembered that Jim Bill was a fire marshal, not a cop. Yet he was honest as the day and night were long, and Rosswell knew he'd rather be dealing with him than Gustave, even if Jim Bill didn't have jurisdiction.

Gustave interrupted Rosswell's silent musings. "She's your...friend. Missing for what? Two weeks or so."

"Fiancée." Rosswell stretched the truth a bit. He had only been thinking about asking Tina to marry him before she disappeared. Her last communication was a voicemail, begging him to come get her. The call from Ste. Genevieve had ended before she could complete her message, launching him into a panicked search. Then, he'd been sure he would find Tina right away and everything would be fine. Now, as the empty days stretched out ahead of him, he wasn't so sure. "And it's been five months."

"That's a long time." Gustave snugged the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the river. When he brought them down, he asked, "Where did you get these?"

"They were a Christmas present." Rosswell scratched his mustache. "I bought them for myself at a store in Saint Louis last year. Same place I bought my Nikon 5100 DSLR camera."

Gustave failed to look impressed. "Let's talk man to man, not sheriff to judge."

"Sure." Rosswell motioned to Gustave and they both sat in the balcony chairs. The sun promised hotter weather than yesterday. The scent of the heavenly brew in his cup spread as he sipped. "Have at it."

The sheriff handed Rosswell the binoculars. "Were you wearing your glasses when you were using these?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that difficult?"

Rosswell indicated the rubber eyecups on the binoculars. "Not when you have these."

Gustave pinched his nose before he chomped a bite off the cigar. "Women's hormones get all messed up." After chewing the bite for a couple of seconds, he leaned over the edge of the balcony and spit it onto the lawn.

That's a good way for you to get in trouble with Mrs. Bolzoni. I'd like to see that!

"What are you saying?"

Gustave watched a flock of geese flying south for the winter. The man made a habit of looking up when he struggled to choose the right words. After the birds flew out of sight, Gustave lowered his gaze to stare into Rosswell's face. "Tina's not in Sainte Gen."

# Chapter 2

## Last Sunday Morning, continued

"Sheriff—"

"Call me Gustave. We're talking man to man."

"Okay, Gustave, why do you say she's not here?"

"The FBI, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Sainte Gen City Police, and every man and woman in the Sainte Gen County sheriff's department have searched for her in every inch of the county. Not to mention the hundred or so volunteers who combed the hills and woods. Same goes for the surrounding counties in Missouri and the ones across the river." Gustave aimed his finger at Illinois. "Nothing. If there's no ransom demand within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, usually that means there's no kidnapping."

Rosswell tamped down his rising anger. He reminded himself that he needed Gustave's help. But someone should tell the pompous ass that the holy woman, Sainte Geneviève, in whose honor both the town and the county were named, would be horrified to hear herself referred to as Sainte Gen, much less seeing her name misspelled all over the area as _Genevieve_ instead of _Geneviève_. Those accent thingies were important to the French. In his current uncertain mood, Rosswell decided they were important to him as well. But it wouldn't be wise to make an issue of it.

The giant problem was that Fribeau represented _The Man_. The wall between justice and efficiency. As a judge, Rosswell himself was a brick in that barrier although now he found himself on the outside, pounding on the wall, begging entry to the side of justice. He needed the law's help.

"A lot of people have done tons of work on Tina's case." Rosswell sipped his espresso and again tried to center himself without success. "I appreciate them."

Gustave grunted something Rosswell couldn't interpret. The heat of the morning made sweat roll down Rosswell's face. Fields of corn and soybeans planted not a hundred feet from the water lay parched from lack of rain. The river stunk of dead fish rotting in old mud.

Gustave picked up a thick book lying on a table next to Rosswell's camera. "Is this a collection of every Sherlock Holmes story ever written?"

"No, only the ones by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."

"Are you learning to be a detective?"

"Let's talk about why I'm here, not my reading material. I didn't come here to play detective." Rosswell plunked his cup into its saucer, resting on the balcony railing. The loud clink told him he'd not been as gentle with Mrs. Bolzoni's good china as he could've been. "Tina wouldn't take off like that without letting me know. Hormones or no hormones. I know her better than anyone does. Somebody's got her and for some unknown reason isn't interested in ransom."

Gustave studied his fingernails. Perhaps the man didn't appreciate his remarks being trivialized. Or maybe he knew something Rosswell didn't. Gustave brushed his hands, as if his fingernails had flaked off something into his palms.

"I think she took off, but that's only one of many possible theories. I want her back with you, too. But we can't explain it. She's an adult woman who can go where she wants. We have zero evidence that she's in this county."

"I got a call from her the night she disappeared that came from this county."

Gustave threw the unlit cigar off the balcony. "The FBI tracked the call to the payphone catty-corner to the courthouse at Merchant and Fribeau."

Rosswell grimaced. They were wasting time. "I know. The little street named after your family."

"It's more of an alley." Gustave smiled. "We've been here a while."

"Is the phone company planning to remove the payphone?"

Gustave's fingernails were bitten back to the quick. He'd chewed on one until it bled. "It makes sense to leave it. I asked the phone company not to remove it, in case Tina comes back to use it."

Rosswell jumped on that. "If you don't think she's in the county, why did you ask them to leave that phone?"

Gustave's demeanor seemed to soften. "There is one thing."

Rosswell braced himself for bad news. "Tell me."

"I believe you."

This was the time not for a question but a statement of fact. "But you're not going to look for her."

"I didn't say I'd stop."

You didn't say you'd keep searching. And your interest is non-existent today. You haven't taken note one.

Rosswell said, "That's what I heard you say."

"We've looked for her every place we know to look."

Rosswell held up a forefinger. "Except one place."

"And which place is that?"

"Wherever she is." Rosswell hoped that place wasn't at the bottom of the river. He'd not mention that to the sheriff. "Whether you keep searching for her or not, I'm never going to stop."

##

Gustave left with a promise to talk to the ferryboat captain and the passengers who'd made the second run. That is, if he could find them. Gustave said he doubted the captain kept track of identities of passengers.

And, although Gustave hadn't come right out and used the word _lie_ , Rosswell's gut whispered that the sheriff didn't believe his report of a body thrown in the drink. That's why he hadn't told Gustave that the body resembled Tina. That would've indicated paranoia.

Rosswell checked off the things that made his own story doubtful: the early morning grogginess typical of most human beings, too many possible witnesses on the boat to risk such a crime, sun coming up in his face, and the thumping noise, the source of which—accounting for how the bluffs bounced sound around—couldn't be determined. Then he added in his physical and emotional problems.

All those facts added up to a label that Rosswell didn't want stuck on himself: UNRELIABLE EYEWITNESS.

Mrs. Bolzoni, snoopy as ever, stood behind Rosswell in front of the house, watching Gustave's patrol car depart. She pushed Rosswell into the kitchen.

"Frogs." She dipped up bacon, home fries, grits, gravy, and scrambled eggs onto a plate. Then added whole-wheat biscuits, strawberry jam, and real butter onto another plate.

Even with his mouth full, Rosswell managed to ask, "What?"

"The frogs, they make my stomach hurt."

Rosswell kept silent while he chewed. Mrs. Bolzoni often made remarks that he didn't understand. He blamed it on her poor English. Mr. and Mrs. Bolzoni, he'd learned upon renting the place, had moved from Rome to an Italian neighborhood in Saint Louis called The Hill about twenty-five years ago. After Mr. Bolzoni died of a heart attack a couple of years ago, the widow Bolzoni moved to Ste. Genevieve and opened The Four Bee.

She said nothing further. Curiosity squirmed around in Rosswell's brain like a hyperactive maggot in hot ashes. After he ate another biscuit, he could stand it no longer.

"Tell me about the frogs," thinking even as the words left his mouth that he'd busted open the floodgates. She would doubtless tell him that the amphibians were invading her house. And she would tell him every bloody detail.

Mrs. Bolzoni whipped around to inspect Rosswell. "Frogs?"

Could she have forgotten already? "You said they made your stomach hurt."

"Oh, FROGS! Yes, that frog policeman." She said it as if that explained everything. "And all the frogs what live around here." She made circles with her forefinger over the table, evidently indicating the neighborhood.

There it was. Mrs. Bolzoni was prejudiced against French people. She'd used the derogatory term _frogs_ to complain about the ethnic background of the people who'd settled the surrounding territory over three hundred years ago. Rosswell wouldn't burden Mrs. Bolzoni with the knowledge that the sheriff's first name sounded more German than French. Such a revelation could wait until later. And, since living with _frogs_ seemed to bother her so much, he certainly didn't want to know why she'd moved from The Hill to Ste. Genevieve. That story could take days. Possibly weeks.

Deciding to slip out of the conversation before he became further enmeshed in her ramblings, Rosswell stood. "I'm going into town to look through the shops. I'll be back late tonight. No need to hold supper for me."

Mrs. Bolzoni served her guests two meals and a snack daily, in addition to breakfast. That, plus the modest price, had led Rosswell to her door.

"I thank the saints I don't see the frogs with rusty hair."

"That's certainly something to be thankful for, Mrs. Bolzoni."

As a matter of principle, Rosswell would not allow himself to contemplate what in the hell _frogs with rusty hair_ actually meant.

# Chapter 3

## Last Sunday Morning, continued

Mrs. Bolzoni clumped around the kitchen, muttering about frogs, rust, and her bowels.

Rosswell tramped outside where he dallied, observing the fog thin as the sun rose higher in the sky.

A big guy with square shoulders and bulging eyes strolled up. "Judge, how about going fishing with us?"

All Roswell knew was his first name. Theodore. A second, smaller man sporting a buzz cut and a diamond in his right earlobe—Philbert—followed Theodore. Each wore a black braid necklace with a small golden star hanging from it. Did the matching necklaces have some special significance for them? Were they gay? And if they were gay, did the necklaces mean they were going steady?

The two men, guests who hailed from St. Louis, had passed Mrs. Bolzoni in the hallway when they came out. They fell to packing fishing gear into the back of a Ford Ranger.

Philbert elaborated on the invitation. "What more could you want than to fish and drink beer with two charming assholes like us?"

"Where are you going?" Rosswell walked over to the pickup and assumed the rural conversation stance—hanging his arms over the bed of the truck, leaning forward at a slight angle. It was a pose familiar to him since childhood. Men who talked outside gravitated to pickup trucks.

"The Mighty Mississippi." Theodore directed his eyes toward the river. "I can smell it from here." A big sniff and a deep intake of breath proved to Rosswell that the guy did indeed smell the river. A this-side-of-rancid odor, reminiscent of meat about to spoil.

"We've got hundred pound test line." Philbert rattled around in the bed of the truck until he found a spool of the bright yellow line, which he handed to Rosswell. It felt slick and glowed. "Best stuff on the market."

"Holy crap. Plan on catching a whale?"

Theodore shook his head. "Catfish."

"What do you use for bait?"

"Take a peek." Theodore opened a Styrofoam cooler. Inside was a mass of dark red guts. "Take a smell."

The odor was the same as the meat processing plant Rosswell had once toured. "Beef liver. Stinks."

Philbert dug around in a tackle box for a few seconds until he drew out a huge treble hook. "That's why they call it stink bait." He motioned Rosswell to take a gander. "And here's what we stick it on. Once they bite on this baby, they can't get off till we drag them to shore." The three-pronged fishhook gleamed in the sunlight.

Rosswell's curiosity grew. "What do you do with a hundred pound catfish?"

Philbert nodded when Theodore said, "We take a picture of it. And then throw it back."

"You don't have a fish fry?"

Philbert pinched his nose closed. "You'd never want to eat a fish that's lived in the Mississippi River. Too nasty."

Rosswell winced, thinking of the woman who'd gone into the water.

Theodore said, "We saw the sheriff out here earlier and tried to get him to go with us. I wonder about that guy."

Philbert punched his thumb against his chest. "Me, too."

"The sheriff? Why?"

Philbert fingered the treble hook. "I think he gets a little rough sometimes."

Theodore said, "Don't start with that shit."

Philbert said, "You said you wondered about him."

Rosswell pushed it. "How's the sheriff a little rough sometimes?"

Theodore coughed. "We spotted him wrestling a woman into the back of his patrol car. Looked like he might've slapped her on the arm."

"Slapped her? On the arm?" Philbert sounded disgusted. "Hell, he punched her in the face is what he did."

Rosswell said, "What was she doing?"

Both men shrugged.

Rosswell persisted. "Was she hitting him? Was she armed?"

"I couldn't tell," Theodore said.

"Could've been resisting arrest," Philbert said. "She looked pregnant to me. That's sure bad if he's tuning up on a woman who's pregnant."

Theodore said, "She didn't look pregnant. Maybe a little chubby but not pregnant."

"There wasn't fat anywhere except her belly. I could tell because she had on some kind of night gown."

Theodore blew a raspberry. "How about that little barista at Starbucks you're always hitting on? She's skinny except for her belly hanging out. And she's not pregnant. Unless she's been pregnant for two years."

"I'm not hitting on her," Philbert said. "She's the only woman who knows how I like my Mochaccino."

Rosswell asked, "When exactly did you see the sheriff doing this?"

Philbert rubbed the unshaved stubble on his chin. "About two months ago."

Theodore said, "It was more like three months ago. It was right after that audit we did for Harrison, the shoe guy." He switched his attention to Rosswell. "We like to come down here as often as we can to relax."

Philbert said, "It's _Harriman_ and he sells sporting equipment."

Theodore snapped his fingers, the pop loud enough to scare birds. "Yeah, that was the guy."

Rosswell said, "You're auditors?"

"CPAs," Theodore said. "We do private audits. Or government audits. We don't care where the money comes from."

Rosswell steered the conversation back to his main concern. "Was the woman blonde?"

"Could be," said Philbert.

"No," Theodore said. "More of a redhead."

Rosswell asked, "Strawberry blonde?"

Theodore said, "Yeah, could've been strawberry blonde."

"Tall?"

Philbert appeared to be measuring Rosswell's height. "A little taller than you maybe. We weren't that close."

Rosswell said, "Do you know exactly where this was?"

Theodore pointed north. "There's a big house up there. It's on the river."

"Some kind of home for folks who aren't right," Philbert added.

Rosswell said, "Do you know what happened to the woman?"

Theodore spoke in a stage whisper, "We don't know. But she does."

He hooked a thumb toward the house. "She's the biggest damn gossip I've ever run into."

"Mrs. Bolzoni?"

"Yeah," said Philbert. "We came back about a month or so after we saw that and Mrs. Bolzoni told us the sheriff had dragged a woman out of a house and carried her off to Number Four."

"Judge, what's Number Four?"

"It's what they called the psychiatric hospital before they changed the name."

Philbert said, "Why are you so interested in somebody the sheriff carted off to a loony bin?"

Rosswell explained about Tina's disappearance. He finished with, "Sounds like it might've been Tina."

A math problem arose. Rosswell encountered several pregnant women when he'd served as a medic in the military. Some showed early and some didn't. Tina could've been anywhere from two to four or five months pregnant when she disappeared. In the Middle East, Rosswell had helped care for a woman who vowed that she was five months pregnant, yet all Rosswell noted was a thickening of her waist. The woman was well nourished, slender, muscular, and strong. Tina's pregnancy was her first child, she worked out, and had great muscle tone. She could've been well along when she disappeared and perhaps hadn't started showing. How far along was she when she told Rosswell? He didn't know.

Theodore said, "You think Sheriff Gustave Fribeau kidnapped your girlfriend?"

"No way. But whoever kidnapped her could've reported her as being out of control or disturbing the peace or something and called Gustave."

"I don't think we have sheriffs kidnapping women in Missouri," Philbert said. "Judge, hope you find her."

"What's the new name for Number Four?" Theodore asked.

Roswell said, "State Sanitarium Number Four is now called Eastern Ozarks Mental Health Center."

Philbert tapped Theodore on the shoulder. "That's the place we're auditing."

##

Rosswell canned the tour of gift shops and instead spent the day fishing with Theodore and Philbert until it was suppertime. The three of them cleaned up and headed for the dining room.

Mrs. Bolzoni pulled Rosswell aside. "You must reserve the supper."

A lapse of memory plus a good time fishing had pushed the requirement that he make reservations for the evening meal from his mind, thus threatening his presence at what he knew would be a fantastic repast. "Give me this one chance and I'll never break the rules again." Rosswell had fallen for that ploy a time or two. Now he hoped Mrs. Bolzoni would show him mercy. "I promise."

"I must make the little change," Mrs. Bolzoni groused, then stood aside to allow Rosswell to sit with the rest of the guests.

Caesar salad loaded down with Parmesan, cheese stuffed shells, crusty rye bread with plenty of garlic dipping oil, and, for dessert, tiramisu trifle, whipped up with strong coffee, chocolate, mascarpone cheese, sponge cake fingers, almonds, and, usually, amaretto liqueur.

When Theodore and Philbert bit into the dessert, each gave Mrs. Bolzoni a head tilt.

"Stop with the question you want to ask. I ran out of the amaretto," said Mrs. Bolzoni.

Rosswell took the hint and dug into the dessert, now assured by Mrs. Bolzoni that it didn't contain any alcohol. After the third bite, he stopped to question himself if she had truly run out of amaretto or if someone had told her that he was an alcoholic. The fact wasn't secret, so he wouldn't have been surprised that she knew.

After completing his meal, he returned to his room to enter a lengthy report of the day's happenings into his journal. Tina's eyes were green, the same as the cover of the journal. Besides information on her disappearance, it contained photos printed from the Internet of missing young women who resembled Tina. Rosswell was no statistician, but he'd found that a number of such women were concentrated in a radius about three hundred miles around Sainte Gen. At the minimum, that would include parts of Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Such a concentration was, at best, odd. At worst, there was an effort on the part of somebody to gather the women into the area.

Maybe the women were outliers, oddities whose presence in the number of women missing in the general population indicated mere inconsistencies and nothing else.

Around ten o'clock, he set the writing aside, scrolled down the contacts on his cell phone, and clicked on one. After three rings, his call was answered.

"Rosswell? Is that you?"

"It is. Listen, tomorrow I'm scanning and emailing you my entire file on Tina. Then we need to talk."

# Chapter 4

## Last Monday Morning

Rosswell arose early, donned his gray suit, and drove his black truck from The Four Bee to the courthouse. The "new" courthouse on the square. Built in 1885, remodeled in 1916, and again in 1987.

What he'd mostly thought about yesterday was, as always, Tina. Some people divide pain into different classifications. Physical pain, like a broken leg. Emotional pain, like a broken heart. Psychological pain, like a broken spirit. And on and on. Rosswell did the opposite. Pain to him was one and undivided. Pain was the monster riding his back, its sharpened claws digging into his bones, his soul, his psyche. The pain was caused by an absence, which could only be driven from him by a presence.

Tina.

On the short drive to the courthouse, Rosswell imagined a shot of whiskey burning his throat, easing his pain. Maybe two shots to make it an even number.

A honking horn snapped him back to reality. He chastised himself. "Damn it, quit thinking about booze and pay attention to your driving!"

Theodore and Philbert hadn't convinced him to drink a beer yesterday. Today could be alcohol free, too. He couldn't fight something he couldn't see. He'd wage the battle with tomorrow when it got here.

Although he'd never planted so much as a black-eyed pea, Rosswell referred to the 1994 GMC pickup with glass pack mufflers as his farm truck. A portable satellite radio powered by a skinny wire stuck in the cigarette lighter made driving the truck bearable, since he loved listening to Cousin Brucie on the oldies channel. Vicky, his beloved Monarch Orange Volkswagen convertible, had been damaged by an irate dope pusher by the name of Johnny Dan Dumey a few months ago and wouldn't be back in service for a while.

Rosswell had shot Dumey between the eyes. Not necessarily for riddling Rosswell's favorite ride with bullet holes, but for killing three other people and refusing to surrender after Rosswell got the drop on him. Johnny Dan shot a volley from his AK-47, Rosswell ordered him to surrender, and then Johnny Dan shot once more. None of Johnny Dan's bullets injured Rosswell. They'd not even come close. Rosswell, however, shot once and Johnny Dan died, never knowing that Rosswell had earned the expert qualification—rifle and pistol—in the military.

Rosswell parked at the corner of Merchant and Fribeau in front of Mabel's Eatery, his restaurant of choice in Ste. Genevieve. A plaque on the French Creole Colonial building indicated that the brick structure had been built in 1793 by Jacques Fribeau, no doubt a great-great-great grand-something of Gustave Fribeau.

At the payphone where Tina had called him, Rosswell placed his palm on the handset, praying silently (in case Someone was listening) for her safe return. Inhaling deeply, he hoped for her sweet scent. All he smelled was a stale human odor and rancid beer. People had no respect for payphones anymore.

Inside the restaurant, he waved to the proprietors, chubby Mabel Smothers and her father, Ollie Groton. The pair had moved from Marble Hill some time ago to take advantage of the tourist trade in Ste. Gen. That and Mabel's desire to leave a place that had too many memories of her dead boyfriend, Johnny Dan. Rosswell made his way to a corner booth in the back of the restaurant, badly lit by buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights. Ollie, enveloped by the scent of cinnamon, joined him. Whether Ollie had bought a new after-shave lotion or had been baking pastries, Rosswell didn't know. The hope that Ollie had whipped up a fresh batch of real cinnamon rolls grew in Rosswell's heart. The kind of cinnamon roll built with whole-wheat flour, whole milk, real butter (not margarine), fresh yeast, extra-large farm eggs, sugar, lots of cinnamon, and a dash of real mashed potatoes to make the whole thing light and fluffy.

"Judge, heard you were busy yesterday morning."

Rosswell overlooked the jab, not yet ready to discuss the body in the river. "Where's my food?" The scent of frying bacon put him in the mood for breakfast. Although he'd wolfed down a huge amount at The Four Bee yesterday morning, Mrs. Bolzoni questioned him if he skipped her breakfasts. Occasionally, he begged off, as he'd done this morning, claiming lack of time. There was no courteous way of informing Mrs. Bolzoni about his addiction to Mabel's chocolate gravy. "My blood sugar level is perilously low."

Ollie, who'd formerly served as Rosswell's snitch in their hometown of Marble Hill, kept his entire body shaved and boasted a star-shaped purple tattoo on his bald head. That, plus his height and lack of eyebrows made Ollie exceptionally unsuitable for undercover work. When he looked at Ollie, Rosswell recalled DaVinci's Mona Lisa, who also lacked eyebrows. The muscular Mensa member knew computers and could ferret out information on anyone or anything. The big man could also persuade a canary to sing the blues. In short, Rosswell thought Ollie was handy as a thumb on a monkey. In addition, Ollie pumped iron regularly. But no steroids. Rosswell had checked.

"Freaking frost!" Ollie said. "Calm your buns. Mabel's bringing your food. Don't be so damned cranky."

"I get cranky when I don't eat."

"When's that? You eat all the time."

"I'm going to be busy today. I'm skipping supper."

"You need to skip more than one meal or you'll blossom soon."

Rosswell changed the subject to what Ollie wanted to discuss earlier, although first, he wanted to know how much Ollie knew. "What do you mean, I've been busy?"

Ollie squeaked a high-pitched sound a mouse might make after the bar of a trap slammed across its spine. "Sheriff Fribeau was in here drinking coffee Sunday morning after he came from The Four Bee. He didn't realize that I could hear every word he and one of his deputies were saying."

"And he said I'd filed an unfounded report about someone tossing a woman off the ferry."

Ollie nodded. "Something along those lines. I doubt if the sheriff will put much effort or info into his report."

"The woman looked like Tina."

"Did you tell Gustave that?"

Rosswell stared at the table. "No."

Ollie said nothing, perhaps worried that Rosswell would drive himself into the depths of depression if he convinced himself that he'd watched his dead sweetie being tossed into the Mississippi River. If that's what Ollie thought, Rosswell shared his concern. He teetered at the edge of the chasm of depression, trying not to stumble on the loose rocks. Some days, the rocks were looser than other days. If he let himself fall, any possibility of rescuing Tina would fade into a cold breeze while he tumbled to the bottom.

Rosswell phrased it carefully, hoping to allay what fears for his sanity that Ollie might have. "Sunday morning, I saw three vehicles on that boat. The guy with the body got into a white van on the passenger side. I'll assume someone else was driving. That's two people. Then, two other vehicles. A white pickup and a white SUV. That means there was a minimum of four people on the boat. How could anyone throw a body overboard with three other people around?"

"You forgot to count the guy running the boat. Five people total."

"Okay, Ollie. Then how could anyone throw a body overboard with _four_ other people around? Someone surely saw something."

"Maybe they did see something. Maybe all of them were in it together."

Mabel appeared with Rosswell's regular breakfast: four eggs fried hard, six pieces of crispy bacon, and two whole-wheat biscuits, all covered with thick dark gravy. The chocolate concoction helped the crunchy stuff go down easier. And Rosswell always ordered the largest and strongest cup of coffee available anywhere in the county.

Mabel clenched her jaw. "Morning, Judge."

Rosswell had difficulty making out her words. "Morning, Mabel."

She poured coffee for both men, and then left in a hurry.

"Damn." Rosswell grabbed a knife and fork, then bulldozed into his food. "She hates me, doesn't she?" He stabbed at the meal. "Is this stuff poisoned?"

"She's pregnant."

The knife and fork clattered to the floor. "Oh, dear God." He breathed deeply, trying to keep from breaking down. He swallowed. If the father was who he thought it was, then Mabel might be near term, the same as Tina. A chubby woman like Mabel often didn't show a pregnancy the same as a woman built like Tina. "Johnny Dan's?"

The noise of the falling silverware had attracted attention. "Hey, I'm Karyn." Rosswell jerked around to stare at the waitress, a brunette garbed in a crinkly blue dress, something that could've been worn by the counter girls at a Woolworth's in the 1950s. "Need more coffee?" Her smile and granny glasses—the round kind worn by John Lennon and Elton John—set off her face, making Rosswell ache to trust anything she said. He always trusted a beautiful young woman with a serene face. Especially if she was bearing coffee.

Rosswell shook his head. "No, but I need fresh hardware." Despite what he'd said, Karyn topped off his coffee, handed him tableware wrapped in a napkin, and then threaded her way back to the waitress station. He enjoyed the view.

"Pay attention." Ollie hunched over the table to speak in a low tone. "You know damn good and well it's Johnny Dan's. Mabel never cheated on him." He moved back and straightened in his seat. "Not all that much."

Mabel couldn't attract a whole lot of men, what with her bad skin and stringy hair. As far as looks went, the only redeeming feature about Mabel was that she didn't look like Ollie. She had the same body build as her mother, Benita Smothers, a nurse who looked like a Sumo wrestler and never missed a meal. Yes, she could cook, but maybe Mabel had something that didn't show. Pondering what that mysterious attraction might be, Rosswell also wondered when Mabel would start showing. She was presumably as far along as Tina. But with that body build, maybe Mabel would never show.

Rosswell unwrapped his tableware. "She won't ever like the man who killed her boyfriend."

"Unadulterated bullshit." Ollie stood, obviously intent on walking away. "Eat your food. If it's poisoned, it's the fast-acting kind. Mabel has compassion."

"Sit back down."

"I'm busy."

Rosswell saw only one other customer in the place. "No, you're not."

"How do you know I'm not busy? This is the height of the tourist season. This town is packed with folks from all over the country every single day. And they're all hungry. A couple of busloads are due any second."

"Hey, I'm Jill." At the sound of another voice, Rosswell gawked at the redheaded waitress. "Need more coffee?" Same kind of blue dress that Karyn wore. _Where do they buy those ugly things?_ Rosswell gulped from his coffee cup while he tried to determine if she was wearing contacts. Her pert nose and sparse eyebrows gave her a look that approached stunning.

"Yes. Please." When she'd disappeared, Rosswell resumed his defense. "You think I wanted to kill Johnny Dan? I gave him every chance in the world to surrender. He was shooting at me. I had no other choice. He made the choice for me."

"You didn't answer my question. What makes you think I'm not busy?"

"For one thing, I've had three waitresses over here, two of them fawning all over me. There's only one other customer in here besides me." Rosswell lowered his voice. "One time you took the job as my snitch."

"I don't like that term." Ollie sat. "I'm not a snitch. That sounds like you forced me into something after you threw me in jail. Research assistant. That's what I am."

"I've got an assignment. Research this."

"Research what?"

"Your daughter hates me because I killed the father of her child. Help me prove that Johnny Dan was involved with whoever kidnapped Tina."

Karyn sashayed over. "Need some water?" Her voice reminded Rosswell of a soft rain falling with a steady rhythm on a tin roof during a hot afternoon. She'd unbuttoned the top button of her dress since she'd last visited the table. Rosswell wondered if that had been for his benefit.

Jill scampered up to stand next to Karyn. "This is my station. Vamoose." Jill fluffed her hair and, although Rosswell could be wrong, he was sure he saw her wink at him. A silver heart on a chain graced her neck. Had she only now put that on? And, through all the other odors in the restaurant, Rosswell noted a peculiar scent. When Jill stepped closer, he knew that she'd dabbed on a perfume smelling of ginger. Odd, but not unpleasant.

"Each of you bring me a water. Please." Both women raced for the water station.

Ollie whispered, " _Whoever_ kidnapped Tina? You don't know who kidnapped her. Besides, how the hell would me rubbing salve on Mabel's wound help you find Tina?" He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and folded his hands.

Rosswell wondered what Ollie was doing. __ After waiting a few seconds, his impatience overwhelmed him. "Are you praying that I'll go away?"

Ollie's eyes flicked open. "Rosswell. Scratch that. Judge Carew, you need to realize something. Tina's not coming back because she hasn't been kidnapped."

"You heard Gustave say that."

"Right. Along with everyone else saying the same thing. You think your girlfriend was kidnapped, you think you saw her body thrown off a boat, and you think the guy you killed was behind the kidnapping and Tina being dumped in the drink. Busy rascal for being dead, that Johnny Dan is."

"And you," Rosswell said, stabbing his fork in Ollie's direction, "think I'm nuts."

"I think you have...stress issues."

"Stress issues. Is that what they're calling insanity these days?"

"Not insanity." Ollie canted his head as if he couldn't say the words directly to Rosswell's face. "Combat trauma."

"There's no such thing as an unwounded soldier."

Rosswell needed no further mention of the horrors he'd witnessed in the Middle East, especially the one he created for himself when he stumbled upon a little girl dressed up as if she were carrying a bomb. He fell for the bait. Sensing it was the only thing he could do to save twenty of his people, he shot the girl without thinking. Later, the bomb squad told Rosswell that the explosive device was a fake. The trauma, an ugly amoral critter drooling bile and cackling endlessly, danced in his gut, never leaving him, sometimes punching alternately at his heart, then his brain, but mostly attacking both at the same time. The only escape from pain lay in Tina's arms.

Karyn and Jill landed at the table simultaneously and each plopped a glass of water in front of Rosswell.

"Thank you both."

"Anything else?" Karyn blinked several times.

Rosswell hated it when a beautiful woman irritated him. Now there were two beautiful women ganging up on his sensitive side, a place that wasn't all that big. "Are your allergies bothering you?" There had to be some way he could run these women off without insulting them too badly.

"No, why?"

Jill spoke to Karyn. "Quit with the eye flapping. It's blatant." Then to Rosswell, she said, "We're only trying to provide good service here."

Rosswell spoke slowly. "Sometimes—like now—good service means NO service."

Karyn jabbed Jill with her elbow. "You and your big mouth. Now you've gone and pissed him off."

Jill grabbed Karyn's arm. "Let's hit it, sister."

Karyn peered at Rosswell over her shoulder. "Don't forget the tip."

When the two waitresses had pranced away, Rosswell leaned toward Ollie. "You have weird waitresses."

"We call them wait staff."

"Wait staff? I call them weird."

"They're sisters. Karyn Byler and Jill Mabli. They liven it up here."

"When and why did they start working here?"

Ollie's tone of voice told Rosswell something obvious was being revealed. "Yesterday. The tourists will love them. You don't see wait staff like that everywhere."

The answer didn't satisfy Rosswell. "Why do they have different last names if they're sisters?"

"Each of them married and divorced and they each live alone. They're always together, always fighting. But they're cute."

"Yeah. Lovely."

"I hired them because I like looking at them. They're assets."

"You enjoy looking at their assets. I hope you pay good." Rosswell spoke around a mouthful of food. After he swallowed, he said, "I came here to look for Tina. Why are you in Sainte Gen? What are you looking for?"

"Mabel came here to get away from all the gossip hounds in Marble Hill. She needed to make a living. I needed to make a living. There are lots of people depending on me for computer work. And I bought Mabel this restaurant, which is doing great."

"Where did you get the money to start this place?"

"That's none of your damned business. I didn't steal it."

"I never said you did."

"You implied that I was a thief. I am not a thief. I've never stolen a thing in my life. All I've done is drink to excess and cause problems. Like you, Judge Carew. Of course, I never got to put you in jail like you did to me. In fact, nobody ever put you in jail."

Not yet anyway. But what's that got to do with anything?

"That's irrelevant. I'm asking you to work for me. Ollie, if I didn't trust you with my life, I wouldn't hire you. I don't care if you think I'm nuts."

"I don't care if you _are_ nuts. What I care about is what happened to Tina."

Rosswell scraped at the gravy on his plate with a fork. "Then work for me."

Ollie fetched a paper napkin, snatched a ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket, and wrote a dollar amount on the napkin. Then he showed his work to Rosswell. "I've got money that I earned legally. I want you to deposit that amount in a trust fund for Mabel's kid. Then I'll work for you."

Rosswell weighed the figure on the napkin for half a second. "Done."

Ollie stood.

Had Rosswell missed the end of the conversation? "Wait. Where are you going?"

"To find out who was on that boat yesterday morning. One of the five men may be a murderer."

"Or, maybe all of them are. I've got more to tell you." He told Ollie what Theodore and Philbert had told him, including the part about Gustave assaulting a woman who might have been Tina, whom he then carried off to Number Four.

Ollie's eyes grabbed a look of hatred more quickly than Rosswell had ever seen. "I can smell cops. And I can smell bad cops. The sheriff is bent." Ollie put his head in his hands. "Bent and twisted. Tina. My God."

"Slow it down. I don't know if Gustave had anything to do with Tina although I'm going to find out. Tomorrow, I'm taking a trip to Number Four."

# Chapter 5

## Last Monday Afternoon

Rosswell was in Ste. Genevieve because he'd finagled his way into being appointed to hear cases there. It was amazing how grateful the Missouri Supreme Court became when a judge volunteered to help out in other counties. There'd be less griping among the voters of Bollinger County (his home county) when and if anyone realized that he was spending a lot of time away from home. Rosswell would make sure that the voters knew he had the stamp of approval from the highest court in the state. And, since the docket in Ste. Genevieve wasn't usually that heavy, he'd have time to snoop. Tina was priority one.

After court recessed at midday, Rosswell crossed the street to Mabel's, which was stuffed with people. A line had formed on the sidewalk. Rosswell assumed his place, vowing to wait patiently in the heat of the cloudless day. If it hadn't been Daylight Saving Time, his noon shadow would've been invisible. The smell of roast beef, the special of the day, made his mouth water even as he began sweating. He removed his suit coat and tie.

Ollie appeared. "Let's take a stroll."

"And lose my place in line?" The people behind Rosswell cheered when they heard Ollie's invitation to traipse around the downtown.

Ollie pulled a tube from his pocket and slathered a dab of Vaseline on his head, wiping the excess petroleum jelly with a Kleenex. He waved his slim reporter's spiral notebook. "My notes." A slinky brunette in front of Rosswell craned her neck a bit too obviously. Ollie said to her, "It's about a venomous snake breeding program. You interested?" She pivoted away.

Rosswell followed Ollie.

When they were out of earshot of anyone, Ollie said, "I talked to the ferry driver."

"Ferry _driver?_ Don't you mean captain? Or pilot? Not driver."

Ollie's face reddened. "Yeah, okay. Captain." Rosswell loved it whenever Ollie was wrong, since the snitch otherwise seemed to know every fact in existence.

They reached Rosswell's truck. He took out his key, unlocked the door, and grabbed the handle. "Damn." He opened the door, threw his suit coat and tie inside, then locked the door. "This truck is freaking hot."

"It's a black truck. It absorbs heat. More properly, black paint in sunshine promotes the process of equilibrium—"

"Enough with the smart ass." Rosswell inspected his hand for burns. "What about the ferry driver?" A chuckle escaped before he could shut it down.

Ollie rubbed his head and coughed before a massive frown spread across his face. "I caught the _captain_ between turnarounds. He and I had a little chat."

"And?" When they reached the shade of a building, Rosswell slowed, savoring the less hot air, even though only for a moment.

Ollie scanned his notes. "The ferry can carry nine regular-sized vehicles. There were three on the run you saw yesterday morning. A white van, a white pickup truck, and a white SUV."

Rosswell ran a quick mental calculation. "Each of those vehicles could carry four people. There could've been twelve people on the ferry. I assumed four people minimum, besides the captain. How many people were actually there?"

"Four or five. The captain wasn't clear."

"How can he not know how many passengers he had? Don't you have to sign something when you board?"

"Nope." Ollie read more of his notes. "You walk or drive on. If the ferry is on the other side, you punch a button on a pole that sends out a radio signal. That calls the ferry. When the boat gets to your side, you pays your money, you takes your ride."

"There's no way of tracing the vehicles?"

"Correct."

Rosswell wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief he'd drawn from his back pocket. "Did the captain know any of the passengers?"

"Elbert LaFaire—that's the captain's name—said he'd never seen any of them before that he could remember."

"How long has the guy worked on the ferry?"

"He said he knew Mark Twain personally."

"No wonder his memory is bad."

Rosswell and Ollie reached the sidewalk in front of the Southern Hotel. Tina had dubbed the inn _our special place_ after she and Rosswell spent several romantic weekends there the previous year. Rosswell, in fact, believed that Tina became pregnant in the Southern Hotel during one of their many lovemaking bouts. While he might be able to pin down the location—he was in the room when she conceived—the date still wasn't certain.

Rosswell's memory wandered back to the time he first made love with Tina. He'd dragged himself from the doctor's office to the sheriff's station in Marble Hill, searching for Sheriff Frizz Dodson. He needed to talk to someone. Rosswell had no family and no close friends. Frizz wasn't there. Tina, the only deputy on duty, was dispatching.

She gazed at him for an instant. "What's wrong?"

Until that moment, Rosswell and Tina had dealt with each other in a strict business way. That changed when Rosswell said, "I got some bad news," and Tina said, "Tell me." Rosswell told her about the leukemia diagnosis.

Later that night she invited herself to share his bed.

Now, when asked, his doctor mouthed assurances that the disease was "in remission," which Rosswell took as meaning, "Hiding in your body, fixing to kill your ass."

The memory of their first night led to another recollection, this one of Tina on the porch of the Southern Hotel in Sainte Genevieve last Christmas. Earlier Rosswell had suggested they drive there from Marble Hill for an early steak supper.

After the meal, her skin glowed in the cold sunset as they sat on the porch. Only the slightest breeze disturbed the still air. Her delicate hand pressed against his face while she captured his eyes with her beauty. He knew then that living with her the rest of his life was necessary.

As Melville wrote about another time and place, "The pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look."

Rosswell drew out of his pocket a necklace he'd bought for her and draped it around her neck. "It's a Celtic cross. Pure gold. Look on the back. 'A single soul dwelling in two bodies.' Aristotle said that."

"I'll never take it off. This moment should last forever. I hereby wave my magic wand and make this an eternal instant of time in this golden country." Full winter's dark had fallen early. A flurry of shooting stars graced the clear sky. "Each of those meteors is an angel, drifting to earth to give us a blessing."

Tiny red, white, and blue lights strung over the building blinked in slow rhythm. Skyrockets took flight, bursting in crazy geometric patterns. Small children dressed in traditional French Canadian costumes wandered the dark streets holding candles and singing carols. The girls wore white bonnets and blouses, black skirts, and white aprons. The boys sported white shirts, black vests, floppy berets, and knee-length black pants. All the children wore white stockings and black shoes.

Tina rested her head against Rosswell's shoulder. "Today is forever."

"I..." Rosswell felt the same way as when Ollie checkmated him in a chess game. "I...uh...love you."

"I love you, Judge Rosswell Carew." Tina laughed and tilted her head, staring at him as if she were expecting him to say something else.

"What?"

"Men recognize only obvious subtleties."

Rosswell's brain hurt after that statement. Damn it, what was he supposed to say next? __

Tina whispered, "Ask the desk clerk if they have a room."

Once inside their own world, Tina took a long time undressing in front of him. When he encircled her, she said, "Don't ever let me go."

"Tina, I need you. Forever."

Afterward they spent a long time making love. When dawn came, they'd never slept a moment.

Now, Rosswell stared at the three-story red brick building, recalling every detail of that spectacular night. The memory would never leave him, no matter how his search for Tina played itself out.

Rosswell ran his hands along the white wood of the railings, carved in the shape of ribbon candy. "I wonder if they paint these railings every year."

"Use the correct term. Balustrade. The old building deserves respect."

Rosswell closed his eyes a moment and prayed for patience. If Goddess wouldn't give him patience, maybe his own brain would pitch in. Ollie was a great snitch, but his anal personality grated on Rosswell's nerves like a bumpy dental drill on aching teeth. The fact that Ollie was indispensable to him, however, never left Rosswell's mind.

"Thank you, Ollie." He opened his eyes. "I wonder if Tina came here?" Did she spend time in the hotel without him? He didn't like that possibility.

"The FBI searched the place top to bottom, side to side."

"How do you know this?"

"I...uh...read a report somewhere." Ollie scratched his chin. "It was—"

"Never mind." Rosswell had no need to ask. He already knew. Ollie had hacked a computer, maybe a federal one. "Don't confess any federal crimes to me, okay? Or, for that matter, any crime of any kind. I'd be duty bound to blow the whistle on you. Forget I asked."

"Forget what?"

They twined their way through the old streets without speaking until they reached the Church of Ste. Genevieve on Dubourg Place, next to the courthouse.

"Ollie, now can we talk about the passengers?"

"Only one stood out to the captain. The guy who was a passenger in the white van was slender. Red bandana. Blue jeans and a blue work shirt. Long black hair in a ponytail. Dark skin."

Rosswell jerked to a halt. "Native American?"

"A good guess. You didn't see the guy's ponytail? The captain said it was a beaut."

Rosswell thought a moment. "A coat. The guy had on a light jacket or covering of some kind. The ponytail could've been stuck down the jacket."

"A jacket in this weather?"

"I guess I couldn't see his hair. What can I say?"

"Start with you're a lousy eyewitness."

"I'm a great eyewitness. But eyewitness testimony isn't worth crap. Circumstantial evidence is the best. They taught me in law school that the circumstantial evidence of dog tracks in the mud outweighs the sworn testimony of ten thousand angels vowing that no dog passed this way."

"I read that on the back of a cereal box."

Rosswell avoided the sparring. "You know who that Indian sounds like?"

"Ribs Freshwater. And a hundred other guys in this area."

To the best of the judge's knowledge, no one had seen Ribs since Rosswell shot Johnny Dan. The Cherokee was possibly connected to Nathaniel Dahlbert, a tall man with incredibly white skin and orange hair. Nathaniel had been standing by Rosswell when he shot the bad guy but had disappeared before Johnny Dan hit the ground.

"Makes sense though," Rosswell said. "Nathaniel ran a dope pushing ring. Ribs worked for him, and after I killed one of their main connections, I cooked Nathaniel's golden goose. Now Ribs threw a woman in the river and I'll bet Nathaniel ordered it."

"That makes no sense at all. Ribs is goofier than a happy puppy, but Nathaniel is sharp. If—and that's a big if—those jokers are working together, then they've taken off for Los Angeles or New York or Miami. They wouldn't stick around a place sixty miles from where you shot their man in Bollinger County."

"Nathaniel hates me." Rosswell continued around the side of the church where he stopped by the memorial to children who would never be born. "Never eliminate suspects until you have proof." He prayed silently for the safety of Tina and their baby. He'd hardly finished his amen when he wondered what kind of deity would lead him around a corner, forcing him into the choice of shooting a little girl in the heart or risking his men being blown apart by the thing she wore that looked like a bomb. Maybe Rosswell's kid had already been killed to even that score. Maybe some kind of universal scale needed balancing.

In his chase of Moby-Dick, however badly Captain Ahab thumped Ishmael, the seaman wrote about the satisfaction of knowing that everybody else was treated the same way. "The universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content." Now it came time for Rosswell's turn at the universal thump. Except he wasn't content.

Ollie made the sign of the cross.

Rosswell asked, "Are you Catholic now? I thought you followed some kind of pagan religion. Norse gods or something."

"Never hurts to cover all your bases." Ollie slanted his head sideways, examining the memorial. "I'm partial to Loki. He's going to destroy the universe one of these days."

"Herman Melville said, 'Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.' "

"Loki is not a cannibal. Or a Christian."

Rosswell avoided further discussion of religion. "Besides Ribs Freshwater, what about the other people on the ferry?"

"I told you. The captain didn't know them. He thinks they were tourists." Ollie poked Rosswell in the chest. "And you do not know that Ribs Freshwater was on that ferry."

Rosswell batted the offending finger away from his body. "Isn't the ferry used by people working in Illinois? Or people coming from over there to work in Missouri?"

"I'm guessing it was too early for commuters or tourists. And Sundays are light traffic days." Ollie consulted his notes. "The captain thought the other guys were average build, medium height, brown hair, no facial hair, no glasses, no distinguishing characteristics. Vanilla."

"All of the passengers were male?"

"That's what the captain said."

When they reached the restaurant, Rosswell said, "I'm free until tomorrow morning."

"Are you thinking what you saw is connected to Tina?"

"I hope not. Something bad happened, and Gustave isn't too concerned about it because he has a lousy witness."

"That would be you."

"Correct."

Ollie stepped closer. "If I'm your researcher, then I have to tell you what I think about Tina."

"Have at it."

"She's dead."

Rosswell choked, but Ollie continued. "If she's not dead, then someone's holding her against her will. She's pregnant. The people holding her may not know she's pregnant."

"They know by now. And my baby could be in danger."

"Not only that, but why do they want Tina in the first place? Is she wealthy? No. Are you wealthy? No. Tina doesn't have money and she doesn't have any deadly secrets." Ollie stopped, appearing to think about what he'd said. "Does she, Rosswell? Does Tina have some kind of information that could be dangerous to her?"

Rosswell rocked back and forth on his heels, one of his thinking postures, ranking second only to pacing. He guessed that Ollie had been hacking something, or how else could he know that Tina wasn't rich? Comfortable. That described Rosswell. But not rich.

"Have Mabel pack us a picnic lunch."

Ollie ignored Rosswell's attempt to divert the questions. "How about Tina's parents? Do you know anything about them?"

"Tina moved to Marble Hill when she was a freshman in high school. I never really got to know her parents. They were both...I don't know...bland. Uninteresting."

Ollie took another step closer. "Were?"

"They're both gone now. Let's get that picnic lunch."

"Any particular reason we need to get food to go?"

"We're headed for the scene of the crime."

Ollie's eyes widened. "Which scene and which crime?"

# Chapter 6

## Last Monday Afternoon, continued

At the edge of the Mississippi River, Rosswell concentrated on the ferry approaching the landing where he and Ollie stood. The apple pie Mabel had packed in the lunch disappeared before he said to Ollie, "How many scenes and how many crimes do you think there are?"

"The payphone is one scene. Somebody grabbed her there. How Tina got from Marble Hill to Sainte Gen is a puzzle we need to solve. That will tell us who has her."

"This is the latest scene. It's a lot fresher than the payphone." Rosswell studied the ground. "The payphone and the ferry landing could be unrelated."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Ollie hunched over and cruised around the site, inspecting the tracks in the sandy dirt of the riverbank. "There are a lot of tire tracks here but they look worthless to me."

"That's a painful position to stay in for more than a few seconds. Your back will go out for sure." Ollie ignored him. __ If the snitch had worn a deerstalker cap, smoked a calabash pipe, and waved a huge magnifying glass around, Rosswell would've told him he was doing a bad imitation of the old Sherlock Holmes movies.

Ollie kneeled, staring at the earth. After several minutes, he stood. "Worthless."

Together, they combed the area, inspecting the ground for any kind of clue. Nothing.

"There's only one way to get here." Rosswell pointed south, down the street leading into the town. "And then the road stops there." He pointed north, to the end of the road.

Ollie brushed dirt off his pants. "You know how many white vans, pickup trucks, and SUVs there are around here?"

"No, but you do."

"All told, nine hundred and thirty-six in this county alone. I didn't check the surrounding counties."

"That narrows it down. Unless they were out-of-state tourists."

"Yet all of the vehicles had to drive on this road." Ollie waved his arm, pointing out the road. "There's no other way to get here."

Rosswell stared down the road until the ferry bumped into the landing. He watched the single vehicle—a new yellow Camaro driven by a teenage girl—drive off and head into Ste. Genevieve. The name of the ferry— _Grande Dame—_ struck Rosswell as a snazzy name for a ferry. A deck hand, dressed in canvas overalls and a sock cap, tied the ferry to the dock.

"You said the captain was the only crew aboard." Rosswell pointed to the dock. "How did you miss the deck hand?"

"He wasn't on the boat when I was talking to the captain."

Ollie waved to the captain, who came ashore. "Mr. LaFaire, meet Rosswell Carew."

The old man's frizzled gray hair, complemented by a three-day old beard of the same color, was pasted to his head with sweat. "Pleasure." His tone Rosswell took to mean, _I'm busy_. Captain LaFaire grasped Rosswell's hand, squeezing it with a working man's grip.

"Captain LaFaire," Rosswell said, "I've got some questions if you have a little time."

Captain LaFaire laughed. "I got a _little_ time."

"Ollie here asked you about the vehicles you carried across first thing Sunday morning."

"Yes, sir, he did. But it was the second crossing. Something wrong?"

Rosswell then understood that Gustave hadn't yet bothered to interview the man. A decision would have to be made whether to tell Captain LaFaire that Rosswell had reported the incident to the cops. Fairness should prevail.

"I wanted to clear up some things. I worry about little things. Insignificant things." Rosswell was sure that's what Columbo used to say.

"What's worrying you?"

"Have you remembered anything else about those four passengers?"

"Not a thing. It's been a day and a half. I carried a lot more loads since then. Besides, I don't have time to watch passengers. I watch the currents and feel the wind and taste the air."

"How long does it take to cross?"

"Depends on the wind, how high the river is, things like that. Eight or ten minutes usually. Sometimes fifteen or twenty, depending on a thousand different things you can't predict."

"Did you know any of the passengers?"

"Not a one."

"What do you do before you start the crossing?"

"Before I set out, I read the river, cataloging every wave and bobble. Home is where I'm headed every time I cross and if I cross and do it wrong, then I'm drowned and I don't go home."

"Did you hear a thump on that run?"

Captain LaFaire tapped each of his ears with a forefinger. "I hear thumps and groans and bumps every time I set out on that bitch."

"Bitch?"

"The river's a heartless bitch, waiting to drag you down to her watery bosom."

"Captain, do you write poetry?"

"I'm French-Canadian. I don't write it. I talk it."

Rosswell shook Captain LaFaire's hand. "Thank you so much for your time. Sorry if we bothered you."

"Not at all, Ross."

Rosswell rubbed a thumb on either side of his forehead. People who shortened his first name—which was actually his family name—gave Rosswell a headache.

Captain LaFaire's interest focused on Ollie. "I was telling my daughter what a nice guy you was, Albert—"

"Ollie."

"—and all about what you wanted to know. I told her what I could remember about them guys, which was not one sainted thing. She knows ever one of them."

"Where's your daughter?"

"Right there." Captain LaFaire nodded to the deckhand. "Come over here."

"Jasmine LaFaire," she said when she reached the men and stuck out her hand.

Rosswell and Ollie shook with her and introduced themselves. Her broad, flat face showed the marks of the wind and the sun. Rosswell detected a fragrance of motor oil on her. Not exactly a pleasing scent, yet not offensive either.

"Ollie," Rosswell said, "how did you miss the deck hand? Especially a beautiful young woman like this?"

"You already asked me that."

"And what was your answer?" Rosswell scowled at Ollie. "There were six people on the ferry that morning, not five."

"So sue me. I miscounted."

Jasmine laughed, displaying the teeth of a toothpaste model and the voice of a torch song singer. She pointed to a little shack on the shore. "I was in there catching up with the paper work." She pulled the sock cap off, revealing close-cropped black hair, tipped with silver. Rosswell had never understood beauty shop things but presumed that he was looking at the aftermath of a visit to one. "You have to fill out a form to get a form to find out what form you need to file. The government's driving me crazy."

Rosswell said, "Do you have some time to talk to us?"

Jasmine glanced at her watch, then observed the ferry landings on each bank. There were no vehicles waiting on either side. She shrugged, which Rosswell took as a yes.

Ollie said, "Can you tell us what happened on the second Sunday run?"

"You're a big one." Jasmine eyed Ollie from top to bottom. He straightened, smiled, and rubbed his head, waiting for her to continue. "Pops had launched right before I heard a big thump to starboard." Her brown eyes cast a long glance at Ollie's purple tattoo when he leaned forward, ostensibly to hear her better.

Ollie tapped Rosswell on the shoulder. "She means the right side." He seemed rather proud of his grasp of things nautical.

Jasmine pointed to the ferry. "That's the side where the tow is, as you can see. The ferry's basically a barge with a workboat we call a tow that pulls it across the river. When we reach the other side, the cars drive off the ramp and then the tow turns about. The bow becomes the stern and the stern becomes the bow. Port becomes starboard. Starboard becomes port."

Ollie said, "She means the back becomes—"

"I know what she means." Rosswell faced Jasmine, taking over the interrogation. "The barge—where the cars are—never turns?"

"Right."

"What happened when you heard the thump?"

"Since it was the side where Pops was, it concerned me. A big thump anywhere worries me, but I wanted to make sure the boat and Pops were okay. I ran to where Charlie was looking over the side. The other passengers ran over to see what the excitement was."

Rosswell realized that was the first name he'd heard. "Who's Charlie?"

"Charlie Heckle was the guy driving the van. The other guy with Charlie stayed inside the van. I guess he wasn't curious. He's got a scar across his face. Charlie, I mean. He told me he got it in a bar fight in Dallas."

"What caused the thump?"

"Who knows? A log hit us. A big wave. Some kind of debris. Happens all the time, but you can't brush it aside when you hear something like that. You'd hate to sink in the middle of the Mississippi River."

"Who were the other passengers besides Charlie and the guy who stayed in the van?"

"Turk Malone and Frankie Joe Acorn."

Ollie stopped scribbling notes long enough to ask, "Do you know where Turk, Charlie, and Frankie Joe live?"

"Not exactly." Jasmine tilted her head, then ran a hand through her spiky hair. "Somewhere in Sainte Gen County. I think out in the country."

"Can you describe them?"

"They all are built kind of average, about five foot nine or ten, all three have brown hair."

"Beards? Mustaches? Glasses? Scars? Anything that would make them stand out? Besides Charlie Heckle's knife fight souvenir?"

"Nope." Jasmine held up a hand. "Wait. Turk's got what he calls a beard. More like somebody swept the floor of a barber shop and stuck the hair in the dustpan on his face in random patterns."

Rosswell said, "Have you seen any of those guys before?"

"Oh, sure. Regularly."

Ollie said, "They do anything suspicious?"

"Suspicious?" Jasmine chewed on her lip for a couple of seconds. "Not that I recall. Can't say for sure. Let me think some more on that."

Ollie concentrated on Captain LaFaire, who'd stuck his hands in his pockets, rocked back and forth on his heels, and hummed. "Captain, you said you'd never seen them before."

"I ain't got a knack for faces and names like Jasmine does."

Rosswell said to Jasmine, "What did your dad do after the thump?"

"Pops kept on, like he's supposed to do. He's got to watch the currents, the clouds, check the wind, the traffic, all that stuff. He's in charge the whole time. The deck hand makes sure everything's okay on the ferry."

Captain LaFaire said, "You know how hard it is to hit that dock in the middle of a thunderstorm? The Coast Guard doesn't give away them licenses, you know."

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Jasmine thought for a few seconds. "Why all this fuss?"

Rosswell ignored her questions. "You've got quite a responsibility running this ferry." He knew he was __ going to feel like crap when the sheriff finally managed talking to Captain LaFaire and Jasmine. If Gustave told them then that Rosswell had reported a body thrown off _Grande Dame_ , Captain LaFaire and Jasmine would think Rosswell had deceived them now.

Ollie said, "Did you know the passenger in the van Charlie Heckle drove?"

"Sure," Jasmine said. "He's a regular. First showed up a couple of weeks ago and been riding once or twice a day. An Indian. Ribs Freshwater."

# Chapter 7

## Last Monday Afternoon, continued

"Holy crap!" escaped from Rosswell's lips before he could stop it. Ribs must've been following him, but why? What was the Cherokee doing here? Rosswell's heart thumped against his ribs. Deciding quickly, he said, "Captain, I need to tell you why we're asking questions."

Captain LaFaire clapped once. "You're writing an article for some tourist magazine. I could tell who you was the minute I seen you."

"Not quite." Rosswell pondered how best to break the bad news to Captain LaFaire and Jasmine. The solution was telling them, simply and quickly, like pulling a bandage off a wound. __ "I'm in Sainte Gen searching for my fiancée, Tina Parkmore. Sunday morning, I was sitting on my balcony at The Four Bee. I saw a man throw a woman overboard from your ferry. That woman looked like Tina."

Captain LaFaire stomped his foot. "No, sir, not on _Grande Dame_." He spoke the name with, as far as Rosswell could tell, a superb French pronunciation. "No one's never done nothing like that on my boat."

"Pops, let's listen to what he has to say." Jasmine stroked her father's arm, then put her arm around his waist. "Ollie, how come the cops haven't been down here?"

"Good question, the answer to which escaped and is wandering loose."

Rosswell spoke up. "The truth is I reported it to Sheriff Fribeau who doesn't believe my story."

Jasmine said, "You're a judge, yet he doesn't believe your story? Why not?"

"Captain," Rosswell said, hoping Jasmine wouldn't press the point, "if someone threw a body overboard on this side of the river, where would the current take it?"

Before Captain LaFaire could answer, Jasmine asked, "Ollie, what are you? A private detective or something?"

"Not even in my worst nightmare. I never do anything that requires regulation by the state, especially the part about carrying a badge."

Rosswell said, "Ollie's my research assistant, helping me find Tina."

Jasmine said, "Hope it wasn't her you saw."

"Me, too." Rosswell cleared his throat, determined not to choke up. "Captain LaFaire, how about the body? Where do you think it could go?"

Captain LaFaire said, "The river's up pretty high. Not flood stage yet but she's high. Flooding up north, in fact. That body could go anywhere. It might be laying on the bottom of the river. Or might could be stuck on a log a hundred feet downstream. Or floating into New Orleans right now."

Rosswell said, "Maybe we could talk the sheriff into conducting a search party."

"Wouldn't do no good," Captain LaFaire said. "That would be like looking for a huckleberry in a hurricane. Especially the first mile downstream on this side."

Ollie said, "What's wrong with the shore down there?" He indicated southward, along the riverbank.

"Nothing but half-swamp and half-forest. There's a rock cut in the bluffs that the railroad track takes and swings west, toward town. Between the railroad track and the river it's nothing but bluffs all growed up. Bunch of caves." Captain LaFaire appeared to lose interest. A patent ruse. "Except there might be one person who could tell you if there's a body."

Jasmine laid her hand on Captain LaFaire's shoulder. "Pops, don't go spreading nonsense."

Jasmine and Captain LaFaire stared at each other for a minute or two. They must've been silently rehashing a conversation they'd had many times before. Rosswell knew enough to keep his mouth shut, and Ollie followed his lead.

Eventually, Captain LaFaire said, "Won't hurt nothing."

Jasmine said, "I don't want you getting Ross's hopes up."

Ollie elbowed Rosswell in the ribs. "Don't say it."

This was the second time this had happened within the last few minutes. What Rosswell wanted to say was, _It's Rosswell, a family name, from way back. It's not a first name. There's no abbreviation._ Ollie stopped him in time. Still, Rosswell knew his Scottish ancestors would be horrified to hear Jasmine kicking around the sacred surname.

Instead of putting his foot in his mouth, Rosswell asked, "Jasmine, what is Pops not supposed to tell us?"

Captain LaFaire answered the question. "Maman Fribeau."

Ollie said, "Fribeau? As in Sheriff Gustave Fribeau?"

Captain LaFaire said, "It's the sheriff's auntie. Maybe great-auntie. No one knows her real age."

Jasmine groaned. "She's an old woman who's more than half crazy."

"Pay no never mind to my daughter," Captain LaFaire said. "Maman sees everything on the river. She sees things no one else can. She lives in The Trackless Waste." He unfolded a forefinger, more bone than flesh, aiming it and his gaze south.

Jasmine said, "Trackless Waste, my little left foot. It's a bunch of trees."

Ollie said, "How do we find her?"

"You don't," Captain LaFaire said. "Unless you go see Lazar Fribeau. That's Maman's brother."

Rosswell had fallen into a game of twenty questions. "And how do we find Lazar Fribeau?" Finding someone in this place involved playing with a system similar to those Russian nesting dolls Rosswell had seen. Take the lid off a big doll and inside nestled a smaller doll. Take the lid off the smaller doll and there was another doll even smaller. And so on. The last doll, most times a newborn baby doll, was the prize.

Captain LaFaire scratched at a scab on his hand, mulling over the question for a few moments. "Stand on the courthouse square. Stop someone and ask for Lazar. If the person you stop is a native, after you do that three or four times, Lazar will find you. Guaranteed."

"No one knows where he lives?"

Captain LaFaire said, "We sure don't know where he lives. And don't want to."

Ollie's eyes widened and he held up a finger in an _aha!_ gesture. "The old six degrees of separation trick."

Captain LaFaire said, "Never heard of it."

"Everyone on Earth is about six introductions from getting to know any other person."

Captain LaFaire squinted and curled his lip. "Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me. I'd like to meet the King of Siberia but I don't reckon that'll happen no matter how many people I ask."

Jasmine said to Ollie, "Come back and let me know what you find out. We can talk about your tattoo. I love it."

Rosswell kept his peace, but couldn't help noticing that Jasmine was hitting on Ollie. He ran their names through his mind, the beginning of an old childhood taunt forming.

Ollie and Jasmine, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

##

Rosswell contemplated the ferry crossing the river to fetch a passenger on the Illinois side. Without losing view of the water, he asked Ollie, "What the hell is Ribs Freshwater doing up here?"

"Killing people."

"If Ribs is in Sainte Genevieve County, then there's a good chance that Nathaniel is here also."

"Probably not. Nathaniel's tall, real white, and has orange hair. Jasmine would've noticed him. And she didn't mention anything about a guy who looked like that."

"She likes you."

"Who likes me?"

"Jasmine was fixing to jump your bones in front of Pops."

"Too skinny for my taste." Ollie picked at an invisible thread on his shirt.

"Pops is not skinny."

"You're very funny, Judge Carew. Maybe you should take your show on the road."

"Jasmine was wearing overalls. You couldn't tell if she was skinny or not. I thought she was rather pleasant-looking."

"That watch cap made her look like a Canadian. Who in their right mind tries to make himself look like a Canadian?"

"Herself." Rosswell aimed a thumb in the direction of the departing ferry. "Besides, she _is_ Canadian a few generations past."

"Before you get too entangled with my love life, let's find Turk Malone and Frankie Joe Acorn."

"Let's talk to Maman Fribeau first."

"Turk and Frankie Joe are suspects, too. Those guys were on the boat when the murder happened."

"Murder? What murder? Are you calling it murder?" Rosswell's heart began its trip-hammer routine again. He couldn't think about the word "murder" and Tina in the same sentence.

"If you really did see a woman thrown off the boat, those boys may know something useful."

"Okay, you're the research assistant. After we finish with those two, we'll see Maman, then chase down Ribs with a big ponytail and Charlie with a big face scar."

Tina recaptured Rosswell's thoughts. He wouldn't know what to do if he was the one who found the body in the river. What if it was Tina's body? He wondered if he should shoot himself when he found her body, or wait until after her funeral. Would he shoot himself in the courthouse square or sneak off to a secluded location? What was the protocol for suicide in a case like this?

Ollie's voice broke through his morbid thoughts. "Besides, we could get chomped on by chiggers, eaten by mosquitoes, and bit by snakes if we dare go see the witchy woman down in The Trackless Waste. That would end our careers as amateur sleuths." Ollie continued blathering until Roswell interrupted.

"Wait. Snakes?" Rosswell avoided snakes if at all possible. The thought of slithering reptiles brought him back into the conversation. "What kind of snakes?" He wasn't maniacally afraid of serpents although he didn't seek them out. Stir chiggers and mosquitoes into the mix, and Rosswell thought that maybe Ollie could go see Maman by himself. Then he could file a report with Rosswell later. "I hate bugs of all kinds. And I'm allergic to snake venom."

"Allergic?"

"If a poisonous snake bites me, I break out in death."

"Judge, you faced down a serial killer and now you're afraid of snakes? Fraidy cat, fraidy cat, ate so much, your head's too fat."

"Serial killer? You're talking about the father of your grandchild. And I'm not a fraidy cat."

Snakes, chiggers, and mosquitoes were the _best_ things they would run across in The Trackless Waste. And as far as being a fraidy cat? Rosswell admitted to himself that he was a fracking scared crapless bunny rabbit when it came to wild critters. Or wild humans.

# Chapter 8

## Last Monday Afternoon, continued

Turk Malone inhabited a log house at the end of Red Duck Cutoff, a twisting road that switched back and forth up the side of a steep hill.

Lawnmowers, Rosswell noted, must be scarce in the area, not to mention weed trimmers. The inside of every window was covered with aluminum foil. And not the plain kind. Instead, it was the fancy quilted kind. The afternoon sun transformed the panes to gold. An American flag hung on a pole wired to a broken gate. An old Harley-Davidson, a rusty Ford pickup, a brand-new Mustang, a questionable Plymouth Fury, and a dented Malibu decorated the yard. The pickup truck was covered with bumper stickers: _What Would Nixon Do? I brake for horny toads. Don't Like My Smoking? Don't Breathe! Jesus is Coming Soon—Stash Your Porn_.

There was also a new white GMC pickup. Ollie nodded when Rosswell called attention to it. "If that's not the one on the ferry, then it's a twin." He checked his watch and then rapped on the front door. "Four o'clock. Write that in your notebook."

"My report isn't chronological. It's by subject matter. It's more of a conceptual rather than a linear report."

"Listen—" Before Rosswell could finish the argument, someone eased open the door a crack.

"Yeah?" Female voice. The marijuana smoke drifted out, tickling Rosswell's supersensitive nose. The pot smelled like a skunk burning in an alfalfa hay bale. According to a street legend Rosswell had heard, the odor meant that it was strong crap. Rosswell smacked his lips a few times to dilute the taste in his mouth. Then another smell. Ammonia. Either the cat box needed emptying a month ago or someone was cooking meth. Smelled like the back wing of Satan.

Rosswell said, "Is Turk in?"

"He's asleep."

Rosswell thought it was more like passed out.

"This won't take long."

From the back of the house, Rosswell heard a male voice. "Is it the Schwan's man?"

Before the female voice could reply, Ollie yelled into the house, "I've got a special on brownies this week."

Presently, a semi-bearded man, skinny, not as tall as Ollie, jerked the door wide open. "Y'all ain't the Schwan's man." Turk's low-slung jeans threatened to slide down his legs, saved only by his lanky hips. No shirt and no shoes. He scratched the thick hair on his chest, which was healthier than his scraggly beard. A toothbrush and Turk's green teeth were strangers. The female companion must've hidden behind the door because Rosswell couldn't see her. She had sounded naked.

Rosswell said, "Turk, could we talk to you a minute?"

"No." The door slammed shut. The woman inside laughed.

Rosswell knocked again. And again it opened a crack and the woman said, "He's sleeping."

Rosswell waved a twenty-dollar bill in front of the door. "See if this will wake him up."

Turk opened the door fully and grabbed the money. "What do you want?" He hopped outside and slammed the door.

Ollie patted Rosswell's shoulder. "My friend here is looking for Ribs Freshwater."

Turk said, "Who?"

Rosswell fell into Ollie's interrogation rhythm quickly. They'd played this game before. "Ribs was on the ferry with you on Sunday. He's Cherokee."

"Didn't see no foreigners."

Rosswell and Ollie exchanged glances. Rosswell gave a slight shake of his head, hoping Ollie wouldn't pounce on the dense Turk. Instead of remarking on Turk's stupidity, Ollie scribbled a few lines in his notebook.

"Turk," Rosswell said, "did anything odd or unusual happen on the ferry?"

Turk folded the twenty and stuffed it into a back pocket. "Nope." He scratched his beard. "Wait a minute." Turk's face morphed into a mask of pain, as if thinking hurt his brain. "Yeah, something happened. A noise."

"What?" Ollie said.

After Turk hadn't spoken for a few moments, Rosswell prompted, "Do you remember? About the noise?"

"Oh. Yeah. There was a big noise."

Rosswell said, "Tell us about the noise."

Ollie said, "The big noise."

"Sounded like the boat run over something. The deck hand—what's her name—said the transmission had been acting up."

Rosswell tried again. "Was a Native American on the ferry?"

"Indian? Might've been. I mean, I seen him driving a white van, but he never come over to see what the noise was. Didn't get to inspect him up close."

Ollie said, "Tell us more about the noise. How did that happen?"

"Me and this guy was standing by the side of the boat and he said, 'What the hell was that big noise?' I looked around but didn't see nothing."

Rosswell continued the questioning. "Was the guy you were talking to named Charlie Heckle? Guy with a big scar on his face?"

"Don't know. I never seen the guy before. Didn't see no scar."

"What were you talking about?"

"Let's see." Turk scratched his chest. "Fishing. Yeah, fishing. Lots of catfish in the river. Big sons of bitches."

"Frankie Joe Acorn. You know him?"

"Kinda. We ride the ferry ever little bit. I do some work in Illinois ever once in a while. So does Frankie Joe."

"What kind of work do you do in Illinois?"

"Stuff. Some stuff. Different stuff."

"What kind of work does Frankie Joe do in Illinois?"

"Same as me."

Ollie broke into the interrogation. "Are you sure you don't know Ribs Freshwater?"

Turk slid his hand in the back pocket of his jeans where he'd earlier stuck the money. After a couple of seconds, he said, "Don't guess I know him neither. Don't know no Charlie Heckle and don't know no Indian and don't know no Ribs Freshwater and don't know no guy with a big scar and don't know no foreigners from Cherokee. Am I supposed to?"

Rosswell said, "No."

Turk said, "Who are you guys?"

"I'm Rosswell Carew and this is Ollie Groton."

"You must be cops."

Ollie said, "No, we're not cops. We're not private eyes. We're a couple of friends looking for Ribs."

"Am I in trouble?"

Rosswell shook his head. "Not for anything that I know about."

Ollie said, "Have you lived around here very long?"

"All my life. Why?"

"Curious. That's all."

"Thanks." Rosswell offered his hand to Turk. "We appreciate your help." Turk's handshake was limp. Like his brain.

Ollie shook with Turk. "Yes, we appreciate your help."

Turk nodded, then slipped through the door and shut it. His female companion said, "Did they ask about the white man?"

"No."

"Let me see that money."

##

Driving back to town in Rosswell's truck, Ollie broke the silence. "That guy looked awful. Like Charles Manson on a good day."

"A mullet would improve his appearance."

"He lied. About everything."

"Not everything. We aren't the Schwan's guys."

"But why? I mean his lying."

Rosswell pulled into a gas station. "I can think of a couple of reasons. The best one is that he's stupid from all the dope he's smoked. Or snorted. Or shot up."

"Another easy answer is that he usually lies to anyone he talks to, especially anyone who might be in authority."

"We told him we weren't cops or detectives."

"And he didn't believe us."

"Ollie, think of another reason."

"He's in on the murder."

"What about all those vehicles parked in front of Turk's house?"

Ollie leafed through the notebook. "What about them?"

"Maybe there were a lot more people in that house than Turk and his woman."

"Could be. Or maybe Turk and his girlfriend own them all." Ollie scribbled in his notebook. "I'll let you know when I check those tags." He nodded at the gas pump. "Fill it up and take me back to the restaurant. It's supper time."

##

Rosswell picked up a takeout fried chicken meal from Mabel since he'd told Mrs. Bolzoni to skip his supper.

_I'm missing the beef braciole._ The braciole was Mrs. Bolzoni's specialty. Neapolitan rolls of beef stuffed with raisins, pine nuts, garlic, parsley, and cheese. _Yummy._ Rosswell's mouth watered at the thought of the dish cooked in tomato sauce, which was then used to season pasta. In Naples, it was a Sunday dish. In Ste. Genevieve, it was a Monday dish. None of the guests at The Four Bee who followed the rules ever went hungry. Rosswell had managed to circumvent the "no reservation, no meal" rule once. Twice, no way.

A block from The Four Bee, Rosswell detected a white van parked on the street in front of the bed and breakfast. Mrs. Bolzoni stood talking at the driver's door. The driver's features weren't visible. Keeping the scene in view, Rosswell drove to a side street and parked. Although he didn't have his binoculars, he was able to read the tag on the van. Rosswell vowed to keep his field glasses in his car from then on. He wrote the license plate number on a slip of paper, stuck it in his pocket, and tried to appear inconspicuous. In a tourist town residents pay little attention to strangers.

After a few minutes of conversation, Mrs. Bolzoni waved good-bye to the driver, who eased down the street, ostensibly in no hurry. Remembering what Ollie had told him about the number of white vans in the area, Rosswell realized that the vehicle could be irrelevant to his hunt. But maybe it was the same van that he'd seen on the ferry.

When the vehicle drove past the intersection, Rosswell's stomach clamped when he spotted orange hair.

Nathaniel Dahlbert.

Rosswell, his heart performing its thumping routine again, followed at what he hoped was a safe distance. Nathaniel wouldn't recognize him in an old black truck. If Rosswell were in his beloved Vicky, Nathaniel would spot the bright orange VW convertible in half a heartbeat.

This is the guy with rusty hair.

What had Nathaniel and Mrs. Bolzoni been chatting about? The conversation had appeared neutral if not downright neighborly. He couldn't clearly see Nathaniel's face. Mrs. Bolzoni laughed and smiled as she gestured with her hands. She didn't double as a dope pusher although Rosswell had witnessed stranger things in his many years on the bench. For now, it was best not to ask her any questions about the strange man.

Nathaniel turned north and, about a mile out of town drove up a driveway onto a bluff where a huge mansion stood. The sign said _River Heights Villa_.

Johnny Dan Dumey, Ribs Freshwater, and Nathaniel Dahlbert had been connected in a dope pushing scheme in Bollinger County. The problem was Rosswell couldn't prove it. Now what were Ribs and Nathaniel up to? Was the white van that Nathaniel drove the same one that Charlie had driven onto the ferry? Were all three of them hooked together in a devilish murder scheme? Or kidnapping scheme? There was no evidence to carry to Gustave Fribeau. Without concrete evidence, the sheriff wouldn't welcome Rosswell. Gustave graded Rosswell's detecting ability as lower than a worm's belly.

Rosswell turned onto a gravel road and traveled an alternate way to The Four Bee where he'd add another item to Ollie's research list. Once inside his room, he called Jim Bill. "Did you get the file I emailed you?" When the fire marshal assured him that he'd received it, Rosswell said, "I've got more information."

##

After the phone conversation, Rosswell wrote for forty-five minutes in his journal. He'd spent uncounted hours logging tons of information into the book. It was not a mere journal, but a _casebook_. __ The threads of the mystery grew stronger and more tangled. If Rosswell could unravel the stringy mass from the information residing in his brain and his casebook, he would find his way to Tina.

He prayed he didn't find her in a grave.

# Chapter 9

## Last Tuesday Morning

Checking out Frankie Joe Acorn rose to the top of Rosswell's to-do list when he recessed court at 10:00 AM the next day. He and Ollie headed up Interstate 55 a few miles to Bloomsdale. On the way, Rosswell detailed his near encounter with Nathaniel the night before.

They exited the Interstate onto a state road that led to a county blacktop that led to a gravel road. Ollie had researched where Frankie Joe lived and told Rosswell which trailer in Seven Pines Mobile Home Park was his.

"The green one over there." Ollie leveled a finger wide as a sausage at a vinyl-sided doublewide. "The one with the black shutters and the garden gnomes—eighteen of those stupid things."

"Must've had a sale." Rosswell jutted his chin toward a vehicle in the driveway. "There's the white SUV. Or one like it."

"Someone who puts that many garden gnomes in a yard is plum goofy."

The Chrysler Aspen parked out front appeared freshly washed. The shine from the wax job glared to the point of giving Rosswell a headache. No other vehicles on the place. Flowers bloomed in a neat foot-wide garden skirting the outside of the entire trailer. A sprinkler watered a newly planted maple tree, giving battle against the heat and the drought.

"Nice ride," said Ollie, noting the tag number of the SUV. The notebook was rapidly filling with information.

A young woman with black hair opened the door when Ollie knocked. "Is Frankie Joe around?"

"No." The woman, decked out in black slacks, black shoes, and a black short-sleeved shirt, offered nothing more.

"When will he be back?"

Rosswell admired her hair. "We really need to talk to him. Is he working somewhere?" _That hairdo must've cost a bundle down at the local beauty salon._ A big-hair girl from 1980. Her makeup appeared to have been poured on. The woman, not the man, Rosswell thought, kept the trailer, the SUV, and herself sparkling. Pride of ownership.

She pursed her blood-red lips. "He didn't commit a murder."

Rosswell quashed the look of surprise aching to decorate his face. "Ma'am, what's your name?"

She started to close the door.

"Wait," Ollie said. "Murder? What murder?"

The woman stopped before the door shut. "Frankie Joe is a hard worker. He doesn't smoke or drink and he sure doesn't do dope."

Rosswell stepped closer to the door. "Did someone accuse Frankie Joe of murder?" She hesitated long enough for him to take a chance. "We want to help Frankie Joe, not hurt him."

Ollie moved up next to Rosswell. "That's right. If someone's accusing him of murder, we need to know about it."

"Who are you two?"

Rosswell made the introductions. The woman stared at Ollie for a long time before she said anything. Maybe she was trying to decide if Ollie was a violent weirdo or only a weirdo who looked violent.

"I'm Susannah Acorn, Frankie Joe's wife. Come in." She opened the door wide.

A vanilla-scented candle burned on the kitchen island. The linoleum floor shined. The dark red carpeting smelled of scented baking soda. A huge landscape painting of a forest sunrise hung over a muted green couch covered with small pillows of various pastel shades. Two tapestries, medieval-looking, guarded each side of the painting. Small statues of deer, dogs, cats, and various other animals covered every flat surface in the trailer. The kitchen area sported a multitude of canisters, knife racks, and revolving pedestals loaded down with spoons and spices. There was no evidence of any children or pets.

Ollie said, "I'll bet it takes you a long time to dust."

"I like a clean house."

Rosswell made a mental note to ask Ollie to brush up on his manners. "Ollie sometimes has trouble appreciating the finer things in life. Please excuse him."

Susannah motioned them to sit and they did. She remained standing.

"What do you need to ask Frankie Joe?"

Rosswell explained what he'd seen on the ferry Sunday morning. When he finished, he asked her, "Did someone accuse Frankie Joe of murder?"

Susannah sniffed. "Turk came by late last night. Woke us up."

Ollie said, "Turk Malone?"

She nodded. "He said someone had come by his place and accused him and Frankie Joe of murder while they were riding the ferry."

Rosswell said, "Day before yesterday?"

She nodded again. "Sunday morning."

Ollie said, "Did Turk say who accused them?"

Her eyes widened. "It wasn't you all?"

Rosswell said, "No. We talked to Turk, but we never accused him or anyone else of murder. We don't even know if someone actually got killed. We're asking questions because we're searching for someone. It's important."

"I didn't let Turk in the house." Susannah glanced at the front door. "He was stoned. Turk thinks he and Frankie Joe are friends because they happen to ride the ferry together sometimes. Frankie Joe can't stand Turk. He says Turk is nasty."

It was Rosswell's turn to nod. "I don't disagree with that."

Ollie said, "Turk must've been a bit confused. No one accused him of murder that we know about."

"Confused is right," Susannah said. "Turk smokes dope and cooks meth."

Rosswell said, "I believe you."

Ollie picked up a ceramic skunk and examined it. "How long have you and Frankie Joe been married?" He set the skunk between a rabbit and a bear.

"Since we graduated from high school, four years ago."

Rosswell said, "Are you both from around here?"

"Yes."

Rosswell said, "Do you mind if I ask your maiden name?"

"Fribeau."

"As in Sheriff Gustave Fribeau?"

Susannah's mouth curved upward. "As in Sheriff Gustave Fribeau's daughter."

##

During lunch at Mabel's, after they discussed striking out with Susannah Acorn, Ollie gave Rosswell the Charlie Heckle report.

"It's like the guy doesn't exist." Ollie leafed through his notebook. "I spelled the name every way I could think of and didn't get hit one. I also asked around town. No one remembers seeing a white guy with a scar on his face much less someone named Charlie Heckle."

"If he's hooked up with Ribs and Nathaniel, that's not even his real name."

"Thought of that, too. If he's using an alias, he's going to be harder to find."

After they finished eating, Rosswell and Ollie trooped around the courthouse square. Every time they ran across someone who wasn't dressed in shorts and a loud shirt and wasn't carrying a camera as a fashion accessory, they'd ask for Lazar Fribeau, as Captain LaFaire had instructed them. Every response was polite but disinterested. A few of the locals claimed they'd never heard of the man, insisting that Rosswell and Ollie must be thinking of Sheriff Gustave Fribeau.

Rosswell checked his watch. "Three o'clock. I think Captain LaFaire sent us on a snipe hunt."

"We've been taken like a blind man at a silent auction."

They gave up the hunt and headed for the restaurant. When they got close, Rosswell breathed deeply, sucking in the aroma of the prime rib special. His mouth watered and his nose delighted in the scent.

After they passed the French-Canadian museum, a gravelly voice vibrated behind them. "You boys trying to find Lazar Fribeau, him?"

When they whipped around, an old man crooked a skeletal finger, motioning them to follow. Without a sound, he meandered into an alley built with irregular red bricks. The man's deep blue eyes reminded Rosswell of dark crystals. Rosswell and Ollie followed him into the space between two ancient structures where the sun disappeared in the shadows of the buildings. The stench of urine assaulted Rosswell's nose, making him grateful that he hadn't fallen face down when he tripped over one of the lopsided bricks.

The old man's coveralls were brand new Carhartts. _Those don't come cheap_. Over the prevailing body waste odors, Rosswell detected a scent of pine soap on the man. His khaki chambray shirt had creases ironed into it. A John Deere ball cap covered with fishing lures completed his ensemble. _Country chic._

"What you boys want with Lazar Fribeau, him?"

Rosswell said, "Him what?"

Ollie whispered to Rosswell, "Shut up and let me handle this." Ollie moved close to the man. "We need to see Maman."

"You smell like the law."

Rosswell said, "How can you smell anything but piss back here?" He pinched his nose, then coughed. Ollie shot Rosswell a glare that could've melted the polar ice cap. Rosswell remained silent.

"He _is_ the law." Ollie stepped in the general direction of Rosswell. "He's a judge. And he saw something on the river Sunday morning. Maman knows everything that goes on out there on the water."

"What's he see, him?"

Ollie remained firm. "We need to talk to Maman. But we need your help, Lazar."

"Who you calling Lazar?"

Ollie didn't answer the question, but instead repeated, "We need to talk to Maman."

"Don't know no one named no Maman, her."

Ollie peered up, then down the alley. No one else was within sight. He leaned in close to the geezer. "What's it take to see Maman?"

"Don't know nobody named Maman."

Rosswell started to speak, but before any words came out, Ollie clamped his hand over Rosswell's open mouth. He nodded, kept shut, and Ollie removed his hand.

Ollie said, "Silver or gold?"

The old man pulled off his cap and evaluated a couple of the lures. He finger combed his thin white hair, presumably allowing Ollie's question to float around in his brain. Rosswell knew they were dancing, but only Ollie and the other guy heard the tune and stepped the steps.

After a leisurely examination of the lures, which included caressing every one of them, the old guy answered, "In that case, I hear she likes silver today." Settling the cap back on his head, he assumed the air of a French patriarch. "Silver." His blue-eyed stare riveted Ollie.

Ollie didn't hesitate. "She might like silver, but I need you to tell me your name."

"You said you looking for Lazar Fribeau? You found him." Two thumbs touched his heart. "Proud for it, me."

"Where should we meet you?"

Rosswell wanted to ask, _What do you mean meet him? He's standing right here._ But he kept quiet. He really didn't want Ollie's hand touching his mouth again.

"Here be okay. Tomorrow same time."

Lazar gravitated out of the alley into the crowd where he blended the same way a deer assumes invisibility when it bounds into the forest. Rosswell started after him but Ollie grabbed his arm.

"Stay here," Ollie said.

"What in the hell did I witness?"

"Not many of those old Cajuns around anymore, but if you want to get along with them, you have to play their game."

"Cajuns? I thought Cajuns were in Louisiana."

"Don't you know your history? There were hundreds of Acadians—that's where the term Cajuns comes from—who came down here from Canada before this area was bought by the United States. This territory _was_ Louisiana."

"Ah...well...of course, I remember hearing about that Louisiana Purchase deal. I didn't know there were actual Cajuns still living here."

"You forget Audubon? One of Sainte Gen's most famous residents was the greatest bird watcher of all times. And he didn't have Nikon binoculars. He painted all kinds of birds. Without, I might add, the aid of a camera."

Rosswell cursed himself for letting Ollie slip in that bit of trivia. "You got me bad." Paybacks, as they say, are indeed hell. "Now where do we go?"

"We go find silver."

Rosswell chewed on a couple of Lone Ranger jokes but discarded them.

They wound down a side street to one of the ubiquitous antique shops, a vertical wooden post structure. The hand-painted sign above the wide porch, which ran along the front of the shop, read _Discovered Treasures_. Numerous rocking chairs beckoned the tourists to sit a spell and enjoy the ambience. An old-fashioned bell on a spring rang when Ollie opened the screen door. Inside, a woman said, "Ollie, good to see you. How's it going?"

"Better than I deserve."

Discovered Treasures smelled of dusty stuff. The store was more of a second-hand emporium than an antique shop. Chairs of all sizes and shapes were stacked against one wall. Three sofas surrounded end tables of every description. Stacks of dinner plates, cups, saucers, and drinking glasses covered two tables. Books and magazines had been stuffed in every available place. Puddles of darkness lay in places where the sun couldn't penetrate.

"Excellent, in fact." Ollie surveyed the inside of the shop. "Things are going excellent." Rosswell couldn't see anyone else. Ollie said to the woman, "We need to go in back."

She nodded, glanced around. "Nobody's here but me." She gestured toward the rear of the shop. "Let's go on back."

With Rosswell and the woman following, Ollie walked to the back of the shop where he moved a chair and several boxes from in front of a door, opened it, and went through.

Rosswell said, "Is this another Cajun thing we have to do?"

The woman laughed. "No. IRS thing."

Ollie said, "They really don't like all those taxes—"

"Stop." Rosswell threw up his palm. "If I don't know something, I'm not responsible for it."

"He's real picky about staying on the right side of the law," Ollie said to the woman. "But sometimes he dances on the line."

# Chapter 10

## Last Tuesday Afternoon

With the business at Discovered Treasures concluded, Rosswell begged off any further investigation in Ste. Genevieve, telling Ollie, "I've got to run over to Farmington."

Ollie hoofed a heel-and-toe tap dance step on the sidewalk. "Let's hit it."

The sun had scared away any clouds. The heat and humidity rankled Rosswell.

"There's no _us_ involved here. I'm going over to Number Four. Stay here and help Mabel or something." Rosswell didn't want Ollie around. It would be hard enough for a judge to scrape up information, much less an ex-con. "Tomorrow will be the day for _us_ stuff."

Ollie pointed to the huge canvas tote bag Rosswell had bought at the antique shop. "Don't leave the loot behind tomorrow."

"Don't forget to help Mabel today."

##

Rosswell parked in front of the visitors' reception area at Eastern Ozarks Mental Health Center, a one-story red brick building with a flat roof. "I'll bet that sucker leaks," __ he said to himself. Whoever decided to put flat roofs on mental health buildings in a place that averaged forty inches of rain a year needed their head examined. Although with the dry weather turning to drought, Mother Nature would be in a pinch to squeeze out forty inches of rain this year.

A large sign on the street commanded: ALL VISITORS MUST REPORT. Close to the front door, __ a gardener attacked the soil around drooping rose bushes that appeared on the verge of death. The dark worker was a short man, wearing a straw hat beaten nearly beyond recognition. Disturbing the soil lifted a peculiar odor into the air—sour, like the dirt had turned bad. Rosswell's grandmother would've said the soil had _gone_ _blinky_.

The man's face hardened when he stooped to inspect the flowers. The problem was plain. Not enough water and too much heat. Around the man's neck, Rosswell noted a familiar-looking black braid necklace with a small golden star. The gardener's nametag— _Nicolas Rodriguez_ —was pinned to his shirt.

"Mr. Rodriguez, I think you're fighting a losing battle."

Nicolas groaned. "I tried telling the big bosses that I can't make this stuff live if they short me on mulch, fertilizer, and water." The cadence, rhythm, and pronunciation in his speech bewildered Rosswell. He'd assumed the gardener was Mexican, but the man was speaking with a perfect Southern accent. "Water rationing sucks big time when you're trying to keep roses alive."

"There is a drought." Rosswell sniffed the flowers. The roses smelled brown. "And what did the bosses say when you explained the laws of nature to them?"

"They said they're working on people, not plants. They say they're trying to fix people so they can live in the real world. I said to them that if you can't treasure beauty, then you can't love people. How can you live in the real world without beauty?"

Rosswell inspected the plants more closely. "That's a question I've asked myself a lot the last few months." He straightened, abandoning the roses, knowing they were beyond help. "Do you work here full time?"

"Contract. You want to see my best work? Go see the garden between the Catholic school and the Lutheran school down on Sainte Genevieve's Road. They cooperate and I show the kids how to make the ground sprout beautiful things. Those kids love God. That's why they make God's earth beautiful."

"Admirable. Could I show you something?"

"What do you want to show me?" Nicolas spoke in what Rosswell interpreted as a cautious tone.

"Have you seen this woman?" Rosswell displayed several pictures of Tina on his phone.

Nicolas squinted at the small screen, then shaded it with his hand. "Who is she?"

Rosswell tapped the first photo. "That woman is my fiancée."

Nicolas deliberated on each photograph, then, when he finished, perused them again. "I don't think I've ever seen her. What is your fiancée's name?"

"Tina Parkmore. We were fixing to get married, but she's gone missing and I can't find her."

"Pretty. Too bad it didn't work out."

"I am going to marry her. I obviously need to find her first."

"Good luck. Sorry I can't help."

Rosswell, seeing no one else around, plunged ahead, hoping to find even a tidbit of information. "Do you know Sheriff Gustave Fribeau from Sainte Genevieve County?"

"Many sheriffs come here. Deputies, too. And city cops. None of them is happy. They bring people who need help and the law officers know that no one can help the sick people. It's too hard to bring the people back to the real world when their mind has left them."

Rosswell wondered what the man was hiding. He sounded damned intelligent for a gardener. Because Nicolas hadn't answered his question, Rosswell handed him a business card. "If you see Tina, please give me a call."

"Judge Rosswell Carew." Nicolas nodded at the card. "I must brag on myself. In Mexico, the gardens I created were the most beautiful in the country. When I took my oath of citizenship in Saint Louis at the Old Courthouse down by the Arch, you know what I promised myself that day?"

"Tell me what you promised yourself."

"That I would make a garden here more beautiful than any garden I ever made in Mexico. The Catholic and Lutheran children helped me make that most beautiful garden. But the bosses who want to fix people won't help me make a beautiful garden."

"One more question, Mr. Rodriguez."

"Ask it, Judge Carew."

"If you're from Mexico, why do you speak English with a Southern accent?"

Nicolas laughed. "I learned my English when my parents worked as migrants in Kennett, Missouri. When I grew up, I wanted to come back to Missouri, and here I am."

##

Inside, Rosswell was greeted by a guard in a brown uniform who asked, "Who are you here to see?"

To Rosswell, the man resembled a priest of a New Age cult, squatted as he was behind a large lectern, a canister light in the ceiling shining down on him, soft elevator music playing from a hidden system. The air was redolent with Pine-Sol or Lysol or some other _sol_ cleaner. Lights flashed on an elaborate system built into the lectern. Some kind of a switchboard? A video monitor had five different views around the building's inside and a sixth flashing on various areas of the parking lot. The guard's fingers touched the keys of a black keyboard hooked to a terminal.

"I need to talk to the director."

The guard typed on the keyboard for a few seconds. "She's not here." With his right hand, he clutched a wireless mouse.

"Do you know when she'll be back?"

The guard clicked more keys, moved the mouse, frowned, then repeated all three actions twice more. Without moving his eyes from the screen, he picked up a small cookie from a brown napkin. "Doesn't really say." He stuffed the cookie into his mouth. A couple more keystrokes. He wiped his mouth and a few crumbs fell on the keyboard. Eventually he swallowed enough to answer. "But it could be tomorrow."

"Here's my contact info." Rosswell wrote on his business card. "My cell number's on there also. All I need are a couple of answers for research I'm doing."

"Research?" The guard picked up the card, holding the top and bottom between his thumb and forefinger, on alert in case the cardboard tried to bite him.

"Yes, research. I'm writing a law review article on the open records statute."

"Thank you, Judge."

"I need to talk to the director."

"Yeah. Got it." The guard slipped the card under the steel clip of a clipboard. "I'll be sure she gets this."

When the exit door wheezed shut behind him, Rosswell decided he could've gotten more help and fewer cookie crumbs from a Walmart greeter.

##

Outside, a small man wearing a buzz cut and a diamond in his right earlobe consulted with Nicolas over the rose bushes.

"Philbert?" Rosswell strode up to the CPA. "You mean they let auditors out in the sunlight?" They shook hands. Philbert wore the same kind of necklace as Nicolas. No wonder it looked familiar. Were the necklaces some kind of new fad? Most of popular culture was lost on Rosswell. He vowed to watch MTV and pick up the latest issue of _Rolling Stone_ to find out what the jewelry denoted.

Philbert said, "I've got to check everything. I'm supposed to talk to every single employee."

"Why doesn't the state send its own auditors?"

"We're auditing for the feds. They don't trust the state and the state doesn't trust them. Real cozy. As long as my paycheck clears, I don't ask questions."

"Our tax dollars at work." Rosswell indicated the gardener. "I chatted with Nicolas a few minutes ago. Nicolas says he's not getting enough supplies to keep up the landscaping."

Nicolas said, "That's right, Judge, you tell him."

"Hey, I surrender." Philbert held both palms up. "But you're talking to the wrong guy. All I do is audit, not give out the money."

Philbert and Nicolas kept silent then, staring at each other. Rosswell hurried to fill the silence. "Sorry. Did I interrupt something? I was heading for my car." All that auditing stuff had to be private and he was intruding.

Rosswell had started down the sidewalk toward the parking lot when Nicolas grabbed him by his sleeve.

"Let's go to the tool shed," Nicolas said to Philbert and Rosswell.

Inside the shed, Philbert pointed to the gardener. "Nicolas and I have been doing a lot of talking since I've been here."

Nicolas nodded. "Somebody needs to hear about this. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's something. But I have a conscience." He moved behind his tool bench where every item stood at attention, like a soldier in formation.

Rosswell said, "And?"

Nicolas rearranged a few tools. "I'm sorry, Judge. I didn't know you when you first talked to me. Philbert says you're a good guy and he kind of—"

Philbert interrupted. "I checked you out after we went fishing last Sunday."

"Checked me out? Why would you investigate me? Isn't that strange for an auditor to be checking out people? And how did you do it?"

Philbert grinned. "I know lots of people. Some of them asked me to check you out. Leave it at that."

"I don't like that answer."

"It's the only answer I've got."

"Any arrest warrants for me?" Rosswell asked only half-facetiously. Maybe someone was after him for practicing private investigation without a license. But who would be so interested in him that they'd want a CPA to check him out? Maybe his tax return was screwed up. Again.

Nicolas said, "Philbert says I need to tell you what I told him."

"Which is what?"

"I didn't see your Tina. But I've seen Gustave bring girls here. And they all look like your friend."

"How many?" Rosswell prevented himself from gasping or otherwise making some kind of stupid amateur sleuth noise. "Lots of girls?"

"Couple." Nicolas grasped a hoe and began honing it on a grindstone. "I'm not here all the time. I have many other clients. But I saw only two."

"And you're sure it was Sheriff Gustave Fribeau from Sainte Genevieve County you saw?"

"He's the only cop who chews black cigars. He spits bits and pieces out on my garden." Nicolas eyeballed the hoe's blade, then commenced sharpening again. "I have to clean them up."

"That's him. Philbert, have you seen him here? Or anyone else who looks like Tina?"

"No." Philbert twisted the earlobe diamond. "To both questions."

Rosswell handed each of them a card. "Call me if you see something else I'd be interested in."

Nicolas said, "I hope your memory improves. You already gave me a card."

# Chapter 11

## Last Wednesday Morning

Rosswell, lugging the tote bag he'd bought at Discovered Treasures, met Ollie in front of the restaurant. They traipsed toward the alley off the courthouse square.

"Let me tell you what happened in Farmington yesterday afternoon." Rosswell blessed Ollie with the events of Tuesday at the mental hospital.

"You're thinking that Gustave has a number of females he commits to the mental hospital. And they all look like Tina. Strange. Were there a lot of them?"

"Nicolas was a tad vague on the exact number of women Gustave has committed. One or two is a lot as far as I'm concerned." Rosswell inventoried the contents of the tote bag. "The law says that everyone who gets thrown in a mental health hospital for observation gets a lawyer within three hours. And if they stay more than ninety-six hours, they get a hearing before a judge."

"You think these commitments are legitimate?"

"I don't know. Gustave or somebody makes sure the women are out of there before three hours are up. What's your theory?"

"Not sure I have a theory, only thoughts." Ollie pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. "Gustave carries these women to Farmington to get them out of somebody's way in Sainte Gen, but makes sure they're released before three hours. Not much of a paper trail that way. He's a pipeline for someone who needs help shutting up women who could cause trouble for someone."

Rosswell paused in the shadow of a building. "But where do these women go when they're released?"

"I haven't worked that out yet." Ollie folded his handkerchief and stuck it back in his pocket. "Maybe one of them got thrown in the river."

Rosswell pulled on his mustache for a few seconds before his rejoinder. "Or it's one-hundred percent innocent and legitimate."

Ollie's face showed clear disappointment that Rosswell might consider someone innocent and legitimate. "It's within the realm of possibility, but that realm is tiny."

"We'll look into it." Rosswell consulted his watch while he coddled a wrinkled paper bag containing the silver he'd bought yesterday. "Let's go. Lazar better be on time. Five hundred dollars doesn't buy much in the way of used silver coins these days."

"Old coins can't be traced. Why do you think Maman wants them? She's no fool. I've got a ton of respect for the old biddy and I haven't even met her. There's a trillion dollar underground economy in this country, totally free from government interference."

"I'm sworn to uphold the law. Do you want me to call the IRS and report something?" Rosswell dropped the paper bag into the tote, emblazoned with several hearts and the words KISS ME! I'M FRENCH! in red letters on the front.

"Let me think about that." Then Ollie spoke after a brief silence. "Nope. Reporting anything to the IRS is out."

"What if the lady at Discovered Treasures becomes suspicious? What if she tries to find out why we want the money?"

"Her soul is free from suspicion. Trust me on that." Ollie reached into the tote and tapped a book. "You need to start learning about this county."

Rosswell drew out the book and clutched the thick volume. "I've been carrying this around since I bought it yesterday. _The Complete History of Sainte Genevieve County, Missouri_ by Marie Vienneau. I'll start boning up on my local history tonight. Read myself to sleep." He slipped the book back into the tote.

"Now that you have new reading material, I want my Sherlock Holmes stories back."

"Why? You've got them all memorized."

"I fear for the book's safety. A couple of years ago, it was you who decided to take up stage magic and damned near burned your house down testing flash powder to make your exits more dramatic."

Rosswell blushed at the recollection. Researching stage illusions at home was okay. Practicing dangerous ones at home, not okay.

Ollie peeked into the tote. "Good to see you researching."

"Is this whole county run by the Fribeau family?"

"Maybe that book will tell you."

"Is that where you found out about how things run around here?"

"That and a lot of digging. But details are secret. The research assistant pledge of secrecy, you know."

"Maybe Jasmine LaFaire will make a good source for you."

"Maybe."

"Friendliest deck hand I've ever met."

Ollie puckered up, perhaps thinking of kissing Jasmine.

When they arrived at the appointed rendezvous, Lazar appeared at the head of the alley. "You boys follow." His voice sounded as if it had been filtered through dry rocks. A claw-like hand beckoned Rosswell and Ollie from the shadows of the alley into the sunlight of the real world.

##

While Rosswell considered Captain LaFaire's characterization of _the trackless waste_ overblown, the exaggeration didn't miss it by much. The forest grew thick on the bluff between the railroad track and the river. The timber hadn't been harvested for centuries. Sunshine struggled through the mess, scarcely able to cast its light to the ground. Moss, ferns, and lichens fought to grow in the deep shadows. Occasionally a clearing with fewer trees appeared. There the grape, poison ivy, kudzu, and honeysuckle vines growing around and between the trees made the hike even more difficult. A dozen or more species of low-growing bushes inhabited both the sunny and dim places. Rosswell figured the bird watching would be excellent here. That is, if he could struggle back to civilization. A fatal bird watching expedition wasn't on his social calendar. If there was a path that they were following, Rosswell couldn't see it.

Earlier, when Rosswell had carried Lazar and Ollie in the truck toward their destination (what Ollie called "the land side, not the river side, of the bluff"), Lazar had eventually said, "Stop here." Rosswell braked to a stop when Lazar gave the order. Lazar hopped from the truck.

"Where did the road go?" Rosswell said. If he'd driven another five feet, he'd have been stuck in weeds. He grabbed his binoculars and camera, then jumped out of the truck.

Ollie sidled up next to Rosswell. "This is the end of the line."

"What line? Where's the house?"

" _Là-bas_ ," Lazar said. His eyes lifted to the top of a high bluff.

_Là-bas_ , French for _up yonder_ , turned out to be over a mile cross-country. Once the trek began, heat, humidity, blisters, chiggers, and mosquitoes attacked the three men as they battled their way through the brush. The sweat running down Rosswell's face dripped into his mouth. Its saltiness made him thirsty. Twice, he heard something rustling through the brush close to them. It could've been a raccoon. Or deer. Maybe something bigger? Wild pig? A bear? Something more dangerous? Perhaps a bobcat or its bigger cousin, a mountain lion. Despite the heat, Rosswell's skin prickled when icy shivers capered up and down his body.

Rosswell stopped, squatted, clutched his aching knees, and panted. "Who carries the groceries back here?"

Lazar grunted and spit. "Maman don't allow no pictures, her." He pointed to Rosswell's camera.

Rosswell straightened up to reconnoiter. "Isn't there a straight way up there? We keep going back and forth. It's only a couple of blocks. We're being force-marched ten miles."

Lazar grunted again.

Ollie said, "Judge, save your breath."

After slogging several more feet up the slope, Rosswell said, "My ears are popping."

"I'm reaching my boiling point listening to your griping." Ollie stopped to fan himself with his notebook. "You can't climb fast enough to make your ears pop. Besides, we've only gone up from the road about a hundred feet."

Lazar said, "You boys soft, you," tromping ahead so fast that Ollie and Rosswell had to run to keep up. The old man was outpacing them.

After what seemed to Rosswell a climb long enough to get a good head start on Mount Everest, Lazar jerked to a halt.

"Now what?" Rosswell wiped his bare hands on his face, slinging as much sweat away as he could.

"Nothing the matter." Lazar removed his cap, wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, then pointed. " _Aquí_."

"Thank God," said Ollie, breathing heavily.

Rosswell said, "Was that Spanish?"

"Lazar is multicultural."

"Ah!"

At first, Rosswell couldn't make out where Lazar had pointed. Then, after scrutinizing the direction Lazar's finger had indicated, Rosswell spotted a small house built of rock. The entire building was covered with vines and several trees grew up the sides of the outside walls. No windows. Perfect camouflage. Rosswell knew the river side of the bluff was beyond the house. No one could spy from that side. And, obviously, it was difficult spotting the house from this side.

The old door, crafted from rough lumber, creaked when Lazar opened it. " _Maman, on rentre? C'est bon?_ "

Rosswell said to Ollie, "What did he say?"

Ollie marched to a large oak tree, some twenty feet away from the house. "Come here, damn it."

Rosswell followed. "What?"

"He asked her if it was okay if we came in. You don't know how to handle this. Either keep your mouth shut or I'm leaving."

"You speak French?"

"I know a few words. Now you behave."

Rosswell nodded. He and Ollie moved back to the door in time to see Lazar slipping inside. They followed.

Lazar took up his post by the open door, letting the afternoon sunlight tumble in. Maman rocked back and forth in a handmade bentwood rocking chair, posed in front of a huge fireplace. A tan mutt, his gray muzzle speckled with dirt, lay at her feet, sleeping, occasionally farting and snoring. Rosswell said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that there was no fire. The temperature inside the house had to be eighty or eighty-five degrees. Maman's shriveled body surely couldn't be cool, yet Rosswell found no traces of sweat on her pale, translucent skin, the color of a corpse. _Maybe she's dehydrated._ Maman wore a pale blue kerchief on her head tied behind her neck, holding back her silver hair. Her dress was a simple brown shift. An earthen smell worked its way into Rosswell's nose. It wasn't the odor of spoiled dirt, but a smell of clean ground.

" _Bienvenue, chasseurs. Vous cherchez le trésoir._ " The voice coming from the crone rose up high and squeaky.

Ollie said, "Anglais, s'il vous plait. Je ne parle pas bien le français et mon copain ne comprend rien."

"I speak your language for you but she's a barbaric tongue. English sounds like walnuts in a meat grinder, all clanking and clinking, them."

She wore no shoes, her feet likely callused from years of treading barefoot. A rough-hewn table dominated the middle of the room, a glass pitcher filled with water and an empty coffee mug at one end. A bench on one side of the table furnished the only other place to sit. No one asked Rosswell and Ollie to take a load off. Rosswell stood quietly as possible, watching the transaction.

Ollie caught Rosswell's attention before he said, "Yes, Maman, we are hunters and yes, we seek treasure." Rosswell silently thanked Ollie for weaseling in a translation of the French conversation. "My French is bad and my friend here doesn't speak it at all."

"So you said. Your French is bad and his nowhere. You miss much when you don't have the tools to see." She leaned down and scratched the dog's ears. The mutt's breath flapped his jowls every time he exhaled.

Ollie said, "What have you seen?"

The dog stood and snuffled behind Maman's chair until he found a dry bone. He clamped onto his treasure, then trotted to a corner where he dropped it. Exhausted from the excursion, he reclaimed his nap spot and fell asleep.

Maman scratched her palm. "I see nothing."

Ollie kicked Rosswell's foot.

"Oh. Right." Rosswell handed the bag of silver coins to Ollie, who passed it to Maman.

Ollie said, "I'm sorry for the poor gift."

Poor gift? Rosswell was floored. Five hundred dollars was a freaking great gift. What was he going to get for his money? Was Maman going to peer into the future? Shouldn't she have a crystal ball or tea leaves or Tarot cards? Surely, she must be a psychic or something.

Maman hefted the bag. "Good thing I not see much, me." The coins vanished. Rosswell gaped, amazed that the old woman could hide the silver on her person so quickly. "Dina, I see."

"Tina," Rosswell corrected.

Maman growled. "Many stand by Dina. You heard what I say. I say what I mean. You listen and keep your words behind your teeth. Don't hear. Listen, you, and watch for them."

Rosswell nodded his agreement, although he wasn't clear what he'd agreed to.

Ollie knelt at Maman's side. "What did you see?"

"Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek." Maman let out a soft sigh, then closed her eyes halfway. In a low voice, she sang words that Rosswell couldn't decipher.

When she finished her song—or, simply quit—Maman rummaged through a pocket on her dress and pulled out a small gold, five-pointed star, hanging on a black braid. "You." She tossed the necklace to Rosswell. "Much pain you have. Wear this always."

Rosswell ran his fingers over the flat and narrow braid. Black silk. He obeyed Maman and slipped on the necklace, thinking that even Maman was in on the new local jewelry fad. Or maybe she was the source of it.

After several minutes of silence, he concluded that the conversation was over. He further inventoried the room. No crystal balls, no cards, no incense, no Ouija board. Rosswell could contain himself no longer. "Maman, are you a psychic?"

Maman laughed down deep in her throat, recalling a scene from _The Exorcist_. "No such thing. I got eyes and I see. I got ears and I hear. I got nose and I smell. I got hands and I feel. I got brain and I think. That's all you need." A fleck of spittle settled on her chin, which she wiped away with a gnarled hand. "No psychic, me. No God up above and no Devil down below. Using senses, me. You pay attention, you."

Rosswell prayed that Maman and Mrs. Bolzoni would never meet, certain that Mrs. Bolzoni wouldn't appreciate Maman's Frenchness.

Maman rocked for many more minutes, the chair creaking, Ollie kneeling beside her, Rosswell silent, waiting for anything else.

The dog woke up, retrieved the bone from the corner, and dropped it behind Maman's chair. Again, he regained his spot to finish his nap.

Eventually, Maman said, "You boys best be getting, you. Lazar, you got _tabac_ for my pipe?"

##

Rosswell and Ollie stood outside Maman's door. Lazar had disappeared.

Rosswell said, "Her left thumbprint was blood red."

"Maybe she pinched it in a door."

"It was tattooed. Why?" Rosswell considered all he'd heard. " 'Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek,' " Rosswell quoted Maman. "I don't understand what went on in there. Are there two caves? Two treasures? Are we supposed to seek the treasure in the cave of one eye but we'll find a real treasure in the cave of the blind eye but it won't be what we seek? I'm confused."

"Omne ignotum pro magnifico."

"Sherlock Holmes said that. Everything unknown is magnificent. That doesn't explain anything. She's an atheist fortuneteller?"

Ollie stared at the closed door. "Maybe she's never read the Bible."

"‎If you believe the scriptures are the only source of knowledge about God, then you have never witnessed a sunrise." Rosswell fondled the braid of the necklace. "What's this all about?"

"It's _soutache_ , an old-fashioned decorative braid, sometimes used to cover a seam on a piece of clothing. The braid represents earth. The star represents heaven."

"A seam? That's where two pieces of something come together. Is that what we're searching for?"

"I'm a lamb lost in the fog."

"More like a goat confused by the smog." Rosswell stroked the necklace. "I've seen a lot of these around lately. Must be like mood rings. I'll bet they sell them at every truck stop in the country." The necklace joined the crucifix that Father Mike Smothers—Mabel's uncle—had gifted him when he was in the hospital with a gunshot wound at the same time that Tina was being treated for her wound.

Two talismans. Hope one of them works. Preferably both, but if only one works, I'll be happy.

"Uh-huh, mood rings." Ollie rolled his eyes. "Anyway, time to go find that cave. If Maman saw something, it must be around here, somewhere on this bluff. Probably on the river side since we didn't see any caves on this side."

Rosswell spotted a flat place next to the cabin. Four rows of rocks. He nudged Ollie. "A cemetery."

Ollie mouthed words silently as his finger bobbed. "Four rows, twenty-five stones in each row. One hundred graves."

"Unless there's been a mass death recently, that's a bunch of old Fribeaus buried in that cemetery."

"Interesting. But there are thousands of graves out in the hills in cemeteries all over the State of Missouri. For now, we need to focus on caves."

Rosswell said, "All right. Then what's a cave of one eye?"

"Let's go find out."

They clambered down the opposite side of the bluff, the one facing the Mississippi. The cliff was covered with vines, trees sprouting out of cracks in the rock, and various other plants impeding their progress. Here and there indentations appeared, but nothing deep enough to be called a cave.

Rosswell stopped, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Hold on before I collapse from the heat and fall in the river. Let's talk this out. How would you define cave?"

"A hole in the ground. More specifically, an underground hole that's got air in it and large enough for somebody to explore it."

Rosswell poked into one of the indentations in the rock face. "I can see the back of this hole. If it's a cave, it's small. Tiny."

Ollie turned his head left and right, up and down. He threw up his hands. "There aren't any caves overlooking the river. Or, if there are, they're lower down and covered by water right now because the river's up. And if a cave is full of water, we won't be going in it unless we plan on scuba diving."

"We're not equipped to explore wet or dry caves. I hate dark places. Especially small, dark places. Claustrophobia plus fear of the dark." The thought of how many snakes could be in a cave sent ice spiders shimmying down Rosswell's spine. There might be real spiders, too. That thought made him whimper. If he were forced into a tight cave, he'd go if it meant finding a clue about Tina. "Center. Center. Center."

"Center of what? You think you're the center of the universe?"

Rosswell stopped the chanting since it did no good.

Ollie checked his watch. "Let's go back to town. We'll get flashlights, candles, whatever we need and come out here tomorrow, when we're fresh."

"I'll be free about noon." Then, under his breath, added, "Maybe the snakes will be gone by then. And will have carried off the spiders."

They trudged down through the trees and brush toward the river, Rosswell hoping that they were headed in the direction of the truck. The sun began its slow march to darkness, the shadows of the men stretching to infinity.

"Wait." Rosswell stopped. "How do we get back to the truck?"

"There's a cut in the bluff down by the river. It's flat and we can walk right through it to the other side of the hill," Ollie said. "I don't know why Lazar couldn't have waited for us."

"He's quite inconsiderate." Rosswell glanced over his shoulder. "Wonder if he made it down—" He grabbed Ollie's arm. "Take a gander."

Ollie shifted his view to the same direction Rosswell looked. "Eyes."

"The light from the sun makes that part of the cliff look like a skull."

On the formation, one of the eyes was lit by the sun, the other, in shade, stayed dark.

Rosswell said, "The cave of one eye. But is there one or two caves?"

"Two. Unless they're connected, then there's one. Which eye do we search first?"

"Let's try the one that has the light." Rosswell didn't try to hide his reasoning. "Maybe that's the cave we're searching for. If so, then we don't have to go in the dark cave."

They reversed their direction, climbing back up the bluff.

Ollie said, "You're a spelunker."

"Thanks."

"That's not a compliment. That's an insult to a caver, which I am."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"There are three terms you need to know. A _spelunker_ is someone who bumbles into caves. That's you, but not me. A _speleologist_ is a scientist who studies caves. That's not you or me. A _caver_ is an informed explorer. That's me, definitely not you."

"Oh, mighty caver." Rosswell saluted. "Let us bumble on."

"Yes, let's. Missouri is a cave factory, especially in this part of the state. We've got lots of carbonate rock, plenty of rain, vegetation galore, entrances you would die for, and variable climate. Not to mention that the caves in Missouri are the only ones in the whole United States featuring true Karst topography."

"I learned that in math class."

"No, you didn't. It's geology."

"I knew that."

"Karst topography means a geological formation shaped by dissolving bedrock. Around here, that's limestone. Another feature can be sinkholes. We've got lots of those. Some Karst areas have a gazillion caves, although the presence of caves isn't necessary for a region to be true Karst topography."

"Karst topography means dissolving bedrock." Rosswell threw up his hands. "Now, please, stop." He couldn't take one more syllable from Ollie. "I believe you."

"Cavers rescue spelunkers for the reason you demonstrated—you don't want to know about caves."

The sun, setting on the land side of the bluff, made the side they were on dimmer. If they wanted light, they needed to hurry. Peering inside the cave where the sun's weakening rays managed to penetrate, it was dry—except where the stream from a small spring gurgled out. The entrance was narrow and the cave shallow.

Rosswell noted droppings, fur, and gnawed bones. "I think a bear is using this cave."

"I hope he's out searching for food."

"Maybe it's a mountain lion." Rosswell planted his feet, working up a dab of courage to keep himself moving forward. "I wish I had my gun."

"I hope the bear and the cat meet up and kill each other."

Ollie dove into the cave. Rosswell reluctantly followed.

They crawled along the floor and examined every wall. Near the back of the cave, Rosswell disturbed a salamander. "Crap. A snake with feet." If there were treasure of any kind, it wasn't visible. "Nothing of value here."

Outside, Rosswell watched the sun's rays weakening. "Let's get in the next cave before we lose all our light." This side of the bluff, facing east with the sun behind it in the west, grew dark before the other side of the bluff.

Rosswell, his courage a tad stronger now that he'd explored a hole in the ground without dying, plunged into the dim cave before Ollie. The darkness swallowed the light shining from the outside. He pushed away thoughts of snakes, bears, or something else watching him from somewhere in the back of the cave.

That's when he stumbled over a body and fell to the ground like a burlap bag full of hammers.

Rosswell screeched. "There's a corpse in here!"

"Freaking frost!" Ollie yipped, then, glancing at Rosswell, who was indeed lying next to a dead person, asked, "Are you all right?"

A sharp intake of air hurt Rosswell. No bones were broken. "Better than him." The corpse paid no attention to the men. "Got the wind knocked out of me. I'll be okay when I remember how to breathe." Rosswell eyeballed the dead guy. "Is that who I think it is?"

Ollie stared at the corpse in the remaining light. "This messes up our investigation."

Rosswell's nose caught a faint odor. There was only the barest hint of decay. The corpse was fresh. In fact, the corpse was Ribs Freshwater. A hole, drilled in Ribs's forehead by a small caliber weapon, was the only obvious wound. A trickle of dark stain meandered down the corpse's nose.

Rosswell pointed to a plastic bag lying on top of the body. "What's that?" A piece of paper lay inside, the typed words on it starkly visible even in the waning light.

Ollie knelt and leaned over the body. "There's a message."

"Don't touch anything." Rosswell struggled to his feet.

"But—"

"This should be called in right now." Rosswell, hands shaking, wrangled his cell phone from his pocket. "No bars. I'll have to get out of this cave to call 9-1-1." Rosswell stepped out and reported the find. After he disconnected, he asked Ollie, "Can you read the message?"

"It says, 'Rosswell Carew is next.' "

# Chapter 12

## Last Wednesday Afternoon

Although Sheriff Gustave Fribeau arrived on the scene quickly, it seemed to Rosswell that it took hours. Waiting with a dead man slowed time way down.

"Judge, you find more corpses than the average bear."

"It's a talent I have."

"You have that fancy camera with you?"

Rosswell fixed the Nikon at eye level. "Always."

"I've got crime scene folks coming down from Saint Louis. But I want photos myself. You got plenty of flash bulbs? It's mighty dark in here."

"I haven't bought a single flash bulb since 2006." Rosswell snapped a picture of Gustave, filling the cave with a burst of light brighter than sunshine. "Electronic flash."

Gustave blinked and spit on the ground. "Do you mind taking photos?"

"No." Rosswell started snapping. "By the way, be sure to tell the CSI that black thing on the ground is part of your cigar. You don't want to screw up the crime scene."

"Don't _you_ screw up the crime scene." Gustave drifted close to Ollie. "And you are?"

"Ollie Groton." Ollie stuck out his hand but Gustave ignored it. "I'm Judge Carew's research assistant."

"I didn't know judges had research assistants."

"Special assignment."

Rosswell stopped snapping pictures. "I pay Ollie for information on non-judicial projects I'm developing."

Gustave's reaction showed he wasn't buying this greased pig in a puny poke.

"In fact, I have heard about Ollie. Your sheriff in Bollinger County tells me he's a criminal."

"Respectful correction, Sheriff," Ollie said. "I'm certain that Sheriff Frizz Dodson told you that I was a recovering criminal."

"See to it that you don't recover anything in Sainte Gen."

"Yes, sir."

Even though Ollie had never stolen anything, Rosswell knew his research assistant was smart enough not to argue with a sheriff. Ollie didn't want to spend any more time in jail on charges, trumped up or real.

Gustave said to Rosswell, "You know the deceased?"

Rosswell eyed Gustave, thinking that the sheriff already knew the victim's name. Answering the question straight sounded like a good idea. "He's a Native American from Bollinger County named Ribs Freshwater. The last time I knew of his whereabouts, I believe, but can't prove, that he was running dope for Johnny Dan Dumey."

"Johnny Dan Dumey." Gustave stared at the ceiling of the cave. "Oh, yeah. The guy you smoked."

Rosswell cringed at the callousness of Fribeau's remark, but continued photographing the scene. "Ribs and Johnny Dan were hooked up with a fellow named Nathaniel Dahlbert who's now living north of Sainte Gen at River Heights Villa."

Gustave groped in his shirt pocket for a fresh cigar. "Tall guy? Red hair? Albino?"

Rosswell lowered his camera. "Herman Melville asked why an albino repelled and shocked us. 'The Albino is as well made as other men and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion.' It's because the pale color reminds us of death."

Gustave bit on his cigar, narrowing his eyes. "Herman who?"

"Herman Melville wrote _Moby-Dick_."

Gustave laughed. "Yeah, lousy movie. I saw it on the Alzheimer Channel. Jimmy Stewart made a lousy Captain Ayrab."

"Gregory Peck played Captain Ahab."

Ollie stepped closer to Gustave. "Nathaniel's not an albino. If he were, his hair would be white. It's not really red. More like orange. And it's his natural color. He doesn't use dye. Nathaniel looks like a rodeo clown."

Gustave rolled the cigar between his thumb and forefinger. "No such thing as natural orange hair."

Ollie rubbed his head, clearly trying to decide if he should speak. After a brief time, talking won out over silence. "Beg to differ with you, Sheriff. Red hair in certain ethnic groups runs from deep burgundy to burnt orange to bright copper. That's because there's a lot of the red pigment pheomelanin and not much eumelanin, which is a dark pigment."

Gustave chewed on the cigar for a long moment, no doubt trying to digest what Ollie had told him. "You research him?"

"Six ways from Sunday and straight up on Monday."

"Nathaniel Dahlbert's probably of Scottish stock." Rosswell hated to admit that part. "Ollie will be glad to show you his report. I don't have solid evidence on any of the three. Since they're dead, it doesn't matter about Johnny Dan and Ribs. Nathaniel's alive and dirty as a skunk dragged through pig crap."

Gustave jabbed the cigar in his mouth. "What's Nathaniel got to do with Tina?"

"I don't know of anything connecting them. However, I find it more than passing strange that Tina called me from here and when I show up, I find Ribs and Nathaniel. That doesn't make sense. They're dopers. Why didn't they head out for some big city far away from here?"

"And you and Ollie decided to search here after Maman pointed in the right direction?"

"I guess you heard about that."

"Before it happened." Gustave shook his head. "I can't understand why anyone believes anything that crazy old woman says. How much did she take you for?"

"Five hundred dollars." There was little use lying to Gustave. Rosswell theorized that the sheriff knew every detail of their visit. "In silver."

"Exactly what did she say to you?"

" 'Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek,' " Rosswell quoted Maman again. "Obviously, we didn't find what we sought, which was the body of a woman. Instead, we found the corpse of Ribs Freshwater, which we didn't seek, even though it's treasure of a sort."

Ollie made sure Gustave saw the plastic bag containing the note. "Sheriff, if I might ask, what are you going to do about the threat against Judge Carew?"

Gustave pointed to Rosswell. "I'm advising you to stick to judging and let the cops do the detective work."

# Chapter 13

## Last Wednesday Night

After Gustave dismissed them, Ollie and Rosswell drove to town. They stopped in front of Mabel's Eatery to sit in the truck under a street lamp, which buzzed and crackled, awakening from its daylong sleep.

"Judge, come in for supper. It's filet mignon night."

"I'm not hungry."

"You're not hungry?" Ollie gawked at Rosswell. "Are you sick? I mean, besides..." Ollie examined his fingernails, then rubbed the tattoo on his bald head while he peered through the passenger window.

"It's okay to say besides the leukemia." Rosswell studied the Church of Sainte Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris. "I'm tired. I need to go back to The Four Bee and sleep." Maybe he'd dream of being in the City of Light at the top of the Eiffel Tower, ready to jump.

"Go to bed?" Ollie checked his watch. "The sun won't set for awhile."

Rosswell watched what looked like an egg yolk sinking into a pool of blood.

There was concern in Ollie's voice when he said, "Haven't you been sleeping?"

"I fall asleep for an hour, maybe two. Then I have a nightmare. I wake up sweating. I don't fall back to sleep. Happens about every night."

"Sleep paralysis."

Rosswell had never heard the term. "What's that?"

"It happens as you're falling asleep or waking up. You can't move. Your muscles are weak. You can have hallucinations."

"Hallucinations without booze? Or dope? Without fever?"

"Hypnagogia is what it's called. Healthy people can be affected, especially when you're so tired you can't function. Doctors write about it in medical journals all the time."

Rosswell remembered something about the episodes. "Someone's chasing me."

"Have you been caught yet? I mean, in your dream."

"No." Rosswell closed his eyes. The fatigue clutched him, drawing him closer to exhaustion. "Last night I dreamed I was hanging upside down in a tree by one foot."

"Typical."

Rosswell opened his eyes and tapped rapidly on the steering wheel. "Typical of what?" He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"It's a Tarot card. The Hanged Man is suspended upside down by one foot between heaven and earth, between spirituality and materialism. Like Absalom, King David's son, caught by the hair of his head in a huge oak tree. Between heaven and earth."

"To borrow your favorite phrase, unadulterated bullshit. Hanging between heaven and earth isn't going to help me sleep."

Ollie rubbed his head again. "Tried sleeping pills? Chamomile tea? Hot milk?"

"I always carry three tablets each of antacid, pain killer, antihistamine, and sleeping pill." Rosswell pulled a green bottle from his pocket. "I've tried everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything but booze, if that's what you're asking." The bottle disappeared into his pocket. "Anyway, the doctor told me that the effects of the chemo could last for six months or a year. Nothing drastic, but I'd feel rundown occasionally. No big deal."

Rosswell had never told Tina, much less Ollie, about the black dog of depression licking at his heels. Such a revelation would serve no purpose, although Rosswell suspected both of them had already recognized his dilemma, growing like a thorn tree in a field of daisies. Why was he ashamed of his mental problem? Lots of people were afflicted with depression and didn't try to keep it secret.

Winston Churchill publicly recognized the danger of the dog. Rosswell had memorized a passage from the prime minister's writings: "I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. A second's action would end everything."

Even though Etta James, the blues singer who suffered from heroin addiction and leukemia, lasted until age seventy-three, Rosswell concluded that he wouldn't be as lucky. He had every reason to be depressed. He'd killed a little girl in the war. He'd killed Johnny Dan Dumey. Tina was gone, maybe dead. Maybe his child was dead. He'd seen a body thrown into the river. The sheriff was—he had to face it—roadblocking him. And, as an extra bonus, he'd fallen on top of a corpse decorated with a note in which some unknown bad guy—Nathaniel Dahlbert?—threatened his life.

"Ollie, I'll be through with court tomorrow morning around ten-thirty or eleven. We need to talk about this some more."

"Talk about what?"

"The case."

Ollie ripped out his famous squeak. "There's no case. You heard Sheriff Fribeau."

"And when did you start believing Fribeau? Don't you believe I saw a woman thrown into the river?"

"Never and yes."

"What?"

Ollie exhaled loudly. "I don't believe the sheriff. I do believe you."

"Then there's a case."

"Not if you and I are the only ones who believe you."

"Ollie, what are you saying?"

"I'm resigning as your research assistant. I'm trying to become a respectable businessman in Sainte Gen and riling the law is the last thing I want to do."

Rosswell didn't answer. Ollie's desire not to draw the attention of the cops was sound reasoning. There was no way to argue that. Probationers should always be respectful to the law. And, when probationers break the law, they should do it in private and not tell anyone.

"Rosswell, did you hear me?"

"Yes, I heard you. Well...have a good night."

"Forget what I said about the trust fund for my grandkid."

"Wow!"

"Don't act so surprised," Ollie said. "I'm not taking your money, even if it is for my grandkid. I'm not a thief."

"Turn around. See what beauty arrives." Rosswell pointed to Jasmine LaFaire dallying toward them. Her gait was a lingering stroll. "Here comes the deck hand. Maybe you'll have a better night without me."

Ollie straightened to his full height. "She walks nice."

"I love the silver tips on her hair. That goes good with your purple tattoo."

Jasmine arrived at the passenger side of the truck. "Judge. Ollie. You all having a private conversation?" Instead of motor oil, now Jasmine carried a lemony scent about her. Her bulky overalls had been replaced with skintight jeans and a pink peasant blouse, accenting her curves.

Impressed with her transformation from a manual laborer to a beautiful woman, Rosswell's tongue stilled, unable to receive signals from his brain.

Ollie said, "We were trying to decide the style of architecture for the church. Judge says it's Late Romanesque but I'm tending toward Modified French Gothic. What do you think?"

Jasmine glimpsed at the church, then spoke to Ollie. "I've been thinking about something. Lots of things, in fact."

Rosswell said, "Maybe Renaissance?"

"Both of you may think you're fooling my dad and the sheriff and everyone else in the county, but not me. You all are playing detective because you don't like the way the cops are handling this. Anyway, Judge, you asked me if I saw the men on the boat do anything suspicious."

Ollie said, "Actually, it was me who asked you that."

Rosswell elbowed Ollie in the ribs. "We're listening."

"I got to thinking about what happened the other morning. Something funny about Turk."

Rosswell glared Ollie into silence when he started to comment.

She continued, "I think Turk is selling dope."

Ollie said, "You and everyone else in a hundred mile radius think that."

Rosswell said, "Is that what you thought was odd about Turk?"

"No. I've got to keep my eye on everything when we're on the river so I don't have much time to watch the passengers. But there was one thing that didn't strike me odd till I thought about it later. I saw Turk give Charlie money. Then Charlie gave something to Turk."

Rosswell said, "Maybe Charlie is one of Turk's suppliers. Turk's stock is getting low and he was replenishing his inventory."

"Maybe," Jasmine said. "But what Charlie handed Turk wasn't dope. It was a post office envelope. One of those big ones. Legal size. Sealed up from what I could tell."

Ollie said, "You can put lots of dope in one of those envelopes."

Jasmine said, "Sure, but this one was flat and thick. It looked like a file was in there."

"A file?" Rosswell said. "How can you tell what's in a sealed envelope?"

"I mean, it looked like what I send off to the government. You wouldn't believe the paper work I have to fill out. Charlie gave Turk a file."

##

Jasmine joined Ollie for supper. Rosswell stayed in the truck under the streetlight, reading about Nathaniel Dahlbert's house in the history book he'd bought at the antique store.

River Heights Villa had been built shortly before the Civil War. The wannabe Renaissance style called Italianate was in vogue at that time. Among other things, the architecture of that day featured towers stuck here and there. The grayish limestone building sported two of the towers, about six stories high, on the north and south ends of the house. Rumor had it that the Confederates in Missouri used the towers to spy on Federal activity in Illinois and on the Mississippi River during the War Between the States.

Rosswell thought the towers would make good observation posts. A guard posted up top could see the roads, the railroad tracks, and the river traffic. River Heights Villa would make a great place for a secret operation.

But what kind of operation?

# Chapter 14

## Last Wednesday Night into Thursday Morning

Rosswell drove to The Four Bee, chewing on Jasmine's information about seeing a file. And thinking about Ollie abandoning him. One of the special channels this month on satellite radio was The Beatles. John Lennon's album _Imagine_ started. Good thinking music. Rosswell started talking to himself.

"Ollie's quit and now it's up to me to solve this alone. What could be in that file? If that's what it was. A list of dealers? A list of suppliers? A list of customers? It had to be valuable if Turk paid Charlie for it. Or maybe Turk gave Charlie postage money. Who the hell knows? Maybe it means absolutely nothing."

Rosswell's gut lurched when _I Don't Want To Be A Soldier_ cued up. After the riff by Joey Molland on his acoustic guitar, Rosswell recalled that he sure as hell didn't want to be a soldier either. Too late for that. He'd volunteered. And he'd volunteered because he believed Aristotle who wrote, "We make war that we may live in peace."

Switching to the local AM station, Rosswell caught the news.

"...corn futures plummeted after predictions the drought affecting area farmers would last until..."

"...after a poor showing, the Cardinals lost again, making this string of defeats the longest since..."

"...funeral mass scheduled tomorrow for the beloved father of six young children, killed at the quarry when..."

"...strong winds out of the south followed by a powerful front of moist, unstable Gulf of Mexico air, then a dry front from Canada..."

"...again reminded residents of the red flag warning..."

"...County Commission issued a strict no-burn order with criminal penalties..."

Rosswell punched the OFF button, wondering why the news was nothing but downers.

When he arrived at The Four Bee, he slammed on the brakes. Something thumped. The sound came from behind the seat. He looked over his right shoulder, trying to determine the source of the noise.

Now what? He was already upset because fracking Ollie jumped ship and then all that weirdo talk from Jasmine about a file, and now his truck was thumping. He knew something was going out on it. Something was falling off his rattletrap and he wouldn't have anything to drive till Vicky was repaired.

Cursing, he rummaged around behind the seat. Hand saw. Hammer. Plastic rope. Chisel. WD-40. Screwdriver. Dust bunnies. Another screwdriver. Duct tape. Gloves.

And a bottle.

A fifth of 18-year-old single malt Scotch, nectar of the gods of oblivion, still in a plain brown paper bag.

When had he stashed that behind the seat of his truck? Must've been during one of his drinking binges, long forgotten. He'd been sober five years. Maybe closer to six.

Setting the bottle on the seat beside him, he withdrew the letter Tina had written him before she disappeared. He kept it folded in his billfold. The creases were already tearing the page from so much handling. He unfolded it carefully.

Dear Rosswell, I love you so much. When I wake up in the morning, you're the first thing I think of. When I go to sleep at night, you're the last thing I think of. You're on my mind every hour of every day. I want to know you and love you the rest of our lives. I've got something really important to tell you. I'm so happy to tell you. And I want you to be happy, too.

I'm pregnant.

When you finish reading this letter, come to me and hold me and never let me go.

I love you always,

Tina

Rosswell re-folded the letter, kissed it, and stuffed it back in his billfold. Tears welled, then ran down his cheeks, as they always did whenever he read her beautiful note. But this time excessive fatigue caused the emotional burst to be a big one. He hadn't cried this much since Tina had disappeared.

For a few moments, he watched the river before he dusted off the bottle, broke the seal and opened it, breathing in the fragrance of smoky peat. _Glorious._ The golden liquid shined when he held the bottle up to a street lamp, casting oddly tinted rainbows from the orange glow of a sodium bulb. _Even more glorious._ He screwed the lid on and cradled the booze in his arms. More streetlights came on now that full dark had swallowed the day. He left his truck, crossing the road into Père Marquette Park.

He sat for a while on top of a picnic table in the glow of the street lamps, watching a black dog root through an overturned garbage can smelling of rotten bananas, a stench that brought Rosswell to the edge of vomiting. The dog cocked its floppy ears—one of them marred by a triangle sliced out, perhaps from a fight—and then stopped for a moment before growling, wheeling its head toward Rosswell, fixing its yellow eyes on him.

When a young mother carrying a little girl arrived and began pushing the child on a swing, Rosswell's stomach shot acid into the back of his mouth, stabbing his throat with hot forks the whole way up. The mother, a dark-complexioned woman not more than twenty-five, reminded him of Feliciana, Rosswell's first true love, killed as she drove him home while he snored, passed out in the passenger seat. She never noticed the grain truck that plowed into her side of the car.

Now, the woman in the park laughed. She talked and sang to the child, a dead ringer for the girl in the Middle East. The child, Rosswell estimated, had made no more than three or maybe four birthdays. Hideous memories of the girl he'd shot ate at his brain, crunching on the defenses he'd erected, trying to escape.

The dog, its muzzle enshrouded with dirty foam, lost interest in Rosswell, slinking instead for the little girl. A low growl escaped the animal's mouth. The girl waved to Rosswell. "Hey, Daddy." The woman followed the girl's gaze. "Rosswell," she said.

Rosswell touched the star of the necklace Maman Fribeau had given him and blinked.

When the dog leaped, Rosswell screamed and the dog, the mother, and the child disappeared. __

##

Thursday Morning

"Poverino, poverino."

Rosswell's eyes were closed, yet he could see the red of the blood running through the veins of his eyelids thanks to a strong light. A hot light.

Sunlight's shining on me. Either that or a majorly serious spotlight. Where am I?

" _Poverino_ , you wake up." Mrs. Bolzoni wiped Rosswell's face with a cold cloth. "Poor thing, you now wake up, okay?"

Rosswell opened his eyes. "Mrs. Bolzoni? What are you doing?" He pressed his palms to the ground. "Ouch." Drought had consumed the area since no rain had fallen for over a month. The ground felt like concrete. Grass felt like tiny spears. The humid air smelled dry.

"The insides, she's upset, so I walk the park when the sun come up. You I find like this." She bent over him, and her thick eyeglasses touched his face, a gesture that reminded him of an Italian movie he'd seen once. Both the significance of the hand movements and the movie title escaped him. "And I find also this." Rosswell groaned when she stuck the Scotch bottle in his face. "Empty."

Rosswell could see that the bottle was empty. He felt it was totally unnecessary of Mrs. Bolzoni to point that out to him since he was staring down the neck of the bottle.

A few drops splashed on Rosswell's face. The odor caused a flip-flop in his stomach. He sucked in a few mouthfuls of air, forestalling the vomit creeping up from his insides. A thousand stinking Russian soldiers in their stinking stocking feet marched across his tongue. If his tongue swelled much more, he could choke.

Rosswell coughed. "I did not fall off the wagon."

"You got no wagon. You walk over here."

"Yes, you're right."

Mrs. Bolzoni helped Rosswell stand. "You drink the espresso. Let's go." She tugged at him.

Rosswell brushed ants from his shirt, then ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, hoping he didn't discover any foreign objects, such as bugs, dead or alive.

"Mrs. Bolzoni, let me stand for a moment. I don't want to move quickly."

"You stand. I wait, _poverino_."

" _Poverino_. Does that mean dumb ass?"

"Means you a poor thing what needs the help."

"I do not need help." He swayed, toppling to the ground. All his muscles were in kinks and knots. "I am doing great." He stood.

"Then you slide to the back, as you say in the English." Mrs. Bolzoni put her arm around Rosswell's waist, urging him to start walking.

"Please take a look at the wet spot there on the grass."

"You peed during the night?"

"That is where I poured out the booze. I didn't touch one drop. I had nightmares. I have bad dreams. Sometimes. Especially when I'm overcome with exhaustion."

"I take you to see that man who helped Alessandra. He help you, too."

"Alessandra?"

"Mia bella figlia."

"I don't understand."

"My beautiful daughter."

"Mrs. Bolzoni, did you...uh...see anyone over here. Besides me?"

"I saw you before the sun down and before the bottle up. No one but you. Why you say that?"

"I thought I saw someone. But it was only a bad dream. It seemed so real."

"My daughter she sees the things not there. But the man helped my daughter."

"What man is that?"

"The pale man with the rusty hair."

# Chapter 15

## Thursday Morning, continued

Rosswell's headache dulled and his stomach calmed by the time he recessed court, mostly due to the small drugstore in the green bottle he carried everywhere. Sleeping outside on dry and dusty grass was a formula for both a major allergy attack and an eruption of his acid reflux. After rummaging through the pills and dry swallowing a couple, he gathered his suit jacket, tugged off his tie, and trudged to Mabel's.

No one in town had noticed him lying in the park all night. Or, if they had, nothing surfaced during the day. No one at the courthouse had shot him a sideways glance nor had he overheard any snide comments. Courthouse gossip in Ste. Gen was as vicious as in any other courthouse in the world. It's always Shark Week at the courthouse. Surely, someone would've reported a judge sleeping near the swing sets. The cops would've investigated and discovered him. Although it was a matter of collapsing from exhaustion and not booze that had led him to camp out, by the time the rumor mongers got through with the story, Rosswell would've been roaring drunk and scaring kids and grabbing their mothers.

Yet he couldn't take any chances. He needed to tell Ollie he'd come close to lurching off the wagon. Ollie shouldn't hear that from anyone but Rosswell. The restaurant was deserted. A lull. Even Mabel had left the building.

Beckoning to Ollie, Rosswell chose a booth in a dark corner, where he briefly sketched his near lapse. The news failed to impress Ollie. "You _almost_ fell off the wagon? I've actually jumped off lots of times. But I always got back on." Ollie's gaze darted. A smile twitched at the sides of his mouth. "It's especially interesting when you regain consciousness lying next to a naked woman you can't remember."

"That would be bad." Rosswell breathed deeply. His gut rumbles strengthened again and threatened revolution. Puking was the last thing he wanted to do right now, especially in Mabel's restaurant. He found a decongestant tablet and a gas pill in the green bottle and took them. "A woman. Naked. A stranger."

"Was there a woman involved?"

"Mrs. Bolzoni."

Ollie yelped, shut his eyes, and rubbed them with his closed fists. "Oh, Mylanta. I don't want to hear any more."

Rosswell snickered. "Not like you think. She's the one who found me in the park this morning."

Ollie opened his eyes. "Mrs. Bolzoni wasn't naked in your bed?"

Rosswell ignored Ollie's question. "Mrs. Bolzoni told me something interesting. Nathaniel has been running a rehabilitation center in the mansion for several years. And Mrs. Bolzoni's daughter Alessandra is there for treatment. Mrs. Bolzoni thinks Nathaniel is doing a great job with her daughter. According to Mrs. Bolzoni, Nathaniel is a great guy."

"Unadulterated bullshit."

A pounding at his forehead started. "Don't say that anymore."

"Okay." Ollie flapped his arms. "Then I can fly to the moon."

"Nathaniel bought the fancy house for drying out drunks. It's even got two towers so he can post guards. It's a terrific cover. Dope pushers can move a lot of cash through there without leaving a trace."

"He spends a wad of dough dragging drunks off the street. But if he does it out of the goodness of his heart, then I'm the Queen of Sheba coming to visit King Solomon."

"Mrs. Bolzoni's own story sounds odd. She moves down here from Saint Louis to be near her daughter who's in rehab at a place run by Nathaniel? She hates French people, yet she lands smack dab in the middle of a whole county full of frogs? That makes no sense at all."

"That's what I said."

Rosswell smacked and swallowed a couple of times. "Maybe he's laundering money from his dope operation." His breath stunk of the gallon of coffee he'd sucked down. He'd been careful to stand far away from anyone in the courthouse. A couple of pieces of Big Red couldn't hurt, so he stuck four pieces in his mouth. Cinnamon flavoring bit his tongue with the viciousness of a pair of pliers clamping down, yet he kept on chewing.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you. Of course Nathaniel is laundering money." Ollie tilted his head. "You sure you didn't swig a couple of slugs last night?"

"Positive. Mrs. Bolzoni wants me to admit myself there. I'd last fifteen minutes before Nathaniel killed me."

The gum burned his mouth even more. He spit it out into a napkin and stuck it into his pocket.

"You might not last much longer unless you go home."

"I'm not leaving Sainte Gen without Tina."

Lazar Fribeau moseyed through the front door and cast his gaze over the whole restaurant before he spoke to Ollie. "You got office here?" The old man surveyed the restaurant some more. "Somewheres private?"

Ollie motioned to Lazar and Rosswell, who followed him into Mabel's office. He reached up and tugged a chain to chase the darkness from the former storage room. "Talk."

Rosswell couldn't see Lazar and Ollie clearly, the only light being a single bulb hanging from a wire in the middle of the ceiling. Ollie hated wasting electricity.

"Scarface wants to sing." Lazar touched Ollie's chest with his thumb.

"Scarface?" Ollie stepped back. "Who's that?"

"Charlie Heckle says he palavers, but you and no one else."

Ollie's mouth opened, but no words came out.

Rosswell figured Lazar had been watching too many gangster and Western movies on cable television. Rosswell also figured he needed to kick this talk into gear since he'd never seen Ollie speechless before.

"How do you know this?"

Lazar grunted. "You know nothing, you. You paying no mind to Maman."

"Following her advice, I literally tripped over a body. How can you say I'm not paying her any mind?"

"You don't know what she said, her."

Rosswell repeated Maman's advice. " 'Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek.' "

"You don't know what she said because you don't listen good. You hear words but you don't hear meanings."

Ollie found his tongue. "Sure. We can talk. In the alley. One hour." He stepped between Rosswell and Lazar.

Lazar grunted and left.

"You're back on the case?" Rosswell said.

"For the time being. I want to know who the woman was who was thrown off the ferry."

"I've reviewed all the pictures of missing women who look like Tina, but I can't connect any of them to Sainte Gen. That's your only reason? You want to know who she is?"

"She deserves justice."

Rosswell, moved by the reason for Ollie's reversal, argued with himself whether to notify Ollie that his decision verged on altruism. Rosswell decided against it and instead asked, "Is this going to cost me another $500?"

"Nope."

"Good."

"Start at six hundred."

"Was this some kind of pretty song and frisky dance? How does Lazar know Charlie Heckle wants to talk to us?"

"He didn't say us. He said me."

"All right, then how did Lazar know that Charlie wanted to talk to the world famous Ollie Groton?"

"You asked me if the Fribeaus ran this county. Gustave doesn't. I'm beginning to think Maman and Lazar do. Behind the scenes."

"And Lazar runs around the county setting up meetings between crooks and snitches."

"Research assistants."

"Right." Rosswell paced for a few moments before he stumbled over a box and fell. "I'll trust you to be a faithful reporter. I'm not going to listen to your meeting." Brushing himself off, he stood.

"A wise choice. What if you heard something that you needed to report?"

"That problem won't arise because I'm not going to listen. But if I did, and I heard something I shouldn't, I'd dance along the line. I'd be okay as long as what I hear isn't too far on the dark side."

##

After Rosswell had forked over $600 for another pile of silver coins at Discovered Treasures, they trudged to the alley. The price had gone up. Inflation, he supposed.

Ollie leaned against a brick wall on one side, folding his beefy arms across his chest. "I'll wait here. You skedaddle."

"Let me know what he said as soon as possible." Rosswell edged down the alley away from the street. Close to the back end of the alley, he spied a large wooden crate. His head whipped around. Ollie wasn't watching. The crate should hold him safely out of view. He peered in.

A stray black cat, disturbed by his intrusion, meowed belligerently, then wandered away. Small places held terror for Rosswell. At least there were no snakes. He hoped. Cats ran off snakes, didn't they? The commotion hadn't drawn Ollie's attention, still focused on the mouth of the alley.

Inside the box smelled like piss. It was hot. He was going to die in there but decided to crawl in. __ The need to hear the conversation firsthand outweighed his repugnance. He stepped on a smaller box, then climbed into the large crate, and pulled the lid over the top. Scant light leaked through the cracks, enough to make it dim inside, although he could see part of the alley.

Rosswell heard Ollie speaking to himself in a low voice, "Showtime, boys and girls. Showtime!"

# Chapter 16

## Thursday Afternoon

Although sounds were muffled by the wooden crate, Rosswell heard someone he assumed was Charlie Heckle shuffle into the alley.

"You Ollie?"

Ollie planted his carcass directly in front of Rosswell's line of sight. He groaned in frustration. He didn't want to see Ollie's butt, he wanted to see Charlie's face.

"I am Ollie Groton."

"You got something for me?"

"Who are you?"

Ollie shunted to the side so Rosswell, if he placed his eyeglasses on a spot between a couple of slats, could see a man about five and a half feet tall, brown hair, with a big scar on his face. Ollie had earlier told Rosswell that Captain LaFaire's description of all the men on the ferry were vanilla. This one was vanilla with a scar.

"Charlie Heckle."

The man had hesitated a couple of seconds. _Aha! Using an alias!_ When asked their name, people generally respond quickly or not at all. But waiting for a microsecond too long meant that the person had something to hide.

Ollie held out the sack of coins. "I've got something for you."

Ollie blocked the view again. Rosswell heard the crinkle of a paper bag and the jingling of coins. Charlie checking to make sure all his money was there. More crinkling. More jingling. Charlie stuffing the bag in his pocket. Charlie was dead if he stayed in Ste. Gen after this meeting. The money would be enough to get him out of town. Six hundred dollars might take him to New Orleans or Detroit or Denver or Louisville. Rosswell couldn't deduce Charlie's plan. Why was Charlie even talking to Ollie? Was the scar-faced man that desperate to get away from Nathaniel? Obviously. Charlie realized that the paper bag had enough money to get his sorry ass out of Nathaniel's sight.

Ollie said, "What is it you want to tell me?"

"Nathaniel is running River Heights Villa."

"I know. It's in the phone book. County records show him buying the place ten years ago."

"He's smuggling dope."

"I know that, too."

"He killed Ribs Freshwater and he's after Judge Carew."

"Give me the silver back, Charlie. You haven't told me anything I don't already know."

"No, wait." Rosswell detected a change in Charlie's breathing. He panted. Charlie was in the throes of a major stress attack.

Rosswell's suspicions were confirmed. Heckle needed that silver to run away.

Ants proceeded to climb up Rosswell's leg, the biggest ants he'd ever seen. Red, big ants. Fire ants. Did Ste. Gen have fire ants? There was a rumor going around that fire ants had hitched a ride on hay shipped from Florida a couple of years ago. Rosswell tried to quiet himself. He'd heard that if you were real still, fire ants wouldn't bite. That quickly proved to be an old wives' tale. A couple of the nasty critters injected hot needles into him. Rosswell bit his tongue to keep the moan forming deep in his chest from spilling out of his mouth. As an additional measure, he slapped his palm across his mouth. The box stank. He was burning up. Fire ants devoured him.

Rosswell moaned. He clamped his hand harder across his mouth. Had they heard him? Another look through the slats confirmed they had not.

"Come on, Charlie. It's hot and you're wasting my time. Hand over the money."

Ollie held out his hand.

"The dead woman's in a cave."

Ollie dropped his hand.

_Holy crap!_ Rosswell held his breath, not wanting to miss a single syllable of what Charlie said. A couple of ants explored his face. He couldn't believe something so little could make him burn like the devil. He mashed as many of the little bastards as he could. The slightest noise must be avoided. Charlie teetered on the verge of giving Ollie enough info to find the dead woman. If they found her body, Sheriff Fribeau would want Rosswell to stay and help investigate. Right? Rosswell brushed at the ants he'd missed killing, hoping he wasn't making any noise. The stench of the ant's defensive formic acid bit his nose and made his mouth feel like he was chewing copper.

"What dead woman?"

That's right, Ollie. Make him say it. If it's Tina, then that's the end of me.

"The one Ribs threw off the ferry."

Hallelujah! That wasn't Tina!

"Was she dead when Ribs threw her off the ferry?"

"Yeah."

"How come no one saw Ribs throw her off?"

"I didn't know he was going to do that. All I was supposed to do was bang the side of the boat and get everybody's attention. Ribs told me he was going to dump a load of dope because the cops were closing in. I didn't know nothing about no dead woman."

Lying sack of crap. Charlie didn't know there was a dead woman in the van? Right. And I have a hundred acres of swampland in Nevada for sale cheap.

"How do you know where she is now?"

"Me and Ribs went looking for her and found her stuck on a log. We drug her up the cliff to a cave and put her in there."

Rosswell wondered why they didn't put the dead woman in the cave in the first place. Why throw her off the ferry?

"Why did you throw her in the river if you knew you needed her body later?"

Good one, Ollie.

"I didn't know nothing. I did what I was told."

"Where's this cave?"

"On the river."

Rosswell couldn't decide whether the ants crawling on both of his legs or Charlie's evasive answers were irritating him worse.

Ollie said, "Any landmarks?"

"What's a landmark?"

"Tell me how to get from here to the cave where the woman's body is."

Judging by Ollie's tone, Rosswell could tell that he'd reached the point of a screaming rage and systematic thumping party, with Charlie being the only guest. This was the problem when Rosswell wasn't present when Ollie interviewed suspects. Ollie's tolerance for frustration was exceptionally low. Rosswell should be standing next to Ollie, not sitting in a wooden crate roasting in the heat and suffering from the bites of industrious ants.

Charlie said, "There's that big bluff with all the trees and shit on it. Look out—"

A loud beeping interrupted Charlie.

Ollie yelled, "Charlie, get back here." No answer from Charlie.

Rosswell heard a whistle from the train track running through town a couple of blocks away.

Charlie's gone, jumping the southbound train. Next stop, Memphis, Tennessee.

"Hey. You." A new voice. A guy on foot.

Ollie said, "What?"

A second new voice. "Get out the way. We're hauling trash." A guy driving a trash truck.

The beeping started again. Through a crack, Rosswell watched the truck backing up to the garbage bin next to him. The claw grabbed the bin. Upended it into the maw of the truck. The guy on foot said, "Make kindling and I'll load it." The guy motioned the truck to back up. A huge pair of metal arms slid into either side of the box. Cracking sounds split the air. The metal arms splintered the wood.

Rosswell missed death by inches.

"Stop!" He pushed the lid off the box. "Time to leave."

"Freaking frost!" Ollie said. "What're you doing in that box?"

"I can't get out."

The guy on foot and Ollie grabbed Rosswell and tugged him out of the crate.

The truck driver said to Rosswell and Ollie, "You fricking bums gotta stay out of boxes and bins and stuff. We don't wanna kill youse."

The guy on foot stared at Ollie and Rosswell. "You're dressed awful good for bums. You steal them clothes?"

Ollie said, "We worked for these clothes. We don't steal."

Rosswell brushed ants and brushed more ants till he was certain he was free from all of the nasty things. "Thanks. We won't bother you anymore."

"Hey," said the driver to Rosswell. "You look familiar."

Rosswell recognized the man he'd given a divorce to earlier in the week. "No, you don't know me. I got into town early this morning and, in fact, I'm leaving right this very instant." Several stray ants worked themselves out of Rosswell's hair.

"That's right," Ollie said. "This is my cousin from Paducah. He's had some hard times and he's headed for Chicago, looking for work."

The driver raced the engine and waved them off. "Get outta here. We're running behind."

##

After Mabel barred Rosswell and Ollie from the restaurant, claiming that their appearance and smell were offensive, the disgraced pair sat on a bench in front of the courthouse. Rosswell said a prayer of thanks to the Goddess of Good Fortune that the place had closed for the day. He certainly wouldn't want one of the court clerks to see him smelly and dirty.

"Ollie, if this detective work keeps up the way it's been going so far, I'll be forced to declare bankruptcy."

"There are six ants dancing down your pants leg."

"I hate fire ants!" Rosswell brushed the offending critters onto the sidewalk.

"If you'd been attacked by fire ants, you'd be lying in the alley screaming. The ones in the alley are _Pogonomyrmex barbatus_. Although generally found more southwest of here—"

"Forget it!" Rosswell stomped on every ant he could find. "Back to detective stuff. Maman was talking about two caves. That's why Lazar came down on me so hard for not listening to what she'd said."

"We went in two caves."

"I mean two separate caves. Where we were counted as one cave with two rooms."

"Maybe, maybe not." Ollie placed his fingers over his mouth in a thinking gesture. After he sniffed, he rubbed his hands on his pants and left them at his side. "Tell me again what Maman said."

" 'Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek.' "

Rosswell wiped his hands on his pants, then rubbed the sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. A cloud passed over the sun, lowering the temperature maybe a half-degree.

"Judge, we screwed up."

"I just said that very thing. There are two separate caves, not one cave with two rooms. There's a cave of one eye and a cave of blind eye. Which one did we go into?"

"I'm guessing cave of blind eye, since it was next to a cave with light. The cave with light didn't count to Maman. The blind cave held a treasure, which was Ribs Freshwater's body, but it wasn't what we were seeking. We need to find the cave of one eye which has much treasure."

"The dead woman."

"Judge Carew, the cigar is in the mail."

"However, Ribs's body wasn't exactly a treasure."

Ollie stood. "Let's go tell the sheriff."

"No. If I'm right, the Fribeau network connects directly to Nathaniel."

# 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?"

# Chapter 18

## Friday Morning, continued

Rosswell reckoned the red and blue flashing lights of the emergency vehicles distracted everyone enough to allow Ollie and him an escape. Fire trucks and ambulances draw attention to themselves, whereas two more guys running helter skelter would be deemed unremarkable. He motioned Ollie to follow him and they sprinted out of the garage toward the darkest area, which was the woods at the north end of the bluff.

Rosswell signaled a halt when he figured they could talk without being heard, although with the uproar, no one could hear a small nuclear bomb exploding. Only after panting and drawing several deep breaths could he speak. "They won't see or hear us now."

"Those words should be chiseled into our tombstones."

Rosswell concentrated on the confusion at the house. A firefighter approached Nathaniel gesturing and yelling, ordering him to stand aside. Nathaniel stiffened and didn't move. The two of them punched the air with their forefingers. As the argument deepened, their faces pressed against each other, nose to nose.

Ollie said, "Nathaniel doesn't want the firefighters in the house."

"Good luck with keeping them out."

"He's hiding something."

Rosswell said, "See? Didn't I say you were a genius?"

Gustave, his patrol car's siren wailing, screeched to a halt and he hurtled out. When he joined the firefighter and Nathaniel, the ruckus escalated. Screaming back and forth at each other, Gustave whirled Nathaniel around, jerked his arms behind his back, and handcuffed him.

Rosswell said, "Holy crap. Nathaniel's busted."

"Yeah. And by Gustave? I thought they were in cahoots."

Gustave dragged Nathaniel aside, allowing firefighters to flood the house. The alarms silenced. Lights came on in every room. After fifteen minutes, the whole bunch of firefighters and EMTs sauntered back to their vehicles and left the scene. Gustave freed Nathaniel and, after an exchange of words accompanied by fists pumping in the air, Gustave jumped in his car and sped off.

Ollie said, "Something tells me this isn't the first false alarm they've had at that place."

"Sometimes recovering drunks get bored. Setting off a false alarm is great fun for bored boozers drying out in a rehab center."

"Don't I know it."

"Ollie, you didn't."

"I'm taking the fifth. Amendment, not bottle."

Rosswell decided to man up. "This maneuver was a crummy idea. We didn't find out anything."

"Then let's hoof it. This pair of drunks needs to hustle on down that hill."

When they reached the bottom, Rosswell turned to look up. "How would that look during the day time?" He tilted his head first left, then right, trying to gain perspective. The clouds had thinned, then disappeared. The full moon had made it halfway through its circuit for the night.

He and Ollie had positioned themselves at the bottom of the north face of the bluff where River Heights Villa lorded over the river plain below. The occasional car or truck driving south lit up the rock face briefly. One of the two towers occupied the edge of the cliff. Below the tower, as best Rosswell could make out in the headlights, the face of the bluff appeared to be skull-shaped. Where the two eyes should have been, he could see only one indentation. Rosswell imagined an outcrop below as the nose, and below that, a thin opening stretched across the base of the cliff, which could've served as a mouth.

Ollie said, "I'm seeing a skull with only one eye socket."

" 'Cave of one eye have much treasure.' We need to climb up there and search it. That's where Charlie and Ribs dragged that poor woman." Rosswell didn't fancy climbing back up the cliff. There were too many critters (human and animal) roaming around in the woods. There were also too many strange sounds. Rosswell discounted the romantic notions of a forest at night. There was no romance in the midst of a bunch of trees, vines, and bushes where slithery things lived. "As much as I hate to say it, we can't wait till daylight."

"Not so fast, Judge." Ollie clamped a hand on Rosswell's arm. "Let's call Gustave. Tell him to come back out here. Tell him what Charlie said."

"No."

"That's it? That's your whole argument? _No?_ "

Rosswell flicked on his flashlight, then turned it off. "Gustave thinks we're idiots. If we get him back out here again, Nathaniel will convince him we're another couple of drunks calling in yet another false alarm in the middle of the night."

"And Nathaniel will pin the cut window screen on you."

"Not only that, but Gustave will put two and two together and arrest us for the first false alarm tonight. Not to mention my little felony of breaking and entering."

"What do we do if we find the woman's body?"

"Then we'll call Gustave." Rosswell pulled out his cell phone. "Fully charged. Three bars. We'll send pictures of the body to Gustave. We'll post a video to the Internet. He can't argue with that."

"How are things going to be any different in the morning?"

"Nathaniel knows something is up. He knows I cut that screen."

"How could he know that?"

"Okay, I'll bet I'm his number one suspect. How's that?"

Ollie made an okay sign with his thumb and forefinger.

Rosswell said, "If it's there now, the woman's body will be gone by daylight."

"I can't believe I'm going to be a party to this madness." Ollie hung his head. "I'm going to prison."

"I've got a plan. 'Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.' That's what Lord Polonius said."

"And Hamlet murdered him."

The sound of crunching gravel under Rosswell and Ollie's feet grew louder as they climbed for the cave.

Rosswell cautioned Ollie. "Don't walk so heavy. It's been dry. There's a drought on and everything has turned into tinder in the woods."

"Walking doesn't start fires." Ollie indicated the tower above them. "If we're making crackly noises, no one can hear us up there."

Within a few more minutes, they'd reached the mouth of the cave. Rosswell gave Ollie the keep-your-mouth-shut signal again. Ollie nodded several times.

Rosswell stooped down, Ollie following his lead. Rosswell estimated that two or three minutes had passed. Maybe more. He heard nothing. The cave smelled of damp ground. There was a small spring-fed stream issuing from the mouth. A cool breeze wafted from the opening.

"There's got to be another entrance to the cave," Rosswell said. "Otherwise, there wouldn't be air coming out."

He risked flicking on his flashlight. Although it was a small light, hardly meant for cave exploration, he could tell there was nothing artificial around the mouth of the cave. No gates to trap them. No doors that would slam down, sealing them inside. That told him that Nathaniel never expected anyone to be foolish enough to climb the bluff and explore the cave. Otherwise, he would've built barriers to keep trespassers out, especially if the cave led to a passage under the house. Not to mention that if Maman was right, the cave held a corpse.

Rosswell risked another sweep of the flashlight along the floor. No snakes. No bear prints. No evidence of a mountain lion. No bloody fur ripped off a poor rabbit or the bones of a feral pig. There still could be spiders and crawly things. Lizards. Salamanders. Yet the cursory glance allowed him to stamp safe on the situation.

"Ollie," Rosswell said in a low voice, "we're safe and secure. There's nobody, human or otherwise, in that cave waiting for us."

Standing behind them, Nathaniel said in the stage whisper of a man whose adenoids had shot craps, "Should I kill you here or inside?"

# Chapter 19

## Friday Morning, continued

Nathaniel's breath rattled when he talked. "Tie them up." His raspy voice made him sound like the villain in a melodrama. "Gentlemen, I'm going to kill you slowly, painfully."

Turk Malone oozed from the shadows, a gun in one hand, hanging at his side, and a flashlight in the other. "You boys armed?" Turk's moldy smile held no humor.

Still pissed Ollie wasn't the Schwan's guy.

Turk laid his flashlight on the cave floor, then brought his pistol up and pointed it at Ollie. "Bang." Turk stuck his face into Rosswell's face. Turk's rancid breath made Rosswell curl up his nose. Turk bobbed and swayed. _Stoned out of his mind._ Rosswell had a hunch he'd fall down any second. Turk slurred, "You be a good boy."

"Shut up," Nathaniel said to Turk. "Search them and bind them. And hurry. We don't have much time."

A cell phone rang. Rosswell thanked Whoever that it wasn't his. Nathaniel punched his own cell phone. "What?" He listened for a moment before he said, "Don't touch anything. I'll be right there." After Nathaniel disconnected, he emitted a low growl, sounding to Rosswell like a rabid wolf.

Nathaniel smacked Turk on the shoulder. "Pay attention."

Turk's mouth fell open an inch when he fixed his gaze on Nathaniel's face.

Nathaniel continued, "Tie them up good, you idiot. You can do that one thing without screwing up, can't you? Don't screw up."

"I won't screw up."

"If they try to escape, shoot to wound. I want to kill them myself." Nathaniel vanished into the darkness.

Turk mumbled to himself, then said to Ollie, "He don't think I can't do nothing right."

Ollie said, "That's a triple negative. I'm sure you mean Nathaniel thinks you screw everything up."

Turk verged on a pout. "What the hell problem is tying someone up? I seen it done in the movies lots of times."

Ollie said, "You can do it. I have faith in you."

"Stick them hands out."

Turk searched his pockets until he found a pair of plastic zip ties, like the kind used for securing saplings to posts. He froze and didn't change position for a few minutes, probably considering how best to maneuver his gun while fastening the ties.

"Judge, put your nose on that wall and stick your hands up high." Rosswell complied.

Turk said to Ollie, "Go ahead. Stick them hands out." Ollie stuck his hands out. It was clumsy, but Turk managed to grip his gun while at the same time holding the zip ties. "Listen, you clown, you try anything funny and I'll shoot your ass, then I'll shoot Rosswell. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Sit down." Ollie sat. "Hands together. Say your prayers." Turk wrapped Ollie's hands with several of the restraints. Fishing around in his pockets again, Turk found more zip ties. Once Ollie was bound hand and foot, Turk said to Rosswell, "Turn around and sit down." Again, Rosswell complied. "Same for you. First your hands and then your feet."

Turk studied Rosswell and Ollie bound on the floor of the cave. "Only way to draw to that pair is pull a joker." Laughing, he stumbled, falling on his butt. "Time to go." It took him several tries to get up. Eventually, he stood. "The boss is waiting." He frowned. "No, I'm supposed to wait. Ain't I?"

Rosswell said, "Turk, I need to ask you a couple of things."

Turk pushed both of them from a sitting position to flat on the ground. "Your twenty bucks has done wore off." Then he wobbled out of the cave, forgetting his flashlight.

After a few minutes of silence, Rosswell said, "Have they both gone?" His chest, legs, and back ached. And his head. A migraine crouched in his brain, ready to leap out.

"You want me to holler for them?" Ollie flopped around until he achieved a sitting position. "I'm glad Turk didn't make me cross my ankles but I can't release my fingers. My wrists and fingers feel like they're joined together."

"My head feels like it's joined to the ground." Rosswell shifted his weight, trying to make himself more comfortable. "And I feel like a garbage bag with these ties on me."

"I've read all of Houdini's books. He revealed all his escape secrets. Unfortunately, that was before plastic."

"Ollie, my hands and feet are going numb."

"Sit up. It helps your circulation."

"I've made up my mind." Rosswell hadn't moved. "I'm going to kill Nathaniel." His voice aimed at the floor of the cave, muffling his words.

"Judge, I said, sit up."

"If your hands are in an attitude of prayer, maybe you should start praying." Rosswell struggled to a sitting position. "I'm sitting up now and I'm still going to kill Nathaniel. And after I kill him, I'm going to kill Turk. Don't try to talk me out of it." The ground beneath him was wet and the dampness seeped into his clothes. "I'm cold."

"You kill them and you'll spend the rest of your life in prison unless you get the gas chamber. Oh. Wait. You're a judge. You already know that."

"The gas chamber is a tourist attraction now. They traded it for lethal injection."

"Like you get from a veterinarian."

"It's not hopeless." Rosswell shook his head, trying to clear the pain of the headache. "But without Tina, the rest of my life won't be long."

"You can't kill Nathaniel and Turk until we get loose. That doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Besides, they have guns."

"I told you it wasn't hopeless. We have flashlights. And a gun."

"Shut your mouth." Ollie scooted close to Rosswell and gasped when he saw the bulge at Rosswell's back under his shirt. "Turk missed it, didn't he?"

"He was stoned. Missed my phone and flashlight, too."

"I still have my dinky little flashlight." Ollie's brow furrowed. "Could he really be that stoned?"

"Nathaniel told Turk to do two things. Search us and tie us up. Turk could only focus on the last thing Nathaniel told him."

Ollie kneeled, rocking back and forth till he found his balance, then leaned over Rosswell and peered down his shirt.

"Ollie, you fracking pervert, what the hell are you doing?"

"How sharp is the star on that necklace?"

"It's sharper than a serpent's tooth. But if you want to saw our way out, it will take several years."

Ollie sank to the ground. "How are your teeth?"

"We're going to die. A bear or mountain lion or rattlesnake is going to kill us. Maybe they'll gang up and all three will kill us."

"It's September but still hot as hell. Summertime. Bears don't go in caves in the summer. Neither do mountain lions. And snakes don't like caves any time of the year. It's too cold for them."

"We're going to die. Something will catch our scent and come investigating. Coyotes. Wild dogs. Wolves. Something."

Ollie said, "When that something sees us, we'll make noise and it will turn around and high tail it out of here."

Rosswell shivered from the cold, straining to move his hands as far as he could toward Ollie's eyes. "See this? I'm freezing."

"Hold on, Judge. It's not that cold. Don't leave me now." Ollie searched the wall above them. "Look up there."

"What do you mean?"

"There's an outcropping. 'And those caves were encompassed with sharp rocks.' Flavius Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_."

"Ollie, you fracking big gas bag, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Turk didn't tie my feet cross-legged." Ollie stood and stretched onto his tiptoes. "I can't reach that. It's a sharp rock. Or at least it looks like one from here. If I could get up there, I could cut these handcuffs off."

"We're going to die."

"Let me stand on your back."

"Find a rock on the floor of the cave!"

Ollie surveyed the floor. "Thanks, Houdini!" He toed a knife-shaped rock that appeared plenty sharp to Rosswell. "I can't pick it up. I can't use my hands."

Rosswell groaned. "Let's see. Die from you breaking my back or waiting until Nathaniel returns to shoot us. What should I do?"

"Roll over. All fours. Get as high as possible."

A lot of effort went into Rosswell's flipping onto his stomach, then scrunching down to allow Ollie to climb onto his back. "Hurry up." When Ollie mounted him, Rosswell felt the breath leave his lungs.

From the perch of Rosswell's back, Ollie groaned. "I still can't reach it."

Rosswell's lack of air prevented him from saying much.

"Now listen, Judge." Rosswell said nothing. "I'm going to jump. On three. You roll away from me. I can't spread my legs because of the cuffs on my ankles. I'm going to try to hook myself on that rock. I can cut my wrist cuffs."

Rosswell whimpered.

"Good. Glad you understand. Here goes. One. Two. Three!"

Rosswell gasped before he tried scooting away. He couldn't move. When Ollie came crashing down on him, his spine would be broken. He hoped he died quickly.

Several seconds passed before Rosswell realized two things. One, he was still alive. And, two, Ollie must still be up in the air.

"I made it," Ollie said.

Rosswell gaped upward until he spotted Ollie, hanging from the rock outcropping, trying to move his hands back and forth. "I can't move my hands. All I'm doing is hanging on this outcrop. The pressure of my weight on the rock is too great. No way can I lift my hands off."

Rosswell moaned, then hunched his back under Ollie's feet. When he felt the feet on his back, he pushed upwards. When Rosswell's actions allowed the pressure on the plastic ties to ease, Ollie sawed like a demon chased by Satan. In a few minutes, he let out a big whoop.

Rosswell managed to scoot away a couple of inches, enough to avoid a trampling by the big man who hit flat on the ground, his hands free.

Ollie picked up the sharp rock he'd found earlier. "If there's one sharp rock in a cave, that means there are a lot of sharp rocks in the cave." Picking up Turk's flashlight, Ollie bent down next to Rosswell. "Knife time."

In a moment, Rosswell's hands were freed. "Damn, it's cold." He kicked off both his shoes. Without footwear, he easily drew his feet through the plastic around his ankles. "People who tie you up never think about your shoes. If Turk had tied my bare feet tight, it wouldn't be as easy to escape."

The weakening light from Turk's flashlight trickled through the cave only enough for Rosswell to spot the snake heading for Ollie.

"Ollie, don't move."

"I can move a little. I'm going to cut my ankle cuffs. I want to move because I don't want to get cold."

"A snake is headed for your leg. It's about two inches from you."

Ollie glanced down toward his leg. "Like I said, snakes don't like caves." Shuffling to his left, he moved from the snake's path. When he did, the snake followed him. "Caves are too cold for them."

"Tell that to the snake."

"I told you, I'm a caver. I've studied these things." Ollie shuffled to his right. The snake followed. "I don't know what it is but it's not a snake."

"You're a nice heat source." Rosswell shuddered. "Did I ever tell you I was allergic to snake venom?"

Ollie squirmed, moving his head, obviously trying to see the critter in the dimness. "It _is_ a snake. I think it's a copperhead." The snake followed Ollie wherever he went.

"What's it look like?" By that time, Rosswell had shined the flashlight on the serpent.

"Can't tell for sure."

From a safe distance, Rosswell studied the reptile. "I'll Google it."

Before Rosswell could fetch his phone, Ollie moved around as best he could to check out the snake using his own flashlight. "It's a copperhead."

"It would have to be poisonous." The snake looked fatter and moved slower than a normal copperhead. Then it struck Rosswell. "The snake ate something. Caught a meal at the front of the cave. A rat or something. The snake got lost and he's headed for the heat. That's you. You're a wonderful heat source. You're big and have a bald head that radiates warmth."

Rosswell puffed, inhaled, and exhaled, like a woman practicing Lamaze breathing in preparation for childbirth. His tongue swelled up, like a dry sponge taking on water. He wondered how his tongue could swell before he'd been bitten. __ Teetering on the verge of collapse, Rosswell tried convincing himself that being scrunched up next to a guy tied up in a dark and damp place wasn't all that bad. As long as no snakes slithered into view.

Thinking happy thoughts didn't work.

Rosswell reached for his gun. "Move aside, Ollie. I'm going to shoot that bastard's head off." Talking was hard. He was sure he sounded like he had a mouthful of mush.

"You want Nathaniel and Turk down here again?"

"Yes, and I'll blow their heads off, too."

"Judge, listen to me. You can't use your pistol. Stomp him."

"I'm not wearing shoes. Maybe I could bash his head in with my gun."

"No, that's too dangerous. You might shoot yourself. Or worse, me."

Rosswell stood and shook his arms. "I need some blood circulating."

"Use one of your shoes." Ollie's voice shot up an octave. "If you don't kill that snake, the blood circulating in me will be poisonous."

"A copperhead couldn't kill a guy as big as you." Rosswell sneezed. "I don't think."

"Could we research that later? Kill the freaking frost snake and we'll talk about it over apple pie and coffee at Mabel's."

"I could smash his head with my gun." He drew out the pistol and stared at the weapon, as if an answer would appear on its handle.

"Don't go into shock. Judge, stomp your feet. Move. Do something."

There was only one course of action if Ollie were to stay alive. Rosswell swallowed the bile trying to shoot up from his stomach, then stuffed the pistol into its holster. He knelt and grabbed the snake behind its head with his right hand. "I'm trying to choke him but it's not working." The thing began twisting, trying to wrap itself around Rosswell's arm. "Don't snakes have necks?"

"Yes. Right behind that big fat head."

Rosswell grabbed the creature's tail with his left hand. The grip of his right hand behind the snake's head grew even tighter, yet it had no effect on the serpent.

Ollie spoke quietly but clearly. "Judge Carew, listen to me. Smash the snake's head against the wall of the cave. Now. And then do it again. And again."

"Good idea. Where's the wall?"

# Chapter 20

## Friday Morning, continued

Rosswell, talk to me." Ollie wriggled along the floor of the cave, kicking off his shoes, releasing his feet from the knot. Ollie's socks soaked up gray mud.

In Rosswell's brain, the struggle with the snake stirred up some old master painter's version of a saint, wrestling with the devil in a dim underworld battlefield. Ollie's grasp on the flashlight trembled, adding a jittering glow to the scene.

"I'm listening." Rosswell's grip on the snake's body—over three feet long, warm and dry, not at all slimy—remained tight. The snake's mouth opened and closed, its fangs dripping with poison, trying to find something to bite. Rosswell stared at the hooded eyes of the snake, the elliptical-shaped pupils glaring hatred at him. The crossbands on the viper's body ranged from pinkish tan to dark brown, colors Rosswell didn't find pleasing. Obviously frightened, the reptile gave off a musky smell, something like rotten cucumbers. "Tell me where the wall is."

"Go straight. About five feet. You'll find it."

Rosswell struggled, his feet bogged down like in a river of molasses in January. He used his free hand, his left hand, to deliver a couple of slaps on his face, which helped the blood flow again. His feet must've gotten enough blood too, because they moved more easily, except when he stepped on a sharp rock. By now, his eyes had become accustomed to the small amount of light. He could make out the darkness of the wall ahead of him. All he had to do was stand straight and not fall before he reached his goal.

In a sleepwalker's pose, Rosswell's left arm stuck out from his body in a rigid salute. A moment later his free hand felt the cool of the cave's rock wall. In an arc worthy of a World Series pitcher, Rosswell's right hand almost connected with the wall. Almost, because the snake's head was between his hand and the wall. Nasty stuff spewed from the snake's crushed skull across Rosswell's face, then blood spurted on him as he slammed the snake into the wall again and again.

"Die, you sons of bitches who put a fake bomb on a little girl!"

"Stop." Ollie grabbed him by the shoulders. "It's dead, Judge. Stop."

Rosswell tossed the snake toward the entrance of the cave. "I'll bet the rats are happy their tormentor bought the farm."

Ollie bowed to Rosswell. "You saved my life."

"That means you're my slave now."

"Not in this or any other universe. Ever. Unto eternity never."

Ollie tugged Rosswell toward the cave's entrance. Rosswell countered the pull, falling on the slippery mud. "Ollie, wait." He stood and sniffed, then worked his way further into the cave's depths. "Something bad. Something dead. Or someone." The body came into view. Rosswell headed for the corpse, lying on its back, where he knelt next to it. "I know her."

Both of the men remained silent. The woman's resemblance to Tina astonished Rosswell. Except that the dead woman wasn't pregnant. Her only clothing was a flimsy hospital gown, bloody along the bottom. She wore no jewelry, other than a plastic identification bracelet circling her right wrist. No shoes.

Ollie broke the silence. "Who is it?"

"I'm not sure of her name, but I've got a picture of her in my casebook. She's from...Pine Bluff? Little Rock? Somewhere in Arkansas."

"Someone misses her." Ollie knelt next to Rosswell. "Someone's looking for her." He stared into her face. "She looks peaceful. Like a Madonna painting."

"Say that again."

"She looks peaceful."

"No, she looks dead." Rosswell touched the identification bracelet. "Who does she look like?"

"Like a Madonna painting. The Blessed Virgin."

Rosswell motioned to Ollie. "There's writing on this bracelet. Can you make it out?"

In the gloom, Ollie leaned close to the woman's wrist, shining his flashlight. "Initials. M is the first letter."

Rosswell groaned. "D is next and H is the last one."

Ollie inspected the bracelet. "Yeah. MDH."

"Madonna. Mary Donna Helperen from Piggott, Arkansas. Swimming champion at the University of Arkansas. Working on her physics doctorate." Rosswell rubbed his hands on his pants. "Her parents are Norwegian immigrants. She's a missing woman who looks like Tina."

Ollie interlaced his fingers. "Nathaniel killed this innocent woman."

Rosswell cleaned the end of his right forefinger and touched the woman's body, hoping to make contact with her, hoping to show her that someone cared how and why she'd died.

Examining the blood on the gown, he said, "I suspect she may have died of hemorrhaging." With the tip of his finger, he lifted the gown up. "Yes. Someone performed a Caesarean section on her and didn't even bother to sew her back up. She died in childbirth."

"How long has she been dead?"

Rosswell pressed the back of his hand against her face. "Not long. She's still warm." After visually examining her from head to toe, Rosswell pointed. "The only part of her that is dirty is the back of her feet. She has muddy heels."

"How do you think she got in the cave?"

"This is the woman I saw tossed off the ferry."

"What?" Ollie gasped and stood. "She died in childbirth and they brought her to this nasty cave?"

Rosswell also stood and worked his phone out of his pocket and snapped several pictures of Mary Donna Helperen.

The horror was plain in Ollie's voice. "What in God's name do you think's going on here?"

"She didn't drown." Rosswell replaced his phone. "Somebody rescued her. Probably Charlie and Ribs. And they gave her to Nathaniel."

"What did he want with her?"

"Her baby."

##

Outside, the heat of the night chased the chill from Rosswell, reviving him. "I thought I was going to freeze to death in there." He bent to the ground and finished wiping the snake grue from his hands the best he could. Kneeling, he breathed deeply for a few minutes to keep from puking. "Where are my shoes?"

Ollie handed Rosswell his shoes, then sat, putting his own shoes on. "We need to get to the truck and go find the sheriff."

"I've regained my senses. I'm going back in and take a video of her. In five minutes, the whole universe will see the corpse on YouTube."

"Then we go find the sheriff. He can't ignore our evidence."

"I hope Gustave can stop me from killing that bastard. I mean, _those bastards_. But if he won't help, then we'll go to the Highway Patrol." Rosswell stood and put a hand out, stopping Ollie from moving. "Be still." Holding his breath, he closed his eyes and listened. Sounds in the back of the cave. Someone coming to check on them. He whispered, "Let's go. Slow. Easy. Quiet."

Ollie nodded.

##

"I should throw both of you jokers in jail," Gustave told Ollie and Rosswell after they'd finished their story. The eastern sky grew pink as the three men congregated inside the sheriff's station. The air conditioner rattled, pouring out stale, yet cool, air, a welcome relief from the humidity and heat of the dawn. "I'd have to by God strip you naked and hose you down, you stink so bad. And then do a body cavity search. I've done that before to other prisoners and I can sure do it to you two."

Rosswell fervently hoped he'd not have to witness Ollie being strip searched. "Go right ahead, Sheriff." Ollie squirmed. Rosswell paid no mind to Ollie's obvious discomfort at his casual offer to go to jail after a strip search.

Unwilling to abandon his aching desire to poke Gustave in the chest with his finger, Rosswell leaned over the counter separating the taxpayers from the law enforcement officers. But he had a stroke of common sense and resisted the urge to grab the sheriff's shirt to draw him close to his own face. "Throw us in a cell. But first, you need to arrest Nathaniel and Turk for murder." Rosswell left mud on the counter.

Gustave slammed a palm flat in front of Rosswell. "Don't lean your dirty arms on the furniture and don't tell me how to do my job."

Ollie remained seated on a bench next to the door, under a light, silent as a mouse searching a church at midnight for a crumb of food.

Rosswell said, "There's a body in that cave and it's the woman I saw murdered." The latter was for dramatic effect since he now knew that Mary Donna hadn't died when she was thrown in the Mississippi.

Gustave edged closer to a full-scale rant. "You and that...that research assistant of yours come in here and expect me to believe some cockamamie story about being tied up and thrown in a cave with a woman's body and then escaping after killing a giant serpent."

"I didn't say it was a giant serpent. I said it was a big copperhead."

"Let me see your phone." Rosswell slapped it into Gustave's palm. The sheriff clicked through the photo album. The purpose of Gustave's finger movements was clear. The sheriff was deleting the pictures Rosswell had taken of the dead woman. When Gustave finished, he deposited the phone in Rosswell's palm. "Nothing here. Forgot to get pictures of the dead redhead?"

From the bench, Ollie piped up. "Strawberry blonde."

Gustave glowered at Ollie before facing Rosswell. "You all weren't out there at Nathaniel's earlier were you? Oh, say, setting off fire alarms? Or burglar alarms?"

"Now why would we do something like that? I already told you we followed your auntie's clues and went searching in the cave. We found what she called 'much treasure.' The woman's body. And we got caught by Nathaniel and Turk."

Gustave unwrapped one of his black cigars and started chewing on it. "Why in the hell did you go out there in the middle of the night?"

"Don't you ever smoke those things?"

"Answer the damn question."

"Simple." Rosswell paused, trying to think of a simple explanation for doing something extraordinarily stupid like exploring a cave with wimpy flashlights. "We didn't want to make it obvious."

"Sure failed there." Gustave chomped so hard on the cigar that he bit part of it off. He spit it on the floor. "I need to run both of you on the breathalyzer."

"Boot it up. We're ready."

"Instead, I'm kicking you out of my office." Gustave marched to the front door, opened it, and waved them out. "I'm not even writing a report on this, Judge Carew. I have a smidgen of respect for the court in general, although I wonder about you in particular."

Ollie stepped out of the office. Gustave jerked Rosswell back in and shut the door. "Don't cross me, Judge. I'll find you if you do. Remember that."

He pushed Rosswell out and slammed the door after him.

On the stoop, Ollie glanced over his shoulder at the door. "Cranky bastard."

"He's been up all night. Same as us."

"Maybe we need to talk to the Highway Patrol. Or the FBI. That woman could've been kidnapped. That would make it a federal case, right?"

Rosswell wiped his face with a shirtsleeve. "What woman?"

Ollie's face contorted. Rosswell knew what usually came next.

"Ollie, so help me God, if you squeak around me anymore I'm going to shoot you."

"You're saying that even if we could convince a cop to go out there, nothing would be found?"

"Nathaniel is fuming, prepping to go ballistic. Since he no doubt already knows we escaped from the cave, he'll move the body and take out after us both. We're dead men. Good thing I sent those pictures to my email. My executor may find them interesting." Rosswell checked the photos on his phone. "Gustave missed the ones of Tina."

The sun, now fully risen, flooded the courthouse square with light, every building either sharing part of the sunrise or standing mute in a shadow. The ancient bricks of various shades reflected a light that ranged from deep red to a smoky orange. Two children ran down the sidewalk between the church and the courthouse. A man swept the front steps of a shop. On each street corner, the garden club had planted huge pots of flowers, now being watered by a beautiful girl in a mini-skirt. A gang of early-rising senior citizens disgorged from a tour bus and streamed into Mabel's. They joked and laughed.

"Peaceful and normal." Rosswell hardly dared to breathe when the clearness of the sky seemed to engulf him. "This place is so beautiful. Hard to believe all this crap is going on."

"Yeah, there's enough blue sky to make a man a pair of pants. Before you get too philosophical, let's head over to Mabel's for breakfast." Ollie ran his nose over his arms, then did the same to Rosswell. "We best clean up first."

Rosswell said, "Can you make a video out of the pictures I took of Mary Donna?"

"Is the bear in the woods Catholic?"

Rosswell pushed aside several snappy retorts and handed Ollie a slip of paper. "Here's my user ID and password for my email. Get those pictures and post them to YouTube."

"Doing that is signing our death warrant."

"Gustave and Nathaniel already threatened to kill me if I crossed either of them. I'm sure you're included."

"What are you going to do?"

"Let's eat first. By the looks of them, the old codgers aim to eat up the whole breakfast buffet. And I need my strength if I'm going to kill Nathaniel before he kills us. Killing Nathaniel will energize me enough to kill Turk." Rosswell soaked in the beauty of the morning. "And then I might have to kill Gustave."

# Chapter 21

## Friday Night

After cleaning up and then wolfing down Mabel's breakfast that morning, Rosswell had sat on the bench all day, estimating that he'd drunk a gallon of coffee before leaving the courthouse. In between cases, he'd grown tense when chatting with every law enforcement agent he knew resulted in zero interest. The only evidence he could produce was the photographs he'd emailed to himself.

"No body, no crime," one of them said. "PhotoShop," another said. A third said, "We're working on crimes with real evidence."

The only one he hadn't spoken to was Jim Bill Evans, whose incoming voicemail message promised to return the call if you left your name with a brief message. Why Rosswell had bothered trying to convince anyone else but the fire marshal was a puzzle his fatigued brain couldn't handle.

That afternoon, consuming a huge portion of Mrs. Bolzoni's deluxe lasagna (chicken, beef, three kinds of cheese) roused the sleep monster in Rosswell. After supper, he aimed himself for the stairs to answer the call of his bed. He hadn't slept since Wednesday night. He knew that the instant he plummeted into the bed that neither the caffeine mixed with the anxiety of the day nor the sunshine of the late afternoon would bother him. Plunging into the depths of a dreamless sleep sounded glorious.

Mrs. Bolzoni blocked the staircase. "Don't go to the bed yet. You must meet someone."

"I'm very tired." Fatal exhaustion was too weak a phrase to describe what he felt. Rosswell's muscles screamed as if he'd been beaten by back alley thugs. His eyes, sandy as a beach, felt like Captain LaFaire had welded anchors to his eyelids. "I'd have to die to feel better."

"This won't be long in taking. You stay out all night and come back after wrestling in mud. And the smell not good either. Smell like dead fish. I wash your clothes twice today. They still are dirty. You should get new."

"Ollie and I had a lot of errands to run. I had a flat tire on the truck. It was a mess getting it changed." What was a little black lie after all the felonies he'd committed? He stifled a belch, tasting the lasagna again. Gas-X made his to-do list before he hit the sack. "I can't think anymore. I have to sleep."

"As if." Her eyes opened wide, magnified by the thick lenses of her spectacles. "I thank the saints the clothes they don't stink of the booze."

"That's because I didn't drink any booze."

Although he assured himself that she hadn't invited Nathaniel to The Four Bee to meet with him, he made what he hoped was a careless gesture: double-checking to make sure his pistol was in its proper place. It was there, holstered at the small of his back under his shirt.

Rosswell said, "Whom do you want me to meet?"

"Whom? Why you talk of this whom? It's not proper to talk of a lady's whom."

"Not _womb_ , Mrs. Bolzoni. _Whom_ is the pronoun used when it's the object of a verb or a preposition."

"Not nice to proposition a lady about her womb."

Rosswell felt the migraine sneaking up on him again. "What is the name of the person you want me to meet?"

"We wait on porch. You see."

They parked on the porch swing in the evening breeze, listening to the tree frogs belching invitations to prospective mates. Mrs. Bolzoni's chattering caused a dark fog to envelop Rosswell. He had to pinch himself several times to stay awake.

Presently, an aqua colored Honda Civic with dark tinted windows drove up in front of The Four Bee. Rosswell guessed it to be a '98 or '99. Why those cars needed a spoiler was a mystery he'd never solved. Eyeing the sloping fin on the top of the trunk, Rosswell assigned its place in the universe as a waste of space. No Civic could ever go fast enough to require help from a spoiler to stay on the ground. And his truck sounded better than this bug fart car any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Although he doubted that Nathaniel would drive such a vehicle, he kept his gun hand free.

"Hmmph."

"What's this you say?"

"Clearing my throat, Mrs. Bolzoni."

A woman, tall and slender with strawberry blonde hair, stepped from the car.

She looked like Tina. And the woman who was thrown off the boat.

Mrs. Bolzoni popped up and ran to meet the car's driver. They hugged and air kissed.

"Alessandra, I have someone for you must to meet. The Judge Ross Carew."

"Rosswell Carew," he said, with a slight emphasis on his first name, as he also rose and joined the two women. "Glad to meet you, Alessandra."

He offered his hand but didn't bother with the cliché _And your mother's told me all about you_. Alessandra wouldn't want her mother telling all about her to a stranger. Alessandra was in rehabilitation. They shook hands. Her handshake was firm, her palm dry. Although he couldn't name the perfume, he detected the smell of lilacs, similar to the perfume that Tina wore. A glance inside the car assured him that she was alone.

"I've heard a lot about you," Alessandra said. "I believe my mother is quite taken with you."

Mrs. Bolzoni issued a loud shushing sound. "The judge is a good man who doesn't cook the menthol."

"What?"

"I'm a law-abiding citizen."

Except for an occasional felony here and there. And were you at River Heights Villa during the latest false alarm? Did you know about the dead woman in the cave? Maybe you're here spying for your boss man, Nathaniel Dahlbert. That's it. A spy. How else to explain your rapid rehabilitation? Mighty strange that the program for drunks took you such a short time to complete up there at the big house.

Alessandra said, "That's a good thing for a judge to follow all the rules." Her face reddened slightly.

Mrs. Bolzoni said, "She's smart girl. Got lots of colleges. I seen her in lots of plays, too. Great acting woman. And best of all, Alessandra is moving in with me. These old bones not spry no more. And the bowels, they in uproar most of the time. Last night, it was awful—"

"Momma." Alessandra said one word to quiet her mother. Rosswell knew the daughter had been subjected to gazillions of her mother's stories. Missing one from last night wouldn't upset Alessandra.

"I look forward to having you help your mother."

Alessandra's green eyes stared into Rosswell's, giving him a feeling that she knew more about him than what she was saying. Drunks can spot each other. "Judge, you'll never know I'm around. If I'm not working, I'll be reading. I bought a book at Discovered Treasures. _The Complete History of Sainte Genevieve County, Missouri_ by Marie Vienneau."

Hearing the title of the book he was also currently reading convinced Rosswell that someone had been following him, and that Alessandra was definitely working for Nathaniel, but he decided to keep his mouth shut.

"I'm sure your mother appreciates your help. You'll be a lot of company for her."

"And keep them frogs away, Alessandra will. No need for them frogs—"

"Momma."

"You bring in your luggages."

Alessandra clicked a button on her key ring and the trunk of her car opened. "A couple of suitcases. I travel light."

Rosswell took the hint. "Let me carry them in for you."

When they both stood at the trunk, out of Mrs. Bolzoni's sight and hearing, Alessandra whispered, "I need to talk to you. It's important."

Rosswell nodded and then he and Alessandra followed Mrs. Bolzoni to Alessandra's room, right next to Rosswell's. How convenient.

But all he could think of was that Alessandra wasn't the woman he was looking for.

# Chapter 22

## Saturday Noon

Rosswell overslept, missed Mrs. Bolzoni's breakfast, and then scurried to Mabel's, thinking he was so hungry he could eat a horse and chase its rider.

Inside, the restaurant resembled a sardine can overstuffed by a madman. The noise level rose to the volume of a big gang fight in a small alley, but Rosswell couldn't find anyone actually shouting. Myriad normal conversations piled one on top of the other, ballooning into cacophony.

Pond-raised catfish was the special today. Hush puppy aroma made Rosswell drool. One of the fluorescent lights overhead popped with the sound of a New Year's Eve champagne bottle opening, then failed. A couple of the folks waiting to be seated jumped, gawked at the light, and laughed at a joke Rosswell couldn't quite hear.

"Mabel?" Rosswell tapped her on the shoulder as she rushed to and fro. "What's going on? You giving something away?"

Mabel blew out her mouth, holding her lips so the air whooshed straight up her face. The terminally ill air conditioner failed at keeping the place under eighty degrees. Still, it was better than the ninety-six degrees outside under a cloudless sky.

"Everything's gone nuts," she said.

"I can see that."

"It's all your fault."

Rosswell ran a few scenarios through his mind, sifting for one where he'd be found guilty of causing a crush of tourists to inundate Mabel's Eatery. Why was she irritated? That was the purpose, wasn't it? You open a business, you increase walk-in traffic, but you don't complain when you're successful at attracting paying customers. That was capitalism. Wasn't it? He gave up.

"What did I do wrong?"

"You sent my daddy off God knows where on a research assistant task. He won't answer his cell phone."

"Cell phone? When did he get a cell phone?"

"He got it this morning and I got not one, not two, but three busloads of starving Baby Boomers from Tupelo, Mississippi."

"Sorry." Rosswell slumped his shoulders. Where had he sent Ollie? He couldn't remember. After meeting Alessandra the night before, he'd excused himself and plodded to his bed, crashing into a sleep deep enough to drown him. He had, in fact, slept through his alarm.

"I'll go somewhere else."

When he turned to leave, Mabel grabbed his collar. "You're staying right here."

Women confused Rosswell. Mabel hated him because he killed her baby daddy, but she wouldn't let him leave her restaurant. He guessed she would make him stand in line for an hour before he got to eat lunch. It was part of his punishment.

"Judge, you and I have had our ups and downs." Rosswell nodded, yet said nothing, preferring to let Mabel take the lead. "That's in the past. This is in the now." She waved a hand at the throngs of people. "See that? I need your help. Two waitresses quit."

"Karyn and Jill?"

"They said they had to take their midwife tests. Thank God the cook is still here."

Rosswell tossed the dice. "We're okay, right? I mean, you and me."

"Yes."

Rosswell asked, "Now, what can I do?" at the same time he concluded that he and Mabel had resolved their rocky relationship. It was the best he could hope for. No need to jeopardize it by drawing it out. She said she wanted to be friends again, and Rosswell had said okay. Period. Even if. End of story. A curt explanation was what he got and he wasn't getting anything more.

Rosswell said, "I could ask a couple of the women at the courthouse if—"

"Here." Mabel thrust one of her aprons at him and forced a pencil and a ticket pad into his hands. "Write legibly and stick the ticket on the whirly when it's written." She showed him a lazy Susan device, hanging from the top of the shelf that opened into the kitchen. Waitresses slipped tickets under the clips on the whirly. Then the cook spun it, fetched the ticket, and fixed the order.

"Uh...okay." Rosswell wrapped her apron around his waist, finding he had enough to wrap it again, thanks to Mabel's increasingly large size.

"Be nice to the customers. You get half the tips. Put all the tips over there in that jar. We split them up at the end of each shift. Get the orders right." Mabel surveyed the filled tables. "Start there." She pointed to a table at the far end of the restaurant. "They've been waiting the longest." The man and woman sitting there didn't look happy.

When Rosswell reached the table, he was sweating. His palms hurt and he was short of breath. This was worse than sending someone to jail.

"Ready to order?"

The man said, "A half hour ago."

"Honey," the woman said to the man, "it's only been twenty-five minutes."

"Ready when you are." Rosswell poised the pencil above the ticket pad, smiled and waited.

I wait because I'm a waiter. "They also serve who only stand and wait." Thank you, Johnny Milton.

The woman said, "Could we have a couple of small glasses of water? No ice."

Rosswell rushed to the water station, retrieved two glasses of water and scampered back to the table.

The man frowned and held up the large glass. "We asked for small glasses with no ice. These are large glasses of water filled with ice. Ice dilutes the drink."

Oh, brother. Ice dilutes water?

Rosswell said, "They're on the house. Free refills, too."

The woman picked up the menu. "Give us a couple of more minutes."

##

After fifteen minutes, most of the people had food in front of them, calming the noise level.

"Dang," Mabel said behind Rosswell.

He whirled around. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You did everything right. You're more efficient than any waitress I've ever had."

Rosswell felt himself blushing. He was on the verge of fainting, having missed breakfast and being late for lunch. A ringing, no doubt due to his empty stomach, had started in his ears. The smell of the food had revved up his drooling into overdrive. Now, after having drooled himself to the depths of Sahara Desert dryness, his tongue felt like a package of sandpaper. Bright spots danced in front of his eyes like he'd stumbled into a herd of overactive lightning bugs. Sweat soaked his shirt.

"Thanks. I've never been a waitress before."

"I called Karyn and Jill, begging for their help. They'll be here any minute."

The county assessor, a fifty-something balding man folks called Betourne, and his deputy, a thirty-something balding man Rosswell didn't know, came in and sat at an empty table.

Mabel said, "Take care of those two and then you can leave. Or eat. You get a free meal."

Rosswell nodded, thinking that was what he needed to make his life worthwhile. More courthouse gossip about the alcoholic judge who waits on tables.

Mabel said, "Try not to shoot them."

# 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 Civil 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."

# Chapter 24

## Saturday Afternoon

"Mrs. Bolzoni, I want to introduce my friend, Ollie Groton. You may have seen him around." They'd driven to The Four Bee after leaving McDonald's.

Mrs. Bolzoni, clutching a broom and standing on the top step of the front porch of her bed and breakfast, peered down at Ollie shuffling on the sidewalk. Shading her eyes from the afternoon sun with her hand, she angled her head first left, then right. "This thing on your head, this purple thing, is what should I think?"

"It's a purple star, Mrs. Bolzoni."

"Looks like spider."

Ollie nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Purple?"

Ollie nodded again. "Yes, ma'am."

"You got reason for purple spider drawn on the top of your head?"

"Good question, the answer to which escaped and is wandering loose."

Mrs. Bolzoni caught Rosswell's eye. "It's a good question says he, somewhere running around." She turned to face Ollie. "Why all the grease?" She sniffed the air. "You smell like oil well."

"It's Vaseline, ma'am. It keeps my bald head from chafing in the heat and the wind."

"Mrs. Bolzoni," Rosswell said, "Ollie and his daughter own a restaurant downtown. Mabel's Eatery. Maybe you've eaten there."

"I don't go to the downtown." Her eyes squinted and her lips pursed, as if the idea was worse than biting into a French fry. "I fix good food right here."

She began sweeping the porch, aiming for things that Rosswell couldn't see. Women, he'd decided long ago, had evolved the detection of dots of dust to a much higher degree than men. In fact, he admitted to himself, that skill was lacking in men altogether.

She said, "I'm busy. Go away."

"Please, Mrs. Bolzoni. You should hear this. Ollie discovered a method to keep all the bugs out of his restaurant."

Mrs. Bolzoni smiled and shook her finger at Ollie. "You do good thing then. Keep all them frogs out of your restaurant. Not good to have frogs where decent people eating. No frogs allowed here."

Ollie scratched the purple star. "Frogs?"

Rosswell whispered to Ollie, "Shut up, I'll tell you later," then closed his eyes and prayed to Whoever was listening for strength. When he opened his eyes, he saw the look of love shining in Mrs. Bolzoni's countenance. She stared at Ollie in rapture. "No, Mrs. Bolzoni, not frogs. Bugs."

"Oh. Bugs." She started the sweeping routine again. "They bad too."

Ollie said, "I'm quite the genius, you know." He reached for his wallet.

Rosswell leaned forward and again whispered to him, "Leave your Mensa card in your billfold."

"Okay." The wallet returned to Ollie's pocket.

Rosswell climbed the steps so he could stand closer to Mrs. Bolzoni. "You know how the health department is, all snoopy and scaring up things to bother restaurant owners with." The closer he got to the house, the stronger grew the delicious odor of beef stew—tonight's special. And pouring a big helping of stew over a chunk of cornbread would be the closest approach he could make to heaven this side of death. When supper was over, he'd be cast down to earth by the nap monster that followed him after large meals. "Ollie's process can help you keep the health department bureaucrats happy when it comes to certain issues."

"Like bugs." Mrs. Bolzoni spit on the grass. "Health department all over people who let the bugs roam free."

"Right." Rosswell moved closer to Ollie. "This man right there has found a way to get rid of roaches. And it's a way the health department approves of."

"Why you tell me this stuff?" Mrs. Bolzoni waved her hand, starting inside. "I got to fix the rest of the food. No time to listen to purple spider men about roaches. Good thing I don't got no roaches." She put her hand on the knob to the front door of The Four Bee.

Rosswell spoke in a low, yet distinct voice. "You have roaches."

The old woman froze. Rosswell listened to her breath, rasping as she started panting. "No."

"Mrs. Bolzoni, I'm sorry, but you have roaches. I've seen them."

"That's a cockroach and bull story. I've not seen them bugs." She whirled around, stomped down the steps and skidded to a stop, within an inch of Ollie's midsection. With one hand, she raised the broom above his head. "You try to steal an old lady's life savings. I saw about this on the television."

"No, ma'am. I won't charge you anything. You see, this method I've got, while it's wonderful, isn't perfect. I'm trying to get all the bugs out of it."

Mrs. Bolzoni clamped her mouth shut. When she relaxed, she said, "You get bugs _out_ of it? I thought you try to get bugs _in_ of it."

Rosswell said, "Ollie, cut the corny jokes."

"Mrs. Bolzoni, I promise you that you will not see one roach in your house when I'm through. But you won't pay a cent. I'll get my money from the customers I help after I help you. When they hear you praise me, they will line up at my door, asking for my help."

"Don't chase off my ghosts. I charge extra for the ghosts talking." Mrs. Bolzoni's free hand grabbed Ollie's belt buckle. "You try to mess with this old woman and she cut you." Clutched in her other hand, a broom waving close to his head emphasized the threat. The sun glinted on her thick glasses, throwing a sparkle into Ollie's eyes.

He winced. "Yes, ma'am, I believe that."

"We are Italian. My daughter got paper to shoot gun. You hurt her momma, she shoot you. You try something funny, I cut you."

"Not a doubt in my mind."

"Mrs. Bolzoni, Ollie believes you. Now, can we poke around for the roaches?"

"Where you poke first?"

"We'll start with the parlor, if that's all right with you."

"Okay," she said, "but if this purple spider guy messes with me, I cut him and feed him to the fishes down there at that river."

##

Mrs. Bolzoni absented herself into the kitchen. Rosswell and Ollie huddled in the parlor at a table under the three-tiered chandelier, consulting the plan Ollie had gotten from the assessor's office. The old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs cast a bright, colorless light into the room.

Ollie rapped his knuckles on the table. "Any ghosts here?"

"Mrs. Bolzoni tells everyone the place is haunted. Guests who stay in the attic have to pay more than folks on the ground floor because, she says, the ghosts up there are far superior to the lower level ghosts."

"Sounds reasonable to me." Ollie reached into his pocket. "I got something better than we had last time. These are little but strong." He displayed two black flashlights. "Ultra-bright LEDs. About three thousand candles in each of them. Good for five hours. Lithium battery. We won't go blind into a dark place this time."

"Thanks." Rosswell shoved one of the flashlights in his pocket, then traced a path on the paper. "There's a passageway right behind that bookcase."

Rosswell knocked on the wood at the back of the bookcase. He reckoned it measured about twelve feet high, eight wide, and stretched from floor to ceiling. Nine shelves held a lot of stuff, mostly books, knick-knacks, souvenirs, and other unidentifiable stuff.

A hollow sound resounded when Ollie again tapped the back of the bookcase in a different place. "There! Something's not back there." He rapped once more. "What's missing is a solid wall. The plan is right so far."

Rosswell checked the parlor door. "Locked. Mrs. Bolzoni won't bother us." He also tapped different places. "Do you think we can open it and snoop around a bit?"

Ollie ran his hands over the edges of the bookcase. "It's got piano hinges floor to ceiling, not two or three dinky hinges like you'd find on a regular door."

"If you can see the hinges, that doesn't make for a secret passageway."

"The assessor told you and I told you. They're not a secret."

Rosswell needed to make his point. "Still, shouldn't the hinges be invisible to the naked eye? At least for aesthetic reasons."

"This thing was built God knows when. Why did the builder let the hinges show? I don't know. I gave up guessing motives in 1998."

"What happened in 1998?"

"I stopped wondering why people did things."

Why do I let Ollie trap me in his silly word games?

"They're hefty." Rosswell glided his fingers along the exposed hinges. "Pure brass is my guess."

"Piano hinges are a good thing."

"You say that like there's a bad thing."

Ollie folded his arms across his chest, then lifted one hand to his mouth. He hemmed and hawed, muttered and stewed.

"Tell me what's wrong."

Ollie examined a couple of the hundred or so books and inspected a few doodads in the bookcase. "If we open that and it tilts toward us, we could have a pile of books and those thingamawhackies falling on us. We'd be crushed like ants at a picnic."

"I wonder when it was opened last?" Rosswell caressed the grain of the wood. "Oak. Heavy as the purse of a bad nun with a good run at a casino."

"That's another thing. Mrs. Bolzoni may not know about the passageway. Or if she does, she's too scared to open it." Ollie's breath hitched, like a sob. "So am I."

# Chapter 25

## Saturday Afternoon, continued

Rosswell chanted in a sing-song voice, "Fraidy cat, fraidy cat, ate so much, your head's too fat."

"Yeah, funny, real funny." Ollie inspected the bookcase again, more slowly this time. "The hinges are clean, but dry. I think we can swing it open without making a big squeak or pulling the whole library down on us. Mrs. Bolzoni won't hear a thing."

"WD-40." Rosswell flew out the door, jumped into the truck, and raced back with a spray can of the lubricating oil in a few seconds. He plunked it in Ollie's grasp.

Ollie removed the cap from the can. "Got everything now? It's really handy when you break into places fully prepared."

"No worries. I'm totally organized." Rosswell grabbed the can from Ollie, shook it fiercely a few times, then thrust it back. Ollie spritzed the hinges.

After several minutes of pulling, pressing, and poking, Ollie discovered the spot that, when pushed the right way, swung the bookcase open. Rosswell leaned against it as it eased into the parlor, the bottom clearing the floor by an inch.

Rosswell said, "Coming open, slowly but surely."

"If we see any bodies in there, I'll drag Gustave down here myself."

Rosswell held up a hand, signaling Ollie to pause. "I'm never telling Gustave another thing. He's bad."

"Agreed."

Rosswell nodded and they bent to the task.

Before the doorway into the lightless corridor fully opened, a thick book sneaked from a shelf and tumbled onto Rosswell's left foot. The spine of the heavy volume caught him across the toes. A slight yet distinct crack sounded. Rosswell fell backward on his butt.

"Ouch, damn!" Rosswell curled into a fetal position. "That fracking book broke my big toe. Hurts like a mother giving birth to triplets." Whining because the fetal position made his foot hurt more, he unwound, working himself into a squatting position. Afraid of losing his balance if he moved too fast, he scooted over to the tome, _Moby-Dick_. When he stood, a quote from the story hurried from his brain to his mouth. " 'The rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into the blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul.' "

"Off to the hospital, Captain Ahab."

"I'm not that hurt." Rosswell sucked in a deep breath. "If I can recall quotes, then my brain's stronger than my pain."

"Here's some science to squash that positive thinking."

"Give it to me."

"You can't walk with a broken toe."

Rosswell leaned to one side. "Watch me." Out of his pocket flew the green bottle full of pills. He selected a painkiller, chewed and swallowed it. "I'm good. Now get the duct tape out of my truck."

Ollie hurried to the truck and back.

With the tape, Rosswell bound his big toe to its neighbor and stood. "It's only cracked. That will hold me for awhile."

A pall of dust whooshed from the passageway when the bookcase fully opened. Rosswell sneezed and wondered if the last people who lurked in there had lived before the Civil War. The passageway, built with narrow grooved boards running vertically, stood gloomy and silent, waiting for someone's visit. Rosswell compared the taste of the dust freed from the passageway to the swirling motes of stuff in the bedroom at his grandmother's house where he stayed when he was a child. When he opened the window those many years ago, the wind swept across cornfields, bringing grains of dirt and pollen gusting in. To a kid, the air in the bedroom had tasted like the Sahara, only grittier. His child's eyes felt full of sand, especially after he'd fallen asleep at the window, waiting for his mother to reappear, as he knew she would. Rosswell's grandmother—God (if there was one) rest her soul—had told him only that his mother was "called away on business." Grandmother never spoke of his father at all. He'd never reappeared.

Now, Ollie saluted the inky darkness of the secret heart of the house. "Onward, monomaniac commander. Let us plunge into the blackness of darkness."

Rosswell sneezed. "The white whale ate Ahab."

Ollie grimaced. "I hope we meet no whales, white or otherwise, in there." Rosswell stepped across the threshold into the passageway. Ollie followed. "This thing runs through the middle of the house."

"If it ran along an outside wall, it wouldn't have windows. The neighbors would gossip about a house that had no windows."

Ollie pouted. "I knew that."

They flicked on the flashlights and plunged further into the darkness, now lit by two beams of LED blue-white rays. The darkness, equivalent to the bottom of a sunless cave, swallowed the light.

Rosswell stopped and fell against the wall when he heard the noises—low-toned vibrations that punched his gut. The sounds made him shiver. Prickles, running up and down his arms, made his neck hairs rise straight up. Soft at first, the noises increased in intensity.

Barely above a whisper, Rosswell said, "Ollie." Rosswell placed his fingertips to the wall where the noises emanated. "This place sounds haunted, like everyone says. Mrs. Bolzoni will raise the rates for the entertainment value."

They pressed their ears to the wall. Moaning, sounding to Rosswell like it was human, grew louder, then softer. The noise recalled the eerie sounds Rosswell had heard deep in the desert during the war. The tuneless moaning happened at different times of day or night. Quite mysterious. No one had ever been able to explain the source of those murmurings in the Middle East.

Ollie spoke close to Rosswell's ear. "Something is suffering, sounds like to me. Doesn't sound human."

"There's no such thing as ghosts."

"I didn't say it was a ghost. Something not human."

Rosswell listened closer until he recognized the sound after a few seconds. "Oh. Wait. Never mind. Some of Mrs. Bolzoni's guests. Afternoon delight."

"Sounds industrious." Rosswell could hear the embarrassment in Ollie's voice. "They'll be tired."

Rosswell whispered, "We need to make less noise."

Ollie nodded. Rosswell limped forward as gracefully and quietly as he could. It was difficult for him not to bitch and moan over his pain in the darkness.

The tunnel, about five feet wide, ran straight for twenty feet until it ended in a brick wall. When they reached the wall, Rosswell said, "There's no tunnel going to another house here. Or, if there is, it was sealed up long ago."

"I like to call tunnels in a cave horizontal tubes."

"Thank you, Mister Science."

They shined the flashlights around, covering every inch of the wooden walls to their left and right, and the brick wall in front of them. At the same time, the flashlight beams crossed and landed on a large picture frame, hung by wire and hook on the brick wall about six feet off the floor. A drawing was visible behind the glass of the frame. Rosswell brushed at the dust and spider webs.

Ollie whispered, "It's a map of some kind."

"Ink on paper. Not faded one bit."

"It's been in the dark for a century or so. Ink doesn't fade when the sun doesn't shine on it. In addition, the temperature and humidity have been steady here for decades. A study done in Brazil during the 1990's—"

"Ollie, shut up."

Ollie shut up.

Each of them grasping one side of the frame, they lifted it from the hook, setting it on the floor. They kneeled in front of it, hunched over it, and examined it. The flashlight beams revealed a professionally drawn rendering, neatly lettered, and exquisitely detailed. Although the paper may have been a tad browner than it was over a hundred years ago, Rosswell was right. The ink appeared as fresh as the day it was drawn.

Rosswell said, "The map shows Nathaniel's house." He brushed dust from the middle of the glass. "These lines here must represent tunnels to these other two houses. I'll bet my flashlight on that." A basic plan of all three houses displayed the location of the passageways in each house and how they connected to each of the other houses. "And the cave is right here." His finger rested on the north side of Nathaniel's house.

"Constructing two tunnels must've cost a lot of money. It had to be dug by hand."

Rosswell tapped the picture. "Slave hands built those tunnels."

"Who lives in those other two houses?"

"The assessor told me. None other than your two goofy waitresses."

"How could they afford houses like that?"

"You're the research assistant. Add that to your list of stuff to find out."

Ollie hefted the framed map. "Let's carry this to the truck. We've got to sneak it by Mrs. Bolzoni. Then you know what's next."

Rosswell did a fist pump. "Time to commit more felonies."

##

Rosswell squeezed the truck, the framed map sequestered behind the seat, into a parking space on the courthouse square. "You make danged sure that Mabel keeps Karyn and Jill hopping those tables as long as she can."

"I'll tell Mabel we need to burglarize their houses." Ollie made no move to leave the truck.

Rosswell hung his head. "This is a shakedown, isn't it?"

Ollie shrugged. "You know, a little honey for the pot."

Rosswell fished out a hundred dollar bill and forked it over to Ollie, whose hand stretched out with fingers wiggling. His hand didn't close over the money. Rosswell fished out another Federal Reserve portrait of Benjamin Franklin and said, "That's it. I'm busted flat till payday."

"We both know you're lying." Ollie disappeared into the restaurant, only to reappear in a flash. "Forgot to tell you. I'm not putting anything on YouTube. What if Mary Donna's relatives saw it?" He disappeared into the restaurant again.

Rosswell, subdued by the club of conscience that Ollie had whacked over his head, checked his cell phone. No messages from Tina. Or anyone else. He plugged it into the charger, reviving the dead battery. He likened the phone battery to his brain. Neither one was getting enough juice. He thought about the upcoming foray into the belly of the beast and wondered why bellies of beasts always had to be so small. And so dark. And so full of critters.

"Why am I doing this?" he asked himself aloud, and knew the answer immediately. __ Because he longed for Nathaniel's arrest for the murder of the woman. The one he saw tossed off the ferry. If he couldn't prove Nathaniel killed the woman, maybe he could find Tina. He didn't know where else to look. This was his last plunge at Nathaniel. If he didn't find Tina at River Heights Villa, then he'd start looking somewhere else, but where? He knew only that he'd better hurry. Death stalked him.

In the heat of the setting sun, Rosswell shivered, wondering if the Grim Reaper's search for him would be successful.

# Chapter 26

## Saturday Afternoon into Saturday Night

The name on the black mailbox painted in neat gold letters said _Mabli_. Rosswell again parked in a farmer's field a short way north of the house to avoid suspicion. People rarely notice a truck parked in a field.

After analyzing the map, Rosswell and Ollie decided that Jill Mabli's abode, a Georgian style house on the north side of River Heights Villa, offered a more direct route to the cave where they'd found Mary Donna Helperen's body. If they'd gone into Karyn Byler's house on the south side, it would've required a trip through Nathaniel's lair to reach the cave on the north side.

Now, from the safety of the woods, Rosswell, binoculars to his face, and Ollie, hand shielding his eyes, studied the huge house that was Jill's home. Sundown approached, slowly melting long shadows into night. Rosswell could smell the Mississippi River, its fishy odor pervading the bottomlands between the cliffs and the water.

How many slaves had fled across that water to gain freedom? Rosswell would never know, although he was thankful that he didn't have to choose between crossing the river in a leaky boat at night in freezing weather and liberty. Wasn't that why the government had sent him to war? To protect our liberty? Yes. Rosswell hoped.

He handed his gun to Ollie. "Double-check to make sure that thing's loaded and ready to go." Ollie checked the .38 while Rosswell inspected the front of the house. "I wonder if Jill's got any yapping dogs or squawking parrots or burglar alarms or whatever."

"One way to find out."

"Wait here." Rosswell strolled as casually as he could with a broken toe to the main door. A man walking in an easy manner rarely draws attention to himself, although the likelihood that anyone would see him from the highway ranked close to zero. Traffic was sparse. And who notices someone going in a house on the side of the road when you're zipping along a highway in a car? Not many people, that's who. In addition, there were no other residences in sight on either side of the road. Rosswell figured he was snug as a bed bug in a bunk.

A worn brass doorknocker in the shape of a woman's hand, complete with veins and long fingernails, hung from the massive front door. The hand held a globe about the size of a golf ball that rapped on a metal plate imbedded in the door. Rosswell stared at the thing, wiping his hands on his pants. He licked his lips. Then he grasped the hand and rapped repeatedly as hard as he could. If it wasn't his imagination, Rosswell heard the sound of his knocks reverberating inside the house, like the old movies where the traveler stops for the night at a place where he pounds on the door of a house full of demons.

Rosswell hated surprises. If anyone was home at Jill's house, he wanted to know it right away. Especially if they were demons.

There was no noise from inside. If there was a dog in the house, the mutt either didn't care, or was asleep or deaf. Rosswell opted for no mutt in the house. And no squawking parrot, either. He stepped off the small front porch and stood under one of the windows. He jiggled the windows one by one until he found one that wasn't locked and raised it from the outside a couple of inches. Nothing. No reaction from inside. No alarms. Regaining the porch, he turned the knob of the front door. Unlocked. The door eased open. Nothing. Not even a squeak. He slammed the door. Nothing. Again, no burglar alarm, no noisy animals. Jill was a trusting soul, especially after Ollie paid her some of Rosswell's money.

Rosswell signaled Ollie who ran to his side. Rosswell once more opened the door. When they were well into the house, they clicked on the flashlights even though full dark was still a few minutes away. The place smelled of Pine-Sol. The wood floors reflected the light from the flashlights. All the furniture was old although nothing was tattered. Rosswell surmised that Jill had bought chairs, tables, benches, cabinets, whatever, from country auctions or second-hand shops. Nothing in the place could be classified as a valuable antique. No dust anywhere. Nothing out of place.

Rosswell motioned Ollie to join him. "Congratulations." Rosswell offered his hand. "We should be proud of ourselves. How many felonies have we committed this week?"

Ollie wasn't able to squeak due to the gurgling in his throat. If he shared Rosswell's pang of conscience, the gurgling arose from fear and anxiety. Then Ollie swallowed loudly. "I hear that the accommodations at the Sainte Genevieve County cooler aren't up to snuff."

They stood in the main hallway, assessing the layout.

Ollie said, "This house is built a lot like The Four Bee."

"There weren't a lot of architects in Sainte Gen before the Civil War. Most houses built then have a similar floor plan."

"Did the assessor tell you that?"

Rosswell shrugged. "Informed guess."

"Then let's try the parlor."

Inside Jill's parlor loomed a bookcase similar to Mrs. Bolzoni's. Ollie opened it, finding a passageway. Except this one didn't feature a brick wall down the way a few feet that stopped progress as they'd discovered at The Four Bee. The beams of the flashlights disappeared into the gloom of a tunnel that appeared to go on forever.

"Great," Rosswell said. "My claustrophobia tells me to run out into an open field but all I see ahead is black ink growing blacker."

Ollie held his flashlight above his head, aiming it down the length of the passageway. "A flood of light dispels the dryness of the darkest night."

"Nice." Rosswell smiled. "Who said that?"

"I did. Didn't you hear me?"

Rosswell gifted Ollie with the courthouse stare, the one he gave miscreants right before he sent them to the penitentiary, although he doubted the research assistant could see the stare in the dark.

Rosswell smelled something.

"Ollie, follow me." Rosswell reversed his track and walked about fifteen feet toward the parlor, then stopped. The smell disappeared. He walked backward, Ollie following.

"Let me guess. Musical chairs?"

"I smell something. It's an odor of water. Dampness. As in a cave." He shined his light on the floor. "It's slanting up. We're headed into the bluff below Nathaniel's house. It's underground from here on."

"Gotcha. Underground. As are all tunnels. We're getting close."

"Silent running."

Ollie nodded.

That was when the wall blocking their path appeared in the flashlight beams. Rosswell felt the barrier. "An obstruction after all," he whispered to Ollie. "It's wood. Can't tell what kind but it must be really old."

Ollie said in a low voice, "We need a saw. And not a power saw."

"Hammer and chisel, too. Something we can use to break through."

Rosswell continued examining the wall until he discovered a hole. "Turn off your flashlight. We don't want anyone on the other side seeing our high beams."

With both lights extinguished, Rosswell's old friend claustrophobia decided to visit. Bands of fear squeezed his chest, cutting off his air. He ordered himself to breathe slowly and not panic. It was only darkness. Nothing would hurt him. Except maybe Ollie, but he seemed calm at the moment. They must've gone further underground now since the temperature had gone down and the air tasted stale. Claustrophobia had an answer for that one. Rosswell began sweating and realized he couldn't breathe. Worse, he would get a chill because he was soaking wet. Trying to look on the bright side of things in the middle of the pitch-dark hellhole, he comforted himself with the thought that he had only one broken toe.

After a few moments of adjusting to the total darkness, Rosswell placed his eye against the hole. "I think the passageway keeps going. Maybe we're at the property line. That's why there's a wall here."

"How can you see anything in the dark?"

"There's...something. A glow or something. Something."

"Rosswell, you okay?"

"Sure. Wonderful. I always sweat when it's sixty degrees."

"We need the handsaw and hammer from your truck."

"You'll be faster. I need to stay here until I center."

"Center? You think you're the center of the universe?"

"It's a replacement for the cliché, _chill out_. Besides, my toe is killing me."

And if he couldn't center, Rosswell thought Ollie might return and find him a corpse. _  
_

# Chapter 27

## Saturday Night, continued

Ollie retreated from the dark, heading out of the tunnel for the light. Rosswell peered again through the hole in the wooden barrier. If there was anything on the other side of the wall, it was bathed in darkness. He cupped his hand behind an ear, although with his superb hearing, he doubted it was necessary. No sound whatsoever. Rosswell chanced clicking on his flashlight again. Where the wall blocking their path met the sides of the passageway, the wood had grown soft over the decades. There were no metal braces where the walls joined, only wooden pegs. The cave's dampness might have softened the juncture after more than a hundred years.

Rosswell pushed gently, avoiding a loud crash and bang that would bring Nathaniel or Turk or some other evil minion running to see what the clatter was. A soft cracking sound from the wood told him something had given way. He pushed harder and the wall across the passageway creaked when it separated from the main wall.

The wall wasn't built as a barrier. It was a marker. No need to make it safe from trespassers way back then. Rosswell opined that all the early settlers who owned houses with secret passageways belonged to the same social club, _Houses With Hideaways._

Rosswell paused again to listen but could hear nothing from the direction of Jill's parlor and he could hear nothing on the other side of the crumbling blockade. Should he wait for Ollie? His research assistant wouldn't be gone long. Despite all his irritating behaviors, Rosswell counted Ollie's efficiency and loyalty as top rung characteristics.

Rosswell needed to see what was on the other side of the wall. His impatience got the better of him. What would it hurt if he went in a little way past the wall without Ollie? He instantly thought about getting bitten by a rabid bat. Or getting captured by Nathaniel or Turk. Or falling down a fifty-foot deep hole and breaking his back, not being killed instantly, but screaming for half an hour before he died.

He pushed the obstruction forward a couple of feet without any major collapse, allowing him to squeeze through. Once he emerged on the other side, he stopped and again listened. Now there was a soft wind blowing. It smelled fresh. He was getting closer to the cave.

Rosswell tried to see without the flashlight. Darkness piled on darkness. Blacker than black. He could stand there the rest of the night thinking up similes. Or metaphors.

It's quiet as a...well...tomb. It doesn't smell like a tomb. That's a good thing.

Turning on his flashlight for a few seconds, Rosswell determined that the passageway on the other side of the barrier—he now thought of it as Nathaniel's side—continued straight. He cut off the light and pushed himself forward, ignoring his mind and body, which were both pleading with him to return to the sunshine.

A few feet more, his right foot stepped into a hole. At least it felt like a hole. His center of gravity shifted and he threw his hands forward, trying to stop his fall, putting his weight on his left foot, which caused him to yelp when his broken toe protested. The pain shot up his left leg, giving his heart a jolt. His face smacking the dusty floor of the passageway with a wet-sounding thud caused a sneezing fit. A metal thump came from somewhere. Blood flowed from his nose into his mouth. The bright lights dancing in front of his eyes caused him to wonder if something had ripped the roof off the tunnel, revealing the sky, complete with stars promenading.

Rosswell's right foot felt restricted, as if something had clamped its toothless jaws around his ankle. He searched for his flashlight. He patted himself down twice without success. Trying not to move too fast or too far since he didn't know if there were any other traps around, he patted on the floor around him, hoping to feel the flashlight beneath his hands. The thing couldn't be found. It could be two feet from him, but he had no way of seeing it.

Centering time arrived. It hadn't worked before but it really needed to work this time to avoid panic. Rosswell drew in deep breaths. His eyes were wide open. He considered it a major miracle that he hadn't lost his eyeglasses, yet the darkness was as profound as if he'd been dropped to the bottom of a deep well. He was functionally blind.

A ghostly body part floated before his face. The outline of his hand. As they'd taught him in the military, it was literally all in his head. What he actually saw was a _sensor ghost_ , an image generated by his brain as it received signals from his body. He hadn't really seen his hand. His brain willed him to see it.

Rosswell centered himself again before he could raise the courage to feel for his right foot. It wasn't a bear trap or else its teeth would be biting him. He ran his hands down his leg until he reached his right ankle.

A cold metallic object surrounded his foot, its wide lip encircling his ankle, its rounded body ending in a flat circular bottom. Tugging at it proved futile. His foot was stuck. Ollie might have to fetch a blowtorch and cut it off.

He felt of it again. The realization of what it was confounded him. His right foot was stuck in an old spittoon.

Decades ago, the last shift of workmen who'd finished up the wall had forgotten to remove the brass object. Fortunately, over the last century or so, it had dried out. He told himself he could still smell the nasty crap. But it was dry crap. For that, he was thankful.

Where was Ollie? He should've returned long ago. Maybe Rosswell should turn around and go look. Or he could forget the research assistant and clump up Nathaniel's side of the tunnel as quietly as possible. Perhaps if anyone heard him, they'd assume he was a ghost. He should be so lucky.

After standing and stretching out his arms, he groped toward what he hoped was the way to the cave under Nathaniel's house. After what he figured was five minutes of walking, he discovered a small dot of light. The dot didn't move, even though he blinked several times. An artifact dreamed up by tired eyeballs? He closed his eyes for a few seconds and when he opened them, the dot still shined. Yes. It was real.

A hole where he could peer into Nathaniel's house? Rosswell dragged his right foot, trying to keep the spittoon from making a racket. The stupid contraption had a lead-weighted bottom. Then he inched his left foot forward, trying to keep from moaning about the pain in the broken toe. Several times he fell against a wall of the passageway to rest. His heart had picked up a Sousa march and was goose-stepping down the main street of town.

A thirst arose fierce enough to scald his throat. The Sahara had no claim to fame compared to his throat. Murder seemed a nifty idea if he'd gain a glass of water. And one of Ollie's cinnamon rolls. That would make killing worthwhile.

Rosswell felt for his pistol. Not there. He'd left it in the truck. He hoped Ollie found it and brought it along with...whatever...what was he supposed to bring?

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 everyone 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."

Ollie said, "You've told us enough for the sheriff to get a search warrant."

"I agree. Ollie's learned something from hanging around with me."

Jill said, "The sheriff? You mean Gustave Fribeau, the guy with the skinny mustache who chews on those nasty black cigars?"

Rosswell said, "The same."

Jill hung her head as if to indicate she was astounded by Rosswell's blindness. "Judge, do you know who's in that delivery room helping Karyn? Or, I should say, who's making sure that Karyn doesn't do anything odd, like helping the woman escape?"

Rosswell made his face as blank as possible. "How would I know something like that?"

She said, "Because rumor has it that you've talked to her recently."

Ollie said, "Her who?"

A pounding coming from the outside caused Jill to aim her gun at the front door. "You two," she whispered, "get in the closet. If you hear gunshots, stay in there, unless you want your brains smeared all over the walls."

# Chapter 30

## Sunday Morning, continued

In the closet, Rosswell whispered, "You can't trust anyone. Has a single person told us the truth about anything?"

"No and shut up." Ollie pressed his ear against the door of the closet. Rosswell did the same.

Rosswell didn't recognize the voices that he'd heard shouting and screaming. Then there had been a couple of gunshots. Or maybe cars backfiring. A thump or two, maybe signifying that a body had hit the floor. Next the sound of a couple of cars or trucks starting and leaving. It was several minutes after Rosswell heard the front door slam that he voiced his observation about trust, only to be shushed by his research assistant.

No sounds reached Rosswell's ear after several more minutes of listening. "They're gone."

"Who are they?"

"I didn't recognize any voices."

His pistol at the ready, Rosswell tried to open the door. Locked. The foot with the broken toe was useless. The foot that had been trapped in the spittoon hurt, but not as much as the other one. A few kicks proved useless.

Ollie said, "Let me do that."

"No. I can do this." Rosswell kicked the door several more times with the spittoon foot. He should've let Ollie do the kicking. It didn't seem the pain would ever subside. On the next kick, the feeble lock gave way. Rosswell stepped into the hallway, which, after a thorough inspection, proved empty. "No one in the hallway." He eased open the front door, slipping out, leading with his gun. No reaction. With the rising of the sun came an increasing wind. "The sun's coming up."

Ollie hovered close behind Rosswell. "It does that every morning."

"Up to this point."

Standing on the porch of Jill's house, Rosswell swept his gaze across the yard and the highway beyond. "I don't see any bodies littering the place." Without thinking, he jumped to the ground. The pain dropped him to his knees. With a resolute moan, he stood. Ollie merely watched, shaking his head. Now both of Rosswell's feet hurt worse than they had before. He hobbled to the driveway. "I don't see any cars, either. Where did everybody go?"

The wind's intensity grew. Leaves and bits of litter swirled on the ground, then blew upward, circling, forming dust devils full of grit and debris.

Rosswell coughed and sneezed. "I don't trust Jill. It seems mighty convenient that someone showed up at her front door after she rescued both of us."

"I'd say it was more of a capture than a rescue." Ollie shined his flashlight around in the yard, the dawn light not yet being much help. "There are two, maybe three, different sets of tire tracks." He knelt on the ground, swiping his finger through a red puddle of something, then sniffing it. "Someone's vehicle is leaking transmission fluid."

"They won't be going far."

Ollie stood and followed the dripping trail out to the highway. "They went south, toward town. Or maybe to Nathaniel's."

Rosswell perched on the shoulder of the highway. "Let's take a brief intermission."

"Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat," Ollie said, mimicking the tune from the advertisement that movie theaters and drive-ins played in the olden days.

"Why aren't we dead?"

Ollie didn't hesitate. "Because we are still alive."

"And why is that?"

"Death cuts down your options."

Rosswell ground his teeth. "Pay attention. _Why_ aren't we dead?"

"Is this catechism class? Or a philosophy roundtable?"

"Did luck befriend us? Think about it." Rosswell tapped the side of his head. "Nathaniel could've killed us a couple of times. He may even be waiting in the woods over there with a high-powered rifle ready to nail our empty heads when it gets light enough."

"He kidnapped Tina and he's wanting a huge ransom from you."

"I could pay a small ransom but not a huge one. You know I don't have that kind of money. You've seen my bank account."

"Judge Carew, are you accusing me of hacking your bank to look at your assets?"

"That's an argument for another day. Now, let me think."

Rosswell discerned patches of the river through the trees on the other side of the highway, the whitecaps on the water growing larger and more frequent. Big white birds—some kind of gull—chased a barge, gorging on the fish churned up in its wake. The angry squawking birds mirrored his mood. Jill, patently unaware of the need to water her lawn, had let her parched yard morph into a dry plot of decay. Even the tree leaves, rustling in a barely perceptible breeze, displayed their stress by curling and turning yellow. Millions of gallons of water flowed daily past a land dying of thirst.

"You smell that?" Rosswell smelled smoke. "Some damned farmer got the bright idea to burn his fields today. People are so stupid sometimes."

Ollie licked a finger and stuck it in the air. "Wind's not too bad. Blowing from the south."

"Why don't they plow under the leftovers from last year's crop instead of burning a field? It would do more to help the soil."

"Farmer Rosswell, let's get the hell out of here and head back to town."

"Amen."

When they topped a rise, Rosswell beheld the blaze, its color a sickening white near the ground where the fire burned hottest. The flames above the white area turned yellow, then, the higher the flames raged, orange and red. Above the red, where combustion no longer occurred, the unburned fuel produced smoke.

Rosswell sniffed the air. "The smoke's getting thick."

"Hope you can see to drive."

"Hope I can find the truck."

The smoke increased to the density of a heavy fog. Rosswell and Ollie hoofed it north toward where Rosswell hoped the truck was parked. Disorientation set in. He was lost in the smoke.

The fire beast increased in strength from every bit of grass and brush it devoured, then grew ever hotter. The heated air drew in more and more of the surrounding cooler air, creating a draft. The updraft ballooned, sucking air in, mushrooming the fire. The sound reminded Rosswell of the growl of a tornado at the height of its fury.

A deer, her tail raised in alarm, vaulted from a ditch, surprising Rosswell and Ollie when they weaved by her. She squealed a cry of distress, sounding a lot like Ollie. Three fawns also jumped up from the ditch and hovered around the doe. The fawns bumped the doe, as if urging her on, signaling her to move out of the path of the fire. The four deer locked a stare on Ollie and Rosswell, then galloped toward the men.

"Man the battle stations!" Ollie swiveled his head around in all directions, no doubt looking for the best way to escape. "We're being run over by deer!"

Rosswell drew his gun with the thought of firing into the air to scare the deer away from them, or, if necessary, shooting them in the head to stop their progress. But it was too late. The animals buffeted the men, knocking them to the ground. All four of the deer ran onto the highway. They stopped, befuddled by a smoke that rivaled the thickest fog ever seen in the river bottoms.

Rosswell, on his belly in a prone shooter's position, aimed at the deer. "I'm killing them before they hurt somebody."

"Yep. The smoke is screwing up their sense of smell. They're dangerous."

Rosswell lost his chance at a clear shot when the critters instantly bolted into a smoke bank. "Fracking deer."

A wind gust cleared the smoke from the highway. A car traveling south slammed on its brakes, skidding sideways in the highway, away from the deer.

The doe snorted and she and the three fawns wheeled around, galloping on again toward Rosswell and Ollie, still lying on the ground.

Rosswell aimed at the deer again. He couldn't shoot. The deer were helpless animals caught in the smoke the same as he and Ollie. "The smoke's screwing up my aim. Head for lower ground. Momma's back with her kiddies and she doesn't look happy." Why should the deer pay with their lives when they hadn't started the fire?

Ollie scurried into the ditch, Rosswell behind him. Both men hunkered down, folding their arms over their heads. The noise of the fire ramped up to the sound of a train hulking down the tracks at full speed. Rosswell began coughing as the smoke and flames sucked up the available oxygen around them.

Ollie said, "Have the critters gone?"

Rosswell's vision blurred as the hot mist closed in around them. "Let's get out of here right now. Head for the highway." Through the smoke, though, he spotted flames. Lots of fire. On every side.

A crash resounded from the highway. Rosswell knew what had happened. Some fool decided to drive through the smoke even though visibility was zero. That fool had hit the car that had earlier swerved to miss the deer. Another crash resounded. Another fool.

There's no end to fools.

"Get out of that car," Rosswell heard one voice say. The noise of the fire couldn't match the screams of road rage. Another voice said, "Can't you drive, you idiot!" A third voice said, "There's gasoline leaking and it's all over the road. Get the hell away."

The fireball that erupted didn't light up the sky because the smoke was too thick. But it did manage to make a flash bright enough for Rosswell to see the highway.

"Now, Ollie. Quick. Make for the truck."

"Where's the truck?"

"North of us."

"Damn." Ollie circled twice in the smoke. "I forgot my Boy Scout compass."

# Chapter 31

## Sunday Morning, continued

Rosswell shouted, "Can you see the highway?" He pressed both hands around his face until he realized that shading his eyes from the flames surrounding them wouldn't help him spot the road.

Ollie gawked. "No." Rosswell doubted if Ollie could see any better than he could.

"If we stumble onto it and some other fool comes tearing down the highway, we're dead."

Ollie grabbed his chest and coughed. "We're dead if we stay here."

Smoke wafted up Rosswell's nose—his love of the nostalgic scent of burning leaves in the fall had fluttered away—and he gauged the strength of the fire around them. "I estimate we have five minutes before we're crispy critters." He could hardly breathe. When a gust of hot air rushed around them, fanning the flames, singeing his hair and evaporating the sweat from his brow, he said, "Maybe less. Let's run that way."

Rosswell was certain that Ollie couldn't see where his finger pointed, but the faithful research assistant stayed within a foot of him as they ran for what Rosswell hoped was the highway.

Ollie could get killed if I'm wrong. Or, worse, I could get hurt.

Through the smoke ahead of them, Rosswell spied cars burning. Burning cars in front of them meant they were headed for the highway.

I don't see any bodies. Maybe the drivers and passengers made it to safety before the explosion. Or the explosion ripped everyone to shreds.

Ollie tripped over a thick poison ivy vine and slammed into Rosswell, knocking them both to the ground.

Ollie rolled to his back. "I don't think I can make it."

"Don't crap out on me now or I'll kill your ass." Rosswell tried breathing shallow breaths. If he continued sucking in smoke, he estimated that soon he'd be at the pack-a-day level with a twenty-year head start.

Through the thickening smoke, Rosswell spotted a round opening slightly downhill from him. "Ollie," he screamed. Ollie's eyes lacked depth, shiny as old glass in a deserted house. Ollie didn't respond, even after Rosswell yelled at him again. Rosswell smacked Ollie across the face. When Ollie's eyes seemed to focus, Rosswell said, "Follow me."

"That's what I was doing before and look where it got me." Ollie gasped and choked between every word.

Rosswell slipped his arms under Ollie. "Move, damn it. I'm trying to turn you over." Ollie wriggled enough, allowing Rosswell to flip him onto his stomach. "Start crawling. It's only a couple of feet." Rosswell slithered like a snake on an oily slide down the embankment into a culvert running under the highway. On his way down, the rocks along the embankment cut into his face and arms. Scuttling around to where he could see out the end of the pipe where he'd entered, he couldn't find Ollie. Scrambling out of the culvert, then digging his shoes in the dry ground for purchase, he gained the top of the embankment, grabbed the neck of Ollie's shirt and dragged him down to what he hoped was safety.

Rosswell cupped his hands and splashed water from the ditch onto Ollie's face. "Where's this coming from?" Ollie dipped his hand into the trickle of water running through the pipe. "We're having a drought."

"From a spring? We'll do a geological survey if we survive." Rosswell ripped off his shirt, dunked it in the water, and covered his face. "Protect yourself."

When Ollie didn't follow suit, Rosswell unbuttoned Ollie's shirt, wet it, and covered his research assistant's face. "That will save you."

"I'm being waterboarded!" Ollie choked, then coughed. "This water stinks." Ollie's words, dampened by the cloth over his head, sounded to Rosswell like a badly tuned radio broadcasting incomprehensible news. "Torture is a felony in this state. You're using tainted water!"

"Since when did you get so picky?" Rosswell's voice was also muffled when he spoke. "I know a fire marshal who will be interested in our blackened corpses. In a couple of minutes, we're going to get fried by hot air."

"No." Ollie gagged. "We'll be broiled, not fried. When you're cooked by direct exposure to intense heat, that's broiling." Ollie tried and failed to sit up.

Rosswell thought he should shoot Ollie, but he didn't want to give his research assistant the pleasure of dying before he did.

Rosswell said, "This water is coming from a sewage lagoon." He lied, hoping to shock some sense into Ollie.

Ollie gagged again. "I'm ready to die now."

"The oxygen is being sucked into the firestorm." Rosswell wheezed. If his lungs survived this onslaught, he promised himself he'd never fear anything again. Except the loss of Tina. "We'll suffocate before we fry. Or broil. Or baste."

Without a word or a sound, Ollie slumped to the bottom of the pipe.

Rosswell said, "Goodbye, Ollie. This is it, my friend."

Ollie didn't stir. Rosswell knew his research assistant was dead and it was his fault.

"At least you went before me. I'm going to suffer a lot, but you're now at peace." Rosswell placed his right hand on Ollie's heart. "Peaceful trip."

Rosswell heard a sound cut the air. It sounded like a building collapsing. Trees falling? Another car exploding? He was beyond caring.

"Ollie." Still no response. "Ollie, are you dead?"

"Yes."

"All right, you stay here. I'll fetch the coroner to make it official."

Ollie struggled to a bent over position, vomited, and waddled from the pipe. Rosswell followed. Ollie managed to put his shirt back on, but it was inside out.

"There's a break in the fire." Rosswell pointed to a place where the fire didn't look quite so dangerous. "Through there. Run for the highway."

Behind them, the farm truck—or what was formerly the farm truck—cooled in the morning sun, its frame bent into the shape of a humpbacked whale.

"Judge, you're mighty hard on vehicles."

"Walk north, away from the fire."

"Yeah. Great idea."

"Ollie, stick your thumb out. We're hitchhiking back to town."

"Then we're going the wrong way. Sainte Gen is south and we're going north."

"We'll take the long way around. I'm not going back into the flames."

"Let's hope Nathaniel doesn't stop to pick us up."

# Chapter 32

## Sunday Afternoon into Sunday Night

After sleeping most of the day, Rosswell awoke, thinking he'd have time to hustle down to Mabel's before supper.

Mrs. Bolzoni didn't look up from sweeping the front porch. "I make the special tonight for the supper."

Rosswell jerked to a halt before he reached the steps, forming a question, knowing that the answer would be delicious. "What's the special?" The delightful smells of the supper wafted from the kitchen onto the porch. "Tell me. I need to know." Like one of Pavlov's dogs, he'd begun salivating.

Alessandra stepped around her mother. "Roasted bone marrow on crostini, sea salt sprinkled over it, mixed green salad with Italian herb vinaigrette, New York strip steak, sides of grilled Portobello mushrooms and baked new potatoes, all accompanied by a nice cabernet sauvignon—sweet tea for you and me—and Ricotta cheesecake for dessert."

Rosswell mulled over falling to the ground and weeping. Instead, he swallowed a few times to lower the saliva content of his mouth. "I have urgent business that I must attend to in town."

" _Poverino_ , you die nearly in the fire and I make special for you, but you go to be with frogs."

"Momma." Alessandra put her finger to her lips. "He's had a rough time."

"I lose two good guests and the judge not will eat my food. Throw it to the pigs." Mrs. Bolzoni sniffed and clumped back into the house. "Frogs bring nothing but trouble," she threw over her shoulder before the door slammed.

Lost two guests? The Four Bee had somehow morphed into The Hotel California? You can check in any time you like, but you can never check out? No. Wait. That's not what the song said. But if two guests had gone, then that meant Rosswell could double up on his portions. Haste clouds judgment.

Alessandra interrupted Rosswell's thoughts. "You'll have to forgive her. There's been a lot of strange things going on around here lately."

"Your mother's a saint on earth. I need to eat her supper. It would be rude of me not to."

"We need to talk, you and I."

"I'll be glad to talk to you, Alessandra."

"It's important."

"First, tell me which guests left."

"Philbert and Theodore."

"I'll try to help your mother by making sure the leftovers are minimal."

"Thank you, Judge. And then a talk?"

"Tomorrow. I promise."

##

After supper, Rosswell fired up the truck's replacement, a 1999 metallic bronze Kia Sephia with the driver's door spray-painted white. He dubbed the asthmatic four-banger _Sofia._ Gas mileage ran close to ten miles to the gallon and Rosswell wasn't certain that the pistons fired in sequence. The sun, although not yet setting, shined clear and bright, allowing him to drive in a strong light. He needed the strong light to see through his tears at the thought of giving a thousand dollars to the husband of one of his clerks for the piece of junk he was driving. There wasn't time to go car shopping. Rosswell needed a ride in a hurry and the Kia Sephia was the only thing available on the spur of the moment. Plus the tags had been expired _only_ a month. Rosswell prayed that all the state troopers were somewhere else today. Tomorrow, he'd make the car legal.

##

"Judge, I've got a question." Ollie settled in the corner booth in the back of the restaurant, the one badly lit by buzzing fluorescent ceiling lights. "Who started that fire? And where is Jill?"

"That's two questions."

Mabel trotted up. "I need your order. The place is filling up."

Rosswell didn't hesitate. "The biggest steak you've got." It was a good time to make up for all the meals he'd missed recently. "Rare. With blood running from it. And a huge baked potato. Make that two potatoes. Lots of butter. Real butter."

"Drink?"

"Water. I'm on a diet. Oh. And coffee. Make it to go."

"Ollie?"

"Don't call me Ollie. I'm your father!"

"I know." She waited, pencil poised.

"Cheese sandwich and a Coke."

Mabel scurried away.

Ollie said, "Kids have no respect these days."

"It's an epidemic."

"You'll blossom soon from two things. The food. And the hot air inside you. Tell me where Jill is."

"The short answer I'm sure of first. I don't know where Jill is."

"And the long answer of who started the fire you're not sure about?"

"I'll tell you what started that fire. A big front from the Gulf of Mexico brought in lots of humidity and wind." Rosswell drew a meteorological picture (a large arrow pointing north) on the paper placemat to demonstrate. "Then a dry front from Canada increased the wind and lowered the humidity." A large arrow going south. "Add in a drought." Squiggles, indicating evaporation. "A couple of sparks or lightning." Zig-zag lines. "I know it's complicated, but that's a recipe for a perfect firestorm." Rosswell admired his own handiwork.

Ollie drummed his fingers on the table. "Nathaniel Dahlbert started that fire and you know it."

"Did you smell gasoline or any other accelerant? I mean before the cars started crashing into each other."

"Uh...no." Ollie stopped drumming and bent to inspecting his fingernails. "Doesn't prove anything. It's a wonder we survived."

Mabel arrived, bearing a plate with the largest sirloin steak Rosswell had ever seen, plus a water and a huge coffee. The sides, two gigantic baked potatoes, rested on a separate plate, both drowning in butter. "Hope that holds you until your bedtime snack."

"That is my bedtime snack. I need it to go."

"You know where the go boxes are."

Ollie's sandwich and soda were, in Rosswell's estimation, puny compared to his bedtime snack.

Ollie snatched up Rosswell's ticket Mabel had laid on the table. "Hope you charged him enough. That looks like a week's worth of meat for an ordinary person."

Mabel said, "If the judge starts getting too expensive, he can work it off on weekends," then disappeared.

Rosswell fetched a go box from the pantry and began arranging his food. "A wildfire is an inefficient way to kill someone. We're living proof." Enough salt and pepper landed on the steak to preserve it for an eon. "We survived because we found a break in the fire and skedaddled."

"What's the matter with you? Nathaniel is trying to kill us."

"He's had lots of chances to knock us off but didn't take them." Tucking the tabs of the box securely gave Rosswell a chance to think. "Back to the same question I had earlier. Why are we still alive?"

"He's not had a good enough chance to kill us yet, or we would be dead."

"What about the cave? Are you not seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Judge, with the stress we've been under, we could've seen Peter Rabbit hopping down the bunny trail."

Rosswell sipped from the syrupy coffee he'd prepared with a glutton's share of sugar and a dash of salt. "Maybe we can agree on this." Delicious. He slurped down the last of the coffee and signaled Mabel for a refill. "I'm not saying that Nathaniel isn't trying to kill us. I can't figure out why he hasn't killed us yet. Are we serving some kind of purpose for him?"

"We're providing an immense amount of irritating entertainment for him."

"I learned something in the military. An officer in the field who's spying on his opponent looks for five things: shape, shadow, color, movement, and sound."

"We're not in a war."

"Yes, we are. Let's think about this situation with Nathaniel as if we were scoping him out in the field. First, shape. He's got a business that looks legitimate yet he's hiding something. Shadows are next. If you're skulking around, you don't want the enemy to see your shadow. Turk is one of his main shadows but that guy is as stupid as a drunk possum. Color's a good one. Nathaniel is so white he's an albino and his orange hair makes him stick out like a scarecrow singing alto in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."

"Color. That's a good one. Maybe he's blending in somewhere and we haven't noticed him because he's too obvious to hide. Take me. I can't disguise myself. Even people who don't know me recognize me."

Rosswell nodded, discarding the temptation to voice an observation that a giant rodent sporting a purple tattoo atop a bald head is hard to miss. "Next is movement. Lots of people know about him but we can never catch him outside of his castle, except for the time I saw him talking to Mrs. Bolzoni."

Ollie said, "Last one is sound. We've never heard a sound from Nathaniel except when he's up close. And he sounds like he's got a problem with his voice."

"Maybe he's sick." Ollie started to speak, but before he could, Rosswell shushed him. "That's it. Nathaniel is sick. He's dying. He knows he's dying. He wants us to die before he does. It's all in the timing. We know he's got Tina. But where?"

"You're right, Judge. I understand completely. Except that we don't know that he has Tina."

"You're both missing something important." Jill, complete with coffee pot and waitress dress stood next to their table. "But you could use some apple pie."

# Chapter 33

## Sunday Night, continued

Jill's appearance failed to elicit a response from either Rosswell or Ollie.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Rosswell said, "I haven't seen a cat. Have you seen a cat, Ollie?"

"Jill, all I know is you sure took off like a fraidy cat, leaving us locked in a closet."

"The closet wasn't locked." Jill filled Rosswell's coffee cup. "You guys don't know how close you came to dying." She slid a large slice of apple pie in front of him, then did the same for Ollie. "I baked this pie from apples I peeled."

Rosswell said, "Maybe you'd like to tell us why you exposed us to mortal danger."

Mabel hollered from across the restaurant, "Jill, station five."

"I'm busy, but let me sketch it for you. My friends came over to see me. While we were in the front yard, Turk and Nathaniel drove by and fired a couple of rounds. We took exception to that so we gave chase. Then the fire started. The bad guys got away. I had to make sure it was okay to be seen in public before I showed my face. Gotta go. Customers."

Rosswell and Ollie watched Jill take a few more orders before Rosswell said, "That's the biggest crock of crap I've heard since the gray goose ate granny's grackle." He shoveled a couple of bites of pie into his mouth, closing his eyes and chewing. "Hmmmm."

"Goose? What goose? Why would a goose eat a grackle?"

"It's an old saying in my family. My grandma said it all the time."

Ollie said, "I wonder who these friends are that Jill is so proud of?"

"I think she has imaginary friends." Rosswell patted his mouth with the napkin. "But I'll ask her."

Jill glided by their table. "I get off in two hours. We'll talk."

##

In what passed for Mabel's office, yet another conference on the situation took place after Jill ended her shift. The single light bulb hanging from a wire nailed to the ceiling had blown out. With a lot of complaining and groaning, Ollie climbed up on a rickety stepladder and screwed in a fresh bulb. It was a new-fangled "green energy" contraption that took fifteen minutes to warm up to the point where it could shed a milky luminescence, fainter than most stars.

Rosswell seated himself in a wobbly wooden chair behind a tiny desk strewn with papers. "Who are these friends of yours that you're so proud of?" The dust in the air made him sneeze.

Jill looked around, apparently searching for a chair. "I don't know." She found a plastic soda carton, upended it, and sat.

Ollie stood the whole time. "You hang around with strange men? You'll get in trouble if you hang around with strange men. Present company excluded."

She wiggled around on the carton. "I think they were undercover agents or spies or something."

Spies? Undercover agents? In Sainte Genevieve? Rosswell perked up. This could be interesting. Or maybe cause Gustave to carry Jill to the mental health center. She sounded paranoid enough to keep Ollie silent.

"And," Rosswell said, "what were they spying on?"

"Not spies. They were law enforcement of some kind. CIA. FBI. IRS. Homeland Security. TSA. USDA. FDIC."

"Lots of federal cops running around these days. It's hard to tell who's chasing who."

The gaffe roused Ollie from his silence. "Whom."

Rosswell bit his tongue, then loosened his teeth when it began to hurt. "Tell us about the cops from the unknown agency."

"They wouldn't tell me their last names, only their first names. One was tall with square shoulders and eyes popping out like he had a thyroid problem. The other one was shorter. His hair was cut down to practically nothing and he wore a jewel stuck in his earlobe."

"A diamond earring. Philbert is his name. The tall one is Theodore."

"Yeah, how did you know?"

Rosswell briefly explained how he'd met up with Theodore and Philbert one week ago, the day he'd seen the body tossed into the river. He didn't tell Jill a lot of the details, including the Farmington conversation with Philbert. He still didn't trust her. "Where did you meet these two?"

"Right here. This restaurant."

"Convenient. Let's go see those two gentlemen." Maybe they'd moved to different lodgings in Farmington.

Jill shook her head. "They left. Something about bigger fish to fry."

Ollie angled toward Jill. "You've been hoodwinked. Those two were a couple of con artists. They sniffed around for awhile and couldn't find any money to steal so they left town."

Jill puckered her lips into a pout. "You don't know that."

Rosswell thought that it was not beyond belief that con artists could become auditors for the federal government. It had happened before. He made a mental note to discuss with Ollie in private the huge number of con artists working for the government.

Jill continued her defense of Theodore and Philbert. "They saved my life."

Rosswell deposited a load of full attention on Ollie. "Why do you think they're con men? Why couldn't they be the secret police?"

"We don't have secret police in this country."

"You're kidding, right? Answer the question."

"Rosswell, you're acting awfully judgmental." Ollie took his turn to pout. "Let's see. If they were cops, they would've busted Nathaniel's baby selling ring. That's illegal, you know. That's pretty big fish to fry. The headlines would look great. If they were really cops. I think we need to contact the state cops. Gustave's so crooked they'll have to screw him into the ground when he dies."

"I'd imagine that the state fire marshal will investigate the fire." _A good reason to bring Jim Bill on board. I'll make some calls._ Rosswell needed to ask Jill more questions. "Did you see Nathaniel shooting at you?"

"No." She reached into her purse for a lipstick. "I heard gunshots and Theodore said that he and Philbert both had seen Nathaniel shooting at me." She applied the lipstick without consulting a mirror. Rosswell admired women who could do that. Without help from his car's rear-view mirror, he had trouble finding his face when applying lip balm, and usually wound up with a healthy smear on his chin.

"I hate to be the one to defend that rusty-haired son-of-a-bitch, but he was nowhere around." Ollie leaned even closer toward Jill. "Theodore and Philbert wanted you to trust them. What better way than to create a fake threat on your life and then rescue you from it?"

Jill backed away from Ollie. "It wasn't fake."

"Another thing I need to know is who was helping Karyn deliver the baby I saw from the passageway. You were going to tell me before Theodore and Philbert arrived."

"Susannah Acorn."

"Gustave's daughter?" Ollie's eyes grew wide. "Frankie Joe's wife?"

Rosswell said, "I suspected Frankie Joe and Susannah were in on this. Frankie Joe's story about what happened on the ferry was too cut and dried. Gustave gave him a script to read which was supposed to divert attention away from him, his daughter, and son-in-law. Didn't work."

"I told you my sister was the bad girl here. Karyn wants to keep helping Nathaniel because she's making good money. Gustave is a rotten bastard. He and Nathaniel are in this up to their breathers. I want to see those two in jail."

"Jill." Rosswell stood and grasped her hand. "Listen to me. There's only one thing I care about right now. You must tell me the truth. Where is Nathaniel hiding Tina?"

Jill's weeping made him fear the worst, that Tina was dead.

Ollie said, "This is not the time for tears, sister."

She rubbed her cheeks with the heels of her palms. "Damn it, Ollie, I'm not your sister."

Rosswell steeled himself. "Answer the question. Where is Nathaniel hiding Tina?"

"She's not in Sainte Gen. She's not even in the United States. She's in Brazil."

"What's she doing there?"

"She's a prisoner on a baby farm."

# Chapter 34

## Monday Morning

Sipping his espresso on the balcony before dawn, Rosswell considered three alternatives: First, believe Jill was telling the truth that Tina was imprisoned on a baby farm and immediately strike out for Brazil. Second, go back home to Marble Hill. Third, continue searching for his beloved in Sainte Genevieve County. The first sounded grotesquely impulsive, the second tempted him to alternately scream at a brick wall and then pound his head against it, and the third was like surrendering to an unknown enemy.

The only decision he arrived at was to sip another espresso. A double with dark brown sugar and a touch of extra salt. And a couple of shots of chocolate syrup to round off the flavor. The sunshine caressed his face. A smile from somewhere deep inside struggled for freedom. Caffeine and sugar launched rockets, even in the most depressed soul _._

Once dressed and after consuming huge amounts at Mrs. Bolzoni's breakfast table, he made his way down to The Four Bee parking lot to gaze upon the piece of crap that was Sofia. Between the ninety sunny degrees and no air conditioning in his so-called ride, he knew he'd be a big sweat ball by the time he arrived at the courthouse. He checked his watch. 8:00 AM.

His cell phone rang. His bank.

"Rosswell Carew."

"Is this Judge Carew?"

"Yes, Muriel, it's me."

"This is Muriel Thornmorton, calling for Judge Rosswell Carew."

"Hello, Muriel Thornmorton. This is Judge Rosswell Carew."

"At the bank."

"Yes, I know where you work."

"In Marble Hill."

"How are things at the bank?"

"You're overdrawn."

"Okay."

"Again."

"I know what to do. I'll take care of that today. I'll get the details online."

"Three thousand four hundred fifty one dollars and sixty-three cents. That's how much you're overdrawn."

Sounded like a felony to Rosswell.

"Muriel, I promise you that I'll take care of it today."

"You can check your account on the computer."

"I appreciate that information."

"We're on the Internet."

"Yes, I know."

"If you'd checked your account on the World Wide Web, you'd know that you have two hundred thirty five thousand, six hundred seventy-one dollars and fourteen cents in your money market account."

"Yes, Muriel, I know."

"That's why I couldn't understand why you would overdraw your checking account."

"Muriel, I've made a mistake in my bookkeeping."

"Then maybe you should transfer enough money from your money market account to your checking account to cover the bad...I mean...the insufficient funds checks."

"Yes. Please do that for me."

"I don't have the authority."

"Muriel, I will get it taken care of."

"Thanks, Judge Carew. Have a nice day."

"Thank you for your help, Muriel. Goodbye."

Rosswell disconnected and slid into Sofia. A hardened piece of plastic or spring or something in the bowels of the tattered seat jabbed him in the butt. He made a mental note to either drive Sofia into the river or buy a seat cushion. __

A pungent aroma he'd not noticed before assaulted his nose. Riffling through the old newspapers strewn on the back seat, he uncovered a rather fresh dead mouse. He wrapped the corpse in a page from the year-old newspapers, intending to chuck the body into the garbage can outside the courthouse. Was it a mommy mouse that had infested Sofia with a bunch of her babies? A herd of flies buzzed around in the car, searching for the rodent's corpse. Maybe he should clean the car out before he found any more nasty surprises.

Rosswell stuck the key into the ignition and turned it. Nothing. Not even a click. He pressed a speed dial number on his cell phone. The lady at the AAA office was nice, but firm. The membership had lapsed six months before, which meant that no one was about to drive a monster truck out to tow his car to the nearest mechanic. If he wanted, she would give him telephone numbers for local tow trucks, but they all required a sizable sum of cash up front before they left home base.

Rosswell wrote down the information before saying to the woman who stood between him and rescue, "Have a nice day." He clicked off, trying to figure out a way not to waste money on a tow truck.

"Having problems?"

Alessandra posed outside the driver's window. She was dressed in barely legal hot pink shorts and a fluorescent yellow midriff-baring top that sank low in front. The merest hint of lilac emanated from Alessandra. Her strawberry blonde hair fell curly and long, down to her shoulders and over her admirable bosom.

She said, "Do you want me to jump you?"

Alessandra looked like she was ready for action. Rosswell wondered if her boss had asked her to sabotage Sofia and then seduce him. Did Rosswell have secrets he didn't even know about that she planned to wiggle out of him after she wiggled out of those clothes?

You idiot. She's talking about your battery.

"Alessandra, I need to get to town. I'll buy you breakfast at Mabel's."

"Momma fed me breakfast long before you got up."

"If you drive me into town, I'll buy you a cup of coffee at Mabel's."

He knew he was going to regret that invitation. But he had to get to town.

##

Alessandra spoke about the weather and nothing else on the short trip although Rosswell had prepared himself for a bomb. Now was her chance. Hadn't she said that she needed to talk to him about something important?

Only with the greatest difficulty and aided by dark sunglasses did he keep his eyes on the scenery outside the car. The scenery inside the car was tempting, but he restrained himself.

Ollie snapped to attention when Alessandra and Rosswell strolled into Mabel's. It took little imagination to determine what Ollie was thinking when he stared at Alessandra.

Rosswell introduced them, then arrowed for his traditional back booth. Once they were seated and drinking coffee, Alessandra lit the fuse and the explosion rocked him.

"Judge." She took a deep breath and straightened, emphasizing every curve on her body. "I know where Tina is."

Rosswell listened to the buzzing fluorescent lights, the background noise of the patrons chatting, and the occasional loud mufflers on cars passing outside. All that to suppress a gasp. To gasp would be to give the woman power over him that he didn't want to relinquish.

Alessandra brushed the hair from her face, first with her right forefinger, then with her left. The gesture left Rosswell mildly stimulated. Tina had done the same thing on occasion.

He hoped to God that Alessandra was not lying. Maybe she really could help him find Tina. Rosswell stirred the sludge in his cup. "I'm listening." What did she expect him to do? Fall at her feet and cry in gratitude? Gratitude was the last thing he'd show her. Unless she produced Tina.

Rosswell kept his eyes locked on hers—to avoid leering down her top—when she bent forward and lowered her voice. The closer she got to him, the more he could smell her lilac perfume. "Nathaniel Dahlbert kidnapped her." She nodded. "He's got her. That's a fact."

Rosswell exhaled loudly. "I appreciate your help, but I've known for weeks that Nathaniel kidnapped Tina."

He silently called himself a liar. There was nothing he knew for sure _._ After tossing another dash of salt into the coffee, he slurped a large swallow. It bought him time to think of something bland to say to her. "It's the details I can't find out. Without the details, I have no plan. Without a plan, I have no Tina."

Rosswell jumped at the unexpected approach of Mabel. "More water?" She filled their glasses before either could answer. "Anything else?"

Why did waitresses sneak up when you started talking about something interesting?

Rosswell and Alessandra both shook their heads. He'd caught a whiff of cinnamon wafting from the kitchen, meaning that Ollie was baking his famous rolls. "Maybe later, I'll have a roll or two."

Mabel took her time walking away, glancing over her shoulder a couple of times, scoping out Alessandra's outfit. Rosswell knew Mabel was as nosy as her old man. His meeting—he didn't want to call it a breakfast date—would be all over the courthouse by noon. And with each retelling, Alessandra's clothing would become even skimpier until someone swore she'd been eating breakfast in her birthday suit.

"Alessandra, if you know exactly where Tina is, then I want you, need you, to tell me now."

She hesitated. "Brazil." When she spoke, her lips quivered.

She's lying.

"You know this for a fact?"

"I heard Nathaniel talking about it."

"Brazil is a big country. Where exactly is she?"

"Exactly?" She deflated. "I don't know exactly where. I'll try to find out more details." Had she really wanted to help him? And was now disappointed that she couldn't be of assistance? "There's something you don't know about that woman who you think got thrown off the boat."

"Think? I _know_ she got tossed off the ferry. I saw it."

"There are a couple of facts you don't know."

"Are we trading information here? What is it you want? Tell me what you know about Tina's whereabouts and I'll tell you anything I know. I'm sorry the woman drowned, but my focus is on Tina."

Rosswell felt no duty to tell Alessandra how Mary Donna Helperen from Piggott, Arkansas really died. Would Alessandra fall for his lie that she'd drowned? Did she know that Mary Donna had died giving birth after Rosswell had seen her tossed into the river?

"She didn't drown."

Alessandra hadn't fallen for the ruse. Rosswell kept his silence at her stunning announcement. She really did know something.

"Who didn't drown? Tina? Or the woman I saw chucked into the Mississippi River last Sunday?"

After listening to Turk Malone, Charlie Heckle, and Jill Mabli, Rosswell graded the quality of informants around Ste. Gen between shoddy as a rotten stump and worthless as a dead mule. Now, maybe Alessandra had some valid information.

"You didn't see anybody thrown into the river last Sunday."

"What?"

A deep voice spoke. "Judge Carew?" The guy standing at the booth matched Rosswell's short stature, but outweighed him by forty pounds. The fellow's thinning straight black hair emphasized his shiny mustache, onyx, curled, and heavy. How Rosswell envied those handlebars.

Rosswell stood and shook hands with the man. "Alessandra, this is business. I'll talk to you later. Thanks for the ride."

Alessandra looked at the man and he at her. Rosswell suspected that some kind of signal passed between them but couldn't validate his hunch. He scooped up the check and left a tip.

Outside, Rosswell wiped the sweat from his face. "Is your car air conditioned?"

"I'm sorry I broke up your conversation with the young lady. She's beautiful."

"You didn't break anything up. That was Alessandra Bolzoni, my landlady's daughter. I'll explain later. All I need to know now is whether you have a cool car."

"Yes, sir."

Rosswell donned his sunglasses and glanced at his watch. "Let's take a turn around the courthouse square a couple of times. I've got a few minutes before I need to be on the bench." Rosswell was noted for starting court on time, an unusual circumstance among most judges.

The man indicated his car, a stateissued unmarked maroon sedan—Rosswell recognized it as a Crown Victoria—with black wall tires plain enough to be conspicuous. There may as well have been COP CAR painted on the side in bright orange letters.

Jim Bill Evans, an investigator for the state fire marshal's office, had arrived.

# Chapter 35

## Monday Morning

Rosswell adjusted the air conditioner vent to blow directly into his face. "Nice to have the cavalry show up." Although the air was blessedly cool, it smelled stale, like it had been run through the air conditioning system of a bureaucrat's car.

"I've read the entire file on Tina you sent me. Three times. Now explain it again."

Rosswell recounted the adventure, including every important detail. He concluded with, "It's been a real kerfuffle."

"Kerfuffle? I'm down here investigating the fire you got caught in, not a kerfuffle."

Jim Bill dipped a wad of chewing tobacco out of an open pouch lodged on his car's dash, then squirreled the weed in a ruddy cheek. He moved the pouch to the center console, uncovering a small sign stuck to the dash: NO TOBACCO PRODUCTS ALLOWED IN STATE VEHICLES!

"You got an engraved invitation from Sheriff Fribeau, I assume?"

Rosswell wondered where Jim Bill was going to spit. And when? His silent questions were answered when Jim Bill buzzed down the window to hawk a wad onto the street. Expert shot! As far as Rosswell could determine, not a drop touched the man or the car.

"Let's say that I had to pull a few strings to get assigned down here for a couple of days. The Sainte Gen fire chief's a good friend of mine and he asked me to look into this. Gustave is raising nine kinds of holy hell with my boss, the governor, the General Assembly, and anyone else he can get a hold of."

"Gustave is an idiot."

"The charging papers on Nathaniel Dahlbert will weigh more than the national budget."

"What charging papers? I've been trying to tell everyone about him but no one wants to listen. Nobody's going to do anything to him."

"You didn't let me finish." Jim Bill steered the car left, then left again, heading back toward the courthouse. The second turn aimed the sunshine directly into the windshield, revealing a bunch of tiny bugs smeared across the glass. "They listened. They didn't tell you that they listened. In fact, they were onto Nathaniel long before you were."

"The guy's nuts. He's a psychopath. Or a sociopath."

"No one's examined him. All I know is that he has no conscience and treats people like objects. If you're of no more use to him, he'll toss you away as if you were a broken toaster."

Rosswell said, "And these people who've been watching him. I met two of them. Theodore and Philbert, two guys posing as auditors, were really, what? Highway Patrol? FBI? CIA?"

"Theodore and Philbert? Never heard of them."

"Right." Rosswell knew he'd been told to keep his mouth shut and stop trying to pry information from Jim Bill, but damn it, he wanted to know. "When is Nathaniel going to be arrested?" Rosswell rubbed the seat cushions of the car, cleaning his sweaty palms. Although a tad itchy, the cushions were a sight better than Sofia's seats, which felt as if they'd been built of old orange crates covered with discarded chenille and stuffed with corncobs.

"That's the problem. We don't have enough evidence on him. He's not only into dope and money laundering. Something even worse. Slavery."

"Slavery?" Dear God, Jill had been right.

"The politically correct term is _human trafficking_ , although I prefer the more accurate term. Slavery. You know how widespread baby selling is? It's all over the country. Thousands of people a day disappear in the United States. Babies, teenagers, adults. All missing. Counting the whole world, the numbers are huge. An enormous amount of them wind up in slavery."

"I don't care about the rest of the world. All I care about is Tina."

Jim Bill caressed his enviable 'stache. "If I knew where Tina was, I'd be there right now, busting her out."

"And I'd be right next to you."

"We need to focus on Nathaniel. His cohorts pick up pregnant girls, mostly runaways. He buys their babies, then sells them. He keeps the mommies to sell as playthings." Jim Bill remained silent long enough to convince Rosswell that he was reconsidering something. After a bit, Jim Bill said, "I'll tell you one thing and then that's it."

"I understand."

"You ever hear those news stories on television about how law enforcement agencies don't like to co-operate and share information?"

"All the time."

"Those stories are planted by the law enforcement agencies. It's part of a...what you'd call maybe a plan...to keep the slave dealers off balance. We've got our own plans for dealing with people who sell human flesh."

Rosswell considered the greatest part of discretion was silence, thus he managed not to respond until thirty seconds later. "I need to know more."

"Not now, you don't. Or ask me some questions I can answer."

"I want Tina. Take me to her. Right now."

Rosswell watched Jim Bill's shoulders slump, his mouth turn down, and the chewing stop. "She's not in Belize at a sex resort for rich South Americans, I can tell you that."

"The version I heard was a little different."

"There are lots of versions of where she is. She's not at Nathaniel Dahlbert's mansion on the hill."

"Then where is she?"

"No one knows."

"Jim Bill, I'm not trying to find out any classified info. Tell me if I need to stay in Sainte Genevieve."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"This is Nathaniel's center. If he wanted Tina, he'd bring her here."

Jim Bill said no more. That was the whole answer. The fire marshal had told Rosswell what he wanted to hear. He'd like to know more about the why, but he knew not to push him. He had to take this one on faith.

But Jim Bill had more. "The folks looking for Tina don't have unlimited money or unlimited time. Other things have come up. Big crimes that need immediate attention. Nobody has the resources to keep up a full-time search for Tina. It's a cold case."

"Cold case?" Rosswell fought his anger. "Tina was pregnant when she was kidnapped. I need to know if she's dead or alive. I need to know if my baby is dead or alive. This is not a cold case!"

"I don't know the answers to your questions."

"Let me ask you one more thing."

"You can ask." Jim Bill spit out an old wad and stuffed in a fresh one. "And I may not answer."

"Did Nathaniel try to kill Ollie and me in that wildfire?"

"I'm still looking into that. I found what looks like a portable meth lab in the woods. Red phosphorous, ether, lithium batteries, iodine, coffee filters, funnels, on and on and on."

"Where did you find it?"

"At the point of origin, which I found in five minutes."

"Point of origin of the fire?"

"Yes."

"How do you know you spotted the exact place where the fire started?"

"Fires spread in a V- or U-shape." Jim Bill spread his hands out to demonstrate. "Go to the narrowest part of the fire. That's where it started. Then you check on other stuff around there. Blackened parts of trees, burned grass, ash piles, fallen and unburned tree limbs. All of it shows which way the fire came from and where it went. To me, all those things look like the road signs you see on an interstate highway. Plain. Clear. Obvious."

"And a meth cooker started the fire."

"That's the way it's shaping up. Our cooker left a lot of incriminating evidence. Meth heads are sloppy."

"Suspects?"

"Turk Malone. Skinny guy with a scrawny beard, goes around stoned. His name keeps popping up. You know him?" Jim Bill peered into the tobacco pouch. Rosswell enjoyed the sweet aroma, although the nastiness of its use hadn't charmed him.

"Do I ever." Rosswell explained in minute detail everything he knew about Turk. "However, something's not right. Turk is thick with Nathaniel, who's thick with Gustave, but Gustave's son-in-law, Frankie Joe Acorn said he hates Turk. This isn't making sense."

Jim Bill folded the pouch closed. In the silence, its crinkling sounded like aluminum foil wrapping a leftover. "You've got to help me make sense of all this. I want to find Tina."

Rosswell, concentrating on the air conditioner vent, ordered himself to cool down before he answered. Jim Bill was the one and only law enforcement agent in the country who'd listened to him—although Jim Bill said others had listened. Maybe, maybe not. All Rosswell knew for sure was that Jim Bill was here in person. Yet he talked in riddles. Or so it seemed to Rosswell.

"I appreciate you trying to help me, but can you stop talking in circles? Can you tell me something positive? Or something bad? Is Tina dead? If she is, then let me know so I can bury her properly and start grieving for her."

"You've got to understand that Tina is an adult, a competent adult. She can go anywhere she wants. There's been no ransom note. No one saw her being abducted."

"You've met her. Do you think she'd leave me?" Rosswell played Tina's voicemail and read her letter aloud. "Does that sound like someone who's trying to get away from me?"

"I'm here, aren't I? Thank your buddy Turk for giving me a legitimate reason to show up. Speaking of which, I'll be down here a few days, so which motel do you recommend?"

Rosswell glanced at Jim Bill's left hand. No ring. "Are you married?"

Jim Bill laughed. "You have to be married to get a motel room in Sainte Gen?"

"Answer the question."

"Never. Why?"

"That beautiful woman you saw me with a few minutes ago?"

"Alessandra?"

"Meet me at noon at Mabel's. We'll eat, then I'll show you a good place to stay."

# Chapter 36

## Monday Afternoon

"Let's take a gander at the cave where you found the dead woman." Jim Bill picked up a couple of toothpicks on the way out of Mabel's. "We'd better take your...uh...car. I don't want anyone noticing an undercover cop car."

Jim Bill drove Rosswell to the mechanic's shop where, inexplicably, the Kia had been fixed and was ready at the time the grease monkey had promised. A fully decorated Christmas tree standing in the reception area led Rosswell to worry about the man's concept of time. Sofia _shouldn't_ break down again anytime soon since the work was guaranteed. On the other hand, the phrase "tempting fate" came to mind. The towing and repairs hit his overburdened credit card to the tune of $600.00.

The overdraft problem had been resolved with a call to the bank president to transfer funds from Rosswell's money market account, supported by a claim that he was in the midst of a jury trial and couldn't do it in person. The bank president approved the transfer, subtly suggesting that he and she should discuss "certain options after hours one of these days." Rosswell assured her that he would keep it under consideration, although he silently hoped the newly widowed woman hadn't assumed that he'd given up looking for Tina.

Parking at a site where they could view the cave, Jim Bill said he'd picked a spot far enough away that Nathaniel wouldn't notice them in Sofia. __ "No one can see us here. And we can see them clearly."

"Don't count on it. Try my binoculars." He handed them to Jim Bill.

"You always carry binoculars?"

"And a camera." Rosswell reached in back, fetched the camera, and showed it to Jim Bill. "It's a beauty."

Jim Bill pinched his nose shut for emphasis. "This car stinks."

"I needed a car in a hurry. It was the only thing available."

"I agree that the car stinks as a car, but I mean it literally stinks."

"Oh. Right." Rosswell found the wrapped rodent corpse—after spending time in the hot car it felt mushier now—and threw it in the road ditch. "Don't arrest me for littering. It's all biodegradable."

"What was that?"

"A dead mouse."

Jim Bill, the veteran of many awful smells, appeared to fight back a smile. "You'll tell me the story of the deceased varmint wrapped in the front page of the Saint Louis _Post-Dispatch_?"

"One of these days."

Rosswell remained silent, listening to the tick of Sofia's cooling engine, wondering if she'd ever run again. Sure, she'd started once. But twice? Or more? All Rosswell could do was hope.

Jim Bill stuck the binoculars to his eyes and, for a long time, said nothing. After scanning the surrounding area time and time again, he lowered the glasses.

"Can you get to that cave by going through Nathaniel's house?"

"I don't know for sure because I didn't have enough time to explore it fully." Rosswell and Jim Bill then discussed in exhaustive detail the near fatal capture of Rosswell and Ollie in the cave.

After ostensibly considering all the details of the discussion, Jim Bill flicked a couple of pieces of tobacco from his bushy mustache before he continued. "The passageway from Jill's house goes up the hill into Nathaniel's house. Is that correct?"

Rosswell thought again that Jim Bill was a good cop. The fire marshal made sure he told the story consistently.

"I've been able to document only two tunnels going from one house to another in the whole county. Karyn and Jill each have a tunnel that connects to Nathaniel's house. When I explored Jill's tunnel, it rose up into a passageway in Nathaniel's house where I saw the delivery room I told you about."

"Tell me again what Maman Fribeau said to you."

" 'Cave of one eye have much treasure. Cave of blind eye, she holds a treasure but not what you seek.' "

"Where you found Ribs was the cave of blind eye?"

"That's what it looked like to me."

"How did Maman know about the caves?"

"It's pure speculation on my part, but I've been thinking about it. She's an old woman who lives on the river and pays attention to everything she sees and everything she hears. Her brother Lazar circulates around the county like a bumblebee on speed and hears rumors he can report to Maman. And, of course, the sheriff, his daughter Susannah, and son-in-law Frankie Joe Acorn are also part of Maman's network."

"Gustave Fribeau is dirty for sure?"

"I can't tell you. All I know for sure is he's stupid."

"Judge, getting back to Maman, that's where I'm a bit confused. A treasure is something valuable in terms of money. How was Ribs's body worth anything of value?"

"Ah, but wait. There's more. There's another definition of treasure. It can be a discovery of great importance. I'm thinking that the discovery of Ribs told me two things. First, that he was definitely hooked up to Nathaniel Dahlbert and, second, that Nathaniel intended for me to find the body, which means that Nathaniel and Maman Fribeau could be connected some way. That would be through Sheriff Gustave Fribeau, her nephew. Or great-nephew. Who knows? Maman could be Gustave's mother. No one seems to know for sure exactly how the old lady is related to the sheriff. But they're closely related. Maman Fribeau is news central around here."

Jim Bill fitted the glasses to his eyes and focused. "That's definitely a cave of one eye."

"There wasn't any treasure. All we found was the dead woman. I'm sure the woman was the one I saw tossed off the boat. When Ollie was in the alley with Charlie Heckle, he told Ollie that he and Ribs Freshwater found the corpse on the riverbank and carried her up to the cave. They were lying. She wasn't dead when she went in the water. She wasn't dead when she came out of the water. When we found her, she hadn't been dead very long."

"What about the snake? Was it poisonous?"

"Yes, but I don't think even Nathaniel can make a guided snake."

"Tell me exactly what the dead woman in the cave looked like."

"She looked dead."

"Besides that."

Rosswell punched buttons on his phone. "I just emailed you pictures of her."

"Thanks. But I want you to tell me what you saw."

The memory of her appearance lodged in Rosswell's brain, tucked in a side alley that would keep the thought from ever being lost. "Tall. Slender. Strawberry blonde hair. I already told you that her appearance was similar to Tina and Alessandra. Nathaniel or somebody had laid her out almost in a funeral home pose. She wore a hospital gown with—"

"Stop."

Rosswell kept his mouth shut.

Jim Bill never brought the binoculars down from his eyes. "When Charlie Heckle said that he and Ribs carried the woman to the cave, he was lying to Ollie?"

"Yes, I said that. I figured it out right quick. I can't understand why Charlie lied about it. Anyway, they carried her to Nathaniel's house."

"Someone's trying to distract you. That someone is Nathaniel. He wanted you in the cave of one eye so he could kill you. But, as you say, why?"

Rosswell's rapidly beating heart pumped a rush of blood to his head that blinded him when the answer exploded in his brain. "The treasure in that cave wasn't the dead woman. The treasure in that cave is _Tina_." Rosswell felt himself hurtling toward panic mode. _Center! You're close to Tina now. I hope and pray I'm close to her. Center._ "I need to tell you I have a gun." His vision returned.

Jim Bill reached behind Rosswell's back and patted the holster. "You may as well be wearing a sandwich board that says I'M ARMED."

"Then let's go get Tina. Right now!" Rosswell started to step out of Sofia.

Jim Bill grabbed Rosswell's arm. "We don't know she's in there. We have to know she's in there before we rescue her."

"Let's go now!"

Jim Bill tugged Rosswell back into the car. "Close the door." Rosswell did so. "Judge, when you were in that cave, why didn't you wait there till the cops came or do something besides run away?"

"I didn't know Tina was there."

"I already know that. Now tell me why you and Ollie ran off."

"We heard someone coming."

"Where did those sounds you heard come from?"

"It sounded like it was from the back of the cave." Rosswell bowed his head and shook his hands. They'd gone numb and he needed blood circulating. "That means that what I suspected all along is true. There has to be an entrance to the house in that cave. I got into Nathaniel's house through a tunnel from Jill's house, but to get to that cave, all Nathaniel has to do is open a door somewhere in his house."

Jim Bill reached over to pull the necklace Maman Fribeau had bestowed on to Rosswell. "You've met Dina."

Rosswell knitted his brows. "That's what Maman called Tina."

"She wasn't talking about Tina. Dina's the woman who was kidnapped and raped. She was the daughter of Leah and Jacob in Genesis. Dina's brothers killed the bad guys."

"Jewish folktales."

"Maybe. Yet there's a kernel of eternal truth in it. Cruel men subjugate weaker men and vulnerable women. Sometimes evil women join with cruel men." He withdrew a necklace similar to Rosswell's from under his shirt. "We want to free the victims and keep them free. Or, I should say, they must stop thinking of themselves as victims so they can keep themselves free."

"Noble sentiments." The idea of a secret organization dedicated to freeing slaves sounded wonderful but impractical. "And what is it exactly that you do?"

"You'll learn more later. For now, you've given me an idea. There's one more piece of information I need to know to either prove or disprove that Tina is somewhere in Nathaniel's house."

"One more thing?"

"One more piece will solve the puzzle."

"What is it?"

"I don't want to tell you right now. Trust me, Judge Carew."

Rosswell's breathing slowed because he'd commanded it to slow. Knowing that Tina might possibly be within reach only made it harder to wait. "You're ordering me not to do anything until you figure out something? I'll try to control myself."

"One more piece of info. One more. Remember that Nathaniel wants Tina alive or she'd already be dead."

"I don't care what Nathaniel wants. I want Tina!"

"Judge, we do not know that she's in that house. Think about it. If we blasted in there right now and Tina is not there, then whoever has her will keep moving her around and you'll never find her. That's the way those bastards work."

"Where are you going to get this info?"

"Tonight when we eat one of those wonderful suppers you've been telling me about, I'll get it from Alessandra. With your help."

"What should I do?"

Jim Bill told him.

# Chapter 37

## Monday Night

"You go outside to chew the weeds," Mrs. Bolzoni commanded Jim Bill after he'd finished supper and reached for his tobacco pouch. She blessed him with two forefingers pointed at his eyes. "No spit on my flowers. Or I cut you like I'd cut a frog."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Or the sidewalk. I keep a clean house in The Four of the Bees, as the frogs call this place."

"Yes, ma'am."

Rosswell whispered, "You're learning quickly."

Jim Bill held his hands out to Alessandra and Rosswell. "Care to join me outside? I promise not to make you chew."

Settled on the front porch, Jim Bill jumped straight to the point. "Alessandra, do you want to help us find Tina?"

Rosswell added, "You and she bear a remarkable resemblance."

Crickets chirped, sounding exhausted from the heat wave. A rabbit hopping across the lawn stopped to give the trio a stare. Not finding anything threatening, it wiggled its nose and nibbled at Mrs. Bolzoni's flowers. The lower the sun sank in the sky, the more bats began swooping through the air, munching on every flying critter they could find.

Alessandra huffed. "Certainly." Decked out in a pink peasant dress, low-cut and short, Rosswell calculated that the crinkly cotton covered her with twice as much fabric as her breakfast outfit. "I already told Rosswell that." She winked at Jim Bill.

Rosswell decided to be helpful. "What do you want her to do?" __

Jim Bill bounded from the porch, sprinted until he reached the street where he spit, then walked back. Three rabbits hightailed it for safer territory. "I want her—and you, Rosswell—to go with me to Mrs. Bolzoni's parlor."

##

Rosswell switched on the bright chandelier and locked the parlor door when all three of them were inside.

After they had situated themselves on the long couch, Jim Bill began. "Alessandra, do I have your permission to ask you some personal questions?"

"I don't know." Alessandra, sitting between the men, rubbed her hands together, as if she were Lady MacBeth trying to rid herself of a damned spot. "What about?"

Jim Bill ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "I'm trying to find Tina. Rosswell's had a lot of personal problems. And I hear you've had a lot of personal problems."

"That's true."

"I want to ask you about those problems."

Rosswell tried to comfort Alessandra. "We don't want to embarrass you. Jim Bill thinks you might have some information. If you don't have the info, then nothing's lost. I assure you that neither of us will ever repeat anything we hear from you in this room."

"You may have information you don't know you have."

Alessandra commenced her hair straightening routine, the one that reminded Rosswell of Tina. "You know I'll do what I can to help you find Tina."

Jim Bill opened his tobacco pouch, stared inside, then closed it without dipping any chew. "Did you ever see Tina at Nathaniel's mansion?"

"Never."

"Or anyone who looked like her?"

"No. Except for me."

"Did you hear anyone say that Tina was there?"

"No."

"Did anyone give you any kind of indication at all that Tina was there?"

"No."

Rosswell worried that Jim Bill was going to wear out Alessandra with his machine gun questioning. A long stare at the fire marshal worked.

Jim Bill's tone of voice softened. "Rosswell is an alcoholic." Alessandra glanced at Rosswell, who nodded. Jim Bill continued, "Rosswell told me that he had an episode in the park across the street."

"Judge, Momma told me about that. I'm sorry that happened to you."

"As I explained to Mrs. Bolzoni, I did not drink one drop of booze. I was exhausted and fell asleep in the park."

A beat or two passed before Jim Bill resumed his questioning. "Has anything similar happened to you?"

The question seemed to relax her. "Have I ever fallen off the wagon?" She laughed, a high giggle. "Lots of times. There are whole days I don't remember. I'd wake up with empty bottles all over my apartment and not remember drinking."

Jim Bill shook his head. "Pardon me for not being clear. Did something happen in Nathaniel's house that didn't include booze?"

Alessandra glowered at Jim Bill. All at once, her face took on a look of surprise. "Rosswell?" She said nothing more.

"Yes?" Rosswell scooted forward in his seat. "What is it?"

"I remember something out of place."

"Where?" Jim Bill straightened and leaned forward. "While you were at the house? River Heights Villa?"

Rosswell felt she was on the verge of a revelation. "That didn't involve alcohol?"

"I'd been there two weeks without a single taste of liquor."

Rosswell waited for her to continue, but when she didn't, he prompted her. "What was out of place?"

"I'm not sure. There was something strange, but it's hard for me to remember."

"Perhaps we can jog your memory." Jim Bill nodded in the direction of the bookcase. "Rosswell, please do the honors."

According to plan, Rosswell stood. After he reached the back wall, he rubbed his hands along the piano hinges on the bookcase. "Have you ever noticed these before?"

Alessandra peered closely. "They're some kind of decoration. Copper or bronze."

"Brass. They're hinges." Rosswell poked the spot that mattered and the bookcase door swung open.

Alessandra shot up, only to stumble backward, press her palms against her cheek, and moan. "What is that?"

Jim Bill rose and stepped into the passageway. "A real secret tunnel!"

Rosswell had to spill the information he'd learned. "It's not secret. You can visit the courthouse where its existence is documented. It goes straight until it ends at a brick wall down there. That's where I found the map showing the tunnels running from Karyn and Jill's houses to Nathaniel's house."

Alessandra said, "Karyn and Jill? Who are they?"

Rosswell said, "They're waitresses who work for Mabel. They're also midwives."

Alessandra's throat clicked when she swallowed. "The passageway triggers a memory. One night I awoke and saw something."

Rosswell stepped closer to Alessandra. "Do you remember what you saw?"

"Now I do. I got up out of bed and opened the door." She wiped her face, blinked, and drew in a deep breath. "That was unusual because I was on lockdown. If you're on lockdown, the rule is your door is bolted from the outside. The only way to get out is to ring a buzzer and somebody comes and opens the door. That night there was a thunderstorm and all the lights were out. Dark everywhere. The only light was when the lightning flashed. The place is supposed to have a backup generator. I heard people off in the distance arguing about why the generator wasn't coming on."

Jim Bill held up a hand. "You were fully awake by then?"

"Definitely." Alessandra rubbed her head. "I wandered the halls in the dark. I tried every door but they were all locked. Except one. I went in a room where I could see someone on the other side of a glass."

Rosswell kept his peace. This was Jim Bill's show and he didn't want to screw it up.

"A window?"

"A window in a wall that looked into another room."

"How could you see if the power had been cut off?"

Alessandra said, "One of those night light things that comes on when the electricity goes out was in a wall socket. It was dim, but I could see someone through the glass. It was me. I was pregnant. Asleep on a bed in a room. It was a nice bedroom. Clean. Whoever had me in that room cared about my baby. Not like a prison, except it was plain. No decorations. No pictures on the wall. Then I realized that it was a one-way mirror I was looking through."

Alessandra walked to a window and pressed her hand against the pane. When she returned to Rosswell and Jim Bill, she was crying. "Then it was morning and I was in my own bed."

Rosswell said, "Were you pregnant when you were there?"

"I've never been pregnant in my life."

Jim Bill continued the interrogation. "What did it smell like? The room with the mirror. Did it have an odor?"

Alessandra stared down the passageway, as if that would help her remember an aroma. "Yes." She focused on Rosswell. "I'd forgotten about that. It smelled damp. Like wet dirt. The air was cool—not stale, yet not fresh—and it was a wet smell. Not like a river. More like a...I don't know...a—"

"Cave?"

"Yes!" She smiled. "That's it exactly. It smelled like a cave."

# Chapter 38

## Monday Night, continued

Now can we go rescue Tina?" Rosswell drew his gun, found it fully loaded, then checked his cell phone, found it fully charged. He hit a new speed dial number. "Ollie, meet us at Jill's house. The game's afoot, Watson. Bring the Gold King's collection." He clicked off.

"Judge?" Jim Bill looked from Rosswell to Alessandra, then back again.

"What?"

"What's with the Sherlock Holmes stuff?"

"You'll have to trust me."

"You're putting me in a bad position."

Rosswell thumped an index finger into Jim Bill's chest with every word. "I'm going to get Tina. After I do that, then you can arrest me." He dashed from the parlor, rushed down the hallway, zoomed out the front door, then leaped into Sofia. The car started. "Yes!"

Jim Bill, sweat rolling down his face, appeared at the driver's side and placed a hand on the door handle. "We don't have that one last piece of information. I can't let you do this." His tone of voice indicated that negotiation was out of the question.

"Let me do what?"

"Go barrel assing into a private citizen's house with a gun on a suspicion that you're going to find Tina."

"A suspicion? Alessandra didn't see herself in that bedroom. She saw Tina. Stand back. I need to rescue a woman."

Alessandra, who'd followed the men out, caught Rosswell's attention. "How do you know who I saw?"

"You're not pregnant but Tina is."

"I didn't see Tina."

Rosswell cut off Sofia. He stared toward the river, then across the street to the park. The sun settled in behind the bluffs. Night birds cooed. A whippoorwill started his love call. The lights would soon flicker on in the park. He got out of the car.

Alessandra looked as though she'd lost all her nervousness. Jim Bill remained solid and silent. Now it was Rosswell who sweated in the humid evening. He put a fist to his forehead. Something had to convince Jim Bill and Alessandra that Tina was in the house. The missing piece of information wouldn't come from Alessandra alone. He had a part in revealing the important link.

Then he remembered. Christmas! __ Rosswell fixed his eyes on his phone, punched a few keys, swiped the screen. After reviewing his findings, he laid the phone face down on Sofia's roof, hoping the heat of the car wouldn't melt the phone. "Alessandra, tell me what the pregnant woman was wearing."

"A white dress. Kind of a shift. Real simple."

"What else?"

"Nothing else. She was lying on the bed asleep."

"Underwear? Bra? Panties?"

"Rosswell, she was completely covered."

"No blanket over her?"

"No."

"Shoes?"

"She didn't have on shoes."

"Was she lying on her back, her side, or her stomach?"

Alessadra touched her lips a few times. "On her back."

"Was she wearing glasses?"

"No."

"Do you wear glasses?"

"Reading glasses. Sometimes when I read in bed, I go to sleep with my glasses on."

"Did she have any rings?"

Alessandra thought a moment before she answered. "No."

"Earrings?"

"No. I'm sure of that. I always notice other women's earrings."

"Bracelet?"

"Yes, she had a...no...no bracelet."

"Watch, maybe?"

"No. Nothing on her wrists. There wasn't a clock in the room either."

"Anything else about her?"

Obviously replaying the whole scene in her head, Alessandra held up two fingers, then put one finger down. "One thing."

"What was it?"

"A necklace."

"What color?"

"Bronze. Or brass."

"What did the necklace look like?"

"She was wearing a chain with a cross. Not a regular cross."

Jim Bill said, "What kind of cross was it?"

"One like you'd see in Europe on an old church."

Rosswell dug in his car until he found a legal pad and ballpoint pen. "Can you draw it?"

Alessandra took the pen and paper and sketched a cross with a broad ring around the intersection of the upright and the crossbar.

Jim Bill eyed the sketch. "Celtic cross. I've seen those on Presbyterian churches."

"Thank you, Jim Bill and Alessandra. You've both confirmed that Tina was in that room. I bought Tina a gold necklace last year at Christmas. A Celtic cross. I gave it to her on one of our trips to the Southern Hotel." He plucked his phone off the car's roof and tapped it a couple of times to dismiss the screen saver before he showed it to them. "Here's a picture of her wearing it."

Alessandra's eyes grew wide. "That's it. You're right, Judge Carew. I didn't see myself. I saw Tina."

Jim Bill issued a caution. "We still don't know for sure that Tina is in there." He sucked in a deep breath. "But, Judge, we'd better go meet Ollie."

Alessandra stuck a palm out close to Jim Bill's face. "Not without me you don't."

##

In the full dark, Ollie stood waiting in Jill's yard. Rosswell pulled up in Sofia, Jim Bill and Alessandra in the Crown Vic. The remnants of the wildfire stunk up the area.

Ollie stared at Alessandra. "You're a cop. I can smell cops."

Alessandra made no comment.

"She's no cop." Jim Bill fetched his silverbody Colt .45 and began strapping it on. "You're mistaken."

"Sure. What was I thinking?" Ollie watched until Jim Bill finished. "Excuse me, Officer Evans, but Rosswell asked me to bring these." Butt-first, he handed two pistols to Jim Bill, which he took and examined under the glare of his headlights. The moon and stars offered no help as they were hidden by a bank of thick clouds.

"Where the hell did you get these?"

Ollie pouted. "They're legal."

"And expensive. These are Colt 1911s."

"Judge Carew cares enough to buy the very best."

Rosswell skirted around the questions without actually giving too much detail. "Jim Bill, I solemnly promise you that those pistols will be at the bottom of the Mississippi River when this is over. Either that or I'll be at the bottom of the river."

"I can't let you use these." Jim Bill opened his trunk and unlocked his gun safe. "You could kill a lot of people with these guns." Over his shoulder, he stared at Rosswell. "Your .38." Rosswell handed it over.

Alessandra proffered a plastic card, similar to a driver's license. "Take a look at this."

Jim Bill examined the card. "Congratulations. You have a concealed carry permit. You're still not using one of these." He locked the guns in the safe and slammed the trunk lid.

Ollie stood in front of Rosswell and hung his head. "Sorry. I tried."

"You did your best. We've got to follow the law."

"Yes." Ollie sighed. "The law must be followed."

Jim Bill began his instructions. "All three of you are going to stay right here while I go talk to Nathaniel about the fire which came close to his place of business. I want to protect our citizens. That duty requires me to investigate."

"That's right." Rosswell spoke in a conciliatory tone. "We'll stand right here and wait for you to get back."

"It won't take me more than fifteen minutes."

Ollie had what Rosswell considered a useful suggestion. "Unless you think of some extra questions that might take you about ten minutes more."

Jim Bill agreed. "There are always loose ends I need to tie up in a square knot. You're right, Ollie. Maybe twenty-five minutes. Or half-hour. Then I will come back and find you all right here. Waiting."

Alessandra chimed in her agreement. "That's correct, Officer Evans. We will discuss the day's events while we stay right here and wait for your return."

Jim Bill placed his hand on Rosswell's shoulder. "I've got a radio and a phone. If there's the slightest whiff that Tina is in there, I've got people lined up to help me." A thump on his chest showed he wore body armor. "You all need to stay out of this. I'm prepared, you're not." He pulled out his cell phone, slid into his car, and, presumably giving someone lengthy instructions on the phone, drove away.

It wasn't until Rosswell could see Jim Bill's headlights pulling into the driveway of River Heights Villa that he spoke to Ollie and Alessandra. "I don't expect you all to go with me."

Ollie and Alessandra stood silent. He didn't blame them. This wasn't their fight.

"Especially unarmed." Demons danced in Rosswell's stomach. "You shouldn't go with me if you don't have a weapon."

Ollie squeaked. "What makes you think we're unarmed?"

# Chapter 39

## Monday Night, continued

Rosswell high-fived Ollie, both letting out a low whoop. One could never tell when Nathaniel Dahlbert or one of his minions lurked within earshot.

Alessandra stepped away from the men. "Have you two gone nuts?"

Ollie scrambled over a huge log, then stuck his hand underneath it, drawing out the tote bag from _Discovered Treasures_.

Rosswell stepped back. "I hope that's not covered with ants." But since it was in the burned area, he doubted that critters of any kind survived nearby. The slight breeze stirred enough ashes to stink up the place even more and give Rosswell's allergies a reason to explode.

Ollie dipped into the tote, splitting the three monster LED flashlights and three more Colt 1911s among them. Ollie patted his pistol. "Alessandra, can you fire one of these?"

"I can hit the middle of a dime with any pistol you give me." Alessandra checked the gun, then held it at her side. "You brought five weapons out here, but only showed Jim Bill two?"

Rosswell said, "Play honest. No more Brazil crap."

Alessandra saluted. "Yes, sir."

Rosswell breathed deeply. The clean smell of a well-oiled pistol helped him center. And he didn't tell Alessandra that they'd brought more than five weapons.

Ollie explained his deception. "I counted on him searching us to make sure we weren't armed. He's a good cop." Ollie coughed. "If any cop can be good."

"Judge, are we using stolen weapons?"

Rosswell hefted his pistol and rubbed the barrel. "These are one hundred percent legal."

"What was all that game's afoot stuff? Who is the Gold King?"

"Ollie's a huge Sherlock Holmes fan. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story called 'The Problem of Thor Bridge.' One of the characters called the Gold King had a big collection of guns."

"Code talk." Ollie puffed out his chest. "We're like spies."

"When I talked to Ollie on the phone, it was a signal to bring all the guns he could round up. If we gave Jim Bill a couple of them that would satisfy him. But we'd have a few more in reserve."

Alessandra examined the tote bag. "You got the guns at that antique store downtown?"

"Not exactly." Ollie's answer also skirted the question. "There are a couple of more things in here." He drew out several rolls of duct tape, three rolls of clothesline, ten feet of orange plastic rope, and a bag of cotton balls. "There's more stuff. This is a sampling."

"What's all that for?"

Ollie substituted Alessandra's question with one of his own. "Are you ready?"

She said, "I'm rough and tough and used to hard candy."

Rosswell saluted them both. "Ollie comes prepared. I credit the Boy Scout training he had as an innocent youth."

Ollie addressed Alessandra. "You want to carry this stuff?" He surveyed her from top to toe. Then, careful as Ollie was, he gave her a second survey. "Nowhere to stash them. I'll carry everything."

Rosswell added his camera and binoculars to the tote.

Alessandra put her hand on Ollie's arm. "I'll do whatever you say, and if I don't make it, I love your purple tattoo."

"We should talk about that more."

"That's a grand idea."

Ollie said, "Do you mean grand in the traditional sense of meaning—"

Rosswell broke up the burgeoning flirtation. "Cut the mush. Here's what we've got to do." He laid out a plan that he hoped and prayed would rescue Tina.

_If_ she was in River Heights Villa.

##

When Rosswell guided Alessandra and Ollie to the mouth of the cave, they found it as dark as the night surrounding them.

Rosswell whispered, "Get ready. I'm going to turn on the flashlight." After a sharp click, light flooded the cave. Nothing stirred. There was no one or no thing in the cave. Or at least that he could see. Rosswell never discounted the fact that little critters were profuse in caves. Other than the slight burbling of the small stream running from the cave, there was no sound. "I'm going to find Tina."

Rosswell's skin raised gooseflesh the moment he crossed the threshold of the cave. Ollie and Alessandra's skin was bumpy, too. Must be the chill of the cave. Or fear of critters. Bats. Salamanders. Snakes. Bears. Lions. Or fear of death.

Center, Rosswell, center.

About fifty feet inside the mouth of the cave, the passageway branched.

Rosswell spoke in a low voice. "I don't know which way to go." He checked his phone. "It's after nine."

Rosswell had the presence of mind to cut off the phone's ringer, although he also realized that the noise of the three walking through the cave would be enough to warn an alert sentry with good hearing. Or set off an electronic burglar alarm with the slightest intrusion.

There was no disturbance or noise when he again examined both of the tunnels with the aid of his superbright flashlight. He'd already passed the spot where the dead woman was laid out. The passageways didn't look featureless. They both looked like passageways in a cave with cave features. Here and there were smaller passageways that were only three or four feet deep. The roof of the cave was higher or lower in some places. Nothing dramatic. The cave looked ordinary.

Into Ollie's ear, Rosswell said softly, "Everything looks the same in both tunnels."

Ollie and Alessandra following in silence, Rosswell shined his light on the floor of the cave, then knelt. The floors in both passages looked the same. He ran his hands along the dirt, first in one passage, then in the other. There was no difference in the feel or the smell in either passage. If one tunnel was a dead end, then the other—the one that gained entrance to the house—should show signs of traffic. That is, if anyone used this cave all that much.

The dead woman. Mary Donna Helperen from Piggott, Arkansas. Why did they bring her down here? Obviously, to hide her. Why did they have her on the ferry in the first place? She wasn't dead when she got on the ferry and had somehow managed not to drown when she went in the water, then later died in childbirth. Who brought her down here? Charlie Heckle and Turk Malone. Not two of the crispier rocket surgeons in the harbor. Would they have carried her? No.

Rosswell again kneeled on the floor and again shined his light. He tried to force himself to see what he was really looking at. He tamped down his fright at the thought of going up against a bad guy. The worst guy he knew.

Rosswell repeated aloud one of his favorite quotes. " 'Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.' " Was Aristotle a saint? Rosswell thought he should be.

Then, in the pool of light cast by his flashlight, there it was. When they had found her, Mary Donna's heels were muddy. He remembered that now. In the dirt of the tunnel to his left were faint traces of what he suspected were heel marks along with other indentations that looked like shoe prints. He hoped they were faint traces of heel marks and shoe prints. Because if they were, then that meant that Charlie and Turk had dragged the woman from somewhere up in the house and had come through the left passageway.

"Left it is," Rosswell said. "And Tina's at the end of this tunnel."

Someone tapped on Rosswell's shoulder. He whirled around, his gun pointed at Ollie and Alessandra. They each put a finger to their lips. Rosswell nodded, ashamed of himself for speaking too loudly.

Rosswell signaled for them to head through the left passageway.

All three of them froze when they heard a door open. Someone humming off-key waltzed through.

# Chapter 40

## Monday Night, continued

The trio snuffed their flashlights. Rosswell tugged Alessandra and Ollie into a shallow side passage. The cave was darker than the night outside. Rosswell hoped the side passage was deep enough to make them invisible to whoever was entering from Nathaniel's house. A door slammed shut. A noise, a soft scuffing sound, grew stronger then stopped. Someone walking, then halting directly in front of them. Whoever it was had a small flashlight, although its beam shined on the ground, enabling the person to see where he or she was walking.

The figure coughed, turned off the flashlight, then flicked a lighter and held the flame up to a cigarette. Charlie Heckle. The scarfaced man hadn't caught the night train to Memphis after all. __

Ollie and I were set up. Nathaniel sent Charlie to the alley so he could entice us to come here!

Charlie exhaled a stream of smoke. When it reached Rosswell, he detected a smell like a skunk burning in an alfalfa hay bale. Charlie was toking a joint. Rosswell hoped Charlie and his blunt weren't keeping company with anyone else.

As best he could, Rosswell explained by grasping Alessandra and Ollie's hands, then pointing and gesturing, that he wanted Ollie on Charlie's left and Rosswell would take his right. Alessandra would stand in front of Charlie. Rosswell placed Alessandra's hand on his head and he nodded. Then he touched her head. Alessandra nodded. Rosswell and Ollie also exchanged a silent greeting in the darkness.

Rosswell liked the phrase Ollie had used in the alley. He decided to use it on Charlie.

"Show time, boys and girls!"

"What the—"

Charlie's surprise was complete, allowing Rosswell and Ollie to knock him on the ground, but not allowing Charlie to finish his question.

Rosswell, risking one light, turned on his flashlight and stuck a gun in Charlie's right ear to whisper, "Where's Tina?"

"I don't—" Charlie spoke a bit too loudly. Rosswell punched the gun barrel into his ear to silence him.

"Real quiet. Tell me where Tina is."

Barely audible, Charlie whimpered, "I don't know no Tina."

Alessandra stuck her gun in Charlie's left ear as Ollie pulled off Charlie's shoes and began wrapping him with clothesline.

Rosswell bent over Charlie's face. "I'm not going to shoot you. It would make too much noise." He felt Charlie relax. "Instead, I'm going to stuff cotton balls in your mouth and nose, then duct tape them shut." Charlie stiffened and began shaking. "Charlie, you ever see anyone suffocate?"

Rosswell knew death threats spoken in a soft, clear voice were more effective. It was a lesson learned from watching gangster movies.

Charlie's tiny voice quivered. "No. I don't know where nobody is. Don't kill me. Please, don't kill me."

"Suffocation's worse than drowning. Takes a lot longer. And you don't pass out before you die. You die after a lot of pain. A lot of terror. I've heard it seems like hours."

Charlie said nothing. Ollie had wrapped all the clothesline around Charlie and was finishing the task of duct taping the man into complete immobility.

Before Ollie taped Charlie's mouth shut, Rosswell posed his question one more time. "You get to choose whether to tell me or die of suffocation. Where's Tina?"

"Second door to your left, about hundred feet after you get into the house."

"That's better. Any guards?"

"No."

"Any alarms?"

"No."

"Anything dangerous I need to know about?"

"No."

"If you're lying, I'll come back and choke you to death with my own hands."

Charlie nodded.

"And where's my silver?"

"Nathaniel."

When he rose, Rosswell stepped on Charlie's hand, grinding his heel into it for emphasis. "Ollie, finish bundling up the trash."

Ollie stuffed cotton balls in Charlie's mouth. Charlie whimpered. Tears ran down his cheeks when Ollie taped his mouth shut.

Rosswell assured Charlie, "I'm not going to suffocate you. For now. This is to keep you quiet."

Ollie added, "Try not to upchuck before we get back. The vomit won't have any place to go, which means it cuts off all your air. Understand?"

Charlie nodded again. Rosswell's nose picked up an odor telling him that Charlie had crapped his pants before he peed himself.

"Ollie's right. Another word of warning." Rosswell made certain Charlie could see his face. "Don't swallow. You could wind up choking yourself. That's suffocation."

Charlie's eyes grew wide. He lay still. Very still.

##

With the promise that no guards or alarms or anything else dangerous awaited, the trio exited the cave through the wooden door that Charlie had come through. When they reached the door of what Rosswell prayed was Tina's room, he admitted to himself that perhaps Charlie hadn't been lying. The glow in the hallway radiated from small night lights plugged into outlets at various intervals. Whenever they had passed one of them, Rosswell yanked it from its socket. At the end of the hallway were two fire doors with push bars. If the map from Mrs. Bolzoni's was correct, the rest of Nathaniel's house waited on the other side of the fire doors.

The door to Tina's room lay shrouded in darkness.

Rosswell risked a whisper. "I'm going to try the door. If it's unlocked, I'm going in first. Ollie, if it's locked, kick it open if you can. Then I'll go in. Alessandra, guard the hallway. Ollie, if Tina's drugged, you'll have to help me carry her out. If anyone else is in the room, don't shoot them. Unless they point a gun at you."

Ollie moved close to Rosswell. "What if she's not in there?"

Alessandra stood close to Ollie. "Then we go to Plan B."

"Rosswell never has a Plan B. You'd best give him details."

"We kick down every door in the place. With our weapons drawn."

Rosswell said, "Alessandra, I like the way you think."

Ollie, clearly not satisfied by the answers he'd heard, barged ahead. "What if she's not in this house anywhere?"

Instead of answering Ollie, Rosswell asked Alessandra, "Have you ever been in this part of the house?"

"No."

"Then we leave the way we came in."

Ollie wanted answers. "If we blunder through every room and don't find Tina, what do we do?"

Rosswell said, "We leave any way we can."

Ollie and Alessandra gave Rosswell a thumbs up.

Riffling through the tote bag until he found a length of plastic rope, Rosswell thrust it in to Ollie's hands. "Wind this through those crash bars on the fire door. It won't stop someone from coming through eventually but it will slow them down."

Above the metal doorknob of Tina's room, Rosswell's hand hovered for a couple of seconds until crunch time arrived. As soon as his skin made contact, alarms—louder than the ones Rosswell had heard the first time at the house—screeched in a deafening siren whoop. Lights in the ceiling flashed on, giving the hallway the look of high noon in June. Rosswell twisted the knob and shoved the door open, promising himself he'd kill Charlie Heckle.

# Chapter 41

## Monday Night, continued

Tina lay on a bed, her eyes wide, her body tensed.

"Rosswell!"

He risked taking a moment to kiss her, then rubbed the Celtic cross necklace lying at her throat. The actions served as his validation that he'd reached the end of his journey.

The klaxons screaming in his brain couldn't dampen the joy of seeing Tina. Using his medic's training, he assessed her condition within seconds. Her hair smelled of a recent washing with a shampoo recalling fresh air on a mountainside. Her skin felt smooth, supple, and soft. They'd kept her clean. It was nice when bad guys kept their prisoners clean _._ Her belly was huge with their baby.

"I'm fine," she screamed over the screech of the alarms. "Get me out of here!" She jumped from the bed and shoved her feet into tennis shoes, all in the same motion.

Even through the sound of the sirens in the hallway, Rosswell could make out people yelling somewhere, running straight for them.

"We're leaving this dump!" Rosswell assured himself the orange rope tied to the door would keep the pursuers at bay long enough to ensure their escape. "Alessandra, clear a path for Tina and Ollie. I'll bring up the rear."

Alessandra, her flashlight clutched in one hand, the gun at the ready in the other, sprinted down the hallway toward the cave. Ollie, whose adrenalin must've been surging overtime, cozied up close behind Alessandra, dragging Tina as she hurried to keep up.

Rosswell followed the three of them, his pistol in firing position, his eyes ready to catch sight over his shoulder of anyone who gained on him. No one followed. With a glance forward every second or so to make certain he wasn't going to smack headfirst into a wall, he closed on his goal of the cave's outside entrance with each step. Now, he spotted the wooden door marking where the hallway in the house ended and the cave began.

Alessandra grabbed the doorknob and turned. "It's locked."

Behind them, Rosswell heard people—it sounded like a lot of people—pounding on the fire door. "Ollie, kick the door where the handle meets the frame."

"Actually, it's where the lockset meets the casing."

Alessandra smacked Ollie in the face. "Start kicking, damn it!"

A few swift kicks from Ollie shattered the wood where the lockset met the casing.

They all dove through into the back of the cave. Rosswell found a chunk of rock and stuck it under the useless door. Another speed bump for would-be pursuers. With all of their flashlights on, the way shined clear. It took the rescue party only a few seconds to reach the entrance.

Rosswell, Tina, and Ollie halted, turned, and aimed their pistols into the cave.

"Don't...Where..." Ollie stopped, his panting leaving him unable to speak. He gasped and breathed deeply until he regained his voice. "Where's Alessandra?"

Rosswell hollered back into the depths of the cave, "Alessandra!" The clamoring of the alarms swallowed his yelling.

Ollie said, "She's still back there."

"You and Tina get to the car right now. I'll fetch Alessandra." No way was Tina staying in the filthy cave.

Before Rosswell could move five feet, Alessandra appeared out of the darkness, jogging toward him.

"What kept you?"

"Since you didn't kill Charlie like you promised, I had to kick him in the nuts for lying to us." She smiled. "I think he's hurt."

Outside the cave, Rosswell's shaking fingers punched 9-1-1 as they sprinted for Sofia.

The operator said, "What is the nature—"

"Two people have been shot at River Heights Villa. One dead. One injured." Not once slowing down, Rosswell repeated the message two more times, then clicked off.

Ollie panted. "Who's been shot? Who's dead?"

Tina's adrenaline must've kicked in since she was leading the pack.

Rosswell's phone rang. The emergency operator making the standard verification call on hang-ups. He let it go to voicemail. "Serious injury and death calls take precedence. I lied. So sue me." Shortness of breath began working a number on him. "Keep running, people."

Running being the only concern now, not a one of them checked behind them nor did they slow down.

Gunshots sounded.

##

They reached Sofia, huffing and panting after the sprint. Although Rosswell expected the place to erupt with cops and ambulances within minutes, he felt duty bound to check on Jim Bill immediately. Except that now it sounded as if people were shooting at them.

Ollie stated the obvious. "Officer Evans is overdue."

"I already know that. You three get to the hospital."

Rosswell bent to kiss Tina again. "I love you."

"Don't leave me!"

"If it weren't for Jim Bill, I wouldn't have found you. I'm going to help him."

"Hurry." Alessandra put her arm around Tina. "All of us are going to be fine. The cops will beat Rosswell to the scene."

Ollie beamed. "You'd make a great research assistant."

Alessandra jiggled and smiled. "Never forget that."

Their elation rapidly deflated when from behind, Susannah and Frankie Joe, each armed with a pistol, flanked them.

Susannah chuckled. "Everybody's weapon on the ground. Now. Real slow. Real easy."

"Guns on the ground." Frankie Joe stuck his gun to Tina's temple. "Now."

Rosswell, Ollie, and Alessandra did as they were ordered. Frankie Joe flung all three guns deep into the burnt area.

Rosswell dropped to his knees by Tina. "If you're going to kill me, then you've got to let me tell her good-bye."

Tina said, "You assholes let me go. The cops are coming."

Susannah said, "Shut up, girly."

Alessandra dropped the tote bag next to Rosswell. In all the confusion, he thought the thing had been left in Nathaniel's house. He risked a glance inside the bag.

"About time you jokers showed up." Alessandra marched up to their captors. "I'm through with these losers." She pointed to Rosswell, Tina, and Ollie. "I found out all I can. I'm reporting to Nathaniel." Doing an about face to all of them, she walked away from the car, toward the house.

Susannah yelled, "Get back here or I'll shoot your sorry ass."

Without turning to face Susannah, Alessandra said, "I take my orders from Nathaniel, not you," and kept walking.

Frankie Joe joined his wife. "You turn around right now or I'll shoot you myself. I'd enjoy it."

Alessandra continued trudging up the hill. "Shoot me. Then enjoy what Nathaniel does to you. He specializes in slow and painful deaths."

Frankie Joe and Susannah, never lowering their guns, exchanged a quick glance, shrugged, and returned attention to their three prisoners, each of whom now brandished pistols.

Ollie's weapon hovered mere inches from Susannah's face. "Anyone who'd stick eighteen garden gnomes in front of a doublewide doesn't have the sense God gave a green goose."

Tina positioned herself into a firing stance. "This girly is a cop."

Alessandra called down from the hill, "And so is this girly."

Rosswell's gun barrel touched the tip of Frankie Joe's nose. "You certainly have pretty hands for a farm machine mechanic. Alessandra, check in the tote bag. Might be some extra clothesline and duct tape."

Alessandra sprinted down the hill toward the group. "Gladly."

Ollie crowed, "Told you she'd make a great research assistant."

Alessandra poked around in the tote bag. "You weren't kidding about the code talk. I can't believe all the crap you got in here." She glanced at Susannah and Frankie Joe. "We'll add your guns to our stash. Thanks."

Ollie shoved Susannah and Frankie Joe to the ground and flipped them face down. He removed their shoes, and inspected the pistols. "Trash. Gustave's a cheap boss man."

Rosswell said, "Tie them, then drive Tina to the hospital."

# Chapter 42

## Monday Night, continued

Rosswell left Ollie and Alessandra, who busied themselves with tying up Susannah and Frankie Joe before hustling Tina to the hospital.

Rosswell scrambled up the hill and planted himself in the spot where Gustave busted Nathaniel early Friday morning. Now, after the alarms stopped, echoes pounded inside Rosswell's brain like sledgehammers banging on a tin roof.

Scattered raindrops fell from dark clouds. A breeze blew up the hill, bringing ashes from the remains of the wildfire, tainting the air with the stale smell of burnt forest.

Rosswell plodded forward, hoping he made no noise although with the ringing in his ears he remained uncertain if his progress sounded like a mouse or an elephant.

At the top of the hill, he pinpointed Jim Bill through the binoculars. The lawman was poised at the sunroom's door with Nathaniel blocking it. Both parties made heated gestures. No doubt Jim Bill demanded entry to investigate the raucous sounds he heard while Nathaniel countered that the noises were yet another false alarm, caused by a faulty system. Nathaniel didn't appear armed.

Turk, cradling something that Rosswell couldn't make out, rushed to Nathaniel's back. Turk also began gesticulating and yelling. That's when Turk's pistol became visible.

Jim Bill punched Turk in the chest with his forefinger. Turk responded by latching onto Jim Bill's finger, bending it backward, causing Jim Bill to kneel. Astounded that the cop had made such a simple error as letting a bad guy grab his hand, Rosswell focused the binoculars on Nathaniel, who merely stood there, as if waiting for Turk to do something else.

Turk did something else.

He shot Jim Bill.

Rosswell drew his pistol and bolted toward Jim Bill, gaining the doorway of the sunroom in seconds. The fire marshal didn't move. The 1911, even though shaking, remained pointed at Nathaniel. "Talk to me!" Still no response from Jim Bill, although Rosswell noted he was still breathing. No apparent bleeding. That was a good sign. In his peripheral vision, Rosswell glimpsed Turk making circles in the air with the hand holding the gun.

Jim Bill seemed to force his eyes open. "Damn. That hurts. My chest."

Amazed that Nathaniel hadn't stirred a lick, Rosswell said, "Hands behind your head. Turk, drop your weapon and stick those hands behind your head."

Both feet planted far apart, Nathaniel never moved but merely stood gawking at Rosswell and then down at Jim Bill. Turk continued making circles in the air with his gun.

Rosswell said, "Both y'all, I need to see those hands behind your head. Now."

Turk, with the remaining bits of his brain doubtless pummeled by meth, made an about-face, then began racing through the hallways, screeching, firing the gun until it was empty. Rosswell hoped that the doper hadn't hit any of the staff or residents, now flooding the hallways and streaming from the building at every exit. The grounds of the villa rapidly descended into a small mob scene.

A crackle sounded under what Rosswell knew was Jim Bill's Kevlar vest. Jim Bill spoke with difficulty. "Squelch break. Three shorts. Pause. One short."

"I already called 9-1-1."

"Belt." Jim Bill gasped, breathed shallowly a couple of times. "And suspenders. Don't argue."

Rosswell found the radio, clicked the mike open three times, waited a heartbeat, then clicked it once more. It had to be the code to the backup officers standing by to get their butts on the scene. In the distance, sirens blasted from every direction.

"Jim Bill, they're coming. I don't see any blood. That's good."

"Feels like a baseball bat hit my chest." Jim Bill rolled to his side. "Don't let Nathaniel escape."

Rosswell jumped up and stuck his pistol in Nathaniel's face. "You're under arrest for murder. But I'd love to see you try to escape. I'll blast your ugly white mug all over creation. Run."

Why the hell isn't Nathaniel reacting?

Never uttering a word, Nathaniel scuttled off to his left into another room.

Rosswell, cursing himself for not shooting when he had a clear shot, chased Nathaniel from the sunroom into what looked like the library of a British manor house in one of those old-time movies. In the middle of the room sat the largest wooden desk Rosswell had ever seen.

Nathaniel Dahlbert slowly rose from behind the center of the desk. "It would be impolite of me not to say good-bye."

Both of Rosswell's shaking hands were necessary to raise the gun and aim it at Nathaniel's heart. "I'm going to kill you." Rosswell, unable to pull the trigger, blinked sweat from his eyes.

"You can't shoot. Your heart and brain are open to me but closed to you." Nathaniel raised both hands high, although it didn't look much like a surrender. The white man with the orange hair smiled, although it held no friendliness.

"Who was the doctor who helped you kidnap Tina?"

"Why...Doctor Death."

Rosswell's finger begged to pull the trigger, but he held himself in check, giving Nathaniel one final warning. "I'll shoot you if you don't march right out here in front of me with your hands up and drop to the floor spread eagle where I can—"

An explosion with the decibel level of a stick of dynamite shook the room. Instantly following the blast, a flash of light rivaling the sun ignited before Rosswell's eyes, followed by a plume of thick, blue smoke. A stink, not of gunpowder, but of a smell Rosswell remembered from the times he'd tried barbecuing outside on an old-fashioned grill, only to ignite the aluminum foil covering it.

Nathaniel had set up a charge of magician's flash powder. Potassium perchlorate and ground aluminum dust. And lots of it. Plus one hell of a percussion blast. Rosswell wondered if he was deaf as well as blind. The explosion temporarily disoriented him. The moment he regained his sight, Rosswell realized Nathaniel had vanished. Throwing himself across the desk, Rosswell tumbled to the floor, grasping the lip of a hole a second before his momentum would've hurtled him down into darkness.

Although the smoke had cleared and his flashlight pierced the gloom, Rosswell couldn't see the bottom of the pit that had swallowed Nathaniel.

Cupping his hands behind his ears and yelling, he felt relief that he could still hear, although the inside of his head sounded like a convention of insane hand bell ringers.

Nathaniel was gone. Time to head for Tina.

"Having problems, Judge?"

Rosswell jumped to his feet and whirled around. A small man with a buzz cut and wearing a diamond in his right earlobe aimed a Colt Anaconda at Rosswell's stomach.

"Philbert?" Rosswell gaped at the stainless steel pistol. "That's a .44 magnum."

"Sure is."

"You elephant hunting?"

Before Philbert could answer, a big guy with square shoulders and bulging eyes lumbered through the door with an identical pistol pointed at the same spot on Rosswell's body.

"Theodore?"

Philbert motioned with his gun. "Where's Nathaniel?"

"Down in that hole behind the desk. A pretty nifty escape route, if you ask me."

Theodore said, "We're not asking you."

Philbert strolled around the desk, leaned over the hole, and whistled. "That goes all the way to China." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Anyone down there?" Silence answered him.

Theodore glanced around the room. "Judge, are you the only one in here?"

"Yes, except for you and Philbert."

Theodore hadn't lowered his gun. "Where's Jim Bill Evans?"

Were Theodore and Philbert bad guys or good guys? Rosswell took a chance they were the latter. "At the door of the sunroom. He's injured. I used his radio to send a signal. An ambulance _should_ be on the way."

The ugly stick, a nurse, walked in the room.

Rosswell said, "I know you."

"You should. I worked in the hospital in Marble Hill, taking care of your wife."

"We're engaged. We haven't been married yet."

"Congratulations."

Rosswell tapped his head. "You're Gerry Middleton!"

"No."

"Bobo's wife!"

"Who's he?"

"He's the prosecutor of Cape Girardeau County." Rosswell studied her closely. "Priscilla Brewster. That's what your nametag read when you worked in the hospital in Marble Hill."

"If no one needs me here, I'm going to check elsewhere to see if anyone wants me."

Because Rosswell was distracted by her red tattooed thumbprint, she left before he could ask her to check out Jim Bill.

##

They found Jim Bill where Rosswell had left him. There still wasn't a trace of blood, for which Rosswell thanked Whoever happened to be listening.

Philbert started to turn Jim Bill over. "He's not bleeding. Maybe he's wounded in his back."

"Jim Bill," Theodore said. "Can you hear me?"

Jim Bill opened his eyes. "Quit yelling at me." He moaned. "I hurt like hell."

Philbert said, "Where are you hit?"

"Gustave." Jim Bill managed to indicate a place close to the garage. "Get that son of a bitch."

Despite Theodore and Philbert ordering him otherwise, Rosswell dashed to the garage, his gun at the ready.

Gustave had fled. Rosswell ambled back. Ollie appeared.

Rosswell grabbed Ollie. "Where's Tina?"

"She's safe. After you left, we flagged down an ambulance. Tina called me to report that she'd made it to the hospital." His gaze locked on to the fallen lawman. "Jim Bill, are you okay? Did that bastard shoot you?"

"Yes. I'm bruised. That's it. Glad I wore my vest."

"Serious injuries can still occur even with the use of a bullet-resistant vest. The effects of transmitted forces through a protective vest often result in a significant chest contusion, concurrent—" Ollie's bald head attracted the aim of Theodore and Philbert's guns. Ollie fell to the ground. "I give up. Don't shoot."

Rosswell's mouth unclenched enough to apologize. "Ollie always talks like that. Not necessary to shoot him." Rosswell needed to get to Tina. If he wasn't mistaken, a migraine was sneaking up on him, making it hard to think. "I need to go."

Theodore said to Ollie, "Who are you?"

"Ollie Groton. Judge Carew's research assistant."

Alessandra sauntered onto the scene. "Hey, boys. Momma's sad you all left. She said you were the best guests she'd had in a long time. Quiet. Didn't cause any trouble." Apparently, she hadn't seen Jim Bill until she looked behind Theodore and Philbert. "Oh, my God. Jim Bill, you okay?" She rushed to his side. Again, Jim Bill explained his injuries.

Alessandra, still by Jim Bill's side, said to Theodore and Philbert, "You boys sure have big guns. Times are hard. One shot and the fight's over. Can't waste taxpayers' money."

Alessandra's statements confused Rosswell. "Taxpayers? They're auditors. Do taxpayers pay for armed accountants?"

Jim Bill said, "Judge, did you set off another alarm?"

"Several. You may have heard."

Theodore examined Jim Bill again. "An ambulance is on the way. Don't move. You're looking good, but don't move." He put his hand on Jim Bill's shoulder.

Jim Bill looked over the people gathered around him as if he was taking inventory. "Is everyone safe?"

Rosswell knelt by Jim Bill. "You did a great job. Everyone's safe."

Theodore said, "Judge, we found something really interesting down there around the cave. Do you want to guess what it was?"

"I don't know."

"Guess," Philbert said.

Rosswell rubbed the back of his neck. "If you all are going to kill me with twenty questions, then get it over with. I'm exhausted."

"Kill you?" Theodore scoffed. "Why would we want to kill our fishing buddy?"

"Tell me what you're talking about. I'm smack out of guesses."

Philbert let out a disgusted sigh. "You don't know anything about the three people bound with clothesline and wrapped up in duct tape?"

"Yes, I do. Charlie Heckle, Susannah Acorn, and Frankie Joe Acorn. They're felons."

"Felons?" Philbert cocked his head. "You don't say. Felons?" He caught Theodore's attention. "Man says three jokers we handed off to the patrol are _felons_."

Theodore's mouth dropped open. "No shit? _Felons?_ "

Rosswell said, "What the hell is going on here?"

Theodore said, "Like you said, you—we thought it was Jim Bill—signaled us to get our butts down here to help him out. Guess that you didn't need much help."

Philbert said, "Except, Judge Rosswell Carew, you let the main bad boy escape."

Ollie's cell phone beeped a text message alert. He tapped Rosswell on his arm and showed him the message. "You should get to the hospital right quick."

"Is it bad?" Rosswell read the message.

Ollie said, "Not if you don't mind being called Daddy," but Rosswell was already gone.

##

Tina unwrapped the child to show Rosswell, who shut the door behind him when he came into her hospital room. "What do you think of our boy?" She'd dabbed the lilac-smelling perfume behind her ears. Rosswell loved the scent. He brushed her strawberry blonde hair away from her face before he planted a smacker on her lips.

"Kind of small." Rosswell leaned over the bed where Tina and his son lay. "He's red. And looks like a prune." A sniff confirmed it. "He smells fresh."

A bubble formed on the baby's mouth and burst. The child loosed a contented sigh—something Rosswell figured he'd never hear again—and then continued sleeping. Stroking the baby's hand, tiny fingers grasped his father's finger. The child's skin felt smoother and softer than any other baby's that he'd encountered. A smile crossed Rosswell's face. Delivering babies was one of the happy things he'd done as a medic while serving in the military.

"Rosswell, we've got to name him."

"You do that." Rosswell lifted the baby's sock cap. "Bald as Ollie." He tucked the blanket around the child and kissed him on his forehead. "I don't know anything about a baby's name."

"I insist."

Rosswell found himself distracted by the noise of the hospital that he heard even through the closed door. "No, you do it." Afraid to actually pick up and cuddle the child, Rosswell felt that he wasn't capable of sticking a name on his son that the child would wear all his life. Naming should be something a mother does. "I want you to be happy with what we call him."

"At least the first name. I'll give him the middle name." She touched Rosswell's cheek. "The name is totally your choice. I'll abide by it." A tear welled up and rolled down her cheek. "I never want to be separated from you again. I'll call him whatever you say."

Rosswell closed his eyes, thinking of various names, until a good one showed up. His eyes popped open. "In _Moby-Dick_ , Ishmael tells the story about Steelkilt, a mutineer who's about to be flogged by an unnamed captain. The story within the novel is quite moving."

"Ishmael? Steelkilt?" Tina creased her brow. A tone of confusion accented her words. "But our baby's name—"

"The captain refused to thrash Steelkilt after he whispered something to the captain. I've researched this and I know what he whispered."

"Rosswell...what?" The baby made a sound or moved a certain way that Rosswell couldn't fathom. Whatever the child had done, Tina must've taken it as a sign he was hungry since she began nursing him. "I don't understand what you're talking about."

Rosswell drew in a deep breath. "The name is Herman." He rubbed his hands together, satisfied with the choice. "As in Herman Melville."

"Absolutely not!"

Rosswell realized that when Tina spoke in her _not-to-be-dissuaded_ voice, he'd already lost the argument. Rebuttal and attempts at convincing her otherwise were useless. "Let me think." He closed his eyes and rocked back and forth on his heels. "I'm the father of your grand-daughter."

"I think you're developing middle-aged attention deficit disorder." Tina rearranged her blanket, rewrapped the baby's blanket, and adjusted his sock cap, all the while breastfeeding him.

"That's what Steelkilt whispered to the captain and that's why the captain allowed him to live."

Tina moved the baby to her other breast. "You're tiring me."

"You had a kid. Our son. You're entitled to be worn out."

Tina closed her eyes. "I'm taking a nap." She hugged the baby closer. "Sit over there and be quiet till I wake up."

"Ah! I've got it. Aristotle."

Tina's eyes flew open and grew wide. "Aris—" She choked. " _Aristotle?_ We're not Greeks."

"The name Aristotle means the best one of all."

"All the kids at school will call him Ari or something even worse."

"Jonathan. That's from the Hebrew _Yonatan_ , a shortened version of _Yehonatan_ , meaning God has given. In the Bible, Jonathan was King Saul's oldest boy and a close friend of David. In America, Jonathan Trumbull was a Scot who was the first governor of Connecticut."

Tina's silence worried Rosswell until she inclined her head slightly. He took that as an affirmative sign. She said, "You've been hanging around Ollie too much. But, yeah, Jonathan is fine."

Rosswell hugged her. " 'Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee.' First Samuel, chapter twenty, verse four."

Tina said quickly, as if to forestall Rosswell changing his mind, "And the middle name is David."

Rosswell leaned over and again kissed the sleeping child. "I name you Jonathan David Carew." He stood straight, scrutinizing the scene. Tina. Jonathan David. Both safe. Both healthy. A vital signs monitor on a rolling stand stood silent and dark next to Tina's bed. A good sign that meant the doctors weren't worried about her crashing. The nearly full moon shone through the window. A healthy baby boy slept soundly. Rosswell decided this wouldn't be a good time to tell Tina that he'd forgotten to order a dozen red roses to decorate her nightstand. Instead, he said, "Jonathan David Carew is a strong name for a child who is strong."

The odor reached Rosswell's nose at the same instant Tina said, "Time for Daddy to learn how to change a dirty diaper."

# Chapter 43

## Tuesday Morning

Near the chapel door in the hospital, Rosswell and Ollie huddled by a life-sized statue of a white dove, its wings spread, its head pointed upward, about to take flight.

Rosswell rubbed the statue. "Marble? Some kind of stone, hard yet smooth and somehow yielding, sculpted by somebody with talent. Is there a bird cult around here?"

"Yes. Dove Love."

An overhead spotlight shined down pearly white rays on the bird. For a hospital, this part was blessedly quiet and deserted although cold enough to hang beef.

Why are hospitals always five degrees colder than comfortable?

Rosswell peeked in the chapel to find it empty. "Let's duck in here a minute."

Once inside, they settled on the front pew, watching the early morning sun piercing the stained glass windows. The colors of the rainbow spread across the dark red carpeting and, as the sun climbed higher, combined into shades covering the entire spectrum of visible light. Off to one side, against a wall, a bank of prayer candles burned in dark blue glass holders. A faint aroma of incense lingered from a previous service.

"Ollie, do you think the Goddess requires candles to remind her that someone said a prayer? Or incense to nudge her into granting us something?"

"I don't care." Ollie pushed forward in the pew. "Tina and the baby—okay?"

"They're doing great. They'll be released tomorrow."

"They don't keep them long these days." Ollie, posture rigid and breathing shallowly, smoothed the padding of the pew with both hands, as if his palms were sweaty. "No one hurt her or the baby?"

"No. But I'm going to find the son of a bitch doctor who helped Nathaniel kidnap Tina."

Ollie slumped against the back of the pew and relaxed his shoulders. "Thank God. I mean, thank God that Tina's okay. Leave the rest of the stuff to the cops. The..." He coughed. "The _good_ cops."

"Take count." Rosswell ticked off the names on his fingers. "Turk, Susannah, Frankie Joe, Charlie. All of them in jail."

"Gustave Fribeau and Nathaniel Dahlbert belong there, too."

"Philbert already chewed me out for letting the main bad boy get loose." Rosswell plucked a hymnal from the pew rack and thumbed through it. "Like it's my fault. I wasn't after him. I was out to rescue Tina. Nathaniel got in my way. I figured it out. He knew I wouldn't shoot him even if I had a chance. I don't want to kill anyone ever again." When he laid the book down, it fell open to Christmas songs. "For all I know, Nathaniel's waiting for me in the parking lot."

"Where's Gustave?"

Before Rosswell could express his opinion, there was an interruption.

"Gentlemen?"

The voice startled Rosswell, who shifted around in his seat to see who'd spoken to them. Ollie twisted his head to look at the short, dark man, dressed in a three-piece charcoal gray suit, white shirt, black tie. A small leather wallet, which the man flipped open, appeared in his hands, then shut quickly. Rosswell couldn't identify the badge. He studied the man closely. Rosswell noted that the hands were calloused and scratched.

"Nicolas?" Rosswell said.

"Nicolas Rodriguez," he said, offering his hand to Ollie who shook it. "The judge and I met earlier."

"Ollie Groton. I'm Judge Carew's research assistant."

Nicolas's sun-wrinkled face broke out in a grin. "I'll bet you are."

"I met Mr. Rodriguez on my snooping expedition in Farmington." To Nicolas, he said, "I'm guessing that landscape gardening is not your main profession."

"A lot of days I wish it were my main profession and not my occasional passion."

Rosswell noted that the tie Nicolas wore was flat black, not shiny. A certain sign that he was a federal agent of some kind. "The badge there...I couldn't quite tell who issued it."

"This isn't strictly an official visit." Nicolas plopped down in the pew behind Rosswell and Ollie.

Ollie said to Nicolas, "Are we in trouble?"

Nicolas leaned on the back of the pew in front of him. "You'd know more about that than I would." Then he gave them both a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Something you need to know about Gustave. He's loose."

"We already know that. If I see him, I'll dial 9-1-1." Rosswell felt the pat was less than comforting. A guy who implied he was law enforcement was chatting with them. What did he want? Rosswell didn't know, but he felt compelled to keep the conversation going. "Ollie's working on his manners. Let me ask the proper question. To what do we owe this visit?"

"Watch out for bad guys." Nicolas handed each of them a business card. "You won't see me again. Ever. But I'll be searching for Nathaniel Dahlbert. And Gustave Fribeau. Lots of people are interested in their whereabouts." Rosswell read the card.

A telephone number and someone's name he didn't recognize. No agency. No department. No other identification.

None of them spoke. Rosswell convinced himself he could hear one of those white noise machines running. Or maybe it was the air conditioning. "You think Gustave is gunning for me?"

"Sure. And lots of other people, too."

Ollie said, "What's Nathaniel done that makes you so interested in him?"

Rosswell said, "It's not polite to ask questions about things that are none of your business."

"What?" If any hair had been growing on Ollie's body, Rosswell suspected it would've been bristling. "That's what you hired me for."

Nicolas said, "There are reasons that I can't share any info with you. There's a phone number on the card. If you hear anything at all about Nathaniel...or Gustave...let me know immediately."

Rosswell read the card aloud. "Ramon Cortez." He rattled off the phone number. "I thought your name was Nicolas Rodriguez. And the telephone number has an area code that I'm not familiar with. Is this for real?"

Ollie said, "It's not polite to ask questions about things that are none of your business."

Nicolas—or Ramon or whatever his name was—said, "Ollie's right. But I wanted to thank you both. With your help, we've got a couple of bad people off the street. Maybe we'll round up some more when we catch Nathaniel and Gustave."

Rosswell said, "Whatever you did for Tina, thank you."

"Tina's a cop. We don't ever leave cops behind enemy lines. Never ever."

A janitor wearing a hoodie opened the door and trundled in, pushing a bucket full of water with a ratty string mop stuck in it. When he spotted the trio, he bent over his work cart with his face averted. "Won't be long. Sorry for the interruption." The janitor spoke barely above a whisper. It sounded as if he had laryngitis.

A mop?

When the janitor reached for the mop, Rosswell spotted it and yelled, "GUN!" Rosswell's stomach went into overdrive, pumping acid into his esophagus.

At the instant Rosswell yelled, Nicolas had drawn his weapon, then rushed to a spot about fifteen feet behind the janitor. "Drop the weapon. Let me see those hands way up high."

The janitor dropped his pistol and shot his hands into the sky. "I didn't do nothing." The same voice. Low. Raspy.

Nicolas said, "Turn around."

The janitor faced Nicolas. When he did, Rosswell could see that it was Gustave Fribeau.

Nicolas spoke quietly into his radio although Rosswell—even with his superb hearing—couldn't make out what he'd said.

Ollie, obviously unable to contain himself, said, "What a crummy disguise. And even a man knows you don't mop a carpet."

Alessandra flew through the door, the aim of her pistol never leaving Gustave's center mass.

With a movement Rosswell couldn't detect, Nicolas jerked Gustave's arms behind him and snapped handcuffs on him.

Nicolas said to Alessandra, "Do the honors."

"You arrested him."

"But we wouldn't have known about him without you."

Ollie nudged Rosswell, "I knew she was a cop."

Alessandra said to Gustave, "Look at me. Straight in the eye." Gustave complied with her order. "You're under arrest for the murder of Ribs Freshwater. And we have a lot more charges later on. The feds have a few of their own."

Gustave, his voice normal now, said, "That's the biggest bunch of—"

"Can it. We're not ready to interrogate you." Alessandra twirled him around. She and Nicolas escorted the sheriff out of the chapel.

Ollie hummed for a few moments before he said, "That was different."

Rosswell's stomach calmed. "I wonder if Nathaniel is hiding in here somewhere?"

The pair checked out the chapel and the hallways. No one suspicious.

Rosswell said, "My whole life's been different since my bird watching was spoiled a week ago Sunday."

"Do you believe that fussy little guy is a secret agent? Or Theodore? Or Philbert? Sure seems like a hell of a lot of secret agents running around. They don't smell like secret agents."

"They had guns and badges. They're not secret agents. They're..." Rosswell wasn't sure how to finish the sentence.

"They're what?" Ollie rubbed his arms, as if he grew colder by the second. "Spies?"

"Government law enforcement. Federal government."

" _Quis custodiet ipsos custodes_?"

Rosswell focused on the burning candles nearly to the point of hypnosis. "That's the question, isn't it? Who watches the watchmen?"

"All those guys could be working for Nathaniel Dahlbert as far as we know."

"We have to trust someone."

"Do we? What about Karyn Byler and Jill Mabli?"

Rosswell loved it when he trumped Ollie. "The prosecutor and I had a long chat. She said that she'd already run the records on both women. Found nothing stinky. And both are willing to turn informant but the prosecutor insists that each one has her own lawyer. I'm working on that now. Behind the scenes. As long as the ladies sing on key and don't miss any notes, they'll be okay."

"There's one thing I don't understand about this whole deal."

"One thing?"

"Two things. Or, I should say, two people." Ollie rubbed his head, fresh from a Vaseline coating. "I like them. Lazar is a cool dresser. And without Maman, you would've never found Tina. The old lady told you exactly where she was." He stuffed the Kleenex into his pocket. "Tell me their story."

"Maman Fribeau and Lazar Fribeau." Rosswell folded his hands. Ollie cocked his head, probably thinking that Rosswell would break out in prayer. "It's a story that begins hundreds of years ago."

# Chapter 44

## Tuesday Morning, continued

Before the story of Maman and Lazar could be told, Jim Bill rolled into the chapel in a wheelchair, parking next to Rosswell and Ollie. One sticker on Jim Bill's ride informed the world: THIS IS THE WAY I ROLL! Another one announced: I BRAKE FOR NURSES! A third one: ROLLER DERBY WANNABE!

"Thank you." Rosswell rose to his feet, slightly bowing. "You put your life on the line for Tina."

"Duty calls and all that happy stuff."

"Cool stickers," Ollie said. "Why are you in a wheelchair?"

Manners! I'm going to have to teach my research assistant some manners.

"Orders from headquarters. The big boys want me inspected from head to toe so they can figure out how much compensation I get for on the job injury. They'll release me either later today or tomorrow morning."

Rosswell hadn't moved. "Tina said she owes her life to you."

"Speaking of Tina, could we talk to her?"

"Sure. She gets out tomorrow."

Jim Bill rolled a few inches toward Rosswell. "Today. Right now."

Ollie said, "She had a baby yesterday!"

"Tina's told me all about what happened to her and I told her everything I did. Ask me anything. I'll tell you."

Jim Bill scratched his chin. "Now what's that rule on hearsay?"

"We're not in a courtroom."

Ollie lifted a forefinger. "May I suggest something?"

"Suggest away, my research assistant."

"Why don't you ask Tina?"

##

Tina stuffed a couple of pillows behind her back. "Where do you want me to start?"

That morning, she'd showered, fluffed her hair with some moves Rosswell couldn't comprehend, and put on a dab of makeup. Yesterday, Rosswell had taken it upon himself to buy her what he considered a nifty robe at Walmart. The purple thing covered with cartoonish large flowers seemed perfect to him. Tina had eyed the purchase after she came out of the delivery room. "Interesting. It's...serviceable." A vague suspicion gnawed at Rosswell that Tina hadn't complimented his taste.

Rosswell had earlier come back to the chapel to announce to Jim Bill and Ollie that Tina was ready to talk. "She said she was a cop first. That means she knows she has a duty to let you debrief her."

"I expected nothing less." Jim Bill rubbed his cheeks. Rosswell realized that the man hadn't shaved in a couple of days. _He'll have a glorious beard within a week._ Rosswell tried unsuccessfully to smother his jealousy.

Jonathan David Carew slept in a crib next to Tina's bed. She positioned the baby in her shadow so that his newborn eyes wouldn't be bothered by the sun shining through the window. Occasionally, Rosswell heard him scratching on the fresh sheets, his fingernails making a barely audible scritching sound.

Tina—apparently tolerating her new robe—waited for an answer to her question.

Rosswell started to answer. "Jim Bill demanded this interrogation—"

"Interview," said Jim Bill.

Tina said, "Ask me what you need to know."

Food carts rattled down the hall. Visitors and staff walked past Tina's door, jabbering, telling jokes, laughing. A loudspeaker blatted out pages for doctors who couldn't be found and complained about owners of cars who'd parked in the wrong spots. Telephones rang. Pagers buzzed.

"Wait a minute." Rosswell shut the door. "Go ahead, Jim Bill. That should cut down on the peace and quiet around here."

"What's the last thing you remember before you were kidnapped?"

"I was in Saint Luke's Hospital at Marble Hill after I'd been shot. The wound wasn't serious. I started feeling better. There was only a little pain."

Jim Bill said, "I remember Rosswell telling me he couldn't understand why you weren't released. Yes, you'd been shot, but it wasn't life threatening. The hospital's reluctance to discharge you after a couple of days was strange."

Rosswell paced around the bed, between Jim Bill in the wheelchair and Ollie, then back around again. "No doubt Nathaniel had a doctor or nurse or somebody on his payroll who also worked in the hospital." He allowed his eyes to drift shut. "That person or persons knew Tina would be a prime candidate for Nathaniel's baby farm."

"How would anyone know I was going to have a baby? Hospitals don't routinely test for pregnancy."

"Yes, they do." Rosswell's eyes popped open. "Somebody in that hospital tested every woman who could've gotten pregnant. Malpractice insurance requires it."

Ollie walked to the window, staring out at the world. Rosswell could tell that Ollie was possibly thinking about his own pregnant daughter, Mabel. Or maybe he truly cared about Tina. Or maybe both. Something was disturbing him. The thought that Tina was almost subjected to slavery. That had to top Ollie's worry list.

Outside the window, a pigeon landed on the ledge. The gray bird, boasting an opulent white chest, ogled Ollie and shared a soft coo. Rosswell heard the baby utter a noise like a chuckle. The bird strutted up and down, making a clicking sound as it pecked the window a couple of times, then flew off. Rosswell stuck his head close to his son, who opened his eyes and returned a smile before he fell back to sleep.

Jim Bill rolled closer to Tina's bed. "Judge, you don't know what happened to her in Marble Hill. Let's stick to facts only. Tina, do you remember actually being kidnapped?"

"All I remember is that one night I went to sleep in a hospital bed and woke up in the back seat of a car."

"Do you know who drove you from Marble Hill to Sainte Gen?"

"Not a clue. It was night and I must've slept the whole way. I suspect someone sedated me. No one else was in the car when I awoke. I sat up and looked out. I immediately recognized the courthouse square in Sainte Gen. I was in front of the Southern Hotel."

"Was anyone around outside?"

"There were lots of people on the square milling about. It was a nice night."

"Do you know the time?"

Rosswell said, "I showed you the time stamp on her voicemail."

Jim Bill said, "Tina, did you know any of the people you saw?"

"Nobody I recognized. There was no way I could tell if any of the people were good guys or bad guys. And I was dressed in a hospital gown! I wasn't about to get out and parade around."

"Understandable."

"I guess I should've got out and run down the streets yelling bloody murder."

"Were you close to the payphone in front of the hotel?"

"Yes. I saw the payphone but I didn't have any money."

"Why didn't you call 9-1-1? You don't need money for that."

Rosswell let out a groan. "She told you. She was doped. She wasn't thinking right. All Tina could think of was me."

Tina said, "That didn't come out right."

Ollie turned from the window. "No, it didn't."

Those remarks earned Tina and Ollie a scowl from Rosswell.

A nurse—a tall woman with bad hair—came in. "There are way too many people in here. Two of you need to leave."

Rosswell's stress caused him to snap at the woman. "No one is leaving this room but you."

"I can call Security to see what they have to say about that."

Jim Bill said to her, "Step over here a moment, if you please."

The nurse strode to the wheelchair. "What is it?"

"Security is already here."

The nurse stared down at Jim Bill's badge and identification. "So it is. Then I'm not needed here." She left.

"Back to the call," Jim Bill said. "The fact is that you made a call. Where did you get the money for the payphone?"

"I tried the car's back door and it was open. Whoever had me was clearly not worried about me escaping."

"You got out of the car by the payphone. Right?"

"Right. I figured I'd better get over my embarrassment at being dressed in a hospital gown. And these kids were walking by. High school kids. I jumped out of the car and yelled, 'Give me some quarters!' Must've scared the hell out of them because I wound up with five or six dollars' worth of quarters. They thought I was a crazy street bum who needed money."

"She's not shy." Rosswell sat next to Tina on the bed and touched her cheek. "Why do you think I love her?"

Jim Bill said, "That's when you called Rosswell."

"Yes. And before I could finish the call, somebody came up behind me and clicked the phone off. Then I was ushered back into the car."

"Who did that?" Jim Bill grasped the handles of his wheelchair. "Male? Female? Young? Old? White? Black?"

"Two guys."

"Could you recognize either of them?"

"I'm sure one of them was Nathaniel Dahlbert. I could tell by the way he was talking, with that weird voice of his. He sounds like he's out of some old monster flick. And, even at night, he was so white he glowed."

"Did Nathaniel say anything?"

"He did after they shoved me into the back seat. He and another guy got in front."

"Who was driving?"

"The other guy."

"Who was the other guy?"

"I didn't recognize him at first."

"What did Nathaniel say?"

"He said he was proud of what his boys had done."

"Did the other guy say anything?"

"He told Nathaniel to keep his mouth shut in front of me."

"What happened then?"

"Nathaniel said...and this is a direct quote, 'You're lucky you're still alive. You're not running this show. Forget that again and you're dead.' "

"Then what?"

"We left. I realized by then that if I'd jumped from the car and run down the streets yelling bloody murder that it would've been useless. Everyone on the square saw us in that car but no one did anything."

"All those people standing around and nobody did anything? Why not?"

"Because the driver was Gustave Fribeau and he turned on his lights and siren."

# Chapter 45

## Tuesday Morning, continued

Ollie ran from the window to Tina's bedside. "Did he carry you to the mental hospital?"

"We drove directly to River Heights Villa. That's where I was the whole time before Rosswell rescued me. For a little while, I tried to hide my pregnancy. I think they already knew I was carrying a baby."

Rosswell said, "Let me interrupt a minute."

Jim Bill said, "Is there any way to stop you?"

"I want to clarify something for Tina," Rosswell continued. "Jim Bill wants to know why Nathaniel didn't kill you immediately or ship you out of the country at once or otherwise get rid of you as soon as possible."

Jim Bill emitted what sounded to Rosswell like a low growl. "I'd planned on being a tad more diplomatic."

Tina said, "Rosswell doesn't spend much time on diplomacy."

Rosswell said, "Thought I'd run straight to the point."

"I don't know what was in Nathaniel's mind. He knew that people would be after him. Maybe he wanted to use me as a bargaining chip." Their son stirred but didn't wake. Tina rubbed the baby's back. "The night Rosswell rescued me, they gave me a pill. I didn't swallow it. When they left the room, I flushed it down the toilet. A heavy dose of something to knock me out is my guess. I didn't want to hurt the baby before he was born."

Jim Bill said, "But you slept through being carried out of the hospital and being dumped in a car to drive up to Sainte Gen?"

"I was exhausted. I was hurt. Even when I'm perfectly healthy and not pregnant, I sleep the sleep of the dead." She paused for a moment. "Maybe they put something in my food."

Rosswell said, "Nathaniel never killed us, because he couldn't use you as a bargaining chip if I was dead. He figured he could blackmail me into doing about anything to keep you safe."

Jim Bill said, "We've considered you a hostage all along. But we never knew for sure where you were until the night you were rescued. And we've had Nathaniel under constant surveillance since your disappearance."

"Who is this?" Rosswell showed Jim Bill the business card he'd received earlier. "Nicolas Rodriguez. Or Ramon Cortez. Or whatever he changed his name to when he walked out of the hospital this morning."

Jim Bill thrust the card back at Rosswell. "Never heard of him."

"You've never heard of anyone, yet Philbert and Theodore seemed mighty close to you right after you got shot."

"Speaking of those two, I do have some good news."

Rosswell wanted all the good news he could hear. "Spill it."

"Theodore and Philbert checked Nathaniel's escape route. It seems that the white clown outsmarted himself. He didn't take into account the high water on the river. When he went down the hole in his library, part of it caved in and, we hope, swept him into the Mississippi."

Ollie said, "Have they found the body?"

"Not yet. From what I hear, there's no way he could've lived through that."

Rosswell drew out the card Nicolas Rodriguez had given him. "Here. Call him and tell him that Nathaniel is dead."

Jim Bill snorted. "Told you once. I don't know the guy."

It was Tina's turn to talk. "Jim Bill, you said you didn't know Theodore and Philbert and then you tell us about their investigation. You're keeping secrets from us." She brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. "Every day that I spent in that prison, I vowed that nothing bad would happen to me or our baby. I knew Rosswell would find me. And it was you who made that possible."

She left the bed and planted a kiss on Jim Bill's cheek. Rosswell felt a burst of pride in his chest. Tina had made that speech without crying. She was tougher than a new railroad spike.

Ollie said, "Ditto." Rosswell didn't mention it, but he thought a tear rolled down Ollie's cheek.

Jim Bill added, "I'll tell you one thing about Nathaniel's baby-selling ring. Women who look like Tina produce fair-skinned babies, often with strawberry blonde hair and blue or green eyes. Those kids are particularly valuable in Venezuela, China, North Korea, and Cuba. The Communist elite pay good money for them. They're trophies. Racist trophies."

Rosswell thought he was going to puke. No. That would be bad form in front of his wife-to-be and son. He would pray to Whoever to get that image out of his mind. Unwilling to dwell on the enormity of modern slavery, he instead forced himself forward.

"Earlier, I started telling Ollie about Lazar and Maman."

"I want to know about them, too," Tina said. "How did she know where I was?"

Rosswell stared down his nose at Ollie. "I did a bit of researching also."

"You always get in trouble when you ignore me and try freelancing."

"Lazar does nothing but buy and sell second hand junk all over the county. Everyone knows him and he talks at length with anyone who will tell him stuff. He remembers all of it and then goes to tell Maman."

"And," added Ollie, "Sheriff Gustave Fribeau, too."

"Anyway, if Maman needs more info, Lazar goes out again and talks to more people. She analyzes everything. Someone in Nathaniel's organization—maybe even Gustave—must've told Lazar where Tina was and Lazar told Maman. I paid with silver to hear a riddle about what she found out."

Tina appeared a second away from exploding. "You paid her good money? Why didn't she come right out and tell you plainly where I was?"

"She's a woman. She can't state anything directly and simply," Rosswell said, immediately realizing his blunder.

"You want to try that again?"

Rosswell backed and filled as quickly as possible. "I found out Maman's big secret. You know how old she is?"

Ollie said, "No, but you do."

"No, I don't."

Tina said, "Then why did you ask?"

Jim Bill said, "What does her age have to do with anything? She's an old woman. So what?"

Rosswell said, "From my snooping, I found references to Maman Fribeau living out there on that bluff going back to the year 1751."

# Chapter 46

## Tuesday Morning, continued

"Outstanding," Ollie said. "That certainly explains it. Maman Fribeau is about three hundred years old. Makes perfect sense."

Jim Bill and Tina laughed. Tina said, "Rosswell, cut the crap."

"We shouldn't curse around our baby. And Ollie, you shouldn't multiply explanations. The easiest answer to a hard problem is most often right."

Ollie said, "You scored. Now tell us what you found out."

"I discovered a cemetery next to Maman Fribeau's cabin. It had a hundred graves, each one marked by a plain stone. There might be unmarked ones as well. I suspect that the very first Maman Fribeau is buried there. Along with all her successors."

Jim Bill said, "Clever. And people who need information go pay the old woman money. I'll bet they've never paid a cent of taxes for three centuries."

Ollie said, "They're filthy rich. But living in a hovel. Their money's doing them no good."

Rosswell said, "That's not our concern. They must like what they're doing."

Tina said, "And who will take this Maman's place when she dies?"

Rosswell said, "I'm guessing Susannah."

Tina said, "Gustave's daughter?"

"Yes."

"Susannah wouldn't live in that dump out on the bluff," Ollie said. "Unless she can't find anywhere else to live when she gets out of prison. Anyway, Maman and Lazar were helping Gustave, weren't they?"

Rosswell said, "Jim Bill will find out for sure. But I hope they're innocent. Or not too guilty."

Jim Bill said, "Susannah will never be the next Maman. Guaranteed."

Rosswell said to Jim Bill, "Now you know all about Maman?" Bingo! The neurons in Rosswell's brain made the connection. "It's the Dina thing."

Tina said, "Dina?"

Rosswell and Jim Bill drew out their _soutaches_ with stars attached. After Rosswell explained the significance of the necklaces, Jim Bill said to Ollie, "And here's yours. You deserve it. I'll tell you more later."

Rosswell watched Ollie drape the _soutache_ over his head, careful not to soil it with Vaseline, and silently declared to himself that his research assistant showed more reverence than he'd exhibited in a long time.

Tina persisted. "Rosswell, you answer me. Where did you find all the background on Maman?"

"Let's say...public records. Plus some gossip. Plus a bribe or two here and there. You know we research assistants have a code of silence."

Ollie squeaked his mouse squeak. "Since when did you become a research assistant?"

Tina grabbed Ollie's shirt. "That squeaking thing, you do that again in front of my baby, you'll answer to me."

Jim Bill said, "I didn't hear any threat. Did you hear a threat, Judge?"

"Nope."

"You can't go in there!" The tall woman with bad hair tried to keep Tina's door from opening.

Mrs. Bolzoni barged around the nurse. The old lady's hands clutched a large wide-mouth Thermos jug. "You can stop me not to seeing the lovely woman of the Judge Ross Carew. It's a wonder I'm not in a bed in this place with my bowels on the uproar."

"Is that food?" the nurse asked, indicating the Thermos. "You can't bring food in here."

"And why is this not?" Rosswell swore to himself that he saw steam forming on Mrs. Bolzoni's Coke-bottle eyeglasses as she berated the nurse. "She must have the food. A baby she had."

She stomped to Tina's bedside and carefully positioned the Thermos onto the bed table. From her purse, she withdrew a bowl, spoon, and whole-wheat crackers wrapped in a linen napkin. Delicately, she poured the bowl halfway full and handed the spoon to Tina. "Now you get back in the bed and eat." Rosswell's mouth watered from the full-bodied aroma of the food.

"Madam," the nurse said, "you are not allowed to bring food from the outside into a hospital room. It's regulations."

"You I asked why not and you said not why I can't bring food here."

"It might be unhealthy."

Mrs. Bolzoni gave a cockeyed glance through her glasses at the nurse's identification badge. "You silly frog. You ever tasted the food in this place? You want unhealthy food, you eat the food you make in the slop bucket you call a kitchen."

Tina asked Rosswell, "Am I supposed to know this woman?"

Rosswell said, "Which one?"

"Let's start with the one who brought the soup."

"Not soup," Mrs. Bolzoni said. "It's American beef stew. Much healthy. Fine meat and many vegetables to make you strong so you can feed your baby."

Rosswell told the nurse, "It's okay. This is my landlady, Mrs. Bolzoni. She's quite protective and I can assure you that the food is exceptionally good for you." He patted his stomach to demonstrate.

The nurse said, "I give up," and swept out of the room.

Tina said, "Rosswell, you're going to get that nurse fired."

"No," Jim Bill said. "I've got the magic badge, remember? I'll talk to her supervisor."

"And you," Mrs. Bolzoni said to Jim Bill, "are not chewing the filthy weeds in front of this baby?"

"No, ma'am."

Ollie said to Tina, "Jim Bill learns quickly. Not at all like Rosswell."

"But, Mrs. Bolzoni," Jim Bill said, "since I saved you from being arrested, you need to answer some questions."

"Questions?" She looked at Ollie. "You got questions, you ask him with the purple spider on his head."

"No, it's you I want to hear from."

"I tell you one thing about this man with this insect on his head."

Ollie said, "It's a star, not a spider. And spiders aren't insects. _Araneae_ , or spiders, are the most familiar of the arachnids—"

Rosswell said, "Zip lip time."

"This Ollie, he ran off all the bugs in my house with his bug running off business. He's genius."

Rosswell decided to withhold the fact that __ Ollie had never run a bug off her place or any other place on Earth.

Ollie said, "That's right, Mrs. Bolzoni. I'll need your endorsement to prove that my system gets rid of bugs of all kinds."

Jim Bill said, "Answer me this, Mrs. Bolzoni. Did you know Tina was being held captive by Nathaniel Dahlbert?"

"Did I call police?" Mrs. Bolzoni moved next to Jim Bill. She leaned down, stared him straight in the face, and spoke loudly, as if sitting in a wheelchair affected his hearing and sight. "If I knew such thing I call police. Did I call police to rescue her? No, you weed chewer. Do you know Tina was captive?"

"No, ma'am. May I ask something else?"

"You make it quick, for the woman of the Judge Ross Carew needs to eat while the stew is hot."

"Did you ever visit Alessandra when she was at River Heights Villa?"

"Of course." Mrs. Bolzoni drew a dry wash rag from her pocket, wet it in the sink, and began wiping Tina's table. "They keep this place filthy." She shook the washrag at Jim Bill. "I love my daughter and that rusty hair guy, he help her."

Jim Bill said, "Do you know the rusty hair guy's name?"

"Nathaniel Dahlbert. I look it up. Not a frog name."

Jim Bill said, "When you visited Alessandra, did you ever see Tina?"

"You asked that already. You sneaky man. But I never see Tina at the rusty hair guy's place. I go see Alessandra, we sit in big room with bunch of people and talk. I tell her I love her and that she must get better so she come work with her old momma who's not so spry in the bones anymore, not to mention the insides acting up, which I never talk about to no one, but keep it all behind the teeth."

Rosswell hid his eyes from Mrs. Bolzoni's line of sight, bowed his head, closed his eyes, and prayed for strength.

Tina had eaten the portion of stew Mrs. Bolzoni had offered. "That was delicious, Mrs. Bolzoni. Thank you."

"Then you must eat more." She poured the remainder of the stew into Tina's dish. "I cannot eat for the tests of the doctor." A wave of the hand dismissed any concern she might have.

"Mrs. Bolzoni," Rosswell said, "what kind of tests?"

"Nothing." She turned to Tina. "I got the Judge Ross Carew room set up with crib. You come back and let me take care of you till you feel like going home. You got many rough times and these"—she pirouetted her head until she'd drilled Ollie, Jim Bill, and Rosswell with her eyes—" _men_ got not one idea how to take care of a new momma and a new baby." Mrs. Bolzoni hovered over the crib, her hands clasped. "A fine baby. He looks like you, Tina. God has smiled on the baby. You cannot tell that Ross is the father."

# Chapter 47

## Thursday Afternoon

The weather had taken a cool turn—if seventy-five degrees can be considered cool—after a slow and gentle all day rain, encouraging Jim Bill, Rosswell, and Tina to sit on the balcony of Rosswell's room at The Four Bee. Jonathan David, his tummy full, slept soundly in his crib next to his mommy and daddy's bed.

The rain had stopped. Clouds had fled to wherever clouds go when they've outlived their usefulness. Although it was still daylight, the sun had moved behind the ridge toward town.

Rosswell heard the river mourn. A sad cry for the murdered woman rose from the bank full stream. Others may've heard only the rushing of the water. Rosswell detected the minor chords the Mississippi River sang for Mary Donna Helperen.

Before he asked the question, Rosswell checked his son. Satisfied that all was well, he said, "What's the big secret?"

Jim Bill opened both hands, as if to show he had nothing to hide. "Maman initiated you into the Guardians of Dina."

"She threw the necklace at me and told me to wear it. If that's an initiation, then, yes, I was initiated."

Tina, her hands on her stomach, said to Jim Bill, "You explained some of that in the hospital room. But I've got more questions. Are the Guardians of Dina a secret club or something?"

"Or something. We operate...off the books."

The significance of an observation from last Sunday morning hit Rosswell. "Theodore and Philbert are wearing the same kind of necklace. They're in on it, too." Another sighting of the necklace surfaced in his brain. "Nicolas Rodriguez has one." More questions tumbled in his brain. Rosswell settled on the most important one. "And what exactly do you do...I guess I should say...what do WE do off the books?"

"The legal system isn't set up to deal with human trafficking the way it should be handled. The official way is slow and clumsy. The rapists and kidnappers and slave buyers get too many rights. Most of them never get caught. The ones who do get caught get off too easy. Some guy can go into a bus station in New York City and buy a truckload of girls before breakfast. The women make babies that are sold all over the world. And after they have their babies, they themselves are sold for sex slaves. It's a business that brings in billions of dollars a year."

"Vigilantes?" Tina frowned. "I don't like that idea."

"Vigilantes?" Jim Bill drew a tobacco pouch from his pocket. After opening it and staring for a moment, he slid it back. "I guess you could call us that."

Tina's frown hadn't mellowed. "You're anti-government?"

Jim Bill drew the pouch out again. "Hell, yes, I'm anti-government. I work for the government and I know how dangerous it is." A smidgen of tobacco sneaked into his mouth.

Rosswell said, "The Book of Genesis tells the story of Dina, hottie daughter of Leah and Jacob. Dina fetched water at the camp's well, chit-chatting with her girlfriends, and along came Schechem, son of Hamor. Quite the big shot. Schechem kidnapped and raped Dina, then told Hamor he wanted to marry her."

"What a scumbag," Tina said.

Jim Bill said, "It gets better."

Rosswell went on. "Jacob told Hamor that if all his male tribesman got circumcised, they could work a deal. Hamor agreed. Three days later, when all the newly circumcised guys hurt like hell, Dina's brothers killed all the rascals. So much for plea bargaining."

Tina folded her arms across her chest. "The Guardians of Dina rescue women and girls who've been bought or tricked or kidnapped?"

Rosswell said, "You're living proof."

"Gustave helped Nathaniel kidnap me. How could Maman and Lazar work with them? The old woman and her brother were secret vigilantes who were supposedly guarding women? That makes no sense."

Jim Bill said, "To Maman and Lazar, Gustave was a source of information, that's all."

"Why would they have _anything_ to do with such a bastard?"

"Here's an example," Rosswell said. "If you want to find out what evil is, you read Hitler and Marx. That doesn't make you evil. It helps you know what evil is." He grasped her hand. "Jim Bill also found out more about the woman I saw thrown in the drink."

Tina laid her hand on his arm. "Who was she?"

"Mary Donna Helperen from Piggott, Arkansas. Swimming champion at the University of Arkansas. Working on her physics doctorate. Her parents are Norwegian immigrants."

Tina said, "Oh, dear God. What talent has Nathaniel robbed from the world? We'll never know."

"There's more." Rosswell rubbed his hands on his pants. "Do you remember me telling you about the deckhand seeing Charlie give Turk what she thought was a file? When they were on the ferry a week ago Sunday? That's when Jasmine saw the file."

"I remember. You thought they were passing dope in that envelope."

"I was wrong. It was indeed a file. Mary Donna had gotten sick. Nathaniel had connections with a doctor in Illinois who would treat his prisoners for the right amount of money. Charlie, Ribs, and Turk were taking her to that doctor. Frankie Joe and Turk were along to distract Jasmine and Captain LaFaire."

"Who told you all this?"

Jim Bill said, "The details will all come out at Gustave's trial. I'm not telling you who the informants are."

"Sorry. What was I thinking? Anyway, go ahead, Rosswell."

"Before they crossed the river, Mary Donna got to feeling really bad. I think she'd stepped from the white van and fainted. Complications from pregnancy. Someone created a diversion by thumping on the opposite side of the ferry when she fainted. Then she fell into the river."

"Maybe they threw her into the river."

"Possible. I don't really know what happened. She was a strong swimmer. Maybe she revived when she fell in and started swimming for shore. Maybe she jumped in to escape." Rosswell pulled at his bottom lip for a few seconds, trying to complete his thoughts. "Her folks are driving to Sainte Gen so they can accompany the body back to Arkansas."

"How incredibly sad. A woman is killed by slavers in the middle of the United States in the twenty-first century." Tina watched the river for a while. "Why did Nathaniel have Ribs killed?"

"The best anyone can figure out, Ribs panicked. Probably made noises like he was going to the cops."

"Maman Fribeau pointed you to the cave where you found Ribs's body. Was she in on it? Or Lazar?"

Jim Bill said, "Damn it, Tina, you're nosy."

Her face grew red and her eyes widened. "I am the one who got kidnapped!"

Rosswell said, "Don't hold anything back from the victim."

"You're both right," Jim Bill said. "It was Maman's way of telling Rosswell two things." He fingered the gold star hanging from a braid. Rosswell wondered if Maman had given it to Jim Bill. Or, if not, where did it come from? Rosswell hadn't for a second taken his off. Except when he cut the screens at Nathaniel's house. And when he widened the hole in the wall of the delivery room.

Rosswell said, "The two things she told me were that, first, there was a dead body. Ribs. And, second, there was a live woman. You."

Jim Bill glanced at his watch. "Bigger fish and all that. Keep in touch."

When Jim Bill opened the door to leave, an older man and woman stood there, the man's hand raised as if he were going to knock. The woman cradled an infant covered with a yellow blanket.

The man said, "We look for Judge Rosswell Carew." He spoke with an accent that Rosswell thought sounded like some European language. German? Dutch?

"Hello again." Jim Bill pointed to Rosswell. "That's the man." The fire marshal smiled as he saluted Rosswell, then left.

"Judge Carew, I am Stig Helperen and this is my wife Hedda."

Rosswell's mouth tasted of sand. "Mary Donna's parents."

"Yes," the woman said, also in the same accent as the man's, which Rosswell now realized was Norwegian. "A young woman called Jill identified for us our grandchild. The men of authority handed the baby of Mary over to us. We take her back to Arkansas."

"A baby girl." Rosswell walked to the child. "May I see her?"

Hedda pulled the blanket back. "She is Andrea Jane."

Stig offered his hand to Rosswell. "We thank you."

Rosswell, unable to speak, shook hands with Stig, then watched the grandparents and grandchild leave.

Finally alone, Tina leaned over Rosswell and whispered in his ear, "Hug me." They embraced for a long time without speaking. Then Tina said, "Tell me the truth if you know it."

"Always."

"Why didn't Nathaniel kill me? Or, for that matter, you?"

"Nathaniel's been swept away. Death by water. His facility will be turned over to people who care about other people. His organization has fallen apart."

"That's not what I asked."

"Nathaniel was an old man. Twenty years older than me."

"Rosswell, that's not what I asked."

Rosswell broke from her and walked to the balcony where he grasped the railing. "I'll tell you Jim Bill's theory, the one he came up with after talking to the suspects and informants."

Tina joined him on the balcony. "Let's hear it. I'm a cop, remember?"

Rosswell smiled at her. "Oh, do I ever." He gazed out on the river. "Nathaniel hated me for destroying his dope ring. He wanted our baby born. When that happened, he was going to kill the baby. Then you. And, after I'd watched both of you die, he was going to cripple me. I'd still be alive, but barely."

"I'm glad the weirdo drowned." Tina hugged him again, wrapping her arms around him tightly and pressing herself to him. "Never let me go."

"Hey, you two, get a room," Ollie yelled.

Jasmine, Alessandra, and Ollie had walked under the balcony and were watching Rosswell and Tina.

Rosswell yelled back, "We've got a room."

Ollie said, "Hear any ghosts up there?"

Rosswell, recalling the afternoon delight moans they'd mistaken for departed spirits, grimaced. "No, Ollie."

Tina said, "What are you all doing on this lovely day?"

Ollie said, "We're celebrating that Nathaniel Dahlbert is, as the British say, up the spout."

"More than that," Alessandra said. "We're celebrating being alive and free."

Rosswell said, "You're a warrior. A fearless warrior."

Jasmine said, "We thought we'd go to that new drive-in for a flick."

Tina said, "Drive-in? You mean where you sit in a car and watch a movie?"

Alessandra said, "Exactly. It's a monster movie."

Ollie grinned. "It won't be dark for awhile, so I'm treating the girls to a steak dinner at Mabel's."

"The girls?" Tina squinted.

Ollie said, "That's what I said. The girls."

The trio moved for Alessandra's car, but before they reached it, Alessandra turned and came back. "Judge, Momma's doctor says she needs to slow down. She's under too much stress."

"What's she going to do?"

"First thing, she says, is move away from the frogs!"

Alessandra wheeled about and joined Ollie and Jasmine.

"Oh, boy," Rosswell said when the trio was out of earshot. "A triple date."

"I don't even want to think about how Ollie attracted those two beautiful women. Both at the same time."

"I wonder if Candy Lavaliere knows about this?"

"Rosswell!" A smile tugged at Tina's face. "You mean Ollie and Candy have been...uh..."

"Talking."

"I thought he was talking to Jasmine or Alessandra. Or both of them."

"Who knows?" Rosswell shook his head. "Anyway, Alessandra is indeed an undercover cop and an actress with a list of law enforcement skills a mile long. She was never in rehabilitation. It was a scam to get her in Nathaniel's facility to look for you."

"Is Jasmine an undercover cop, too?"

"No. Just the best deckhand on the Mississippi River. That's what her daddy told me."

Rosswell's cell phone rang. His bank. Again.

"Judge Rosswell Carew."

"Is this Judge Rosswell Carew?"

"Yes, Muriel, it's me."

"This is Muriel Thornmorton, calling for Judge Rosswell Carew."

"Hello, Muriel Thornmorton. This is Judge Rosswell Carew."

"At the bank."

"Yes, I know where you work."

"In Marble Hill."

"And how are things at the bank?"

"They're fine, but that's not why I called, Judge Carew."

"Tell me, Muriel, why you called."

"Something odd happened."

"What's that?"

"There was a blank envelope deposited at the bank."

"Muriel, this is really a bad time. I'm busy. Perhaps you should talk to—"

"The envelope was deposited early this morning, the best I can figure."

"Shouldn't you tell your supervisor?"

"The envelope wasn't sealed."

Jonathan David stirred. "Did you know that Tina had her baby?" The baby belched, scratched his sheets, and made a funny noise. Rosswell had accepted the fact that babies made strange sounds, most of them meaningless.

Muriel wasn't interested in the kid. "The envelope wasn't empty."

He was going to hear this story whether he wanted to or not. He tried to think of something intelligent to say.

"That is odd, isn't it, Muriel?"

"No, not really. I run into unsealed envelopes every day. Blank, unsealed envelopes. Happens every day."

"Then, I guess I'm not sure why you're calling me."

"I opened the envelope and there was a single sheet of paper with a message printed on it."

"A message?"

"Printed. By a computer."

Rosswell suspected she might get to the point eventually but thought maybe he could help her along. Mrs. Bolzoni should have supper on the table any minute. That was something he didn't want to be late for.

"What did the message say?"

"It was for you. It had your name on it. Judge Rosswell Carew."

Rosswell shot straight up, his attention now fully riveted on the woman's voice. "What did it say?"

"The message?"

"Yes, Muriel. What did the message say?"

"It was one sentence."

"What was the sentence, Muriel?"

"A short sentence."

"What did it say?"

"Only two words."

"Muriel, what two words?"

"And then it was signed."

"Muriel, listen carefully to me. Read me the sentence."

"Okay. It says, 'I'm watching.' "

A migraine that had been hiding in his brain crept out to see what all the excitement was about. On the way to the front of Rosswell's head, it kicked the back of his eyeballs and sent a memo to his stomach that vomit time was near. Bright lights flashed around his eyes.

"Now, Muriel, are you listening?"

"Certainly."

"How was it signed?"

"A name."

"What name?"

"First and last name."

"What name, Muriel?"

"Nathaniel Dahlbert."

The End
About the author

Bill Hopkins

Bill Hopkins is retired after beginning his legal career in 1971 and serving as a private attorney, prosecuting attorney, an administrative law judge, and a trial court judge, all in Missouri.

Courting Murder, the first book in the Judge Rosswell Carew Mystery Series, is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. When Judge Rosswell Carew makes the gruesome discovery of two corpses on a river bank in the Missouri Ozarks, he's plunged into a storm of deadly secrets that threaten both him and his fiancée, Tina Parkmore. Unsatisfied with the way the authorities are conducting the investigation, Rosswell, who's always nurtured a secret desire to be a detective, teams up with an ex-con, Ollie Groton, to solve the case before the killer can murder again. Rosswell uncovers a maze of crimes so tangled that he must fight his way to a solution or die trying. <http://tinyurl.com/Bill-Hopkins-Courting-Murder>

Bloody Earth, coming in 2014, is the third book in the series. Judge Rosswell Carew witnesses the death of a friend. Is it an accident or murder? And if murder, why? Even though threatened with his life, Rosswell must find the answer for reasons he never knew existed!

Bill has published non-fiction, poetry, and fiction in several periodicals. He is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Missouri Writers Guild, and SEMO Writers Guild. He is also a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association.

A book of collected poetry, Moving into Forever: Poems from a Lifetime, is available on Amazon. <http://tinyurl.com/Bill-Hopkins-MovingIntoForever>

He wrote his first play when he was sixty-one years old. Cotton Lesson was a finalist in Saint Louis's First Run Theatre's 2007 playwriting contest. The Almond Checkmate was his first produced play.

Bill is also a professional photographer and has had his works displayed in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and the United States.

Bill lives in Marble Hill, Missouri with his wife, Sharon Woods Hopkins, also a writer.
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