Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 02 - River Mourn Read online

  “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 soft
en. “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.”

  Ro
sswell 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?”