by Bill Hopkins
“Sheriff?” he said, staring at Rosswell. He pronounced it Shurff.
“No,” Rosswell said. “Try the man with the gun and the badge.” He pointed to Frizz.
An impossibly tiny dog with beady eyes and bad hair sprouting all over its body peeked out of the guy’s shirt at his neck. The reason the shirt wriggled. Rosswell wasn’t hallucinating.
The faceless mountain said, “Some of the boys and me, we done found something.” His accent was pure hillbilly.
Rosswell pointed at the thing in the guy’s shirt. “Is that a dog?”
“Yup.”
“Is it a Yorkie?” The dog lapped the air in front of it, its tongue
flicking in and out of its mouth. A mess of brown hair hung over its eyes.
The motorcyclist gaped at Rosswell, his mouth hanging open, the wad of gum nearly falling out. The guy was six or eight inches taller than Frizz and outweighed the sheriff by a hundred pounds. How he could fit on a motorcycle was an astounding question without an answer.
“That there’s Scooby,” the guy said. “She weighs right near three pounds.”
Rosswell said, “I can believe that.”
Rosswell started to express his opinion that Scooby was a stupid name for a weird dog, but Frizz interrupted and instead asked, “Sir, what’s your name?”
“Rabil. Purvis Rabil.”
Frizz said, “And what did you find?”
“Might have something to do with them there bodies you’uns all are missing.”
A blush crept up Frizz’s face. “Yes, we had some problems.”
Rosswell repeated, “And what did you find?”
Frizz threw daggers at Rosswell with his eyes. “I’ll handle this.” Frizz turned to Purvis. “What did you find?”
“There’s a bunch of them buzzards a-flying around a deadfall in the creek.” He said crick.
“Actually,” Rosswell said, “what’s flying around that mess of logs and crap in the river are vultures. Buzzard is an old English word for hawks or other raptors, not carrion eaters, although the term—”
“Just a minute,” Frizz said to the man. “Please wait right there while Judge Carew and I consult in headquarters.”
Frizz forced Rosswell up and dragged him away. When they lurched into the sheriff’s office, Frizz said in a low, menacing voice, “The hospital called and said you checked yourself out.”
“I did.”
“You’re still stoned.”
“I am.”
“Then keep your mouth shut while I’m talking to one of our tourists.”
“I will.”
When they got back to the counter, Frizz said, “Sorry. You saw a bunch of buzzards flying around a deadfall in a creek?” Scooby’s silky hair invited Rosswell to scratch her ears. Rosswell gave in to the temptation. Scooby closed her eyes in pleasure. When he slowed down the scratching, she nipped him until he upped the rhythm. She farted, sending a tiny cloud of stinking gas down Purvis’s shirt.
The big man said, “Yup.”
Frizz said, “Can you tell me where?”
“Up to the state park.”
Rosswell sobered up instantly.
Chapter Eleven
Tuesday noon
Frizz radioed the deputy guiding the search team to check out the deadfall in Cloudy River close to Foggy Top State Park.
The bearded giant and his tiny dog waited while Frizz wrote down the man’s contact info before running him through the computer. Purvis Rabil of Little Rock, Arkansas, had a cellphone, a driver’s license, valid tags for his motorcycle, a Yorkie, and an overdue parking ticket from Paducah, Kentucky.
Rosswell said, “I could take a written statement from him.”
Frizz said, “No, you could not.”
Rosswell kept his thoughts and responses to himself. Frizz intentionally kept him out of the investigation when he was obviously needed quite badly.
“You ever been to Bollinger County before?” Rosswell asked Purvis.
“No, ain’t never been here afore. This here’s the first time.”
Rosswell said to the good citizen, “I’m glad I got to meet you and Scooby.”
Purvis said, “Uh-huh.”
Scooby said nothing.
“Thanks for the information, Mr. Rabil. You’ve been very helpful.”
After he’d left, Frizz turned to Rosswell. “I need you to do something else.”
“Come to your senses, have you?”
“I need you to go home and recuperate. You’re not a cop and you will not be a part of this investigation.”
“You need me.” Plain and simple things are often the hardest to understand. “Rabil’s news sobered me up.”
“You’re not law enforcement.”
Rosswell slapped his palm on the desk. “That’s exactly what I am. I am law enforcement. Your arrest powers come from the court, which is me.” He pointed to his chest.
“My arrest powers,” Frizz said in a low, growling tone, “come from the voters who put me in office.”
“Bull crap.” Slamming his palm on the desk again didn’t seem advisable since the first time he’d done it had sent a shriek of pain through his wounded arm. He’d managed not to scream. “Do you want to see the Supreme Court cases that back up my position?”
“Let’s have the bitch session later.” Frizz swept off his big cowboy hat, peered inside as if divining a secret message from the cosmos. After slapping the hat a couple of times to loosen dust, he screwed it back on his head. “We can argue on down the road.”
Inhaling at the wrong time, Rosswell sucked in some of the dust, leaving a scratchy taste that made him sneeze twice.
Rosswell said, “Now would be a good time to air our laundry to see if it’s dirty.”
“Damn it, let’s do that.” Frizz picked up a pencil, licked its end, and wrote something on a paper. Rosswell wanted to remind the sheriff he didn’t know where the pencil had been but decided instead to listen to Frizz. “Don’t you find it odd that no one has reported two people missing?” He made a check mark. For a long minute, he scribbled, the pencil moving on the paper making a scritching sound. “That’s odd thing number one.”
“Yes, I find that odd. That’s why I asked you about it when I first came in. Hermie may’ve made a connection.”
“A connection for what?”
“Hermie saw a white Cadillac leave the park. A big driver. I know several people with white Cadillacs, but none of them are big people. But someone besides the owner could’ve been driving the car.”
“You know them?” Frizz licked the end of the pencil. “Who are these people who own white Cadillacs?”
“Ambrosia Forcade, Turtles Rasmussen, Susan Bitti, and Trisha Reynaud. You know all of them.”
“I never see Ambrosia. She must practice some kind of law that doesn’t involve going to court.”
“Estate planning. On occasion she’ll show up in probate court, but she doesn’t represent criminals.” Rosswell coughed. “Sorry. Alleged criminals.”
Frizz snapped his fingers. “Turtles is a guy I’ve wondered about.” He pulled a file from a cabinet. “The guy likes to spend money, but I don’t know where he gets it.” The sheriff ran his finger down a paper. “He’s got to be a con artist, but I’ve not been able to pin anything on him.”
“Maybe he owns a whorehouse in Nevada.”
Frizz sputtered. “Where did you get such a ludicrous idea?”
Rosswell evaded the question. “And Susan?” The time didn’t seem right to tell Frizz that he’d recently seen a special on the History Channel about sex workers in Nevada who helped the mob launder money.
“Susan is dull as day-old dishwater,” Frizz said. “If she’s our killer, then I’m returning the couch I bought from her.”
“Trisha?”
“Bankers are always taking trips. They never want anyone to know where they’re going.” Frizz replaced the file folder in the cabinet. “None of them have been reported missing.”
> “That doesn’t mean they’re not gone.”
“If someone were missing around here, why haven’t they been reported?” He wrote again. “Question number two.”
“Sheriff, are we playing twenty questions?”
“Indulge me.”
Rosswell said, “You told me I’d been fired.”
“Shut up and listen.” Frizz scribbled something. “You won’t leave, so I’m going to pick your brain.”
“That’s a sordid cliché.” The phone rang and Frizz chatted for a few minutes. When he hung up, he said to Rosswell, “Are you going to talk to me or not?”
“First thing I can think of is that the victims were not from around here. We have a fair amount of folks from other places come through here. Maybe they were driving along with the murderer, got in a big fight, and whoever it is killed them.”
“And they took a detour to the park first?” Frizz laughed. “That doesn’t make sense. You don’t drive through the park going somewhere. You have to find the park. It’s way out in the boonies and someone who’s never been there could easily get confused trying to find it.”
Rosswell stood and paced. “Let’s reverse that scenario and assume that the victims and the murderer—”
“Or murderers.”
“—were locals. All three or however many of them there were.” Pacing helped Rosswell think. It made him feel like he was back in his early days as a lawyer, giving a closing argument to a jury.
“Then why isn’t someone around here reporting someone else as missing?”
“There could be several reasons.” Rosswell lifted an index finger. “Maybe the dead people were supposed to be on vacation and no one’s thought to check on their whereabouts.” He raised a second finger. “Maybe no one likes the victims and there are a bunch of people around here who are glad they’re gone.” He raised a third finger. “Maybe someone knows these folks are missing and they’re not telling.”
“That’s what I really need to know.”
“What?”
“I need to find out which one of your three maybes is correct. Or perhaps a fourth or fifth maybe I haven’t thought of.” Frizz, still sitting, slid further down in his chair. “I don’t know where else to start.”
Rosswell knew exactly where to start.
Frizz said, “Go home. Your brain is empty. And, remember, you’re not a cop.”
Rosswell walked home, showered, shaved, and put on fresh clothes. Since he was now sober, he drove Vicky to Merc’s. That was the where to start. But how to start? He didn’t have the foggiest notion how he was supposed to find out who the corpses were when they didn’t have any corpses. All he knew was that one was male and one was female. That narrowed it down to several thousand people within a hundred miles. Time to go fishing.
When Rosswell sat next to Ollie, the snitch sniffed and pinched his nose. “You still look like shit.”
“I’m really tired of your telling me that.”
“Then, if I were you, I’d start trying to improve myself.”
“I don’t stink. I took a shower.”
“How’s Tina?”
“Stoned and sleeping. She’s barely got a scratch on her, but the anesthesia put her under.”
“Somebody’s a lousy shot.”
“Yep.” Trying to ignore a sheen of grease on the table, Rosswell
filled Ollie in on the detective discussion between Frizz and him. “And, more good news, you’re now my official sidekick.” With a napkin he’d plucked from the dispenser, Rosswell wiped the table.
“Unadulterated bullshit. I’m not going to irritate Frizz so you can play Sherlock Holmes. And, if we did play that game, I sure as hell wouldn’t be Watson. I’d be Sherlock’s brother Mortimer.”
“Mycroft,” Rosswell said, proud as a peacock in heat that he knew some trivia Ollie didn’t.
Mabel appeared. “Usual?” She held up the order pad, pencil at the ready.
“Mabel,” Rosswell said, “I need to know something.”
“I don’t know anything.”
Ollie said, “Now, honey, you know lots of stuff. Judge here just wants to pick your brain.”
Mabel blessed Ollie with a dirty glare. “You know how revolting that cliché is? Would you want someone picking your brain? What do you pick brains with anyway? Toothpicks? I mean, brainpicks? And you can’t pick someone’s brain unless their skull is gone. What do you do with brain pickings? Eat them? What do they taste like?”
Mabel was a woman Rosswell admired as much as a dog loves a steak.
Ollie laughed. Rosswell half-expected his daughter—Rosswell still assumed she was Ollie’s daughter—to grace them with a squeak, but instead she kept the glare on her daddy. She’d inherited from Ollie the ability to cast dirty looks accompanied by biting sarcasm.
“Mabel,” Rosswell said, “you’ve got a regular crowd here, don’t you?”
“I could name you a whole list.”
“Is there anyone missing?”
“Missing?”
“Yeah,” Ollie said, snagging the drift of Rosswell’s questions. “Is there anyone who should’ve come in during the last couple of days but didn’t?”
Mabel angled toward Ollie and Rosswell and whispered, “This is about those murders, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” Rosswell whispered back. “You’re quick.”
Ollie said, “Two people are dead. A man and a woman, yet no one’s been reported missing.”
She tapped her pencil against her teeth. A disgusting habit. “You know, Mr. Dumey never came in today. He always comes in every day.”
“Elmer Dumey?” Rosswell asked.
“No,” Mabel said. “Johnny Dan Dumey, Elmer’s boy. Elmer’s up in the nursing home. Seven Pines, up on the hill.”
Ollie said, “We know where it is.”
She snapped, “Never hurts to be clear when you’re talking to someone.”
Rosswell tried to place Johnny Dan. Since he’d never been arrested or had never sued anyone, Rosswell didn’t recognize the name right off. He took an educated guess. “Isn’t he the guy with a mechanic shop down from the courthouse?” Rosswell had seen the man lots of times, yet had never spoken to him. Then Rosswell made the connection. Johnny Dan was the guy who collected muscle cars. How often Rosswell had lusted after those cars at his shop. “The muscle-car guy?”
“The same,” Mabel said.
Ollie said, “Healthy dude. Big shoulders. Blue eyes. Short brown hair. Doesn’t say much. Knows everything about cars.”
Rosswell said, “How do you know him so well?”
Ollie said, “You saw him talking to Mabel yesterday before Merc ran him off.”
“Mabel,” Rosswell said, “was he the guy who grabbed your arm?”
“Oh, he didn’t mean nothing by that. He gets overly excited some- times.” Mabel blushed. “I been talking to him. He’s one smart man. Has an English degree with a minor in theater.” She batted her eyes and blushed. Rosswell didn’t realize women did that any more. “Ollie, you had lots of conversations with him,” she added.
Ollie said, “Guy’s sharp as a crackerjack. Says he’s working on a book. I’ve seen him write down stuff he thinks about when he’s working on cars.”
Rosswell said, “An English major who works on cars. He is indeed one smart guy. He knows where the money is.” Rosswell suspected that Mabel’s been talking to him meant screwing his brains out but decided not to get that detailed. And he certainly wasn’t going to delve into what having conversations with Ollie might entail. “Where’s Johnny Dan been going when he doesn’t come in here?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He doesn’t have to check in with me.”
Ollie said, “Not yet.”
Merc opened the kitchen door, allowing beef stew-scented steam to roll out and hollered, “Mabel, you working or jawing today?”
The good smells set Rosswell’s mouth to watering. “Bring my coffee.” Later on he would eat something, but coffee came first.
“I’ll try some of that coffee, too,” Ollie said.
Mabel said, “How can y’all drink coffee in this heat?” She headed for the coffee pot. Back in a second she came, with two boiling white mugs of the black stuff. Nectar of the hyperactive gods.
After she left, Rosswell said to Ollie, “Has Johnny Dan ever hurt Mabel?”
“He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
Rosswell restrained himself from giving Ollie or Mabel his domes- tic violence speech. To Rosswell, it appeared that both of them were ignoring clear signs of Johnny Dan’s aggressive behavior. Any man who would grab a woman’s arm in full view of witnesses should be considered dangerous.
After they finished the fully sugared, slightly salty sludge, Ollie said, “Let’s saddle up.”
“You don’t saddle up a Volkswagen, especially an orange one.”
“You’re beginning to look like Sherlock Holmes.”
Ollie’s come around to my way of thinking. I’m evolving into a real detective.
v
Johnny Dan’s place sat a block down from the courthouse. It had an asphalt parking lot completely free of any gravel, stray weeds, or other detritus. There wasn’t a spot of dirt or mold on the outside of the white steel building.
The cars Johnny Dan was about to work on sat in neat rows. A yellow 1969 Camaro Z28 with 400 horses, complete with black stripes. A 1969 Shelby Cobra 454, white with blue stripes. A 1978 Trans Am with a 405 and hood scoop, painted black with gold striping. Rosswell’s muscle-car lust shifted into overdrive.
Rosswell suspected Johnny Dan was rich. Rosswell didn’t use him for the VW, but Johnny Dan reigned as the mechanic of first choice in the entire county. People who buy muscle cars have money to burn, and Rosswell was thinking Johnny Dan tapped into a lot of that money before it got set afire.
“Johnny Dan!” Rosswell yelled when they went into his shop, trying to be heard over the sound of a loud machine. There was no air conditioning. Flies buzzed in the heat. He expected a couple of the bugs to drop dead from the hot air, stale and pungent with motor oil.