by Bill Hopkins
“Clear?” Rosswell said.
Nadine said, “That’s what they say on television.”
“They say that in CPR scenes, not in TSA training videos,” Ollie said. “Let’s get her to Frizz.”
“I agree,” Rosswell said. The sooner Candy was placed in custody, the better. “Purvis, you lead. Candy, you follow this nice man. I’ll follow you.”
“Don’t I get a phone call?” Candy asked Ollie.
Ollie said, “I’m not the cops.”
“Then why are you helping them arrest me?”
“Candy, you stood in the middle of that road and pointed a gun at me.” Candy stared into the cloudless sky. “Everybody’s gone crazy.”
Purvis said, “Let’s go, people.”
The caravan lurched forward. From Vicky’s back seat, Ollie said, “Don’t let her escape.”
Rosswell said, “If she gets above seven miles per hour, I’ll ram her.” Nadine said, “She doesn’t seem dangerous.”
“Right,” Rosswell said. “I also heard Stalin was charming.”
The trip took 15 minutes. Thanks to practically everyone in the county owning a cellphone, they had a flash mob—six people would constitute a flash mob in Marble Hill—lining the route from the southern city limits sign to the jailhouse. The town’s impromptu parade headed downtown. The caravan had it all: a mountainous furry man, his head topped by a British bobby’s cap; a Yorkie sticking out of the big man’s tee shirt; a good-looking woman in a garish muumuu, pilot- ing a chartreuse golf cart and waving to the crowd; and three dirty people in an orange VW. A couple of jokers along the route waved Confederate flags for reasons unknown to Rosswell. This arrest had nothing to do with the war. Did it? He made a mental note of three or four teenagers waving a green flag with a red marijuana leaf in the middle. Ollie would be assigned to give him the straight dope on the kids. And, in addition, The Friends of Purvis rode as guards, zipping up and down the outside of the cavalcade, making certain the taxpayers didn’t stone them. The only thing missing were vendors selling refreshments and souvenirs. This day would never be noted on Rosswell’s résumé.
Sweat pouring down Rosswell’s face, mixing with the grime of the fire, burned his neck and, after running into his eyes, ruined his vision. He had to stop several times to wipe his face with a McDonald’s napkin he found in a side pocket of Vicky’s door. It smelled of old cheeseburgers. If the heat wave didn’t kill him, he’d never be cool again the rest of his life. And that could be a long life. The research he’d done told him that the kind of leukemia he had was not necessarily fatal. What was he thinking? Life itself is fatal and always ends the same way. His death could still be a long way off. Rosswell thought that Paul Newman said it best in the movie Hud: “No one gets out of life alive.”
When they arrived at the sheriff’s station, Frizz reappeared, zooming up to Purvis.
“Sheriff,” Purvis said, “she’s all yours.” He pointed to Candy.
Frizz jumped from his patrol car and stalked over to Purvis.
“That’s right,” Candy said. “I’m back. I missed you, Frizz. I want to work on my confession some more.”
Frizz’s face, red as three beets, poured sweat.
Rosswell said, “Where have you been?”
Frizz said, “False alarm.”
Ollie said, “That was convenient.”
Frizz stormed over to Ollie, still sitting in Vicky’s back seat, and towered over him. “I’m tired of your mouth.”
“Frizz,” Ollie said, “I was simply pointing out that you got a false alarm about the same time Rosswell arrested this murderer. Don’t you find that strange?”
Frizz pivoted and marched into the sheriff’s station.
Purvis asked Rosswell, “Who stuck a burr under his saddle?”
Rosswell said, “He’s exhausted. He’s got too much to do and not enough people to help him.”
They all followed Frizz into the sheriff’s station.
The sheriff had sailed through many episodes in the past without breaking a sweat. Granted, this was the worst of the lot, yet Rosswell couldn’t convince himself that Frizz’s actions were totally the result of simple exhaustion. Rosswell had just lied to cover for the sheriff’s personal problems.
Frizz booked Candy, then said, “Let’s go back to your cell.”
“I need to know your full name,” she said. “My lawyer will need to know your name for the lawsuit I’m going to file against you, Rosswell, Purvis, Ollie, and Nadine.” She withdrew a large red handkerchief from a pocket and blew her nose. After silently crying for a few moments, she said, “And a whole bunch more people. I may sue the whole damn county.”
Frizz said, “Don’t make me drag you back there.”
Candy said, “Just you try.”
Purvis, Nadine, and Ollie must’ve been thirsty because they all wandered back to the kitchen for a drink of water. Rosswell didn’t appreciate their desertion. Frizz may need witnesses if he got sued.
“Candy,” Frizz said, “let’s do this the easy way. You go back there, I lock you in, you work on your confession, and when I get back, I’ll let you call your lawyer.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Let’s do it.”
After locking Candy in the cell, Frizz ordered Rosswell to stay in the sheriff’s station. The three who’d gone to the kitchen must’ve slaked their thirst. All of them wandered back into the dispatcher’s area.
Frizz said to Rosswell, “I’m going to the deadfall. The river should be down far enough for me to check if there’s a body stuck out there.”
Ollie put a hand over his heart. “‘That only needs a finger touch from God, to spring it like a deadfall and the fault, in nature would wipe out all human fault’.”
Rosswell gave Ollie a finger slice across the throat. “Shut up.”
Ollie said, “Robert Frost.”
Frizz said, “I’m going to give you Jack Frost up your butt if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”
“I’ll assist you, Sheriff,” said Purvis. “I mean, search.”
“Stay out of my way,” Frizz said. “I’ll take your help, but remember, you don’t have any authority in Missouri.”
Purvis said, “Yes, sir.”
Frizz said to Rosswell, “You three stay here and write your statements. I’ll need them for the prosecutor.”
Rosswell saluted and said, “Yes, sir.”
Frizz and Purvis left.
Rosswell said to Nadine and Ollie, “What the hell was that combination business?” Nadine said,
“I needed something simple to remember the combination.”
“Simple?” Rosswell said. “‘Initials children Israel sealed’ is simple? Ollie, you punched only five letters. All the letters of the alphabet make for thousands of combinations.”
“Not even close,” Ollie said. “Eleven million, eight hundred eighty-one thousand, three hundred seventy-six.”
“That’s why,” Nadine said, “I wanted something simple. I remembered something out of the Bible.”
Ollie said, “As in, ‘And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.’ Revelation 7:4.”
Rosswell said, “You didn’t type all that onto the combination pad.”
Nadine said, “No, of course not. I picked the initials of the number: OHFFT. One hundred forty-four thousand.”
Silently thankful that Ollie figured out the bizarre clue from a half-conscious Nadine, Rosswell handed them yellow legal pads and Bic pens. Blue ink. “Start writing and don’t leave anything out.” Rosswell was a lawyer. Lawyers love yellow pads and blue ink.
“I need medical attention,” Nadine said. “I’m filthy. I want to go to the hospital and then check into a motel and scrub down. I’ll need new clothes. I’ll go to Walmart first, then—”
“You’ll live,” Rosswell said. “Shut up and write. It won’t take long.”
Nadine and Ollie smelled as bad as Rosswell did. There was no doubt that they could feel the film of smoke and grit inside their mouths and smell nasty burning things lodged in their noses, stopped up with soot, as Rosswell’s was. Too bad. Fresh memories required narratives written as soon as possible after the event. When Candy faced a jury, Rosswell didn’t want some slick defense attorney attacking their statements because they weren’t made at or near the time of the event. He’d seen that done before. Knowledge is preparation.
Rosswell bent to the work and wrote steadily for 10 minutes. He’d have continued writing, but Ollie tapped him on the shoulder and motioned to come with him. Nadine kept writing. They went to Frizz’s office—Headquarters. Frizz had nailed a hand-lettered wooden sign over the doorway, proclaiming the same in a thick scrawl. Rosswell flashed on the sign, noting the childish scratching.
Rosswell said, “What the hell were you doing in here?”
“Working on my statement.” Ollie pointed to the pile of papers on Frizz’s desk. Rosswell recognized Ollie’s handwriting, small and crowded decorating both sides of several pages.
“Get your statement and come out front where I can keep an eye on you. Frizz would throw your ass in jail if he knew you were back here. Let’s go. Now.”
Instead of leaving, Ollie shut the door. “You know, as well as I do that something’s eating Frizz.”
“And?” Rosswell put his hand on the doorknob. Ollie was right, but there was nothing they could or should do about it. “It’s none of our business. Move it.”
Ollie reached for Rosswell’s hand and stopped him from opening the door. “You’re wrong. And Frizz is wrong. Something’s bad wrong with the sheriff.”
Rosswell jerked to attention. “Why do you say that?”
“Take a gander at this.” Ollie kneeled next to Frizz’s desk and jiggled the bottom drawer’s lock open with a pick. Rosswell didn’t ask where Ollie had learned lock picking or latched on to the tools to carry it out. Ollie pulled open the drawer. A strongbox rested inside. Like- wise, the lock on the box was no match for him. He popped it open. The men stared at the contents.
“Holy crap,” Rosswell said.
“Yeah. Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Saturday afternoon
As of that moment, Rosswell was officially a felon.
After standing dumbfounded in Frizz’s office for what seemed a couple of eternities, they both wiped their fingerprints from the box and drawer, and Ollie relocked them. They sauntered to the dispatcher’s area, hoping that Nadine hadn’t noticed their absence or, if she had, that she hadn’t put any significance on it. Rosswell assured himself that he and Ollie were quite sneaky. Further, there was little likelihood that Nadine would mention that he and Ollie had been skulking about in headquarters, committing a felony. Everything was cool.
Nadine threw down her pencil and jumped to her feet. “What were y’all doing back there?”
“Nadine,” Rosswell said, “we need to discuss your garden.”
Rosswell had always wondered where the title for that song came from. Now he knew. As if he’d stuck a spigot in her carotid artery, turning it on full force to drain all her blood, she turned a whiter shade of pale.
She said, “What garden?”
Ollie said, “Exactly.”
Nadine squinted her eyes, then they flew wide open. “Oh, right.” Fetching her pencil from the floor, she sat. “What garden? You must’ve been discussing a nonexistent garden and it was none of my business.”
Rosswell said, “What’s none of your business?”
“Everything is none of my business.” Her face grew even whiter. “I mean, nothing is my business. Whatever. I’m shut. Mum’s the word.”
Rosswell said, “You are correct. Absolutely correct.” He reminded himself to add blackmailing to his list of felonies. “Nadine,” Rosswell continued, “Ollie and I are stepping outside to get a breath of fresh air. We’ll be right by the front door. If the phone rings, holler at me. If Candy wants something, holler at me.”
“You got it,” she said.
Rosswell emphasized, “Don’t answer the phone. Or the radio. Or talk to Candy.”
Nadine nodded. “You got it.”
Ollie helped himself to a bottled water from the sheriff’s fridge. Rosswell did the same.
The hog rally, with its booming music and alcohol-fueled laughter, made the courthouse square sound like Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras. After checking that no one was in earshot, in case things might quiet down enough for them to be heard, Ollie and Rosswell discussed the matter.
Rosswell said, “Where the hell did Frizz get that kind of cash?” It was a rhetorical question. He hoped like hell that Ollie didn’t really know the answer.
“And why?”
Rosswell ventured a guess. “Someone’s paying him off for something.”
“Frizz? Maybe he’s not pure as a driven blizzard, but he’s not that bent. Think of another reason.”
A man and woman staggered past them, oblivious to a couple of ragamuffin guys chatting. Or so Rosswell hoped.
Rosswell offered a reasonable, yet sickening, explanation. “He’s been skimming off drug busts. Dope dealers keep a lot of money around. They dislike banks. Frizz busts a doper, sticks a hundred dollar bill in the stash under his desk, and the rest goes in the evidence locker.”
Ollie whipped out a couple of paper towels from his back pocket. He poured half the water on the towels and wiped his face and bald head.
“Sounds logical,” Ollie said. “I know what I’m going to do about this.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Rosswell sipped his water. Doing so made him realize how thirsty he was. He drank half the bottle in two gulps and poured some on his face. Ollie handed him a paper towel, and he rubbed vigorously at the mess.
“Sometimes, Ollie, I really wish you were not so fricking curious about everything. You didn’t find anything else in there you’re not telling me about, did you?”
“Nope. The cash stash was the first thing I found. I stopped there and fetched you.”
Rosswell believed him. If he’d found anything more interesting than a pile of cash, he would’ve told Rosswell. That’s the amount of faith he had in Ollie Groton. You need to have a pinch of faith in your snitch, else why have a snitch at all? I mean, research assistant.
Rosswell said, “From now on, don’t do any exploring unless I ask you.”
“Okay, Judge.”
“Here’s the dilemma as I see it. We think Frizz has money that’s not his.”
“No. We don’t think any such thing.”
This conversation, as most of the talks Rosswell had with Ollie, headed downhill towards a lake, to crash and sink out of sight. Rosswell chugged the rest of his water and threw the empty into a trashcan.
“Ollie, why would Frizz keep all that dough locked up in his office if it wasn’t legally his?”
“Are you saying that, if it was legally his, he’d leave it lying out in the open?”
Rosswell hated it when Ollie used the hammer of logic to smash the finely wrought vase holding his theories into a powder that blew away with the wind.
“Ollie, get to the point.”
“Frizz and his wife are having—how do the counselors say it these days? Marital issues. In other words, their marriage sucks.”
One of the advantages of posing as a listening post for every snippet of news that raced through town was that no one discriminated in what he or she spilled. A red dog in the road? Significance was attached and it was discussed to death. A sore tooth? The story got told. Adultery? The news spread like an August prairie fire in Oklahoma. A flat tire on the way home from a drunken orgy? The tale grew and grew. And, if Frizz and his wife were having problems, then Ollie would hear the gory details, true or not.
Rosswell asked a question that he knew the answer to. “And you know this how?”
Ollie said, “You think I sit in Merc’s all day contemplating my navel? People tell me stuff. Close to a hundred percent of it is unadulterated bullshit.”
“Close to a hundred percent?”
“There’s a little dab that’s probably true. Once you hear something from five or six different people at different times, you start to wonder.”
“And you heard that Frizz and his wife were having troubles? Say, now there’s something new. A married couple having problems. Never heard of that happening before.”
Ollie said, “Not just problems. Mrs. Dodson likes the casinos. And on her way to the casino, she buys clothes, jewelry, whatever she can lay her hands on.”
Rosswell made a snipping motion with his fingers. “Cut up the credit cards. Problem solved.”
“You’ve never been married. You don’t realize how easy it is for a woman to get a credit card if she’s got a spouse who’s working at a steady job. Or vice versa. I could give you a long list of spendthrifts in this county who teeter on the verge of bankruptcy on a daily basis.”
“I don’t care about them. I want to know about Frizz.” Ollie pointed skyward. “The worst thing.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Saturday afternoon, continued
The worst thing? That could mean only one thing. Rosswell said, “She’s going to kill him?”
“He’s going to lose his house.”
There could be worse things than losing your house. Ollie exaggerated on occasion, and this was one of those occasions. People live through foreclosures. Folks don’t live through murder, which is a worse thing than foreclosure.
Rosswell said, “What a god-awful mess. How did that happen?”
“His wife spent several house payments on the roulette wheel.”
Mosquitoes buzzed around Rosswell’s head while he tried reasoning out this mess. Frizz’s wife out of control? This kind of news wouldn’t have been secret for long. One of the bloodsuckers landed on his arm only to suffer the wrath of his hand, smearing its body all over his skin. Where had he been? How had he missed hearing about Frizz’s problem? Wouldn’t Tina have told him something that significant? But that’s why he hired Ollie, to collect info that he’d missed. As best he could, he wiped off the bloody mess.