by Bill Hopkins
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 fianc?e, 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" a
nd 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.