River Mourn

by Bill Hopkins

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 fianc?e."

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

  Phil
bert 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."