by Bill Hopkins
Chapter 35
Monday Morning
Rosswell adjusted the air conditioner vent to blow directly into his face. "Nice to have the cavalry show up." Although the air was blessedly cool, it smelled stale, like it had been run through the air conditioning system of a bureaucrat's car.
"I've read the entire file on Tina you sent me. Three times. Now explain it again."
Rosswell recounted the adventure, including every important detail. He concluded with, "It's been a real kerfuffle."
"Kerfuffle? I'm down here investigating the fire you got caught in, not a kerfuffle."
Jim Bill dipped a wad of chewing tobacco out of an open pouch lodged on his car's dash, then squirreled the weed in a ruddy cheek. He moved the pouch to the center console, uncovering a small sign stuck to the dash: NO TOBACCO PRODUCTS ALLOWED IN STATE VEHICLES!
"You got an engraved invitation from Sheriff Fribeau, I assume?"
Rosswell wondered where Jim Bill was going to spit. And when? His silent questions were answered when Jim Bill buzzed down the window to hawk a wad onto the street. Expert shot! As far as Rosswell could determine, not a drop touched the man or the car.
"Let's say that I had to pull a few strings to get assigned down here for a couple of days. The Sainte Gen fire chief's a good friend of mine and he asked me to look into this. Gustave is raising nine kinds of holy hell with my boss, the governor, the General Assembly, and anyone else he can get a hold of."
"Gustave is an idiot."
"The charging papers on Nathaniel Dahlbert will weigh more than the national budget."
"What charging papers? I've been trying to tell everyone about him but no one wants to listen. Nobody's going to do anything to him."
"You didn't let me finish." Jim Bill steered the car left, then left again, heading back toward the courthouse. The second turn aimed the sunshine directly into the windshield, revealing a bunch of tiny bugs smeared across the glass. "They listened. They didn't tell you that they listened. In fact, they were onto Nathaniel long before you were."
"The guy's nuts. He's a psychopath. Or a sociopath."
"No one's examined him. All I know is that he has no conscience and treats people like objects. If you're of no more use to him, he'll toss you away as if you were a broken toaster."
Rosswell said, "And these people who've been watching him. I met two of them. Theodore and Philbert, two guys posing as auditors, were really, what? Highway Patrol? FBI? CIA?"
"Theodore and Philbert? Never heard of them."
"Right." Rosswell knew he'd been told to keep his mouth shut and stop trying to pry information from Jim Bill, but damn it, he wanted to know. "When is Nathaniel going to be arrested?" Rosswell rubbed the seat cushions of the car, cleaning his sweaty palms. Although a tad itchy, the cushions were a sight better than Sofia's seats, which felt as if they'd been built of old orange crates covered with discarded chenille and stuffed with corncobs.
"That's the problem. We don't have enough evidence on him. He's not only into dope and money laundering. Something even worse. Slavery."
"Slavery?" Dear God, Jill had been right.
"The politically correct term is human trafficking, although I prefer the more accurate term. Slavery. You know how widespread baby selling is? It's all over the country. Thousands of people a day disappear in the United States. Babies, teenagers, adults. All missing. Counting the whole world, the numbers are huge. An enormous amount of them wind up in slavery."
"I don't care about the rest of the world. All I care about is Tina."
Jim Bill caressed his enviable 'stache. "If I knew where Tina was, I'd be there right now, busting her out."
"And I'd be right next to you."
"We need to focus on Nathaniel. His cohorts pick up pregnant girls, mostly runaways. He buys their babies, then sells them. He keeps the mommies to sell as playthings." Jim Bill remained silent long enough to convince Rosswell that he was reconsidering something. After a bit, Jim Bill said, "I'll tell you one thing and then that's it."
"I understand."
"You ever hear those news stories on television about how law enforcement agencies don't like to co-operate and share information?"
"All the time."
"Those stories are planted by the law enforcement agencies. It's part of a?what you'd call maybe a plan?to keep the slave dealers off balance. We've got our own plans for dealing with people who sell human flesh."
Rosswell considered the greatest part of discretion was silence, thus he managed not to respond until thirty seconds later. "I need to know more."
"Not now, you don't. Or ask me some questions I can answer."
"I want Tina. Take me to her. Right now."
Rosswell watched Jim Bill's shoulders slump, his mouth turn down, and the chewing stop. "She's not in Belize at a sex resort for rich South Americans, I can tell you that."
"The version I heard was a little different."
"There are lots of versions of where she is. She's not at Nathaniel Dahlbert's mansion on the hill."
"Then where is she?"
"No one knows."
"Jim Bill, I'm not trying to find out any classified info. Tell me if I need to stay in Sainte Genevieve."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"This is Nathaniel's center. If he wanted Tina, he'd bring her here."
Jim Bill said no more. That was the whole answer. The fire marshal had told Rosswell what he wanted to hear. He'd like to know more about the why, but he knew not to push him. He had to take this one on faith.
But Jim Bill had more. "The folks looking for Tina don't have unlimited money or unlimited time. Other things have come up. Big crimes that need immediate attention. Nobody has the resources to keep up a full-time search for Tina. It's a cold case."
"Cold case?" Rosswell fought his anger. "Tina was pregnant when she was kidnapped. I need to know if she's dead or alive. I need to know if my baby is dead or alive. This is not a cold case!"
"I don't know the answers to your questions."
"Let me ask you one more thing."
"You can ask." Jim Bill spit out an old wad and stuffed in a fresh one. "And I may not answer."
"Did Nathaniel try to kill Ollie and me in that wildfire?"
"I'm still looking into that. I found what looks like a portable meth lab in the woods. Red phosphorous, ether, lithium batteries, iodine, coffee filters, funnels, on and on and on."
"Where did you find it?"
"At the point of origin, which I found in five minutes."
"Point of origin of the fire?"
"Yes."
"How do you know you spotted the exact place where the fire started?"
"Fires spread in a V- or U-shape." Jim Bill spread his hands out to demonstrate. "Go to the narrowest part of the fire. That's where it started. Then you check on other stuff around there. Blackened parts of trees, burned grass, ash piles, fallen and unburned tree limbs. All of it shows which way the fire came from and where it went. To me, all those things look like the road signs you see on an interstate highway. Plain. Clear. Obvious."
"And a meth cooker started the fire."
"That's the way it's shaping up. Our cooker left a lot of incriminating evidence. Meth heads are sloppy."
"Suspects?"
"Turk Malone. Skinny guy with a scrawny beard, goes around stoned. His name keeps popping up. You know him?" Jim Bill peered into the tobacco pouch. Rosswell enjoyed the sweet aroma, although the nastiness of its use hadn't charmed him.
"Do I ever." Rosswell explained in minute detail everything he knew about Turk. "However, something's not right. Turk is thick with Nathaniel, who's thick with Gustave, but Gustave's son-in-law, Frankie Joe Acorn said he hates Turk. This isn't making sense."
Jim Bill folded the pouch closed. In the silence, its crinkling sounded like aluminum foil wrapping a leftover. "You've got to help me make sense of all this. I want to find Tina."
Rosswell, concentrating on the air conditioner vent, ordered himself to
cool down before he answered. Jim Bill was the one and only law enforcement agent in the country who'd listened to him-although Jim Bill said others had listened. Maybe, maybe not. All Rosswell knew for sure was that Jim Bill was here in person. Yet he talked in riddles. Or so it seemed to Rosswell.
"I appreciate you trying to help me, but can you stop talking in circles? Can you tell me something positive? Or something bad? Is Tina dead? If she is, then let me know so I can bury her properly and start grieving for her."
"You've got to understand that Tina is an adult, a competent adult. She can go anywhere she wants. There's been no ransom note. No one saw her being abducted."
"You've met her. Do you think she'd leave me?" Rosswell played Tina's voicemail and read her letter aloud. "Does that sound like someone who's trying to get away from me?"
"I'm here, aren't I? Thank your buddy Turk for giving me a legitimate reason to show up. Speaking of which, I'll be down here a few days, so which motel do you recommend?"
Rosswell glanced at Jim Bill's left hand. No ring. "Are you married?"
Jim Bill laughed. "You have to be married to get a motel room in Sainte Gen?"
"Answer the question."
"Never. Why?"
"That beautiful woman you saw me with a few minutes ago?"
"Alessandra?"
"Meet me at noon at Mabel's. We'll eat, then I'll show you a good place to stay."