Courting Murder

by Bill Hopkins

arrest?”

  “Candy Lavaliere. She confessed.” Although the petroleum smell lingered, the daily Vaseline coating of his bald head had by then evaporated from the heat. He rubbed his head. Ollie appeared on the verge of tears. He wasn’t celebrating this arrest. “She’s important to me.”

  The wind picked up, clinking the grommets of the flags against the flagpoles and blowing grit in Rosswell’s eyes, making him appear on the verge of tears. There were no clouds in the sky. He assured himself no storms were brewing.

  Astonishment hit Rosswell. He recalled Candy making eyes at Ollie while at the same time she was rubbing Ribs’s leg. Candy’s libido must soar to the moon. Is she lusting after everybody in town?

  “Ollie, is she your girlfriend?”

  “What kind of stupid question is that?”

  “Why was she arrested? Does Frizz really think that she killed two people in cold blood?” Candy Lavaliere, a sexual addict and a double murderer? That didn’t even begin to compute.

  “Candy’s not my girlfriend.” Ollie spoke with little conviction. If she was his girlfriend, Rosswell was hopeful that she wouldn’t become pregnant. “I’m still talking to Benita. She’s the mother of my child. She even likes you.” Rosswell prayed that Benita wouldn’t get pregnant by Ollie. Again.

  “Benita’s a great nurse.”

  “The best. She graduated at the top of her class.”

  “But Candy’s got the hots for you. I could tell that from the way she acted around you at Merc’s. You would’ve thought she was fifteen instead of thirty.”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “There you go.” Something smelled like a fish market here. “Wait a minute. Ollie, why did she confess?”

  “She said she’d killed someone. Two someones.” He studied the American flag. “I don’t believe she killed anyone.”

  “Did she tell you she was a double murderer?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “What made her think she’d killed two people?” What was going on in Candy’s mind, making her think she’d murdered the pair? To date, Rosswell hadn’t heard any gossip that she was suffering from Alzheimer’s or any other dread disease that would affect her thinking. Besides, wasn’t she way too young for such a thing? “Is she mentally sound?”

  “That’s the thing, Rosswell.” Ollie started up the street, away from the sheriff’s station. Rosswell fell in step. The reporter tried to join them but Ollie shooed her away. “Candy’s smarter and more rational than ninety-nine percent of the population of Bollinger County.” Rosswell believed Ollie, which made Candy’s actions even more incomprehensible.

  “Then how did this happen?” They’d reached the end of the block. They turned sharply and marched back towards the sheriff’s station. The reporter wrote on her pad. Ollie shooed her away again.

  Ollie said, “Candy called me about fifteen minutes ago and said she needed to confess to a crime.”

  “Where was she when she called?”

  “That’s something else that’s strange. From the background noise, it sounded like she was at Merc’s. If you’re going to call someone about confessing to a crime, wouldn’t you go somewhere more private?”

  “Was she calling from her cell or Merc’s phone?”

  “Her cell.”

  From the way people discussed intimate details on cellphones while standing next to complete strangers, that part of the story made sense. For some reason, the need for privacy evaporated when you used a cellphone.

  Other parts of the story, unspoken parts, worried Rosswell. “Do you know if anyone was with her? Do you think someone forced her to call?”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  “Tell me the rest. It can’t get any worse.”

  “I met her in front of the courthouse. I asked her what kind of crime she needed to confess. She said she’d killed those two people at the park. She turned herself in and gave Frizz a full confession.”

  This could mean the end of dark fudge brownies for a while.

  Rosswell said, “You didn’t try to stop her?”

  Sweat trickled down Rosswell’s face. A drop or two of the salty stuff rolled into his mouth before he wiped his face.

  “Do you think you or anyone else could keep Candy from doing something?” Ollie was right. If nothing else, Candy was headstrong. “Besides that, I want Frizz to forget I exist. I’ve seen the inside of that jail enough to do me the rest of my life.”

  “That’s crap.” Ollie jerked to a stop. Rosswell said, “I mean the confession. The whole confession thing is crap. How did she say she did it?”

  “She told me she stabbed them both after they’d tried to attack her. I don’t know what she told Frizz.”

  “The murder happened either Sunday night or early Monday morning. Do you know where she was then?”

  “Not the slightest idea.”

  “She wasn’t with you?”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “You’re the research assistant. Find out where she was.”

  “You heard what she said at Merc’s. She said she’s been at home, keeping cool, writing in her journal.”

  “Another thing, where’s the knife?”

  “She said she threw it in the river.”

  “Oh, Ollie, that was convenient. There aren’t any witnesses. There’s no murder weapon. How could Frizz believe someone without any corroboration?”

  “Hermie Hillsman identified her as the driver of the silver car. He told me that himself.”

  “Was Hermie here?”

  “He just left.”

  “Was he sober?”

  “Yes, Judge, he was sober.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Ollie said in a low voice. “You and I are drunks. Hermie’s a drunk. Drunks can tell when drunks are drunk and when drunks are sober.” Rosswell couldn’t argue with that.

  “She doesn’t have a car, much less a silver car.”

  “But she had the keys to a silver car when she turned herself in.”

  “Whose car?”

  “Johnny Dan Dumey’s Malibu.”

  “What?” Rosswell scratched his mustache, trying to process this information. “She stole a car? Candy stole a car and killed two people? I don’t believe any of that crap.”

  “She didn’t tell me how she got the car.”

  “Does Frizz know she was driving Johnny Dan’s car?’

  “Got me.”

  “Where’s Johnny Dan?”

  “He and Mabel took off somewhere. They’re in Mabel’s car.”

  The Harley riders passed them again. Purvis wasn’t in the group now. Where had he gotten to?

  Rosswell said, “You and I checked the tires of Johnny Dan’s Malibu. They don’t match the impression.”

  “I heard that Frizz said they were close enough.”

  Rosswell blustered into the station, leaving Ollie at the flagpoles. The reporter snapped photos of both men. Rosswell hoped she got his good side. She followed him into the station.

  Frizz told her, “I don’t have a statement. I’ll issue a statement in the morning.”

  She assumed a journalistic air of hatred and skepticism. Then left without a word.

  “Frizz,” Rosswell said. “Why did you arrest Candy?”

  The light inside the station appeared dim compared to the glaring sun outside, and the air was several degrees cooler. Not cool, but cooler.

  “Calm down,” Frizz said. The sheriff was the only one in the place except for the single prisoner he now held. “Stop scratching your mustache. There’s not much left of it.”

  “It’s grown back as much as it’s ever going to grow since I took my last dose of chemo.” In other words, it was as scrawny as ever.

  “That’s a good reason not to scratch it.”

  “I doubt that Candy could kill a small fly, much less two grown people.”

  “Sit.” Frizz indicated a chair. “Let’s talk.”

  Rosswell sat. “Talk.” He reached up to his face to scratc
h his mustache again but thought better of it. It had taken him too long to grow the emaciated thing.

  The telephone rang. Frizz grabbed it as if he feared Rosswell would answer it. More media types apparently, since he told whoever it was on the other end the same thing he’d told the reporter. When he hung up, he closed his eyes for so long that Rosswell thought he was taking a nap. To pass the time, Rosswell ate a couple of Tootsie Rolls from the sheriff’s candy dish. Chocolate helped him think. Then Frizz opened his eyes and gave Rosswell his full attention.

  Frizz said, “With all the sugar you eat, one of these days you’re going to blossom.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but tell me about Candy.”

  “She came in here a few minutes ago and said she was a murderer.” Frizz removed his hat and finger combed his hair. “I stuffed her in one of the female cells. She’s got paper and pen, writing her confession.”

  “Did you book her?”

  “Not yet, but I did call the public defender. She talked to Candy and told her to keep her mouth shut and stop writing.”

  “But she’s still writing.”

  “The public defender can’t sit back there and babysit her. And I can’t take pen and paper away from a prisoner.”

  “Has the search team found the bodies yet?”

  “I sent them out to the park, but the water’s still too high. It’s dangerous to explore that deadfall. They’ll have to wait until the river goes down.”

  The sheriff was stuck in town at the jail, guarding a woman who claimed to be a double murderer. She hadn’t been booked yet, so she wasn’t officially in jail, and the prosecutor wouldn’t charge her until she was booked. Frizz was smart enough to notify the public defender. If she came over to talk to Candy again, perhaps the lawyer could persuade her to withdraw her ludicrous confession, whatever that confession might say.

  Frizz