Courting Murder

by Bill Hopkins

tried to kill us. We need medical attention.” The pedal hit the metal, and they flew down the road. Rosswell assured himself that no firefighter in his right mind would turn away from a fire to chase a judge on his way to get medical help. The firefighter must’ve lost his mind because his lights flashed and his siren screamed behind Vicky. Rosswell stomped on the brakes again.

  “What?” Rosswell said when the man approached the car. “We’re headed to the hospital. We’re suffering from smoke inhalation. We nearly got killed by a madwoman who’s on the loose back there.” Although Rosswell was tempted to use another finger, he jerked his thumb backward, pointing to the place where Candy had tried to way-lay them. The firefighter gave him the okay sign, returned to his pickup truck, and Rosswell answered his cellphone. He hadn’t noticed he’d drifted into one of the few 10-foot-wide ribbons of service the phone company draped across the county in random patterns.

  “Frizz, I’m headed for the hospital. Candy Lavaliere is our murderer.”

  Frizz said, “You’ve been eating hallucinogenic mushrooms.”

  A warning that the phone’s battery was about to die beeped. Rosswell turned it off. They needed medical help before they developed pneumonia or some other nasty complication from breathing in fumes from a burning house and pot, and died on the back roads of Bollinger County. If an emergency arose before they reached the hospital, Rosswell didn’t want to be without the phone. The phone’s car charger had been secured in Rosswell’s desk in the courthouse. Frizz would have to save his bitching for later. Rosswell figured the stupid telephone might have enough juice for one more call. If he was lucky.

  At the city limit sign, Candy Lavaliere puttered along the highway in her chartreuse golf cart. She’d made it into town before the trio and switched vehicles. Misdirection. Candy was smart enough not to use the silver Malibu she’d stolen from Johnny Dan.

  Nadine, being a woman, also noticed something else about Candy. “She changed clothes.” Nadine pointed out that Candy still wore jangly bracelets, but they were different from the ones she’d had on out on the road. She’d donned a crinkly muumuu, featuring a green background splattered with red, yellow, and blue flower prints. Had she been wearing that outfit when she rushed into the woods at the sight of the firefighter, she would’ve stood out like a hair in a biscuit. She wasn’t wearing sunglasses.

  Ollie said, “She’s good. Sneaky.” His eyes watered, leaving tracks in the dirt on his face. It couldn’t have been tears at the realization that a buddy of his was a murderer. Ollie didn’t cry. Never ever. Although Rosswell suspected that Ollie and Candy were more than just friends, he decided to reserve that conversation for later.

  Rosswell said, “Candy’s no dummy. She’s trying to confuse us. I admire her for her quick thinking.”

  He pulled in front of Candy, forcing her to the shoulder. She eased up on the accelerator, causing the golf cart to jerk to a halt. The three tumbled from the car and surrounded her. Rosswell pointed his gun at Candy’s chest.

  “You’re under arrest, Candy.” Although this was the second arrest he’d made that day, saying the words didn’t thrill him. In fact, since the first arrest had been the false arrest of Nadine, his confidence scraped the bottom of what was left of Nadine’s grow tank. Candy, to his way of thinking, floated around town, a harmless young woman who’d never thought an evil thought in her life. Yet the human mind breaks down for unknown reasons. Who knew what dark tunnels her train of thought rushed through? If the firefighter had been one second later in coming up in front of them on the road leading to Nadine’s house, Candy would’ve wiped them out with the AK-47. Rosswell had lost all sympathy for Candy.

  Pointing a gun at me makes me angry.

  “Arrest?” Candy belched. “For what?”

  Had she been drinking? Rosswell wasn’t about to get close enough to smell her breath. She leaned down as if she were about to pick up something from the floor of the cart. Her hands needed to stay visible, whether she was drunk or sober. Her gun could be hidden anywhere in the cart or on her person. She picked up a squeeze bottle of Fast Orange and started cleaning her hands.

  Rosswell said, “Keep your hands on the steering wheel. We’re calling the cops.” He sounded like a bad crime show on late night television. He didn’t care. All he needed was to deliver the message to her that he was going to be safe from her violence. She grasped the steering wheel as if waiting for a tornado.

  Thrusting his phone into Ollie’s grasp, Rosswell said, “Turn that thing on and call Frizz. Tell him we’ve got Candy cornered.”

  After a few minutes, the cellphone finished booting up. By that time, a crowd had gathered. Someone must’ve called Merc’s because a clump of the regulars now gathered behind Rosswell, perhaps hoping that they’d witness a judge shoot a pretty young woman. Rosswell heard one of the coffee drinkers say, “I told you he’d go off his nut.” Another one offered, “One too many whiskey sours, if you ask me.” A woman’s voice said, “Playing blackface ain’t politically correct no more. Them three needs to be ashamed of theirselves, acting racialistic.” Rosswell made a mental note to wash his face as soon as possible.

  Ollie dialed. “Frizz,” he shouted, “Rosswell has Candy cornered at the south city limits. She tried to kill us.” Ollie listened for a few seconds, then shoved the phone into Rosswell’s hand. “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  Rosswell holding his gun steady in his right hand, held the phone in his left hand and talked to Frizz. “She’s down here. She tried to kill us. She’s the murderer.”

  Frizz said, “Candy Lavaliere? A murderer? I don’t believe it. We’ve already been through this.”

  “You already arrested her for murder. Remember?”

  “Judge, I had to arrest her but I didn’t believe she was a murderer the first time. And I don’t believe it now.”

  “Believe it now. Ollie, Nadine, and I witnessed her standing in the road with an assault rifle, trying to kill us.”

  “Two drunks and a doper. What a trio of witnesses.” Frizz, no doubt understanding that he’d crossed a line that he shouldn’t have, waited a few moments before he continued. Rosswell heard him breathing. There was a rustle on the sheriff’s end. Frizz was probably wiping his face with his handkerchief, wondering how he was going to remove his big foot out of his big mouth. “Rosswell, sorry, but listen. Are you sure you saw her?”

  “Yes. She was wearing blue jeans, a gray sweatshirt, sunglasses, and a ball cap, the same as the woman who tried to bribe that Boy Scout.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “No, I’m bringing her in.”

  “Don’t you dare. Stay where you are.”

  Purvis Rabil and Scooby arrived, perched on Rabil’s police edition Harley, currently the biggest, baddest hog in the county. “Judge,” Purvis said, “what’re you doing?”

  “Who’s that?” Frizz asked.

  “Purvis. Since he’s a cop, I’ll have him help me.”

  “Damn it,” Frizz screamed into his end of the phone. “Are you deaf? Don’t do anything until I get there. You let Purvis help you and I’ll arrest him again!”

  “I’m holding my gun on her as we speak,” Rosswell told Frizz. “She damned near killed three people today. You should’ve kept her in jail when you had her.”

  The phone died. In a couple of seconds, Rosswell heard a siren and squalling tires in the direction of the courthouse. Frizz had no doubt left a trail of burnt rubber in his haste to reach Rosswell and his motley crew.

  Purvis said, “Judge, can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “Frizz is on his way. I’ll deal with him.”

  That’s when Frizz blasted past them, never slowing a bit, lights and siren going full tilt boogie.

  Ollie said, “Must be something big going on out that way.”

  Rosswell watched Frizz disappear. What could’ve been more important than the arrest of a murderer?

  Purvis said, “Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

&n
bsp; “Candy Lavaliere tried to kill all three of us,” Rosswell said, motioning with the phone to Nadine and Ollie. “I arrested her.”

  Nadine said, “She set my house afire while we were inside. And shot at us.”

  “We’ve sucked in a lot of nasty stuff,” Ollie said. “We need medical help.” He coughed.

  Candy said, “I was on my way to the library when Rosswell started waving a gun in my face. I hope it’s not loaded.”

  Scooby growled.

  Purvis cut off his bike and faced the crowd of onlookers. “Show’s over. Go home.”

  “Who the hell are you?” said the woman who’d accused Rosswell, Nadine, and Ollie of racial insensitivity. “You gotta badge there, big guy?”

  Rosswell saw that no one in the gaggle of people stirred, apparently unwilling to be shooed off from a potentially exciting showdown. Would Purvis whip out his Alabama Bureau of Investigation badge? Would the good citizens of the Show-Me State be convinced that the Hell’s Angels version of the Age of Aquarius was a cop? And if they were convinced, would they listen to an out-of-state law enforcement agent?

  As if in answer to an unseen signal from Purvis, ten hog riders materialized, encircling the spectators, gunning their engines, yet careful to keep the bikes in neutral. The mirrored sunglasses the riders wore must’ve convinced the folks. That and the unsmiling faces. The crowd scattered, no doubt heading to Merc’s to grow their accounts of the incident to