Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 02 - River Mourn (2 page)

After the call, Rosswell marked a line in the riverbank with
the tip of his shoe. There was no turning back. What had he committed himself
to with that call? He pivoted and chose the road, the easy way up the bluff. The
dispatcher had assured him that someone would arrive at his location soon. In fifteen
minutes or so.

Plodding back to his room exhausted him. He regained
his place on the balcony to continue mulling over what he’d seen. Tina’s
absence drilled into his gut as it had from the moment of her disappearance.
The only things he was sure of were that the woman tossed off the boat was not
Tina, Tina was still alive, and that he would find her. How did he know that?
He didn’t know. Details, he assured himself, would follow.

Rising fog marred the view of the water. Roswell
scanned the riverbank again. No one else was near. No cars. No body washed
ashore. The thump, he surmised, was someone slamming a car door or trunk shut.
Although he wondered why anyone would do that if he were dragging a body from a
vehicle to throw into the river. Wouldn’t that bring unwanted attention? Like
his?

Or had something happened to the ferry? Although
Missouri struggled in the grasp of a vicious drought, the river was swollen
with runoff from rain up north. With the water so high, maybe a big tree racing
downstream had slammed into the boat. That could account for the thump.

Would anyone believe him? There was not a single piece
of proof in the entire story, only his eyewitness testimony. Roswell wasn’t
even forty and his eyes were already packing it in, but so what? He’d been
wearing his glasses when he saw the man throw the woman into the river. He hadn’t
been sucking down any booze, either. Tina’s absence had been a sore test, but
he wouldn’t let himself go anywhere near the stuff, not while she was still missing.
Above all not after he got her back!

If he got her back.

About fifteen minutes later, Mrs. Bolzoni, the owner
of Bolzoni’s Bluffside Bed and Breakfast, commonly known as The Four Bee, knocked
on his door.

“Yes?”

“You open the door,” came the reply, spoken with an
Italian accent.

As ordered, Rosswell opened the door to discover the
short barrel, which was Mrs. Bolzoni, regarding him through Coke-bottle
eyeglasses. She nodded. He admired what she’d done with her silver-gray hair,
piled on her head in a circular arrangement with nary a loose strand. Her
ancient shoes and dry scent befitted a senior citizen. There had to be a place
where elderly women bought those clunky shoes with about a hundred eyelets that
laced halfway up the calf. And that old lady powder that smelled like a nursing
home. Where did they buy that stuff?

“Good morning, Mrs. Bolzoni.”

“Here’s you espresso. I am out of the Pepto-Bismol
last night and the insides, she is in uproar.” The squat Italian woman had the
habit of starting most conversations with a report on the state of her bowels. She
waved her hands and shook her head several times. “Much pain.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He sipped the extra strong
brew laced with enough sugar to make it syrupy. A dash of salt added a bit of
flavor. The concoction worked a number on his acid reflux. No matter. If the
hair on his scrawny mustache had been a centimeter or two longer, the black
drink would’ve curled the
’
stache into
a real handlebar.

“The police, they come and want the Judge Carew.” Mrs.
Bolzoni failed to disguise the delight in her voice. She loved gossip more than
life itself. “I tell them you I get.”

“Would you send them up? I need to show them
something.”

“You not cooking the menthol, are you?”

“No, I assure you that I’m a peaceful and law-abiding
citizen.” Rosswell suppressed a smile. “And I’m not cooking meth.”

“As if.” Mrs. Bolzoni primped her hair although there
wasn’t the slightest disarray.

She clopped down the steps and, in a few minutes, Ste.
Genevieve County Sheriff Gustave Fribeau—despite what Mrs. Bolzoni had said, it
was one cop, not a “they”—marched into Rosswell’s room.

“Judge Carew.” Gustave pulled a slim black cigar out
of his pocket, unwrapped it, stuck it in his mouth, and threw the cellophane to
the floor. “You called 9-1-1?”

The sheriff, standing a shade over five feet tall, had
a square jaw that matched his square body, and blonde hair that gave him movie star
good looks. Admiring the sheriff’s mustache, as thin as an ant trail, Rosswell
wondered if he could trim his own sickly caterpillar mustache in the same
fashion.

“Yes, I called 9-1-1.”

“You made me climb up here. What do you want to show
me?”

“Let me show you what I saw. Look over here.” Rosswell
escorted him onto the balcony and pointed to the river. “I saw somebody throw a
body into the water.”

“You saw a body go in the river?”

“Yes. Didn’t I say that?”

“Who did the throwing? Man or woman?”

“Man.”

The sheriff took in the view, staring all around. “Where
was this man who did the throwing?”

“On the ferry.”

Gustave chewed on the unlit cigar. “Moving?”

“The man or the ferry?”

“Ferry.”

Rosswell rubbed the back of his neck. “The ferry. It
was headed across the river.”

“The body—man, woman?”

“Female. Young woman. I think.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She looked like a woman. And the impression I got
from her clothes, hair, and what little I could see of her face made me think
she was young.”

“Impression?”

“She was pregnant.” Rosswell practiced his withering
glare until the Sheriff caved.

“How do you know she was dead? Could she have been
unconscious, knocked out?”

“I don’t know that she was dead when she went into the
river, but she wasn’t moving.” Rosswell fingered the binoculars. “Her eyes were
closed when she went in the water.”

“How do you know that?”

“Take a look for yourself.” Rosswell offered up the
binoculars. “These are powerful. I could see her face.”

Gustave waved the binoculars aside. “What did this guy
look like?”

“A dark complexion. Skinny. Dark hair. Wore Levi’s and
a blue work shirt.”

“That narrows it down to ten or twelve thousand people
within a hundred miles.”

“Ah!” Rosswell recognized the tactic. Tear down the
eyewitness’s testimony so there’s nothing to go on. Then you can forget about
the whole mess. “I’d recognize him if I saw him again.”

“Maybe.” Gustave grasped the balcony’s ledge. “Kind of
foggy out there this morning.” The sun, rising from the Illinois side of the
river, caused the sheriff to shade his eyes. “It’s about…oh…a half mile from
here to the ferry dock. How did you see anyone doing anything on the boat?”

“Nikon 10.5x45mm Monarch X. None finer.” Rosswell
handed the binoculars to Gustave. “The fog is rising now, but there was no fog
when I saw it.”

Gustave held up the black-bodied field glasses,
examined the lenses, and then turned the binoculars end over end. “Nice.” Gustave
fixed the binoculars to his eyes and aimed them at the landing. “Still pretty
hazy down there. How can you be sure of what you saw?”

“I told you that it was clear when I saw her go into
the water. I was bird watching. Looking for a rare sparrow that’s allegedly
been sighted in these parts. I focused on the ferry when I heard it start up.
That’s when the thump came. It sounded like—”

“Bird-watching?” Gustave inspected the binoculars
again. “You checked into The Four Bee to watch birds?”

Rosswell removed his spectacles and rubbed his face
again. “Besides holding court up here, I’m looking for Tina. Remember?” He
replaced his glasses.

Rosswell couldn’t decide if Gustave was dense or
playing bad cop/bad cop. He was aware the sheriff judged him an intruder who
had upset the quiet balance of the small riverside town. This situation needed
a real cop like Jim Bill Evans to help him find Tina, not a bumbler like
Sheriff Gustave Fribeau. Then Rosswell remembered that Jim Bill was a fire
marshal, not a cop. Yet he was honest as the day and night were long, and
Rosswell knew he’d rather be dealing with him than Gustave, even if Jim Bill didn’t
have jurisdiction.

Gustave interrupted Rosswell’s silent musings. “She’s
your…friend. Missing for what? Two weeks or so.”

“Fiancée.” Rosswell stretched the truth a bit. He had only
been thinking about asking Tina to marry him before she disappeared. Her last
communication was a voicemail, begging him to come get her. The call from Ste. Genevieve
had ended before she could complete her message, launching him into a panicked
search. Then, he’d been sure he would find Tina right away and everything would
be fine. Now, as the empty days stretched out ahead of him, he wasn’t so sure. “And
it’s been five months.”

“That’s a long time.” Gustave snugged the binoculars
to his eyes and scanned the river. When he brought them down, he asked, “Where
did you get these?”

“They were a Christmas present.” Rosswell scratched
his mustache. “I bought them for myself at a store in Saint Louis last year.
Same place I bought my Nikon 5100 DSLR camera.”

Gustave failed to look impressed. “Let’s talk man to man,
not sheriff to judge.”

“Sure.” Rosswell motioned to Gustave and they both sat
in the balcony chairs. The sun promised hotter weather than yesterday. The scent
of the heavenly brew in his cup spread as he sipped. “Have at it.”

The sheriff handed Rosswell the binoculars. “Were you
wearing your glasses when you were using these?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that difficult?”

Rosswell indicated the rubber eyecups on the
binoculars. “Not when you have these.”

Gustave pinched his nose before he chomped a bite off
the cigar. “Women’s hormones get all messed up.” After chewing the bite for a
couple of seconds, he leaned over the edge of the balcony and spit it onto the
lawn.

That’s a good way for you to get in trouble with Mrs.
Bolzoni. I’d like to see that!

“What are you saying?”

Gustave watched a flock of geese flying south for the
winter. The man made a habit of looking up when he struggled to choose the
right words. After the birds flew out of sight, Gustave lowered his gaze to
stare into Rosswell’s face. “Tina’s not in Sainte Gen.”

“Sheriff—”

“Call me Gustave. We’re talking man
to man.”

“Okay, Gustave, why do you say she’s not here?”

“The FBI, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Sainte
Gen City Police, and every man and woman in the Sainte Gen County sheriff’s
department have searched for her in every inch of the county. Not to mention
the hundred or so volunteers who combed the hills and woods. Same goes for the
surrounding counties in Missouri and the ones across the river.” Gustave aimed
his finger at Illinois. “Nothing. If there’s no ransom demand within
twenty-four to forty-eight hours, usually that means there’s no kidnapping.”

Rosswell tamped down his rising anger. He reminded
himself that he needed Gustave’s help. But someone should tell the pompous ass
that the holy woman, Sainte Geneviève, in whose honor both the town and the
county were named, would be horrified to hear herself referred to as Sainte Gen,
much less seeing her name misspelled all over the area as
Genevieve
instead of
Geneviève
. Those
accent thingies were important to the French. In his current uncertain mood,
Rosswell decided they were important to him as well. But it wouldn’t be wise to
make an issue of it.

The giant problem was that Fribeau represented
The Man
.
The wall between justice
and efficiency. As a judge, Rosswell himself was a brick in that barrier
although now he found himself on the outside, pounding on the wall, begging entry
to the side of justice. He needed the law’s help.

“A lot of people have done tons of work on Tina’s
case.” Rosswell sipped his espresso and again tried to center himself without
success. “I appreciate them.”

Gustave grunted something Rosswell couldn’t interpret.
The heat of the morning made sweat roll down Rosswell’s face. Fields of corn
and soybeans planted not a hundred feet from the water lay parched from lack of
rain. The river stunk of dead fish rotting in old mud.

Gustave picked up a thick book lying on a table next
to Rosswell’s camera. “Is this a collection of every Sherlock Holmes story ever
written?”

“No, only the ones by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Are you learning to be a detective?”

“Let’s talk about why I’m here, not my reading
material. I didn’t come here to play detective.” Rosswell plunked his cup into
its saucer, resting on the balcony railing. The loud clink told him he’d not
been as gentle with Mrs. Bolzoni’s good china as he could’ve been. “Tina wouldn’t
take off like that without letting me know. Hormones or no hormones. I know her
better than anyone does. Somebody’s got her and for some unknown reason isn’t
interested in ransom.”

Gustave studied his fingernails. Perhaps the man didn’t
appreciate his remarks being trivialized. Or maybe he knew something Rosswell
didn’t. Gustave brushed his hands, as if his fingernails had flaked off
something into his palms.

“I think she took off, but that’s only one of many possible
theories. I want her back with you, too. But we can’t explain it. She’s an
adult woman who can go where she wants. We have zero evidence that she’s in
this county.”

“I got a call from her the night she disappeared that
came from this county.”

Gustave threw the unlit cigar off the balcony. “The
FBI tracked the call to the payphone catty-corner to the courthouse at Merchant
and Fribeau.”

Rosswell grimaced. They were wasting time. “I know. The
little street named after your family.”

“It’s more of an alley.” Gustave smiled. “We’ve been
here a while.”

“Is the phone company planning to remove the payphone?”

Gustave’s fingernails were bitten back to the quick. He’d
chewed on one until it bled. “It makes sense to leave it. I asked the phone
company not to remove it, in case Tina comes back to use it.”

Rosswell jumped on that. “If you don’t think she’s in
the county, why did you ask them to leave that phone?”

Gustave’s demeanor seemed to soften. “There is one
thing.”

Rosswell braced himself for bad news. “Tell me.”

“I believe you.”

This was the time not for a question but a statement
of fact. “But you’re not going to look for her.”

“I didn’t say I’d stop.”

You didn’t say you’d keep searching. And your interest
is non-existent today. You haven’t taken note one.

Rosswell said, “That’s what I heard you say.”

“We’ve looked for her every place we know to look.”

Rosswell held up a forefinger. “Except one place.”

“And which place is that?”

“Wherever she is.” Rosswell hoped that place wasn’t at
the bottom of the river. He’d not mention that to the sheriff. “Whether you keep
searching for her or not, I’m never going to stop.”