Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 01 - Courting Murder (21 page)

“Open the door, damn it!
Nadine’s passed out and I don’t know how much longer I can stay conscious.”

The smoke thickened. It felt like it was over a hundred degrees.

“It’s not just shut. It’s locked,” Ollie said. “It’s a combination lock.”

“I know that. She already unlocked it when she opened it.”

“It’s locked now.”

“Nadine,” Rosswell said. He slapped her across the face. Her half-lidded eyes showed no response. He doubted that she could see him. “Nadine, can you hear me?” He slapped her again, harder. The thought of assaulting anyone, especially a woman, sickened him. The situation, however, seemed to warrant the rough treatment. He’d deal with his bad acts later. “What’s the combination?”

Rosswell latched on to her shoulders. After he shook her, she muttered, “Initials children Israel sealed.” Her eyes, barely open now, grew dimmer, then shut.

“What? Nadine, the combination!”

Ollie hollered up from the basement, “What’s the combination?”

“Nadine’s spouting nonsense. I don’t know.”

“What’s the nonsense?”

“She said, ‘Initials children Israel sealed’.”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! That’s it!”

What?
Rosswell heard the click of the buttons Ollie punched. Then heard the door open. What the hell kind of clue had Nadine given Rosswell? It sounded Biblical, but she hadn’t told him any series of letters. Ollie needed those to punch into the lock. Rosswell promised himself that if they got out of this alive, he’d have to reward Ollie. Maybe give him a couple of days’ credit on his next jail sentence. Ollie would appreciate that.

Ollie scrabbled his way back up the steps.

Rosswell said, “Did you find the keys?”

“No.” Ollie’s breathing sounded labored. Rosswell wheezed. Nadine still breathed, but Rosswell couldn’t get any response out of her. Ollie said, “Give me your phone. Need light.”

Rosswell patted himself down, praying his luck was better than Nadine’s. His cellphone was in his right pocket. “Here. Go get those keys.”

When Ollie reached the bottom of the steps, another fusillade rammed the other side of the door Rosswell leaned against. Even if Ollie made it back in time and Rosswell found the right key on the key ring, when he opened the door to the kitchen, they were all dead. On the other hand, if they stayed there without opening the door, they were all dead. No other alternative existed.

Ollie crawled back up the steps with the keys in his hand. An explosion sounded on the other side of the door. “Crap, now he’s bombing us.” Another explosion sounded.

“Find the key. If I’m going to die, I want to get shot.”

There had to be about a hundred keys. Rosswell picked a likely looking one and tried it. No luck. He noticed that it was a Lockset lock. Flipping through the selection of keys, he stopped when he reached a heavy one with a triangular handle.

“This one,” he said. “Try this one with the triangular handle.”

Rosswell had weakened to the point where he couldn’t reach the doorknob. A lot of good he’d do with his pistol.

“It’s called a bow, not a handle,” Ollie said, taking the shiny key from Rosswell, who toyed with the idea of shooting Ollie himself. They teetered on the verge of death and Ollie was playing trivia games.

But the key worked. The answer was clear. The right key had to be big, barely used. The key slipped into the lock like a perfect honeymoon. Ollie turned the key. “It won’t unlock.”

“Christ.”

“I think, we’re fixing to meet him.”

“Turn the key.”

“The heat.” Ollie gasped. “The heat is screwing up the lock.”

Nadine’s wheezing stopped. Rosswell said, “Nadine’s dead.” Ollie never paused. He drew out the key and spit on it, then stuck it back in the lock. It unlocked, the moisture of the spit reducing the friction enough to allow him to turn the key.

Rosswell pushed open the door, stood, and commenced firing. The pistol’s recoil, small as it was, knocked him down. Panting, he fell to the floor, waiting for the shooter to drill him through the head.

Nothing.

Through the smoke, he could make out the kitchen. No one was in there.

“Come on, Ollie. Help me drag her out.”

They reached the livingroom door. Apparently, the evildoer had set the back of the house on fire near the kitchen and garage. The front of the house had yet to be fully involved. When they struggled through the front door, Rosswell waved the gun around but found no target.

“Come out here, you son of a bitch,” he yelled.

Where had the bastard gone?

Ollie said, “Vicky’s still with us.”

The garage, a whole wall blown out, was the victim of the two cans of gasoline. Vicky sat far enough away to miss any real damage. Or so Rosswell prayed.

The fresh air revived Ollie and Rosswell. Rosswell put his ear next to Nadine’s nose and mouth. The noise of the fire made it impossible to hear. There was no way to tell if she was still breathing. Rosswell stretched her out and pumped her full of air with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The sirens reached his brain.

“God almighty,” Nadine said. Jerking upright, she launched into a coughing spasm that sounded like it would end with her expelling a lung. When the seizure ended, she said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Disoriented, she shot up and ran the opposite way from Vicky. Ollie tackled her.

Nadine pounded on Ollie’s head, screaming at him. Rosswell grabbed her in a full nelson and yelled in her ear, “Follow Ollie.”

Ollie and Rosswell had been destined to beat up the same woman today. Rosswell hoped Nadine would forgive them. Rosswell hoped Tina would forgive him for slapping and then deep kissing Nadine.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. Rosswell released her, and the three of them dashed for Vicky. Nadine yelled, “Stop screaming at me.”

Something was wrong. Rosswell wondered why no one was shooting at them. The shooter wouldn’t have simply given up and gone home to check what was on cable television.

Vicky started, Rosswell backed out, and they ripped down the road of the long, narrow valley that led to Marble Hill. Coming toward them were sirens. The telephone supervisor must’ve gotten enough power on the horn to send rescue troops their way. How was that possible? Frizz couldn’t get extra help but a telephone operator could call out an army of cops?

The sound and feel of the house burning reminded Rosswell of a hot tornado whipping itself into a fury behind his back, fixing to chase him. Another sound overrode the sound of the fire. The deduction was clear as the sky after a storm moves through. The shooter had heard the sirens and beat feet. The bastard had to be close. But where? Was he in a car or on foot?

“Damn it.” Nadine turned her head to watch her house burning to the ground until Rosswell turned a corner and it left her view. “Everything I worked for … gone.”

Ollie said, “It was a nice house. I’m sorry, Nadine.”

She smiled. “The good part is that my little … garden … it’s gone now.”

Ollie said, “Meaning?”

“I won’t be going to jail for my illegal garden.”

“Garden?” Rosswell said. “What garden?”

“All my beautiful White Widow. Up in smoke.” Nadine faced forward. “I meant for it to go up in smoke. But not that way.”

“White Widow?” Ollie said. “Marijuana?”

Rosswell said, “I didn’t see any marijuana. Did you see any marijuana, Ollie?”

“Nope. Never saw a thing. I’ve never seen any marijuana anywhere, except in the movies. Or television. Or pictures of it. But never in real life.”

Rosswell tried imitating Ollie’s squeak without success.

Nadine said, “Both y’all look and smell like the shit you’re full of.”

A fire truck screamed past them, heading for Nadine’s.

“Maybe they didn’t recognize my
car,” Rosswell said when none of the firefighters paid them a mouse lick of attention.

Nadine said, “They’d have to be blind to miss an orange rind packed with grubby scoundrels.”

Ollie said, “They don’t care about us. Just the fire. Someone must’ve called the fire department.”

The three of them were covered with soot and ash the color of dog-vomit gray. Rosswell’s face felt like the business side of a piece of rough grit sandpaper. He couldn’t smell anything but burning house and contents.

Ollie said, “Judge, you can talk to them back in town. We need to get to the hospital. We could be injured.”

“I’m not stopping for anything. Coming close to dying once a day is one time too many.”

In front of Rosswell on the road, a woman in blue jeans, a gray sweatshirt, big bracelets, sunglasses, and a ball cap stood in a shooter’s stance, pointing an AK-47 at them. The same woman that bribed the Eagle Scout.

Candy Lavaliere.

Frizz had, after all, arrested the right person. He just didn’t know it.

Blue and red lights flashed in front of Rosswell and a siren squawked. A firefighter in his personal vehicle who was following the trucks waved at Rosswell, who stomped on the brakes and jumped out.

“Over there,” he yelled and pointed.

At nothing. Candy had disappeared, no doubt fleeing into the woods.

The firefighter stopped and scowled at Rosswell. “I’m on my way to a fire.”

Rosswell said, “You got a radio?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Rosswell leaped back into the car. “Call Frizz. Tell him that Candy Lavaliere 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?”

“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 monumental proportions. This bit of gossip would no doubt live for a century or two in the annals of weird local things.

Rosswell wondered if the motorcyclists knew Purvis’s secret identity. Rosswell wasn’t going to tell them. He suspected that the arrest of Purvis, and then Frizz freeing him shortly thereafter, only raised Purvis’s standing among the Harley bunch.

Through the mass of red hair covering the face of Purvis, Rosswell recognized the big man throwing him an evil eye, clearly signaling danger.

Purvis headed straight for Rosswell.