Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 01 - Courting Murder (7 page)

“Judge,” he said, his eyes still closed, “we’ve missed the mother of all clues. Maybe. Anyway, I guess we should both turn in our Junior G Men badges, we’re so dense.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ollie opened his eyes and pointed. “Tires.”

“Damnation.” Rosswell whipped out his cell phone. No bars. “Ollie, don’t move.”

Rosswell touched the peace symbol on his car, then jumped in, and raced down the hill to
Hermie’s gazebo.

When he got there, Hermie sprinted to his car. “Judge, this morning after y’all left—”

“Okay, Hermie. Thanks.”

Rosswell punched in the speed dial and said, “Come on, come on, come on,” until he heard her answer.

“Tina, I need your help.
” He’d called on her personal cell number. No sense in calling on the official line, the one recorded for all posterity. If he did that, there would be evidence he was playing detective.

Tina said in a soft voice, “I hope you need my help.” She gave a little growl. She didn’t sound like an official dispatcher for a sheriff’s department. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

“No,” Rosswell said. “I mean your help legally. As a cop, I mean.”

Static buzzed in the heartbeat of silence that followed. Then, “What kind of help?”

“You went to the academy and learned all that forensic stuff, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but I had to do that for my job as dispatcher.” Rosswell heard the radio crackling in the background. Someone was looking for somebody. He heard Tina rustling papers, then tell someone where somebody was. “I’m not a cop,” she eventually said to Rosswell. “Not in the strict sense of the word. I’m a deputy, but not one who goes out
on the street.” Her tone of voice deepened, grew more tense. “You’re worrying me. What do you need?”

“Do you know how to pour a mold of tire tracks?”

“Sure.”

“Then come out here to the death scene and do it.”

He heard Frizz in the background say something to Tina. Why wasn’t he with the search party? She said, “Sheriff, I’ll be right with you.” Then to Rosswell she said, “Let me talk this over with Frizz. I’ll get back with you. We’re hugely busy.” The line went dead.

Hermie tapped Rosswell’s shoulder. “Judge, I was trying to tell you. There was a car out here earlier that drove up to where the bodies were found.”

“I know. I called the sheriff to tell him.” In truth, he’d called the dispatcher on her private line. Same thing as calling the sheriff. Almost.

“The car came in about an hour before you and Ollie got here. It didn’t stay long.”

Rosswell moved closer to Hermie to ask a question. “You let them go through?”

The beginnings of a pout started on
Hermie’s face. “Y’all didn’t put up any yellow tape or crime scene signs around the area. The sheriff didn’t declare it off-limits. That’s a rule, you know.” He focused on his shoes, hiding his hangdog look. “How was I supposed to know that people couldn’t go up there?” Despite Hermie averting his face, Rosswell could smell America’s favorite drug on his breath.

“No one’s blaming you for anything.” What Rosswell really wanted to ask him was where he was hiding with his bottle when the car came in. Frizz should’ve given Hermie instructions on what to watch for before the crew packed up and headed for town that morning. Here was another reason the sheriff needed Rosswell on his team. Rosswell wouldn’t have forgotten a detail like that.

Hermie didn’t raise his head. “Silver.”

“What?”

“It was a silver car.”

“What kind?”

“Pretty new. Had a chicken claw. Maybe a Malibu.” Hermie swiveled his head to stare at a large oak tree with squirrels running up and down its trunk.

Rosswell said, “Chicken claw?”

Hermie let fire an alcoholic belch. “Yeah, one of those things.” He made motions with his fingers that Rosswell couldn’t follow.

This interview ranks up there with the Titanic
.

Rosswell said, “You mean the make of car?”

“Maybe not a Malibu,” Hermie said. “Could’ve been a Lexus or a Kia or an Infiniti. Maybe a Taurus. They all look alike.” Still inspecting the tree, he expelled a huge sigh. “No imagination anymore. I could spot your orange car a mile off, but today everyone else has to drive a car that looks like every other car and a dull color to boot.” Hermie shook his head and his jowls flapped. “Back in my day, we had cars that were colorful, and you could tell a Ford from a Chevy or a Plymouth. I remember when my dad’s car—”

“Did it have Missouri tags?”

“Yes, he always bought Missouri tags. He lived in Missouri.”

“I mean the car that drove out of here.” Rosswell ground his teeth. Hermie answered immediately. “I don’t know, but it was silver.”

“The license plate was silver?”

“No, the car was silver. I just told you that.”
Hermie’s explanation was growing harder to follow.

Rosswell said, “Where were you when the car came into the park?”

“See … I … I was checking on a few things back yonder.” He waved an arm in the direction of the woods. “I didn’t actually watch them come in.”

“Them? Did you see the car leave?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I was right here.” He pointed to the gazebo. “I saw the car leave all right.”

“Them. You said them. How many people were in the car?”

Hermie closed his eyes and then rubbed his eyelids. Maybe that’s what he did to make answers appear in his head. “One.” His eyes popped open. They were still as bloodshot as they were that morning.

“Did you see who was driving the car?”

“You got that straight. Couldn’t miss that.”

“Tell me.”

Hermie said, “Big. The driver was big.”

“Woman or man?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Race?”

“No, they were driving pretty slow.”

“I mean was the driver white, black, brown, what?”

“Oh. I couldn’t tell. I guess white.”

Rosswell said, “There was no one else in the car besides the driver?”

“Not that I could tell.”

That narrowed it down to maybe several hundred suspects: A big person, maybe white, driving a silver car that looked like a Chevy or Plymouth or Ford or some other brand with tags from somewhere, maybe Missouri. Rosswell pondered how many actual cars there were in the area that fit that description. And how many people fit that description. No maybe about it. There were several hundred suspects on his suspect list but none on the really good suspect list.

Hermie said, “Besides that silver car, I saw a Cadillac with a big driver.”

“You know for certain that this car was a Cadillac?”

“Oh, yeah. A big Cadillac. A big driver.”

Rosswell said, “Was it silver?”

“No. White.”

“How about the driver? Male? Female? White? Black? Asian?”

“Couldn’t tell. The windows were those smoky ones you can’t see through. I thought those were illegal.”

In his effort to be helpful, Hermie kept losing Rosswell with his
roundabout way of speaking. “How did you know the driver was big if you couldn’t see the driver?”

“Shadows. The driver was big.”

Hermie’s too drunk to make sense. How could he have seen shadows in a car with dark windows?

“I don’t guess you got a tag number.”

“No. Sorry.”

“Hermie, did the white Cadillac leave before or after the silver car?” Surely, there weren’t a lot of white Cadillacs in Bollinger County. Hermie may’ve given a good lead and not even realized it. Rosswell silently ticked off the owners of white Cadillacs he could recall. Ambrosia
Forcade, a lawyer he suspected of withholding client funds. “Turtles” Rasmussen, a man who owned lots of real estate with no visible means of support; Rosswell couldn’t recall his real first name. Susan Bitti, owner of a successful furniture store. Trisha Reynaud, president of Marble Hill National Bank. None of them was a particularly big person.

“The Caddy left first, I’m pretty sure.”

Tina Parkmore pulled up behind Rosswell and honked her horn, scaring the hell out of him.

“Hey, Hermie! Hey, Judge!” She’d driven her silver Nissan Sentra with Missouri tags to the park. Fortunately, she wasn’t big. Rosswell mentally crossed her off the really good suspect list.

Rosswell patted the hood of Tina’s ride and asked Hermie, “Was this the silver car you saw?”

“Oh, no. I’d have recognized Miss Tina.”

“I hope so.” She flipped her hair and threw her head back in what the old-time movies called a coquettish gesture. “I come out here a lot to sunbathe.”

Hermie grinned. Fond memories, Rosswell supposed, of watching Tina sunbathe.

“Judge, why wouldn’t Hermie recognize me?”

Rosswell explained, as kindly as he could, what Hermie had said
about suspicious cars that had left the park not that long ago.

“Ah.” She extracted a plastic tub from the back seat of the car. “I’ve got plenty of Plaster of Paris.”

Hermie said, “Paris?”

Rosswell said, “For the tire impression?”

Tina said, “True enough.”

They left Hermie scratching his head, and each drove to the crime scene. Ollie’s eyes grew wide when he saw the dispatcher. “You talked Frizz into letting Tina come up here?” Tina tugged on Rosswell’s sleeve.

“We need to talk.”

They walked out of Ollie’s earshot.

Tina grabbed Rosswell’s elbow. They had their backs to Ollie. “Why do you have him with you?”

“He’s my research assistant.”

“So you say.” She leaned closer, put her forefinger on his lips. “I thought I was your research assistant.”

“You are.” Was his face as red as it felt? “Ollie does a different kind of research.”

“How many times have you thrown him in jail?”

He grasped both of her hands. “Don’t you believe in rehabilitation?”

Tina released herself and pushed away. “Frizz said that I could take the tire tracks for you, but that’s it. He doesn’t know about Ollie helping you. He’ll be pissed.”

“Meaning?”

“Rosswell, he doesn’t want you involved in this, much less Ollie. Right now he’s swamped with coordinating the search team. This weekend he’s got traffic problems all over the county with the Hogfest coming. In fact, there’s a bunch of Harleys already here. You can’t get involved.”

“I am involved.” Gesturing toward the crime scene, he said, “I found the bodies. I’m the main witness.”

“Just be involved for this one thing, okay?” When he didn’t say anything, Tina said, “Please? Just this one thing? The tire track? Promise?”

“Damn it, Tina, two people were murdered. They were human beings with lives that they wanted to live. Frizz needs my help.”

The beginnings of a pout started on Tina’s face. That morning, Rosswell had made Hermie pout, and now he was making the sweet Tina pout.

“Tina… .” Words mixed up in his brain. He wanted to please her but he also had a duty to the legal system. Yes, he was a judge and not a cop. But he needed to help preserve law and order.
What better way to do his duty than to catch the murderers of the two people? Murderers? Did I say murderers? I’m assuming again.
“Tina, I can’t promise you anything.” He didn’t like the expression on her face. Pouting, glaring, the whole nine yards, plus a couple of other yards. “Except that I love you.”

“I love you, too, but that’s not what this is about.”

“Let’s do this. Take the tire impression and we’ll talk to Frizz when we get back to town.”

“Deal.”

They rejoined Ollie. Tina whipped out a tape measure and laid it alongside the tire track. “Wow. Three feet of good track. Where’s your camera?”

Rosswell grabbed the Nikon. “Reporting for duty.”

“I need a million pictures taken from every possible angle. From way down low to as high up as you can reach. Left side, right side, all around the town. I need a lot of ninety degree angle shots to make sure there’s no distortion. And keep that tape measure in every shot. Every picture may wind up in a courtroom in front of a jury.”

Ollie whistled. “Damn, you’re good, Miss Tina.”

Rosswell patted Ollie’s shoulder, causing him to flinch. “When Tina Parkmore speaks, you best listen.”

“I’m talking right now.” She bent down by the tire track. “See this
jagged edge?”

Ollie and Rosswell peered over her shoulder. A whiff of her perfume improved the scene. Nibbling Tina’s ear crossed Rosswell’s mind as a good idea, until he realized that Ollie wouldn’t appreciate the subtlety of such a gesture.

She used the tape measure to point. “The tires are wearing unevenly. That’s what’s making the lightning zigzag in the track.” She stood, glancing backward and forward. “My best guess is that this tire track is going forward. Here’s the direction of travel.” She indicated with her toe. “It’s a 16-inch tire.” She handed the tape measure to Rosswell. “That’s my best guess. I’ll know more when I run the crown depth and the tread pattern.”

Rosswell filled Ollie in on the description of the silver car, such as it was, that Hermie had given.

Ollie stuffed his hands in his pockets. “In other words, we have to track down every midsized silver car with 16-inch tires that has one tire wearing unevenly in a lightning-shaped zigzag.”

Tina gave the two a thumbs up. “True enough.”

Rosswell said, “That narrows it down to only a couple of hundred or so.”

Ollie said, “I can do that.”

She pointed to the camera. “Does that thing do video?”