Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 01 - Courting Murder (2 page)

On the other end, the phone rang. No answer and no voicemail. It simply kept ringing.

“How come I can’t let anyone in?” Hermie shined his badge with a shirt cuff. “The park’s open and I have to let people in.” He’d undoubtedly heard rumors about the judge who did and said strange things. Especially after Rosswell had a
snootful. “I can’t tell people they’re barred from the park. The taxpayers expect their park to be open.”

“That’s a court order. No one comes in this park. And you stop and detain anyone who tries to leave. That’s a court order, too.”

“Court order? Stop and detain?”

“Something
bad’s happened.”

Rosswell’s call ended. He pressed redial.

Hermie’s eyes brightened. Apparently, the thought that he might stop and detain someone under a court order from a judge put visions of a headline-worthy arrest in his brain. “Stop and detain. I got it. Stop and detain.”

Rosswell could tell that Hermie liked the sound of the phrase. The ranger straightened his spine, jutted his chin and belly forward, pulled his shoulders back, and dropped his hands to his side. He saluted Rosswell, whose gut rumbled a warning that Hermie couldn’t be trusted to guard a crime scene.

“Frizz,” Rosswell said when he eventually got an answer, “I’m here with Hermie Hillsman at the front gate out at Foggy Top. There’re two bodies in Picnic Area 3.”

Hermie belched and stiffened even more, whipping his head left and right to inspect the area around him. The news sobered him. His frown made Rosswell glad the ranger didn’t have a gun, else he may have shot an innocent picnicker on sight if the picnicker didn’t want to be stopped and detained.

“
Bodies?
” Sheriff Charles “Frizz” Dodson yelled into the phone at his end of the conversation. “Rosswell, don’t you touch a damned thing. I’ll be right there.”

Frizz seemed particularly cranky. He hung up before Rosswell could tell him goodbye. That was no way to talk to a judge. And what the hell did he think Rosswell would touch? His cellphone felt hot, as if Frizz’s blast had heated up its innards.

Hermie said, “There are two bodies up there?”

“Correct.”

“Are they fresh?”

Rosswell sniffed but at this distance couldn’t smell anything nasty. “Not very.”

“How long have they been dead?”

“Hermie,” Rosswell said, ignoring his question, “do you have video surveillance here?” He waved his hand around, pointing to various locations in the gazebo.

“You mean like a movie camera?”

The heat made sweat pour down Rosswell’s face and neck. “Yeah, like a movie camera.” His patience evaporated as the sweat increased. The thickening clouds in the sky had no effect on the high temperature, but they made his head hurt. The migraine made Rosswell long for clear blue skies.

Hermie shined his badge with his shirtsleeve again while he surveyed the park for people. “The state barely has enough money to keep this place open, much less put up movie camera surveillance.” After turning a complete circle, he said, “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

“When was the last time you saw anyone come in here?”

“Today?” Rosswell’s estimation of Hermie’s intelligence lowered by the second.

“Hermie, any time. Today. Yesterday. Whenever.”

“Must’ve been yesterday sometime. Or maybe the day before. No cars.”

Hermie could’ve been passed out and missed a parade. The killer could’ve driven right past him and he’d have never noticed.

Hermie said, “I saw a couple of people in a canoe, paddling down Cloudy River.”

He referred to the quarter-mile-wide river, now running high with last night’s rain. Cloudy River lived up to its name during most of the year, running muddy and murky.

“Did you see anyone drive up to Picnic Area 3? Or any hikers? Did you see anybody on foot?”

“No, I didn’t see anyone doing any of that.” Hermie stopped, then tapped a finger on his forehead, evidently to demonstrate that he was thinking. “Wait a minute.”

When he didn’t continue, Rosswell scratched his mustache and said, “What is it?”

“A couple of weeks ago, there was a car up there. Maybe two cars. Some guy drove a car up and then drove a different car down. And then he drove the first car down. Or maybe it was a woman. Then there was that fraternity party from out at the university. One girl took
her clothes off and all the boys cheered. Rough looking characters. The next day some Methodists had a church picnic up there. They sang a lot of hymns. Then there was a couple of guys who looked like homeless bums. About a week ago, teachers from the school brought some seventh graders out to look at caterpillars or snakes or some- thing.”

“Thanks,” Rosswell said. A lot of good all that would do. Anybody coming up here that long ago couldn’t have had anything to do with a recent murder. “One last thing. Can you smell the bodies?”

Hermie sniffed, like a beagle searching for a scent. “No. Sorry.”

Maybe that meant the bodies weren’t as ripe as Rosswell had first thought. Yet, with the heat, decomposition would’ve been rapid. The murders could’ve taken place yesterday or even earlier that morning.

Rosswell said, “Don’t be sorry.” Pinching his nose again didn’t improve the smell in his nostrils. “You’re not missing anything.”

“Judge, I’ll do my duty.”

“This is a crime scene, Hermie. Do your best. I’m counting on you.”

When Rosswell turned to leave, Hermie saluted him again.

Rosswell drove back to the death scene and left Vicky to go stand guard by the log. After several minutes, he grabbed his camera, forcing himself back to the grisly site, careful not to approach closer than thirty or so feet to the bodies.

The corpses, he noticed on closer examination, were laid neatly next to each other, but not touching. Race, white. Probably. He guessed one male, the other female, each probably under forty. Both were about the same size. The male was dressed in blue jeans and a long sleeved red shirt. Rosswell found the long sleeves odd, considering the heat. The female wore a yellow sundress and, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him, red high heels.
Who the hell wears high heels and a dress to go out in the woods?
The male, on Rosswell’s left, had both arms pointing down at 45 degree angles. The woman had her left arm pointing up at a 180 degree angle from her body, her right arm down at a 180 degree angle.

The scene was strange, so Rosswell inspected the bodies again.

There was something odd about their placement. It would come to him if he thought long enough. He didn’t see it.

The longer he stood there, the worse the smell became.
Aren’t you supposed to get used to a smell if you hang around sniffing it for a while?
Deep breaths were alleged to help, but the deeper he breathed, the more his mouth tasted like a full garbage can sitting in the sun on the shores of the Dead Sea.

If he’d known one or both of the victims in life, he couldn’t recognize either of them now.

How had they died? With the bloating, he could tell little. Gazing at a bloated, dead human being was something he hadn’t done since his time in the military. He hadn’t missed doing it. Or much else about the military. Combat trauma made him view dead people in a skewed light.

Rosswell didn’t venture any nearer to the corpses. Death he could stand. Listening to the sheriff bitch about him screwing up a crime scene he couldn’t stand.

The scene worked a number on him. Acid reflux, his ever-present friend in times of stress, roared around his gut and seared his throat, joining his migraine for a happy dance on his whole body. Naturally, his allergies felt obliged to join in the assault on his health, inundating him with sneezing fits and burning eyes.

He returned to the barricade on the road and tugged the log off. This time when he moved it, he dislodged a mess of white wormy things. Termites. The formic acid stink of alarmed termites joined the other nasty odors. He saw something else besides wood and termites. A ring, a man’s ring by its size and appearance, fell out of the log. He scooped it up, and examined the skull and crossbones emblazoned on its onyx face and the writing inscribed inside the band.

When he heard a cacophony of sirens, he dropped the ring in his pocket.

Rosswell leaned against his little
convertible, still parked by the log, waiting for the squadron of Bollinger County’s finest. Vicky’s Monarch Orange Pearl paint job shone like a beacon for the cops to follow.

The heat, while unbearable, kept the wind down. Without a breeze blowing his way, he hoped he could manage the smell from the bodies, which grew stronger. Tree frogs, crickets, and some other critters screeched in rhythm. Unpleasant background noise to a ghastly tableau. Rosswell’s keen hearing made the scene worse instead of better.

Sheriff Frizz Dodson arrived first, his spotless silver sedan sporting a shiny tag reading: Bollinger County SD #1. Rosswell jumped to the side to avoid Frizz’s splatters when the car fishtailed and slopped through a mud puddle. The sheriff’s sedan suffered glop slung all over the formerly shiny body. Rosswell remained untouched.

“Judge Carew, why were you up here in the first place?” Frizz yelled out the window before the car lurched to a stop, throwing more
goop everywhere. Rosswell wondered why the hell Frizz couldn’t stay on the dry parts of the road instead of aiming for every mud hole. Frizz hopped out. When the tall man grimaced, his bright, straight teeth made him look like he had a mouthful of sixty-four pearly whites instead of thirty-two.

Rosswell, shaking his head over the mud bath on the patrol car, pushed his glasses up onto his nose and ambled over to greet the sheriff. “Hunting mushrooms.” Rosswell hooked a quizzical look onto his face. The gesture made him appear innocent and trusting. No one could disbelieve him.

“That’s a load of horse puckey.” Frizz yanked his hat from his head, and the mass of curly black hair on his oversized head that gave rise to his nickname popped out, soaked with sweat. He forked a huge handkerchief from his back pocket, scrubbed his smooth, unlined face, and then buffed the inside of the hat. “You’re standing at a murder scene.”

“I just murdered two people and thought you should know.”

“Stop with the sarcasm.” Frizz sniffed. “What a god-awful stink.”

“You started it.”

“The stink?”

“No,” Rosswell said. “The sarcasm. I’m sorry if I inconvenienced you.”

“Did you get my voicemail?”

Rosswell checked his phone. “No.”

“I was having a nice breakfast conversation with my wife over some personal issues.”

Rosswell said, “A couple of people out here had some personal issues.”

“So you say.” Frizz scratched his nose, the scent of death no doubt insulting his olfactory nerves. “Picking mushrooms on state property is illegal.”

“I’m the judge, remember? I’ve read a statute or two in my time.” Rosswell strode back to his car, snatched his camera off the passenger
seat, and thrust it towards the sheriff. “I didn’t say I was picking anything. I was taking pictures, not searching for supper.”

Rosswell clicked through a preview of the sixty or so photos of mushrooms that he’d taken other places, careful not to show Frizz any of the pictures of the bodies. Some of the mushroom snaps showed poisonous ones. Every time Rosswell clicked on an
Amanita
or a False Morel, he’d say, “If I’d eaten one of those, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Frizz clamped a hand on Rosswell’s arm, signaling him to stop the slide show. “You got plenty of film?” Frizz apparently wasn’t impressed with Rosswell’s mushroom pictures.

“It’s a digital camera. Film died at the end of the twentieth century.”

“Yeah,” Frizz said. “I knew that. What I meant was, can you take a lot more pictures?”

“A couple of thousand.” Rosswell was prepared. Eighty gigabytes worth of memory cards nestled in the camera bag. “That’s an underestimation.”

“Then start shooting. Everything. And when you finish, go back and take more. Every possible angle.”

Rosswell nodded but said nothing. It would only irritate Frizz if he knew that Rosswell had already snapped a few photos of the bodies.

Frizz’s request meant that he needed Rosswell to assist him, didn’t it? And why shouldn’t Rosswell be a sleuth? His leukemia, in remission now, wouldn’t kill him for a long time. Maybe not for another year. Maybe even longer. The only thing standing between Rosswell and his desire to be a detective was common sense. In truth, Frizz didn’t need Rosswell
anymore than a goat needs a watch, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Frizz.

Rosswell grinned. He reached up to smooth his red power tie, then realized he wasn’t wearing his customary suit, but a sweaty tee shirt and dirty blue jeans. Catching a whiff of himself, he realized that his body odor hovered just this side of repellent.

Rosswell said, “You’re deputizing me?”

If they caught the bad guy, Rosswell would be a witness, not the judge. This freed him to help in the investigation. Anticipating a Sherlock Holmes role, Rosswell raised his right hand, palm towards Frizz. During Medieval times, people did that to show that they were peaceable and carried no sword. Waiting for the swearing in, Rosswell blinked several times and sneezed twice.
Fricking allergies.

“No,” Frizz said. “I’m only drafting you to take pictures.” The big man replaced his hat. “For free. You’re an unpaid consultant. Put your hand down and get to work.”

“You need help. The Harley riders are due on Thursday. Maybe some will be here tomorrow or Wednesday. You have three deputies. There’s one city cop and he’s an idiot.”

“I can handle it, don’t worry.”

“This is a double homicide. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

Frizz said, “I’ve got all the help I can get.”

“But not all the help that you need.”

Frizz’s face turned red. “Rosswell, you’re the judge. I’m the cop.”

“After all, I did find the bodies.” Rosswell sneezed. “And I’m a witness here, not a judge. A judge can’t hold court when he’s the witness.” The argument over whether Rosswell would be an official detective or an amateur sleuth moved into the hold position when a Road Rescue Ambulance equipped to the max with hundred-decibel sirens and supernova lights howled towards the two men. Late last year, Homeland Security had awarded the wicked vehicle to Bollinger County. If terrorists ever targeted the Ozarks, Bollinger County stood ready in uptown style. At least in the ambulance department.

Neal Borland, the medical examiner, lumbered out of the ambulance when it stopped. Red and blue lights swirling, its sirens ripped apart the quiet of the death scene. Two EMTs, one male, the other female, opened the rear door, jumped to the ground, and pulled on clear rubber gloves.

“Dr. Borland,” Rosswell yelled, “can you cut off the sirens? You’re scaring the squirrels and the deer with that racket.” The traffic in this part of the county was nonexistent, leaving no need for sirens, lights, and speeding.

“Standard operating procedure.” Freckles blanketed Neal’s large face, hairless except for pale red eyebrows, two shades lighter than his unkempt hair, which, as always, stuck out in disarray atop his square head. “Saves time when we’re in emergency mode.” He motioned to one of the EMTs who cut off the siren. “Besides, it’s a Federal regulation.”

“Oh?” Rosswell said. “Was there traffic?” Maybe Neal was trying to deafen people so he could garner more patients for his medical practice. The medical examiner position didn’t pay much.

“Where are the bodies?” Neal asked, not even favoring Rosswell with a glance.

Frizz pointed to the corpses, then glared at Rosswell, with a look that he understood meant
Shut your trap
.

Neal, wiping sweat off his large face, trundled to the bodies while Rosswell snapped pictures. The EMTs blocked his view in a couple of shots, and he told them to move.

“Any ID?” Neal asked. The smell must not have bothered him since he made no expression of disgust nor did he slather the inside of his nostrils with Vicks.

“Didn’t check,” Rosswell said.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Ross.”

“It’s
Rosswell
. I don’t have an abbreviation for that name. It’s a family name. From way back.” Rosswell sent a silent prayer up, requesting forgiveness for his anal reaction to Neal’s barb while they were at a death scene. Coming to his own defense, Rosswell knew his Scottish forebears would be horrified to hear Neal kicking around the sacred surname.

“Frizz,” Neal said, “you got any idea who these bodies are?”

“These bodies,” Rosswell said, “are people.”

“Not a clue.” Frizz rubbed his face with his handkerchief. “I didn’t
search them. I was waiting for you.” Frizz inched toward the bodies. “Besides, they’re unrecognizable.”

“Got that straight.” Neal bent close to what Rosswell presumed was the male corpse and waved the bugs away. The dark swarm of critters buzzed angrily. Maybe they’d bite Neal. “Throat slit.” He clumped around to the other body and knelt beside it. “I can’t see any wounds, but with the way this corpse is puffed up, there’s no way to tell for sure.”

Puffed up? Is that a medical term I’m not familiar with? What’s the next goody Neal would come up with? Smelling like rotten crap? Green as goose grease?

The relationship between Neal and Rosswell wasn’t doused with honey. The friction partially resulted from Rosswell’s penchant for moving court proceedings at a steady pace. Neal’s testimony tended to consist of explaining how a split hair could be further split seventeen different ways.

Rosswell asked Neal, “How about doing an autopsy?” That suffocated any rapport that may’ve been left.

Neal, without averting his gaze from the face of the dead woman, said, “Judge, what’s your official capacity here?”

“I asked him to take pictures,” Frizz said. “He’s got his camera.”

“Yes, you need a camera to take pictures.” Neal eyed the Nikon. “I’ll need a print of all your shots.”

“My prices are quite reasonable,” Rosswell said. “I do insist on the money up front. My bookkeeping isn’t set up for time payments.”

Neal said to Frizz, “Did you call him out here?”

“Nope.”

“I discovered the bodies,” Rosswell said. “I called Frizz out here.

Then he deputized me.”

Frizz said, “I did no such thing.”

“Frizz, you drafted me to do detective work for free, which made me a deputy.”

Neal stood, brushed his pants off, and turned to Rosswell. “You
were out here with a camera and just happened to discover two bodies?” His eyebrows shot up in what Rosswell took to be a sign of disbelief. “What a happy coincidence.”

“If you must know, I was searching for mushrooms. I didn’t get far before I found those two.”

Neal said, “You always have a very smooth explanation.”

“You got that from
The Maltese Falcon
, didn’t you? I love that movie.”

“Never saw it.” Neal stopped brushing his pants. “It’s illegal to pick mushrooms in a state park.”

Rosswell said, “No crap?” Neal frequently generated a one-man cluster. Rosswell again pegged the times Neal testified in court, often wandering into strange territory. Many times Rosswell had told him, “Dr. Borland, if someone asks you what time it is, don’t answer by telling us how to build a watch.”

Neal said, “In my experience, the best suspect in a murder case is the guy who saw the victim last or the guy who finds the body.”

“I don’t recognize that,” Rosswell said. “What movie is that from?”

Neal said, “It’s not movie dialog. It’s fact.”

A streak of lightning knifed across the sky. Another bolt crashed into one of the big oak trees where Rosswell had been searching. The explosion reverberated in the hills for what seemed several minutes and would ring in his ears for what seemed hours. The tree split from top to bottom, yet didn’t fall apart. Daylight shone in places along the oak’s naked wound. Tree bark flew everywhere, a chunk of it missing Rosswell’s head by a millimeter. Thunder boomed and rattled without let up. A rip in the dark sky poured out a deluge worthy of Noah. Mud from the river’s bank fell off in clumps into the torrent. The rain, thick and fast, blinded everyone as they lunged for cover. Frizz scrambled for the patrol car. Neal and the EMTs bolted for the ambulance.

Rosswell headed for his convertible. He struggled to fasten the purple convertible top in place, pinching his fingers several times before he succeeded. He’d kept the car in pristine condition from the
time he was sixteen. After his mother died, he couldn’t bear to sell it. Fortunately, there was only about a half-inch of water in Vicky the Volkswagen by the time he secured the top. He loved Vicky, even though she was a machine. Tina loved tooling around in the old car. If Vicky was ruined, Tina would cry and Rosswell would be ready for the grim reaper to come fetch him. Worse than that, Rosswell would be consigned to driving his boring black 1994 GMC pickup truck.

Thirty minutes later the rain slowed to a drizzle.

The noise of the river, now flooding higher than Rosswell had ever seen it, grew louder even as the storm abated. A horrendous volume of upstream water chugged downstream. Rushing past the picnic area, the murky water tore out large trees and ate up the banks. Small trees tumbled down through the water, now darker than he’d ever seen it.