Bill Hopkins - Judge Rosswell Carew 02 - River Mourn (18 page)

After
cleaning up and then
wolfing down
Mabel’s breakfast that
morning, Rosswell had sat on the bench all day,
estimating that he’d drunk a gallon of coffee before leaving the courthouse. In
between cases, he’d grown tense when chatting with every law enforcement agent
he knew resulted in zero interest. The only evidence he could produce was the
photographs he’d emailed to himself.

“No body, no crime,” one of them said. “PhotoShop,”
another said. A third said, “We’re working on crimes with real evidence.”

The only one he hadn’t spoken to was Jim Bill Evans,
whose incoming voicemail message promised to return the call if you left your
name with a brief message. Why Rosswell had bothered trying to convince anyone
else but the fire marshal was a puzzle his fatigued brain couldn’t handle.

That afternoon, consuming a huge portion of Mrs.
Bolzoni’s deluxe lasagna (chicken, beef, three kinds of cheese) roused the
sleep monster in Rosswell. After supper, he aimed himself for the stairs to
answer the call of his bed. He hadn’t slept since Wednesday night. He knew that
the instant he plummeted into the bed that neither the caffeine mixed with the
anxiety of the day nor the sunshine of the late afternoon would bother him.
Plunging into the depths of a dreamless sleep sounded glorious.

Mrs. Bolzoni blocked the staircase. “Don’t go to the
bed yet. You
must meet someone.”

“I’m very tired.” Fatal exhaustion was too weak a phrase
to describe what he felt. Rosswell’s muscles screamed as if he’d been beaten by
back alley thugs. His eyes, sandy as a beach, felt like Captain LaFaire had
welded anchors to his eyelids. “I’d have to die to feel better.”

“This won’t be long in taking. You stay out all night
and come back after wrestling in mud. And the smell not good either. Smell like
dead fish. I wash your clothes twice today. They still are dirty. You should
get new.”

“Ollie and I had a lot of errands to run. I had a flat
tire on the truck. It was a mess getting it changed.” What was a little black
lie after all the felonies he’d committed? He stifled a belch, tasting the
lasagna again. Gas-X made his to-do list before he hit the sack. “I can’t think
anymore. I have to sleep.”

“As if.” Her eyes opened wide, magnified by the thick
lenses of her spectacles. “I thank the saints the clothes they don’t stink of
the booze.”

“That’s because I didn’t drink any booze.”

Although he assured himself that she hadn’t invited
Nathaniel to The Four Bee to meet with him, he made what he hoped was a
careless gesture: double-checking to make sure his pistol was in its proper
place. It was there, holstered at the small of his back under his shirt.

Rosswell said, “Whom do you want me to meet?”

“Whom? Why you talk of this whom? It’s not proper to
talk of a lady’s whom.”

“Not
womb
, Mrs. Bolzoni.
Whom
is the pronoun
used when it’s the object of a verb or a preposition.”

“Not nice to proposition a lady about her womb.”

Rosswell felt the migraine sneaking up on him again. “What
is the name of the person you want me to meet?”

“We wait on porch. You see.”

They parked on the porch swing in the evening breeze,
listening to the tree frogs belching invitations to prospective mates. Mrs.
Bolzoni’s chattering caused a dark fog to envelop Rosswell. He had to pinch
himself
several times to stay awake.

Presently, an aqua colored Honda Civic with dark
tinted windows drove up in front of The Four Bee. Rosswell guessed it to be a ‘98
or ‘99. Why those cars needed a spoiler was a mystery he’d never solved. Eyeing
the sloping fin on the top of the trunk, Rosswell assigned its place in the
universe as a waste of space. No Civic could ever go fast enough to require
help from a spoiler to stay on the ground. And his truck sounded better than this
bug fart car any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Although he doubted that
Nathaniel would drive such a vehicle, he kept his gun hand free.

“Hmmph.”

“What’s this you say?”

“Clearing my throat, Mrs. Bolzoni.”

A woman, tall and slender with strawberry blonde hair,
stepped from the car.

She looked like Tina. And the woman who was thrown off
the boat.

Mrs. Bolzoni popped up and ran to meet the car’s
driver. They hugged and air kissed.

“Alessandra, I have someone for you must to meet. The
Judge Ross Carew.”

“Rosswell Carew,” he said, with a slight emphasis on
his first name, as he also rose and joined the two women. “Glad to meet you,
Alessandra.”

He offered his hand but didn’t bother with the cliché
And your mother’s told me all
about you
.
Alessandra wouldn’t want her mother telling all about her to a stranger.
Alessandra was in rehabilitation. They shook hands. Her handshake was firm, her
palm dry. Although he couldn’t name the perfume, he detected the smell of
lilacs, similar to the perfume that Tina wore. A glance inside the car assured
him that she was alone.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Alessandra said. “I
believe my mother is quite taken with you.”

Mrs. Bolzoni issued a loud shushing sound. “The judge
is a good man who doesn’t cook the menthol.”

“What?”

“I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

Except for an occasional felony here and there. And
were you at River Heights Villa during the latest false alarm? Did you know
about the dead woman in the cave? Maybe you’re here spying for your boss man,
Nathaniel Dahlbert. That’s it. A spy. How else to explain your rapid
rehabilitation? Mighty strange that the program for drunks took you such a
short time to complete up there at the big house.

Alessandra said, “That’s a good thing for a judge to
follow all the rules.” Her face reddened slightly.

Mrs. Bolzoni said, “She’s smart girl. Got lots of
colleges. I seen her in lots of plays, too. Great acting woman. And best of
all, Alessandra is moving in with me. These old bones not spry no more. And the
bowels, they in uproar most of the time. Last night, it was awful—”

“Momma.” Alessandra said one word to quiet her mother.
Rosswell knew the daughter had been subjected to gazillions of her mother’s stories.
Missing one from last night wouldn’t upset Alessandra.

“I look forward to having you help your mother.”

Alessandra’s green eyes stared into Rosswell’s, giving
him a feeling that she knew more about him than what she was saying. Drunks can
spot each other. “Judge, you’ll never know I’m around. If I’m not working, I’ll
be reading. I bought a book at Discovered Treasures.
The Complete History of Sainte Genevieve County,
Missouri
by
Marie Vienneau.”

Hearing the title of the book he was also currently
reading convinced Rosswell that someone had been following him, and that
Alessandra was definitely working for Nathaniel, but he decided to keep his
mouth shut.

“I’m sure your mother appreciates your help. You’ll be
a lot of company for her.”

“And keep them frogs away, Alessandra will. No need
for them frogs—”

“Momma.”

“You bring in your luggages.”

Alessandra clicked a button on her key ring and the
trunk of her car opened. “A couple of suitcases. I travel light.”

Rosswell took the hint. “Let me carry them in for you.”

When they both stood at the trunk, out of Mrs. Bolzoni’s
sight and hearing, Alessandra whispered, “I need to talk to you. It’s
important.”

Rosswell nodded and then he and Alessandra followed
Mrs. Bolzoni to Alessandra’s room, right next to Rosswell’s. How convenient.

But all he could think of was that Alessandra wasn’t
the woman he was looking for.

Rosswell overslept, missed
Mrs. Bolzoni’s
breakfast
, and
then scurried to Mabel’s, thinking he was so hungry he could eat a horse and
chase its rider.

Inside, the restaurant resembled a sardine can
overstuffed by a madman. The noise level rose to the volume of a big gang fight
in a small alley, but Rosswell couldn’t find anyone actually shouting. Myriad normal
conversations piled one on top of the other, ballooning into cacophony.

Pond-raised catfish was the special today. Hush puppy
aroma made Rosswell drool. One of the fluorescent lights overhead popped with
the sound of a New Year’s Eve champagne bottle opening, then failed. A couple
of the folks waiting to be seated jumped, gawked at the light, and laughed at a
joke Rosswell couldn’t quite hear.

“Mabel?” Rosswell tapped her on the shoulder as she
rushed to and fro. “What’s going on? You giving something away?”

Mabel blew out her mouth, holding her lips so the air whooshed
straight up her face. The terminally ill air conditioner failed at keeping the
place under eighty degrees. Still, it was better than the ninety-six degrees
outside under a cloudless sky.

“Everything’s gone nuts,” she said.

“I can see that.”

“It’s all your fault.”

Rosswell ran a few scenarios through his mind, sifting
for one where he’d be found guilty of causing a crush of tourists to inundate
Mabel’s Eatery. Why was she irritated? That was the purpose, wasn’t it? You
open a business, you increase walk-in traffic, but you don’t complain when you’re
successful at attracting paying customers. That was capitalism. Wasn’t it? He
gave up.

“What did I do wrong?”

“You sent my daddy off God knows where on a research
assistant task. He won’t answer his cell phone.”

“Cell phone? When did he get a cell phone?”

“He got it this morning and I got not one, not two,
but three busloads of starving Baby Boomers from Tupelo, Mississippi.”

“Sorry.” Rosswell slumped his shoulders. Where had he
sent Ollie? He couldn’t remember. After meeting Alessandra the night before, he’d
excused himself and plodded to his bed, crashing into a sleep deep enough to
drown him. He had, in fact, slept through his alarm.

“I’ll go somewhere else.”

When he turned to leave, Mabel grabbed his collar. “You’re
staying right here.”

Women confused Rosswell. Mabel hated him because he
killed her baby daddy, but she wouldn’t let him leave her restaurant. He guessed
she would make him stand in line for an hour before he got to eat lunch. It was
part of his punishment.

“Judge, you and I have had our ups and downs.”
Rosswell nodded, yet said nothing, preferring to let Mabel take the lead. “That’s
in the past. This is in the now.” She waved a hand at the throngs of people. “See
that? I need your help. Two waitresses quit.”

“Karyn and Jill?”

“They said they had to take their midwife tests. Thank
God the cook is still here.”

Rosswell tossed the dice. “We’re okay, right? I mean,
you and me.”

“Yes.”

Rosswell asked, “Now, what can I do?” at the same time
he concluded that he and Mabel had resolved their rocky relationship. It was
the best he could hope for. No need to jeopardize it by drawing it out. She
said she wanted to be friends again, and Rosswell had said okay. Period. Even
if. End of story. A curt explanation was what he got and he wasn’t getting
anything more.

Rosswell said, “I could ask a couple of the women at
the courthouse if—”

“Here.” Mabel thrust one of her aprons at him and
forced a pencil and a ticket pad into his hands. “Write legibly and stick the
ticket on the whirly when it’s written.” She showed him a lazy Susan device,
hanging from the top of the shelf that opened into the kitchen. Waitresses
slipped tickets under the clips on the whirly. Then the cook spun it, fetched
the ticket, and fixed the order.

“Uh…okay.” Rosswell wrapped her apron around his waist,
finding he had enough to wrap it again, thanks to Mabel’s increasingly large
size.

“Be nice to the customers. You get half the tips. Put
all the tips over there in that jar. We split them up at the end of each shift.
Get the orders right.” Mabel surveyed the filled tables. “Start there.” She
pointed to a table at the far end of the restaurant. “They’ve been waiting the
longest.” The man and woman sitting there didn’t look happy.

When Rosswell reached the table, he was sweating. His
palms hurt and he was short of breath. This was worse than sending someone to
jail.

“Ready to order?”

The man said, “A half hour ago.”

“Honey,” the woman said to the man, “it’s only been
twenty-five minutes.”

“Ready when you are.” Rosswell poised the pencil above
the ticket pad, smiled and waited.

I wait because I’m a waiter. “They also serve who only
stand and wait.” Thank you, Johnny Milton.

The woman said, “Could we have a couple of small
glasses of water? No ice.”

Rosswell rushed to the water station, retrieved two
glasses of water and scampered back to the table.

The man frowned and held up the large glass. “We asked
for small glasses with no ice. These are large glasses of water filled with
ice. Ice dilutes the drink.”

Oh, brother. Ice dilutes water?

Rosswell said, “They’re on the house. Free refills,
too.”

The woman picked up the menu. “Give us a couple of more
minutes.”

After fifteen minutes, most of the people had food in front
of them,
calming the noise level.

“Dang,” Mabel said behind Rosswell.

He whirled around. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You did everything right. You’re more efficient than
any waitress I’ve ever had.”

Rosswell felt himself blushing. He was on the verge of
fainting, having missed breakfast and being late for lunch. A ringing, no doubt
due to his empty stomach, had started in his ears. The smell of the food had revved
up his drooling into overdrive. Now, after having drooled himself to the depths
of Sahara Desert dryness, his tongue felt like a package of sandpaper. Bright
spots danced in front of his eyes like he’d stumbled into a herd of overactive
lightning bugs. Sweat soaked his shirt.

“Thanks. I’ve never been a waitress before.”

“I called Karyn and Jill, begging for their help. They’ll
be here any minute.”

The county assessor, a fifty-something balding man folks
called Betourne, and his deputy, a thirty-something balding man Rosswell didn’t
know, came in and sat at an empty table.

Mabel said, “Take care of those two and then you can
leave. Or eat. You get a free meal.”

Rosswell nodded, thinking that was what he needed to
make his life worthwhile. More courthouse gossip about the alcoholic judge who
waits on tables.

Mabel said, “Try not to shoot them.”