Chapter 18
Friday Morning, continued
Rosswell reckoned the red and blue flashing lights of the emergency vehicles distracted everyone enough to allow Ollie and him an escape. Fire trucks and ambulances draw attention to themselves, whereas two more guys running helter skelter would be deemed unremarkable. He motioned Ollie to follow him and they sprinted out of the garage toward the darkest area, which was the woods at the north end of the bluff.
Rosswell signaled a halt when he figured they could talk without being heard, although with the uproar, no one could hear a small nuclear bomb exploding. Only after panting and drawing several deep breaths could he speak. "They won't see or hear us now."
"Those words should be chiseled into our tombstones."
Rosswell concentrated on the confusion at the house. A firefighter approached Nathaniel gesturing and yelling, ordering him to stand aside. Nathaniel stiffened and didn't move. The two of them punched the air with their forefingers. As the argument deepened, their faces pressed against each other, nose to nose.
Ollie said, "Nathaniel doesn't want the firefighters in the house."
"Good luck with keeping them out."
"He's hiding something."
Rosswell said, "See? Didn't I say you were a genius?"
Gustave, his patrol car's siren wailing, screeched to a halt and he hurtled out. When he joined the firefighter and Nathaniel, the ruckus escalated. Screaming back and forth at each other, Gustave whirled Nathaniel around, jerked his arms behind his back, and handcuffed him.
Rosswell said, "Holy crap. Nathaniel's busted."
"Yeah. And by Gustave? I thought they were in cahoots."
Gustave dragged Nathaniel aside, allowing firefighters to flood the house. The alarms silenced. Lights came on in every room. After fifteen minutes, the whole bunch of firefighters and EMTs sauntered back to their vehicles and left the scene. Gustave freed Nathaniel and, after an exchange of words accompanied by fists pumping in the air, Gustave jumped in his car and sped off.
Ollie said, "Something tells me this isn't the first false alarm they've had at that place."
"Sometimes recovering drunks get bored. Setting off a false alarm is great fun for bored boozers drying out in a rehab center."
"Don't I know it."
"Ollie, you didn't."
"I'm taking the fifth. Amendment, not bottle."
Rosswell decided to man up. "This maneuver was a crummy idea. We didn't find out anything."
"Then let's hoof it. This pair of drunks needs to hustle on down that hill."
When they reached the bottom, Rosswell turned to look up. "How would that look during the day time?" He tilted his head first left, then right, trying to gain perspective. The clouds had thinned, then disappeared. The full moon had made it halfway through its circuit for the night.
He and Ollie had positioned themselves at the bottom of the north face of the bluff where River Heights Villa lorded over the river plain below. The occasional car or truck driving south lit up the rock face briefly. One of the two towers occupied the edge of the cliff. Below the tower, as best Rosswell could make out in the headlights, the face of the bluff appeared to be skull-shaped. Where the two eyes should have been, he could see only one indentation. Rosswell imagined an outcrop below as the nose, and below that, a thin opening stretched across the base of the cliff, which could've served as a mouth.
Ollie said, "I'm seeing a skull with only one eye socket."
" 'Cave of one eye have much treasure.' We need to climb up there and search it. That's where Charlie and Ribs dragged that poor woman." Rosswell didn't fancy climbing back up the cliff. There were too many critters (human and animal) roaming around in the woods. There were also too many strange sounds. Rosswell discounted the romantic notions of a forest at night. There was no romance in the midst of a bunch of trees, vines, and bushes where slithery things lived. "As much as I hate to say it, we can't wait till daylight."
"Not so fast, Judge." Ollie clamped a hand on Rosswell's arm. "Let's call Gustave. Tell him to come back out here. Tell him what Charlie said."
"No."
"That's it? That's your whole argument? No?"
Rosswell flicked on his flashlight, then turned it off. "Gustave thinks we're idiots. If we get him back out here again, Nathaniel will convince him we're another couple of drunks calling in yet another false alarm in the middle of the night."
"And Nathaniel will pin the cut window screen on you."
"Not only that, but Gustave will put two and two together and arrest us for the first false alarm tonight. Not to mention my little felony of breaking and entering."
"What do we do if we find the woman's body?"
"Then we'll call Gustave." Rosswell pulled out his cell phone. "Fully charged. Three bars. We'll send pictures of the body to Gustave. We'll post a video to the Internet. He can't argue with that."
"How are things going to be any different in the morning?"
"Nathaniel knows something is up. He knows I cut that screen."
"How could he know that?"
"Okay, I'll bet I'm his number one suspect. How's that?"
Ollie made an okay sign with his thumb and forefinger.
Rosswell said, "If it's there now, the woman's body will be gone by daylight."
"I can't believe I'm going to be a party to this madness." Ollie hung his head. "I'm going to prison."
"I've got a plan. 'Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.' That's what Lord Polonius said."
"And Hamlet murdered him."
The sound of crunching gravel under Rosswell and Ollie's feet grew louder as they climbed for the cave.
Rosswell cautioned Ollie. "Don't walk so heavy. It's been dry. There's a drought on and everything has turned into tinder in the woods."
"Walking doesn't start fires." Ollie indicated the tower above them. "If we're making crackly noises, no one can hear us up there."
Within a few more minutes, they'd reached the mouth of the cave. Rosswell gave Ollie the keep-your-mouth-shut signal again. Ollie nodded several times.
Rosswell stooped down, Ollie following his lead. Rosswell estimated that two or three minutes had passed. Maybe more. He heard nothing. The cave smelled of damp ground. There was a small spring-fed stream issuing from the mouth. A cool breeze wafted from the opening.
"There's got to be another entrance to the cave," Rosswell said. "Otherwise, there wouldn't be air coming out."
He risked flicking on his flashlight. Although it was a small light, hardly meant for cave exploration, he could tell there was nothing artificial around the mouth of the cave. No gates to trap them. No doors that would slam down, sealing them inside. That told him that Nathaniel never expected anyone to be foolish enough to climb the bluff and explore the cave. Otherwise, he would've built barriers to keep trespassers out, especially if the cave led to a passage under the house. Not to mention that if Maman was right, the cave held a corpse.
Rosswell risked another sweep of the flashlight along the floor. No snakes. No bear prints. No evidence of a mountain lion. No bloody fur ripped off a poor rabbit or the bones of a feral pig. There still could be spiders and crawly things. Lizards. Salamanders. Yet the cursory glance allowed him to stamp safe on the situation.
"Ollie," Rosswell said in a low voice, "we're safe and secure. There's nobody, human or otherwise, in that cave waiting for us."
Standing behind them, Nathaniel said in the stage whisper of a man whose adenoids had shot craps, "Should I kill you here or inside?"