Chapter 20
Friday Morning, continued
Rosswell, talk to me." Ollie wriggled along the floor of the cave, kicking off his shoes, releasing his feet from the knot. Ollie's socks soaked up gray mud.
In Rosswell's brain, the struggle with the snake stirred up some old master painter's version of a saint, wrestling with the devil in a dim underworld battlefield. Ollie's grasp on the flashlight trembled, adding a jittering glow to the scene.
"I'm listening." Rosswell's grip on the snake's body-over three feet long, warm and dry, not at all slimy-remained tight. The snake's mouth opened and closed, its fangs dripping with poison, trying to find something to bite. Rosswell stared at the hooded eyes of the snake, the elliptical-shaped pupils glaring hatred at him. The crossbands on the viper's body ranged from pinkish tan to dark brown, colors Rosswell didn't find pleasing. Obviously frightened, the reptile gave off a musky smell, something like rotten cucumbers. "Tell me where the wall is."
"Go straight. About five feet. You'll find it."
Rosswell struggled, his feet bogged down like in a river of molasses in January. He used his free hand, his left hand, to deliver a couple of slaps on his face, which helped the blood flow again. His feet must've gotten enough blood too, because they moved more easily, except when he stepped on a sharp rock. By now, his eyes had become accustomed to the small amount of light. He could make out the darkness of the wall ahead of him. All he had to do was stand straight and not fall before he reached his goal.
In a sleepwalker's pose, Rosswell's left arm stuck out from his body in a rigid salute. A moment later his free hand felt the cool of the cave's rock wall. In an arc worthy of a World Series pitcher, Rosswell's right hand almost connected with the wall. Almost, because the snake's head was between his hand and the wall. Nasty stuff spewed from the snake's crushed skull across Rosswell's face, then blood spurted on him as he slammed the snake into the wall again and again.
"Die, you sons of bitches who put a fake bomb on a little girl!"
"Stop." Ollie grabbed him by the shoulders. "It's dead, Judge. Stop."
Rosswell tossed the snake toward the entrance of the cave. "I'll bet the rats are happy their tormentor bought the farm."
Ollie bowed to Rosswell. "You saved my life."
"That means you're my slave now."
"Not in this or any other universe. Ever. Unto eternity never."
Ollie tugged Rosswell toward the cave's entrance. Rosswell countered the pull, falling on the slippery mud. "Ollie, wait." He stood and sniffed, then worked his way further into the cave's depths. "Something bad. Something dead. Or someone." The body came into view. Rosswell headed for the corpse, lying on its back, where he knelt next to it. "I know her."
Both of the men remained silent. The woman's resemblance to Tina astonished Rosswell. Except that the dead woman wasn't pregnant. Her only clothing was a flimsy hospital gown, bloody along the bottom. She wore no jewelry, other than a plastic identification bracelet circling her right wrist. No shoes.
Ollie broke the silence. "Who is it?"
"I'm not sure of her name, but I've got a picture of her in my casebook. She's from?Pine Bluff? Little Rock? Somewhere in Arkansas."
"Someone misses her." Ollie knelt next to Rosswell. "Someone's looking for her." He stared into her face. "She looks peaceful. Like a Madonna painting."
"Say that again."
"She looks peaceful."
"No, she looks dead." Rosswell touched the identification bracelet. "Who does she look like?"
"Like a Madonna painting. The Blessed Virgin."
Rosswell motioned to Ollie. "There's writing on this bracelet. Can you make it out?"
In the gloom, Ollie leaned close to the woman's wrist, shining his flashlight. "Initials. M is the first letter."
Rosswell groaned. "D is next and H is the last one."
Ollie inspected the bracelet. "Yeah. MDH."
"Madonna. Mary Donna Helperen from Piggott, Arkansas. Swimming champion at the University of Arkansas. Working on her physics doctorate." Rosswell rubbed his hands on his pants. "Her parents are Norwegian immigrants. She's a missing woman who looks like Tina."
Ollie interlaced his fingers. "Nathaniel killed this innocent woman."
Rosswell cleaned the end of his right forefinger and touched the woman's body, hoping to make contact with her, hoping to show her that someone cared how and why she'd died.
Examining the blood on the gown, he said, "I suspect she may have died of hemorrhaging." With the tip of his finger, he lifted the gown up. "Yes. Someone performed a Caesarean section on her and didn't even bother to sew her back up. She died in childbirth."
"How long has she been dead?"
Rosswell pressed the back of his hand against her face. "Not long. She's still warm." After visually examining her from head to toe, Rosswell pointed. "The only part of her that is dirty is the back of her feet. She has muddy heels."
"How do you think she got in the cave?"
"This is the woman I saw tossed off the ferry."
"What?" Ollie gasped and stood. "She died in childbirth and they brought her to this nasty cave?"
Rosswell also stood and worked his phone out of his pocket and snapped several pictures of Mary Donna Helperen.
The horror was plain in Ollie's voice. "What in God's name do you think's going on here?"
"She didn't drown." Rosswell replaced his phone. "Somebody rescued her. Probably Charlie and Ribs. And they gave her to Nathaniel."
"What did he want with her?"
"Her baby."
Outside, the heat of the night chased the chill from Rosswell, reviving him. "I thought I was going to freeze to death in there." He bent to the ground and finished wiping the snake grue from his hands the best he could. Kneeling, he breathed deeply for a few minutes to keep from puking. "Where are my shoes?"
Ollie handed Rosswell his shoes, then sat, putting his own shoes on. "We need to get to the truck and go find the sheriff."
"I've regained my senses. I'm going back in and take a video of her. In five minutes, the whole universe will see the corpse on YouTube."
"Then we go find the sheriff. He can't ignore our evidence."
"I hope Gustave can stop me from killing that bastard. I mean, those bastards. But if he won't help, then we'll go to the Highway Patrol." Rosswell stood and put a hand out, stopping Ollie from moving. "Be still." Holding his breath, he closed his eyes and listened. Sounds in the back of the cave. Someone coming to check on them. He whispered, "Let's go. Slow. Easy. Quiet."
Ollie nodded.
"I should throw both of you jokers in jail," Gustave told Ollie and Rosswell after they'd finished their story. The eastern sky grew pink as the three men congregated inside the sheriff's station. The air conditioner rattled, pouring out stale, yet cool, air, a welcome relief from the humidity and heat of the dawn. "I'd have to by God strip you naked and hose you down, you stink so bad. And then do a body cavity search. I've done that before to other prisoners and I can sure do it to you two."
Rosswell fervently hoped he'd not have to witness Ollie being strip searched. "Go right ahead, Sheriff." Ollie squirmed. Rosswell paid no mind to Ollie's obvious discomfort at his casual offer to go to jail after a strip search.
Unwilling to abandon his aching desire to poke Gustave in the chest with his finger, Rosswell leaned over the counter separating the taxpayers from the law enforcement officers. But he had a stroke of common sense and resisted the urge to grab the sheriff's shirt to draw him close to his own face. "Throw us in a cell. But first, you need to arrest Nathaniel and Turk for murder." Rosswell left mud on the counter.
Gustave slammed a palm flat in front of Rosswell. "Don't lean your dirty arms on the furniture and don't tell me how to do my job."
Ollie remained seated on a bench next to the door, under a light, silent as a mouse searching a church at midnight for a crumb of food.
Rosswell said, "There's a body in that cave and it's the woman I saw murdered." The latt
er was for dramatic effect since he now knew that Mary Donna hadn't died when she was thrown in the Mississippi.
Gustave edged closer to a full-scale rant. "You and that?that research assistant of yours come in here and expect me to believe some cockamamie story about being tied up and thrown in a cave with a woman's body and then escaping after killing a giant serpent."
"I didn't say it was a giant serpent. I said it was a big copperhead."
"Let me see your phone." Rosswell slapped it into Gustave's palm. The sheriff clicked through the photo album. The purpose of Gustave's finger movements was clear. The sheriff was deleting the pictures Rosswell had taken of the dead woman. When Gustave finished, he deposited the phone in Rosswell's palm. "Nothing here. Forgot to get pictures of the dead redhead?"
From the bench, Ollie piped up. "Strawberry blonde."
Gustave glowered at Ollie before facing Rosswell. "You all weren't out there at Nathaniel's earlier were you? Oh, say, setting off fire alarms? Or burglar alarms?"
"Now why would we do something like that? I already told you we followed your auntie's clues and went searching in the cave. We found what she called 'much treasure.' The woman's body. And we got caught by Nathaniel and Turk."
Gustave unwrapped one of his black cigars and started chewing on it. "Why in the hell did you go out there in the middle of the night?"
"Don't you ever smoke those things?"
"Answer the damn question."
"Simple." Rosswell paused, trying to think of a simple explanation for doing something extraordinarily stupid like exploring a cave with wimpy flashlights. "We didn't want to make it obvious."
"Sure failed there." Gustave chomped so hard on the cigar that he bit part of it off. He spit it on the floor. "I need to run both of you on the breathalyzer."
"Boot it up. We're ready."
"Instead, I'm kicking you out of my office." Gustave marched to the front door, opened it, and waved them out. "I'm not even writing a report on this, Judge Carew. I have a smidgen of respect for the court in general, although I wonder about you in particular."
Ollie stepped out of the office. Gustave jerked Rosswell back in and shut the door. "Don't cross me, Judge. I'll find you if you do. Remember that."
He pushed Rosswell out and slammed the door after him.
On the stoop, Ollie glanced over his shoulder at the door. "Cranky bastard."
"He's been up all night. Same as us."
"Maybe we need to talk to the Highway Patrol. Or the FBI. That woman could've been kidnapped. That would make it a federal case, right?"
Rosswell wiped his face with a shirtsleeve. "What woman?"
Ollie's face contorted. Rosswell knew what usually came next.
"Ollie, so help me God, if you squeak around me anymore I'm going to shoot you."
"You're saying that even if we could convince a cop to go out there, nothing would be found?"
"Nathaniel is fuming, prepping to go ballistic. Since he no doubt already knows we escaped from the cave, he'll move the body and take out after us both. We're dead men. Good thing I sent those pictures to my email. My executor may find them interesting." Rosswell checked the photos on his phone. "Gustave missed the ones of Tina."
The sun, now fully risen, flooded the courthouse square with light, every building either sharing part of the sunrise or standing mute in a shadow. The ancient bricks of various shades reflected a light that ranged from deep red to a smoky orange. Two children ran down the sidewalk between the church and the courthouse. A man swept the front steps of a shop. On each street corner, the garden club had planted huge pots of flowers, now being watered by a beautiful girl in a mini-skirt. A gang of early-rising senior citizens disgorged from a tour bus and streamed into Mabel's. They joked and laughed.
"Peaceful and normal." Rosswell hardly dared to breathe when the clearness of the sky seemed to engulf him. "This place is so beautiful. Hard to believe all this crap is going on."
"Yeah, there's enough blue sky to make a man a pair of pants. Before you get too philosophical, let's head over to Mabel's for breakfast." Ollie ran his nose over his arms, then did the same to Rosswell. "We best clean up first."
Rosswell said, "Can you make a video out of the pictures I took of Mary Donna?"
"Is the bear in the woods Catholic?"
Rosswell pushed aside several snappy retorts and handed Ollie a slip of paper. "Here's my user ID and password for my email. Get those pictures and post them to YouTube."
"Doing that is signing our death warrant."
"Gustave and Nathaniel already threatened to kill me if I crossed either of them. I'm sure you're included."
"What are you going to do?"
"Let's eat first. By the looks of them, the old codgers aim to eat up the whole breakfast buffet. And I need my strength if I'm going to kill Nathaniel before he kills us. Killing Nathaniel will energize me enough to kill Turk." Rosswell soaked in the beauty of the morning. "And then I might have to kill Gustave."