The Devil and the River (53 page)

“That’s what I said,” Gradney replied. “Seems Leon Devereaux kept some unlikely company. Little kid of eleven or twelve, said he’d been coming out here and visiting with Devereaux and General Patton—that’s Devereaux’s dog, by the way—for some time. Brought chicken after school, talked about girls and whatnot.”

Hagen lied convincingly. He said that he and Gaines had been out there, but had not ventured into the trailers. Gradney said that aside from Leon Devereaux’s corpse in the smaller of the trailers, there was evidence of some other foul play in the larger of the two vehicles. A great deal of blood had been found in the bathtub, blood that looked to have been there a good deal longer than Leon’s dead body.

“Of course, he could have decided to gut a pig in there,” Gradney suggested, “but I doubt it. I am concerned we might find that some poor son of a bitch has gone missing, and when we find him, he ain’t gonna have a great deal of blood left inside of him.”

And then he added, “Ironic, eh? Fact of the matter was that your boy was home all along, ’cept he wasn’t in the mood for taking visitors. Someone shot him in the eye, decorated the wall with most of his head, and then just left him there in bed. Coroner says he’d been there about a week. The man neither looked so good nor smelled so good at the best of times, so you can imagine what he’s like right now.”

Hagen thanked Gradney, told him there might be a chance he and Gaines would come out and take a look at the trailers, but today was unlikely. Gradney said they were welcome anytime, but to give him fair warning so he could be present. Hagen thanked him for calling, and the conversation was over.

Hagen knew he wouldn’t reach Gaines on the radio, and so he called Judge Marvin Wallace’s office and left a message for Gaines to call him back as soon as possible.

Set to leave his office, another call came through. It was Maryanne Benedict.

“Is Sheriff Gaines there?” she asked.

“No, Miss Benedict. He’s out of town right now. Can I help?”

“It’s Della Wade,” she said. “She called me, said she was coming over to see me, said she had some information about what happened to Clifton.”

“I’m leaving now,” Hagen said. “You tell her I’m on the way, and that she’s not to leave until I see her.”

“I’ll do my best,” Maryanne said, and hung up.

Hagen left the office, told Barbara to get him on the radio if there was any word from the sheriff. She said she would, and as she watched Hagen’s car pull away, she tried to remember the last time there had been such aggravation and commotion in Whytesburg. She could not recall such a time, and did not believe there ever had been.

J
udge Marvin Wallace of Purvis was a man used to dealing with liars. He believed he could spot a liar at a hundred paces, that those selfsame liars recognized in him a man who’d waste not a second in listening to whatever mendacity was planned.

Such a faculty served him well as a judge and arbiter of law, for alibis became transparent, evasiveness in the face of direct questions received no quarter, and folks intent on deception were rapidly undone in the precise application of his pronouncements and edicts. Ken Howard knew him well, as did all the state defenders and prosecutors through every relevant county and a few beyond.

Branford was the county seat, and Frederick Otis ran a tight ship as far as that function was concerned, but Wallace was circuit and thus managed a far wider jurisdiction.

The appointment that he’d agreed to for three o’clock on the afternoon of Monday, August 5th, was—he imagined—related to some outstanding warrant, an ongoing case, a matter of
t’
s to be crossed and
i’
s to be dotted. Wallace had scheduled a meeting for thirty minutes later, certain that whatever Sheriff John Gaines had to discuss would take no more than that.

Wallace greeted Gaines politely, Nate Ross also, and when Gaines opened the conversation with, “Judge Wallace, thank you for seeing us. We wanted to talk to you about Matthias Wade,” there was a definite sense that the temperature in the room had dropped a degree or two.

“Matthias Wade?” Wallace asked. He shifted in his seat. He glanced at Ross, then looked back at Gaines. “What about Matthias Wade?”

“In the absence of any probative evidence, even anything significant of a circumstantial nature, we are nevertheless of the viewpoint that he may have been involved in the recent death of Michael Webster, and before that, all of twenty years ago, the death of Nancy Denton.”

Wallace showed no surprise. He was implacable, and after looking back at Gaines in silence for a good ten seconds, he smiled and then shook his head ever so slowly.

“So?” he asked.

“Well, I wanted to know your reaction to that suggestion. That he might have been involved.”

“I have no reaction, Sheriff Gaines. What kind of reaction did you think I might have?”

“I wondered whether or not your relationship with Matthias Wade—”

“I’m sorry, my
relationship
with Matthias Wade?”

“Okay, your friendship. I wondered whether your friendship with Matthias Wa—”

Wallace raised his hand and Gaines fell silent. He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together.

For a little while the only sound was the fan in the ceiling.

“I think you have caught me on the back step,” Wallace said. “I feel as if I am coming late to the game and the score has already been decided. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You use the word
relationship
and then
friendship
when referring to Matthias Wade, and you use them as if they actually mean something of significance. I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Are you saying that you’re not friends with Matthias Wade?”

Wallace’s mouth smiled, but his eyes did not. “Friends? With Matthias Wade?” He was silent for a moment and then said, “Okay, Sheriff Gaines, let’s get one thing straight right here and now. If you have a question for me, then you ask it. You do not come into my office with this attitude. You do not present questions to me as if I am withholding something from you. You do not employ interrogative techniques when you ask me something, you understand?”

“Interrogative techniques?”

“The way you ask your questions. Am I saying that I am
not
friends with Matthias Wade? As if I am trying to deny some earlier statement. You know exactly what I am talking about, Sheriff, and don’t try and tell me you don’t. If you have a question for me, then ask me that question and not something else. I have no time for games.”

Gaines paused before speaking. “I apologize,” he said. “This has been a high-strung business for us, you know? Not often there’s a murder, and now we have more than one and a suicide as well. We just need your help, Judge, and there are some things that make sense and some that don’t, and we thought you could help clarify a few points.”

“Fire away, son. We’re all on the same side here, and if there’s a question I have an answer for, then you’ll get the answer.”

“Do you remember a man called Clifton Regis?”

Wallace was pensive, and then he slowly shook his head. “Can’t say I do, no.”

“You committed him to a term at Parchman Farm.”

Wallace smiled. “Hell, I commit someone to a term at Parchman half a dozen times a month. When was this?”

“Eighteen months ago—”

“Eighteen months ago? You have any idea of the number of cases I hear in a week, let alone eighteen months?”

“I just thought you might remember this one.”

“And why would that be, Sheriff Gaines? Please enlighten me.”

“Missing some fingers on his right hand. Charged with breaking and entering, eyewitness statement from a single individual, nothing to corroborate her statement, and you found him guilty.”

“Well, Sheriff, if I found him guilty, there is a very strong likelihood that he was guilty. Circumstantial evidence can be damning if there’s enough of it.”

“I understand this, but it seems that there was no other evidence aside from the witness statement.”

“Well, then she must have been very convincing and the defendant must have been very unconvincing. I do not commit someone to a term of detention lightly, Sheriff, and I think you know that.”

“Do you remember the case?”

“Not specifically, no.”

“So there’s nothing you can recall that we might have missed about this case? We have looked and looked, and we just can’t understand why he was sentenced to a jail term.”

“Like I said, son, if I sent him to the Farm, then I must have had very good reason to do so.”

“Do you remember if Matthias Wade had anything to do with that case?”

“What is it with you and Matthias Wade? He upset you somehow? What on earth would interest Matthias Wade about this Regis person?”

“The fact that Clifton Regis and Della Wade were in a relationship together.”

Wallace hesitated and then said, “And this Clifton Regis is a colored man, I presume.”

“Yes, sir, he is a colored man.”

Wallace nodded slowly. “Oh. Well, now I understand why Matthias Wade might want this man in Parchman Farm, but my decision to incarcerate was not influenced or coerced in any way by Matthias Wade. Of that I can assure you.”

Gaines sat back in his chair, seemed to relax. “Well, Judge, I am greatly relieved to hear that.”

“I am curious as to why you might have thought me involved with Matthias Wade. His father I know, of course. Anyone of my generation was well-known to Earl, and vice versa, but Matthias no, not so readily. I understand him to be a little headstrong, a little impetuous, and I can appreciate why he might have possessed some concern about his sister becoming involved with a colored man.”

“Why would he be concerned, Judge?”

Wallace smiled; the question was so meaningless as to not warrant a reply.

“So that’s all there is to this?” Wallace asked.

“Yes, sir, that’s all.”

Wallace got up, indicated the door. “Well, if there’s anything else I can assist you with, let me know.”

Gaines reached the door, Ross right there beside him, and then he turned and looked back at Wallace. “Do you remember the woman, Judge? The one who gave the statement in court?”

“The Henderson woman? No, I don’t remember her, sorry.”

“Okay. Thank you for your time, sir,” Gaines said, and left the room.

Ross closed the door gently behind him. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then he smiled and said, “The lying son of a bitch.”

T
here was a message from Hagen at Wallace’s office. Gaines was given it as he and Ross left. Gaines asked if he could use one of their telephones.

Barbara took the call back at Breed County, told Gaines that Hagen had received word from a Sheriff Gradney in Lucedale and also a call from Maryanne Benedict, that Hagen had driven out there to see her. Gaines asked if Hagen had given the reason for Gradney’s call.

“He didn’t say, Sheriff,” she replied. “The calls came back-to-back, the other sheriff first, then Miss Benedict, and Richard just hurried on out of here.”

Gaines called Maryanne’s house, spoke with her briefly, learned that she had received word from Della Wade, and that Della Wade was en route to see her.

Gaines—just as Hagen had done—told her to do whatever she could to keep Della Wade there until he arrived.

Gulfport was a good sixty or seventy miles, and Gaines floored the accelerator.

Ross was the first to reference Wallace’s misstep, that he had inadvertently used Dolores Henderson’s name without Gaines ever referring to her directly.

“You ever wish you didn’t know, Nate? You ever wish that you’d taken some other job where this kind of shit didn’t take over your life?”

“Nope,” he said. “This kind of shit is the thing that keeps me interested in staying alive.”

Gaines smiled sardonically.

“It does make me wonder how far it goes,” Ross said. “I want to know if Kidd is involved and if it’s about money or if it’s about something else.”

“Ninety-nine times in a hundred, it’s money. That’s my experience,” Gaines replied.

“Well, Wallace is not in the poorhouse, and Kidd sure as hell is a wealthy man, so I don’t know what the Sam Hill they’re after.”

“You go down that road, no matter how much you have, it’s never enough.”

“Crazy sons of bitches,” Ross said.

“Wallace’ll be on the phone to Wade now. I’d bet my house on it,” Ross said.

“I reckon he is,” Gaines replied. “Tell you the truth, I am just sick and tired of beating around the edges of this and getting no straight answers. Figured it was time to bring it to their doorsteps rather than wait for them to kill someone else.”

“You think Matthias started all of this by murdering that poor girl?”

“I do, Nate. I do. I reckon he was as jealous as hell, couldn’t believe that she wanted Michael Webster and not him, got it into his head that he had to have her. Maybe he tried to tell her that in the woods that night. Maybe she laughed at him, made him mad, and then he choked her. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, but she wound up dead. Michael found her, tried to bring her back the only way he could think how.”

“Scary shit, that is,” Ross interjected. “I read about that stuff and it scares the living Jesus out of me.”

“Well, I think Webster was already fragile from his experiences in the war, and then the grief . . . well, I think he just lost his mind. I don’t think he even understood what he was doing or why. I think he just did something, anything, rather than accept the fact that the girl he loved was dead.”

“But putting a snake inside of her . . . What the hell?”

“Oh, believe me, there’s far worse than that. I mean, look at what happened to Webster. Someone cut his head off and buried it out behind my house. Made his hand into a fucking candle, for Christ’s sake.”

“Wade did that, you think?”

“I think Wade got Leon Devereaux to do it, and it was done in Devereaux’s trailer. That’s why we need to find him. I honestly believe that we can get him to turn state’s evidence against Wade if we present him with the choices. People like that will always work for whoever offers the most money or the most threat to their survival.”