The Devil and the River

by R.J. Ellory

  Gaines’s thoughts darkened.

  This did not bode well.

  He backed up, went up the rear steps, and found the door unlocked.

  Stepping into the walkway that opened into the kitchen, Gaines was overcome with a sense of real dread. He knew something was wrong. He could not ascribe that feeling to anything but intuition, but he knew that something was wrong.

  Gaines found Judith in the front room of the house. She had on her widow’s weeds. Her complexion was pallid and milky, the kind of complexion acquired from spending daylight hours in darkness. The expression she wore was one of open admission, as if prepared to accept culpability for anything of which she might be accused.

  Gaines knew one thing for sure. There wasn’t anything to see around dead folk. Whatever was in there—whatever élan, whatever animé—was gone in the moment of dying. As if the door had opened and the shock of death just propelled them away. Didn’t matter how long you stared into the eyes of a corpse, the light was good and gone.

  Gaines did not wonder about the nature of Judith Denton’s death. He did not inspect the pill bottle that sat on the table beside her chair. Such things were merely details. He did find a note, and on it was printed just ten words, and they said all that needed to be said.

  If I go now, maybe I will catch her up.

  Gaines knew that despite the fact that all human beings were made of the same parts, none were put together the same way. Maybe the glue was different; maybe the seams were in different places. Different people, faced with the same circumstances, saw entirely different situations. Responsibility was nothing more than that which each individual considered the best response to any of those given situations. Judith Denton had lost her daughter. There was no husband, no other child to care for, perhaps no parents alive. There was no reason to stay, or perhaps—more accurately—there was far greater rationale and reason in trying to follow her daughter to whatever might be waiting for her.

  Seemed to Gaines that you could always run out of things to laugh about, but things to make you cry? Hell, they just kept on coming.

  Seemed like all the madness of the world had been rushing at him for as long as he could recall.

  He had tried to hide, but he was shit out of luck on that front.

  There were things that aged you a decade in an afternoon, if not physically, then mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

  These were such things—three dead in as many days. A child, a suspected killer, a mother.

  Gaines did not believe that there was murder here. He believed that what appeared to have happened was precisely what had happened. Overcome with grief and loss, Judith Denton had burned her daughter’s clothes and then taken her own life by overdose. Or perhaps she had burned the clothes and then—overwhelmed by the guilt of what she had done to the memory of her daughter—had considered that the only option she had was to follow her and say sorry. Sorry for destroying your things, sorry for challenging your memory, but—most of all—sorry for failing to protect you against the vagaries and vicissitudes of this terrible life.

  Here was real humanity, Gaines thought. Among the lost and fallen, among the disillusioned and forgotten. Among the ones who did not make it.

  Maybe some people wanted to die simply because they were so damned tired of trying to stay alive.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Judith . . . why didn’t you come and talk to me?” Gaines said out loud, but he knew that even if she had, it would have changed nothing. Perhaps he might have said something that delayed the inevitable, but that would be all that would have happened.

  Just as in war, if your time was up, then it was up. Sometimes you got postponed by an hour or two, but that was all.

  Gaines walked to the front of the house and opened the door. He crossed the path, reached his car, radioed Barbara Jacobs at the desk, told her to find Bob Thurston and get him over to the Denton house.

  “When you’re done, call Victor Powell and tell him we got another body to collect.”

  Barbara—an unquestioning sense of discretion and professionalism in all she did—simply said, “Judith?”. To which Gaines replied, “Yes, Judith.”

  “Oh Lord almighty,” Barbara said, her voice almost a whisper.

  “Think He’s been absent around here for a few days, wouldn’t you say?” Gaines said.

  Barbara did not rise to the comment, but merely said, “I’ll get Bob over there right away.”

  Gaines smoked a cigarette while he waited. He returned to the yard, once again surveyed the charred earth, the few remaining fragments of child’s clothes and playthings. This was it now. This was all that was left of the Denton family line. It had ended here.

  Still, Nancy’s body and the box that had held her heart were at the morgue. Now Judith would join them alongside the headless corpse of Lieutenant Michael Webster.

  There would be no great desire to see this investigation go any further. Gaines could imagine—even now—the conversations that would take place. Webster had killed the girl. He got his just deserts. No one could cry for a man like that. Gaines should just let it go. The truth had died with Webster, and it was best left that way.

  But Gaines could not leave it that way. Not at all. Not simply because of his official duty, but more a sense of personal obligation to Nancy and her mother to find out what had really happened. And if this investigation indicated beyond all reasonable doubt that Michael Webster had acted alone, that he had strangled Nancy, that he had desecrated her body as part of some bizarre ritual, then so be it. But if there was some indication that another person had been involved—someone such as Matthias Wade—then Gaines would not let it go until the truth was out. He could not. It was against his nature, against his own dictate and integrity, and right now—faced with this madness—it seemed that these commodities were all he possessed. Someone had perpetrated a dark and terrible wrong here, and that someone needed to be identified.

  Then, and only then, could it all be laid to rest.

  If it was Wade—if he had been complicit in the murder of Nancy Denton, in the killing of Michael Webster, perhaps also in the murders of Anna-Louise Mayhew and Dorothy McCormick—then it would be his life for theirs, and there was no other way to see it.

  As had been said so many times in Vietnam, sometimes you just had to kill people to show them the error of their ways.

  Gaines went back into the house. He sat with Judith Denton until he heard Bob Thurston’s car pull up outside. He knew she’d spent the last twenty years alone, and—crazy though it was—it now seemed right to stay with her as long as he could.

  32

  Thurston made a preliminary examination and signed the certificate of death.

  “Every indication of a self-administered drug overdose,” he told Gaines.

  “What did she take?”

  “No question there. It’s Seconal. I prescribed it for her to help her sleep.”

  “When?”

  “She came to see me on Thursday evening.”

  “You think she planned this and just said she was not sleeping?”

  Thurston shrugged his shoulders. “I have no way of knowing, John. She’d just lost her daughter; she looked exhausted, utterly devastated. I know that in such situations, people lose their appetites and cannot sleep, and those two factors contribute greatly to the depth of depression they fall into. More often than not, a couple nights of good sleep give them sufficient strength to carry on and get through it.”

  “I understand,” Gaines said.

  “So Vic is en route?”

  Gaines nodded. “He has a headless Michael Webster to get to the morgue, and then he will come get Judith.”

  “You think Webster killed Nancy?”

  “I don’t know, Bob,” Gaines said. “I thought I was sure, but now I’m not.”

  “So who?”

  “I have ideas,” Gaines said, “but nothing substantial or evidenced.”

  “Heard Matthias Wade bailed Webster out.”r />
  “You heard right.”

  “You think—”

  Gaines shook his head. “It’s best not to think. It’s best just to look, to see what’s there, what’s not there, and try and figure out the bit that’s missing.”

  “You know there was a case back in—”

  “I already went out there last night,” Gaines interjected. “I spoke to Dennis Young. He showed me the pictures and the case files.”

  “They never got anyone for that, far as I recall, but I heard rumor that Matthias Wade had been in their sights.”

  “So Young told me.”

  Thurston shook his head. “They say an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but if ever you wanted proof of that, you’d only have only to look as far as Matthias and Wade Senior.”

  “You know the father?”

  “Sure, as much as it’s possible to know someone like that. They live in a different world, John. The money they have, the political influence, the businesses they own. Matthias is just one of four, far as I know, two sons, two daughters, but the father is ever-present, lives in some huge place between here and Morgan City. Don’t know where the other kids are, but Matthias has always lived with the father. He’s the oldest, will inherit the lion’s share of everything, I should imagine.”

  “Wade Senior’s name?”

  “Earl.”

  “And the mother?”

  “Lillian. Long since dead. She was an alcoholic. It’s all predictable stuff, John. Heard Earl Wade had mellowed in recent years, but I find that hard to believe. As a younger man, he was a great deal more active in managing his businesses. Got himself involved in politics for a while. There was even talk of him running for governor, but that never came to anything. Anyway, that’s all history, but whatever is said, and whatever can be said about the Wades, they are a real honest-to-God Southern dynasty.”

  “Well, Matthias is the only one I’ve met, and he looks like five and a half feet of stiff shit in a handmade suit.”

  Thurston laughed, and then he stopped as suddenly as he’d started. Perhaps he’d forgotten where he was for a moment, seated right there in Judith Denton’s kitchen while her dead body sat no more than ten feet away.

  “I better be going,” he said. “You okay here until Vic arrives?”

  “Sure am,” Gaines replied.

  “Well, let’s hope that this is the end of it,” Thurston said when he reached the door.

  “Somehow I don’t think it is,” Gaines replied, but Thurston did not acknowledge the comment.

  Gaines heard the front door open and close. He heard Thurston’s car start and then pull away.

  Gaines was left in silence in the Denton kitchen. He thought about Earl and Matthias Wade, about the alcoholic wife, the two girls found in January of 1968, and considered the fact that he had been in Vietnam for only three months when those little girls lost their lives.

  Whichever side of the world you were on, there was always some kind of crazy bullshit going down. Wars of race, of religion, of territory, of political agenda, even wars within the minds of madmen, compelled to do truly terrible things to other human beings with no logical reason at all.

  There was no acceptance, no reconciliation, no explanation. Until man understood his own mind, there would never be freedom from such things.

  Plato had been right. Only the dead had seen the end of war.

  The small war that now occupied Gaines’s thoughts raged on, and the Dentons and Michael Webster were the only ones out of it for good.

  33

  Judith Denton’s body was transferred to the morgue by Victor Powell a little after noon. From initial indications, it appeared that she’d been dead for approximately twelve hours.

  “Midnight, one, maybe two in the morning,” Powell told Gaines. “I’ll give you a more accurate time once I’ve done the autopsy.”

  Powell hesitated. There was an unspoken question on his lips. “Did she know that Webster was being released?”

  Gaines shook his head. “I don’t know, Victor.”

  “I heard about the thing with the warrant,” Powell went on. “We make mistakes, John. We’re human. Mistakes are often what we do best. You can’t beat yourself up about it.”

  Gaines did not reply, and they did not speak again. Gaines merely watched Powell drive away in the long white car, and he wondered if there would be further dead before the truth of Nancy Denton’s killing was revealed. If it was ever revealed.

  Gaines headed back to the office. He took the Morgan City files from his desk and put them in the evidence locker. He spoke to Hagen, told him to chase up the Webster findings.

  “And you?” Hagen asked.

  “I’m going to visit with Matthias Wade.”

  “On what basis, John?”

  “Oh, just a social call. I thought we might perhaps have watermelon juleps on the veranda.”

  Hagen smiled sarcastically. “I doubt he’ll give you the time of day.”

  “We shall see.”

  The Wade estate went as far as Gaines could see both left and right. Somewhere close to two thirty, he stood in front of the main gates and looked down a driveway that snaked away between groves of trees shrouded in Spanish moss, a dense curtain of foliage that made the house itself invisible. Gaines did not know what parish he was in, perhaps St. Mary’s, maybe now St. Martin’s. The site seemed to follow the curve of the Atchafalaya River away from Morgan City. To the west was New Iberia, to the right was Donald-sonville, and Gaines would not have been surprised to learn that the Wades owned every acre of land in between.

  At the gate there seemed to be no means by which visitors could make their presence known, but it was not long before someone appeared from among the trees to the right and walked toward the entrance.

  The man was well built in the upper body, a bull neck, a blunt and brutal fist of a face, the range of expressions spanning little breadth beyond anger, obstinacy, and displeasure. He wore a permanent scowl, as if anyone appearing at the gate was interrupting something of great importance.

  He did not speak. He just looked through the bars at Gaines and raised his eyebrows.

  “I need to speak to Mr. Wade,” Gaines said.

  “Which one?” the man asked.

  “Matthias.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Sheriff John Gaines.”

  The man didn’t nod, didn’t acknowledge; he simply turned and walked the way he’d come and disappeared into the trees.

  Four, five minutes passed, and then the gates started opening.

  Gaines hurried back to his car, started the engine, drove slowly through the gates, and headed along the drive.

  Past the first bend, and then the same man appeared from between the overhanging boughs. He stared at Gaines for a moment, and then he raised his hand and pointed to his right.

  The Wade house itself came into view in stages. It must have spanned a good hundred or hundred and twenty yards, but parts of it were obscured behind further trees, and down to the left there was a separate arrangement of smaller buildings that were fashioned in the same architectural style but were evidently a good deal younger than the main house.

  On the second floor was a balcony that ran the length of the entire facade, and it was in the center of this that Gaines saw Matthias Wade. Wade stood immobile for just a moment, and then he turned and reentered the house. As Gaines drew his car to a halt in front of the main steps, Wade appeared at their head. He had on a cream-colored suit, an open-necked shirt, and a sun hat despite the coolness of the day. He seemed relaxed, at ease, and Gaines was very much aware of the fact that this was Wade territory and he was nothing more than a guest. He had no right to be here save the courtesy and favor of the host.

  Gaines killed the engine. He got out of the car and walked toward the steps.

  “Sheriff,” Wade said. He came down the steps and extended his hand.

  This time Gaines felt it best to respond appropriately. “Mr. Wade,” he sa
id, and they shook.

  “Do for you?”

  “Just a house call, Mr. Wade. Just wanted to ask you about the events that might have followed your bail payment yesterday.”

  “Mr. Webster is dead, I understand,” Wade said.

  “Yes, he is. His motel room was burned to the ground, and he was inside.”

  “You’re sure it was him?” Wade asked.

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Word is that his head and his hand were missing.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard, Sheriff.”

  “From whom, might I ask?”

  Wade waved the question away as insignificant. “Just around, you know?”

  “I don’t know that I do know, Mr. Wade.”

  Wade smiled. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “Maybe you’d be better off spending your time someplace you’re welcome, eh, Sheriff?”

  “I’m not welcome here, Mr. Wade?”

  Wade shrugged. His eyes smiled, but his mouth didn’t. “Perhaps welcome is too strong a word. Maybe you should be spending your time with people who can answer your questions . . . people who can tell you something you don’t already know.”

  “I believe you know a number of things that I don’t know, Mr. Wade.”

  Gaines didn’t wait for Wade to respond.

  “You know where you took Mr. Webster after he left the Sheriff’s Office at three in the afternoon yesterday. You were, as far as I can tell, one of the last people to see him alive. You also know why you were willing to pay five thousand dollars to get him out of jail . . .”

  “Perhaps, in truth, I am nothing more than a concerned citizen, Sheriff.”

  “How so?”

  “Perhaps I am one of those people who have become somewhat dismayed by the apparent lack of justice that seems available for the common man. Perhaps I felt that justice would best be served by letting fate take its course as far as Lieutenant Michael Webster was concerned. Perhaps there are folks in Whytesburg who think that an eye for an eye is still the best kind of justice.”

  “You think he was killed by someone for what he did to Nancy Denton?”