The Devil and the River

by R.J. Ellory

  Gaines looked at Hagen. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “No, I think we’ve got what we need,” Hagen said. “Think the next thing is to go down and make a visit.”

  “Like I said, down on the Collins Road. Head back toward town. Second intersection on the right is signposted for the state line. You head on down there a half mile or so and then take the road signposted Pascagoula. Follow that road for a good mile and a half, and you’ll see Devereaux’s trailers set back on the left-hand side. If his truck is there, he’s home. If it ain’t, he ain’t.”

  Gaines finished his lemonade and got up from the table.

  “Much appreciated, Sheriff.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gradney replied. “You let me know how this goes, but if you need any help, I ain’t home.” He smiled.

  They shook hands, and Gradney showed them out of the house. Sarah Gradney and the kids were in the yard. Gaines and Hagen thanked her for her hospitality, apologizing again for disturbing their Sunday afternoon.

  The kids waved as Gaines and Hagen drove away.

  “Good people,” Hagen said.

  “Unlike our Mr. Devereaux,” Gaines replied.

  57

  Devereaux’s trailers had seen many better days. One was single wide, the other a double, and where once they might have looked as fine as anything tethered behind a pickup, all fresh chrome and streamlined design, they had now settled in for some slow, inevitable process of deterioration. Those trailers would never move again, for to hitch them to anything and pull away would be to see them come apart at the seams.

  There was no sign of Leon Devereaux’s black Ford, and when Gaines pulled to a halt and got out, there was nothing but silence to greet him in that small clearing.

  The trailers were obscured from the road by a tall bank of cypresses, and on the ground between them, amidst the scatterings of goldenrod and cattails, were broken bottles, empty gas canisters, busted furniture, a rusted-to-hell barbecue, a bicycle frame, a dilapidated sofa, the stuffing escaping through rends and tears. Gaines imagined the interior of the trailers would be just as bad, if not worse.

  “I want to check inside,” Gaines said.

  “I know you do,” Hagen replied.

  “You got a problem with that?”

  “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

  “You okay to stay here and keep an eye out?”

  “Sure am.”

  Gaines headed for the larger of the two trailers. The door was locked, but he fetched a knife from the car and pried the lock without any difficulty. He would be able to close it again and leave no sign that the door had been forced.

  Once inside, he was assaulted by the smell. It was like Webster’s place—worse in fact—and he knew before he even reached the small bathroom in the back of the trailer that something more than rotten food and dirty clothes had made a stench like that.

  If you’d been to war, well, you never forgot that smell.

  Gaines reached out and gripped the door handle. He turned it until he felt the latch click back from the striker plate. He held his breath for a second, and then he pushed the door open.

  The blood, and there was much of it, was concentrated within the tub itself. It had dried in swirls on the porcelain, and Gaines could clearly see clearly where someone—presumably Devereaux—had gripped the edge of the tub as he worked.

  Gaines thought that word—worked—and he shuddered. The bile rose in his throat. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, swallowed the foul taste.

  Back to the tub. There must have been two pints of blood, maybe three, and in places it was thick and congealed, raised in relief against the surface.

  He believed he knew exactly what had taken place here. He was certain that this was Webster’s blood, that this tub was where the removal of Webster’s head and hand had occurred. Perhaps that had been the sequence of events. Wade had bailed Webster out, best of friends, just helping a guy in trouble, and he’d suggested they drive over to see another friend in Lucedale, get a drink, have a good old time after Webster’s ordeal. The friend in Lucedale? Hell, he was a vet, too. He and Webster would get along just fine. And Webster went, unaware that he was being delivered to his own death. Devereaux killed him, or maybe Wade did that himself. Into the tub he went, head and hand were removed, and then the body was shipped back to Webster’s cabin and the place was torched.

  Gaines pictured Devereaux kneeling right there beside the tub, one hand holding Webster by the shoulder, perhaps in the tub himself and kneeling on the body. Christ almighty, it didn’t bear thinking about. But Gaines could not help thinking about it. More than that, he could picture the horror playing out before his very eyes. His next question—what had Devereaux used to do this thing?—was answered when he saw the blood-streaked, foot-long hunting knife beneath the tub, a razor-sharp blade on one side, a serrated edge on the other. Gaines had seen such knives many times in Vietnam. This was not so much a knife as both a machete and a saw combined. A weapon such as that would have decapitated a man effortlessly.

  Gaines kneeled down, covered his hand with the sleeve of his jacket, and lifted the knife out carefully. He set it near the door.

  Devereaux, it seemed, had made no effort to cover his tracks, no effort to clean up the place, no effort to hide the evidence of his actions. There were no indications of a struggle, no jagged splashes of blood on the walls or the tub, barely any blood on the floor. Michael Webster had most definitely been dead before this was done. That, if nothing else, was some small saving grace.

  Of course, Gaines could have been wrong. This could have been someone else’s blood, someone else’s nightmare enacted in this narrow, confined space. Taking that knife back to Victor Powell and typing the blood would support his belief that someone had been butchered here, but it would do nothing to prove it was Webster. And again, just as was the case with the things he’d taken from Webster’s room, taking the knife would also be the illegal removal of evidence from a crime scene. His failure to do things by the book last time had seen Webster released and then murdered. Simply stated, his failure had seen a man killed. But what choice did Gaines have? Had there been any probable cause for his entry to the trailer? No, there had been no reason for him to access the trailer. Was there any outstanding warrant for Leon Devereaux? Not that he was aware of, and Gradney had made no reference to such a thing. And to track Devereaux down and hound him for something that would justify a search warrant would give Devereaux time to contact anyone he wished, more than likely Wade, who could have half a dozen people down here within an hour, and they could remove every single scrap of evidence from these trailers and vanish it all into nowhere.

  There was the line. As state’s AG, Jack Kidd, had so clearly pointed out when he spoke to Gaines about the illegal search and seizure at Webster’s cabin, it was a sad state of affairs when the law prevented you from seeing justice done. But this was the nature of things. This was the system within which he had to work—until he decided to work outside of it.

  John Gaines looked at the swirls of blood in the tub and then back to the knife. He did not hesitate long before he reached down and—once again covering his hand with the sleeve of his jacket—retrieved the knife and headed out to the car.

  “Got there?” Hagen asked.

  “Well, as far as I can guess, this is the knife that was used to cut Michael Webster’s head and hand off.”

  “Taking it back to Whytesburg?”

  “Want Vic Powell to type the blood.”

  “He works fast. We could have it back here safe and sound before anyone’s the wiser.”

  “I have no intention of bringing it back,” Gaines replied.

  “But—”

  “But nothing, Richard. Word gets out that we’re looking at Devereaux for this, and I guarantee these trailers will go the way of Webster’s cabin before the ink is even dry on the search warrant. I’m not prepared to take that risk. I need something that ties these people
to Webster. If he returns and notices it gone, then so be it. At least he will not be able to get rid of it.”

  Hagen didn’t say a word in response.

  Gaines put the knife in the trunk of the car. He went back with a cloth and wiped down any door handles or surfaces he might have touched. He secured the door of the trailer and returned to the car, where Hagen already had the engine running.

  “I called in to the office,” Hagen said, “told Barbara to get Victor out to his office, that we need him pronto.”

  “Well, let’s get the hell out of here, then,” Gaines said.

  Hagen gunned the engine to life, and they drove away from Leon Devereaux’s trailers.

  58

  While Gaines waited for the test results, he sat in his car, windows open, and considered what he had done. Matching blood types to Webster didn’t prove a damned thing, but it would at least be something circumstantial.

  He’d had Hagen call Sheriff Gradney and ask that Gradney alert them if there was any sign of Leon Devereaux. After that, he’d told Hagen he could go on home. Gaines figured that waiting was something that didn’t require both of them.

  Powell was an hour, no more, and then he came out.

  “Same type,” he said. “But that ain’t the only type on that knife. I got an A, an AB and an O. Webster was an A.”

  “Right,” Gaines said. “Seems our boy has been busier than we thought.” He opened the door and got out of the car. His first thought was whether one of those other blood types was that of Clifton Regis.

  “I’m not going to ask you where this came from,” Powell said.

  “And if you asked me, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “I can tell you that a knife like that would have been more than sufficient to decapitate Webster.”

  “Good. That helps.”

  “And I can also tell you that the O is the oldest, and the other two are far more recent. I’d say both of them are no earlier than a week or ten days ago, the A first, the AB later, but not by much.”

  “So if the A is Webster, then that knife was used on someone else even more recently?”

  “Certainly looks that way. What do you want me to do with it?”

  “I’ll take it off your hands,” Gaines said. “I’ll put it in the office lockup.”

  Powell went back inside to fetch the knife, wrapped in a mortuary bag ordinarily reserved for removed organs. Gaines put it in the trunk of his car.

  “So you getting somewhere with this?” Powell asked.

  “Have some ideas.”

  “Any evidence . . . legally obtained evidence?”

  Gaines shook his head. “Lot of hopefuls, but nothing solid.”

  “Well, I can do nothing but wish you all the luck in the world, John. If they come asking for me, I didn’t see that knife and we didn’t have this conversation. I’m not going to give them a hand when they try and bury you.”

  “Appreciated, Victor.”

  Powell stood in front of the building and watched Gaines drive away. Gaines headed home, was there by nine, took the knife from the trunk and hid it behind the steps leading down to the basement. Maybe he would leave it there as opposed to taking it back to lockup. That way he would better prevent any possibility of implicating Hagen in this matter.

  Gaines sat in the kitchen for a while. He was hungry. He opened a can of tuna, ate all of it, but it served merely to remind him of how little he had eaten that day.

  There was a steak in the fridge, but it didn’t smell so good. He went out back and hurled it into the field. Some dog would find it, and better that than have it go to waste.

  He paused there on the steps. There was nothing out there but darkness and deeper darkness—and the memory of Michael Webster’s head and how it’d been buried in the dirt. Buried in such a way as to be found. Maybe Leon Devereaux had been the man to do this thing. Maybe Matthias Wade had delivered Webster on up to Devereaux for the last drink of his life. Or maybe Gaines had misread everything, and he was dealing with a series of events that possessed no connection to Wade, to Devereaux, to anyone that he was aware of. What he’d said to Powell was right—a lot of hopefuls, nothing solid. Nothing probative, nothing conclusive, nothing damning. Not a shred of substantive evidence.

  So where did he go now? Just wait and see if Della Wade came back with anything? Wait to see if Leon Devereaux noticed that his knife had been taken and thus prompt him to take some action that would be self-incriminatory? No, these things were no good. If Gaines was going to resolve this, he would have to be the one to act. Offense was the best form of defense.

  These people—whoever these people were—had brought a war to Whytesburg. A small war, but a war all the same. Perhaps it really was time to take the war to them, to deliver it right to their doorsteps, to present it in such a way that it could be nothing other than fought.

  And it was with this consideration that Gaines returned to the kitchen, taking care to ensure the back door was locked behind him. He fetched down some bourbon. If he was not going to eat, he would drink. If he drank sufficient, he would sleep, and in sleeping he would at least evade the relentless churning of thoughts in his mind.

  He could not shake that image. The scene in Devereaux’s narrow, stinking bathroom. The image of what had taken place there. And then the added revelation that there was not only one blood type on that knife, but three. Whose blood was this? Who was this man? A solider, a Vietnam veteran, a casualty of war himself, and yet still capable of things that should have stayed back there in the jungles of Southeast Asia? Perhaps this was the reality that Gaines had to face—that the means and methods being employed were the same means and methods he would need to counter this offensive. He poured a second drink. He closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, exhaled slowly.

  Maybe he would have to fight fire with fire.

  Maybe it was that simple.

  59

  Four went out. Three came back.

  That’s what they said.

  Four went out. Three came back.

  No one knew why. No one had an explanation.

  It didn’t make sense to me that Nancy would run away. I mean, I knew she loved Michael. Everyone knew she loved him, and everyone knew that he loved her. If she had run away, well, she would have run away with him. That was the point. It was just one of those things that everyone knew but no one spoke about. He was older than her, of course, but he was so handsome, and people respected him so much for who he was and what he represented. I mean, he was like every father’s favorite son, the son that every mother wished for. He was the boyfriend for every girl, the husband for every wife. And it was a different time, a different age. And it was the South, of course. The difference in years between people wasn’t such a big deal.

  I lay there in the closing evening light, and the warmth just seemed to seep up through the earth and fill every part of me. I had my eyes closed, and Matthias sat beside me but we did not speak. We did not need to speak. The silence between us was just perfect. The music played on, and Michael and Nancy danced on, and it seemed that every minute of that last hour stretched into another hour and yet another, and time became something languid and fluid and we were all just swallowed up inside it. I let my mind drift, and maybe I even slept for a while. I do not remember, and at the time it did not matter, for even had I slept for an hour, for two, I would have woken and merely a minute would have passed in the real world. I did not question it because I did not need to understand.

  And then the record ended. I remember now the very last song that was played. It was “Pretend” by Nat King Cole, and I listened to those words and thought that I was the only one who needed to pretend something—pretend that it was Eugene who was right there beside me, not Matthias—and that Michael and Nancy needed only to pretend that two or three years had already passed, and they could marry and find a home and start a family.

  That’s what I was thinking as I listened to that beautiful record.

  And then it was
finished, and Michael walked toward us, Nancy holding his hand, and he said, “We’re going to take a little walk . . . just for a few minutes. Wait here, okay? We’ll be back soon.”

  And I smiled, and Matthias said, “Sure. We’re not going anywhere, right, Maryanne?”

  “Nope, goin’ nowhere,” I replied, because I didn’t want to move a muscle, didn’t even want to waste as much energy as it took to think about moving.

  And they went—Michael and Nancy—hand in hand, ever so slowly, out toward the edge of the field.

  “You ever been in love, Maryanne?” Matthias asked me.

  I didn’t want to talk, not even about love, but I said, “Maybe. I don’t know. I am wondering if you really know whether you’re actually in love the first time . . . because it’d be the first time, right, and you’d have never done it before.”

  “I guess so,” he said, and then he sighed. He closed his eyes and he didn’t say another word.

  We were there just a little while, it seemed, though time was playing its own game, so maybe it was half an hour, an hour perhaps, and then Michael came back alone.

  Michael Webster took Nancy Denton out into the trees at the end of Five Mile Road, and then he came back alone.

  He seemed confused, disorientated. He said he didn’t know what happened. He said they were together and then they were not. She was there, there right beside him, and then she was gone. Just gone. Where did she go? That was the question that was never answered. Where did Nancy go?

  Now I know I should have gone with her. Maybe I would have disappeared as well, but at least I would have known. At least I wouldn’t have had that question hanging over me for the rest of my life.

  The present becomes the past, unstoppable and inevitable, and then we look back and hindsight shows us our cruelest lessons.

  I should have gone with her.

  I should have kept them from going.

  I should have said something.

  If I had, she would still be here, still be alive, and we would still be the very best of friends.