River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

  “You happy now?” Glenn looked over his shoulder at Wallace. His eyes were hooded. Whatever he was feeling over the death of his father was masked by an ugly smile mixed with a touching regard for his mother. “Is this what you wanted? You get off watching other people’s grief?” He pressed his cheek to the top of his mother’s head. After a moment, she collapsed against him and started sobbing. “Leave us be, why don’t you?”

  “Mr. Marioneaux, I know this is a difficult moment.” Glenn opened his mouth, but with a raised finger Wallace preempted whatever challenge he was about to offer. “I do know. Now please, just listen. I’ll need to speak with you and your mother, and it will need to be soon. You can wait for me out here, until I’m finished in the house, or we can meet at the downtown police building this afternoon.”

  “This is just so wonderful, just so damned thoughtful.” He pressed his lips tight together and then raised his bare wrist toward his face, pretending to consult a wristwatch. “It hasn’t been two minutes since we found out my father died and already we’re suspects.”

  Wallace knew what was coming next.

  “If only you people worked this fast looking for whoever did this.”

  “We’ll meet you downtown, Detective.” Dorothy looked at Wallace. Her eyes were bloodshot and she looked haggard, but her voice was strong. She patted Glenn’s chest and pushed away from him. “I need to sit down.” She turned and walked to the passenger side of a late-model Cadillac sedan parked at the curb.

  Wallace watched as Dorothy pulled open the back door and settled into the seat.

  Glenn stared at Wallace. His lip curled and his nostrils flared as if he smelled something unpleasant. After a few seconds he moved away from her and stalked off toward the Cadillac.

  Wallace returned to the house. In addition to the Marioneauxs, she would need to interview Tonya Lennar, the cleaning lady who made the freaked-out call to 9-1-1 when she found the body. It was going to be a long day.

  THREE

  Wallace flipped through her notes, then looked up at the woman sitting across the table in the interview room. Tonya Lennar was in her late twenties, white, nicotine skinny, and she had the busy hands of someone feeling a few smokes shy of her quota.

  “So, Miss Lennar. I’d like to take you back through your recollections, but this time, I’m going to stop you and ask questions along the way. Do you think you’re up for a second go-around?”

  Tonya nodded.

  “Something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Fine. Let’s start again from just before you entered the house.”

  “Well, like I said, I knew Mr. Marioneaux probably wouldn’t be in, he almost never is on days where I get there in the morning, but I knocked anyway. Just in case. I didn’t want to walk in on the man if he was coming out of the shower or something. I seen enough of that when I was a motel maid. You know what I’m saying?”

  Wallace nodded, encouraging Tonya to continue.

  “You just wouldn’t believe how many men forget to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and then just happen to come parading out of the bathroom, naked as you please, right at the exact moment that Housekeeping’s coming in.”

  “Did Mr. Marioneaux ever treat you to a parade of that sort?”

  “Oh, no ma’am. He was a real classy gentleman. Anyway, like I said, he wasn’t hardly there on days when I showed up late in the morning, but he always left a nice tip on the counter for me. So, I knocked and waited. Knocked some more. Waited some more. When he didn’t come to the door, I got the key from the hiding place where he always left it for me, and then I let myself in.”

  “Tell me again, what was the first thing you remember about the moment you stepped into the house? And please, take your time. Think back through what you saw, what you heard, smelled, anything at all.”

  “Well, like I said, there isn’t really much to tell. I just went through my routine. I called out, letting anybody in the house know I was there, who I was, why I’m there. I sure don’t want to get mistaken for a burglar and get shot or clubbed or nothing.”

  Tonya pursed her lips and rocked her head back and forth a few times. She didn’t look anxious to tell this part of the story again. Her first time through had been rough. Retelling had a way of solidifying images in one’s mind, especially the kind one might rather forget.

  “So I started my walk-through. You know.” Tonya hunched her shoulders and clamped her hands between her thighs. “Just to see what was what, so I could figure out where I was gonna start and all.” Her brow furrowed and she scrunched her nose. “You know.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “And then I found him.” She breathed hard through her mouth and her eyes started leaking. “At first I didn’t see him. Just all the shit busted loose in the room, like they had a wild party or something. I clean a lot in that neighborhood and some of them folks that work in the Capitol throw some crazy-ass parties.”

  “Had you ever seen the aftermath of any parties like that at Herbert Marioneaux’s place?”

  There was a knock at the door to the interview room. Wallace half stood and looked back over her shoulder, through the porthole. She pulled the door open. A message slip was thrust toward her. The Marioneauxs had arrived. “Put them in Room Four,” Wallace said to the messenger. “Tell them I’ll be with them in about ten minutes. And keep Room Eight open as well. I’m going to separate them and interview them individually. Sorry,” Wallace said, pushing the door shut and turning back to Tonya. “Please continue.”

  “No, I never seen any partying or nothing.” Tonya looked at her hands. “He was real particular about how things were. He was the easiest clean I had. Just dust and vacuum, empty the dishwasher, scrub the fixtures, and things like that. Super neat, you know. Clothes always hung up. Even the hangers was just so in the closet.” She squinted and held her thumb and index finger a few inches apart as if she were taking a measurement. “Only time the bed was unmade was when it was time to change the sheets.”

  “What did you do after you walked into the room?”

  “Like I said, at first I didn’t see him. Just this big holy mess, and then … it was like looking at one a them big pictures in a museum. You know how your eyes just naturally get pulled along till, eventually, you end up seeing everything. It was like I knew there was gonna be something just awful and I didn’t want to keep looking, but I couldn’t make my eyes quit moving.” Tonya pressed her lips together in an unsuccessful attempt to keep them from quivering. “Until … I was just looking at him.” Tonya sniffled and covered her nose and mouth with her hand. Granular zombie streaks of mascara ran down her cheeks.

  Wallace waited until the wave of emotion appeared to pass. “Just a moment ago, you said you knew something was going to be ‘just awful.’ You hadn’t actually laid eyes on the body, yet, so can you recall what made you think that?”

  “No. Not really.” Tonya wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Just … I don’t know. Something.”

  “Okay. Maybe it’ll come to you later. What about other people? Did you ever see anyone else in the house?”

  “No. I could tell other folks had been there from time to time, but I never actually seen anybody there.”

  “Any indication that he might have been sharing his bed with someone?”

  “Every now and again, I’d see a suitcase in the bedroom. Expensive-looking stuff. I just assumed, from the initials on it, that it belonged to his wife.”

  “A laptop came into the house, with Mr. Marioneaux, last night. It was not there when I went through today.”

  “Unh-uh. I didn’t take it.”

  “And I’m not accusing you,” Wallace said politely. “Perhaps you saw it or you know where the senator might have kept such items when he wasn’t using them.”

  “No, ma’am.” She shook her head vigorously, causing her ponytail to slap back and forth. “Can’t help you with that one. I don’t touch nothing like that. Never.”

  Wallace wo
ndered what life was like when every question about missing property felt like an accusation.

  “One more thing. I’m sorry, I know this is tough, but please bear with me.”

  Tonya nodded. Her eyes were open, but Wallace was pretty sure her mind’s eye was focused on whatever she had seen when she entered the crime scene.

  “Every house has a smell all its own. Think back. Was there anything in the air that wasn’t usually there? Cologne or perfume? Body odor? Unusual food smells?”

  It was a long shot, but if Tonya was familiar with the normal smell of the house from having cleaned there so long she might notice something different—something that might prove useful.

  Tonya looked to her right, allowing her eyes to wander up the wall and across the ceiling to the corner. Her mouth pulled to one side as she considered Wallace’s question. “Not that I can recall.” She shook her head.

  “Thank you, Miss Lennar. I apologize for putting you through all this. It’s possible that as the intensity of the experience fades, other details might spring to mind. Please call me, if you think of anything.”

  Tonya rose and scouted around the base of her chair for her belongings. She jumped when she looked over to find Wallace staring at her.

  “What did you do with the key? The one you said Mr. Marioneaux hid for you.”

  “Oh my God. I totally forgot about it.” Tonya extracted the key from the back pocket of her jeans and laid it on the table between them. “Sorry about that.”

  “That’s perfectly okay. It’s been a difficult day.” With the tip of her pen, Wallace slid the key across the table and into a little evidence bag. “I’ll have someone drive you back to the house so you can show them where this was kept.”

  “I remember something now.” Tonya looked down at Wallace. “You asking for that key made me think of it.”

  Wallace waited, her pen poised over the page.

  “The bumpy side of the key, the teeth, he always left the key with the teeth facing one way—like all the other neatnik things he did. Today, the key was facing the other way, and I remember thinking about that for just a second or two, but then it went right out of my head till you asked me for it just now.”

  “It’s fascinating that you would notice such a tiny detail.”

  “Well, like I say, he kept things just so. You know—one of them place-for-everything kind of people. So when something’s different it kind of sticks out.”

  “But not everyone would notice that. You’re very observant.”

  Tonya looked pleased with herself. “It actually pays pretty good to kind of tune in to the way your customers live. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I think I do. So, when you say ‘always,’ do you mean that literally? Always, always, always—no exceptions.”

  “As far as I can remember, yeah. Every time.” She pushed out her lower lip and nodded, staring off into the middle distance.

  “Did you ever tell anyone where the key was located?”

  “Oh no, no, no. That’s a pretty smart crowd living in that neighborhood. The minute somebody got ripped off that way, the word would go out and that’d be the end of Tonya cleaning anywhere around there.”

  * * *

  Wallace stopped in the doorway to Interview Room Four. Dorothy Marioneaux’s eyes had the hollowed-out look of a refugee. Glenn hulked nearby. His expression was sour, but his words went the opposite way.

  “I’d like to offer my apologies for my earlier bad behavior, Detective Hartman.”

  Then offer them, Wallace thought.

  “I know you were just doing your job. Mother and I are grateful for your efforts. So, please tell us how we can be of help?” He leaned back, shoulders and head resting against the wall, looking first at his mother, then at Wallace.

  Wallace pushed the door closed as she entered the room. She looked down at Dorothy, who, so far, had not moved or given any indication that she was even aware that others were moving and talking around her.

  Wallace wondered whether Glenn and his mother were cut from the same cloth as Herbert, politically speaking. She couldn’t recall any stories about Herbert’s family, but she was not a compulsive newspaper reader and she had banished television to the outer darkness after her freshman year of college.

  “I’m so very sorry for the loss of Mr. Marioneaux. And I’m sorry we have to deal with this right now. But time is always of the essence, in a case like this.”

  “A case like what, exactly?” Dorothy snapped out of her distracted state, eyes riveted on Wallace. “I’d like to know precisely what we’re dealing with. So far, my son and I have not actually been told a single solitary fact.” Her voice rose with every sentence. “We figured out, from the ambulance and your nod and a wink, that Herbert passed away. And with your crime-scene crew everywhere we know he didn’t die peacefully in his sleep. I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.”

  Glenn had played the difficult role at the house, but now Dorothy had taken over that part and Glenn appeared to have adopted a cooperative demeanor. Wallace smiled inwardly at the irony of two civilian interviewees running a good-cop-bad-cop routine on a real cop.

  “A homicide in which the victim was well-known for having controversial views. Views that were, to say the least, very off-putting to a great many people.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Dorothy said, sounding incensed. “But the small-minded had no intention of forgiving him or letting him forget.”

  Wallace looked at Glenn, then back at Dorothy. “Mrs. Marioneaux, I’ll need to interview you and your son separately, so I’m going to move Glenn to a different room while you and I speak first.”

  “Is this really necessary?” Glenn asked.

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  Wallace walked Glenn to Room Eight, then returned to Dorothy. It was evident she had been crying, but she gave Wallace a defiant look.

  “Aren’t you going to read me my rights, Detective?”

  “You’re not in custody, Mrs. Marioneaux. If you don’t want to be here, you’re absolutely free to leave. But at the moment, I have no leads on who might have killed your husband. My officers are doing a door-to-door, but so far, we’re coming up empty.”

  “It occurs to me that you never told us how Herbert was…” Dorothy’s eyes got shiny and full and she bit down on her lips.

  “It appears he was … asphyxiated. Something around his neck.”

  She didn’t mention the slip lock or the mirror. Those details needed to remain out of the public eye until their strategic value was better understood.

  “But it’s also possible that asphyxiation was not the cause of death, that that was done … afterward. The autopsy will shed some light on that.”

  “Good Lord. Who would do such a thing?” A hand fluttered against her chest.

  Wallace studied Dorothy, wondering if the revelation would free up a useful memory.

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you where to look,” Dorothy said. “But you’re correct. He did have enemies. Herbert was something of an expert at making enemies. It was almost as if he collected them like trophies.”

  “How so?”

  “He thought of himself as being in a constant state of growth, and he could be very dismissive of people who didn’t feel like they needed to keep up.”

  Dorothy reached into her purse and pulled out a tissue with a lipstick blot in one corner. With a clean area, she dabbed at her eyes. Her gaze left Wallace and focused on the wall to her right and she went quiet for several seconds.

  “But every time he changed,” she continued, “he claimed the views he was letting go of were some sort of false consciousness that he was waking up from. When it came time for him to make good on his campaign promises, the people who had supported one version of Herbert often found out that a new version had taken over his senate seat. It confused people, and angered them. What he considered progress others thought of as disloyalty or just pandering to some new group of voters.”

&nbs
p; Dorothy carefully spread the tissue on the table and began smoothing the wrinkles.

  “But weren’t some of those changes good things? Didn’t you say that he had parted ways with his less inclusive views?”

  “He had moved on. But you know and I know that not everyone would consider those to be changes for the good. And for others, no matter how far in the past his original sins were, it would never be far enough. They were bound and determined to see the old Herbert as the only Herbert, probably forever.”

  “Can you make a list of people who might have held a strong enough grudge that they might take such extreme action?”

  “Yes, of course. It may take a while, but I will certainly do that.”

  “Then let’s focus for a minute on more concrete events. Things that might have occurred recently that point toward … what transpired. Can you recall if he received any overt threats? Odd calls in the middle of the night? Unexpected meetings he was called away to? Anonymous letters or funny-looking packages in the mailbox? Anything?”

  “Not that I know of.” Dorothy’s eyes remained focused on her labors with the tissue, which she was now folding in half. “Whenever the legislature was in session, he was rarely in Crofton. He stayed in that little rental house in Spanish Town. If the kinds of things you mention happened here, he never told me about them.”

  “Did you speak often when he was in Baton Rouge?”

  “We spoke every night, and I drove in occasionally, like today, and we would meet for dinner or something.” Dorothy continued folding the tissue into ever smaller squares. “Every once in a while, if there was something interesting going on—some big political to-do, or maybe a concert or a play—I might come in for the weekend.”

  “Did you have your nightly call, last night?”

  “We did. It was a little after eight o’clock.” Dorothy absently polished a spot on the table with the folded tissue.