River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

“When he called, was he at the house in Spanish Town? Is it possible he could have been elsewhere?”

  “It was a Skype call. I could see he was in the house.”

  “How long did you speak?”

  “Maybe ten minutes. He said he was exhausted and just wanted to finish up something he was working on and go to sleep.”

  “Was that the last time you talked to him?”

  She nodded, unable to speak, but she never looked away from Wallace. After a few long, heaving breaths, she regained some of her composure. “We made a plan for lunch today and that was it. You never know when it’ll be the last time, do you?”

  “No. We don’t.” Wallace’s mind flashed back to the moment she learned about the car crash that claimed so much of her family, and she felt herself slipping under the shadow of that long-ago heartbreak. “Did Herbert seem anxious to get off the phone?” she asked, pulling herself back into the moment.

  “No. Tired, but that was all.”

  “Was there a worried tone in his voice?”

  “No. Not that, either.” She covered the tissue with one hand and dropped her other hand into her lap. Her chin came up and she nibbled on her lower lip. “In fact, even though he was tired, he seemed to be in high spirits. Having lived with him for nearly forty years, I know that that sort of manic exhaustion of his usually meant that he was on the verge of doing … something.” She shook her head and puffed out a long breath through her mouth.

  “Like what?”

  “Detective Hartman, he was a complicated man, forever questioning the basic assumptions that shaped his thinking, and he wasn’t afraid to make changes. In some ways, he was like a bottle of champagne with a loose cork. Something was going to pop off, but you never really knew exactly what, or when.”

  Dorothy’s eyes drifted away from Wallace and she seemed to grow thoughtful.

  “Could you tell if he was alone in the house?” Wallace asked.

  “Well, I didn’t see anyone else on the screen, and I didn’t hear any voices in the background.”

  “Forgive me for putting this so bluntly, Mrs. Marioneaux, but—”

  “Could this have been the work of a jealous husband? Were there other women? Is that what you’re going to ask me?”

  “I’m sorry, but yes.”

  “I’m not aware of anything like that.” She ticked the fingernails of one hand against the tabletop with a faint galloping rhythm. Her gaze was steady, but her mouth looked weak. “But it might be too much to hope that something so simplistic as a vow of marital fidelity could cover all the bases for a man whose inner life was as rich as Herbert’s was.” Her eyes drifted to the side again. “What do you think, Detective Hartman?”

  “I didn’t know your husband, Mrs. Marioneaux.”

  “And I was not insinuating that you did,” she snapped. “You may rest assured I was merely asking your opinion about strong, intelligent men. Men who … attract attention.” Dorothy tilted her head back and looked down her nose at Wallace. “Is there something specific that makes you feel like it’s okay to poke your nose into such an ugly little place?”

  “I know this is unpleasant, but we can’t afford to leave any possibilities unconsidered.”

  Dorothy pushed her lips into a tight smile.

  “What about Glenn?” Wallace asked after a few seconds, surprised that she was having to suppress the urge to show a bit of irritation toward Dorothy. As a rule, she was of the opinion that the torment that came with the loss of a spouse was a license to be disagreeable.

  “What about Glenn?” Dorothy asked.

  “Might he have an insight into this part of his father’s life?”

  “You’ll have to ask him those questions.”

  “Were he and his father close?”

  “Why do you keep asking me questions you should be asking Glenn?”

  “Did you or Mr. Marioneaux have other children?”

  Dorothy hesitated. “Glenn is our only child.” The corners of her mouth pulled into a prim expression and her eyes lost focus, as if she was looking back at distasteful memories or thumbing through a catalog of old suspicions.

  “Mrs. Marioneaux?” Wallace waited until the woman’s gaze came back in her direction. “Are there other children?”

  She straightened in her chair—shoulders back, chin out. “Your guess is as good as mine, Detective.” A flurry of expressions chased across Dorothy’s face, finally settling into a thin, angry smile.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Marioneaux. You have my word that we will do everything in our power to find who did this.”

  A look of pain crept into Dorothy’s eyes, pushing aside the anger from moments ago.

  Even though it was years ago, Wallace could recall, in great detail, the turmoil her own husband’s death had unleashed within her. Things had been too chaotic to even think about in any clear fashion. She never knew, from one minute to the next, which feelings would try fighting past the others, competing for her voice or commanding her silence. She had felt alarmed, even guilty, at some of the thoughts and reactions that bubbled up.

  She was on the verge of offering Dorothy some words of counsel on how to deal with what was coming, but she didn’t feel like she knew the proper things to say. Even after all her years as a police officer and after all the personal misfortune she had suffered, the emotional syntax of grief still felt like a foreign language.

  “One more question,” Wallace said. “It appears the senator brought a laptop into the house with him, but it’s not in the house now.”

  “I have no idea where it might be. Did you ask that cleaning woman? I know he has someone come in.”

  “She doesn’t know, either.”

  “Then, you might ask the folks in his office.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “Does this mean you think robbery was a motive?”

  “He was wearing an expensive watch. His wedding ring and his wallet with several hundred in cash and a collection of plastic were still with him.”

  Dorothy shrugged and shook her head. “I’m sorry for being so difficult,” she said. “Somewhere deep inside me, I always had a feeling things might come to this, given the way he led his life. Even so, it still comes as a shock. I wish I could be more help, but I just don’t know anything.” Her eyes brimmed and her mouth took on a scowl of self-reproach.

  “I’ll have someone walk you to the lobby.”

  After handing Dorothy off to one of the civilian employees, Wallace returned to the interview rooms, but Glenn was gone. His business card lay in the center of the table in Room Eight. Wallace turned the card over.

  “Sorry. Something came up. Will call soon,” was scrawled on the back.

  Occasionally, interviewees snuck out, like this, but it had never happened to Wallace. Before she let herself get irritated, she called the number on the front of the card. It went to voicemail and her irritation began to assert itself. She left a message, trying to convey the urgency of the situation without sounding like there was murder in her voice.

  FOUR

  Wallace worked her way across the cavernous police garage to the section where impounded vehicles were examined. The smell of gasoline and exhaust, and the endless bang of metal on metal, was giving her a headache.

  A crime-scene tech met her beside Herbert Marioneaux’s vehicle. Together, they did a standard forensic evidence gather. Unlike most people, the late senator had not used his vehicle as a mobile storage unit for anything. The exterior paint had a high glossy sheen and the interior was meticulously maintained. There wasn’t even a stray gas receipt in the console. The car looked like a dead end.

  Head down, lost in thought, Wallace trudged back toward the exit.

  “Hey, Wallace.”

  She looked up. Shirley Cappaletti, a veteran homicide detective, was standing near the doorway, scribbling something onto a form.

  “Hey, Cappy. What’s shaking?” She raised her voice to be heard over the thunking of a hydraulic lift. />
  Shirley handed the form to a man in coveralls and then turned to face Wallace.

  “A banner day for homicides in River City—two within four hours of each other. You caught Marioneaux, you lucky duck, and I caught the other one—a woman named Lydia Prescott. Talk about a shitty deal.”

  “What’s the story?” Wallace asked, hoping she sounded interested.

  “Single, black, middle-aged. Just adopted a kid who was about to age out of foster care.”

  “Somebody pissed off about parental rights getting terminated?”

  “Looks like she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A smash and grab, with maybe too much emphasis on the smash part. Blunt force trauma to the head. Car, purse, briefcase, basically all of her movable possessions were taken. We found the car, torched.” She pointed at the blackened hulk of an automobile near the back of the garage.

  “Any leads?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “Right outside her house. Which was also her place of business.”

  Wallace arched an eyebrow.

  “Nope.” Shirley shook her head. “Not a working girl. She ran a research firm. Focus groups, public opinion polls, market research—that sort of thing.”

  The killing itself was bad enough. Thinking about the newly adopted kid who’d just had hope snatched away made Wallace want to cry.

  “Yeah, really,” Cappy said, noticing Wallace’s miserable expression, matching it with one of her own. “Look, I gotta run. Let’s catch up sometime.”

  “Sure,” Wallace mumbled, unable to shake Lydia Prescott’s newly orphaned child out of her head.

  * * *

  Three hours after he had given her the slip, Glenn had still not returned her call. She tried again. He didn’t answer again. She got his home address from the DMV database and drove by, but he wasn’t there. She drove to the business address on his card, but he wasn’t there, either.

  Frustrated and irritated, Wallace called Dorothy to see if they were together, but Dorothy said she hadn’t seen him since before her interview.

  “He’s gone through a second divorce,” Dorothy said. “It’s been a while, but it seems to have left some lasting wounds. And now, with Herbert’s death…” Her voice trailed off. “He tends to withdraw when he’s feeling troubled. That can make him difficult to get hold of.”

  “If you just absolutely had to get to him, where would you look?”

  “My best guess is that he’s climbed into a bottle, somewhere. Or maybe he’s rented himself a friend for the weekend. He’s got plenty of money, so it’s certainly possible he’s doing both. Hotel lounges and other such watering holes might be a good place to start.”

  “I’m sorry. That can’t have been an easy thing for a mother to say about her son.”

  After several quiet seconds, Dorothy spoke in a strong, unemotional voice. “I’ll let you know if I hear from him, Detective.” Then the line went dead.

  On her way back to the police building, Wallace requested a be-on-the-lookout for Glenn’s automobiles. It seemed he owned several.

  * * *

  The boxes of items taken from Marioneaux’s rental house in Spanish Town filled two shelves in the corner of the evidence room. Several boxes contained personal belongings and yellow tablets filled with handwritten notes on everything imaginable—ideas for legislation, reminders about who needed to be called and who needed to be avoided, diary-like entries about discussions with other politicians or what he thought of certain developments in the state or the country. There was no rhyme or reason to how the information was organized. It looked as if he had written things down as they occurred to him.

  The last few boxes contained what appeared to be early drafts of legislation he had sponsored or co-sponsored, and books. So far, none of it suggested who or why anyone would murder the senator.

  Wallace and her new partner, LeAnne Hawkins, had spent the last few hours rooting through the whole mess, with nothing to show for their efforts. LeAnne had been a detective for less than eighteen months and she was widely regarded as a difficult personality.

  LeAnne’s last partner had politely referred to her as training resistant when he came by to congratulate Wallace on her good fortune.

  Wallace’s original plan to keep LeAnne busy on matters that didn’t require them to be together had fallen apart. The strategy had worked once before, when Wallace found herself partnered with someone who felt like a burr under her saddle. But LeAnne was quick to see through the ploy.

  “I may not be Miss Congeniality,” she had said, “but I’m not Miss Dimwit, either.”

  “And I never said you were.”

  “You didn’t have to. Only a dimwit would miss this bullshit trick you’re trying to pull.”

  “LeAnne, look—”

  “No, Wallace, you look. I get it that you miss Colley. I’m sure he was a great partner. But it’s clear to everyone, except maybe you, that you’re angry about him having to retire. However, I didn’t give Colley MS. And it’s not my fault that you think he’s the only person on earth worthy of riding shotgun with the likes of you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where are you getting this from?”

  “Maybe you missed the part about me not being a dimwit, so if we need to go through that again, you just let me know.”

  Wallace had opened her mouth, ready to fire back, but in a humbling moment of clarity that snapped her head around she realized LeAnne was right and arguing would only make her look foolish. She was angry.

  Colley’s retirement had been hard for her to accept. And without her noticing, the anger had mutated into a hostility toward even the idea of being paired with anyone new because a new partnership signaled the end of the old one.

  Wallace had said the only decent thing she could. “No, LeAnne, you’re exactly right. Thank you for pointing that out.”

  Sensing the opportunity that usually comes in the wake of a heated clearing of the air, Wallace had redoubled her efforts to make the partnership work. While their frank exchange had helped Wallace recognize and deal with her feelings about Colley’s absence, so far it had had absolutely no effect on her relationship with LeAnne.

  The sound of a box being slid across the floor refocused Wallace in the moment.

  “This guy was such a dirtbag.” LeAnne opened the next box in the stack.

  “I’m not aware of any provisions in the criminal code that justify homicide because the victim is believed to be a dirtbag.”

  “You can be such an idealist.” LeAnne laughed. “He might have been a smart dirtbag, though. Look at these.” She held up two well-used volumes, biographies of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

  Wallace also spied a dog-eared copy of The March of Folly, Barbara Tuchman’s bitter chronicle of how political inertia carried cultures over the precipice once leaders became blind to the obvious need for a change of course.

  “Interesting.” Wallace glanced at the titles, then returned her attention to the box she was looking through. She picked up an ancient-looking book. The front and back covers had broken away at the hinges. A rubber band held the covers and the pages together.

  She slipped the rubber band off and began leafing through it. Long passages had been underlined in pencil and notes were made in the margins—references to the superiority of races and clean bloodlines. None of it looked like Marioneaux’s handwriting, but many of the markings had been smudged and some were impossible to read. Wallace handed the book to Leanne.

  LeAnne’s eyes got big as she flipped through the table of contents. “See, I told you he was a dirtbag.” She handed the book back and Wallace dropped it into the box, glad to be rid of its touch.

  “I’ve been thinking about how to divide this investigation between the two of us.”

  LeAnne rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. You want me to go to Siberia to see if the Russian government was involved, while you cruise around Baton Rouge solving the case.”

 
Wallace waved away LeAnne’s comment. “I want you to put Tonya Lennar under a microscope.”

  “The cleaning lady?”

  “She’d been working for Marioneaux for several months, so it’s possible she discovered something that others might have found to be useful leverage against him. Maybe somebody was putting the screws to Marioneaux and he was refusing to play ball, or maybe he was threatening to expose their scheme.”

  “Did she say or do something during her interview this morning that makes you think this?” LeAnne leaned against the shelving unit, giving Wallace her full attention.

  “All politicians have skeletons in their closet. They’re all vulnerable, and they can all be leaned on if those skeletons fall into the wrong hands. See who Ms. Lennar is connected to. Who she’s hanging around with.”

  “Starting…”

  “No time like the present. Keep me in the loop on what you find.” Wallace placed the cover on the last of the boxes.

  “And what will you be doing?”

  “I’m off to Siberia.”

  Wallace left the evidence room and returned to her cubicle to begin a deep dive into Herbert Marioneaux’s unusual life and untimely death.

  * * *

  The online material about the senator seemed endless. Wallace combed through everything she could find—newspaper reports, magazine interviews, blog posts—literally thousands of mentions on the internet. If nothing else, Marioneaux had been a polarizing figure. But so far, nothing she found, not even the most venomous opinions—and there were plenty of those—seemed to hold a motive for murder.

  At some point, Wallace realized she was the only person in the Homicide Division. She checked the clock in the corner of her computer screen and cursed under her breath. Once again, she had lost track of time. She and Mason had planned on an early dinner and a long walk through his neighborhood. Now it was nearly ten o’clock.

  There was still a lot to look at, but fatigue was slowing her down. When she found herself, for about the tenth time, reading the same sentence without understanding a single word, she gave up.

  “Remember me?” she asked when Mason answered her call. She pulled out of the parking lot and turned left.