River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

  “Long day?” Mason asked.

  “Endless. Sorry about not calling and for missing dinner.”

  “We’re fine.”

  Wallace could tell he was irritated. Colley’s retirement and LeAnne’s arrival had aggravated the yawning chasm in her professional life, but Mason had unexpectedly assumed a place in her heart that had lain vacant for longer than she cared to think about. On days like today, she felt like her priorities were backward.

  “Mason, you have got to be ticked off. I know I would be.”

  “It’s been rough in my part of the world today, too. There’s just no fight left in me.”

  “I wouldn’t consider it fighting, unless you call me dirty names.”

  Instead of his usual chuckle there was silence.

  “Mason?”

  “No, really. I’m fine, just tired, and I’ve still got a ton of work. Let’s catch up tomorrow.”

  “That reminds me. I’ve got an invitation to pass along. For tomorrow.” She turned west on Government Street.

  She told him about the birthday dinner for her mother. He sounded excited. She promised to call him during the day. He promised not to wait by the phone. She laughed in spite of her exhaustion.

  Just as Wallace backed into her carport, her phone buzzed. The number looked vaguely familiar, but not in a good way.

  “This is Detective Hartman.”

  “Wallace, hey, Barry Gillis, here.”

  Now she remembered. A local TV reporter.

  “No comment, Mr. Gillis.”

  He laughed. “I haven’t even asked you any questions.”

  “Yet I’ve already answered them all. Wasn’t that considerate of me?”

  “You can call me Barry. We are old friends, you know.”

  Wallace had met Barry in the context of an earlier investigation, when he was just getting started in the TV reporting business. He had approached her with a proposition—he would be her go-to guy in the media if she would be his inside track with the police department. His exact words had been, “If you show me yours I’ll show you mine,” followed by an eyebrow waggle and an elbow nudge.

  After he had mistaken her rattlesnake smile for tacit agreement, he went a step further and asked her out on a date. Wallace had resisted—just barely—the urge to empty her sidearm point-blank through his sternum. And, despite her consistent rebuffs over the years, he persisted with the dogged cheerfulness of a salesman.

  “I’m not telling you anything about the Marioneaux case, Mr. Gillis.”

  “What do you know about the press conference he had scheduled, for Monday morning?”

  She hadn’t even known Marioneaux had called a press conference, but if she admitted that, Gillis would know he had information to trade with.

  Her hesitation was all the encouragement the reporter needed.

  “He promised me an exclusive interview beforehand—which would’ve been earlier today—as long as I agreed not to air it until after the press event.”

  “Have you spoken with his staff?” She was immediately sorry she asked a question, because he always took questions as invitations to drag out the conversation.

  “Not yet. You want a peek at what I find out?” he asked.

  She could picture his overactive eyebrows and his wide-eyed, open-mouth smile. She regretted not shooting him. “I’ll be doing my own Q and A with them, but thank you. And listen, I’ve got to run.” She pressed the End Call icon.

  FIVE

  SUNDAY: JUNE 3

  Wallace gazed at the Trombone Shorty bobblehead on the shelf in her cubicle, praying the little tchotchke would magically send her some crucial bit of inspiration. Once it became clear he was going to let her down, she returned her attention to her computer screen. What felt like the millionth article mentioning Herbert Marioneaux stared back at her. A brief wave of nausea reminded her that she had forgotten to eat lunch again.

  Her entire morning been taken up with online research, requisitioning phone records for Marioneaux and those of his wife and son, and scrutinizing the early returns on the crime-scene forensics.

  The only identifiable fingerprints in the house belonged to Herbert and Dorothy Marioneaux and Tonya Lennar. The house key Tonya had used had been no help. Too many people had touched it, and the techs had been unable to isolate anything legible from the tangle of prints.

  The report from the officers who had canvassed the neighborhood added nothing. There were no street cams in the vicinity of the house. Door-to-door questioning had been thorough, but no one had seen anything.

  Spanish Town was the oldest and one of the most culturally and professionally diverse areas of Baton Rouge. Most folks knew their neighbors, but no one could recall seeing any strange faces or out-of-place vehicles on the street.

  She was about to drive back to Spanish Town to chat with the residents in the nearby houses when Jason Burley plopped into the empty chair a few feet away.

  “I can tell by the look on your face that I’m not going to like whatever you’re about to say.” Wallace waited, not sure what was coming.

  “Where is LeAnne?”

  “Keeping tabs on Tonya Lennar, the housekeeper who cleaned Marioneaux’s house.”

  Burley nodded as if he was weighing whether to continue. “They stayed up all night at the crime lab, a Saturday night no less, working on your case.”

  “See, I should be pleased about that, but I know that’s just the first shoe.”

  “I knew you would feel that way. You probably just checked on the early lab reports and you didn’t see anything significant in there. Am I right?”

  “You being right is not the issue. The issue is why do I get the feeling you know something I don’t?”

  “Because it hasn’t been logged into the case file yet.”

  “Then how did you get it?” It bothered her that she was getting the information secondhand. “Why did this information go to you instead of into the lab report? Is this how the case is going to happen, with everything filtering down from you to me?”

  “Fair questions,” Burley said. “The answers, in reverse order, are no, this is not how the case is going to go, at least I hope not, and second, the information is … how do I say this … politically sensitive. No, that’s not strong enough. Let’s say it’s potentially explosive, so the lab director decided to put it in the police chief’s hands first. He sent it to me and I’m here handing it off to you.”

  “We’ve got a suspect.” She addressed her comment to Trombone Shorty.

  Burley grimaced.

  “Someone everybody’s afraid of.”

  “Terrified, actually, but so far, you’re batting a thousand.”

  “Before you tell me who, tell me what kind of evidence we’re dealing with?”

  “Several human hairs were recovered from inside Marioneaux’s shirt. They fell down the back of his collar and snagged in the fabric.”

  Her enthusiasm started losing air. “Suddenly, I’m less worked up about this. Hair is about the least reliable forensic evidence there is. It’s on the verge of being inadmissible in a lot of jurisdictions.”

  “Unless the root bulb is still attached to the hair and there’s enough tissue to get a DNA match.” He grinned.

  “Which there obviously must be, or you wouldn’t have come hustling back here to entertain me with all this happy talk.”

  Burley gave her a lopsided smile.

  “And that was pretty fast, from yesterday morning to this afternoon.”

  “It was a clean, straightforward sample, so they were able to amplify the DNA pretty quickly. After that, a comparison to existing DNA records was a snap. Plus, the Marioneauxs have big-time political connections. Strings were pulled, and this one got jumped to the front of the line.”

  Wallace thought back to the crime scene. She imagined the killer coming up behind Marioneaux, dropping the slip lock over his head, yanking it tight. One of Marioneaux’s hands would have reflexively gone to the slip lock, in a futile de
fensive move. His other hand, might have reached back to grab his assailant. It was easy to picture the senator scraping his nails across the killer’s scalp or even grabbing a handful of the killer’s hair. So, it was plausible that a few strands got pulled free and found their way down the back of Marioneaux’s shirt.

  “So, who’s the lucky bastard?”

  The remaining joviality drained out of Burley’s expression.

  “Look, Wallace, this is absolutely your case, but if you don’t want to be in on the arrest yourself, nobody’s going to hold it against you. In your place, I’m not so sure I would do it, but Chief Shannon says it’s your call.”

  “It’s someone I know.”

  Burley grimaced again.

  SIX

  The shame game was a delicate business. Come down too hard and you alienate the squeamish and miss a chance to pick up new followers. Too easy and you risk losing some you already had. Through long practice, Eddie Pitkin had developed a workable balance.

  During some of his early attempts, mistakes were made. A few had been bad mistakes. But he was a diligent student. From every mistake he learned a valuable lesson, and he allowed those lessons to shape his thoughts and his actions for future encounters.

  Goals were served before ego. Principles trumped emotions. Approach with a smile and an outstretched hand, like you were greeting a long-lost friend. Craft your questions carefully and give your targets a chance to say the right thing. Give them several chances. Never ridicule. Never raise your voice.

  If they became upset and pushed back—perfect. You never knew what would come out of people’s mouths when they felt off-balance and self-righteous. People often revealed the truth of their hearts when they were feeling the right kind of stress.

  And always get it on video, make sure the sound was crystal clear, and don’t be afraid to publish it. To Eddie, who had reached adulthood before the internet became so ubiquitous, YouTube was almost too good to be true.

  It was a slow, methodical process, but it worked. It was the same routine skilled courtroom attorneys used to get what they wanted from a hostile witness. Eddie had been such an attorney back in the day. But now, after having passed through a valley of deep shadow, he had emerged to serve a higher purpose.

  Today’s target would be tough. Somehow the man had gotten wind that he was on Eddie’s list, so he would be on guard. But he was a public figure of sorts, so it was impossible for him to hide and still do his job.

  He was also a kind man, and that caused Eddie discomfort. The mission was more important than the feelings or even the reputation of any one person, but Eddie was not oblivious to the sensibilities of his targets. He just couldn’t afford to cater to them.

  Eddie looked across the expanse of open lawn in front of the church and pulled his hat low on his forehead against the afternoon sun. It was one of those brilliant blue days in late spring when the air was that perfect temperature, where you couldn’t feel it against your skin. And the humidity was low—a rarity for Baton Rouge where, for much of the warm seasons, the heat and the humidity were often in the high double digits.

  Afternoon Mass had let out several minutes ago. A thinning tide of parishioners streamed around him, heading for their cars.

  About forty yards away, his assistant, Marla Krismer, straddled her moss-green Vespa, at the edge of the lot. Marla was very nice looking. Her shoulder-length blond hair and her faintly tanned Swedish skin were difficult to look away from. And she was unmistakably interested in Eddie. At twenty-three, she was also young enough to be his daughter. In fact, she had been introduced by one of Eddie’s daughters.

  But Eddie was not interested in Marla. He was married. Unhappily, at the moment, but married nevertheless. And while temptations came his way with enough frequency to keep his middle-aged self-image amusingly inflated, adultery was a territory into which he would not cross. He had crossed a lot of lines in his time, but infidelity would not be one of them.

  He recognized the opportunities, appreciated the flattery they represented, and then he resolutely turned his mind against them. I’m old-fashioned, he thought. So, sue me.

  He loved his wife and his children and he supposed they loved him back, although he didn’t always make himself easy to love—especially lately.

  Eddie looked over at Marla again. Her long, delicate fingers danced across the screen of her phone. Then he looked down and read her text on his own phone: “He’s left the rectory. Approaching from your right. Thirty seconds.” As Eddie rose from the bench he ran through his script. Stick to the script, he reminded himself, and then he muttered a quick prayer.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marla dismount from her Vespa and move in his direction. Eddie turned to meet his target—a heavyset man with thinning hair and a ruddy complexion. The clerical collar and his easygoing expression gave the man gravity. He was laughing at something one of his companions was saying.

  “Father Milton, I’m Eddie Pitkin.” Eddie’s hand went out. His smile slid into place. The laughter stopped, and the mirth faded from the faces of the priest and the two men with him.

  One of the men tried to move between Eddie and Father Milton, but the priest held his arm out, blocking him. Marla was off to the side, her phone camera running.

  “It’s okay,” the priest said as he stepped forward. “Good to see you, Mr. Pitkin.” The priest gripped the offered hand with his right and laid his left hand on top in a shepherdly fashion. “I suppose you’ve gone to the trouble of tracking me down to let me know that you and I are related. Distant cousins, maybe?”

  Eddie gave him a sheepish grin. “No, Father. Not me. But there about two dozen other black people scattered across this part of the state who are.”

  A small crowd was assembling to one side, watching Eddie and the priest.

  “Aren’t we all related, Mr. Pitkin? Aren’t we all descendants of God’s first humans?”

  “I believe that, Father. Just like you. But it’s the more recent branches in your family tree that interest us.”

  “If you’re here to tell me that some of my remote ancestors were slaveholders, I know that already.”

  “No, Father. Not some of them. All of them. Every single direct ancestor of yours who was of legal age at the onset of the Civil War was a slave owner. Right here, in South Louisiana.”

  “If you’re looking for wealth to spread around, I’m afraid you’ve come too late. Whatever land my family used to own has long since passed into the hands of people to whom I am not related. And, as you can see, I am obviously a man of very limited means.”

  “Understood, Father. But other members of your family are not so limited. In fact, quite a few of them live very well. And they are able to do so because of wealth that was, in the beginning, amassed on the backs of people that your ancestors owned as property. People they used just like they would use a plow or a draft mule or a hay baler and, in some cases, for sex.”

  “Trust me, Mr. Pitkin—”

  “Please Father, just call me Eddie.”

  The priest went quiet. He and the two men with him stood still. They had all noticed Marla and her phone, but they weren’t trying to avoid her. Others in the growing crowd were also recording the encounter.

  “Of course,” the elderly priest said. “So, trust me, Eddie, when I say that I understand what you’re doing.”

  “Do you, Father? Have you ever been black? Do you know whether any of your ancestors were ever slaves? Have you ever felt persecuted because of the color of your skin?”

  Eddie waited for the priest’s response. This was a critical moment in the drama. Father Milton would either lose a lot or lose everything.

  The priest studied Eddie, then turned to look at Marla and the parishioners who were still gathering a respectful distance away. Eddie could tell the man was calculating what sort of demeanor would play best for the cameras. All of Eddie’s smartest targets were politicians, in a sense, and they were skilled at appearing humble when the situat
ion demanded it.

  “No. None of those things. And I’m not trying to imply that I’ve endured the injustices that motivate you. But I do, intellectually, comprehend your motives. I recognize and freely admit the terrible personal and societal transgressions of the past. And I see the effects those events are having on the present and what they foretell for the future. I just don’t know if what you’re doing—this quest of yours, for reparations, especially on such an individual level—whether it will bring with it the reconciliation that is so desperately needed.”

  “Nobody knows that, Father. But you and I both know that doing nothing changes nothing. My conscience won’t allow that.”

  “Mr. Pitkin?” The voice came from behind him. It was a woman’s voice. One he recognized. He couldn’t imagine that someone in the crowd had summoned the police. For Father Milton, that would be a lose-everything gambit.

  Without turning, Eddie spoke loudly enough to be heard by the person behind him. “Lovely day, isn’t it, Detective Hartman? A lovely day to be outside, exercising one’s constitutionally protected rights to speak freely and to peaceably assemble.”

  “It’s also a lovely day to be advised of one’s constitutionally protected rights to remain silent, and to know that anything one says can be used as evidence—”

  “You can skip the recitation, Detective. I was litigating those rights in federal court when you were still in diapers.”

  Eddie looked Father Milton squarely in the eye, probing for some sign that this was his doing, but the priest looked genuinely baffled. When the priest stepped up next to Eddie so that they might face Wallace together, it was Eddie’s turn to look perplexed.

  “Mr. Pitkin and I are having a civil discussion, Detective, about matters of significance to both of us. I fail to see how this could be of any concern to the police.”

  “Father, please stand to the side. I won’t ask you again.” Wallace looked at the officer she had brought with her, silently signaling for him to station himself between the priest and Pitkin.

  Eddie shook his head in disbelief. An amused smile slowly blossomed on his face. He turned and shook the priest’s hand again, this time laying his free hand on top. “It’s okay, Father. I’ve been down this road before.”