River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

  A sudden dread scurried along her nerves. If Peter was missing because he could’ve alibied Pitkin, then whoever took him was willing to go to great lengths to make sure the frame fit like a custom-made suit.

  And if the people behind Peter’s disappearance felt like she was getting too close to the uncomfortable truth of their methods, she too might end up missing.

  Other problems loomed, as well. Chief Shannon had told Wallace he wanted daily reports on developments in the case, but until she could determine whether there was a leak or ascertain Peter’s fate she wouldn’t know who she could trust with details about the case. She would have to either avoid her colleagues or start lying to them. Just the possibility of a leak would cut her off from the resources she needed the most.

  The worst part was that a very dangerous cat could be let out of the bag at any time. Once Tasha Kovacovich, Eddie’s lawyer, became aware the police had found and then lost an alibi witness, she was going to scream bloody murder. She would accuse the police of suppressing critical defense evidence, and public perception would be on her side.

  Tasha wouldn’t rest until the whole country knew that another black man was headed to the death chamber because of police misconduct. Wallace and Jack Shannon would be lucky to avoid being indicted, much less losing their jobs.

  Wallace felt like her world had shrunk to a pinpoint. She needed some perspective.

  * * *

  Colley Greenberg had been Wallace’s first partner when she joined the detective division. He had actually been far more than that—a mentor, a role model, a friend. In retirement, he was still all those things, just no longer connected to her day-to-day world.

  “This is seriously bad news,” he said after Wallace had laid out the sequence of events that led her to suspect Peter Ecclestone’s disappearance was due to a leak in the department. “It could all have an innocent explanation, but my instincts are telling me the same as yours.”

  She looked over at him, struggling to hide her discomfort. He sounded the same as always, but parked in his wheelchair, in the sunroom at the back of his house, he no longer looked the same.

  His multiple sclerosis was the relapsing and remitting variety. He would be fine for a while, then it would show up and ravage him and then turn him loose again. Just when Wallace would start to believe they had seen the last of it, the disease came roaring back. And each new episode pulled him visibly closer to the clearing at the end of the path.

  “Did you ever have a situation like this?” she asked, dragging her thoughts up out of the well of anxiety, focusing on the reason for her visit.

  “Not exactly. Every now and then, some self-aggrandizing asshole would leak stuff to the press, but I never had any reason to think somebody might be in cahoots with the bad guys I was chasing.”

  “If you were in my shoes, what would you do?”

  “Seems to me you can play this two ways.”

  “Keep everything close to the vest or plant some tantalizing information with the suspected leakers and see where it goes.”

  He nodded.

  “Did you ever do that with me?”

  “Do what?” Colley asked.

  Wallace could tell from his barely suppressed smirk that he knew what she meant.

  “Feed me some bullshit to see if I’d spill it where it didn’t need to be? You know, when we first started working together? Just to see if you could trust me?”

  He shrugged and laughed.

  “Colley, I can’t believe you would do that.” She pushed her lip out in a pout. “That doesn’t seem very partner-like.”

  He reached across the table and took one of her hands. “I’m happy to see you haven’t lost your sense of idealism.”

  “Hey.” She squeezed his hand and sat straighter, trying to look serious. “Do you think I’m hardheaded?”

  He roared with laughter.

  “Then why did you want me?”

  “They tried to talk me into partnering with somebody else, but I was just hardheaded and idealistic enough to know you were the right person for me. Besides, when it was my turn to pick they were fresh out of perfect people.”

  The room went quiet and Wallace felt herself slipping into a maudlin frame of mind.

  “I just can’t believe I can’t trust Burley,” she said, breaking the silence, maneuvering the conversation back onto a topic that didn’t remind her that she and Colley weren’t a team anymore.

  “It’s got nothing to do with what you believe. It’s a matter of what you know and what you don’t.”

  “I know. I’m just saying.”

  “Yeah, and just saying has a way of turning into just thinking and, before you know it, just thinking turns into just doing … doing the wrong damn thing.”

  Colley was ruthless about never losing sight of the difference between what you knew and what you didn’t know and the difference between what you knew and what you merely believed. He had drilled it into her that you couldn’t be a worthwhile detective unless you mastered those distinctions.

  She missed him when they were apart, and now she was starting to miss him even when they were in the same room with each other. This was going to be harder than she thought.

  * * *

  Her stomach was in knots. She was back in Burley’s fishbowl of an office.

  “Wallace, we’ve already been over this.” He was digging around in his briefcase, which was open on his desk.

  “I’m just letting you know why I think Ecclestone won’t come in.”

  “Then have him picked up, for Christ’s sake. This whole investigation turns on whether it looks like Pitkin is the killer or he’s just the pretty picture in a frame.”

  “Understood. But I’ve been thinking. Even if Ecclestone can put Eddie on False River at the time of death, it may not mean anything. Maybe Eddie didn’t put the slip lock around Marioneaux’s neck with his own hands. What if he paid someone to do it while he was safely away from the scene of the crime?”

  “If that were the case, he would have made sure there were fifty videos of himself singing karaoke in some juke joint in New Orleans.” He snapped his briefcase shut. “Do we need to throw some extra bodies at this?”

  “I’ve informally enlisted the help of the police in Cavanaugh, where he lives.”

  “Informally?”

  “The chief of police there fully understands the urgency of the situation, and she’s closer to the … locus of circumstance than we are.”

  “The locus of circumstance? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means she knows the guy and his habits. He’s sort of been on her radar for a while. She’s in an excellent position to keep an eye out for him. And a BOLO was put out on his vehicle, cell service providers have been asked to notify us if his phone shows up, but…”

  “But what?”

  “He’s a wildlife photographer. He’s known to disappear out where cell signals don’t reach.”

  “What is LeAnne working on?”

  “I’ve put her back on Tonya Lennar, for the moment. And I’ve got her digging for any connection she can find between Glenn Marioneaux and Eddie Pitkin.”

  Burley leaned across his desk, his hands flat against the wooden surface. “Wallace, look. Shannon is breathing down my neck, so if this phantom witness of yours doesn’t turn up quick he’s gonna start breathing down your neck too. And trust me, you ain’t gonna like it.”

  * * *

  It was almost like Burley and Chief Shannon were a tag team. Within an hour of her conversation with Burley, the chief had summoned her to his office. The knots in her stomach were tightening.

  Shannon was standing when Wallace entered his office. He remained on his feet, and he didn’t invite her to sit.

  “Detective Hartman, correct me if I’m wrong, but I distinctly remember Burley telling me yesterday that you found a witness who might be able to put Eddie Pitkin at a location too far away from the Marioneaux murder for him to have done the deed himself. Yet, des
pite the obvious necessity of getting this person’s statement on record, it seems that’s not being done. Now, am I losing my mind, or are you playing some kind of a game with me?”

  “It’s neither, sir. The man in question has turned out to be unreliable, in the extreme. His identification of Pitkin was slightly iffy to begin with, and now it seems he’s gone off somewhere. In the town he comes from, he’s a well-known flake with ties to a lot of undesirable types. Apparently, unexplained absences are more the rule than the exception.”

  “And you’re telling me you have no idea what has happened to him?”

  “Nothing concrete, no, sir.” Wallace started gently bumping her palms together in front of her chest. She wondered why the urge to do idiotic things with her hands seemed so irresistible when she was lying and why the things she normally did when she was telling the truth were so impossible to remember.

  “Ideas, by definition, are not concrete, Detective, and I just asked if you had any ideas.”

  Wallace remembered playing this game with her father when she was in high school. She would hedge, he would hem her in, she would hedge some more, and he would hem her in some more. This would go on until he had cornered her so tightly that the next words out of her mouth would have to be a lie. Then he would just look at her and, like an electric current, his thoughts would arc across the space between them letting her know that he knew. He never pushed her that last step and made her say the untrue words, but he had no problem bringing her right up to the bleeding edge of the lie, forcing her to recognize that he knew she was struggling to be dishonest without uttering the actual falsehood itself. She had loved him for never making her say the words. She had respected him for understanding that if something was so damned important that she was willing to work that hard to conceal it without violating the trust that an outright lie would entail then he was willing to let her win the round as long as she understood that, whenever he felt it was warranted, he could win the game.

  Shannon walked over to the window and looked down toward the street, then up at the sky. “Were you aware that I have two teenaged children, Detective?”

  “Yes, sir. If I’m not mistaken, that’s a picture of them on the bookcase over there.”

  “They’re wonderful kids,” he said, turning back to face her. “I’ve learned a lot from them, about dealing with people, and how to pick your battles. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I believe I do.”

  “Good. Excellent, in fact. Kids can get you into a lot of trouble. But, at the same time, they can be source of real joy. Just having them around can be like a magic protection against so many bad things. You just have to know when to trust them.”

  He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a set of reading glasses and slid them on and picked up a folder.

  “One more thing. Were you aware that the Marioneauxs want to make a public appeal for calm?”

  “No, sir. No one told me that. But given the sudden rise in temperature in the city, it sounds like a good idea. Will they be taping it, or will it be a live broadcast?”

  “Neither. It’ll be live and in person from the plaza between City Hall and the theater.”

  “Pardon my saying so, but that doesn’t seem wise. How do we know whether all the people who show up will be fully committed to peace, love, and understanding?”

  “It was the Marioneauxs’ wish to do it this way. And, to be honest, there’s no way we can keep them from doing it. If we don’t let them use the plaza, they’ll find some other place.”

  “This is a bad idea, Chief Shannon.” She was willing to bet Dorothy had hatched this plan to divert suspicion away from Glenn.

  “It’s their belief, as well as the mayor’s and a few others’, that face-to-face with the citizens is more authentic and shows courage. They don’t want to come across as afraid and aloof, like they were just going through the motions, because that might defeat the whole point of the event. The consensus is that for this to work, it has to be high impact and in the flesh.”

  “When is this blessed event going to take place?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, at four thirty.”

  “Then please tell me we’ll have the plaza crawling with security.”

  He thumbed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Rest assured there will be plenty of crowd control in place. Overt and covert.”

  “Could we at least persuade them to do this indoors? Where seating is limited and access is through a metal detector?”

  “This decision has already been made, Detective. Please, carry on.”

  “May I give you my report for the day?”

  He looked at his watch, then at Wallace. “The day is not over, but I suppose now will be okay.”

  Wallace repeated what she told Burley, leaving out her suspicions about a leak. She couldn’t imagine Jack Shannon would be involved in something that absurd, but someone connected to him might be.

  SIXTEEN

  Wallace left the building after her meeting with Chief Shannon. She needed a place to think and organize what she had discovered so far. She sat in her car, raking through Marioneaux’s past one more time, trying to fit everything she knew into the basic framework of means, motive, and opportunity.

  Means was not an issue. Someone had tightened a slip lock around the victim’s neck. No special skill was required to accomplish that.

  And while the list of people she thought of as having an opportunity was short, the fact was, any one of an unlimited number of people could have killed Marioneaux, people who had simply not yet shown up on her radar.

  It was the same with motive. In a broad sense, Marioneaux had probably pissed off enough people in his life that the universe of possible killers was practically infinite—an essentially meaningless state of affairs.

  She started over, going back through her notes on the history between Eddie and Herbert. While it was true that they had spewed a lot of venom at each other over the years, in some strange way each man seemed to need the other. Each functioned as a springboard from which the other was able to launch himself and his mission into the public consciousness.

  She turned to her notes on Glenn, but after a few minutes she found her attention refocusing on Eddie. His situation was different, if only because it was noisier.

  With Glenn, it looked like a need for reconciliation balanced against a possibility of revenge, with a slightly shaky alibi thrown into the mix.

  But with Eddie, a lot of elements were in play. The DNA, the unconfirmed sighting in Spanish Town the night of the murder, the insulation fibers, and the attic exit all rested on one side of the balance. The discovery of an alibi witness and his increasingly peculiar disappearance, along with the possibility of a leak, all weighed heavily on the other side.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her seat back, squirming around until she found a position that didn’t aggravate the pain in her side, and then let the newspaper version of Eddie Pitkin’s life play out in her head.

  When she stopped trying to filter his life through the question of why he might have killed Herbert Marioneaux, the opening she had been searching for revealed itself. It had been with her all along. She had been asking the wrong question. It wasn’t why would Eddie kill Herbert, but why would Eddie kill anyone?

  She reached for the ignition.

  * * *

  Wallace pulled into the little parking lot that ran along the side of Davis McCone’s law office. It was a solo practice housed in a beautiful Hays Town building that dated from the architect’s reclaimed-brick and large-pane-window period. She jogged up the front steps, the ache in her side reminding her she still hadn’t told Mason about the attack.

  Barbara Seeley, Davis’s forever secretary, greeted her as she entered the reception area.

  “Hi, Wallace. What a nice surprise.”

  “Do you think he has a minute to see me?” she asked after giving Barbara a quick hug.

  “If you hurry. He’s got a couple of late client
s starting in about half an hour.”

  Davis looked up from behind his desk and smiled as Wallace entered the office. “How’s your mother?”

  “I was just going to ask you the same question. Have the two of you spoken since her birthday dinner?”

  “We have.” Davis’s smile got bigger. “And I’ve been told that I’m a lot to think about. Which sounds like one of those her-people-will-call-my-people situations.”

  “Well, you are a lot to think about. In a good way.” A thoughtful smile emerged as she toyed with the idea of having Davis as a stepfather.

  “So, what brings you into a place of such low repute?” Davis rose from his desk chair. “I know you’re not here for the latest in geriatric gossip.”

  “I’m calling in a marker,” she said, trying to sound jaunty.

  “You don’t have any markers.” Davis laughed. “But whatever it is you want, I’ll do it for free.” He motioned for her to take a seat on the couch and then sat in one of the side chairs facing her.

  “This is something I’d like to keep quiet, for the moment.”

  “I’ve got one-way ears. You tell me, and it stays inside. Period.” He tapped the side of his head with an index finger.

  “All those years ago, when Eddie Pitkin went to prison on that obstruction of justice charge, the evidence-tampering thing, the person who tattled on Eddie—”

  “A confidential informant,” Davis said.

  “And, according to the old news reports I’ve been reading, it was also an anonymous informant.”

  “That’s correct. And as far as I know, the DA at the time, Colin Gerard, never discovered the informant’s identity.”

  “Is it possible Colin actually did know but for some reason decided to claim it was an anonymous snitch, so there’d be no chance the judge could order them to reveal it?”

  “It’s a possibility, but it’s an incredibly remote possibility. A stunt like that—essentially pulling the wool over the judge’s eyes—it would have to be worth risking your license to practice law. The informant’s name would have to be something either really valuable or extremely dangerous.”