River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

  Wallace quickly cut and pasted the calendar into a Word file and searched the entire document for Jasper and Navarette. Other than the entries for the meetings that coincided with the phone calls with the LPGroup, neither person’s name appeared again. The LPGroup did not appear anywhere on the calendar.

  From the 4-1-1 operator, Wallace got telephone numbers for Jasper and Navarette, and called them. Both were home, and neither remembered having ever been in a one-on-one meeting with the senator. They both sounded quite elderly, and both were members of the church Marioneaux had pastored years ago. Other than occasional after-church chitchat, neither had spent any time with him since he left the ministry to pursue his political career. And neither could offer an explanation of why their names had been on Marioneaux’s calendar, unless maybe he had intended to get in touch with them but ended up not doing so.

  A quick internet search showed that the LPGroup was a local firm, owned by a woman named Lydia Prescott. Under the “Team” tab on the website, Lydia was the only person listed. The name seemed familiar, but Wallace couldn’t remember where she had heard it. A quick Google search refreshed her memory. Lydia was the woman who had been killed during a carjacking on the same day Herbert Marioneaux was murdered.

  Wallace pulled out her phone and called Shirley Cappaletti, the detective working on the Prescott murder.

  “Cappaletti here. Speak.”

  “Cappy, this is Wallace Hartman.”

  “Hey, Wallace. What’s up?”

  “That day we ran into each other in the police garage, you said Lydia Prescott operated a boutique research firm. Who else worked with her?”

  “Nobody. It was a solo operation and, like I said, she ran it out of her house—pretty much a virtual business.”

  “Did you happen to find any records about her current clientele or projects underway?”

  “Nada. The whole shebang was on her laptop, which has probably gone to computer heaven by now. We checked every pawnshop in the area. Nothing. Same for her phone. No external backups. Nothing in the cloud we could find, and I looked really, really hard.”

  “What about her house?”

  “Clean as a whistle.”

  Wallace’s mood sagged. “Email?”

  “If she had a personal account, we don’t know what it is. She definitely had business email, but there’s nothing there. Her account used the old POP technology. Whenever she checked email, the messages migrated off the mail server onto whatever device she was using. Once the device goes missing, so do the messages that had already been looked at.”

  “What about new emails coming in, after she was killed, that haven’t been looked at?”

  “Well, I keep checking, but there’s nothing interesting. A few new client inquiries. What’s got you so curious, all of a sudden?”

  “Phone records in the Herbert Marioneaux case I’m working on show some sort of connection to the LPGroup. I’m just doing due diligence. Running every rabbit down its hole.”

  “Well, Lydia did all sorts of research, including campaign consulting, so I’m not surprised a politico like Marioneaux would get in touch with her. Do you think the connection goes beyond that?”

  “I don’t know. If I find something more, I’ll slide it your way.”

  Wallace closed Lydia’s site and then pulled up the official website of the Louisiana legislature and studied the biographical sketch of Herbert Marioneaux she found there. Finally, the mist was starting to clear. The disappearance of Herbert’s and Lydia’s computers and cell phones had to be part of an effort to obscure any connections between the two of them.

  Wallace checked her surroundings again. Except for the car of the client who had come in as she was leaving, everything looked the same as it had when she arrived at Davis’s office. She started her car and pulled out of the lot.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Wallace parked on one of the side streets in Spanish Town, not far from the Capitol building. The shadow of the monolithic structure deepened the gloom around her. She quickly made her way inside and took the elevator up.

  The reception area of Marioneaux’s office suite was much tidier than it had been during her early afternoon visit. Except for the computer and the telephone the desk was completely cleared, and all of the boxes were neatly stacked in one corner. Wallace heard movement in another room. No talking, just the rustling of papers, then footsteps approaching.

  Garrett Landry backed into the office from the hallway that led deeper into the suite, his arms stacked high with boxes. As he cleared the doorway, he turned. He jumped when he caught sight of Wallace, upsetting his cargo.

  “Shit.” He swayed and dipped, trying to stay under the boxes. “I didn’t hear anyone come in.” He set the boxes on the edge of the desk. “I’m afraid I’m on my way out, Detective.” He stuffed a slim briefcase into the outside pouch pocket of his garment bag and zipped the pouch closed.

  Wallace studied Landry’s face for signs of distress, but all she could see was annoyance.

  “Since I was here earlier, my investigation has suddenly become so much more interesting.”

  Landry moved back in the direction of the hallway, then turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. “You’re not required to give me updates, Detective.” He looked her up and down. His mouth formed a prim expression of distaste, and then he turned away and resumed his progress down the hallway.

  She spoke loudly, to make sure her voice followed him. “Because I know how close you were with the late senator, I’m working on the assumption that you have a strong desire to help me get this investigation finished up. That way you won’t have to worry about me keeping you under a microscope.”

  He came back up the hall and stopped just shy of the doorway. “You’re not one for subtlety, are you?”

  “Fresh out today.”

  “Well, just so we’re clear, I’m not worried about you or your little microscopes. Why would I be?” Landry gave her a steady stare.

  Wallace waited until he turned away again. “Why didn’t you tell me the senator was gearing up for another campaign?” she asked.

  Landry stopped again and looked in her direction. He rubbed the fingers and palm of his right hand across his mouth, massaging his jawline.

  She got to five-one-thousand before he spoke.

  “It wasn’t a for-sure thing that he was going to do it,” he said, lumbering haltingly through the statement.

  “Who else knew?”

  “How could I possibly know the answer to that question?” He looked down the hallway toward the back of the office suite. “He and I didn’t spend every waking minute together, and he certainly didn’t tell me everything.”

  “Did Glenn know? Did Dorothy?”

  “You’ll have to ask them. Besides, I can’t see what difference any of that makes. Once a person gets elected to office, their first and most important priority is to get reelected. That’s not exactly breaking news.” He raised his hands, palms out, and scowled as if to say his point was beyond argument. “So if the big lightbulb-over-the-head idea that got you bustling back over here is that Herbert got knocked off by a political rival—someone who was willing to use any means necessary to become the all-important senator from no-place-important Louisiana—I’m afraid your powers of deduction have deserted you.”

  Wallace smiled inwardly at Landry’s attempt to nudge her suspicions down the wrong trail.

  “I think we both know that term limits would’ve kept him from seeking another term as senator. And my powers of deduction keep insisting this is something you should have told me. Don’t you think so too?” She raised her eyebrows and offered him a thin-lipped smile.

  “If I say yes and then say I’m oh, so very sorry, do you think that will hasten the end of this interview?” A faint glimmer of sweat shone at Landry’s hairline.

  That was not the response she had been expecting. Surely he wanted to know how she had found out about Marioneaux’s campaign plans. If the shoe were on the oth
er foot, that would have been the first question out of her mouth. The fact that he wasn’t asking meant that he already had a pretty good idea how she found out. If he knew that, then he would also know he had just gone from being an object of interest to the subject of frank suspicion. Perfect.

  “Tell me about David Jasper and Mona Navarette.” she said.

  Landry looked toward the ceiling, then tilted his head to one side. After a few seconds, he looked back at Wallace. “Those names ring a faint bell, from when I was little, it seems like. I think they may have been in the congregation of the church we went to sometimes. The one where the senator was the preacher.”

  “Have you had occasion to think about them lately?”

  “No.” He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Why would I?”

  “Tell me about Lydia Prescott.”

  For the smallest fragment of a second, something changed deep inside Landry’s eyes. His gaze faltered, as if his thoughts had turned inward, and then his face resumed its original expression. It was only a fleeting micro-expression, but Wallace was certain of what she saw.

  “Never heard of her.”

  Landry’s posture became nonchalant and he gave Wallace a bored look. “Listen, Detective Hartman, I appreciate what you’re doing. I wouldn’t want you to think otherwise. But if you don’t mind, I need to get moving. Someone to replace the senator will be chosen soon and I’ve got to be able to manage the transition. If I can make myself appear to be useful and if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get to keep this job.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “About keeping my job? Of course I’m sure.” He maintained unwavering eye contact.

  “Are you sure about Lydia Prescott?”

  He closed his eyes again and sighed audibly, letting his head and shoulders sag. He shook his head and smirked, as if he were trying to keep from laughing at her. “Look, Detective, a lot of folks come through this office on a pretty much constant basis. Constituents, lobbyists, businesspeople, religious leaders, other politicians, consultants of every size and shape.” His voice rose in pitch as he named each group. “You name it, they’ve been here. It’s endless. Okay?”

  Wallace waited to see if he would continue his performance. She hadn’t mentioned that Lydia Prescott was a consultant. Maybe it was just a coincidence that Landry had included consultants in his list of the pesky flies buzzing around the senator’s office.

  He gritted his teeth and he raised his hands, shaking the air in front of him in mock frustration. “It’s just the pitter-patter of little minds. And it never stops. You get what I’m saying? There is absolutely no way I could remember them all.”

  Wallace could see why he was so attracted to politics. He had a natural talent for the smooth lie and the convincing bluff. But two could play that game.

  “Do you recall what I said earlier about you hiding something and me rattling it loose?”

  Landry blew the hair off his forehead in an exaggerated display of resignation. “Yes, Detective Hartman, how could I possibly forget such a terrifying experience, especially when it happened such a short time ago?”

  “Since I saw you last, I got a judge to green-light one of my specialists to do a little snooping in the late Senator Marioneaux’s calendar. And not the flash drive version you gave me. With an assist from the head of IT for the legislature, she’s been rooting around the server where the online version is maintained.”

  Landry’s face remained blank, and for a moment Wallace thought he would see through her lie.

  “I don’t believe you.” His expression didn’t change, but he shifted from foot to foot.

  “But you will.”

  Wallace waited for Landry’s comeback, but he remained silent. She could tell that, for the first time, he felt unsure of himself.

  “I know the calendar was altered, after the senator’s death,” she said.

  “So.”

  “And I know you did it. Only you and Coy Asber and Marioneaux had the password. Coy didn’t do it. I called him before I came back up here, just to make sure.”

  Landry was no longer looking at her.

  “Don’t you want to know what we found?”

  “First of all, you had no right—”

  “The judge gave me a warrant. That’s all the right I need.” She stepped toward him. He took a step backward. Wallace waited for him to challenge her. The beads of sweat at his hairline were heavier.

  “Every entry for Mona Navarette and David Jasper was a postmortem entry. The time and date of every one of those entries coincides with a phone call between the senator and Lydia Prescott. She was his campaign consultant, wasn’t she? She was helping him test and shape his campaign messages. He was going to hold a press conference last Monday, but he was killed before that could happen. Whatever he was going to announce, I feel certain it was something the late Lydia Prescott helped him with. So tell me, Garrett, are you sure you want to stick with your story from earlier, that you have no idea what that press conference was going to be about?”

  She watched him dither over how to proceed. His shoulders sagged and he looked as if he might cry. He closed his eyes and nodded, slowly.

  “Let me show you something,” he said, blowing out a huge breath through puffed cheeks. He stepped past her, reaching toward a file cabinet against the front wall of the office.

  Wallace heard the grunt of explosive effort and the world went black.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The bonging of the elevator bell cut through the fog in her head. The room was dark. Wallace raised herself to her hands and knees. The carpet felt rough against the palms of her hands. A heavy throb radiated from the back of her head. She heard the elevator doors slide shut.

  Her first thought was that she had no place to stay, no fresh clothes to change into, and that she hadn’t eaten all day. Shut up, she told herself, pushing the pointless unbidden worries aside. Focus on what you need to do next.

  She felt sick to her stomach. She rolled onto her side and lay still while she untangled her thoughts from the pain and the nausea.

  Vaguely, Wallace remembered hearing Landry’s footsteps as he fled the office, the closing of the door, the metal-on-metal thunk of the bolt gliding into place, the sing of the key sliding from the keyhole—a maneuver that would not confine her, only delay her momentarily as she fumbled for the lock in the dark. He was a thinker, that one.

  She tried to sit, but the nausea struck again, like a bully not yet willing to accept victory, so she decided to stay on her side for a bit longer.

  Wallace wondered how much of a head start Landry had. His blow to the back of her head meant that he was deep in desperation mode, maybe even panicking. The fact that she was able to form that realization made her believe the muddle in her head was clearing.

  The light shining under the door from the hallway was enough to let her to make out her surroundings. The receptionist’s desk stood about a foot in front of her. Grabbing the front edge, she steadied herself and stood. The room spun hard left. She leaned heavily on the desktop to keep from lurching. Slowly, she slumped to her knees and closed her eyes, pressing her cheek against the cool wooden panel that spanned the front of the desk. She felt herself slipping away.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  By the time she recovered enough to give chase, the idea of running after Garrett Landry seemed futile. Surely he was out of the building by now.

  Wallace realized she needed help and she needed to move fast. She looked around the vacant office suite. Except for the ringing in her head, the building was quiet.

  She called Melissa Voorhees and asked her to notify the major public transport facilities that Landry was a fugitive and that if he attempted to board he was to be detained and she was to be notified. She also asked Melissa to put out a BOLO on Landry’s automobile and to text her Landry’s address and plate number from the state’s DMV database.

  Then she ransacked the senator’s office. As quickly as the nausea would allow, she went through e
very box, drawer, closet, and cabinet in the place, looking for anything that would shed light on the identities of the other players in the scheme Landry was part of. The search proved futile.

  Her phone buzzed. It was Melissa.

  “I did everything you asked, except get the info on Landry. I’ll text that in just a bit. In the meantime, I’ve been instructed by Mason not to say that I’m worried about you, so you can be my witness that I didn’t say it.”

  “How’s he holding up?”

  “Like a rock. He misses you and he’s worried about you, despite his protestations to the contrary. My husband and I took him dinner, before you called, earlier. He’s quite a guy, and my God, is he ever smitten with you-know-who.”

  “I needed to hear something exactly like that, right about now.” Melissa’s words brought a tiny smile and a lot of energy, but the nausea was returning, so Wallace lay on her side on the floor in Marioneaux’s office and closed her eyes.

  The throb at the back of her head reminded her that, for the second time in three days, she had taken a beating and was concealing it from Mason. The shot of energy she felt a moment ago was overwhelmed by the anxiety over how he would react when she finally did tell him.

  “Listen, I’ve got some actual news,” Melissa continued. “That partial print from the glove box in Peter’s SUV matched one of the prints on the water bottle.”

  “That’s interesting. Not surprising, though, at this point.”

  “You sound like you’re in the middle of something.”

  “Deep thought,” Wallace said. “The landscape is changing fast, and I’m trying to figure out what it all means.”

  “One more thing, then, and I’ll let you go. Joe Hanna, one of the geniuses in Mason’s office, found the data file for the picture of Eddie Pitkin on the dock at False River. It indicates that it was taken at a time that would have made it virtually impossible for Eddie Pitkin to be in Baton Rouge when Herbert Marioneaux was killed.”

  Despite the disorienting nausea, Wallace’s mood perked up again. “That’s excellent news.”