by Roger Johns
It was dim and quiet inside the church, with that middle-of-the-week empty feeling. Fresco saints glared down from the vaulted ceiling and the vague scent of old incense laced the air. Faint sounds produced solemn echoes. As a young man emerged from the confessional with his head hung reverentially low, Wallace took his place in the penitent’s stall.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been at least three popes since my last confession.”
“Wallace, you have to stop doing this,” the priest scolded without conviction.
“Maybe I’ve sinned and I need forgiveness,” she teased.
“I’m certain you have and you do, but I’m your little brother. If this confession is as … impure as your last one, I’ll have to go to confession myself, just for listening to it.”
“Oh, come on, Lex. Aren’t you supposed to give me absolution before you dish out the grief?”
“Aren’t you supposed to actually confess your sins first?”
“Well, I don’t want to scandalize you. What if I just go through them by commandment number? You know, I could say that I violated the Third Commandment three times, and I rang up one number Four and a couple of Sixes, and so on.”
“I’m on a tight schedule. Just add them up and give me the total.”
“Without some detail, how will you know if I’m being truthful and whether I’m truly sorry?”
“Good point. Are you really here for confession, or is this something else?”
“Something else,” she confessed. “I just haven’t seen you for a while. That’s all.”
Lex and Wallace and their older brother Martin had been those storybook siblings parents dreamt about. Adult life took them in different directions, but they had still seen each other often, and spoken almost daily. Martin’s death ended that. What were once naturally and frequently intersecting orbits came to require effort after Martin was killed. The fact that it took effort made Wallace and Lex self-conscious. Somehow neither had noticed, until he was gone, that Martin was the linchpin in the trio. Now, they went long periods without contact. Eventually guilt would trump self-consciousness and one of them would call the other. They would make plans to get together. Sometimes they followed through.
“Father Rudanski from Texarkana, we went to seminary together, he’s passing through tomorrow, on his way to visit his father in Pascagoula. He’s stopping by for lunch. Why don’t you join us?”
“That sounds like a class reunion. I don’t want to get in the way,” she said, a bit disappointed at being offered only third-wheel status. “On second thought,” she backtracked, “that sounds fine.” The presence of the other priest might keep things lively. “What time?”
“Come by around eleven.” When Wallace didn’t respond, Lex pushed. “I can tell there’s something else on your mind.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, unsure if she was ready to expose her feelings.
“Does this nothing have a name?” Lex asked.
“Mason. But it’s not what you think.”
“I’m not thinking anything. And, in any event, what you think is all that’s important.”
“I don’t know what I think. I’ve got mixed emotions. I’m afraid he might be complicated.”
“Are you sure you’re not just still afraid—period?”
“Lex … must you always cut straight to the heart of the matter?”
A quiet hum sounded from Wallace’s phone.
“You have your phone on? In confession?”
“Sorry, it’s my ’Fess Up Online app—in case you had a really long line. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, as she slipped out of the confessional and darted for the side door of the church.
“Wallace Hartman,” she whispered into her phone.
“This is David Bosso. It’s playtime.”
“Where?”
“The F&T on Gorman Street. And listen, it’s such an old case and such a weird charge, the fucking magistrate wouldn’t give us a no-knock warrant, which means you can’t go busting in. So keep in mind that Stacky can be a kitten, but he knows how to play rough too. Don’t let your guard down.”
SEVENTEEN
8:30 P.M.
After forcing Carla to record the messages, Don had tried without success to extract Matt’s location from her. Apparently, she had been telling the truth when she claimed she didn’t know where he was. She had been full of other useful information, though, and using that information to plot the capture of the runaway Matt Gable would be almost unfairly easy. The plan required the free use of Carla’s house, which meant that anyone who might come looking for her would have to be kept away, but arranging that would be pretty simple.
With Carla bound and drugged and stowed behind the middle row of seats in his rental van, Don made his way to the abandoned subdivision he had discovered on his way into Bayou Sara. He had known, going in, that he would need a place to store Carla for a while, and one of the nearly completed houses in this defunct development—an apparent victim of the 2009 housing crash—would do very nicely. At one point, after he had revealed his name to her, he had wondered whether it might not be better just to kill her, but eventually the logic of his original plan reasserted itself. Her hostage value was simply too great to just toss away. If Gable didn’t show up, or if he failed to become sufficiently cooperative, Don could use Carla as a bargaining chip to improve his situation. If Gable did show up, and came across with the goods, then Don could pay Carla a final, lethal visit on his way out of the area, and that would be that.
He backed into the driveway of one of the three nearly completed spec houses situated near the back of the little neighborhood.
* * *
Don discarded Carla’s purse, but he kept her wallet, keys, phone, and all of her other devices—dangerous things to be caught with, but necessary tools for reeling in the big fish.
After a quick shower to refresh himself, he would start the next phase of his plan. Step one would be to send Matt the recordings using Carla’s phone. Then he would have to figure out a way to deal with Mason and the detective that Mason was now in league with.
Mason’s presence in Baton Rouge was an unwelcome and unforeseen complication. Don’s principal reason for copying Echeverría’s signature method had been to draw Mason’s attention away from the true situation, not to draw Mason onto the stage as a player in his own right. And definitely not to draw the man into such close proximity. Mason, by himself, would have been fairly easy to handle because Don knew him so well. Even the local cop, Wallace Hartman, would have been easy to deal with, had it been just her.
But acting and thinking together, they comprised a new entity of unknown capabilities. This, Don recognized, was a very dangerous threat. But, it was also possible that the pair presented some useful opportunities. He still had the detective’s card he had found among the junk in Carla’s purse. And the fact that Carla’s phone showed a call to the detective on Wednesday meant their connection was stronger than Don had assumed. That might prove useful.
Still, Don worried. He had become aware of this new threat only because he was lucky. A sign the gods were on his side. But he knew from long experience as a gambler that those spirits were comically fickle. He would either have to complete his mission or neutralize this new peril before the gods started rooting for the other team.
EIGHTEEN
8:30 P.M.
Stacky Vincent lived on the top floor of the F&T Hotel, a four-story redbrick affair with laundry-laden casement windows and brown-bagged liquor bottles scattered on the sidewalk out front. The place hadn’t functioned as a proper hotel in ages. It was now home to a steady trudge of prostitutes, street preachers, and other assorted hustlers. The rest of the neighborhood was crammed with businesses catering to people stuck on the low rungs of the ladder—payday lenders, car title pawn emporiums, and lawyers who specialized in defending the kinds of crimes the area residents specialized in committing.
Wallace and two other officers moved qui
ckly through the hotel lobby. Wallace rode up in the ancient elevator, while the other two, Davis and Blackwell, took the stairs. When the elevator opened on the top floor, Wallace kicked a cleated metal wedge into the door track, jamming the door open.
Stacky’s room was at one end of the hall, the stairs were at the other, and the elevator was in between.
Davis and Blackwell emerged from the stairwell and moved quickly toward Stacky’s room. They positioned themselves on either side of the door. Wallace stayed by the elevator.
“Stacky Vincent,” Davis called through the door. “This is the police.”
A sudden chorus of flushing toilets meant party time for whatever lived in the pipes around the F&T.
“Open the door, Mr. Vincent.” Davis pounded the door frame. “We have a warrant for your arrest.”
“What for? I haven’t done anything,” Stacky hollered.
“Open the door, now, Mr. Vincent.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Open the door, and step into the hall with your fingers laced behind your head.”
The door opened and Stacky strode confidently into the hallway. He had long brown hair and a full, neatly trimmed beard—Jesus as an outside linebacker.
“What’s this about?” He took in the two officers, then looked toward the elevator and the stairs. He arched one eyebrow and a virile smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he eyefucked Wallace.
Davis turned Stacky toward the wall and pulled his right hand down to cuff him.
“You’re under arrest for the manslaughter of Farrell Macklin,” Blackwell intoned. “You have the—”
“Fuck that.” Spinning gracefully away from the wall, Stacky pulled Davis into Blackwell’s path, sending both officers to the floor in a tangle. He sprinted toward Wallace.
She assumed a low, blocking stance.
Stacky threw his arms above his head and leaned back into a feet-first home-base slide, aiming for the stairwell behind her.
Wallace dropped, knees first, straddling and trapping him as he slid on his back beneath her. Her weight stopped his slide just as the point of his chin came to rest firmly against her pubic bone.
A suggestive smirk started spreading across his face until Wallace two-handed her 9mm into his line of vision.
“Don’t even think it.”
9:05 P.M.
The sound of Mason’s phone yanked him from his slumber. He had fallen asleep watching the videos. He hated falling asleep when it was daylight, then waking up after dark. It left him feeling disjointed and unable to concentrate.
“It’s me,” Wallace said, cringing because she couldn’t help thinking she sounded like a girlfriend.
“What’s up?” he asked, trying to clear the fog from his head.
“We just hauled in Stacky Vincent. They’re booking him as we speak. After that, we’ll start the interrogation. If you still want in on it, I’ll need to come get you, now.”
“I’ll be waiting out front,” he said.
9:30 P.M.
Traffic was heavy and it was taking Don much longer than expected to drive from the dump he was staying in to Mason’s much nicer accommodations. He had been calling Mason’s room periodically, as he drove, but each time the call went to voicemail. If he got no answer after a few more tries, he would assume Mason was out. At that point, he would find a parking spot with a clear sight line to the front door of the hotel and wait for the boss man to return.
NINETEEN
9:30 P.M.
Matt was almost to Lake Charles when one of his increasingly frequent bouts of anxiety took control. He pulled over at the first truck stop he came to and drove to the rear of the lot. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to calm down. His encounter with the red-haired man at the motel had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. The sense of dread had ratcheted up even further once he’d been able to work out the problem with his cloud storage provider and was able to view the video from the cameras outside his house. There was the red-haired man, big as day, lock-picking his way into the kitchen, right before the fire started. Who was he?
Maybe the fine folks at Tunica thought Matt was sharing their research secrets and the red-haired man was some sort of operative trying to put a stop to that. That might explain why the man was operating alone. But it wouldn’t explain all the heavy-handed tactics.
Matt supposed his pursuer could be some sort of lawman, but it wouldn’t make sense for the local police to devote this kind of effort to looking for him. They were overwhelmed with an endless flow of missing person cases, on top of the countless other demands on their time and resources. And even if the red-haired man was with the government, he didn’t seem to be acting for the government. Government agents, acting under cover of legal authority, usually traveled in pairs and showed badges when trying to apprehend someone. Skulking around motels, waving guns, and threatening to hurt people didn’t fit their MO.
The idea that the man might be a rogue agent was especially troubling, because such a person would have government-grade capabilities without the limitations that went along with government accountability.
It was that possibility, and that possibility alone, that convinced Matt to turn on his regular cell phone—something he had not done since the night he watched his house burn. A determined pursuer would be able to locate Matt from his phone use, but it was a risk he had to take. Plus, it was a risk that was easily managed. With such a relentless person on his tail, Matt needed every edge he could get. After all, the man had found Matt’s house, so it was conceivable that he also knew about Carla. If the man had paid her a visit, perhaps she could shed some light on the man’s identity.
As he listened to his voicemail, his mood went from bad to worse. Carla’s earliest messages, from four nights ago, had been flirtatious. But after that they had progressed from concerned, to worried, to frightened. The ones she had left over the last few hours were beyond disturbing. It occurred to him that the red-haired man might be behind the messages. The man’s presence at the warehouse meant he had become aware of Overman, so the fact that he was also dogging Matt’s trail meant he had figured out the connection between Matt and Overman and possibly Carla too. How had the bastard gotten so far? And how much did he know, or think he knew? Not even Overman knew everything, because Matt hadn’t told anyone everything.
He walked over to the truck fueling area and pretended to talk on his phone, as he listened to the truckers chat among themselves. Several were headed to points east or north. One of the northbound truckers finished fueling and pulled his rig into the parking area. When he headed into the truck stop, Matt taped his phone to the undercarriage of the man’s trailer, then got back in his car and resumed his westbound route. He would find a room in Sulphur, the little town west of Lake Charles, and then start fresh in the morning.
TWENTY
9:45 P.M.
The interrogation rooms were intended to induce a sense of isolation and helplessness. Wallace wondered what course in school taught architects how to design such dispiriting spaces. Stacky sat on a metal stool that was bolted to the floor, his hands cuffed to a steel ring in the center of a metal table. When she and Mason walked in, Stacky’s gaze remained fixed on the table. Most people in his situation looked up when someone came in, with a trace of guarded hope on their faces. But not this guy. He wasn’t feigning interest in his cuticles, or dozing, and he didn’t appear to be praying. He just wasn’t looking up.
Like all interrogations, this one would involve a delicate give and take, with Stacky doing most of the giving. Wallace knew she would have to strike the perfect balance between hope and despair. She would need to ignite a spark of optimism and use Stacky’s cooperation to fan that spark. And she would have to use any failure to cooperate to make him fear that his dignity and emotional defenses were about to be publicly taken down. A subject’s sense of distress always escalated dramatically when the interrogator and the subject were not the same gender, and Wallace intended
to use this fact to her full advantage.
“Mr. Vincent…” Wallace began, then stopped. The slimy smirk he’d had at their initial point of contact had returned.
“Detective Hartman. Back already? We’re spending so much time together, lately, people are gonna start thinking we’re a couple. Grab you a chair. I’d offer you my lap but you can see I’m kinda tied up at the moment.”
“What’s with your little bad-boy attitude, Stacky? I don’t get it.”
“Oh, I think you get it. You’re a good-looking woman, Detective. I think you get it whenever you want it. Is that what you’re here for, stud?” Stacky shot Mason a conspiratorial wink.
“You’re in serious trouble,” Wallace said, slamming her palms down hard on the table, getting nose-to-nose with Stacky. “That upstanding citizen you killed? Farrell Macklin? He was related to a cop.”
“If you’re gonna talk like that, I’ll want a lawyer.”
“Play it that way and there’s no room to wheel and deal. Just you against the machine,” she said, trotting out the standard opening gambit.
“On a bullshit charge. I’ll take my chances. Get me my lawyer.”
“It’ll still take time and money to grind through the system.”
“That’s why God created bail. Lawyer, please.”
“How long will this take?” Mason asked. “I’ll want to start the transfer to federal custody.”
“That’s largely up to Mr. Vincent.”
“Federal custody?” Stacky asked. “You guys make this shit up as you go along?”
“Are you familiar with the RICO statute?” Mason asked.
“I’m familiar with my fucking right to counsel,” Stacky blasted. “I’m familiar with the fact that I’ve asked for him three times now, but it seems he’s not being summoned to my defense.”
“Do you have a lawyer, or will you need a public defender?” Wallace asked.
