His mood notwithstanding, Gaines felt it right to share a few words with Caroline. He asked her about the date.

“Got my own way,” she said. “We saw The Sugarland Express.”

“Doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Gaines said.

“That’s mean,” she said. “I’m very considerate. Why do you have to say a thing like that?”

“You’re a girl,” Gaines replied, smiling. “Ultimately, whichever way you look at it, you always get your own way.”

“And you’re basing this on your vast personal experience with the female sex, I suppose?”

“Now who’s mean, eh?”

“You know me. I give as good as I get.”

“Anyway, you had a good time.”

“And you, sir, are changing the subject.”

Gaines audibly sighed. “Seriously, Caroline, I am not having another conversation with you about my love life.”

“Wouldn’t say there was enough of a love life to have a conversation about,” she retorted.

“My, my, we do have our claws sharpened today, don’t we, young lady?”

“Hell, John, even my mom asks about you. She says it’s not normal for a man of your age to be single for so long. She says she has a friend—”

“Enough now,” Gaines replied. “I am not having your mom set me up on a blind date with some fifty-three-year-old widow from Biloxi.”

“She’s not a fifty-three-year-old widow, and she’s not from Biloxi. She’s less than forty, and she looks like Jane Fonda.”

“Does she, now?”

“She does.”

“Well, if she’s less than forty and looks like Jane Fonda, what the hell is she doing single and getting set up on a blind date by your mom?”

“You are an ass, John Gaines. Sometimes you are such an ass.”

“Watch your mouth, or I’ll have you arrested.”

Caroline smiled. She shook her head resignedly, once more disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm Gaines demonstrated for her mother’s matchmaking efforts.

“One day I will get you out on a date with someone, John.”

“I am sure you will, Caroline. Like I said, girls always get their own way in the end. Now I have to go to work. Call me if you need me.”

Caroline went in to see Alice. Gaines collected his hat and headed out to the car.

Gaines was into the office at ten past eight. He found Hagen and Victor Powell in the lobby. Powell wore the church-suit expression.

“What you delivered last night . . . ,” Powell started. He looked at Hagen, as if for moral support.

“Far as I’m concerned, we’ve got enough to get him charged and arraigned,” Gaines said.

“Wallace will do that here?” Hagen asked.

“Wallace will do the arraignment and the post-indictment, but the trial will go on up to Otis at Branford,” Gaines replied.

“You think he’ll plead?” Powell asked, a nod toward the stairwell that led down to the basement.

Gaines shrugged. “We shall see.”

“Well, let’s get it done, then,” Hagen said. “No reason to wait.”

“I’m gonna go speak to him awhile,” Gaines said. “I’m gonna tell him what we’re doing, see if he has anything to say. I’d like to know if he’s going to enter a plea. You call Wallace in Purvis, let him know we’re going to need him in a little while, and get a public defender down here as well. Try Tom Whittall, and if he’s not available, get Ken Howard.”

“He hasn’t asked for one yet,” Hagen said.

“He hasn’t been charged yet,” Gaines replied. “Regardless, I want someone down here.”

“Will do,” Hagen replied. He turned and headed toward his own office.

“Helluva mess you got here,” Powell said.

“We got what we got,” Gaines replied. “I just need it to go by the book, no problems, and Webster out of here as soon as possible. Right now, there seems to be a lot less noise than I anticipated, but I’m expecting trouble.”

“Couldn’t blame anyone,” Powell ventured. “There’s people here who knew her. Her ma still lives here, for Christ’s sake. It’s gonna be a big deal, no two ways about it. Right now, the only thing that Webster’s got going for him is that he’s white and a war vet. He’d have been a black fella, then they’d have burned this place down to get to him.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Gaines asked, a rhetorical question.

“Well, rather you than me,” Powell said. They shook hands. Powell left. Gaines went to check on Hagen. Hagen had spoken with Wallace but had failed to reach either Whittall or Howard.

“Keep trying,” Gaines said. “Go out there if needs be. I want at least one of them here when we charge him.”

Gaines left the office, headed back across reception, and took the stairs down to the basement.

24

Webster still possessed the thousand-yard stare, but now he wore a faint smile on his lips.

He did not verbally acknowledge Gaines’s appearance at the cell bars, but Gaines knew Webster was aware of him.

“I went to your room,” Gaines said.

Webster nodded but did not speak. He continued to look right through Gaines.

“I found newspaper clippings . . . and I found a Bible and an album of pictures . . .” Gaines paused. “Pictures of you and Nancy Denton and some other people.”

“There is something I did not tell you,” Webster said.

Gaines stayed silent.

“After I found her, I knew I had to do something. After it was done, I told Matthias what had happened. He agreed with me that it would never work if I said a word about what had happened.”

Webster turned and looked at Gaines. His expression was one of compassion and understanding, almost as if he were now detailing some selfless act of kindness he had performed.

“Who?”

“Matthias Wade.”

“Matthias Wade? You’re talking about the Wade family?”

“He knows all about this, Sheriff. He told me never to say a word, but now she has been found, and now you know the truth, so I cannot keep our secret any longer . . .”

Gaines, leaning there against the bars, closed his eyes. He felt the cool metal against the side of his face. He felt a fist of tension in his chest, a sense of disturbance and agitation in his lower gut, and he knew he was dealing with something far beyond his experience. Michael Webster, for whatever reason, however it might have happened, was completely insane. Yet, in that moment, his expression was as blank and untroubled as a cloudless sky.

There seemed to be no connection between what he believed he had done and what he had in fact done. In his own mind, he had been kind, compassionate, humane. In reality, he had perpetrated the very worst kind of horror against a teenage girl.

“Speak to Matthias if you can,” Webster said. “He will explain these things far better than I can.” Webster looked up at Gaines. “We were always together. Me and Matthias, Maryanne and Nancy. Catherine was there. Eugene, too. Everyone loved her, but I think Matthias loved her the most . . .”

Gaines recalled the images in the photo album he’d found. Was that who those people were? The Wades as children? Was that the next angle on this thing, that Michael Webster and Nancy Denton had been friends with the Wades all those years ago?

This, very simply, opened up another world entirely. The Wades were a dynasty, a Southern institution. More than just landowners, they were businessmen, industrialists, and politicians. Michael Webster was a broken-down, crazy war veteran, and whatever connection he believed he still had with the Wades was more than likely some internal creation, a figment of Webster’s dark and troubled imagination, some alter ego carried somewhere within his psyche that answered questions, rationalized his actions, provided explanations for what he was doing and what he had done.

However, if Michael Webster and Matthias Wade had been complicit in the death of Nancy Denton, that was a can of worms that needed to be opened.

“I went out to where you told me, and we found the remains of a metal box, just as you said we would,” Gaines continued. “We are now going to charge you with first-degree murder, and we are going to get you arraigned before Judge Wallace. More than likely, they will ship you off to Hattiesburg or Jackson while the investigation proceeds. I imagine they will want a psych evaluation done as well, just to determine whether or not you are in a fit mental state to face these charges in court.”