“In New Orleans?”

“Right.”

“And you started dating?”

Regis laughed. “If that’s what you want to call it, yes.”

“How soon after you met her?”

“Right away, the same night. It was like that. I saw her, she saw me, and we was done for.”

“And how long did the relationship go on until she gave you the money?”

“Four, five months. She would come down to New Orleans every weekend with the pretense of seeing Eugene, but she was coming to see me. Far as I could tell, she didn’t have a great deal to do with Eugene. Never had. But Eugene knew what was going on. I think Eugene feels the same way about his family as Della does. He stays out of their business, and they stay out of his. He has his music and his church, and he pretty much keeps himself to himself. Live and let live, you know?”

“And Eugene had no problem with you being with her?”

“You’ve met Eugene?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Regis smiled. “No, Eugene never had a problem with us.”

“And she brought the money, when?”

“Twenty-first of December.”

“And Matthias came to see you how soon after?”

“Two days.”

“The twenty-third.”

“Right.”

“And he gave you your choice.”

“He sure did.”

“And then when were you arrested for this thing here?”

“Arrested at the end of January 1973, held over, tried, sentenced, shipped up here in March of the same year, and, like I said, been here all of the seventeen months since.”

“And you did the burglary you got this three-to-five for?”

“Never burgled anyplace in my life.”

Gaines frowned and shook his head. “But—”

“But what, Sheriff? You know how this goes. We all look the same. We all do the same things. We’re all guilty of the same shit, so it don’t matter which ones they throw in jail. I agree it was a little stretch to have me climbing walls and breaking windows and whatever, having lost two of my fingers only a month beforehand, but hell, what does a detail like that count for when you have the kind of public defenders we get assigned to us?”

“You think Matthias Wade had any part in getting you sent up here?”

“Seems like it would be a good way for him to get me a couple hundred miles away from Della, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” Gaines replied.

“So what now?” Regis asked.

“Like I said, I need to get to Della. I need to ask her some things.”

“And you think she’ll say enough for you to be able to get something on her brother for these killings you spoke of?”

“That’s the plan.”

“You don’t have a prayer, sir, not a single, solitary prayer. Della would no more turn her brother in to the law than she would . . . well hell, I don’t know what. But you’re just wishin’ on some kinda wild dream there.”

“You could testify that he threatened you, that he was there when this man cut your fingers off.”

“For what? What the hell have you been smokin’? Jeez, do you have even the faintest idea who you’re dealin’ with? Even if something like that got a charge, you’d have three hundred lawyers and the judge hisself swearing they was home with Matthias Wade as their dinner guest at precisely the moment I got my fingers removed.”

“You know who this man was who was with him?”

“No idea. Just one of Wade’s people. There’s no end of people who’ll do that kind of work for someone like him.”

“If I could get a message to her for you, would that be something—”

“Man, if you could get a message to her, that would be just un-fucking-believable.”

“You want to get her back, right?”

Clifton Regis looked at Gaines then, and the expression in his eyes was one of such desperate hope that it was all Gaines could do to remain implacable. However, beneath that hope was a sense of exhausted resignation. Gaines did not so much see it, as feel it around the man.

“You ever been in love, Sheriff Gaines?”

Gaines felt himself sigh inside. He remembered Linda Newman. “One time,” he replied, “but that was a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t matter how long ago it was. It’s still gonna make you feel the same.”

“You think she still loves you?” Gaines asked.

“If I believed she didn’t, then there’d be no point going on. That’s what I tell myself, you know? But sometimes I believe I just have to accept that she’s gone for good—”

“But bringing down Matthias Wade gives you a chance of seeing her and finding out whether there is some hope you could be together again.”

“Bringing down Matthias Wade? Like I said, I think you are dreamin’. You bring him down, then you’re gonna have to bring down a great deal more than just him. They’re all living out of each other’s pockets. The lawyers, the judges, the rich folks, they’re all working for one another, and that’s one hell of a lot of people. All that stuff I said, how I’ve been working as hard as I can to forget her . . . that’s just because I know there’ll never be a hope that we’ll be together again.”

“Unless he’s gone, right?”

“Maybe. Maybe then there’s a chance.”

“But you’ll help me?”

Regis shrugged. “Help you? How the hell could I help you?”

“You can start by writing a letter to Della Wade to tell her that she should meet with me. If I can get it to her, then there’s a chance she might trust me enough to tell me something that will help. If she feels for you the way you feel for her, then how can she not talk to me?”

“And how the hell you gonna get a letter to Della without Matthias finding out about it?”

“I think there might be someone who’ll help me,” Gaines said, “someone that Matthias won’t refuse entry to that house.”

“Well, you get me a pen and some paper and I’ll write your letter,” Regis said, “but this goes down wrong and they end up comin’ after me, then I’m gonna be comin’ after you, you understand?”

“I don’t doubt it, Clifton,” Gaines replied.

“This is a bad scene you got yourself involved in, man, a real bad scene. Maybe the Wades ain’t as bad as they get down here, but they’re pretty damned bad. You know the kind of shit these Klan people do when they get let off the leash, right?”

“I do, sure, though we ain’t had a great deal of it in Breed County while I’ve been there.”

“Well, people like Matthias Wade are not so dumb as to be shitting on their own porch, are they? More ’an likely they take whoever over the state line into Louisiana and run their hunting trips there.”

Gaines had heard of such things, the Klan abducting some unsuspecting colored, driving them across state lines into some area outside of town, and then a half dozen or more good ol’ boys would hunt them down like a safari. Dogs, trucks, a whole bellyful of liquor for every man, and they would make a night of it. End up with some guy stripped, beaten, lynched, one time even crucified. Maybe the civil rights movement got a say-so in Memphis or Atlanta, but in the backwoods of Mississippi and Alabama they hadn’t even heard of such a thing. For such people, civil rights meant the right to civilize a neighborhood or a town, and the only way to do that was to rout out and get rid of the coloreds.

Gaines got up. “I’m gonna get some paper and a pen, and you write me a letter for Della, and I give you my word I will do everything I can to get it to her. Only way Matthias will find out is if she then gives it to him herself.”

“I don’t see her doin’ that,” Regis replied. “Not in a hundred lifetimes.”

“You cannot be sure,” Gaines replied. “People’s minds can get turned awful fast. You haven’t seen her for the better part of two years, and she’s been right there in that family all this time, listening to whatever Matthias Wade has to say about the way of things. This goes to hell, and both you and I are in it neck-deep.”

“Well, sir, you didn’t know Della, and if you think there is anything even remotely similar between her and Matthias, then you’re gonna have to look again. Doesn’t make sense to me Matthias and Della are even in the same family.”