“What are you after, Sheriff Gaines?” she asked.

There was something in her expression. She knew there was some intended manipulation, something that Gaines was planning to ask of her, something that he was unable to effect alone.

She did not look at Eddie Holland, despite the fact that she knew Eddie so much better than Gaines. She was smart enough to realize that Eddie’s presence was merely a sweetener for the bitter pill.

“Miss Benedict—”

“Maryanne.”

“Okay, Maryanne. I have a letter from a man called Clifton Regis. He is a colored man that Della Wade was involved with some time ago. They were together in New Orleans, and Matthias didn’t take too kindly to the idea of his younger sister running around with a colored musician. According to Regis, Della planned to run away with him, and she got ten thousand dollars from somewhere and gave it to Regis. Matthias sent someone down there to take back the ten grand, but whoever it was took couple of Regis’s fingers, as well. Matthias then had Della brought back to the Wade family home, and as far as I can find out, she’s been here ever since.”

“And this Clifton Regis is where now?” Maryanne asked.

“Parchman Farm.”

“And Matthias put him there for taking this money?”

“No, he’s in there for a burglary he’s supposed to have done.”

“Supposed to have done?”

Gaines shrugged. It was obvious from his reaction that Gaines believed Wade complicit, directly or indirectly, in Regis’s incarceration, and it did not need to be said.

Maryanne was quiet for a time. She did look at Eddie Holland then, and Eddie reached out and closed his hand over hers.

“Della is a crazy person,” she eventually said. “Della Wade has always been a crazy person and probably always will be. When Della was six years old, she poured bleach into a fishpond and killed all the fish. When she was eight, she set light to another girl’s hair. Dealing with Della Wade is like crossing a rope bridge in a storm. You take careful steps, and you move very slowly.”

“You knew her as a child?”

“Sure, I did. She was there with the rest of the Wades. Catherine was always around to keep an eye on her and Eugene, but my impression of her then and now are quite different, most of it influenced by the things people have said over the years. At the time, she didn’t seem so different from anyone else. She was wild, sure, but so were all of us at that age. After her mother died, I don’t really know who took care of her, but from what you say, it seems that Matthias is managing her affairs now.”

“I spoke to Regis yesterday,” Gaines said, “and he said nothing about her being crazy. He spoke of her with tremendous affection, and I really got the impression that they had been very much in love and intended to move away and have a life together.”

“I said crazy, but maybe I didn’t mean that kind of crazy. Unpredictable, flighty, a ceaseless energy, but kind of manic and uncontrollable. Then, suddenly, huge bouts of depression, sudden changes in her attitude and personality.”

“Schizophrenic?”

“I don’t know what you’d call it, and giving it a name doesn’t matter. She would just flip wildly from one mood to the next, and you never had any prediction. Sometimes she seemed to be the sweetest little girl you could ever hope to meet, other times a vicious little harpy with the shortest temper and the worst language.”

“Did the Wades ever have her seen by a psychiatrist or something?”

Maryanne shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. That’s not the way that wealthy families deal with troublesome offspring, is it, Eddie?”

Eddie smiled. “No, they stick them in the basement and keep them secret.”

“It sullies the family name to have a lunatic in the ranks,” Maryanne said. “Reputation is everything, at least as a facade, if not in reality. It’s superficial, but that’s the way it is down here. Only other way for the Wades to deal with Della would have been to have her locked up someplace a hundred miles away, and Lillian Wade would never have let such a thing happen. As far as Lillian was concerned, family took priority over everything. You did not betray your own family members, no matter what they might have done.”

“You knew Lillian?”

“Sure I did,” Maryanne replied. “Lillian was an amazing woman. She loved those children dearly, gave them everything she could.”

“But she was an alcoholic, right? She drank herself to death.”

“I don’t know what to say, Sheriff. I don’t know details. For the brief time that I knew the Wades, those few years between the end of the war and Nancy’s disappearance, I had a happy childhood. Me, Nancy, Matthias, and Michael, and around the edges of that little universe there was Eugene and Catherine and Della. Sometimes they’d be there, but most times they were off doing whatever they were doing. They were never really part of it, you know? Not that they were excluded, but they just never really figured in our world. We would see Lillian in the house, and she always talked to me like I was a grown-up. She asked my opinion about things. She always wanted to know what I thought about something or other. I remember one time she engaged me in a long discussion about Harry Truman being the new president and how there was now a democratic majority in both Houses of Congress. That was 1948. I was eight years old. She said I should understand such things, and I was always grown-up enough to have an opinion.”

“What did your parents think about your friendship with the Wades?”

Maryanne frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

“I’m just curious,” Gaines said. “If it bothers you to talk about it, I’m sorry.”

“No, it doesn’t bother me. It just surprises me a little, as it has no bearing on why you’re here. What did my parents think of it? My mother believed that the Wades and the Benedicts were from different worlds, and those worlds should ideally stay separate. However, she never actively stopped me spending time with them. My father was very much the strong, silent type, and if he didn’t raise a subject, it was never discussed. My parents didn’t exactly maintain an equality in their relationship, if you know what I mean.”

“Are they still alive?”

“No,” Maryanne said. “My father died in sixty-five, my mother in sixty-eight.”

“And you have no brothers or sisters?”

Maryanne frowned. “No, I am an only child.” She shook her head, looked askance at Eddie Holland. “What is this, Sheriff? Why all these personal questions?”

“I apologize,” Gaines said. “I am just interested. It’s in my nature to be curious about people.”

“It is also your occupation,” Maryanne replied. “I am beginning to feel like I am the one under investigation.”

“No, not at all, and that was not my intention,” Gaines interjected. “I am sorry for giving you that impression. I am just dealing with so much at the moment, so many different aspects of this thing, and it seems that there are so few answers available—”

“That when you find someone who answers your questions, you have to keep thinking of more, right?”

Gaines smiled. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe something like that.”

“Okay, well, let’s get back to the issue at hand. You still haven’t explained to me what it is that you want.”

“Well, to understand what I want, you have to understand what I think has happened here, and then, with all of that in mind, you can make a decision as to whether or not you’re willing to help me.”

“That’s a dangerous word to use, Sheriff Gaines.”

“What is?”

“Help. It’s loaded, and you know it. You’re trying to appeal to the better angel of my nature, supposing, of course that I do actually have a better angel.”

“I think you do, Maryanne.”

“And what gives you that impression, Sheriff?”

“The fact that you opened the door this morning before we even reached it. I think you want to help, and maybe not just for Nancy’s sake but for Michael, as well.”