“And what did he say?”

“He said that he would take them all up to the morgue at Biloxi. He said they had better facilities for long-term storage.”

Gaines sighed. “Hell of a thing, eh? Better facilities for long-term storage. This is what it comes down to.”

He left Hagen standing there with nothing to say and headed down the back hallway to his office.

Once inside, he closed the door, sat at his desk. and pulled off his boots.

Maryanne Benedict had been circumspect in her strategy for reaching Della Wade. When pressed for any kind of idea, she’d merely said, “I don’t know, Sheriff. You’re just going to have to leave it with me and let me try to figure something out.” Gaines had started to say something else, but Eddie Holland had interjected. “It’s okay, John. Leave it be. Let Maryanne work out what to do by herself.” So Gaines had dropped it.

And then they had left.

At the front door, just there inside the porch, there had been a strange moment. Holland had gone on to the car, was getting in on the passenger side, and Maryanne had reached out and touched Gaines’s arm. He had turned, and she was close to him, oddly so, and she said, “Sometimes it’s easier to believe that everything is random, that things just happen, and they happen for no real reason.” She was looking directly at Gaines, as if she were trying to read every possible thought in his mind. “But I know that’s not true,” she went on. “I know there is a rhyme and reason to all things, and even coincidences are not really coincidences at all.”

Gaines said nothing, but evidently there was a question in his eyes, an unspoken request for clarification.

“I just find it strange—don’t you?—that you are the person now trying to find out who killed my best friend, but you are twenty years too late.”

“I don’t think I am too late,” Gaines said.

“Too late to have the guilty suffer the rightful consequences, Sheriff. If Matthias Wade strangled Nancy, then he should have hanged two decades ago. But no, he has lived the best kind of life, always enough money, never wanting for anything—”

“Except for the very thing he really wanted.”

“For Nancy Denton to love him.”

“And the knowledge that he was the one who removed any hope of that ever happening.”

Maryanne smiled ruefully. “Nancy would have liked you,” she said, almost to no one, and then she looked once more at Gaines, and there was a warmth in her expression that Gaines had not seen before. “Yes,” she added. “Nancy would have liked you a great deal.”

Gaines hesitated. He wanted to hear what she would say next. He wanted to ask her why Nancy would have liked him, or if it was simply a way of Maryanne telling him that she herself liked him.

Perhaps he wanted to see if he had the courage to say something himself, to tell her that talking to her seemed to be the only thing among all this madness that made him feel like a real human being.

But he did not say anything, and neither did Maryanne, and—without another word—Maryanne closed the door after him.

Gaines stood there. He sensed that she was right there on the other side of the door, that she had not yet walked away.

He could hear his own heart. He felt like a teenager. He smiled at his own foolishness and then he walked back to the car.

What Maryanne Benedict thought of him could not now consume his attention. It was not relevant to the situation at hand, and even if she did think of him, then such an issue would serve only to distract and complicate things. Maryanne Benedict was being employed to deliver a message. That was all—nothing more nor less. Maryanne Benedict would succeed, or she would fail, and the resolution of what had happened here in Whytesburg was—at least for now—entirely dependent upon the outcome of that single action, seemingly so simple and yet potentially very profound. Gaines possessed not the slightest doubt regarding the influence that Matthias Wade and his father could bring to bear upon the next sheriff’s election. Pursue Wade knowingly and obviously, and Gaines would be without a job. If he was no longer sheriff, there would be no way to remain in Whytesburg. He would have to give up his mother’s house and move, not only county, but perhaps state. Back to Louisiana? Or maybe just head west and keep on going until it felt right to stop? Gaines was certain that Wade was directly involved in the death of Michael Webster, and if Wade was capable of that, then perhaps he was capable of killing Gaines. But that would happen only if Wade became aware of what was going on behind the scenes. He could not know about the Regis letter. If he learned of it, then not only Regis, but Maryanne would be in the firing line, too.

Gaines confronted the worst-case scenario—another two dead, Clifton Regis and Maryanne Benedict, and their deaths directly attributable to his actions in this case. And then there would be five dead, one two decades earlier, the other four within a matter of days of one another. From external and objective observation—always the least empathetic view when considering decisions made and actions taken under pressure—it would appear that his failure to obtain a search warrant had prevented any possibility of Webster’s further detention. Had Webster been detained, he might be still alive. Had Judith not learned of Webster’s release, she might not have taken her own life. Just as Kidd had said, Gaines had allowed his emotions to influence his thoughts. For a man so walled off, so determined to organize his life in such a way as to avoid these complications, he had done a fine job of failing. Granted, there were mitigating circumstances—his mother had died, and he was under a great deal of personal emotional stress, but then, if he had believed himself unable to carry out his duties, why had he not taken some time out, turned the investigation over to his deputy, Richard Hagen? Why, Sheriff Gaines? How did you allow these things to pass so far beyond your zone of control? It was unavoidable—his responsibility for both these deaths—and though he knew he would turn these events over in his mind again and again, though he knew he would ask himself unanswerable questions, he also knew that there was no turning back. It was done. He had gotten caught up in this thing, allowed it to get under his skin, allowed it to disturb him, and out of this he had acted in such a way as to make it far worse. His lack of professionalism was unforgivable, and though he knew others might judge him less severely, he knew he himself would never let it go.

Gaines got up and walked to the window. He was thinking crazy. He was arguing for his own prosecution.

The real issue here was that he could not see any other way to approach this obstacle. Where would he go if he could not reach Della? Eugene? Eugene did not live there and had not lived at the family home for some considerable time. Did Eugene possess some knowledge that would incriminate his brother, or even some burning desire to see his brother incriminated? Or the older of the two sisters, Catherine? Would she help?

Gaines felt boxed in whichever way he turned. Was it possible that Wade would just never be called to account for what he had done? Of course it was. This was the fundamental difference between justice and law. Guilt was no guarantee of punishment. The legal system had created its own Machiavellian intricacies with a view to retaining its exclusivity and self-preservative nature, but in doing so had built in such levels of complexity and loopholes that even the very worst human beings could walk free, every step legal, every step visible, every step taking them closer and closer to the opportunity to perpetrate the same crimes again. A cynical view, but a realistic one.

Ultimately, only those who worked within the courts benefited from the courts. More often than not, those who most needed justice, people whose lives and livelihoods depended upon it, were those who were granted the least. It was a sad state of affairs, but tearing yourself apart about it served no purpose. No one man could change it, and until the very society was ripped apart and built once more on foundations of honesty, then that system would not change. Corruption and deceit had become inherent and implicit in the very fabric of the culture. So, how far would he go? If it came down to it, if all avenues had been exhausted and there was insufficient evidence to secure an arrest, would Gaines take the law into his own hands? Could he just go on up to the Wade house and shoot the man in the head? Could he just run him off the road? Could he pull him over, get him out of his car, engage him in a struggle, shoot him, and then leave a gun at the scene to imply that Wade had threatened him first? Such things had been done, would be done again. Gaines had killed before, at a distance and up close. It had been in war, sure, but wasn’t this also some kind of war? Did money and influence always buy you exemption from due process and consequences? Perhaps it did, but that did not make it right.