“It’s okay now. He’s sleeping. Mary’ll call me if she needs anything.”

Gaines got Hagen up to speed on recent developments, the information that Nate had given him on the Regis case, the fact that Dolores Henderson and Daniel Levitt has been added to the cast of characters in this particular drama.

“Tell me what you know about Marvin Wallace,” Gaines said. “You’ve been here your whole life. You know much about him?”

“Seems like a decent man,” Hagen said. “Tough, doesn’t take any crap, but still has a heart for a sad story, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Has a tendency to let himself be persuaded that folks are better than they actually are. Tends to give people the benefit of the doubt.”

“He married?”

“Yes, has been for as long as I recall. Wife’s name is Edith. He has two kids . . . I say kids, but they’re adults now, out and about in the big, bad world. A son and a daughter. Daughter lives with her husband and kids somewhere like Magee or Mendenhall, far as I remember, and the son is a lawyer in Vicksburg. He’s married, too; don’t know if he has any kids yet. She’s a few years older than him. He’s about my age, late twenties, and she’s half a dozen years older than that.”

“Names?”

“Marion and Stanley. And Stanley, by the way, is married to Jack Kidd’s daughter, Ruth.”

“State’s AG, Jack Kidd?”

“Only one Jack Kidd I know of.”

“And is the daughter married to anyone we know?”

Hagen smiled. “Probably. This is the South, you know? Everyone knows everyone else, and if you don’t know ’em, then you’re probably related anyways.”

“That’s what it’s starting to look like.”

Gaines thought back to his conversation with Hagen, the fact that Ken Howard had spoken with Kidd and Kidd had come back and told Howard that Webster could not be held for more than a couple of hours. Kidd could have overridden that point; he could have decided that Michael Webster was in no fit state to recall anything he might or might not have said about taking things from the cabin; he could have concluded that Webster’s failure to make any calls upon his arrest was Webster’s choice, not a failure on Gaines’s part to provide Webster his basic legal rights. Kidd could have done whatever he felt was appropriate, but he said that the murder charge should be dropped, that Webster should be charged solely with destruction of evidence, and he also advised that the arraignment be held in front of Marvin Wallace. In that way the bail was held down as low as possible, and Wade could just walk in and pay it. From there it was a simple drive over to see Mr. Devereaux, and the matter was closed. Everything stayed in-house, neat as paint.

Wade, Wallace, Kidd. Was that what was going on here? Were these guys in league with one another? And if so, why? Was it a simple matter of Wade money putting people in the state attorney general’s office and on the bench, and when a favor was needed, it was all too easily extended? Or was there more to this? Were Wallace and Kidd somehow connected to what had happened to Nancy Denton? Was that why Wade never concerned himself with silencing Michael Webster? Not simply because of Michael’s own belief that to break his silence would preclude any possibility of Nancy’s return from the dead, but because Wade knew that Webster could never touch him. Never even get close. The law would always be on Wade’s side. Webster could have an accident or meet an unfortunate end just anytime Wade chose, and Wade would never be held to account. Even if Webster had come forward, Wade had everyone from the local circuit judge to the state’s AG on his payroll. That was the way it worked, the way it had always worked, the way it would always work in the future. This was just the way things were done down here.

“Sheriff?”

Gaines looked at Hagen.

“Where d’you go to?”

“A dark place, Richard . . . a dark fucking place.”

“So what’s next?”

“Well, I got Ross and Holland finding out everything they can about Leon Devereaux and the others, and we are also waiting for any word from Della Wade.”

“She can be trusted?”

“Hell, I don’t know, Richard. She seemed like she wanted to help us. If not for her own sense of moral rectitude, but because of Clifton Regis and what her brother did to him.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a Wade.”

“I am well aware of that,” Gaines said. “So to answer your question, no, I don’t trust her.”

“These people got it in them to kill Webster, to do what they did to Regis, then we are sure as hell in the firing line.”

“We are, but that’s why we wanted a uniform in the first place, right?”

“Hell no. I did it for the job security and the health benefits.”

Gaines smiled, a moment of levity. Hagen was good people, no doubt about it.

“Well, I’m not one for hanging around,” Hagen said. “I can go over and help out Nate and Eddie, if you like.”

“Sure, you do that, but you go out of town, let me know.”

“Will do, Sheriff.”

Gaines sat in silence once again. Seemed the hole these people had dug was growing ever deeper. Either that, or the hole was simply a manifestation of Gaines’s own imagination, and there was nothing here at all.

He hoped it was the former. He had to believe it was the former. He was not prepared to accept that the death of Nancy Denton had begun and ended with Michael Webster. He just couldn’t believe it of the man. Not now. Not after learning the reason for what he’d done to her body. Crazy he might be, but a murderer? Gaines didn’t think so. He had looked in that man’s eyes; he had sat with him in the basement cell; he had listened to his ramblings and monologues, and yet never once had he said anything that convinced Gaines he was evil.

He lifted the phone once more, called Nate Ross a third time.

“Nate, it’s John. I’ve sent Richard Hagen over to help you out. I’m thinking of taking a trip up to Purvis to see this Henderson woman myself.”

“That’ll put your flag in the yard, John. You go speak to her and it’ll get back to Wade.”

“If she’s involved, Nate, only if she’s involved.”

“Seems pretty clear that she is, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m beginning to think that if we don’t take some direct steps to get to the truth of this, then we may never find it. I don’t see anyone walking on in here to explain all of this to me.”

“You want company?”

“No, I’m gonna go alone. Did you get an address for her?”

“No, not yet, but if she’s still in Purvis, she shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“She’ll be in the system somewhere, I imagine,” Gaines replied. “And if you run out of things for Hagen to do, send him back here to hold the fort.”

“Sure thing.”

Gaines hung up, searched out the number for the Lamar County Sheriff’s Office, called them and spoke with a deputy up there who knew precisely who Dolores Henderson was and where she lived.

“She a handful of trouble for you folks?” Gaines asked.

“Always has been, always will be,” the deputy replied. “Had her in here just a couple of days ago on a drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest, a bunch of other stuff. Public lewdness, as well, I think. Woman’s a nightmare on a good day. What you interested in her for, Sheriff?”

“Not her, but someone she knows,” Gaines replied.

“Oh, I should think she knows pretty much the worst of the worst from here and half a dozen other counties.”

“Well, I’m hopin’ that’s the case, and I’m gonna drive on up and see for myself, if that’s okay with you.”

“You make yourself at home, Sheriff Gaines, and if you can find a good reason to get her out of Purvis, we’ll all be in your debt.”

Gaines thanked the deputy for his assistance.

He collected his hat, his jacket, went on out to the car, and headed north.