“A child?” Hagen asked, incredulous.

“That’s what I said,” Gradney replied. “Seems Leon Devereaux kept some unlikely company. Little kid of eleven or twelve, said he’d been coming out here and visiting with Devereaux and General Patton—that’s Devereaux’s dog, by the way—for some time. Brought chicken after school, talked about girls and whatnot.”

Hagen lied convincingly. He said that he and Gaines had been out there, but had not ventured into the trailers. Gradney said that aside from Leon Devereaux’s corpse in the smaller of the trailers, there was evidence of some other foul play in the larger of the two vehicles. A great deal of blood had been found in the bathtub, blood that looked to have been there a good deal longer than Leon’s dead body.

“Of course, he could have decided to gut a pig in there,” Gradney suggested, “but I doubt it. I am concerned we might find that some poor son of a bitch has gone missing, and when we find him, he ain’t gonna have a great deal of blood left inside of him.”

And then he added, “Ironic, eh? Fact of the matter was that your boy was home all along, ’cept he wasn’t in the mood for taking visitors. Someone shot him in the eye, decorated the wall with most of his head, and then just left him there in bed. Coroner says he’d been there about a week. The man neither looked so good nor smelled so good at the best of times, so you can imagine what he’s like right now.”

Hagen thanked Gradney, told him there might be a chance he and Gaines would come out and take a look at the trailers, but today was unlikely. Gradney said they were welcome anytime, but to give him fair warning so he could be present. Hagen thanked him for calling, and the conversation was over.

Hagen knew he wouldn’t reach Gaines on the radio, and so he called Judge Marvin Wallace’s office and left a message for Gaines to call him back as soon as possible.

Set to leave his office, another call came through. It was Maryanne Benedict.

“Is Sheriff Gaines there?” she asked.

“No, Miss Benedict. He’s out of town right now. Can I help?”

“It’s Della Wade,” she said. “She called me, said she was coming over to see me, said she had some information about what happened to Clifton.”

“I’m leaving now,” Hagen said. “You tell her I’m on the way, and that she’s not to leave until I see her.”

“I’ll do my best,” Maryanne said, and hung up.

Hagen left the office, told Barbara to get him on the radio if there was any word from the sheriff. She said she would, and as she watched Hagen’s car pull away, she tried to remember the last time there had been such aggravation and commotion in Whytesburg. She could not recall such a time, and did not believe there ever had been.

65

Judge Marvin Wallace of Purvis was a man used to dealing with liars. He believed he could spot a liar at a hundred paces, that those selfsame liars recognized in him a man who’d waste not a second in listening to whatever mendacity was planned.

Such a faculty served him well as a judge and arbiter of law, for alibis became transparent, evasiveness in the face of direct questions received no quarter, and folks intent on deception were rapidly undone in the precise application of his pronouncements and edicts. Ken Howard knew him well, as did all the state defenders and prosecutors through every relevant county and a few beyond.

Branford was the county seat, and Frederick Otis ran a tight ship as far as that function was concerned, but Wallace was circuit and thus managed a far wider jurisdiction.

The appointment that he’d agreed to for three o’clock on the afternoon of Monday, August 5th, was—he imagined—related to some outstanding warrant, an ongoing case, a matter of t’s to be crossed and i’s to be dotted. Wallace had scheduled a meeting for thirty minutes later, certain that whatever Sheriff John Gaines had to discuss would take no more than that.

Wallace greeted Gaines politely, Nate Ross also, and when Gaines opened the conversation with, “Judge Wallace, thank you for seeing us. We wanted to talk to you about Matthias Wade,” there was a definite sense that the temperature in the room had dropped a degree or two.

“Matthias Wade?” Wallace asked. He shifted in his seat. He glanced at Ross, then looked back at Gaines. “What about Matthias Wade?”

“In the absence of any probative evidence, even anything significant of a circumstantial nature, we are nevertheless of the viewpoint that he may have been involved in the recent death of Michael Webster, and before that, all of twenty years ago, the death of Nancy Denton.”

Wallace showed no surprise. He was implacable, and after looking back at Gaines in silence for a good ten seconds, he smiled and then shook his head ever so slowly.

“So?” he asked.

“Well, I wanted to know your reaction to that suggestion. That he might have been involved.”

“I have no reaction, Sheriff Gaines. What kind of reaction did you think I might have?”

“I wondered whether or not your relationship with Matthias Wade—”

“I’m sorry, my relationship with Matthias Wade?”

“Okay, your friendship. I wondered whether your friendship with Matthias Wa—”

Wallace raised his hand and Gaines fell silent. He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together.

For a little while the only sound was the fan in the ceiling.

“I think you have caught me on the back step,” Wallace said. “I feel as if I am coming late to the game and the score has already been decided. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You use the word relationship and then friendship when referring to Matthias Wade, and you use them as if they actually mean something of significance. I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Are you saying that you’re not friends with Matthias Wade?”

Wallace’s mouth smiled, but his eyes did not. “Friends? With Matthias Wade?” He was silent for a moment and then said, “Okay, Sheriff Gaines, let’s get one thing straight right here and now. If you have a question for me, then you ask it. You do not come into my office with this attitude. You do not present questions to me as if I am withholding something from you. You do not employ interrogative techniques when you ask me something, you understand?”

“Interrogative techniques?”

“The way you ask your questions. Am I saying that I am not friends with Matthias Wade? As if I am trying to deny some earlier statement. You know exactly what I am talking about, Sheriff, and don’t try and tell me you don’t. If you have a question for me, then ask me that question and not something else. I have no time for games.”

Gaines paused before speaking. “I apologize,” he said. “This has been a high-strung business for us, you know? Not often there’s a murder, and now we have more than one and a suicide as well. We just need your help, Judge, and there are some things that make sense and some that don’t, and we thought you could help clarify a few points.”

“Fire away, son. We’re all on the same side here, and if there’s a question I have an answer for, then you’ll get the answer.”

“Do you remember a man called Clifton Regis?”

Wallace was pensive, and then he slowly shook his head. “Can’t say I do, no.”

“You committed him to a term at Parchman Farm.”

Wallace smiled. “Hell, I commit someone to a term at Parchman half a dozen times a month. When was this?”

“Eighteen months ago—”

“Eighteen months ago? You have any idea of the number of cases I hear in a week, let alone eighteen months?”

“I just thought you might remember this one.”

“And why would that be, Sheriff Gaines? Please enlighten me.”

“Missing some fingers on his right hand. Charged with breaking and entering, eyewitness statement from a single individual, nothing to corroborate her statement, and you found him guilty.”