“Well, Sheriff, if I found him guilty, there is a very strong likelihood that he was guilty. Circumstantial evidence can be damning if there’s enough of it.”

“I understand this, but it seems that there was no other evidence aside from the witness statement.”

“Well, then she must have been very convincing and the defendant must have been very unconvincing. I do not commit someone to a term of detention lightly, Sheriff, and I think you know that.”

“Do you remember the case?”

“Not specifically, no.”

“So there’s nothing you can recall that we might have missed about this case? We have looked and looked, and we just can’t understand why he was sentenced to a jail term.”

“Like I said, son, if I sent him to the Farm, then I must have had very good reason to do so.”

“Do you remember if Matthias Wade had anything to do with that case?”

“What is it with you and Matthias Wade? He upset you somehow? What on earth would interest Matthias Wade about this Regis person?”

“The fact that Clifton Regis and Della Wade were in a relationship together.”

Wallace hesitated and then said, “And this Clifton Regis is a colored man, I presume.”

“Yes, sir, he is a colored man.”

Wallace nodded slowly. “Oh. Well, now I understand why Matthias Wade might want this man in Parchman Farm, but my decision to incarcerate was not influenced or coerced in any way by Matthias Wade. Of that I can assure you.”

Gaines sat back in his chair, seemed to relax. “Well, Judge, I am greatly relieved to hear that.”

“I am curious as to why you might have thought me involved with Matthias Wade. His father I know, of course. Anyone of my generation was well-known to Earl, and vice versa, but Matthias no, not so readily. I understand him to be a little headstrong, a little impetuous, and I can appreciate why he might have possessed some concern about his sister becoming involved with a colored man.”

“Why would he be concerned, Judge?”

Wallace smiled; the question was so meaningless as to not warrant a reply.

“So that’s all there is to this?” Wallace asked.

“Yes, sir, that’s all.”

Wallace got up, indicated the door. “Well, if there’s anything else I can assist you with, let me know.”

Gaines reached the door, Ross right there beside him, and then he turned and looked back at Wallace. “Do you remember the woman, Judge? The one who gave the statement in court?”

“The Henderson woman? No, I don’t remember her, sorry.”

“Okay. Thank you for your time, sir,” Gaines said, and left the room.

Ross closed the door gently behind him. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then he smiled and said, “The lying son of a bitch.”

66

There was a message from Hagen at Wallace’s office. Gaines was given it as he and Ross left. Gaines asked if he could use one of their telephones.

Barbara took the call back at Breed County, told Gaines that Hagen had received word from a Sheriff Gradney in Lucedale and also a call from Maryanne Benedict, that Hagen had driven out there to see her. Gaines asked if Hagen had given the reason for Gradney’s call.

“He didn’t say, Sheriff,” she replied. “The calls came back-to-back, the other sheriff first, then Miss Benedict, and Richard just hurried on out of here.”

Gaines called Maryanne’s house, spoke with her briefly, learned that she had received word from Della Wade, and that Della Wade was en route to see her.

Gaines—just as Hagen had done—told her to do whatever she could to keep Della Wade there until he arrived.

Gulfport was a good sixty or seventy miles, and Gaines floored the accelerator.

Ross was the first to reference Wallace’s misstep, that he had inadvertently used Dolores Henderson’s name without Gaines ever referring to her directly.

“You ever wish you didn’t know, Nate? You ever wish that you’d taken some other job where this kind of shit didn’t take over your life?”

“Nope,” he said. “This kind of shit is the thing that keeps me interested in staying alive.”

Gaines smiled sardonically.

“It does make me wonder how far it goes,” Ross said. “I want to know if Kidd is involved and if it’s about money or if it’s about something else.”

“Ninety-nine times in a hundred, it’s money. That’s my experience,” Gaines replied.

“Well, Wallace is not in the poorhouse, and Kidd sure as hell is a wealthy man, so I don’t know what the Sam Hill they’re after.”

“You go down that road, no matter how much you have, it’s never enough.”

“Crazy sons of bitches,” Ross said.

“Wallace’ll be on the phone to Wade now. I’d bet my house on it,” Ross said.

“I reckon he is,” Gaines replied. “Tell you the truth, I am just sick and tired of beating around the edges of this and getting no straight answers. Figured it was time to bring it to their doorsteps rather than wait for them to kill someone else.”

“You think Matthias started all of this by murdering that poor girl?”

“I do, Nate. I do. I reckon he was as jealous as hell, couldn’t believe that she wanted Michael Webster and not him, got it into his head that he had to have her. Maybe he tried to tell her that in the woods that night. Maybe she laughed at him, made him mad, and then he choked her. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, but she wound up dead. Michael found her, tried to bring her back the only way he could think how.”

“Scary shit, that is,” Ross interjected. “I read about that stuff and it scares the living Jesus out of me.”

“Well, I think Webster was already fragile from his experiences in the war, and then the grief . . . well, I think he just lost his mind. I don’t think he even understood what he was doing or why. I think he just did something, anything, rather than accept the fact that the girl he loved was dead.”

“But putting a snake inside of her . . . What the hell?”

“Oh, believe me, there’s far worse than that. I mean, look at what happened to Webster. Someone cut his head off and buried it out behind my house. Made his hand into a fucking candle, for Christ’s sake.”

“Wade did that, you think?”

“I think Wade got Leon Devereaux to do it, and it was done in Devereaux’s trailer. That’s why we need to find him. I honestly believe that we can get him to turn state’s evidence against Wade if we present him with the choices. People like that will always work for whoever offers the most money or the most threat to their survival.”

“Well, maybe Della has something,” Ross said. “Maybe she can help us with this Leon Devereaux.”

Little else was said for the remainder of the journey. Gaines seemed in a world of his own, Ross similarly distracted by his own thoughts. They made good time, and it wasn’t yet five when they pulled up in front of the Benedict house and got out of the car. Hagen’s car was already there, but there was no sign of any other vehicle that might have ferried Della to Gulfport.

Maryanne had seen them from the window and came out to greet both Gaines and Ross.

“She’s not here yet,” she said before Gaines had a chance to ask.

They went on through to the kitchen, and it was here that Hagen informed Gaines and Ross of the discovery of Leon Devereaux’s body.

“Shot through the eye,” he said. “Gradney called me, told me someone had found his body in the other trailer, the one we didn’t check.”

Gaines was left without words. Ross couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Said he’d been there the better part of a week,” Hagen went on. “Some kid found him, apparently.”

“A kid?” Gaines asked.

“That’s what Gradney said. Said that some kid was a friend of Devereaux’s, went out there with fried chicken and visited him, and he was the one who found the body.”

“Jesus Christ almighty,” Gaines said. “I don’t think this could get much worse.”

Maryanne came in from the front hall. “She’s here,” she said. “Della. Outside.”