by R.J. Ellory
Wade took a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit one. He did not offer one to Gaines. “I am not trying to second-guess you, Sheriff, but it might be worth looking into that as a possibility.”
“You know that Nancy Denton’s mother is dead.”
Wade didn’t flinch. There seemed to be no reaction at all. He looked directly at Gaines, smoke issuing from his nostrils, and said, “No, I did not know that.”
“Suicide,” Gaines said. “As far as we can tell right now.”
“Would make sense.”
“How so?”
“Lost her daughter in such terrible circumstances, no husband, overwhelmed with grief . . . Seems that suicide would be very much at the forefront of her mind. People don’t commit suicide when they’re at their best, Sheriff.”
Gaines didn’t rise to the sarcastic bait. He was doing his utmost to maintain his objectivity and patience. There was nothing to suggest Matthias Wade had anything to do with the deaths of Nancy Denton or Michael Webster. The only thing that connected Wade to any of it was the fact that he and Webster had known each other for many years and Wade had paid Webster’s bail. How well they had known each other, Gaines did not know. And how well each of them had really known Nancy Denton was also uncertain. The dynamics of their relationship all those years ago were still a mystery to Gaines. Webster had been so much older than all of them. If Matthias Wade was now in his early forties, he would still have been ten years younger than Webster back in ’54 and a good five years older than Nancy. But they had acted like equals—at least that was the impression from the pictures he had seen. It was as if all seven of them—Webster, Nancy, the four Wade children, and this unidentified Maryanne—had been oblivious to all accepted social parameters. Neither age nor the Wades’ position in the community had seemed an obstacle to their respective friendships. Had Nancy’s death therefore been precipitated by nothing more complex than jealousy? Had Matthias Wade actually killed her because he couldn’t have her?
Gaines had already decided not to speak of the photo album to Wade. If Wade knew of its existence, then perhaps he had wished it to burn in the fire. If he was unaware of it, then Gaines would keep that card close to his chest as long as possible. Perhaps Wade had bailed Webster out for the very reason he suggested: to give the people of Whytesburg a chance to see justice done in their own way. Webster’s behavior could easily have swung him an insanity plea, and what would have happened then? Five or six years in the fruit farm, a few chats with some anal-fixated shrink, and then he’d be back home and able to implicate Wade. But then again, if Wade was involved in the Nancy Denton murder, and Webster had known of this, why had Wade not killed Webster back then? Because there was nothing to connect Wade to the girl’s death? Because the only evidence that existed would identify Webster as her killer, and Wade wanted him alive to take the fall if it ever came to light? No, that made no sense. The simplest thing to do would have been to dispose of Webster way back when, get him out of the picture altogether. In that way, people would have put the Denton murder to rest. In the absence of answers, any answers would do. People wanted closure, and Webster’s death would have given them that, just as it would give them closure now. There were few people who would be happy to hear that John Gaines was pressing for further details on the Denton case, especially now that Judith was dead. There were too many questions, too few answers, and though Wade might not have had all of them, he had a handful, for sure. If nothing else, Gaines was certain of that.
“And then there’s always the possibility that Judith was the one who exacted revenge on Webster,” Wade added. “And then she killed herself as she could not face the possibility of going to prison for murder.”
“A woman alone? And she removed Webster’s hand and decapitated him?”
“Maybe she had a friend to help her.”
“I think that’s very unlikely, Mr. Wade. Did you even know Judith Denton?”
“No, sir, I did not.” Wade made a small performance of looking at his watch. “So is that all, Sheriff?”
“You still haven’t answered my question, Mr. Wade.”
“And what question would that be?”
“What happened after you left the Sheriff’s Office yesterday afternoon? Where did you take Webster?”
“I took him to a bar, Sheriff. I took him to a bar called Blues and Beers outside of Whytesburg.”
Gaines knew the place, a rundown dive where most of the drugs available in Whytesburg could be sourced.
“And what time was that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe three thirty, three forty-five. I don’t remember the exact time we left your office.”
“It was five after three.”
“Then it must have been about three thirty. Your office to the bar is no more than twenty minutes or so.”
“And how was Webster?”
Wade smiled. “Talkative, but most of the stuff he said was nonsense to me. He seemed a bit crazy, you know?”
Gaines looked down at his shoes. He knew that Wade was lying. The lie was right there in his eyes, as obvious as those military spokesmen who smiled all too easily and told the press corps how the United States was winning the war in Vietnam.
“And you left him at the bar and you didn’t see him again?”
“That’s right, Sheriff.”
“And your whereabouts for the remainder of the day?”
“You’re asking me if I have an alibi, Sheriff?”
“I am, sir.”
Wade smiled, and in that expression was an air of condescension and dismissal. “I was here, Sheriff. Ask my father; ask the help. Ask whoever you want.”
“And you’re not going to give me any explanation as to why you were willing to risk five thousand dollars to bail him out of jail?”
“You just don’t seem to be able to accept the simplest answer to that question, do you? Why can’t you just consider the possibility that I might be a social-minded citizen, like I said before?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense, sir, and it doesn’t ring true. I think you’re holding something back here, Mr. Wade. I really do.”
Wade dropped the cigarette butt and lit a second. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke for a while, and then sighed. “You seem defeated, Sheriff.”
“Frustrated perhaps, not defeated.”
“Frustrated by the lack of answers you’re getting?”
“Frustrated by the apparent unwillingness of those who know the truth to do anything more than try and hide it.”
“You know what they say?”
“They? Who’s they?”
“Folks in general, I s’pose.”
“No, why don’t you tell me what folks in general say?”
“They say the real strength of a man is in recognizing when he’s beat.”
Gaines smiled, almost to himself. “Guess I must be a weak man, then, Mr. Wade.”
“You said it, Sheriff. You said it.”
“I did.”
“Well, it’s been good chatting with you, Sheriff, but I have things to do.”
“As do I,” Gaines replied.
“Until we meet again—which, I hope, won’t be for a long time and will be under more favorable circumstances.” Wade turned toward the house.
“Something here is awry, Mr. Wade,” Gaines said. “I know it, and you sure as hell know it, and I want you to understand that whichever way this goes, you’ll not get away with it.”
Wade smiled patiently. “You think not?” He took a moment to straighten a crease in the sleeve of his jacket. “Well, Sheriff Gaines, you just watch real careful while I do exactly that.”
34
Gaines believed that the fundamental difference between the good and the bad was one of self-interest. There were those who made choices that incorporated a consideration of others and those who made choices that did not.
The meeting with Wade had disturbed him greatly. He was certain that Wade knew a great deal more than he
was saying and yet had set himself to defy Gaines. Whytesburg had three dead, and Gaines was none the wiser regarding the circumstances of any of them. Even the possibility that Judith Denton’s suicide was more than just suicide loomed large on the horizon of his fears. A distraught woman—discovering that her daughter was dead, had in fact been dead for twenty years while she’d yet lived with the distant hope of her eventual return—could so easily have been convinced to take her own life. Matthias Wade had said he did not know Judith Denton, yet if he had spent so many years of his childhood as Nancy’s friend, how could he have not known her? And he had also commented that suicide might very well have been at the forefront of Judith’s mind. Why would he have ventured such an opinion when not called for? It was an old legal adage that offense was the best form of defense. Was Wade preempting any possibility that he might be accused of facilitating or encouraging Judith Denton’s suicide by remarking upon the possibility of it to Gaines?
The predominant omission now prevalent in Gaines’s mind was knowledge of the Wades as a family. He knew of them, but not about them, and he knew precisely where to start asking questions. Once he had some kind of background on them, then he would best get busy looking into the original disappearance of Nancy Denton. He told Hagen to dig up any reports that might have existed from the time.
“Ahead of you on that one,” Hagen told Gaines. “I already looked. Apparently, she was last seen on the evening of Thursday, August 12, 1954. Sixteen years old at the time, best friends with someone called Maryanne Benedict, and the pair of them used to hang around with Webster and the Wade children. I say children, but Matthias was twenty-one at the time. There were four in all—Matthias, Catherine, Eugene, and Della, the last three eighteen, sixteen, and ten respectively. There aren’t any reports, not as such anyway, because there was never really an investigation. But there are a few notes that Bicklow made. He questioned all of them, also Judith, a couple of other folks who knew her, but it was assumed that she was a runaway. No indications of foul play. Nothing like that.”
“So who is this Maryanne Benedict?”
“Not a great deal to go on as yet. I called up Jim Hughes. He says he vaguely remembers her but didn’t know her too well. Knew the parents, but they moved away a good while back. Maryanne was an only child, a couple of years younger than Nancy, according to the notes.”
“So if she’s alive, she’d be—what?—early thirties.”
“Right. Thirty-four, if she was fourteen when Nancy disappeared.”
“Well, you get on to tracking her down,” Gaines said. “Least of all, she might want to know that two of her childhood friends are dead, and she might be able to give us something else on the Denton girl’s disappearance.”
Hagen left. Gaines started calling around to locate Eddie Holland. Holland, predictably, was at Nate Ross’s place down on Coopers Road. Gaines asked if he could come over and speak with them. Ross seemed all too eager to receive Gaines, and Gaines knew why. There was something going on that was a great deal more interesting than the weather, and Nate Ross would be first in line to get involved.
Gaines felt it was a visit worth making. For all their bluff and bravado, Ross and Holland were good people. They were lonely; that was all. Lonely without careers, lonely without wives. They talked too much, they held court too often, voiced too many unwanted opinions, but every town in the South had their own Ross and Holland, that was for sure. They drank too much. That was obvious from the get-go. Gaines knew the pattern. At first you waited until dark before the first drink, and then dark became sunset became dusk became twilight, and finally there was no waiting at all. If you were awake, you were drunk, and it stayed that way until the drink carried you down through the closing of your life.
Perhaps that was the way he himself would go, the way that his predecessor—Don Bicklow—would have gone, had he not fucked himself into an early grave with a fifty-two-year-old widow out near Wiggins.
Ross’s house was old-style South, the balustrades, the balcony out front, the veranda and porch. Ross was there at the screen door as Gaines pulled up, and Eddie Holland was right behind him.
“Gentlemen,” Gaines said, removing his hat and leaving it on the passenger seat of the car.
“Sheriff,” Nate Ross replied, and he came down the steps to meet Gaines.
Once greetings were exchanged, Gaines followed them into the house, was directed to the kitchen, where Holland had a pot of coffee on the stove.
It did not pass Gaines by that Holland put a splash of bourbon in each cup before it was delivered to the table. Such was the way of things in Nate Ross’s house.
“So, how can we assist you, Sheriff?” Eddie Holland said as he took a seat facing Gaines.
“Information,” Gaines said.
“About?”
“Well, there’s one area where I know you can help me and one area you might not be able to help me, and that’s why I’m here.”
“Shoot,” Ross said.
“This you won’t know about so much, Nate, but back in August of 1954, a girl went missing—”
“Nancy Denton,” Holland said.
“Right. And now we’ve found her. And I believed that Mike Webster was responsible for her killing, but now I’m not so sure. I wanted to find out all I could about the original disappearance from Judith, but—”
“She committed suicide,” Ross interjected.
“And Webster is dead as well,” Gaines went on, unsurprised that Ross already knew about Judith. “And so here I am, dealing with a twenty-year-old runaway case that wasn’t really a runaway, a dead mother, a dead primary suspect, and I don’t know shit about what the hell is going on . . .”
“Except that Matthias Wade is gonna be involved, one way or another,” Holland said. “Because he paid Webster’s bail, and all of a sudden Webster is burned to hell without his head and his hand in a motel cabin out toward Bogalusa.”
“Which brings me to my second area of questions,” Gaines said, also unsurprised that Holland would have mentioned Wade’s name so readily, or that he knew of Webster’s unfortunate and distressing end. Holland had been around a long time. Whytesburg was a small town. There was little that stayed secret in such places.
“The Wades,” Gaines said, matter-of-factly. “That’s what I want to know about.”
“And what do you want to know about the Wades?” Ross asked.
“Anything you’ve got, Nate. That would be a start.”
Nate Ross shrugged. He sipped his loaded coffee, nodded at Holland, and Holland refreshed the brew with a mite more spirit. He advanced the bottle to Gaines, but Gaines declined.
“Ed’ll know more about the family as a whole, being from here an’ all. But Earl? Earl Wade must be all of seventy-five or eighty by now. Hardheaded son of a bitch, business-wise, at least. Had some dealings with him back in the early fifties, some property and land he was interested in up in Hattiesburg. The deal didn’t go through eventually, but he was ballbreaker, I’ll tell you.”
“His wife?” Gaines asked.
“His wife was Lillian Tresselt,” Holland said. “A good ten or fifteen years younger than him. They had four kids, as far as I recall, Matthias being the eldest. He’s the one who’ll inherit the businesses and the estate when the old man finally gives up the ghost.”
“His wife was Lillian Tresselt?”
“Yeah, was,” Ross went on. “She drank herself to death. In fact, she died around the same time as I was working on that Hattiesburg thing, so that must have been getting toward the end of fifty-two. Of course, it was never reported that she drank herself to death, but she did. She was famous for her drunken performances at the parties that Wade used to throw.”
“And their kids?” Gaines had out his notebook, started writing things down.
“Matthias is the eldest,” Holland said. “Then there’s Catherine, Eugene, then Della. As far as I know, Catherine is still married, has a family up in Tupelo. I think her husband’s a lawyer
.”
“Yes, he is,” Ross said. “I know that because I met a guy a while back who was on some other realty deal with Wade. He told me that the eldest daughter’s fiancé was studying up for the law and was gonna be handling all of the Wade work when he finally got his practice.”
“His name?” Gaines asked.
Ross shook his head, looked at Holland.
“I don’t recall,” Holland said.
“So the next one?”
“Next one is Eugene, and he’s about as far from the old man as you could get. Isn’t he an artist or something, an actor maybe?”
“Musician,” Holland said. “Lives in Memphis, last I heard. He’d be maybe mid-thirties or so. Guitar player, I think. Singer, too. Can’t say as I’ve ever heard the name Eugene Wade on the wireless, so maybe he ain’t doin’ so good.”
“Could use a stage name,” Ross said. “Lot of them kind do that sort of thing. Use a false name an’ all, the musicians and the TV folk and whoever . . .”
“So Eugene isn’t like his father?” Gaines prompted, steering the discussion away from bohemian lifestyle choices and back to the matter at hand.
“Hell no,” Holland said. “Earl is a businessman through and through. Everything is money and influence and power and politics an’ all that. Eugene was the odd one in the bunch, the one that didn’t make sense. And after his mother died, well, I don’t know what was going through his mind, but he spent a good deal of time in church. Lookin’ for answers, maybe. Tryin’ to figure out why his ma died an’ all that.”
“Any possibility he wasn’t Earl’s child?”
Neither Ross nor Holland responded, and then Ross leaned forward and said, “Hell, son, this is the South. Anything’s possible, right?”
“So after Eugene?”
“There was Della,” Holland said, “and if ever there was a girl who took after her mother, it was Della Wade. She was one pretty girl, let me tell you, and I can imagine she is one pretty young woman.”
“You know where she’s at?”
“Last I heard, she was still at the Wade house, but that was a good while back, a year at least, and it’s not something I’ve been keepin’ tabs on, you know?”