The Devil and the River

by R.J. Ellory

  Gaines remembered the way to Maryanne Benedict’s house, and when they pulled up outside, he was certain he saw the curtain flicker in an upstairs window.

  He had been here the day before his mother died—Saturday, the 27th. He had driven away from here, returned home, and it was that night, as Saturday became Sunday, that Alice had gone.

  Before Gaines was out of the car, Maryanne Benedict had opened the front door of her house.

  Eddie Holland was there first. He hugged her, turned back as Gaines approached, and started to explain their visit.

  Maryanne came forward and took Gaines’s right hand. “Eddie told me about your mother, Sheriff,” she said, “and I want you to know how sorry I am for your loss.”

  “Thank you, Miss Benedict,” Gaines replied. She had told him to call her Maryanne last time he’d been here, but somehow it still did not seem appropriate.

  “Please come in,” she said.

  She released Gaines’s hand, went on back, Holland behind her, Gaines following Holland, and she led them through to the kitchen, where she asked them to sit.

  Gaines’s last visit seemed to belong to some distant other life. Even the room seemed not to be the room he remembered from their last conversation.

  Once she had made coffee, Maryanne sat down and looked directly at Gaines.

  “Before you ask me,” she said, “and despite the fact that I know I should help you, I am not willing to talk to Matthias.”

  Gaines nodded. “I understand, and that is precisely what I don’t want you to do.”

  Maryanne frowned.

  “I wanted to ask you about Della,” he said. “Last time I came, you spoke about Matthias, about Michael, you told me about the fire at the plant, about the night that Nancy went missing, but you never mentioned Della, not once. As far as I can work out, she was about ten years old at the time, and I wondered whether you and she had been friends.”

  “I didn’t mention Catherine or Eugene either,” Maryanne replied. “Eugene was sixteen, only two years older than me, and Catherine was close to nineteen.”

  Gaines stayed silent. He just looked at her and waited for her to go on.

  “What are you after, Sheriff Gaines?” she asked.

  There was something in her expression. She knew there was some intended manipulation, something that Gaines was planning to ask of her, something that he was unable to effect alone.

  She did not look at Eddie Holland, despite the fact that she knew Eddie so much better than Gaines. She was smart enough to realize that Eddie’s presence was merely a sweetener for the bitter pill.

  “Miss Benedict—”

  “Maryanne.”

  “Okay, Maryanne. I have a letter from a man called Clifton Regis. He is a colored man that Della Wade was involved with some time ago. They were together in New Orleans, and Matthias didn’t take too kindly to the idea of his younger sister running around with a colored musician. According to Regis, Della planned to run away with him, and she got ten thousand dollars from somewhere and gave it to Regis. Matthias sent someone down there to take back the ten grand, but whoever it was took couple of Regis’s fingers, as well. Matthias then had Della brought back to the Wade family home, and as far as I can find out, she’s been here ever since.”

  “And this Clifton Regis is where now?” Maryanne asked.

  “Parchman Farm.”

  “And Matthias put him there for taking this money?”

  “No, he’s in there for a burglary he’s supposed to have done.”

  “Supposed to have done?”

  Gaines shrugged. It was obvious from his reaction that Gaines believed Wade complicit, directly or indirectly, in Regis’s incarceration, and it did not need to be said.

  Maryanne was quiet for a time. She did look at Eddie Holland then, and Eddie reached out and closed his hand over hers.

  “Della is a crazy person,” she eventually said. “Della Wade has always been a crazy person and probably always will be. When Della was six years old, she poured bleach into a fishpond and killed all the fish. When she was eight, she set light to another girl’s hair. Dealing with Della Wade is like crossing a rope bridge in a storm. You take careful steps, and you move very slowly.”

  “You knew her as a child?”

  “Sure, I did. She was there with the rest of the Wades. Catherine was always around to keep an eye on her and Eugene, but my impression of her then and now are quite different, most of it influenced by the things people have said over the years. At the time, she didn’t seem so different from anyone else. She was wild, sure, but so were all of us at that age. After her mother died, I don’t really know who took care of her, but from what you say, it seems that Matthias is managing her affairs now.”

  “I spoke to Regis yesterday,” Gaines said, “and he said nothing about her being crazy. He spoke of her with tremendous affection, and I really got the impression that they had been very much in love and intended to move away and have a life together.”

  “I said crazy, but maybe I didn’t mean that kind of crazy. Unpredictable, flighty, a ceaseless energy, but kind of manic and uncontrollable. Then, suddenly, huge bouts of depression, sudden changes in her attitude and personality.”

  “Schizophrenic?”

  “I don’t know what you’d call it, and giving it a name doesn’t matter. She would just flip wildly from one mood to the next, and you never had any prediction. Sometimes she seemed to be the sweetest little girl you could ever hope to meet, other times a vicious little harpy with the shortest temper and the worst language.”

  “Did the Wades ever have her seen by a psychiatrist or something?”

  Maryanne shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so. That’s not the way that wealthy families deal with troublesome offspring, is it, Eddie?”

  Eddie smiled. “No, they stick them in the basement and keep them secret.”

  “It sullies the family name to have a lunatic in the ranks,” Maryanne said. “Reputation is everything, at least as a facade, if not in reality. It’s superficial, but that’s the way it is down here. Only other way for the Wades to deal with Della would have been to have her locked up someplace a hundred miles away, and Lillian Wade would never have let such a thing happen. As far as Lillian was concerned, family took priority over everything. You did not betray your own family members, no matter what they might have done.”

  “You knew Lillian?”

  “Sure I did,” Maryanne replied. “Lillian was an amazing woman. She loved those children dearly, gave them everything she could.”

  “But she was an alcoholic, right? She drank herself to death.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Sheriff. I don’t know details. For the brief time that I knew the Wades, those few years between the end of the war and Nancy’s disappearance, I had a happy childhood. Me, Nancy, Matthias, and Michael, and around the edges of that little universe there was Eugene and Catherine and Della. Sometimes they’d be there, but most times they were off doing whatever they were doing. They were never really part of it, you know? Not that they were excluded, but they just never really figured in our world. We would see Lillian in the house, and she always talked to me like I was a grown-up. She asked my opinion about things. She always wanted to know what I thought about something or other. I remember one time she engaged me in a long discussion about Harry Truman being the new president and how there was now a democratic majority in both Houses of Congress. That was 1948. I was eight years old. She said I should understand such things, and I was always grown-up enough to have an opinion.”

  “What did your parents think about your friendship with the Wades?”

  Maryanne frowned. “Why do you ask that?”

  “I’m just curious,” Gaines said. “If it bothers you to talk about it, I’m sorry.”

  “No, it doesn’t bother me. It just surprises me a little, as it has no bearing on why you’re here. What did my parents think of it? My mother believed that the Wades and the Benedicts were from diff
erent worlds, and those worlds should ideally stay separate. However, she never actively stopped me spending time with them. My father was very much the strong, silent type, and if he didn’t raise a subject, it was never discussed. My parents didn’t exactly maintain an equality in their relationship, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  “No,” Maryanne said. “My father died in sixty-five, my mother in sixty-eight.”

  “And you have no brothers or sisters?”

  Maryanne frowned. “No, I am an only child.” She shook her head, looked askance at Eddie Holland. “What is this, Sheriff? Why all these personal questions?”

  “I apologize,” Gaines said. “I am just interested. It’s in my nature to be curious about people.”

  “It is also your occupation,” Maryanne replied. “I am beginning to feel like I am the one under investigation.”

  “No, not at all, and that was not my intention,” Gaines interjected. “I am sorry for giving you that impression. I am just dealing with so much at the moment, so many different aspects of this thing, and it seems that there are so few answers available—”

  “That when you find someone who answers your questions, you have to keep thinking of more, right?”

  Gaines smiled. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe something like that.”

  “Okay, well, let’s get back to the issue at hand. You still haven’t explained to me what it is that you want.”

  “Well, to understand what I want, you have to understand what I think has happened here, and then, with all of that in mind, you can make a decision as to whether or not you’re willing to help me.”

  “That’s a dangerous word to use, Sheriff Gaines.”

  “What is?”

  “Help. It’s loaded, and you know it. You’re trying to appeal to the better angel of my nature, supposing, of course that I do actually have a better angel.”

  “I think you do, Maryanne.”

  “And what gives you that impression, Sheriff?”

  “The fact that you opened the door this morning before we even reached it. I think you want to help, and maybe not just for Nancy’s sake but for Michael, as well.”

  “And then there is also the matter of vengeance, which, to be truthful, is something I had always hoped not to feel the need for, but in this case I might make an exception.”

  “Vengeance?”

  “If Matthias Wade strangled Nancy Denton, if Matthias Wade cut Michael Webster’s head off and then burned his body in his own home, then I will start lining up early just to see him sentenced, Sheriff Gaines.”

  “You’ll be in line right after me, Maryanne,” Gaines said.

  Maryanne Benedict looked at Eddie Holland, nodded in acknowledgment of his silent and reassuring presence, and then looked back at Gaines.

  “So tell me what you have in mind,” she said, leaning forward.

  51

  “There is something just so desperately sad about this,” Maryanne Benedict said when she looked up from reading Clifton Regis’s letter. “How did he meet Della?”

  “Through Eugene. Clifton was working as a musician in New Orleans.”

  “And Matthias cut his fingers off?”

  “Not Matthias, but someone who was acting under orders from Matthias.”

  “And does he know who this person was?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  Maryanne sighed audibly. “You know, since you were here, just a week ago, I have been thinking more and more about Matthias. I have been trying to remember things that we said to each other, times when I felt that he really cared for me, and I am struggling. It is strange, but it’s like my entire perception of what was really going on back there has shifted.”

  “In what way?” Holland asked, perhaps for no other reason than to feel as though he was a part of the conversation.

  “My friendship was with Nancy. I knew Nancy first, and then we met Matthias. It was obvious that Matthias loved Nancy, and then Michael appeared and stole Nancy’s heart completely. I mean, Matthias was good to me, and on the face of it, he seemed to treat both me and Nancy the same, but I think he just accepted that I was part of the package deal. If he wanted Nancy around, then he got me. I think if Nancy had not been there, then Matthias Wade wouldn’t have had anything to do with me.”

  “Well, he certainly hasn’t made any efforts to contact you since then, has he?”

  “No,” Maryanne said, “not in any meaningful way. But then he lost his mother in fifty-two, as well, and I can only assume that losing Nancy so soon afterward just compounded the grief he was already carrying—” Maryanne stopped then, slowly shook her head. “Unless he feels no grief for Nancy.”

  “Because he was the one who killed her,” Holland said.

  “And Matthias knew that there was no proof of his involvement in Nancy’s death,” Gaines said. “And there is something else you need to know,” he added, “about what Michael did to Nancy and why.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then Gaines detailed precisely what Regis had told him, and he explained it in such a matter-of-fact way that it now seemed to bear some logic.

  Maryanne sighed. “So he did what he did for love,” she said. “After all this, he did what he did for love, and he never spoke of it, not even when you found her.”

  “Seems that way,” Gaines replied. “Everything was in limbo until her body was discovered. Up until that point, Matthias didn’t need to do anything about Michael. But once she was found, then Matthias had to get rid of Michael, just to ensure that Michael didn’t say anything that could implicate him. I have been considering the possibility that whoever visited with Clifton and cut off his fingers was also perhaps responsible for what was done to Michael.”

  “So I get this letter to Della somehow or other,” Maryanne said, “and hope that she doesn’t show it to Matthias, and then what?”

  “Well, if she really does love Clifton Regis, then there might be sufficient motivation for her to speak to me.”

  “Because getting Matthias out of the way enables her and Clifton to be reunited.”

  “Yes,” Gaines said.

  “Are your murder investigations always this Shakespearian, Sheriff?”

  “I have to say that there are very few murder investigations, thankfully.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound flippant,” Maryanne said. “I do understand the importance of what you’re asking me to do, but I have to be honest with you. First, I think it’s a very fragile plan. Second, and more important, I think you have no idea who you’re dealing with when it comes to Della Wade. I can only imagine what her relationship with Matthias is like. If she’s been under his control and influence for the last year and a half, I think there’s a very strong possibility that I won’t even get to her, and if I do, then the first thing she will do with this letter is take it to him. If Matthias did send someone down to New Orleans to cut Clifton Regis’s fingers off for getting involved with his sister, then what do you think he might do if he learns that Regis has every intention of getting back with her?”

  “I think Clifton Regis would have a fatal accident up in Sunflower County,” Gaines said.

  “And Regis is aware of this possibility?”

  “Clifton Regis is not a fool. If he is not telling the truth, then he is an extraordinary liar.”

  “You think you can read people that well?” Maryanne asked.

  “I think I have a good intuition for people, yes. And right now I’m in a position where I either trust that intuition or reconcile myself to the fact that this will never be solved.”

  “And you could never do that?”

  “No, Maryanne, I could never do that.”

  “Well, Sheriff, I feel I have a good intuition for people, and that is why I opened the door this morning, and that is why I asked Eddie to come over and see me. Since we spoke, I have felt a greater and greater sense of responsibility, almost a need, to do something about what happened to Na
ncy.”

  “And that is really appreciated,” Gaines said, “because right now, I feel like I am in this alone.”

  “And Matthias Wade?” she asked. “What does your intuition tell you about him?”

  “That he did something truly terrible twenty years ago, that he has been living with the guilt of what he did for all this time, and it has twisted him into a manipulative and vicious man. If he killed Webster, if he did send someone to cut off Regis’s fingers, and if he buried Michael Webster’s head in the field behind my house, then he did it to warn me off, to scare me enough to drop this whole thing.”

  “That is horrific,” Maryanne said. “Utterly, utterly horrific. What kind of person are we dealing with here?”

  “A very dangerous man,” Gaines said, “which is why I need you to look at this in the cold, hard light of day and ask yourself whether or not you are prepared to take the risks that come along with being involved.”

  “I have no choice, Sheriff Gaines.”

  “Of course you have a choice, Maryanne,” Eddie Holland inter-jected.

  She smiled, almost to herself, and then shook her head. “No, I don’t, Eddie. You know me well enough to understand why I don’t. I have spent the last twenty years trying to forget what happened to the best friend I ever had, and now I have a chance to—” Maryanne stopped. Her eyes were brimming with tears. She put her hands to her face, and her chest rose and fell as she suppressed her sobs.

  Eddie pulled her close and put his arms around her.

  John Gaines sat there in silence, feeling as empty as a shell.

  52

  Leaving the letter with Maryanne Benedict seemed at once the most irresponsible thing to do and yet the only avenue open to Gaines.

  He and Eddie Holland said little on the journey back to Whytesburg. It was close to noon by the time they arrived, and Gaines merely dropped Eddie off at Nate Ross’s place and drove on to the office.