River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

  She hoped that by voicing one possible reason for their meeting she could somehow magically keep him from bringing up the other possible reason. The one she didn’t want to deal with. The one she didn’t have an answer for, because she was no longer sure who she could trust.

  “I brought you up here so we could talk without people gawking at us.”

  Wallace rose from her chair and then sat on the table, facing Burley. She rubbed her arms distractedly, like a junkie.

  Burley looked at her for several seconds without speaking. It was the same expectant look all cops knew how to project whenever they had someone on the hot seat.

  She willed her dangling feet to be still and she looked at the wall, not trusting herself to maintain an innocent expression if she had to look him in the eye.

  “I’m offering you as much help as we can throw at this case,” Burley said.

  “And I appreciate that,” Wallace said. “And I’m putting it to the best use I know how. We’ve got someone working on the videos from Glenn Marioneaux’s church. Thanks to you, we’ve got forensic techs working overtime to sort through all the stuff that came from Eddie Pitkin’s home, as well as everything we snagged from Craig Stephens’s lake house, and—”

  Burley raised a hand, cutting her off before she could continue her performance.

  “Somebody put the idea in the mayor’s head that if this case keeps poking along it’ll start to look like it’s because we’re dragging our feet.”

  “Poking along? Oh, please. It’s barely been five days since Marioneaux was killed, and there’s still time under the statutory deadline before the suspect has to be charged or released.”

  Burley waved her quiet. “He’s convinced that it’s going to look like we’re not moving on it because we’re certain we’ve got all the evidence we need to convict, and that all this other stuff is just going through the motions. Because we’ve arrested a defendant whose skin color and reparations activism automatically add up to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, all we’re doing now is marking time so the public will think we’re doing a thorough job.”

  “Does he think we should be trying to clear Eddie Pitkin’s name, instead of digging up the evidence, no matter which way it cuts?”

  “It does sound like that. But remember, he’s got a bigger megaphone than you or I do.”

  “Is it campaign season again, already?” She crossed her ankles and leaned forward, her hands folded in her lap.

  “He’s a politician, not a law-enforcement professional.” Burley stood and started pacing. “He’s terrified the feds will show up and start hectoring us about racial bias in policing, and how civil rights lawsuits brought by the Justice Department tend to leave unique, long-lasting scars on the collective consciousness of a community.”

  “Oh, this is just beautiful. The investigation is about politics, now, not justice.”

  “Nobody said that.”

  “Well, tell me, then, if you were in my position and I had just said to you what you just laid on me, how would it affect your perception of the situation?” She tapped the toes of her boots together.

  Burley started to speak, then closed his mouth. “You get more pleasure out of being right than I think is healthy, sometimes.”

  “As long as you recognize that I am right.” She followed him with her eyes as he paced in front of her.

  “Wallace, please.” He raised his hands, palms out. “I’m not lecturing you, and I’m not telling you to let politics influence the pace or direction of your investigation—”

  “But just by putting it that way, you’re doing both of those things. And you’re doing them in a way that will let you deny that you did either of them.”

  “Let me finish.” He blew out a long, tired breath and then flopped into a chair. “What I am telling you is that this case is not like anything we’ve dealt with before. No one can predict what it’s going to do to the town, but everyone’s pretty sure that it won’t be good.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s just say I’m worried. About how it’s going to affect you, regardless of the outcome.”

  “I’ve already been over this with Chief Shannon.”

  “Just remember, when things are going well everyone will want to have their picture taken with you, but the minute it looks like it’s headed south you won’t be able to buy a friend.”

  “What about you?” Wallace instantly regretted the question.

  A hurt look flickered across Burley’s face. “Just let me know what else you need. Keep me and Chief Shannon in the loop on everything, and I’ll make sure you have at least one friend, come hell or high water. And for Christ’s sake, find that fucking photographer.”

  * * *

  Wallace surveyed the crowd from one of the big south-facing windows on the third floor of the City Hall building on St. Louis Street. Chief Shannon stood to her right. She had wanted to be on the ground, to intercept Glenn when he finished his speech, but Shannon had ordered her to stick with him, so he could grill her about developments in the case.

  Every news outfit in Baton Rouge was present. She could see the tall, smoky glass doors of the Theatre for Performing Arts that lined the far edge of the plaza.

  A podium on a low stage stood in front of the bronze Pietà in the center of the plaza, and a large crowd had gathered between the stage and the street. Some were probably there out of curiosity, morbid or otherwise, but Wallace recognized what she felt sure were troublemakers. It seemed that, with alarming frequency, all around the country, every time someone grabbed a microphone and called for peace, provocateurs were waiting in the wings, itching to stir up just the opposite.

  The plainclothes and undercover officers milling around in the crowd weren’t going to intimidate anyone. At best, they might be able to spot problems and keep the more obvious rowdies under control. But she doubted a determined effort to spark violence could be thwarted.

  Through an intercom, she could hear Glenn’s voice asking for the attention of the crowd. Dorothy stood to his left. He was leaning forward, gripping the podium from the sides.

  “Fellow citizens of Baton Rouge, I’m here today to plead for calm. These outbreaks of violence and racial intolerance are not what my father would have wanted—”

  Faint laughter rippled across the crowd. Someone hollered, “Yeah, right. Heil Hitler.” More laughter erupted.

  “And this is not what Mother and I want. This is not the Baton Rouge I know and that we all love. Please, let’s have an end to these provocations. No more displays of contempt and hatred.”

  There was a scattering of polite applause mixed with more heckling.

  “Eventually, this chapter in the city’s history will be over, and whatever happens between now and then, we will all remember it, and we will all have to live with it. The things that are said and done, now, will never go away. Please, don’t set us up for regret.”

  A more sincere wave of applause came up from the audience. Wallace found herself nodding in approval of the sentiments Glenn was expressing.

  “Let’s not put ourselves in a position where we’re going to have to feel shame over things that were done in anger or in cruelty—where some of us will end up having to avoid others of us, probably forever. We will all still be living here, so please, let’s keep it a place where we’ll still want to live. Where we’ll all be happy to live. Where we don’t have yet another generation of children learning to be unkind to others because of their race or the color of their skin.”

  “You tell ’em, Dr. King,” someone jeered through a bullhorn.

  A member of the audience turned toward the bullhorn and screamed at the heckler to “shut the fuck up.”

  Wallace watched as the crowd shifted its focus from Glenn to the people causing the commotion. In the space of a few seconds, what started as a listless assemblage became a lot of bodies in motion as people turned to see what was happening.

  With almost military precision, the individuals surrounding t
he man with the bullhorn formed a circle around him, facing out toward the crowd. They started shouting and shoving and the crowd shouted and shoved back.

  The man with the bullhorn started chanting “fourteen eighty-eight”—the Fourteen Words, the credo of the white supremacist, and the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, two times, for Heil Hitler.

  Wallace felt sure the troublemakers were part of Affirmative Action, a group that specialized in disruptive tactics intended to hasten what they believed was a coming race war. She watched as some of the plainclothes officers in the crowd moved toward the center of the disturbance.

  As the mob’s attention fixated on the man with the bullhorn, the men surrounding him started throwing punches. A man with a bloodied face lunged into the melee, his fists flailing.

  Wallace watched as the mass of people heaved and swelled like a wave blindly following the force of a rising tide. She could still hear Glenn’s voice, now only a part of the cacophony, begging for calm.

  A woman was knocked to the ground, and the crowd flowed over her. Wallace looked toward Jack Shannon. He raised his phone to his ear.

  Wallace turned her eyes back to the action in the courtyard. Two officers in civilian clothes were pulling the sagging form of the trampled woman to her feet when someone rushed from the confusion and stomped her lower back. She slumped to her knees as her attacker fled back into the throng.

  Hotspots multiplied and chaos leapt through the crowd like wildfire. A knot of uniformed officers hustled Glenn and his mother from the stage, pulling them behind the City Hall building as rocks and bottles flew in their direction. Dorothy clung to her son with one hand, her other hand raised palm out to ward off the flying debris. Wallace saw a scowl of contempt contorting her face.

  “Initiate crowd suppression,” Shannon spoke into his cell phone. Out of the corner of her eye, Wallace saw him turn in her direction. She could feel his eyes on her, and she didn’t have to look at him to know that he was daring her to let an I-told-you-so look show on her face.

  Wallace kept her expression neutral and her eyes glued to the ruckus below. Police in riot gear streamed out of the doors of the theater.

  The sound of gunshots echoed between the buildings and panic flashed through the crowd as canisters of tear gas trailed smoke over the pandemonium like lazy little comets. The man with the bullhorn droned on, repeating his string of numbers.

  People fled into the street and tires squealed on the pavement.

  Wallace stalked from the room, ready to explode.

  * * *

  The pressroom was nearly full, but there was not a reporter in the bunch. Dozens of conversations buzzed through the room like white noise. Except for Chief Shannon himself, half the department brass and what looked like most of the detective corps were present.

  Mack Bonvillian, the head of public affairs for the department, was ready to gavel a debriefing about the riot into session. Wallace wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a morale builder or if they were simply being fed the party line in the event they found themselves confronted by concerned citizens or members of the media.

  Wallace held many of the people she had arrested in higher esteem than she did Mack Bonvillian. The story was that he had used family connections and the remarkably tight fit between his lips and the backsides of everyone above him to rocket up the department’s organizational chart. His rise was so fast the soles of his shoes had barely made contact with the grit and grime of the street. Wallace thought of him as the poster child for the out-of-touch career bureaucrat.

  She moved down a row of chairs to the empty seat next to LeAnne as Mack glad-handed a few officers who stood near his lectern. How anyone could be in a smiling mood after what had just happened was beyond her.

  “Did you have a chance to go through the phone records for the Marioneaux family?”

  LeAnne pulled open a briefcase at her feet and extracted a sheaf of papers and handed it to Wallace without looking at her.

  “Anything?”

  “Not that I could see. A very busy guy, but nothing suspicious, so far.”

  “What about a connection between Glenn and Eddie?”

  “Nothing, and I don’t think there’s anything there. At least not anything that’s public. We could always start digging around Eddie’s family and friends, to see if anybody’s willing to talk to us. Were you able to catch Glenn after that disaster in the plaza just now?”

  “Gone by the time I got back to where their cars were.”

  “I’ll see if I can catch him at his place of business, after we’re done here.”

  “We’ve got something more important, at the moment.” Wallace lowered her voice. “A potential Eddie Pitkin sighting from the night Marioneaux was killed—in Spanish Town.”

  LeAnne sat back and her eyes got wide. “Burley must be on cloud nine with this news.”

  “Burley doesn’t know, and let me emphasize this is unconfirmed and from a questionable source.”

  “This is amazing.”

  “It’s unconfirmed.”

  “No. This.” LeAnne wagged her index finger back and forth between herself and Wallace. “I’m getting the goods before Burley.”

  “LeAnne, we’re partners. And no, this isn’t some charm offensive I’m rolling out, to make you feel included,” Wallace continued when she saw LeAnne’s eyes start to roll. “This is just getting the work done. And since it’s unconfirmed and potentially inflammatory, until we can track it down we need to keep it out of the hands of anyone with a political motive to feed it into the media frenzy. Don’t tell Burley. Don’t tell anyone. This is strictly between you and me.”

  LeAnne’s eyes got big again, and then she nodded. “Okay. Got it.”

  A muffled pop came from the front of the room as Mack tapped the mic with his finger. “Thanks for coming. We’re all busy. It’s been a rough day. I’ll be brief.”

  Vigorous applause came from several in attendance. Mack grinned. He paused for effect.

  Wallace pulled a pad from her satchel and scribbled instructions on how she wanted the Pitkin sighting checked out. She tore off the page and handed it to LeAnne.

  “Sometimes democracy is neat and tidy and sometimes it’s messy,” Mack began. “What happened earlier today shows that, as a department and as a community, we’re willing to take risks in the name of decency and doing the right thing.”

  A low groan slithered through the room.

  “The gunfire? Was that some of the neat part or the messy?”

  The question came from an undercover cop sporting two black eyes, courtesy of the plaza mob.

  “The gunfire. Hah.” Mack smiled and shook his head. “Nobody, I repeat, nobody got shot. We think one of the undesirables in the crowd was firing blanks, trying to start a panic.”

  “And it worked,” Wallace said. “What about the little girl who ran into the street when the crowd started to surge and got hit by the motorist who was rubbernecking his way past City Hall on a street that was supposed to be blocked off? Or the woman who got trampled and stomped when the fighting started? This is what’s on the news. This is what we’ll be asked about.”

  She looked around. No one spoke as they waited for an answer. Bonvillian looked toward the floor.

  “As per standard operating procedure, for events of this type, an ambulance had been positioned at the precisely correct location. The woman was treated at the scene and released. For the little girl, lifesaving measures were begun almost immediately. After that, she was transited to the emergency room as quickly as the ambulance could safely clear the crowd.” Bonvillian’s eyes followed his finger down the page of notes in front of him. “And so—”

  “And so … what do we know about the girl’s condition?” It was the officer with the black eyes.

  “Despite heroic efforts by the docs, by everyone actually…” He shook his head. “Her injuries were simply too great.”

  “Jesus,” Wallace said. “Do we know when the funeral will be?�
�

  Mack cleared his throat pointedly. “The department has a predesignated representative to attend. And I’ve personally made arrangements to have a wreath of appropriate size placed at graveside, and for our sincerest condolences to be conveyed, through suitable channels, to all interested parties.”

  Wallace stared at Bonvillian, unable to choose from among the many responses to his comment that were crowding into her head.

  “Is this your way of telling us not to go to the funeral?” she asked finally.

  “It’s my way of telling you that we’ve got that covered.”

  “Got what covered?” someone asked. “The department’s ass?”

  “Why don’t we get ahead of the game and just send an appropriately sized wreath to every household in town?” Wallace asked. “That way, whenever somebody gets killed because of police negligence our asses will be preemptively covered.”

  “Being cynical doesn’t help, Detective Hartley.”

  Every head in the room snapped up, and all eyes were on Bonvillian. Near the front, one of Wallace’s fellow detectives motioned for Bonvillian’s attention and then whispered something in his direction.

  Bonvillian scowled at the whisperer. “What are you saying? I can’t hear you.”

  “Hartman,” the detective said louder.

  “What?”

  “It’s Hartman,” the detective said, practically shouting. “Her name is Hartman, you bonehead. Not Hartley.”

  Bonvillian’s face went crimson.

  “Since you’ve obviously got a thorough command of the facts, you won’t mind if I sneak out and get back to my investigation, will you, Lieutenant?” She smiled down at LeAnne, then turned and threaded her way along the row toward the door.

  * * *

  Wallace had one foot in the elevator when Jason Burley emerged from the pressroom with Curtis Stiles, his special projects officer. Burley motioned for Wallace to wait for them.

  “If you’re going to tell me I need to go back in there and apologize, don’t.”

  “Mack Bonvillian is a boob,” Burley said, releasing a lungful of air through puffed cheeks. “Hold the elevator. We’ll ride together.” He turned to Stiles. “Curtis, I need you to slip back into the briefing and stay till the bitter end. When it’s done I want you to corner Mack and make him give you a list of all the folks who have filed a complaint over what happened on the plaza today.”