River of Secrets

by Roger Johns

  “Got it,” he said and then turned back toward the pressroom.

  “That was a huge waste of time.” Wallace pressed the button for their floor.

  Burley made an exasperated sound that was somewhere between laughing and crying. “How are you and LeAnne getting along?”

  “I think she’s warming up to me.”

  “Tell me that again in a month and I’ll be less inclined to smirk.”

  “You think I’m naïve?”

  “I think you’re my last best hope for her not being a lifelong pain in my testicles.”

  Wallace laughed at Burley’s unexpected candor.

  “Look, Chief Shannon is being heavily criticized for the riot.” The exasperation was back.

  Wallace remained silent. She didn’t want to tell Burley that she had tried to talk his boss into doing the event in a less vulnerable forum. She liked Jack Shannon and didn’t want to be part of the pile-on.

  “I assume you’re not telling me this just to spread gossip.”

  Burley shook his head. “His judgment is being questioned.”

  “Let me guess. This isn’t limited to his buy-in on the location for the speech today.”

  “Correct. And your name is in play.”

  “I offered to let this case go, at the very beginning.”

  The doors opened and Burley motioned for her to follow. “I know, and at the time I was in favor of that. But since then, I’ve gotten religion.”

  “Good,” Wallace said. “Because this would be the wrong time to switch horses in midstream.”

  “I’m with you on that too. And even though he’s up to his ass in alligators, Shannon will fight for you as long as there are people who will listen.”

  They stopped at the door to Burley’s office. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

  “That and ‘hurry the fuck up with this investigation’?”

  Burley gave her a tired smile and then stepped across the threshold into his office.

  TWENTY-ONE

  As Wallace hustled down the hallway toward the cubicle area where her desk was, her phone signaled an incoming text. It was Melissa Voorhees. Several clear prints, all belonging to Peter Ecclestone, had been lifted from the paper cup. Her manual comparison of the prints on the water bottle to the partial print from the glove box latch in Ecclestone’s vehicle was still underway.

  Wallace spent another hour at her desk, checking updates on the forensics. The insulation fibers she had recovered from Craig’s lake house attic matched in shape, color, and composition those found on the back of Herbert Marioneaux’s shirt. The report cautioned, however, that the fibers were very common and could be found in many thousands of structures across the country.

  Still, she had to consider that the match strengthened the possibility that Eddie had been the one standing behind Marioneaux, dropping the big slip lock around his neck.

  She was about to start second-guessing her decision to tell LeAnne about the alleged Pitkin sighting, but unless she started testing the people she worked with there was no way she’d be able to figure out who she could trust. She would just have to keep her eyes and ears open to see if the information ended up somewhere it shouldn’t.

  * * *

  Wallace sat behind the wheel of her car, in the lot next to the police building. The evening gloom was deepening. She replied to her mother’s email about wanting to talk, letting her know she was on the way, and then she scrolled to Melissa Voorhees’s number. She pressed the earbud into her left ear, then touched the number.

  “I had a feeling I was going to hear back from you,” Melissa said, her voice empty of the energy Wallace had become used to. “A bad feeling, actually.”

  “I thought you’d want to know about something I found.”

  “I saw the City Hall riot on the news,” Melissa said. “And I heard about the little girl who got struck by the car.”

  A stab of sorrow at the child’s fate kept Wallace from speaking for a few seconds. “I turned up something at the lake house, really late last night, after I left your place.” She started the car and eased out of her spot.

  “With all this crazy stuff going on in Baton Rouge, how are you doing?” Melissa asked. “Personally, I mean.”

  “Like I don’t even recognize this town anymore. All this hate that’s spewing out, everywhere, it didn’t just spring into existence over the last few days.” She paused at the exit to the lot, then accelerated into the street.

  “Strange, isn’t it, how people can keep their worst parts hidden until it feels safe to let them show,” Melissa said. “They can fool you for years and then, when the circumstances are right, they reveal themselves for what they’ve been all along. And it’s seldom a pleasant surprise.”

  “The thing I found … it has to do with Peter.”

  The line went quiet. Wallace waited for Melissa to speak.

  “Like I said, the other day, I’m glad this is your case, and not mine.”

  “Inside that crumpled paper cup I brought you? The one you found his prints on? I found a memory card. Very likely from one of Peter’s cameras. It led me to a very rough character named Oliver Harpin. Ever come across this guy?”

  “Nope.” Melissa let out a long breath. “I’m guessing your police chief is in a serious sweat now, over that brawl.” Her voice was unsteady.

  “I’ve debated all day whether to tell you about this.” Cruising west, up Government Street, Wallace rattled off the details of where and how she found the card. She heard sniffles coming through the phone.

  “He was a real prick, you know,” Melissa said. “I mean, really, he was. So why am I getting so fucking weepy over this?”

  “Remember when you called to tell me that his vehicle had been found? How you told me it was too soon to jump to conclusions about what that might mean?”

  “And I remember you fell for it.”

  Wallace heard Melissa’s breathing grow ragged. Apparently, even a family and the passage of a great deal of time had not completely blunted Peter’s effect on her.

  “Now it’s your turn to fall for it,” Wallace said. “At least, until we know for sure what happened to him.” She turned right, onto the street where her mother lived.

  “Promise you’ll call if you find out anything. You know, it was impossible not to like him. Even when you knew it was going to hurt if you got too close. Somehow, he could make you forget that was going to happen.”

  “We still don’t know anything for sure. It’s too soon to lose hope. I just didn’t feel right keeping this from you.”

  “It’s okay. And I’m okay. Just call me if you find something.”

  “I promise. You sure you’re alright?”

  Wallace slowed in front of her mother’s house. The pale luminosity from the streetlight made it only as far as the front steps. She could see her mother, in silhouette, sitting on the front porch. The lights were off and she was backlit by the glow shining from inside the house.

  “With your alibi witness out of the picture, does this mean you’re ready to let the DA take Pitkin to trial?” Melissa asked.

  “It means big trouble on the horizon. If the ‘Free Eddie’ movement ever gets wind of the fact that an alibi witness has vanished after his existence became known to the police but before we notified the defense, the shit is going to hit the fan and I’ll be accused of burying the evidence.” Wallace turned into Carol’s driveway and stopped.

  “Even though there’s evidence pointing to the fact that he might have disappeared for reasons unrelated to your case?”

  “I’ll be happy for you to come down and make that case to the public.”

  “No, thanks. I got an eyeful of what the folks in your town do to the peacemakers.”

  * * *

  Wallace walked with purpose through the manicured grass in the front yard and slowly mounted the steps. She could just make out a tentative smile mixed with a hint of sadness on her mother’s face and wondered if the darkness was creating the
unsettling expression.

  “Mom, why are you sitting out here in the dark?”

  “He proposed.”

  For a moment, Wallace didn’t understand because she was still disentangling her thoughts from her conversation with Melissa Voorhees. Then she got it.

  “Davis?”

  Carol nodded, her expression staying the same.

  “Wow. It seems so sudden.” Wallace studied her mother. “How are you feeling about this?”

  Carol looked toward the street. “Confused, flattered, anxious, excited.” A self-conscious smile brightened her face. “The same way I felt when your father asked me. And the funny thing is, I expected Davis to ask, but I didn’t expect to feel this way about it.”

  Wallace sat on the floor in front of her mother, her knees drawn up. When it had been just an abstract idea, it had had a certain appeal. Now that it had lurched closer to reality she felt unexpectedly possessive.

  “I haven’t said anything to your brother Lex. And I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to tell Davis.”

  “How did you leave things?”

  “Up in the air.”

  “He understood?”

  “Well, he didn’t make any macabre jokes about the last of the sand running through the hourglass.” Carol took a deep breath and let it go. “I’m making this seem so ominous, but it isn’t. Davis was as giddy as a schoolboy, and it was a sweet moment.” She looked at Wallace and raised her eyebrows. “It’s just not something I thought I’d ever need to think about again.”

  “It’s not something I thought you’d ever need to think about again, either.”

  They both laughed, and the tension drained out of the air.

  “Don’t worry,” Carol said, her smile finally breaking free of its earlier sadness. “I’m not going to put you on the spot and ask you what you think I should do. But do feel free to express your thoughts on this. Mostly, I just wanted you to know.”

  “You know how I feel about Davis. I’m happy for you, Mom.”

  The tiny grace note of sadness that had been there earlier crept back into Carol’s smile.

  Wallace took her mother’s hands in her own and stood. “Mason is expecting me for dinner.” She tugged gently. “Come with me and you can tell him your news.”

  Carol shook her head. “You go. This old woman needs to be alone in her head for a bit. But do give this some thought, would you?”

  * * *

  Mason’s apartment was on the ground floor of the building. It was a compact space with a lot of fifties charm. The street-facing windows of his apartment were raised, and hazy lamplight shone from inside. Wallace stood to the side of the windows and scratched softly on one of the screens.

  “We shoot burglars in this neighborhood,” Mason said from inside.

  “Even the ones you’re sleeping with?”

  “Am I sleeping with someone? I’ve forgotten—it’s been so long.” His face appeared in the window, blurred by the screen.

  “Keep that up and it could be a lot longer.”

  He smiled, eyeing her up and down. “You’re early.”

  “I wanted to see if I’d catch you with another woman.”

  “Then you’re late. She’s been gone for at least ten minutes.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for another round of company?” she asked, matching his smile.

  “Maybe.”

  “When you know for sure, call my office and leave a message. I’ll try to get back to you.” She pulled back from the screen and moved along the edge of the building.

  “What’s your number again?” Mason called after her.

  He met her at the side door. Her heart was thudding as she ran through what she was about to tell him.

  She paused briefly as she crossed the threshold, pressing a palm against his chest, looking at him with soft eyes.

  With one foot Wallace pushed the door shut, and then she looped her arms around his waist, pulling him close and breathing him in. As she held on to him she could feel the weight of the day sliding off of her.

  “Dinner smells divine.”

  “All part of my plan. I’ve got big ideas.”

  “Mmmm. Tell me in detail about your big ideas.” She squirmed purposefully against him.

  After several more seconds, she smiled up at him and then pushed away and walked into his living room.

  “How long until we eat?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “What is that incredible aroma?”

  “Back where I come from, we call it soup.” Mason returned to the kitchen. “I’ve got some things to show you.”

  “More images from the memory card?”

  “That’s part of it. The flash drive on the coffee table is everything we were able to pull off the card that you don’t already have.”

  Wallace opened her laptop and set it up on the table. The repetitive snick-thump of a knife slicing through vegetables on a cutting board and the clinking of utensils on plates drifted in from the other room. She plugged the drive into her computer.

  “That snoop job you asked me to do on Oliver Harpin bore a little bit of poison fruit.”

  “That was fast.”

  “It’s more show than tell, so it’ll have to wait until after dinner.”

  As she scrolled through the bewildering montage of deleted images rescued from the card, she reeled off the low points of her day—the secondhand threats Lanny Berto had presented to her, the plaza riot.

  “Did anything good happen?”

  “Davis proposed to my mother.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact.

  Mason’s head popped around the doorway to the kitchen. “Really? And?”

  “She told him she’ll have to think about it.”

  “Do you—?”

  “Oh my God. Mason, it’s him. He’s here.”

  “Who?” He poked his head around the doorway again.

  “Eddie Pitkin. I can’t believe this.” Her gaze was riveted on her laptop screen.

  Mason stepped into the narrow space between the couch and the coffee table, drying his hands on a dish towel. He leaned over to look at the image on the screen. The shot had been taken close to sunset with a long lens, but Eddie’s face was clearly visible.

  “And that’s the dock behind Craig’s house,” she said, pointing.

  “How can you be sure? It looks like it could be a dock behind any house on any of a hundred lakes.”

  “It’s a floating dock, with swimming pool ladders on two sides. I recognize it from when I was out there a couple of days ago.”

  “Open the data file that goes with the picture,” Mason said. “Let’s see when it was taken.”

  Wallace patted the couch next to her and then handed the laptop to him.

  After a few minutes of trying, Mason handed the computer back to her. “We’re going to need some tools that I don’t have here.”

  “Could it be found with what you’ve got at your office?”

  “Assuming the information is still there.”

  Wallace studied the picture, wondering how it was going to change things. “Peter told me he hadn’t taken any photographs of Eddie.”

  “Well, somebody did, and then somebody deleted it.”

  “But why leave the memory card inside a cup inside a dumpster? If the point was to get rid of this, why not destroy it? A couple of quick hammer blows and all that’s left is powdered plastic.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time,” Mason said. “Does it really matter why?”

  “At this point, the only thing that matters is whether we can put a date and time with this image. And it doesn’t just matter to Eddie Pitkin.” Wallace gave Mason a stricken look.

  “I’m listening.”

  “The only person who saw Ecclestone on the lake and got him to admit to an alibi for Pitkin is me—a police officer.”

  “And now he’s disappeared before his existence was made known to the defense,” Mason said, dropping his head into his hands.

&n
bsp; “Once this comes out—and it will—they’ll be measuring me for a cross.”

  “Maybe you should out yourself. That way it won’t look like you tried to cover something up.”

  “You saw what happened at City Hall today. The town is like a tinderbox. If I can’t offer up this image of Eddie on the lake, with a solid date and time, as some sort of substitute for Peter, you can bet Eddie’s lawyer will be all over me and the department.”

  “Stir the soup. I’ll make some calls.” He set her laptop on the table and disappeared into the back of the apartment.

  Wallace could hear Mason’s muffled voice through the closed door of his bedroom. It seemed like circumstance continued to conspire against telling him about the attack at her house—which was now nearly forty-eight hours in the past.

  Lost in thought, Wallace stood and followed the low murmur of the bubbling soup toward the kitchen. She could still hear Mason’s voice through the door. As she turned the corner, another sound crept into her consciousness. It was just like the one she had made to get Mason’s attention when she arrived for dinner—the low, deliberate rasp of something scratching across one of the window screens in the living room.

  Her stomach dropped and a rash of goose bumps sprang up on her arms. The ambush in her carport flooded into her thoughts.

  She concentrated on the sound. She couldn’t see the screen from where she stood, which meant that no one at the window could see her. Her sidearm was lying on the seat of the big chair at the far end of the coffee table, in the living room. The single floor lamp illuminating the room was in the corner, right next to where the sound was coming from.

  If she walked back into the room, she would be clearly visible to anyone standing outside the window until she was able to turn off the lamp. Mason’s voice had gone quiet. The soup and the scratching noise were the only things left on the soundtrack.

  The noise stopped.

  Maybe it was a moth fluttering against the screen. Maybe she had only imagined it.