The Devil and the River

  “So what happened?” Gaines asked.

  “Couple of girls were killed, John. That’s all I know for sure.”

  Gaines looked at his mother, eyes wide. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me yesterday?”

  She smiled. “It was a long time ago, John. Six years. A different city, a different state. I thought of it, and then I didn’t think of it. Besides, I didn’t want to be putting ideas into your head that didn’t belong there.”

  “So what are you saying? You think Matthias Wade killed a couple of girls in Morgan City six years ago?”

  “I’m not saying anything, John. At least nothing I can be certain of. Let’s just say that there are folks who think he did a great deal more than that, John . . . a great deal more than just kill them.”

  Gaines leaned back in his chair. He looked at his mother, the way she just stared back at him, and he could feel such a tension in that small kitchen, the very same kind of tension he’d experienced as he’d driven Webster to the Sheriff’s Office.

  Matthias Wade was someone with a history, it seemed. Michael Webster said that he’d told someone about what he’d done back then, twenty years before, and that person was Matthias Wade.

  From the moment Nancy Denton’s body had come up out of that black filth, from the moment Gaines had seen that cross-stitch pattern running the length of her torso, he had known that something terribly wrong had taken place in Whytesburg. He wondered then how much worse than his imagination it really was.

  Perhaps there was a truth in letting the dead lie where they were, never to be disturbed, never to be woken. What had he started here? What had he brought back to Whytesburg? What had he released?

  “You go ask folks in Morgan City,” Alice Gaines said. “You go ask them about the Wade family . . .”

  26

  Gaines went out to the front hall as the phone rang. It was Hagen.

  “We have a problem,” he said. “Ken has been on the phone with the AG, and the AG says we don’t have enough to hold Webster—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Whatever he told you doesn’t count as a confession. There was no lawyer present when he spoke to you. The things we dug up are circumstantial, irrespective of the fact that he told us where to dig, at least according to Kidd. And the release document might not even count for much either.”

  Gaines felt his stomach drop.

  Hagen must have sensed it.

  “John . . . tell me you didn’t forget.”

  Gaines opened his mouth to speak, but the moment of hesitation was sufficient to give Hagen his answer.

  “Really?”

  “Richard . . . I had it in my pocket. I meant to—”

  “Then we’re screwed for whatever we took from the motel, as well. Jesus Christ, John . . .”

  “But Webster still gave me his permission to search the room—”

  “He’s saying he didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “What I said, John. Webster says he never spoke to you about going into his room. He says he never gave you permission.”

  “Are you serious? Are you fucking serious?”

  “Serious as it gets, John. Ken Howard started to get everything together. He called the state attorney general’s office, spoke to Kidd himself, explained what we had, what we didn’t have, and that was the first question Kidd asked. I told him we had a signed release document, but he said that any PD could overturn that based on Webster’s state of mind. Now I have to tell him that we don’t even have that. Kidd also asked whether Webster had been given any opportunity to make any calls for his own defense lawyer. I had to tell him that he hadn’t made any calls that I knew of. Kidd said that Webster needed to be given his phone call, and he made it. Spoke to someone called Wade. You know any lawyer called Wade?”

  Gaines couldn’t speak for a moment. “You’re kidding me,” he said. “Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me, Richard . . .”

  “What? You know this guy?”

  “And then what happened? Is that when he said he hadn’t given me permission to search his room?”

  “After the phone call? Er, well, yes, I suppose so. I didn’t think the two were related. I had to give him the call, and then when Ken Howard went back to Kidd and started explaining about the evidence, that’s when the thing came up about the warrant. Kidd asked which judge had signed the search warrant—Wallace here in Whytesburg or Otis in Branford—and we had to tell him that there wasn’t a warrant and that you’d brought that photo album and the clothes in from Webster’s motel room. Kidd asked us to check with Webster if you’d discussed that with him, whether you could go in the room and take stuff, just as a backup to the document I said he’d signed, and Webster said no, that he hadn’t said any such thing. We went back to Jack Kidd, and he said that the document more than likely wouldn’t hold water, that anything you took was now inadmissible, and that we didn’t have enough to hold Webster for more than another couple of hours. He said we had to release him once the twenty-four hours were up. He also said you should retract the murder charge. You can’t charge him for the same thing twice, and right now there’s no way any judge would arraign him on what evidence we actually have. I checked the book, John, and Webster was brought in here just after one yesterday afternoon. It’s now eleven. We have two hours to come up with something solid, or we gotta let him go.”

  Gaines could not believe his own forgetfulness and stupidity. Kidd would have words with him—he knew that much—and they would not be encouraging.

  “I’m on my way,” Gaines said.

  Gaines went back to the kitchen, told his mother he’d see her later, and he left the house. She called after him, asked him what was going on, but he didn’t stop to explain.

  Webster was seated in precisely the same place as he had been when Gaines had last seen him. Nothing about the man had changed, except there was something in his eyes, something that spoke of defiance perhaps. Maybe Gaines was misreading everything he was seeing based on what he now knew, but there was certainly a change in the man’s demeanor and attitude.

  “Tell me about Matthias Wade, Mike,” Gaines said.

  “What about him?” Webster asked.

  “Who is he? How do you know him?”

  “Who is he?” Webster echoed. “He’s just a guy, just a man like you or me. How do I know him? I know a lot of people. I know people who know people. I met him a good while back.”

  “And you just spoke to him on the telephone, right? Deputy Hagen told you that you could make a phone call, and you called Matthias Wade?”

  “I called Matthias, yes.”

  “Why him? Why did you call him, Mike?”

  Webster shrugged. “Loneliness, maybe. Because he’s my friend. It gets pretty quiet down here on your own, Sheriff.”

  “And this is the same Matthias Wade that you knew twenty years ago, the one who knew what happened to Nancy Denton, right?”

  “Sure, it’s the same Matthias Wade. There’s only one Matthias Wade.”

  “And what about your motel room?”

  “What about it?”

  “You told me I could go on in there and make a search—”

  “I think you’re mistaken, Sheriff. I don’t recall ever saying such a thing—”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I asked you. I remember asking you clear and simple, Webster. You said I could go on in there and make a search—”

  Webster said nothing immediately, and then he looked unerringly at Gaines. “Did I sign anything to say you could?”

  “Wade told you to say this, didn’t he? He told you to say you’d given no permission for the search, didn’t he? Where the hell is he, Webster? Where the hell is this Matthias Wade?”

  “Right now? I have no idea where he is, Sheriff.”

  Gaines stepped back from the bars. He was enraged, incensed, could barely control the anger that he felt. He had been stupid; there was no question about it. He had inten
ded to have Webster sign the paper, had even carried it in his pocket, but in his eagerness to discover what was in that motel room, he had let it slip his mind.

  Now everything that he had done was undone.

  Gaines looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes after eleven. One hour and forty minutes, and there would be little he could do aside from release Webster and begin the investigation over again.

  Gaines left the basement, went back to his office, and called the state attorney general, Jack Kidd. He was on hold for a good six or seven minutes before Kidd came on the line.

  “Hey, Sheriff Gaines,” Kidd said. “I hear you done fucked the dog on this ’un.”

  “Seems that way, sir.”

  “Ain’t a lot I can do to help you, son. I heard what happened down there, and there’s no one more sorry about that son of a bitch walking out on you than me. As you know, I got three girls myself. Okay, so they’re all growed up and whatever, causin’ their own brand of trouble on a daily basis, but it ain’t so long ago that they were young ’uns like your Nancy Denton. It’s a sad state of affairs when the law steps in to stop you getting justice, but that’s the way it is, and that’s more than likely the way it’s always gonna be—”

  “But—”

  “But nothin’, son. You done an illegal search and seizure. Better to have sealed that place up tight, put some of them deputies and whatever you got down there around the place, and then get that warrant. Goin’ on in there, regardless of what Webster might or might not have said, was never a good course of action. Hell, even if he’d signed up a permission slip like your deputy told me he done, that wouldn’t have stood for a great deal in my court. From the sound of it, even the dumbest PD coulda gotten that discredited because of the man’s mental state. And now I hear you didn’t even get that paper signed. You gotta do this shit by the book. You know that. And this thing about some box buried someplace with the girl’s heart in it? Jesus, I never did hear of such a thing. But you done dug that up as well, I hear. Should’ve got him to tell you where it was on tape. Shoulda got someone in that there office with you to corroborate your report, son.” Kidd cleared his throat just as Gaines started to respond. “And frankly, Sheriff Gaines,” Kidd went on, “I figured you smart as a whip, but you just proved yourself as dumb as the rest o’ them rednecks you got down there.”

  “You’re telling me there is nothing—absolutely nothing—we can do to hold on to Webster?”

  “Well, Hagen tells me he said he done cut up the girl, but he didn’t kill her, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So right now he could be charged with removing evidence from a crime scene, destruction of evidence, for that’s what she was, you see, little more than evidence of a murder. He could be charged with them two, but you done messed it up with this illegal search. Hell, man, I’ve even had Ken Howard on the phone telling me my job, and he’s the guy who’s supposed to be defending your boy! Bottom line, son, is that the law is the law, and whether we like it or not, we have got to charge him with something else and hope to hell he doesn’t make bail, or we gotta let him go. Whichever way you decide, you got about two hours to do it.”

  Gaines was left speechless.

  “So?” Kidd said. “Whaddya wanna do, son?”

  “Pull the murder charge, charge him with destruction of evidence, obstructing an ongoing investigation—”

  “That will fly like a fuckin’ dodo, that one will. Nancy Denton’s murder wasn’t even discovered when he took the body. There was no ongoing investigation. Do like I said. Charge him with removing evidence from a crime scene and destruction of said evidence. That’s what you got. Who you got down there on circuit? Wallace?”

  “Yes, I have Wallace on circuit, but I got Otis for Branford County.”

  “Wallace is as sharp as Otis. If Wallace can find a way to hold him without bail, all well and good, but I doubt it. Those are misdemeanors, because the nature of the original crime does not influence the severity of the removal or destruction charges, you see?” Kidd exhaled audibly. “Shee-it, Gaines, you really done fucked the dog.”

  “I know it. I don’t need to keep hearing it.”

  “Well, maybe you do, son, just to make sure you keep your damned wits about you and don’t pull some dumbass stunt like this again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, go disappear whatever paperwork you had on the first-degree charge, and get some new paperwork on the lines for the removal and destruction. Get Wallace out of whatever watering hole he’s in and tell him to call me if he has any questions.”

  “Will do.”

  “And, Gaines?”

  “Yes?”

  “Use your head and not your heart on this stuff, will you? I know how big a deal this is for you folks. I don’t even remember the last time Whytesburg had a murder, and I don’t think you’ve ever had anything as bad as this, even when old lover boy Don Bicklow was running the show. It’s a tough one. I get that. But the tougher they are, the more you gotta color inside the lines. People get emotional, son, especially when it comes to dead kids, and you gotta be real careful what you say and do. Otherwise you wind up with Webster back on the street and a lynch mob on your hands. You understand me?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Well, good. Now, go hustle up that paperwork and let’s see if we can’t keep the crazy son of a bitch off the streets for a little while longer. Sure as hell he’s been free and easy for twenty-some-odd years, but that don’t mean we have to give the crazy motherfucker another day of liberty if we can help it.”

  Kidd hung up.

  Gaines followed suit. He stood there for a while, felt the speed and force of his own heart in his chest. Kidd was right. He had pulled a dumbass stunt. He had let his emotional reaction to the whole thing override his senses.

  Gaines went back out front and called for Hagen. He told him what was needed on the paperwork. Hagen got going, and Gaines started calling around for Judge Marvin Wallace.

  27

  At 1:45 p.m. on the afternoon of Friday, July 26, 1974, Michael Anthony Webster, ex-lieutenant, US Infantry, appeared before Judge Marvin Wallace, Whytesburg Circuit Court, to face two charges, first that he did remove evidence from the scene of a crime, said evidence being the body of Nancy Grace Denton, and second that he did inflict destruction and damage against said evidence, such being the person of Nancy Grace Denton.

  Webster was handcuffed on each side, to his left Officer Lyle Chantry, to his right Officer Forrest Dalton. He stood immobile and implacable as the charges were read out, and when Wallace asked Howard if the defendant wished to plead, Howard merely said, “At this time, the defendant wishes to plead no contest to both charges.” Webster had decided to leave his options open as to a guilty or not guilty plea. Perhaps he was hoping for a deal from the DA.

  “Prisoner is held over in custody,” Wallace said. “Bail is set at five thousand dollars.”

  Howard stepped forward. “Your honor, I have to ask that the prisoner be released on his own recognizance. He is a decorated war veteran and has no prior convictions in this or any other state. I do not consider that he is a flight risk.”

  “Understood, Counsel, and your comments are noted. However, due to the severity of this crime, I am setting bail at five thousand dollars.” The gavel came down. The discussion was over.

  Howard glanced at Gaines. Gaines knew that Howard had had no choice but to contest Wallace’s ruling. A failure to contest could be considered tantamount to inadequate defense representation at some later appeal hearing.

  Webster didn’t say a word, and only when Chantry and Dalton started moving did he move with them.

  They took him back across to the Sheriff’s Office.

  Wallace stopped Gaines as Gaines was leaving the courtroom. “That bail amount was the highest I could set,” Wallace explained. “I tried to get it higher, but there was no additional justification. Anyway, I think someone like Webster has as much chanc
e of raising five grand as he does fifty.”

  Gaines thanked Wallace and headed back to the office to check that Webster was safe and secure in the basement.

  Once again, Webster was silent and immobile.

  Gaines did not want to speak to him, didn’t want to see him. He returned to his office.

  Hagen was there. He had an anxious expression on his face.

  “What?”

  “Someone is here to pay Webster’s bail.”

  Gaines sighed resignedly. “Let me guess. Matthias Wade, right?”

  “In reception. He says he has the money to pay Webster’s bail right now.”

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Gaines said, his dismay evident in his voice. “This is some kind of fucking stunt . . .”

  He stepped around Hagen, headed for the door, then hesitated and turned back. “Find out something for me, would you? Morgan City, Louisiana. Check which parish it is. Get hold of the sheriff there and tell him I need to see him.”

  “Will do,” Hagen said.

  Gaines went across the building to reception. As he approached the desk, a man stood up and smiled at him.

  Immediately there was recognition. Gaines had been right. This was the eldest of the Wades from the pictures in the photo album. The blond hair had grayed, but that jawline was unmistakable.

  “Sheriff Gaines,” he said. “My name is Matthias Wade, and I am here to assist my friend Lieutenant Webster. I understand that his bail has been set at five thousand dollars . . .”

  Wade was not a tall man, perhaps no more than five seven or eight. At first there seemed nothing specific or extraordinary about his appearance. He was dressed casually—an open-necked shirt, a plain sport jacket, a pair of dark blue slacks. He was in his early forties, Gaines guessed, clean-shaven, his features forgettable, ordinary. His eyes were blue-green, and to any outside observer, he would have seemed relaxed, unhurried, friendly, even extending his hand in greeting as Gaines cleared the desk and stood in front of him.