The Devil and the River (48 page)

“Well, considering you’re here on such a fine day, then I think a little lemonade would best suit.”

Gradney indicated a large table to the left of the room, and here they sat while Sarah busied herself with a jug from the refrigerator and glasses for each of them. Once she had served the lemonade, she stood momentarily with her hand on her husband’s shoulder.

“I’ll be out in the yard with the children,” she said. “Anything else you boys need, you just holler.”

“Thank you, Sarah,” Gradney said.

“Appreciated, ma’am,” Gaines added.

Sarah left them to it, closing the parlor door behind her.

“You have a beautiful home,” Gaines said, “and a lovely wife.”

“Lucky man,” Gradney replied. “They sort of came together.

Sarah was a Lanafeuille ’fore I married her. They own pretty much everything between here and Pascagoula. Hell of a wealthy family, and they didn’t take too kindly to the idea of their daughter up and marrying a policeman. But hell, in the end there wasn’t a great deal they could do about it. They’re good people, when it comes down to it.”

“Well, it seems like you really have made a good life for yourself here . . . and beautiful children you have, too.”

“Which is all as well as may be,” Gradney said, smiling, “but that sure as hell ain’t motivation enough for you to drive over here on a Sunday afternoon. So, what are we talking about here?”

“Leon Devereaux,” Gaines said.

“Oh my. Oh my,” Gradney said. “So what has the charming and delightful Mr. Devereaux gotten himself into now?”

“You know him?”

“Know him? Hell, I might as well be related to him, the number of times we visit with each other. He’s a thief and a liar and a cheat and pretty much anything else you can think of. A drunk as well. Far as he’s concerned, life is just something that gets in the way of him and his liquor. I keep tellin’ him, he ain’t gonna find nothin’ worth much of anythin’ in this life if he just keeps lyin’ about everythin’, but he doesn’t seem able to restrain himself. If he isn’t somewhere maneuvering to sleep with some poor son of a bitch’s wife, then he’s someplace else sleeping off a drunk or hiding from a husband with a gun.”

“Sounds like a fine, upstanding citizen.”

“Well, like many a folk, somewhere along the line he got the idea that rotgut whiskey was the curative for all that might ail him now or in the future. But Leon goes a little way further than that. Took me a while to appreciate where he was at, but there ain’t much good goin’ on in there, and that’s the truth. I always try to give folk the benefit of the doubt, you know? Seems when it comes to most bad people, there’s always someone good trying to clamber on out and show their face. With others, well, they’re just bad right through to the core. Leon Devereaux falls into the second category.”

“You know he works for the Wades, right?”

“Works? Is that what they call it? Leon doesn’t do a great deal of that, I can tell you right now. Maybe he has some sort of agreement with the Wades, but that factory he’s supposed to manage, well, I don’t know that they see him there more than once a month.”

“Do you know what his relationship with the Wades is? Matthias Wade, specifically?”

“Don’t know, and don’t know that I
want
to know. Somehow or other, he always manages to wind his way out of trouble. I’ve had him for DUIs, B&Es, harassment, statutory rape, criminal damage, aiding and abetting an escaped felon, grand theft auto, pandering. The list is endless. I’ve had him locked up more times than anyone in my career, but never for long. Somehow or other, the witness always retracts their statement, the judge gives him a fine, a warning, anything but a custodial sentence, and Leon Devereaux goes back to doing whatever Leon Devereaux does, thankfully much of it outside my jurisdiction, as far as I can see.”

“We have a report that he cut a man’s fingers off and did so under orders from Matthias Wade,” Gaines said.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Gradney replied. “You came on in here and told me that he’d raped both your wives, drowned your kids, drank all your liquor, and then robbed the Whytesburg Savings and Loan, I’d ask you what he did after lunch.”

“When did you last have him in your office?”

“Oh, must be a month or so ago.”

“For?”

“Lord, I can’t remember. Got drunk and walloped a few people, more than likely. He ain’t such a big guy, but he won’t go down. Hit him as many times as you like, he won’t go down, stubborn son of a bitch that he is.”

“Where does he live?”

“Well, when he’s here, he lives down off Collins Road. Has a couple of trailers down there.”

“And he’s been here a long time?”

“Longer than me, and I been here six years.”

“Is he from here, originally?”

“No, he’s from Louisiana. Born and raised in Lafayette, went into the army down there, served in the war—”

“He’s a Vietnam veteran?”

“Sure is,” Gradney said. “Says it was the best vacation he ever took.”

“Crazy before he went out, or just when he came back?”

“Oh, I reckon he was as crazy as a shithouse rat from the moment he was born, Sheriff Gaines. I think the first thought when he came out of his ma was how many folks he could fuck with in his three score and ten.”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Kids?”

“Oh, I should think so. Probably a coupla dozen from a host of different women between here and Memphis, though I don’t figure him for the settlin’ down type, you know?”

“And when he’s not here, he’s just on the road?”

“I guess so. He drives a black Ford pickup, more rust than anything else. God knows how it stays together. When the car’s here, he’s around. When it’s not, he’s gone. He can be gone for weeks at a time, and then I get a call to say he’s busted some poor fella’s nose in a bar someplace and he’s getting ready to bust a great deal more. I go down, pull him in, keep him in a cell until he’s slept off the drunk, and then I kick him out again. Whoever he bashed never presses charges, or there’s someone ready to stand up and say it was self-defense. This has been going on for all the years I’ve been here, and I am sure it will continue this way until someone wallops him so hard, he don’t get up again. Shame is that whoever winds up doing that will probably get life for it, and in all honesty, he should get a medal pinned on his chest and a county pension for life.”

“Do you know if he’s here in town now?”

“I don’t believe he is,” Gradney replied. “Friday and Saturday night went by without a single word on Leon, so I guess he’s elsewhere.”

“And do you know if Matthias Wade has ever been down here to visit with him?”

“Couldn’t say. Leon is not someone I go looking for, and I don’t keep tabs on him unless I know he’s causing trouble somewhere. There have been times when I’ve known he was in town, but there’s been no trouble to speak of. How his deal works out with the Wades is his business, and I’m happy to leave it that way. Simple truth is that you go looking for Leon, you’re going to find trouble of one variety or another.”

Gaines looked at Hagen. “Anything else you can think of?”

“No, I think we’ve got what we need,” Hagen said. “Think the next thing is to go down and make a visit.”

“Like I said, down on the Collins Road. Head back toward town. Second intersection on the right is signposted for the state line. You head on down there a half mile or so and then take the road signposted
Pascagoula
. Follow that road for a good mile and a half, and you’ll see Devereaux’s trailers set back on the left-hand side. If his truck is there, he’s home. If it ain’t, he ain’t.”

Gaines finished his lemonade and got up from the table.

“Much appreciated, Sheriff.”

“You’re welcome,” Gradney replied. “You let me know how this goes, but if you need any help, I ain’t home.” He smiled.

They shook hands, and Gradney showed them out of the house. Sarah Gradney and the kids were in the yard. Gaines and Hagen thanked her for her hospitality, apologizing again for disturbing their Sunday afternoon.

The kids waved as Gaines and Hagen drove away.

“Good people,” Hagen said.

“Unlike our Mr. Devereaux,” Gaines replied.

D
evereaux’s trailers had seen many better days. One was single wide, the other a double, and where once they might have looked as fine as anything tethered behind a pickup, all fresh chrome and streamlined design, they had now settled in for some slow, inevitable process of deterioration. Those trailers would never move again, for to hitch them to anything and pull away would be to see them come apart at the seams.

There was no sign of Leon Devereaux’s black Ford, and when Gaines pulled to a halt and got out, there was nothing but silence to greet him in that small clearing.

The trailers were obscured from the road by a tall bank of cypresses, and on the ground between them, amidst the scatterings of goldenrod and cattails, were broken bottles, empty gas canisters, busted furniture, a rusted-to-hell barbecue, a bicycle frame, a dilapidated sofa, the stuffing escaping through rends and tears. Gaines imagined the interior of the trailers would be just as bad, if not worse.

“I want to check inside,” Gaines said.

“I know you do,” Hagen replied.

“You got a problem with that?”

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

“You okay to stay here and keep an eye out?”

“Sure am.”

Gaines headed for the larger of the two trailers. The door was locked, but he fetched a knife from the car and pried the lock without any difficulty. He would be able to close it again and leave no sign that the door had been forced.

Once inside, he was assaulted by the smell. It was like Webster’s place—worse in fact—and he knew before he even reached the small bathroom in the back of the trailer that something more than rotten food and dirty clothes had made a stench like that.

If you’d been to war, well, you never forgot that smell.

Gaines reached out and gripped the door handle. He turned it until he felt the latch click back from the striker plate. He held his breath for a second, and then he pushed the door open.

The blood, and there was much of it, was concentrated within the tub itself. It had dried in swirls on the porcelain, and Gaines could clearly see clearly where someone—presumably Devereaux—had gripped the edge of the tub as he worked.

Gaines thought that word—
worked
—and he shuddered. The bile rose in his throat. He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, swallowed the foul taste.

Back to the tub. There must have been two pints of blood, maybe three, and in places it was thick and congealed, raised in relief against the surface.

He believed he knew exactly what had taken place here. He was certain that this was Webster’s blood, that this tub was where the removal of Webster’s head and hand had occurred. Perhaps that had been the sequence of events. Wade had bailed Webster out, best of friends, just helping a guy in trouble, and he’d suggested they drive over to see another friend in Lucedale, get a drink, have a good old time after Webster’s ordeal. The friend in Lucedale? Hell, he was a vet, too. He and Webster would get along just fine. And Webster went, unaware that he was being delivered to his own death. Devereaux killed him, or maybe Wade did that himself. Into the tub he went, head and hand were removed, and then the body was shipped back to Webster’s cabin and the place was torched.

Gaines pictured Devereaux kneeling right there beside the tub, one hand holding Webster by the shoulder, perhaps in the tub himself and kneeling on the body. Christ almighty, it didn’t bear thinking about. But Gaines could not help thinking about it. More than that, he could picture the horror playing out before his very eyes. His next question—what had Devereaux used to do this thing?—was answered when he saw the blood-streaked, foot-long hunting knife beneath the tub, a razor-sharp blade on one side, a serrated edge on the other. Gaines had seen such knives many times in Vietnam. This was not so much a knife as both a machete and a saw combined. A weapon such as that would have decapitated a man effortlessly.

Gaines kneeled down, covered his hand with the sleeve of his jacket, and lifted the knife out carefully. He set it near the door.

Devereaux, it seemed, had made no effort to cover his tracks, no effort to clean up the place, no effort to hide the evidence of his actions. There were no indications of a struggle, no jagged splashes of blood on the walls or the tub, barely any blood on the floor. Michael Webster had most definitely been dead before this was done. That, if nothing else, was some small saving grace.

Of course, Gaines could have been wrong. This could have been someone else’s blood, someone else’s nightmare enacted in this narrow, confined space. Taking that knife back to Victor Powell and typing the blood would support his belief that someone had been butchered here, but it would do nothing to prove it was Webster. And again, just as was the case with the things he’d taken from Webster’s room, taking the knife would also be the illegal removal of evidence from a crime scene. His failure to do things by the book last time had seen Webster released and then murdered. Simply stated, his failure had seen a man killed. But what choice did Gaines have? Had there been any probable cause for his entry to the trailer? No, there had been no reason for him to access the trailer. Was there any outstanding warrant for Leon Devereaux? Not that he was aware of, and Gradney had made no reference to such a thing. And to track Devereaux down and hound him for something that would justify a search warrant would give Devereaux time to contact anyone he wished, more than likely Wade, who could have half a dozen people down here within an hour, and they could remove every single scrap of evidence from these trailers and vanish it all into nowhere.

There was the line. As state’s AG, Jack Kidd, had so clearly pointed out when he spoke to Gaines about the illegal search and seizure at Webster’s cabin, it was a sad state of affairs when the law prevented you from seeing justice done. But this was the nature of things. This was the system within which he had to work—until he decided to work outside of it.