The Whispering Room (16 page)

“By charismatic, you're talking about snake-handling churches, right?” Evangeline felt both dread and impatience for what she suspected lay ahead.

“There are only a handful of small congregations that observe this practice,” Lena said. “But, yes. The church where Mary Alice and her children worshipped believed in taking up serpents.”

Lovely,
Evangeline thought with a shiver. “Please
go on,” she said. “I didn't mean to interrupt your train of thought.”

“No, that's fine. You're bound to have questions. Believe me, I know how all this sounds. But as I said, context is everything.” She paused, as if trying to remember where she left off. “One day Charles left on a business trip and never returned. He just simply vanished. Everyone assumed he'd walked out on his family. But when the police arrested Mary Alice for the murder of her children, she also confessed to killing her husband. She claimed she'd discovered that he was abusing their young daughters. She also feared that he may have been responsible for the disappearances of at least two young women from towns that were along his sales route.”

“Were her claims substantiated?”

“The records involving the children are sealed,” Lena said. “So I can't speak to that. As for the disappearances…no bodies were ever found. But I suspect Mary Alice was right. However, given what she did to her own children, you can understand why the authorities were skeptical. I doubt her claims were ever properly investigated. What I do know is that Charles's behavior fit the pattern of his father and brother, and I think Mary Alice was aware of that. Which is why she had to kill her children in order to save their souls.”

“That's a hard sale,” Evangeline said. “Because what you're saying is that she killed her sons so they
wouldn't grow up to be like their father and grandfather. That's a huge assumption to make, especially where your children's lives are at stake.”

“For Mary Alice it wasn't an assumption, though. It was a matter of faith. Even so, her dilemma must have been heart-wrenching. Think about it.” She leaned forward, forearms on her knees as her gaze burned into Evangeline's. “How far would you go to protect your son? Would you willingly sacrifice your own soul in order to procure his eternal salvation?”

“Now you're making an assumption,” Evangeline said. “You're assuming she told the truth about her motivation.”

The blue eyes darkened. “What is truth? Your truth? My truth? Mary Alice's truth?”

“I'm not much on moral relativism,” Evangeline said. “It's hard for me to get past the fact that she murdered her children in cold blood. That's the only truth that matters to me.”

“You're not alone.” Lena sat back against the sofa. Some of her energy seemed to have drained away. “Most people thought Mary Alice should have gone to the electric chair. Instead, she's spent the past thirty-some years in a mental hospital. I don't know which would have been the kinder fate.”

“What happened to the little girls?”

“They were separated and put in foster care. The older girl, Ruth, was adopted by a family in Baton
Rouge. Her name was changed, of course, and from what I've been able to learn, she grew up in a stable, loving environment. Rebecca wasn't so lucky. She's been under psychiatric care since she was a teenager. Three years ago, her doctor committed her to Pinehurst Manor, in East Faliciana Parish.”

“I know where Pinehurst Manor is,” Evangeline said.

“Then you probably also know that up until a few years ago, it was a low-to medium-security facility. When Katrina hit, some of the patients in maximum-security units were evacuated and sent to places like Pinehurst. Mary Alice was one of those patients.”

“You're saying she and her daughter ended up in the same mental hospital?”

“For a short while, yes.”

“Did they come into contact with one another?”

“Almost certainly they did. And you can imagine the impact such a meeting would have had on someone as fragile as Rebecca Lemay. She'd had no contact with her mother or sister for years, and it's my belief that seeing Mary Alice unleashed a flood of suppressed memories—her father's abuse and her complicity in at least one of her brother's deaths. Those memories would have devastated her. Perhaps the only way she could justify what she'd done was by convincing herself that she, too, had been carrying out God's will. And if she'd been re
cruited as one of His soldiers, then her mission wasn't yet over. It would be her spiritual duty to finish what her mother had started.”

“Meaning?”

“The only way to destroy the evil embedded in the Lemay family DNA would be to destroy all the male progeny.”

“But her mother had already done that by killing the father and sons,” Evangeline pointed out.

“Not completely. A few weeks after Rebecca left Pinehurst, Carl Lemay was found murdered in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of Texarkana, where he'd relocated after being released from prison.”

Evangeline rubbed the sudden tingles at the back of her neck. “You think Rebecca was responsible?”

“Yes, I do. And I think she was responsible for two other murders, as well. Remember I told you that Charles Lemay's sister, Leona, moved to New Orleans? She married a man named Robert Courtland and they had two sons, Paul and David.”

Evangeline stared at her in speechless shock.

Lena inclined her head slightly. “Now you see where all this has been leading. David and Paul Courtland are the direct descendants of Earl Lemay. They are the first cousins of the little boys who died more than thirty years ago at Mary Alice's hand. Paul and David were, so far as I can determine, the last male members of the Lemay family.”

“If all that's true—” which was a very big if in
Evangeline's book “—Rebecca Lemay's mission would be over, wouldn't it?”

“Yes, except for one thing.”

“And that is?”

“Carl Lemay was stabbed to death in his bed,” Lena said. “But the use of snakes with Paul and David Courtland—”

“Wait a minute,” Evangeline said with a frown. “How did you know about the snakes? It wasn't in the paper.”

Lena shrugged as if how she'd obtained the information was of no consequence. Evangeline remembered what Lapierre had said about the woman. She was well-connected in the NOPD.

“I think Rebecca is now working with an accomplice,” she said. “The Courtland brothers weren't just killed. There was an element of torture involved. I think Rebecca Lemay has hooked up with someone who has his own calling.”

Evangeline thought of the blond woman who had supposedly been following Paul Courtland just before he died.

“Do you know what Rebecca looks like?”

“I have a picture of the girls before they were separated, but I have no idea what they look like now.” Lena bent forward and pulled a photograph from the pages of a book lying on the coffee table. She handed the picture to Evangeline.

The shot might have come from the pages of a
Southern magazine, Evangeline thought. In the background, cypress trees dripped with Spanish moss, and in the foreground, two breathtaking little blond girls in white dresses clung to one another's hands as they smiled for the camera.

“They look exactly the same,” Evangeline said. “How do you know which is which?”

“If you look closely, you'll see the one on the right is a smidgen taller than the other one. I believe that's Ruth.”

For the longest time, Evangeline couldn't tear her gaze from those angelic faces. It was hard to imagine that one of them would grow up to be a cold-blooded killer, no matter her motivation.

“Do you have any idea of Rebecca Lemay's whereabouts?”

“It's possible she's gone back to where she grew up in Lafourche Parish. The nearest town is Torrence. I've been in contact with the sheriff's department down there. The old Lemay house has been abandoned for years, but a few days ago, a fisherman spotted someone in one of the upstairs windows. They actually thought it was Mary Alice, but of course, that's impossible. I think they may have seen Rebecca.”

“Did anyone from the sheriff's department check it out?”

“I haven't been able to verify that. People in that area are still a little touchy about what happened. I
doubt anyone's all that anxious to go out there to that old house. Too many ghosts.”

When Evangeline handed her the photograph, Lena took a moment to carefully tuck it back into the book.

“I would very much like to speak with Rebecca Lemay,” she said. “I would go down there and check that sighting out for myself, but as Captain Lapierre probably explained, I don't leave my house much these days. I'm afraid I wouldn't get very far. That's where you come in.”

“You want me to go down and check it out for you,” Evangeline said. “I can't do that. Like I told you on the phone, I'm no longer working this case. I was sent here today to hear what you have to say and report back to Captain Lapierre. What she does with the information is out of my hands.”

Lena bent forward, her eyes very direct. “I have a proposition for you, then. It'll need to be off the record, I'm afraid.”

“No way,” Evangeline said bluntly. “I don't work like that.”

“Johnny was right,” she said with a wry smile. “You are a tough nut to crack.”

It was still weird to hear her talk about Johnny so casually. Even more weird to think that he might have been in this house, might have sat in the very chair that Evangeline now occupied. In the course of one day, her husband had begun to seem like a stranger to her.

Lena studied Evangeline's face for a moment. “All right,” she said. “I'll lay all my cards on the table. If you want to tell your superiors what I'm proposing, that's up to you.”

“And just what are you proposing?”

“I want you to find Rebecca Lemay for me. In return, I'll do everything I can to help you find out what really happened to Johnny.”

M
itchell called right after Evangeline left Lena Saunders's house. She could tell something was wrong by the tense sound of his voice.

“Where are you right now?” he asked.

“I'm on my way back to the station,” she said. “Why? What's wrong?”

“Nathan Mallet's body was found at Mount Olive Cemetery this morning. He was shot to death.”

Evangeline was so shocked and distracted by the news, she almost failed to brake for a red light. She clutched the steering wheel as she came to a fast stop. “My God,” she muttered.

“It's a real shocker, all right.” He paused, then said, “Look, I gotta ask you something, Evie.”

“The answer is yes. I saw Nathan yesterday.” Her heart started to hammer against her rib cage. Evan
geline knew she'd done nothing wrong, but she had a feeling this wasn't going to go down well.

“What time did you see him?” Mitchell asked.

“It was right after you called. Somewhere between seven-thirty and eight. I saw his Mustang parked at the cemetery so I went inside and looked around for a bit. Then I came back out and waited for him by his car. We spoke for a few minutes and then I got back in my car and drove off. That's it, Mitchell. Nathan was alive when I left him.”

“I wasn't implying otherwise. I just wanted to make sure you know how you're going to answer if someone else asks you that question.”

“If?”

“However you want to handle this is fine by me. As far as I'm concerned, we never talked yesterday.”

“Thanks.” Evangeline was touched by his loyalty. Of all the things that had been turned upside down in her life lately, Mitchell's friendship was a staple. “I would never ask you to do that,” she said. “Besides, I've got nothing to hide. Like I said, Nathan was alive when I left him.”

“How did he seem?”

“He was nervous. He kept looking around, as if he was afraid to be seen with me. But I figured I'd just caught him by surprise.” The light changed and she started through the intersection. “Have they found anything yet?”

“Right now, they're concentrating on what they
haven't found. His wallet is missing and there's no sign of his car.”

“You think it was a robbery?”

“Maybe. Or maybe someone just wanted it to look that way. Evie…” He paused and lowered his voice. “I think you should know something. Nathan was shot three times. Once in the face and twice in the chest. What does that sound like to you?”

“Overkill, for a robbery, but we've seen a lot worse—” She stopped, her heart going crazy inside her chest. “My God,” she breathed. “Two shots to the chest and one to the face. Just like Johnny.”

“Might just be a coincidence,” Mitchell said.

“If you really believed that, you wouldn't have said anything.”

“You know what? I don't know what to believe. Something about this whole setup doesn't feel right to me.”

“How so?”

“Nathan's gun was found underneath his right leg. Out of sight, but within easy reach, like maybe he was expecting trouble.”

“What else?”

“You say you waited for him to come out of the cemetery and the two of you talked in his car. Then you left. So why did he go back inside? And when? The caretaker said everyone was gone when he locked the gates. It's possible he didn't see Nathan,
but I think it's more likely that Nathan came back later, after the gates were already locked.”

“You think he came back to meet someone.”

“All I know is something about this stinks to high heaven. It has the feel of a professional hit, and now I'm starting to wonder why in the hell someone would go to the trouble of taking out a mullet-head like Nathan Mallet.”

 

As soon as Evangeline spoke with Lapierre, she came clean about her meeting with Nathan. The captain took the news better than Evangeline had anticipated, possibly because she had the notes from the meeting with Lena Saunders to distract her.

How Lapierre planned to pursue the information was anyone's guess. It was a far-fetched story to say the least, and Evangeline wasn't even certain how much of it she believed. The only thing she left out of her report was Lena's proposition. The captain didn't need to know about that, especially considering that Evangeline didn't yet know what she planned to do about it.

After she left Lapierre, her first instinct was to drive out to the cemetery and take a look at the crime scene. But that might be pushing her luck, she decided, so instead, she hunkered down at her desk to get caught up on some paperwork.

It was hard to concentrate, considering everything that had gone down in the past twenty-four
hours. Finally, Evangeline had had enough pencil-pushing for one day and she headed over to the lab to see if the analysis on the snakeskin had come back yet. A frazzled tech warned her that it could take up to six weeks, they were that backed up.

Evangeline wanted to ask about a ballistics report on the Nathan Mallet shooting, but she figured that would also be pushing her luck. And, anyway, it was too soon.

On her way back to the station, she stopped by the Mission of Hope, a halfway house on North Rampart, at the edge of the Quarter. Her brother, Vaughn, had been the director there for the past several years.

Vaughn was an ex-con. He'd been convicted for the robbery of a convenience store when he was nineteen years old. He'd been sentenced to ten years in Angola, but he'd been released for good behavior after six.

Before his conviction, Vaughn had been in and out of trouble for years. Sometimes when Evangeline looked back on those days, she wondered how any of them had survived it. How had her parents put up with the drinking and the drugs and the all-night parties and managed to keep their sanity?

But those days were long gone. Vaughn had come out of prison a changed man. For the past ten years, he'd devoted himself to helping others at the Mission of Hope, where he was sometimes the last,
best hope for ex-cons like himself who truly wanted a fresh start.

Evangeline found him in the tiny cubicle he called an office, seated behind an old battered desk stacked high with file folders and papers. He'd been a good-looking charmer as a kid, but now at thirty-eight, his handsome face bore the scars of a prison-yard brawl and his eyes never seemed to light these days, even when he smiled.

He looked up in surprise when she rapped on the door. “Hey,” he said. “Didn't expect to see you here.”

“I try not to come around because I know I make you guys nervous. Cops and ex-cons are like oil and water.”

He tossed his pen to the desk and folded his hands behind his head. “So what brings you by?”

“A couple of things, actually. Nathan Mallet's body was found at Mount Olive Cemetery this morning. He was shot to death sometime last night or early this morning.” She nodded toward the door behind her and the large rec room beyond where three or four men sat watching
Days of our Lives
on an old console set. “People talk,” she said. “I just thought if you heard something…” She trailed off on a shrug.

“You know I can't do that. The whole philosophy of this place is based on trust.”

“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” she
said. “I get that. But we are talking about murder.” She lowered her voice. “It's possible his death is connected to Johnny's.”

“Connected how?”

“I don't know yet. But I intend to find out.”

He shook his head. “Maybe you should just put all that behind you. Move on with your life.”

“People keep telling me that,” she said. “It's starting to make me a little paranoid. Like maybe there's something I'm not being told.”

“That does sound paranoid.”

She stared at him for a moment. “You never liked Johnny very much, did you? You or Dad.”

He shrugged. “As long as he treated you right, I had no beef with him.”

“That didn't exactly answer my question.”

“What do you care whether I liked him or not? What difference does it make?”

“Because I want to know,” she insisted. “Why didn't you like Johnny?”

“Oil and water,” he said with another shrug.

“And Dad?”

“You'll have to ask him, but I don't think it was personal. I doubt anyone is ever going to be good enough for you in his eyes. Not Johnny Theroux, not anyone.”

“Something tells me Dad has other things on his mind these days. Have you talked to him lately?”

“We had dinner one night last week.”

“How did he seem to you?”

Vaughn leaned forward. “He seemed fine. Why?”

“Did you know that he and Mom are separating?”

“I knew he was thinking about it. I didn't know it was a done deal.”

“You knew and you didn't say anything to Mom? How could you keep something like that from her?”

“Because it's none of my business. It's none of yours, either. This is something they have to work out for themselves.”

“There's another woman, isn't there?” When Vaughn didn't answer, Evangeline said in outrage, “I
knew
it. Who is she?”

“Stay out of it, Evangeline.”

“You better tell me or else I'll just go ask Dad.”

“You go over there half-cocked, you'll just make things worse.”

“Worse for who? Besides, I can't just sit by and let him treat Mom like dirt.” She got to her feet. “I can't do that.”

As she turned toward the door, something caught her eye in one of the bookcases. She walked over for a better look. “Where did you get this?” she asked.

“What, that bird? It's origami,” he said.

“I know what it is. I want to know where you got it.”

“Someone must have given it to me.”

“You don't remember who?”

“It just turned up there the other day.”

“And you didn't wonder where it came from?”

“It's just a paper bird,” he said. “Why the third degree?”

“Because I'm seeing these damn things everywhere,” she said. “I'm starting to think it's not a coincidence.”

“Any kindergartener can make them,” Vaughn said. “All you need is a square of paper.”

“I wish I thought it was a kindergartener who'd been sending them to me,” Evangeline muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“Someone sent a mobile to the house made out of these things. Then I found one out at the cemetery. I know this sounds strange, but…”

Vaughan searched her face. “What?”

“I'm wondering if someone is trying to send me a message.”

But what that message was, Evangeline had no idea.