These Sheltering Walls: A Cane River Romance (34 page)

            “You
will anyway,” Henry said.

            “You’re
right, but not because I’m trying to stick my nose in your business. I know how
you love your privacy. I’m going to tell you what I think because as long as
we’ve been friends, I’ve never seen you look at someone the way I saw you look
at Gideon.”

            Henry
said nothing, just leaned her forehead against the window, the glass cool
against her skin.

            Patsy
went on. “And I’ve never seen anyone look at you that way.”

            “So?”
She was weary, down to her very bones.

            “So,
that kind of something deserves a chance.”

            Henry
wiped her eyes and said nothing. She wanted to give them a chance more than
anything else in her life.

            “Maybe
it’s a problem with him, and not you. The guy was in prison for most of his
adult life. He’s lived by himself for years. He’s never had a family. He’s
hasn’t had any responsibility to anybody He’s new at this. His first instinct,
the one that served him so long may not be the right one.” Henry heard Patsy
take a bracing breath. “And your first instinct may not be, either. Your past
is dictating your future every single day. You see every relationship through
the lens of Kimberly leaving you.”

             Henry
tried to speak calmly. “You know how I feel about all your psychology books and
personality quizzes. I don’t have the time or energy to sit around and analyze
his every action. I know what he did and how it made me feel. That should be
enough.”

            “I
get that. I do. So, let’s forget about him and talk about you. And not what I
think I think is happening in your head. Let’s talk about the way you really
are. You wanted more truth in your life, Sherlock, so I’ll give it to you,”
Patsy said. “You hold people up to this terrible thing that happened to you,
and if you sense even the slightest disloyalty, you’re gone. It’s over.”

            She
wanted to hang up the phone but realized how ironic that would be. “You think
I’m imagining everything?”

            “I
think you’re really smart and are freakishly good at reading people. I also think
you’re an expert at keeping yourself from getting hurt. But I don’t think
you’re infallible. You still make mistakes. I’m nothing close to how good you
are, but what I saw told me there was something about him that was different,
something good.”

            Henry
closed her eyes. She thought of how she’d been so sure Kimberly had known
Lisette wasn’t acting like a mother to her.

            “Okay,”
she said. “I’ll…” She didn’t know what she could do, except go and talk to him.
He’d been leaving messages for days. No matter what he said, she was going to
have to explain her silence. “I’ll give it another chance.”

            “Wow,”
Patsy said, and Henry could hear the smile in her voice. “I don’t think you’ve
ever given anybody a second chance before. Times are a-changing.”

            “Don’t
get too excited. And I know you’re going to ask, so yes, I’ll call you after I
see him,” Henry said.

            “You
know me so well,” Patsy said, laughing, and hung up.

            She
stood there for a moment.
You’ve never given anybody a second chance before.
Henry felt her heart drop. She’d always considered herself a fair sort of
person. But fair wasn’t playing judge and jury with everyone she met. People
made mistakes, including herself.

            She
looked out at the river and the pedestrians strolling along the walkway. She’d
been preparing to let Gideon apologize but maybe she was the one who was wrong.

            The
phone buzzed in her hand and she jumped. Birdie Pascal’s number appeared in the
screen. Henry sighed and reached out to send it to voice mail when she thought
of Patsy’s words, and answered intead.

            “Morning,
mamere
,” she said.

            “Lorelei,”
Birdie said. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

            “No,
ma’am. I probably won’t.” She was already regretting her decision to answer.

            “That
murderer you were working with, the big muscled guy. He’s back in jail.”

            Henry
shook her head. “Not Gideon Becket. That’s not who you mean.”

            “Yep.
He killed a man. They found the body in his house last night. I guess it’s true
what they say. Some people never change.”

            “No.
I don’t believe it.” She couldn’t hear over the pounding of her heart.

            “
Mais
,
it’s true. Willy Joe Brumbacher told me that he heard he was involved in
dealin’ cocaine before he went to prison the first time. Or his family did.
Somethin’ like that. I know cocaine was involved in the story.”

            Henry
flashed back to the walk in the rain on Mount Driskill. Gideon had shared a dark
and painful truth about his parents that day. Henry couldn’t imagine how he
would feel if the entire town knew.

            “I’m
just glad you didn’t get hurt. Who knows what he would have done to you if he’d
gotten a chance,” Birdie said.

            “I
was never afraid of him. He never would have hurt me.”

            “You
can’t be sure of that,
sha
. But you won’t have to worry about working
with him now, either, because he’s not the director anymore. They fired him
this morning.”

            Henry
didn’t hear the rest of the details. Birdie went on for a few minutes and then
finally hung up. Henry took a few steps, but didn’t know where she was going.
Nothing made sense. She hadn’t heard whose body it was. She didn’t even know
where Gideon lived. Her stomach lurched. Maybe there was more to his love of
privacy than she thought. Maybe that wasn’t the first body he’d dropped there.

            No,
she knew one thing. Gideon wasn’t a murderer. Not anymore.

            She
dialed Blue’s number and paced the floor until he picked up.

            “Hi,
Henry.” She could tell by the somber tone that he’d already heard the news.

            “I
need your help,” she said.

“A thirst for truth at any cost is
a passion which spares nothing.”

― Camus

            “Would
you like some coffee?”

            Gideon
glanced up at Franklin Reisler and shook his head. The police investigator had
been polite but hadn’t made any attempt to hide the fact that Gideon was their
number one suspect. He’d asked about having a lawyer present but Gideon had
only shrugged. A lawyer wouldn’t change the fact that Barney Sandoz was dead.

            “So,
Mr. Becket, let’s talk about scenarios. You don’t have to say anything. I’m
just going to throw out the ways this could have happened. Maybe it was an accident,
maybe you didn’t mean for it to go that far.”

            “This
was no accident,” Gideon said. He knew what kind of force it took to strangle a
man barehanded. He knew the fury and ruthlessness it required. The person who
had murdered Barney clearly knew about Gideon’s past. He had strangled a man
once. Everyone knew it. Gideon’s living room was the perfect place to drop a
troublemaker like Barney. And if Gideon’s suspicions were correct, they were
taking out two birds with one stone.

            “Is
that a confession?” He sat up, putting pen to paper.

            “No.”

             “Listen,
we know you two were feuding over that house and then it conveniently burned
down. You were in the basement without permission at the time. Witnesses have
stated that you threatened Barney Sandoz just last week. Right on the river
walk, you lay hands on the man.”

            Gideon
was almost angrier about the fire than about the dead man in his house. “I
never wanted the house. Arthur Finnemore gave me the collection of Cane River
letters and photos in the basement. I’m a historian and I never would have
destroyed the collection just to keep it away from Barney.”

            “Letters
and photos? He was buying the house just to get his hands on a bunch of old
papers?” Reisler clearly didn’t believe him.

            “It’s
valuable. Irreplaceable.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Was valuable. I
could only save about half of it.”

            “Let’s
talk about the day you two had an altercation on the river walk.”

            “He
was faking. I didn’t touch him.”

            Reisler’s
brows went up. “Faking. And maybe he faked his way all the way to being
strangled in your living room?”

            “I
don’t know how he got there. I didn’t strangle anyone.”

            Flipping
open a folder, Reisler read from a sheet. “Says here that you choked Reggie
Landre in front of his son.”

            Gideon
grimaced. Reggie had either come forward to volunteer that information or there
had been witnesses. “I apologized for that. It was a misunderstanding.”

            Reisler
looked positively incredulous. “A misunderstanding.”

            “Yes.”
He should have taken Reggie’s threats seriously, but instead, here he was. He
could point the finger toward Nightmare Jones and hope he was right. But even
if he were, the most cursory look by the police wouldn’t prove anything. These
men had ways of covering their tracks.

            “Was
that over the collection, too? Or were there other issues?  Reggie had ties to
drug dealers in LaFayette. Barney Sandoz had been seen with the same people.”
He glanced down at his folder. “Looks like you’ve gotten tangled up in the drug
trade before.”

            “What
do you mean?” he asked. His heartbeat thudded in his ears and when he passed a
hand over his face, he felt it slick with cold sweat.

            “It
says here your parents thought they could steal a few thousand from a mid-level
dealer and get away with it. But skimming was always a good way to get yourself
killed.”

            Gideon
closed his eyes. A few thousand. He remembered his daddy promising to get it
back, just to give him a few days. His mama alternated between screaming at his
daddy for being stupid and pleading for mercy. He shivered, remembering the
cold water. As he clung to the tree roots, the only sound was the lapping of
the river water against his legs. “I had nothing to do with that,” he managed
and his words sounded like they were coming from far away.

            “Maybe
not, but it’s easier to follow a path our parents already walked,” Reisler said
but there was a different tone in his voice, as if he knew he were touching on
a sore point. “We’ve also heard Barney Sandoz was hanging around Oakland
Plantation. Maybe there was a little jealous rivalry going on for the
attentions of Henry Byrne?”

            The
sound of her name hit Gideon with a physical pain so strong he hunched in on
himself. “There was no rivalry.”

            “But
it seems you’ve also had a falling out with Miss Byrne. Did she find out
something about you she didn’t like? Maybe she heard some rumors about drug
dealing. Or did she catch you in a lie?”

            Gideon
looked up at Reisler and there must have been something in his expression
because the detective shifted imperceptibly, moving his hand to his firearm.

            “I
don’t want to talk about that,” he said. The thought of Henry was like a white
hot pain, and wrapped around that pain was confusion, and now on top of that,
fury crackled and sparked.

            Reisler
wrote a quick note in his folder full of papers, keeping an eye on Gideon the
whole time. “We might come back to her later.”

            “Am
I under arrest?” He was so tired. He’d called Tom right after he’d called the
police. Gideon had explained, and then told him he was sorry. He didn’t
remember what Tom had said.

             “See,
the crime points to you. This kind of circumstantial evidence can get you a
life sentence. Or, another one, if we’re being accurate. Maybe this time they
won’t let you out early for good behavior.”

            Gideon
said nothing, simply waited.

            “But
we also recovered other prints from the scene.”

            “From
the scene? Or from the body?” Gideon knew the police would never offer that
kind of information without a reason.

            “From
your accomplice. If you testify against him, or give up the details of the
dealers you were working with, we could cut you a deal.”

             “I
didn’t do anything. I don’t know how Sandoz ended up in my house.”

            “This
offer won’t stay on the table forever.” Reisler watched him closely. When it
seemed clear Gideon wasn’t going to offer any information, he said, “Between your
family’s history of drug dealing, the arson situation, and Barney Sandoz,
you’re our number one suspect.”

            “Officially?”
Gideon knew that if they named him as an official suspect, it was only a matter
of time before he was charged.

            “Go
home,” Reisler said, not answering him. “But don’t leave town.”

            Gideon
stood up and walked out of the room without another word. His life had fallen
apart in the space of just a few days and there was nothing he could do to put
it back together again. He had no options left. Pointing fingers would make the
people he cared about targets. Fighting the charges might expose the shameful
details of how his parents died. As he left the station, walking past the
stares and the whispered comments from the officers, he tried to think on the
bright side. He’d survived prison once. He would manage to carve out a life for
himself behind bars again.

            Stepping
into the sunlight, he knew there was one big difference this time. As a fifteen
year old kid, he hadn’t known how much he would missing. This time, Gideon
understood with a blinding and painful clarity everything― and everyone―
he was leaving behind.

            His
cell phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket, glancing at the number on the
screen. “No,” he whispered. But he had no choice but to answer.

            “Hello,
Jeffrey.” He hoped he sounded confident. The head of the Natchitoches
historical Society also served on the board of directors for the archives, the
same board that took a chance and hired an ex con straight out of prison three
years ago.

            “Gideon,
we think it’s best if you don’t come back until all this is sorted out,”
Jeffrey Powell said. He didn’t sound like his jovial self. Even over the phone,
Gideon could feel the change in their friendship. It was strictly business now.

            “I
can assure you that it won’t affect my work at the archives. My job has my
complete focus and it always has.” Gideon could hear the panic in his own
voice.

            “You
have to understand that when we hired you, it was on the understanding that
there would never be any other legal trouble. This is a very serious situation.
We have to think of the public.”

            “I
know. I agree,” Gideon said. His heart was pounding so hard he could barely
talk. He leaned against the side of the station and tried to keep focused on
the conversation. Being interrogated by the police didn’t bother him. The
whispers and pointed glances in the station didn’t bother him. The threat of
losing the one place he had left, the one place that had given him a sense of
worth and dignity, brought him to his knees.

            “We
met early this morning and decided it’s the right thing to do for the archives.
It’s already decided.”

            “Jeffrey,
please…” The Cane River collection was half gone and his project on hold. The
archives were all he had left. His job was his distraction, the one thing that
kept him sane.

            “Let
us know if the police clear you from the list of suspects. Until then, we’ll
have Bernice explain to anyone who inquires that you’re on a leave of absence,”
he said, a note of regret in his voice. “Again, I’m sorry, Gideon,” he said,
and the line disconnected.

            Gideon
made his way back to his car, got inside, dropped his phone onto the passenger
seat and stared out the windshield. He felt himself becoming unmoored, like a
boat drifting away from the pier. All his worst fears were coming true and it
felt worse than he ever could have imagined.

            He
put the car in gear and headed home, or the place he once considered home but
was now the place Barney Sandoz took his last breath. One day he’d been secure
in the life he’d built in Natchitoches, the next he was fifty years from shore,
aimless and lost. He wasn’t sure who he was without his work.

            He
was almost out of Natchitoches when he noticed the gas gauge hovering near
empty. He pulled into a run-down little station on a side street and got out.
He could see a young man at the counter and as he came closer, something in his
expression made Gideon’s hackles rise. Casually glancing around, he saw a car
pull into the lot. Pushing the door, the little brass bell tinkled a welcome but
the kid stood frozen behind the counter, his irises ringed with white. Gideon
took one cautious step, then another, all his senses focused on the man who
exited the car behind him.

            “Well,
well. Lookey what the cat dragged in.” Now that he was closer, it took Gideon
less than a second to understand what he was facing. The prison tattoos that
covered both arms and part of his neck were horribly familiar.

            Gideon
moved slightly to the side so he could reach the door knob or the handle of a
dirty mop that rested in a bucket, depending on whether he needed an exit or a
weapon. The man came closer, stroking his long beard, thick fingers showing
tattoos on every knuckle. Gideon didn’t break eye contact even as the kid
behind the counter hurried away.

            “Have
we met?” Gideon asked. It was a rhetorical question. The purpose of the gang
tattoos were so that a person would be welcomed or feared without having to be
introduced. A name could hold power, but Gideon didn’t need to know it.

            “We
got friends in common,” he said.

            Gideon
shifted his weight toward the mop, trying not to think of how the police would
react if he beat someone within minutes of being interviewed about a murder.

            “My
buddy Duane and me, we shared bunk space for prit’ near ten years,” he said.

            A
jolt of recognition went from the top of Gideon’s head to his toes. He barely
breathed.

            “Ya
really gets to know a man in prison. His hopes, his dreams. How he gonna spend
his first few weeks of freedom.” The man couldn’t hold back a smirk. “Somebody
snitched on my buddy Duane and he been waitin’ more’n twenty five years to even
the score.” He stepped closer.  “Well, Duane is ready. Just as soon as he gets
out, he gonna find that snitch. He coulda got away with it. The only witness,”
he leaned close and whispered the rest, “was some little kid who didn’t
remember anythin’ much.”

            Gideon
felt cold sweat trickle down his back. For the second time in an hour, he found
himself back in that dark place. He remembered the sound of his daddy’s shouts
and his mother pleading and Katie Rose’s crying and the river. The river, how it
roared in his ears, rushing above his head and under his feet, endlessly
swirling in the darkness, tugging at his pajamas, tumbling him under branches
and into the banyan roots along the bank.