The Whispering Room (15 page)

H
ours after Nathan Mallet left Mount Olive, he drove to a bar a few blocks from the cemetery and parked on the street so that anyone tailing him would be sure to spot his car.

Taking his time, he locked the door, pocketed the key, then went inside and found a table at the back where he could watch the whole room, including the front door.

When the bored waitress came over to take his order, he discreetly showed her his badge—after all, she wouldn't know that he'd walked off the job months ago—and asked if there was a back way out of the place.

She pointed to the restroom area. “Go through that door, past the men's room and it's at the end of the hall.” Nervously, she glanced around the empty bar. “Is there going to be trouble?”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” he told her. “I just need to get someone off my tail.”

She didn't look at all reassured. Mallet saw her talking to the bartender a few minutes later, and they both kept glancing in his direction. He just hoped they didn't decide to call the cops, at least not before he could get out of there.

When the waitress returned with his drink, Mallet downed the whiskey, slid the empty glass to the edge of the table and motioned for another. He discreetly dropped some bills on the table, then got up and headed toward the restrooms, bypassing the men's room for the rear exit at the end of the hall.

He opened the door and slipped outside. Pressing himself into the shadows, he peered down the alley toward the street. When the coast seemed clear, he hurried to the back where he climbed a chain-link fence and jumped down on the other side.

A few minutes later, he was back at the cemetery.

The gates were closed and locked by this time, but he scaled the brick wall easy enough and soon he was making his way through the crypts and mausoleums to his first wife's vault, where he'd been earlier.

Dropping to the ground, he leaned back against the still-warm concrete as he removed his gun from his pocket and tucked it beneath his leg. Then he pulled a fifth of whiskey from his other pocket, uncapped the bottle and took a long swig before letting his head fall back against the vault.

After a while, it started to mist and he turned his face skyward, letting the moisture cool his overheated skin. He was nervous and punchy, but being back here with Teri helped calm him. It always did.

Man,
he still missed that girl.

She'd only been eighteen when they married, fresh from her high school graduation when they ran off to Biloxi. He'd just celebrated his twenty-first birthday. Young, stupid, crazy in love.

Back then he'd wanted nothing more than to be with her day and night. Even now, he could remember feeling that he would never be able to get enough of her.

A year later, she was dead. Killed by a drunk driver when his car hit hers head-on.

Nathan had quit drinking after the accident. He felt he owed her that much. For years, he never so much as touched a drop, but then his life had taken one bad turn after another. His mistakes had started to catch up with him, and he'd sometimes have a drink or two just to get through the day. Before he knew it, he couldn't crawl out of bed without the sauce. He went to sleep loaded and he woke up reaching for his next drink.

His second wife, Kathy, was a good woman and God knows she deserved a lot better than what he'd put her through over the years. But after all this time—well over a decade—he'd never been able to forget about Teri. He'd never been able to stop thinking about what might have been. If only he'd
been with her that day. If only she'd taken another route home.

Nathan's visits to the cemetery had become both easier and harder over the years. Easier because it was the only place where he ever felt any real peace. Harder because it always hit him anew how much he'd lost when Teri died.

“Hello, Nathan.”

With an effort, he opened his eyes. He hadn't even realized he'd drifted off, but when he saw the man standing over him, he came fully awake and a warning shivered down his spine.

He couldn't see the man's face, but he knew that voice.

“Long time no see,” Nathan said as he dropped his hand to the ground beside his leg. “I was about to give up. Thought no one was coming. I'd have been mighty pissed, too, after driving all the way up here to see you.”

“Have you ever known Sonny to go back on his word?”

Nathan shrugged. “Like I said, it's been a long time. People change.”

“You sure have.” The man kicked Nathan's foot with the toe of his boot. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks a lot.” He lifted the bottle and took a long swig.

“You need to take better care of yourself. Maybe try a steady diet of something besides Jim Beam.”

“I'll make you a deal. You live your life, I'll live mine.”

The man laughed softly and turned to glance around. “I didn't see your car on the street. How'd you get over here?”

“Walked.”

“From where?”

“From where I left my car,” Nathan said, evading the question.

The man turned back to him. “The feds are bound to know you're back in town by now. You sure you weren't followed?”

Nathan snorted. “None of those fuckers know New Orleans like I do.”

“Don't get too confident.”

“I'm not,” he said. “Matter of fact, I ran into a little unexpected trouble when I was here earlier.”

“Yeah, we know about that.”

Nathan looked up in surprise. “You know? What, you guys spying on me?”

“Just keeping an eye on things,” the man said. “Big difference.”

Right.

“What did Evangeline Theroux want?” he asked.

Nathan scowled. “What do you think she wanted?”

The man hesitated. “Let me rephrase that. What did you tell her?”

“Nothing, man.”

“She sure seemed upset when she left. So I repeat…what did you tell her?”

Nathan wiped a shaky hand across his mouth. “She kept asking about that night. I had to tell her something to get her off my back.”

“And?”

“I told her about the woman.”

Another long pause. “I see.”

“At least now she'll stop asking questions,” Nathan said hopefully.

“You think?”

“Yeah, man, we're chill.” He handed up the bottle to his companion. “Have a drink and relax.”

“No, thanks, but you go ahead and knock yourself out.”

“Don't mind if I do.” Nathan took another swallow and recapped the bottle.

“What else are you on?” the man asked conversationally.

“What do you mean?”

“I'm talking about drugs, Nathan. Narcotics. Chemicals. What gets you baked these days?”

“Hey, I'm clean.”

“Sure you are. That's why you look like a walking corpse. Hooch didn't do that kind of damage. If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on meth. The nirvana of the Southern redneck.”

Nathan's hand was still beside him on the ground. Just a fingertip away from his gun. “Some
thing tells me you didn't come here just to insult me. Why'd you want to see me anyway?”

“We've got some loose ends that need tying up.”

“Such as?”

“You've got an addiction, Nathan. That makes you dangerous to Sonny. Especially with the feds breathing down his neck.”

“Nah, man. What are you talking about?” Nathan's fingers inched closer to his weapon. He didn't like where this conversation was headed.

“When you run out of money, you might be tempted to start selling secrets. We can't have that, now can we?”

Nathan reached for his gun, but he was too late. He barely caught a glimpse of the silenced weapon before a bullet caught him square between the eyes. His head flew back, spraying blood and membrane all over his dead wife's tomb.

He was dead instantly, but the killer pumped two more rounds into his chest for good measure. Then he squatted beside Nathan's body and rummaged through his jacket until he found a wallet and car keys.

Standing, he pocketed the booty, then turned and made his way to the back of the cemetery, where he slowly walked down the row of vaults, reading the plaques.

Johnny Theroux.
Rest in peace, asshole.
Scaling the brick wall, he dropped like a cat to the other side.

A moment later, he disappeared into the night.

T
he next morning, Evangeline pulled to the curb in front of the address Lapierre had given her the day before. It was a little before nine, and she was glad to have a few minutes to herself before interviewing the mysterious Lena Saunders.

Evangeline hauled out the notes she'd scribbled earlier at the station, but she found it impossible to focus her thoughts. Her eyes burned from fatigue, and she squeezed them closed for a moment against the blinding sunlight that bounced off the windshield of a parked car.

She hadn't slept much the night before. Too much on her mind.

On the heels of Nathan's disclosure had come the news of her parents' impending separation. She supposed the trouble in that marriage had been brewing for a long time, too, but she'd managed to
convince herself they'd work things out. If their relationship had survived the hell her brother, Vaughn, had put them through back in his youth, she would have thought they could weather any storm.

Apparently, she'd been wrong about that, too.

Was there such a thing as a healthy marriage these days?
she wondered.

Her parents. Mitchell and Lorraine. And now the memory of her and Johnny's marriage was tarnished with doubt.

Glancing at her watch, Evangeline saw that it was almost nine. She climbed out of the car and took a moment to gaze around the neighborhood. Lena Saunders lived only a few blocks over from Meredith Courtland in the Garden District. The houses along this street were slightly smaller, but the yards and gardens were just as well kept, the white facades of the homes just as sparkling in the summer heat.

Out on the street, two boys rode by on bicycles, ball gloves swinging from their handlebars. They laughed and clowned as they sped through the lawn sprinklers, and Evangeline wondered for a moment what her life would be like when J.D. reached that age.

She watched the boys until they were out of sight, and then she turned and started up the walkway. The bushes were still dripping from the sprinklers, and the air smelled of wet grass and honeysuckle.

The door was opened by a young man in linen pants, leather sandals and a thin cotton shirt. His light brown hair was stylishly cut, and behind the thick black frames of his glasses, green eyes twinkled with good humor.

“You must be Detective Theroux,” he said, stepping back from the door so that she could enter. “Come on in. Lena is expecting you.”

He led her from the light-flooded foyer into a large room decorated in gray and black with punches of red. The layout of the house reminded Evangeline of the Courtland home, but the clean, minimalist furnishings were a far cry from Meredith Courtland's lush, eclectic style.

But the view from the French doors was exactly the same—a sun-drenched courtyard and sparkling pool.

“I'm Josh, by the way.” He waved toward a spectacular leather sofa in silver. “Make yourself at home. I'll go tell Lena you're here.”

After he left the room, Evangeline wandered over to the French doors and stood admiring the garden. She and Johnny had always talked about landscaping the tiny backyard of their home, but there'd never been enough time or money and neither of them had much of a green thumb anyway.

Johnny.

She closed her eyes.

How she hated this. Hated having doubts about
a man she'd once trusted more than anyone. Hated having her memories of their time together now stained with a terrible suspicion.

“You must be Evangeline.”

She glimpsed the woman's reflection in the glass a split second before she spoke.

Evangeline turned.

“I'm sorry,” the woman said. “I should call you Detective Theroux. It's just…you look so young!”

Thin, blond and elegant, Lena Saunders was dressed in snug black pants and a sleeveless black sweater that gave her a chic, artsy flair. Evangeline put her age at somewhere around forty, though she wasn't sure why. The woman's face was still smooth and taut and as pale as alabaster.

When she took Evangeline's hand, her skin was cold, as if she'd just come indoors from a brisk, wintry day.

“Let's sit,” she said and, leading the way, she perched on the silver sofa while Evangeline took the matching chair to her right. As they settled in, Josh appeared quietly in the doorway.

“Can I get you ladies something to drink? Coffee, tea?”

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Evangeline said.

“I'll have coffee, black,” Lena told him.

He cocked a brow. “Decaffeinated, I assume. Otherwise, you'll be climbing the walls by noon and that won't be pleasant for either of us.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Stop fussing. You're getting on my last nerve.”

“What else is new?” he said with a grin before vanishing down the hallway.

Lena turned back to Evangeline. “Josh is my assistant, but sometimes he acts as if he's my guardian.”

“I heard that!” he yelled from down the hallway.

Lena ignored him. “You must be curious as to why I was so insistent on speaking only with you today.”

“I am,” Evangeline said. “Captain Lapierre mentioned that you knew my late husband.”

“Johnny, yes.” She smiled faintly. “A lovely man. Such wonderful manners. A true Southern gentleman.”

“He had his moments,” Evangeline murmured, feeling an all-too-familiar pang of loneliness.

“He was very helpful and so patient. Never acted as though my calls were an inconvenience, although I'm sure my questions got to be tedious for him after a while.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?” Evangeline asked curiously.

“Oh, it's been a few years. I was so sorry to hear about what happened. You must have been devastated.”

“It's been a rough time,” Evangeline admitted.

“I can imagine. He always spoke so highly of you. I could tell he was very much in love.”

Evangeline's heart gave a painful thud as she glanced down at her hands.

“I'm sorry,” Lena said. “I don't mean to bring up painful memories.”

“No, it's fine.”

They both fell silent for a moment as Lena busied herself with the coffee service Josh had brought in.

“Are you sure you wouldn't like some coffee?”

“No, I'm good.” Evangeline was fascinated by the woman's hands. They were smooth and pale with the long, elegant fingers of a pianist.

“How did you know Paul Courtland?” she asked when Lena had settled back against the leather sofa with her coffee.

“I didn't know him. In fact, I never met the man, although I spoke with him once on the phone. I tried to explain why I thought his life might be in danger, but unfortunately, he didn't believe me. You may not, either,” she warned.

“I'm here to listen to whatever you want to tell me,” Evangeline said. “But if you know who killed Paul Courtland, we can just skip to the chase as far as I'm concerned.”

“I can give you a name,” Lena said slowly, “but it won't mean much unless I give you a bit of background information. Without context, nothing I say will sound the least bit credible.”

“Fine. Start wherever you like.”

Lena leaned forward and placed her cup and
saucer on the coffee table. “Are you familiar with the concept of an evil gene?”

Evangeline frowned. “I've read some research about the criminal brain. Is that what you mean?”

“No, not really. The criminal brain refers to the correlation between serious crime and brain abnormalities in the perpetrator. The cause of the anomalies can be any number of reasons—head trauma, chemical ingestion, birth defects. But the concept of the evil gene suggests that the propensity for violence—for evil, if you will—can be passed down genetically from family member to family member. Not only that, current studies indicate that behavior and life experiences can alter the biochemistry of certain genes and these changes can be encoded into our DNA and passed on to our children.”

“Are you saying that Paul Courtland's killer was born with an evil gene? Is that where this conversation is going?” Evangeline asked with open skepticism.

“No, not at all. Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Then I'm afraid you've already lost me.”

“Just bear with me. You'll soon understand.” Lena paused, as if to gather her thoughts. “The subject of my current book is a woman named Mary Alice Lemay. Have you ever heard of her?”

“Doesn't ring a bell.”

“I'm not surprised. She's been confined to a state psychiatric hospital for more than thirty
years. Her name has long since faded from the public consciousness.”

“What did she do?”

“She killed her three small sons. Two were hanged, one was stabbed and drowned. The boys were five, three and eighteen months. When the authorities arrived at the house, they also found evidence that Mary Alice had recently given birth to her sixth child, although they never found the infant's body.”

Evangeline suppressed a shudder. “You said her sixth child. What about the other two?”

“Both girls, ages six and eight at the time. They didn't have so much as a scratch on them. In fact, there was some indication that the youngest daughter, Rebecca, may have helped with at least one of the slayings. But at six years old, she could hardly be held accountable for her actions, especially if she believed, as her mother apparently did, they were carrying out God's will.”

“Is that what she claimed? It was God's will that she murder her sons?”

“She said she killed her sons to save their souls from eternal damnation.”

“Did it work?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Her motive. Did the jury buy it?”

“She was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a state psychiatric hospital rather than to death row, so yes, I suppose it worked.”

Evangeline knew it happened, mothers killing their own children, but it was something she would never be able to fathom. She certainly couldn't lay claim to any mother-of-the-year awards, but she'd sooner take her own life than harm J.D.

“Mary Alice's husband was a man named Charles Lemay,” Lena continued. “When he was just five years old, his father, Earl, was convicted of raping and murdering three young women in East Texas and burying their bodies on the family farm. He was sent to the Walls Unity in Huntsville and was executed some years later. Charles's mother moved the family to Texarkana where she remarried and her three children took their stepfather's last name.”

“I don't blame them,” Evangeline murmured.

“So far as I've been able to determine—and I've been researching this case for nearly a year now—the family lived a fairly normal and middle-class life until the older boy, Carl, was arrested for the murder of a female classmate when he was seventeen. Her body was found buried in a vacant lot adjacent to the family's backyard. The girl had been raped and beaten to death, just like his father's victims.”

“The evil gene,” Evangeline murmured.

“Carl Lemay was also sent to Huntsville. He remained incarcerated for more than forty years before he was finally paroled as an old man.”

Lena bent forward and picked up her cup. But the
coffee had cooled by this time, and she set it back down with a grimace.

“After the mother and stepfather died, Charles and his sister, Leona, moved to Louisiana. They both settled in New Orleans, but some years later, Charles got a job as a sales rep with a chemical company in Houma. Around that same time, he started using the name Lemay again. And this is when he met Mary Alice.”

“Did she know about his past?”

“Probably not at that time. But I think she must have found out about it later. I'm certain that was a factor in what she did to her sons.”

“So she married this Charles Lemay.”

Lena nodded. “Yes, against her family's wishes, apparently. He was older. Very handsome and charming and by all accounts, it was love at first sight for Mary Alice. But right from the start, there were disturbing signs. Charles Lemay was cunning and manipulative, and Mary Alice's family and friends were put off by his controlling nature. But she ignored their warnings and married him anyway.”

“They almost always do,” Evangeline said.

“Yes, I've known women like that, too,” Lena said. “What's that old saying? They can't see the forest for the trees. Mary Alice couldn't see past her husband's charm and good looks. Not at first anyway. He bought a place on the bayou in Lafourche
Parish, and he and Mary Alice settled in. The house was out in the country, miles from the nearest neighbors, and since Charles's job required extensive travel, Mary Alice was alone much of the time.”

“He isolated her,” Evangeline said.

“Exactly. And then the babies started coming. Before she was thirty, Mary Alice had five young children for which she was almost solely responsible. When the two girls reached school age, she homeschooled them at Charles's insistence. You see, he not only isolated his wife, he also isolated the children. The only time any of them were allowed to socialize was at worship services. They attended a nondenominational charismatic church, and if you've never attended one of these services, the intensity can be a shock to your senses. The power of those sermons and the concepts of prophetic manifestations and demon chasers must have had a compelling impact on Mary Alice. On her children, as well, I would imagine.”