“If the cache wasn’t in your safe-deposit box, we’d do it now. But we can’t help that. Where’s your car?”
“My Acura’s parked just up the alley, behind a friend’s shop. Why do you want to do this?”
“Honestly? This may be the last edition of the Bienville Watchman ever printed. If my father can’t be there to see it, then I will. I want to be able to tell him about it tomorrow.”
Nadine looks at me for a long time. Then she says, “What the hell. What did Tim say? Let’s go stick it to the Man.”
“Now you’re talking!” I slap the table. “Let’s go. And don’t forget your gun.”
She gets up and retrieves her purse from the floor. “Wouldn’t dream of it. It’s my new essential accessory.”
Chapter 44
Nadine got us to Cemetery Road without incident. We hardly spoke until she turned east, away from the river. Even then, I sat silent as we rolled over the gully where Jet dumped Max’s hammer and gun. Two miles farther on, we passed the turn for my parents’ neighborhood, then the overgrown path that leads to the Weldon barn, which is probably buried under a jungle of kudzu by now. When we’re almost out of the city limits, I switch on my burner phone in my pocket.
“Think I should cut over to the Little Trace for a few minutes?” Nadine asks. “Less chance of passing a sheriff’s car?”
“Nah. We’re only five miles from the turn to Dad’s camp. I say go for it. Just don’t speed.”
We’ve left the only streetlights along Cemetery Road behind us. After we pass a lighted self-storage facility and a small-engine repair shop, full dark closes around the car.
“What do you want to ask me?” Nadine says.
“Do you believe Sally killed herself? Was she trying to frame Max?”
“I think that was her plan. I’m not sure she didn’t try to kill him at the last minute instead, forcing him to kill her in self-defense. Or that Max didn’t murder her outright, before she could try her plan.”
“So when you and I were dancing to Jerry Lee Lewis at the Aurora Hotel, you knew she planned to commit suicide later that night?”
Nadine’s head snaps around. “God, no! I had no idea of her real intentions or her timeline. I had to drag what I know out of her over the course of ten days. We had three private meetings in person. At first she told me she was having marital problems and didn’t trust Max. She wanted me to hold something for her. She asked me to get a safe-deposit box. I figured she was preparing to divorce him.”
“You didn’t question her further at your first meeting?”
“Sure, but she wouldn’t open up. She seemed afraid, or deeply disturbed. They’d been married so long, I didn’t think Max was beating her, but I didn’t know. I worried about sexual abuse—of Kevin, I mean—but I didn’t bring it up at that meeting.”
“She gave you the cache then? At your first meeting?”
“No, the second. And she was a lot more upset at that meeting. I got the feeling she was conflicted about whatever she was thinking of doing. That’s when she told me that the cache could destroy not only Max, but all the men in the Poker Club. When I questioned her motive, she told me she’d discovered that Max was a truly evil man. Not merely weak, like most men, but evil. Her word. She’d always known that he cheated with other women. This was different. But she wouldn’t tell me how.”
“Do you know more than you originally told me about the affair between your mother and Max?”
“No. We never discussed that directly. Sally and I drank a lot of wine at that second meeting. At one point she said all human beings make terrible mistakes, and that she was no exception. When I asked what she’d done, she said she hadn’t paid attention to what was right in front of her. She’d taken things for granted.”
“Oh, man. Still, that’s pretty vague. She didn’t confide that she was terminally ill?”
“No. I could see she was deeply depressed, and I did wonder if she might be ill. But she never let on. Sally wasn’t one for self-pity. She didn’t want anybody thinking she was mortal. A hard road, but that was her generation, you know? Like my mom.”
“When did she tell you about Max being Kevin’s father?”
“Third meeting. Two nights before she died.”
“Where were you?”
“My house. That time, she didn’t seem upset at all. In fact, she was eerily calm. Looking back, everything seems as clear as day, of course. She’d made her peace with death. I was the one who was upset that night.”
“Did you suspect she was considering suicide?”
“I don’t know. All three times we met, I begged her to see someone. A professional. I really tried. But Sally said she was past that kind of help. She said she was in the kind of situation where nobody could help you but yourself.”
“Shit. So how did she tell you about Kevin’s paternity?”
“I’ll get to that. First she told me her plan. What I should do if anything happened to her. This made me think she was afraid of being killed, rather than thinking of suicide. And her plan was so detailed and masterful that I realized she must have been working on it for some time.”
“Ever since she figured out Max was Kevin’s father. But I’ve assumed that was only a few months ago, at most.”
Nadine nods. “She got suspicious about three months ago. Which is pretty strange, really. Because Tallulah, their maid, had suspected it from the time Kevin was an infant.”
“What do you think accounts for that?”
“Knowing what I know now? I think Sally had willfully blinded herself to something she didn’t want to see. Something that would have destroyed her family. But when a doctor told her she was going to die, her denial crumbled. Her protective instinct for her grandchild burned through it. She saw things as they really were. And it terrified her.”
I ask the question that has haunted me since last night. “Did Sally talk to Jet about the paternity issue?”
“What did Jet tell you about that?”
“She said they never talked about it. She thinks Sally died not knowing.”
Nadine looks incredulous. “Jet really believes that?”
“She did until last night. I think I probably cracked her faith in that notion. She’s out on the edge now, just like Paul.”
“And you’re in the middle.” Nadine shakes her head in the dashboard light. “Sally told me she never confronted Jet about the paternity issue. She worried that might trigger Jet to do something desperate, like leave town with Kevin.”
“Why did you say ‘confronted’ her? Jet was the victim in this.”
Nadine hesitates before answering. “You’re right. I don’t know why I said that.”
“You must have had a reason.”
She cuts her eyes at me. “This is dangerous ground, Marshall. You said Max tried to rape Jet tonight. So I’m probably full of shit.”
“Full of shit for what?”
Two pairs of headlights round a curve ahead and move toward us.
Apropos of nothing, Nadine says, “It’s weird owning a bookstore like I do.”