The Whispering Room

Seventeen

Mitchell 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. Evangeline 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.