Louis’s wife Celia sat in a swinging bench on her front porch and watched the maelstrom approach. Her face was blank and she wore a small white dress, like a bride in mourning. I parked in the driveway.
“I knew you’d come,” she said, very soft, as I came up the wooden steps. She didn’t look at me. “Even if I didn’t want you to, not really.”
“Where’s Louis?”
“You think he tells me where he’s going? Probably a truck stop.”
“He frequents those?” I said.
“No. It is the slow ruination of innocence he enjoys, I think. For him, sex is more than carnal.”
“True for all of us, Celia. Your text message said you could help me but didn’t explain how.”
“You are still investigating, I hear.”
“I am.”
“And?”
“Tomorrow’s an important day. If it doesn’t go right, your husband will ruin lives because of jealous rage,” I said.
“Mine’s been ruined for decades.”
“He might kill a teenager.”
“He wouldn’t. Louis doesn’t have the balls for it.”
“You know what it means to be invisible,” I said. “It’s a crushing and helpless feeling. If Louis gets his way, no one will hire these kids again. Their livelihoods will be ruined. One of the guy’s married with a kid.”
“Nicholas, you mean. They’re doomed for failure.”
“Not yet. You gave up a long time ago. His wife hasn’t. Tell me why you texted.”
“Why are you still trying? I don’t understand. Your services were terminated. You should be invisible too.”
“Not everyone cares about the victims. Hardly anyone cares about the snitch. But I do.”
“Trying to save yourself, Mr. August?” A bitter mocking smile. Could have learned it from her husband. “So you don’t become invisible. Save yourself, along with everyone else?”
“Maybe on some level.”
“Who am I kidding. You’re a man. A handsome one, and you’ll age well. You will never be invisible.”
I spread out my hands, like—why am I here?
She still wasn’t looking at me. “Perhaps, Mr. August, as you said, on some level I’m trying to save myself.” She stood. Smoothed her dress and placed a hand on the door knob. “Let me show you something. Let me show you how deeply mad my husband is.”
She led me inside.
The carpets were two decades out of style. The walls were papered. She’d decorated the corners and surface tops with pottery and porcelain knickknacks. No plants, no photographs. The home of the wealthy and the lonely.
I followed her downstairs, through an unfinished hallway with low ceilings, and into a hidden office. Cramped but richly furnished.
“I’m not allowed in here, you understand,” she said. “But sometimes I profane his holy temple for spite.”
The room smelled faintly like the musty basement of a hundred-year-old house, but more like incense and furniture polish and good leather. A Bible was open to the New Testament on a side table. Next to the book was a vial of cocaine. On the wall, a wooden crucifix. Below it, a framed photograph of Louis with his arms around the neck of his son.
I had the creeps. A room of warfare, and the soul of Lindsey was the prize. Also, if this was an ambush it was a good one—no one outside would hear gunshots.
“This book,” she said and she placed her hand on a leather binder next to Louis’s laptop. “This will make your toes curl, Mr. August.”
I flipped it open. The book was filled with printouts of emails. The first page was dated fifteen years ago. I didn’t recognize the email addresses. Within a few sentences it become a love note. I flipped the page. The next email was less a love note and more a short story of debauchery. The third page contained a lewd photograph of a man tied in bondage straps and smiling.
“Louis prints them and deletes the digital copy. So even if you subpoena for the records, the evidence is long gone,” she said.
And yet, I thought, it was also under my fingers. My shaking fingers.
“Take what you like, Mr. August.” She paused to pick up the vial of cocaine adjacent to the Bible. She smiled, shook it a little, and slipped it into her dress. “Maybe the things in this office will help you. I always liked Jeremy and Nicholas. Even if Nicholas’s wife is a bitch.”
“When does Louis return?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Mr. August. You should hurry. Also, on his laptop, you’ll find a folder marked Scripture. It’s not scripture. It’s full of photographs he takes with a high-powered camera. Photographs of his obsessions. Never…never of me. Who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself.”
She left. The stairs made no noise as she ascended, she was so thin.
I stared at the plethora of evidence before me. Few men were less fit for a Christian clergy collar, I thought. He had dozens, maybe hundreds, of lovers beyond the boundary of his marriage vows. How much of Louis’s cybersexual historia involved harassment? I didn’t have time to peruse. Nor the inclination. I hadn’t been hired to humiliate someone. Would any of this be admissible in court? Maybe if I had an attorney with a sterling reputation with the judge…
The binder of Louis’s escapades was arranged chronologically, so I flipped to the back. Found a couple pages from Nicholas that I ignored momentarily. Kept looking, kept scanning…but saw nothing that struck me as originating from Alec Ward.
I didn’t want to take any evidence that would arouse Louis’s suspicion. Ideally he’d walk into the office and notice nothing amiss. But also I wanted to remove any notes written by Jeremy or Nicholas that Louis could use to ruin them. Would he notice the theft? Maybe, but only on close inspection and I had to take the risk. I removed three emails from Nicholas. I searched backwards until 2015 but saw nothing related to Jeremy Cameron. Thank God.
I’d been here too long. Time to go.
Mackenzie August getting a little antsy. And Celia had been right—my toes were curling.
On the computer, I located the file marked Scripture. I opened it and found hundreds of photos. Far too many to search through. Did I need to? Would any of this help?
Maybe not. But it’d be nice for the police to see, if it came to that.
I found an old flash drive in his bottom drawer. Dusty, hadn’t been used in years. I plugged it in and copied the photos to the flash drive and pocketed it.
On the way out, Celia said, “Goodbye, Mr. August. I hope we never meet again.”
Which, I thought, was hurtful.