The Whispering Room

“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.”

“By charismatic, you’re talking about snake-handling churches, right?” Evangeline felt both dread and impatience for what she suspected lay ahead.

“There are only a handful of small congregations that observe this practice,” Lena said. “But, yes. The church where Mary Alice and her children worshipped believed in taking up serpents.”

Lovely, Evangeline thought with a shiver. “Please go on,” she said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your train of thought.”

“No, that’s fine. You’re bound to have questions. Believe me, I know how all this sounds. But as I said, context is everything.” She paused, as if trying to remember where she left off. “One day Charles left on a business trip and never returned. He just simply vanished. Everyone assumed he’d walked out on his family. But when the police arrested Mary Alice for the murder of her children, she also confessed to killing her husband. She claimed she’d discovered that he was abusing their young daughters. She also feared that he may have been responsible for the disappearances of at least two young women from towns that were along his sales route.”

“Were her claims substantiated?”

“The records involving the children are sealed,” Lena said. “So I can’t speak to that. As for the disappearances…no bodies were ever found. But I suspect Mary Alice was right. However, given what she did to her own children, you can understand why the authorities were skeptical. I doubt her claims were ever properly investigated. What I do know is that Charles’s behavior fit the pattern of his father and brother, and I think Mary Alice was aware of that. Which is why she had to kill her children in order to save their souls.”

“That’s a hard sale,” Evangeline said. “Because what you’re saying is that she killed her sons so they wouldn’t grow up to be like their father and grandfather. That’s a huge assumption to make, especially where your children’s lives are at stake.”

“For Mary Alice it wasn’t an assumption, though. It was a matter of faith. Even so, her dilemma must have been heart-wrenching. Think about it.” She leaned forward, forearms on her knees as her gaze burned into Evangeline’s. “How far would you go to protect your son? Would you willingly sacrifice your own soul in order to procure his eternal salvation?”

“Now you’re making an assumption,” Evangeline said. “You’re assuming she told the truth about her motivation.”

The blue eyes darkened. “What is truth? Your truth? My truth? Mary Alice’s truth?”

“I’m not much on moral relativism,” Evangeline said. “It’s hard for me to get past the fact that she murdered her children in cold blood. That’s the only truth that matters to me.”

“You’re not alone.” Lena sat back against the sofa. Some of her energy seemed to have drained away. “Most people thought Mary Alice should have gone to the electric chair. Instead, she’s spent the past thirty-some years in a mental hospital. I don’t know which would have been the kinder fate.”

“What happened to the little girls?”

“They were separated and put in foster care. The older girl, Ruth, was adopted by a family in Baton Rouge. Her name was changed, of course, and from what I’ve been able to learn, she grew up in a stable, loving environment. Rebecca wasn’t so lucky. She’s been under psychiatric care since she was a teenager. Three years ago, her doctor committed her to Pinehurst Manor, in East Faliciana Parish.”

“I know where Pinehurst Manor is,” Evangeline said.

“Then you probably also know that up until a few years ago, it was a low- to medium-security facility. When Katrina hit, some of the patients in maximum-security units were evacuated and sent to places like Pinehurst. Mary Alice was one of those patients.”

“You’re saying she and her daughter ended up in the same mental hospital?”

“For a short while, yes.”