by Tami Hoag
“I don’t know. Maybe he got interrupted. Maybe a car came along and scared him off.”
“But this mystery car didn’t stop to help the woman?”
“Not everyone is a good Samaritan. Imagine driving down that creepy road in the dead of night and a bloody, screaming woman comes up in my headlights. If I’m a woman alone, would I dare stop? Or would I get the hell out of there?”
“You’d stop and get yourself ass-deep in alligators,” Nick said. “Or you’d call nine-one-one at the least. But not everyone is you. Not everyone would do either of those things.”
“I’m trained to know how to react in a crisis.”
“You’d do the right thing, trained or no. That’s who you are.”
“We all like to think we know what we would do in a crisis,” Annie said. “We’re all superheroes in our own minds. But in the reality of chaos? I think about this girl, Genevieve. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and there’s some monster in the house. Her child’s being attacked. She’s being attacked . . . It’s a nightmare come true. Regular people aren’t going to know what to do. She was in a fight for her life with a knife-wielding maniac. She reacted. There was no thought to that, no plan, just instinct. No time to form clear memories, even.”
“True enough,” he said.
Memory making was delegated to a meticulous part of the brain that took time to paint those pictures and absorb the emotions that went with them. The part of the brain where instinct lived had to function quickly as a matter of life or death. There was no luxury of time to process information. That was why eyewitnesses to traumatic events often got key details wrong.
Nick glanced at his watch. Dutrow would be about to start his dog and pony show for the media. He rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a sigh.
“Let’s go see what she has to say. Fill in some of these blanks, maybe.”
He went around the table to pull his wife’s chair out for her, leaned down, kissed the side of her neck, and whispered in her ear, “I’ll take you for pancakes after.”
A weary smile turned her lips. “Sweet talker. I guess I’ll leave that Snickers bar in my purse, then.”
“Save it for later,” he murmured. “Come on, partner. Let’s go to work.”
* * *
* * *
GENEVIEVE GAUTHIER LAY in her bed, staring into space at some imagined scene, paying no attention to them as they entered the room. He would never have recognized her from her driver’s license photo. She had taken a beating. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut. The deep purple bruising had come to the surface overnight, painting a grim picture on what Nick knew was a pretty face in normal circumstances. Her left shoulder was heavily bandaged, her arm in a sling. An IV line ran to the back of her right hand.
“Genevieve?” Annie asked quietly as they came alongside the bed. “I’m Detective Broussard. Do you remember me from last night?”
She looked at Annie without recognition, saying nothing, giving no indication whether she remembered her or not. She gave Nick the same blank look.
“This is Detective Fourcade,” Annie said. “He’s in charge of your case.”
“I’m sorry for what happened, Ms. Gauthier,” Nick murmured. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Where is he?” Genevieve asked, her voice little more than a rough whisper. “Where is my son? I don’t want him left alone,” she said. “He’s just a little boy.”
Annie flicked a glance at Nick. He kept his attention on Genevieve, checking her pupils, the vaguely glassy quality to her eyes. She was on something for pain, but the doctor had said nothing strong enough to alter her reality. The shock of what had happened to her may well have been enough to do that. Her mind was no doubt swimming in a whirlpool of shock, disbelief, denial, and residual terror. She wanted to believe her son was still alive. No one could fault her for that.
“Genevieve,” Annie said gently, “do you remember what happened last night? You told me someone came into your house and hurt you and hurt your son?”
The young woman glanced away, her respiration quickening. “Yes.”
Nick could feel the tension in his wife, the reluctance to be the one to deliver the bad news—for a second time, no less—though she would do it anyway. He touched his hand to the small of her back as a gesture of support.
“KJ didn’t make it, Genevieve,” she said sadly. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Tears magnified Genevieve Gauthier’s good eye. Her delicate, bruised chin quivered. “No. I don’t want to believe that. Where is he? I want to see him.”
“He’s in a safe place,” Nick said. “You don’t need to worry. No one can hurt him anymore.”
“I want to see him.”
“We can arrange that,” he said. “But right now, it’s very important that you tell me everything that happened last night. I need to get as much information from you as possible so we can catch the person who did this and put that person behind bars. We want to catch him before he can hurt anyone else.”
She nodded and sniffled. Two slow, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Annie pulled a tissue from the box on the bedside tray and handed it to her.
“Do you have any idea who did this to you?” Nick asked. “Did you recognize anything about this person?”
“No.”
“He didn’t look familiar at all?”
“It looked like the devil,” she whispered. “It was mostly dark. There was light coming from my room and KJ’s nightlight. Everything happened so fast . . . It didn’t seem real. I thought it was a nightmare. That red face. Black eyes . . .”
Nick thought of Roddie Perez, half of his head burned, the flesh red and gnarled; his long, deeply lined face. In a rage he might well look like the devil. But Genevieve Gauthier had said nothing about her neighbor.
“Ms. Gauthier, I want you to tell me everything what happened last night, starting from when you got home from work,” Nick said. “Was there anything unusual about the evening?”
“No,” she said, staring off into the middle distance, as if she was seeing a replay on some invisible screen. “We got home and had dinner. KJ had his bath. We went to bed.”
“Nothing unusual happened? No strange phone calls? No visitors?”
“No.”
“You didn’t notice a strange car go by? Nothing like that?”
“No.”
“When you turned in for the night, did you check your locks?”
“I always lock my doors.”
“But you had windows open.”
“It’s been so hot,” she said. “The air conditioners don’t work. I complained to the landlord, but . . .”
She let the sentence trail off. She seemed to struggle against the emotion that came with the idea that she may have lost her child for want of a working air conditioner in his bedroom window. A few hundred dollars that she didn’t have to spend and a skinflint landlord too cheap to do the right thing might have cost her her son.
“You went to bed,” Nick said, prompting her toward the worst of the story. “What woke you?”
“KJ,” she said. “I heard him cry out, and I felt a terrible pain in my chest, like I was being stabbed,” she said, pressing a hand against her sternum as if feeling for the knife.
“I tried to run to him,” she whispered, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I tripped and fell and hit my head so hard . . . And then I was in the hall, and I saw that creature standing there with the knife, but I didn’t . . . It didn’t make sense. I had to get to KJ, and I ran into his room, and he was there on the floor, and there was blood everywhere . . .”
In contrast to the image she painted with her words, she was as white as chalk.
“And I-I grabbed him and p-pulled him a-against me, and I-I screamed. And-and then he came at me with the knife.”
“Who came at you?” N
ick asked.
“The devil! He came after me with the knife.”
“He came back into your son’s room from the hall?” Annie asked.
“I-I just— I had to fight him.”
“You fought with him,” Nick said. “Did he try to force himself on you, sexually?”
“No,” she said, glancing away. “No. I had to get out. I had to get help! I thought he was going to kill me! I made it out the front door, and I j-just ran! Oh, my God! I was s-so a-afraid!”
“Where did you run to, Genevieve?” she asked.
“T-to the n-neighbor’s h-house.”
“The blue house next door?” Nick asked.
“No one answered,” she said. “I knocked and knocked. N-no one c-came. There was a light on, b-but no one came. It was like a terrible dream. And then I-I j-just kept r-running.”
“The man who attacked you. Did he follow you to the neighbor’s house? Did he chase you?”
“I-I just k-kept running,” she whispered.
Nick plugged Genevieve’s version of events into his memory of walking through the crime scene, matching her story to the evidence. The crime had begun in the boy’s room. A struggle had taken place in the hall and in the front room of the house. He believed Genevieve had been on Roddie Perez’s front porch, that her blood was on his front door.
But why was she still alive? Had the attacker panicked at the idea that she might alert her neighbor, and the neighbor would call 911? Had that spooked him into bolting? If Perez was their bad guy, if she ran to his house, why hadn’t he finished the job?
“Did you see or hear a car?” Annie asked.
She shook her head no. “I don’t understand why this happened,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Why would somebody do this to us?”
“It’s our job to find those answers, Ms. Gauthier,” Nick said. “Can you tell us if there’s anyone in your life you’re not getting along with? A boyfriend, ex-boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Are you in a relationship?”
“No.”
“What about your boy’s father?”
“He’s not part of our lives.”
“We’ll need to speak to him, just the same.”
“That’s not possible,” she said, looking away.
Meaning he was dead or gone or unknown to her; a one-night stand or a rapist or a love lost. Perhaps this man she wouldn’t name was the reason she had left Dulac and moved to Bayou Breaux for a fresh start in a strange place where no one knew her and she had no memories. She had memories now.
“How well do you know your neighbor in the blue house?” he asked.
“I don’t know him at all.”
“Have you seen him? Do you know what he looks like?”
“I’ve seen him drive by. I’ve seen him in his yard. That’s all.”
“You haven’t had any interactions with him?”
She said nothing for a few seconds, as if she was scouring her memory, then, “No. Well— Once, he yelled at KJ for climbing a tree near his property. KJ came crying. I was angry. He’s just a little boy. What harm was he doing, climbing a tree?”
“Did you say anything to this guy?” Annie asked.
“No. I just thought it best not to. I mind my own business. I don’t want any trouble. I told KJ to stay away from his yard—”
Her good eye widened as the possibility struck her. “You don’t think he—? Who would kill a little boy for climbing a tree? Oh, my God.”
“When did that happen?” Annie asked.
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“And your son didn’t say anything more about the man after that?”
“He was afraid the man would yell at him again or chase him, but it was just him being afraid. Nothing happened. He had some bad dreams, but it was just dreams. Do you think—? I don’t even know this man’s name!” she said, sounding incredulous at the idea a man she didn’t know might shatter her life for no reason. “Do you think he did it?”
“We’re just asking questions at this point,” Nick said. “We need to get a clear picture of everything going on in your life, who you might know, people you might have crossed paths with. Anyone who might have been angry with you for any reason.”
“I can’t believe someone I know could do such a thing.”
“Who do you rent the house from?” he asked.
“Mr. Carville. Roy Carville.”
“How long have you lived there?”
“We moved here in June.”
“From Dulac, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“What brought you to Bayou Breaux?”
She gave a little shrug with her good shoulder, looking away. “I needed a job. There was an opening where my aunt Clarice lives—Evangeline Oaks.”
“Clarice Marcel?”
“Yes,” she answered, giving him a quizzical look. “Do you know her?”
“What do you do there?” he asked, leaving her question hanging.
“I’m an aide. And I help out some in the office. Mr. Avery, the administrator, says I might work into being a receptionist soon. He thinks I have good people skills. When can I see KJ?”
“You get along with your co-workers?”
“Yes,” she said, glancing away, looking toward the door. Her respiration had picked up. She was growing anxious, tired of the tedious questions. “When can I see my son? You said I could see him.”
Nick glanced at Annie and stepped back from the bed. She moved with him, turning her back to their victim.
“What do you think?” he asked softly. “The boy is right down the hall. Is it better for her to see him or not? That’s gonna be a bad shock all over again.”
“If it was me and I knew my child was down the hall, wild horses wouldn’t keep me from him,” Annie murmured. “Shock or no. Alive or not. And if it was you,” she added, “you would’ve already torn the doors off the morgue.”
“True enough,” he conceded as Genevieve Gauthier began to cry behind them, a soft, eerie keening sound that slowly rose in pitch and volume, making the short hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
“Please,” she sobbed. “I just want to see my baby! Please let me see my baby!”
Annie turned back to her, to offer what comfort she could. “We’ll take you to see him now, Genevieve,” she said on a sad, weary sigh. “We’ll take you to see your baby.”
ELEVEN
Do you have any idea who did this to you?” the detective asked.
Me, she thought. It was my fault. It’s always my fault, one way or another.
She didn’t say it.
“Did you recognize anything about this person?”
Evil. She recognized evil in all its forms.
“It didn’t seem real,” she said. “I thought it was a nightmare . . .”
“Was there anything unusual about the evening?”
“No.”
She replayed the day in her mind: Jeff’s callous coolness to her in the office. She’d spent most of the day on the brink of tears. Picking up KJ at the Florettes’. KJ crying, wound up like a top, no sign of Nora anywhere. Jojean’s snippy, dismissive remark when Genevieve had called her to complain. This was her life—just another day full of hard work and disappointment.
She’d had a sick headache by the time they got home. Pills for her dinner: one for the pain, one for her nerves, neither making a difference. Her patience was frayed down to the nub. KJ had refused to eat anything but Cheetos, whining and fighting with her at every turn. She had been at the end of her rope. She had lost her temper with him.
Was there anything unusual about the evening?
No, not at all.
“. . . KJ had his bath. We went to bed . . .”
. . . in the stifling heat of a house with no working
air-conditioning and not a breath of wind coming in through the windows.
“. . . you had windows open.”
“. . . I complained to the landlord, but . . .”
Roy Carville. She could see him in her mind’s eye as plain as day: bald as a billiard ball, skin stretched as tight over his bony little skull as a condom on a bulging penis. He had a laugh like a hyena’s, and when he laughed, his eyes disappeared into slits in his face.
“Air conditioners don’t grow on trees, Miss Gauthier,” he said in his squeaky, scratchy voice. “But maybe, if you’re a good girl . . .”
He’d laughed at what he left unsaid.
Her stomach turned at the thought. Why did men always have to be that way? Everything in their world had a sexual price. No need for a woman to have money as long as she had a vagina she didn’t mind sharing or a mouth she didn’t mind using like one.
“Can you tell us if there’s anyone in your life you’re not getting along with?” the detective asked. “. . . A boyfriend, ex-boyfriend? . . . What about your boy’s father? . . . How well do you know your neighbor in the blue house? . . . What brought you to Bayou Breaux?”
The questions swarmed around her head like bees, loud, annoying, dizzying, dangerous bees. She didn’t have the answers he wanted. Her head was pounding. The pain in her shoulder throbbed and burned. She wanted yesterday back. She wanted her boy back. Could she just turn back time—a day, a week, a year, eight years?
“When can I see my son?” she asked, tears rising. “You said I could see him . . . I just want to see my baby! Please let me see my baby!”
* * *
* * *
THEY TOOK HER by wheelchair, the woman detective pushing her, the male detective going on ahead of them and disappearing into a room at the far end of the long hallway.
Strange, Genevieve thought, how it made her feel special to have the attention of these people, even though the circumstances were terrible. In the normal course of things, she lived her life unnoticed. In her experience, she was safer that way, off to the side, at the edge of the shadows, quietly putting one foot in front of the other, keeping her head down. But she was the star of the story today. The starring actress in a real-life horror movie.