by Tami Hoag
Nick knew what the Theriots were going through just as well as he knew that, until something shook loose in the case, there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.
“You’re not abandoning her,” Annie said softly.
She stood in the doorway, not five feet away. Too far. He could have stood to put his arms around her for a while, to feel her arms around him, but that wasn’t an option, not here.
“I know,” he said on a sigh. “That doesn’t make it easier to have to set her aside for the time being. And it certainly won’t make it easier to explain it to Bobby Theriot.”
“You can only do what you can do when you can do it. Focus on the task at hand, Fourcade. Murder trumps everything.”
He gave her a look from under his eyebrows. “How’d you get to be so smart?”
A little smile turned the corners of her mouth. “I have an excellent mentor. He’s a hard-ass, to be sure, but he knows his stuff.”
“You learn well.”
“I’m a work in progress.”
“So are we all, cher,” he murmured. “That journey has no end.”
“Well, my journey is taking me out of here,” she said. “I’m going to try to track down Genevieve’s babysitter, see if she noticed anything out of the ordinary yesterday.”
“Good.”
“Don’t expect too much insight,” she warned. “She’s twelve.”
“Years old? Mon Dieu. She left her child with a child?”
“Just for a couple of hours after school,” Annie explained. “Jaime said the girl collected KJ when school let out and entertained him until Genevieve got off work. It’s not much of a thread, but I’ll give it a tug.”
“Tug away. Are you picking Justin up?”
“No, Remy is. He’s taking the kids out to the Corners for supper with Fanchon and Sos. I had a feeling we could be in for a late night. If not, we can always go get him.”
“Tell Remy I’ll stop by later one way or the other,” Nick said, going to his desk. His next job would be downloading the crime scene photos of KJ Gauthier’s murder from his camera to his computer. Already his memory was calling the pictures up in his mind: the boy lying dead on the floor in his Spider-Man pajamas, his kitten rubbing against his lifeless little foot. “I’m not going this day without hugging my son.”
* * *
* * *
HE LOOKED AT the photographs on his monitor one by one as he organized them into a folder for the case, duplicating, cropping, enlarging, zooming in on individual wounds, making notations, and jotting down questions as he went.
In photographs, the dead never looked real. Crime scenes always looked like scenes from a movie. Absent the smell of death, absent the lingering air of fear and violence and evil, Nick could more easily separate himself from the emotions that saturated a death scene. And still it was all he could do to keep the rage at bay looking at the photos of KJ Gauthier.
He worked hard to focus on what the sequence of events must have been. The assumption was that the killer had come in through the open bedroom window—the point of least resistance in a house where half the windows were painted shut. That was the assumption. Because of the rain, they didn’t have any physical evidence from outside that window to confirm the assumption. If the universe was feeling benevolent, they might get a hit on fingerprints from the window frame. Nick wasn’t going to hold his breath for that.
Had the assailant known the child would be there in that room? If the answer was yes, then he was probably known to the family or had at the very least cased the place on a prior occasion and was familiar with the layout of the house and the habits of its occupants.
Judging by the blood spatter, the attack had initiated on the bed, meaning the assailant had come armed. Thinking of the wounds he had observed on the dead boy’s body at the morgue—small with clean, smooth edges—his educated guess was that the weapon was a sharp knife with a narrow blade. Something like a boning knife as opposed to a hunting knife.
The child must have awakened, possibly made a sound. Otherwise, why not just creep through the room and go on to Genevieve? The killer had struck the boy in a frenzy, in a panic. The child had struggled, had made it out of the bed. The blood told the story.
An inexperienced killer, Nick thought. It didn’t take ten or more strikes to kill a small child if the killer was calm and focused. The wounds were all over—the face, the neck, the chest. One or two stabs to the chest would have done the job. One slice across the throat would have ended life in an instant.
An inexperienced killer—or an emotional one.
Overkill was always an indicator of emotion—anger, hatred, fear, sexual excitement (stabbing was commonly considered a sexually motivated method of killing, depending on the victim). This murder didn’t appear in any other way to be sexual in nature, though nothing was outside the realm of possibility. Nick had seen firsthand that there was no bottom to the depths of depravity in mankind. He had seen children used and abused in the most horrific ways imaginable—beyond the imagining of most right-minded people. But he didn’t feel that was the case here. KJ Gauthier lay on the floor of his room, his pajamas undisturbed, his body unmolested save for the stab wounds.
Genevieve said she had awakened to her son’s cries. She fell and struck her head getting out of bed. Did that fall account for her black eye and concussion?
She proceeded to go into the hall, going toward her son’s bedroom, and saw a figure standing in the hall, brandishing a knife, but the assailant allowed her to continue into her son’s room.
She saw KJ on the floor. There was blood everywhere, she said. How did she see the blood? Had KJ’s nightlight and the moonlight coming through the window been sufficient?
She fell to the floor and pulled him to her—which explained the blood that soaked the T-shirt she had been wearing when she had arrived at the hospital.
The shirt was now hanging on a clothesline in Evidence, drying. Because Dutrow had nixed the call to the LSP to process the scene, the shirt would now go with the other testable evidence gathered to the regional Acadiana Criminalistics Lab in New Iberia—a facility besieged by budget cuts and staff reductions, which meant backlogs and longer wait times for results. But he couldn’t allow that frustration to distract him just now. He had to remain focused on putting together a probable scenario for what had happened to Genevieve Gauthier and her son.
Genevieve said she had gone to her child and the assailant then entered the bedroom and came at her with the knife.
Here the story became very sketchy, far less detailed—which could have easily been attributed to panic. Nick had to try to envision the scene and imagine the details that would fill in the blanks. Was Genevieve kneeling on the floor with her son in her arms when the assailant came into the room? With the position of his body on the floor beside the bed, she would have had her back to the door.
Nick visualized the assailant’s point of view, coming through that door. Two steps and he would have been plunging the knife into her back or grabbing her hair, yanking her head back and slitting her throat. If his intent had been sexual assault, he would have easily gained control of her there. How had she gotten away? How had she even gained her feet?
She said she pulled her son against her and screamed. If she was screaming, she wouldn’t have heard footsteps coming. Could her angle have been such that she could have caught a blur of movement out the corner of her eye?
She had somehow gotten to her feet. There had been a struggle. A struggle between a concussed, unarmed woman who weighed 115 pounds, according to her driver’s license, and an armed assailant of undetermined size, presumed to be male, yet she had managed to fend him off. How? With what?
At some point during that struggle, someone had touched the wall near the door, leaving what might have been a partial handprint. Nick clicked on the enlarged photo and stared at it. He g
uessed the shape was maybe the lower third of a hand, but there were no whorls or ridges indicative of flesh. Nor was there the smooth smearing that might have suggested a glove.
The struggle had continued through the door and down the hall, into the front room. Genevieve had managed to make it to the front door, unlock it, and get out. She had fled down the gravel road, barefoot, to Roddie Perez’s house.
Why hadn’t the killer run her down? Had she somehow managed to injure him in the struggle? Had he weighed the possibility of the neighbor intervening or calling 911 and decided it wasn’t worth the risk?
Or was he the neighbor?
But if Roddie Perez had perpetrated the attack, why then wouldn’t he have finished the job?
Releasing a big sigh, Nick stood up, stretched, and rubbed his hands over his face. He needed coffee and wanted a cigarette. He would settle for the first.
Quinlan had gone from the bullpen, leaving Dixon alone, still clacking away on her computer.
“Got anything for me yet?” Nick asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter. God only knew how long it had been sitting there. It was black and bitter, and the caffeine hit him in the head like a hammer.
“I’m not sure,” she said, her attention on her monitor. “I’m looking into that possession charge. It shows up in one place but not in another. I mean in one universe, that was part of the arrest, and the charge was dismissed, and in another universe, it never happened at all.”
“Clerical error?”
“Could be. Must be.”
“Keep at it. See if you can get hold of the original arrest report.”
“I can’t find it in the database.”
“Then call the arresting agency and see if someone might dig it up for you. Gotta be in the archives somewhere.”
“I’ll try harder,” Dixon said. “I also found she has a juvenile record. Do you want me to look into that, too?”
“The other is the priority—”
The office door swung open and Stokes made his usual entrance, looking left and right for an audience.
“Winn-Dixie! Where y’at? What’s the special of the day? You got something sweet for me?”
Dixon didn’t bat an eye. “The big fat knuckle sandwich with a side of whoop-ass.”
Stokes grabbed an apple out of the basket on the counter and polished it on his chest. “Damn, girl, you crush my heart on a daily basis.”
“Then why ain’t you dead yet?”
“Enough with the sexual harassment,” Nick growled at Stokes. “If Dixon makes me write you up, I’m gonna kick your ass. I got no time for bullshit now.”
“It’s not sexual harassment,” Stokes argued. “Winn-Dixie and I have an understanding. Just a little teasing among friends. Am I right, or am I right?”
“Right,” Dixon said, a smile tugging at one side of her mouth. “I understand you’re an aging dinosaur who doesn’t know any better.”
“Aging?!” Stokes winced. “Ouch!”
“Truth hurts, mon ami,” Nick remarked. “Now, did you just come in here to act a fool, or have you got something to say that isn’t legally actionable?”
Stokes took a big bite out of the apple, nodding. “I came to take you away from all of this, my friend. I tracked down Miz Gauthier’s landlord, Mr. Roy Carville. Turns out he keeps some interesting company.”
“Such as?”
“Everybody’s favorite drug dealer, Roddie Perez.”
SIXTEEN
Club Cayenne squatted on the industrial edge of Bayou Breaux, convenient to a liquor store that offered check cashing, and half a dozen businesses with predominantly male employees—welders, pipe fitters, heavy-equipment mechanics, and the like. The building was long and low, made of concrete block, and painted purple, with a roof of rusted corrugated tin. Neon signs in the dark windows advertised Bud Light and topless dancers.
Stokes pulled the Charger into a handicapped parking spot near the door, killed the engine, and flipped down the visor with the sticker for the Sheriff’s Office on it.
“Trust you to know what lowlifes are hanging out at the topless bars,” Nick remarked.
“Excuse me!” Stokes exclaimed with a show of offense, pressing a hand to his chest like an old woman with the vapors. “I’ll have you know I am a patron of the arts. I have a fine appreciation for modern dance.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I take it upon myself to encourage these young ladies in this formative stage of their careers.”
“That’s mighty big of you.”
“Just trying to contribute to humanity, you know what I’m saying? Giving back to the community.”
“You’re a regular philanthropist, I’m sure.”
Nick shook his head and climbed out of the car. He had spotted Roddie Perez’s matte black four-by-four truck at the far end of the crushed-shell parking lot as they had approached the bar. He walked down to it now and circled it. It was a nice truck, newer and nicer than an ex-con on disability should have been able to afford. A drug dealer, on the other hand . . . A small red light blinked on the rearview mirror, indicating the alarm was on.
He went over to the dumpster at the end of the building, pulled a bottle crate out of the pile beside it, took it back, and used it for a step so he could peer inside without touching the truck.
The interior of the cab was as much of a mess as Perez’s kitchen—junk mail and fast food bags, an ashtray full of butts, a couple of empty crushed beer cans on the floor of the passenger’s side.
“The man is a pig,” Nick announced. “And that’s an insult to pigs.”
“He got anything good in there we can bust him for?” Stokes asked. “Guns? Drugs? A kidnapped woman?”
“No such luck. He’s a slob, but he’s not stupid. What’s him being here seeing the sights got to do with Roy Carville?”
“Carville brothers own this place. T-Rex and Roy. ’Course there’s about eighty-two Carvilles ’round these parts, three or four of them named Roy. It took a couple of phone calls to get pointed to this one. As I was driving up, I see Roddie heading inside. I figured you might want to tag along.”
“You never saw Perez here before?”
“Contrary to your low opinion of me, I don’t spend all that much time here.”
“Only because you prefer strippers to topless dancers.”
“A better value for my hard-earned dollar.”
“You’re a practical man,” Nick remarked. He hopped down off the crate and took it back to where he’d gotten it.
Cold beer and naked dancing girls being a siren song on a stifling hot day, the parking lot was filling up with men whose work shift had ended at three. The smell of sweat, beer, and cigarettes filled the entrance to the club like a thick, acrid perfume.
Nick followed Stokes in, shoving his sunglasses on top of his head and scanning the scene. The music was loud and lively swamp pop—Waylon Thibodeaux’s apropos “My Baby Don’t Wear No Drawers.” The air temperature was frigid to encourage stiff nipples and enthusiastic dancing by the two girls on duty on the pair of catwalks that jutted out from the far end of the room.
As they walked into the bar, a waitress with blond pigtails and a cutoff, see-through Club Cayenne T-shirt made a beeline for Nick, leading with her breasts.
“What can I get for you, handsome?” she asked with her best sexy smile, eyelashes batting.
“You’re wasting your time on him, Doreen,” Stokes said, trying to draw her attention to himself.
“Why is that? Is he gay?”
“Worse than that, sugar. Nicky, he’s a moral man.”
“They always turn out to be the kinkiest kind,” she said, her eyes still on Nick. “All those repressed desires. You can unleash them with me, Moral Man. I get off at nine. Bring your handcuffs. In the meantime, we got a two-drink minimu
m, gentlemen.”
Nick held up his badge. “We gotta pass on that, ma’am. We’re looking for Mr. Roy Carville.”
“What’s that weasel done now?”
“What’d he do before?”
“He’s always got some kind of hustle going on,” she said. “But you didn’t hear that from me, honey. I need this job. He’s on the far side of the bar, the bald-headed little squinty-eyed, rat-faced bastard.”
He spotted Carville off the description—a small bald man with a pinched face, gesticulating with a cigarette in his hand as he spoke to none other than Roddie Perez.
Nick glanced at Stokes. “Tip the lady.”
“That’s the other thing,” Stokes grumbled, fishing a five-dollar bill out of his pants pocket. “He’s cheap.”
“You’re the one only giving me five bucks, Chaz,” the waitress pointed out.
Nick was already moving through the crowd toward the far side of the bar. He came up behind Perez and placed a hand firmly at the base of his neck.
“Fancy finding you here, Roddie,” he said loudly into Perez’s hearing aid.
Perez jumped and twisted around on his bar stool. “Well, if it ain’t Detective X,” he said loudly. “Me, I’m just here complaining to my landlord about the vermin what got into my house this morning.”
“You can’t be referring to my partner and me,” Nick said, helping himself to a cigarette out of the pack on the bar next to Perez’s drink. “We were invited in, as I recall,” he said, on a long stream of smoke.
“You have a poor memory. And you never came back with no warrant, neither. Now here you are, harassing me, a law-abiding citizen.”