by Tami Hoag
“It wasn’t a formal interview,” Annie assured her. “Just a conversation.”
“And this conversation took place in the park,” Dutrow stated. “The park between the two schools.”
“Yes.”
“Around four o’clock.”
“Yes,” Annie said, annoyed with his interruptions. Did he think he was showing off his interviewing skills? For what purpose? To impress the soon-to-be missus?
“Is Cameron here?” she asked.
Dutrow cut a hard look at his fiancée. “Call him.”
“Kelvin—”
“Get him in here. Now.”
Dutrow didn’t raise his voice. If anything, he lowered it, but the tension was unmistakable. A muscle in the sheriff’s jaw was pulsing. Sharon had gone a little pale. Annie thought there might have been tears in her eyes as she hurried from the living room.
“Do you think this babysitter might be involved in the murder?” the sheriff asked, turning toward her.
He had taken up what Annie thought of as his commando stance—feet apart, shoulders back, hands on his hips. Dressed for a SWAT raid, he was the opposite of his predecessor in almost every way—which was probably why Gus had picked him. After more than two decades of familiarity with Gus Noblier, Dutrow was someone to come into the office and crack the whip and make everyone toe the line, a reboot of the SO for the future. It might have been a good idea in theory.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t imagine she is. How could a twelve-year-old girl be mixed up in a murder? But I’m not a fan of coincidence, either. The mother is of a mind that the girl has run away but probably hasn’t gone far. They had a blowout Monday. Chances are, that’s all this is about, but at the same time, a child is missing. We can’t just assume she’ll be home by morning.”
Dutrow nodded almost absently. His attention was on the muffled voices coming from deeper in the house.
“Cameron, get in here!” he barked so suddenly and so loudly, Annie startled.
The boy came into the room reluctantly, one arm across his stomach as if he was in pain, his shoulders rounded as if he wanted to shrink into himself and disappear. He looked like he’d been in a fight or run over by a truck, with scrapes and burgeoning bruises on his face, hands, and arms. His mother walked beside him with a hand pressed reassuringly to his back. The pair of them looked like they were going to their deaths.
“Hey, Cameron,” Annie said, trying to offer him a friendly face. “Looks like you had a little run-in after I saw you today. Should I be worried about the other guy?”
“Detective Broussard has some questions for you,” Dutrow said, his voice curt and hard as he stepped too close to the boy. “You will answer her. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Cameron mumbled, looking down at the floor.
“Eyes up and speak clearly!” the sheriff snapped.
The boy’s chin began to quiver.
“Kelvin, please—” Sharon started.
He cut her off with a look.
“You will answer the detective’s questions,” he said again. “And then you’ll answer mine.”
Tears welled in the boy’s eyes. Annie could feel his misery from ten feet away.
“Is there something going on here I should know about?” she asked, looking to the sheriff.
“A family matter,” Dutrow said. “It doesn’t concern you or what you need. Ask your questions.”
Annie wished she could ask him to leave the room, but she knew that wouldn’t fly. There was nothing to do but get it over with. Though maybe if she could drag it out she could defuse the tension . . .
“Maybe we could sit down,” she suggested.
“He can stand,” Dutrow insisted. “Get on with it, Detective Broussard.”
Annie took a long breath, just to make Dutrow wait, hoping he would hear the echo of his own assholishness hanging in the air, knowing he wouldn’t. Men like Dutrow never heard themselves as wrong or even mistaken. His was the voice of truth and judgment.
“Cameron,” she began, “I went to Nora’s house after I saw you and Lola and Dean in the park, and she wasn’t there. No one seems to know where she is. Has she, by any chance, been in contact with you today or this evening?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I don’t want you to worry that she’s going to be in any trouble or that you’re going to get in any trouble because you told me,” Annie said. “We need to find her. That’s the only important thing here. I know she had a fight with her mom and that they’re not getting along, but now her mom is worried sick about her,” she lied. “All she wants is for Nora to come home.
“Did she say anything to you at all about running away from home?” she asked.
He didn’t make eye contact. His gaze darted up and down and side to side like a hummingbird unable to land.
“Cameron!” Dutrow barked.
The boy flinched like a frightened animal. “S-she s-said she ought to,” he mumbled.
“She said she ought to run away?” Annie asked. “When was this?”
Cameron sniffled and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Y-yesterday.”
“Did she say where she might go?”
He shook his head.
“Who is this girl you’re talking about?” Sharon asked.
“Nora Florette,” Annie said. “She lives not far from here.”
“Florette,” Sharon repeated, using the same inflection Jessica Troiano had used—flat with an undercurrent of annoyance.
“You know the family?”
“Oh, yes.” She turned to her son, clearly perturbed. “What are you doing hanging around with that girl?”
“Nothing! I wasn’t!”
“Clearly you were! Don’t lie to me, Cameron.”
“I can’t help it if we walk the same way to school!” the boy whined.
“Oh? And it’s not your fault you were hanging out in the park with her either, I suppose?”
“I don’t even like her!” Cameron said, his voice cracking. “She’s stupid and annoying!”
“Ms. Spicer,” Annie interrupted. “What’s your objection to this girl?”
“She is not the kind of young lady I want around my son,” Sharon said with self-righteous indignation. “She’s fresh and immature and a thief. She stole a trinket box from this house when she had no business being here in the first place. Cameron is not allowed to have friends over without an adult present. And her mother—”
“Is irrelevant,” Dutrow announced impatiently. “Cameron, do you know where this girl is?”
“No, sir.”
“You had better not be lying to me. You are not going to enjoy the consequences of that, I guarantee.”
“I’m not lying!” Cameron wailed. “I’m gonna throw up!”
“Oh, for the love of God,” Dutrow grumbled, disgusted.
The boy doubled over, holding his stomach, sobbing. Sharon started to reach out to him but stepped back at the sheriff’s expression.
Annie watched the silent exchange with anxiety. She had been called to many a domestic dispute over the years, had acted as referee and buffer, diplomat and defender. She didn’t have those options here. The male with the simmering rage issue was her boss. Kelvin Dutrow was the absolute power in Partout Parish. Only the governor of Louisiana had more power than a parish sheriff. Dutrow didn’t have to listen to her or fear her. If he didn’t like the tone of her voice, he could fire her on the spot. And yet, her instincts were telling her to find a way to intervene.
“I think we’re done here, Detective,” the sheriff said, as if he was reading her mind. “If this girl has run away, you have an investigation to organize.”
“The Florettes live inside the city limits,” Annie said. “It’s not our jurisdiction.”
“Then you’
ll have to coordinate with the Bayou Breaux PD. Keep me apprised. I’ll reach out to Chief Earl and offer the full support of the Sheriff’s Office in any search efforts.”
Annie looked at Sharon Spicer, who had taken the moment of her fiancé’s distraction to go to her son and comfort him.
“Yes, sir,” Annie murmured. She dug a business card out of her pocket and placed it on the coffee table. “Ms. Spicer, if you’d care to lodge a formal complaint about the item you believe Nora stole, please feel free to call me.”
Dutrow snatched up the card and stuck it in his pocket. “She knows who to call on. I’ll show you out.”
Annie hesitated, her mind scrambling for some excuse to stay, some extra question to ask, some Columbo moment of “just one more thing.”
“Cameron, does Nora carry a backpack to school?” she asked. Dutrow huffed an impatient sigh beside her.
“I guess so,” the boy mumbled, looking confused. “Everyone does.”
“Did she have it with her going home yesterday?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“He doesn’t know,” the sheriff grumbled, herding her toward the front entry.
“Is there some reason Cameron shouldn’t have been in the park today?” Annie asked quietly as they went.
“It doesn’t concern you,” Dutrow replied.
“Sheriff,” she said as he opened the front door and held it. “I think you should know that Cameron is getting bullied at school. Verbally and physically, I think. He may need someone to intervene for him.”
“Cameron needs to learn how to take care of himself,” Dutrow said without sympathy.
“But, sir—”
He held up a hand to cut her off. His expression was carefully blank, but Annie could feel the tension in him. It rolled off him like heat from a furnace. “My family is not your concern, Detective. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You would do well to put your worry to your own family situation.”
“Sir?” Even as she asked, a chill ran down her back.
“Your husband is hanging on to his job by a thread after that stunt he pulled tonight at the hospital.”
“Stunt? That was an ambush—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Dutrow snapped. “Every time I turn around I’ve got another fire to put out, and the source of the blaze is named Fourcade. It seems to me my life would be a lot easier without him in it.”
“You’d lose the best detective you ever had.”
“I think I’d make do.”
“He wouldn’t be the only one to go.”
“I think you overestimate your husband’s popularity. Unless you’re only talking about yourself, in which case, you had ought to be more prudent. You have a child to consider, don’t you?”
Annie stood mute, knowing any of the dozen things she wanted to say would only make the situation worse. Dutrow held all the power, and he knew it, and he enjoyed it. She could see it in his eyes. The pleasure he derived from rendering her helpless had a creepy, almost sexual aura that made her skin crawl. And now she was going to have to surrender and leave, and he would go back inside the house and exert that power over a sobbing fourteen-year-old who wasn’t living up to his standard of manliness.
The words she wanted to say congealed into a thick lump in her throat. The frustration felt like scalding steam inside her head.
“You have a job to do, Detective,” Dutrow said coolly. “You’d best get on it.”
He shut the door in her face before she could say, “Yes, sir.”
Feeling sick with anxiety, Annie went back to her vehicle and sat behind the wheel, not quite able to get herself to start the engine. In her mind’s eye she could see Dutrow swaggering across the room to tower over Cameron while the boy’s mother stood helpless.
Even as she thought it, Dutrow pulled back the drape at the front window and looked out at her.
“Asshole,” Annie muttered, starting the car.
There was nothing more she could do here. If she couldn’t help Cameron Spicer, she would try to help the child she could. Slowly, she backed out of Dutrow’s driveway and headed toward the Florette house.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Kelvin watched the headlights of Broussard’s vehicle pull back and then swing around and point east. The headlights became taillights as she drove away.
He didn’t like that she had come here. He didn’t like an employee intruding into his personal life. He didn’t like anyone catching him off guard. He was a careful man. He liked the word meticulous. He was meticulous in all things—in his appearance, in his manner, in his business dealings. He allowed people to see only exactly what he wanted them to see, painstakingly crafting and orchestrating his image. Every aspect of his life was carefully thought out and planned to the last detail. He did not like deviations from his plan. He did not like surprises.
Angry and embarrassed, spoiling for a fight, he walked back into the family room. Cameron sat on the ottoman, bent over with his head in his hands, crying. Sharon stood beside him, stroking his back. She looked up at Kelvin, pale and wide-eyed. Afraid.
The look sparked a certain satisfaction inside him, a certain excitement.
“Kelvin,” she began.
“Cameron,” Kelvin snapped. “Go to your room and stay there.”
Sharon drew a shaky breath and tried again. “Kelvin, please. If we could just sit and talk about this as a family—”
“As a family?” he scoffed.
“Yes, I—”
“Cameron!” Kelvin barked. “Go to your room. Now!”
Cameron looked to his mother, uncertain as he unfolded himself from his seat.
“Cameron, go,” Sharon said, her voice soft and shaking.
Reluctantly, Cameron backed toward the hall.
Kelvin lunged at him, shouting, “GO!” and the boy turned and ran.
“Kelvin,” Sharon started again, reaching out toward him with a trembling hand.
He grabbed hold of her by the forearm, suddenly, forcefully, shocking her. Her eyes went wide and filled with tears. She tried to stifle a whimper as his grip tightened.
“How long have you been lying to me?” he demanded.
“Please don’t make it sound like that!”
“How long?” he asked again, drawing her closer, squeezing harder.
“I’m sorry!” she sobbed.
He yanked her up against him and screamed in her face. “HOW LONG?!”
“Ten days,” she confessed, crying. “I-I just hadn’t f-found the right t-time to tell you—”
“Tell me?” He jumped on the word. “Announce to me?”
“You’ve been so busy,” she rushed on. “I didn’t want to trouble you with—”
“—the fact that you went behind my back and made a decision to defy me? When were you going to tell me? Were you just going to wait until I showed up at a practice or a game, and he wasn’t there?”
“Kelvin, please,” Sharon whimpered. “You’re hurting me.”
He adjusted his grip on her forearm and tightened it like a vise. “Were you going to let the coach tell me after I’d shown up to make a fool of myself?”
“No!” she cried. “Honestly—”
“Honestly? There’s a word! You been lying to me for how long, and you use a word like honestly? That’s rich, Sharon. You made this executive decision to let the boy quit ten days ago and you just kept letting me go on about it. Was that funny to you?”
“It wasn’t like that! Cameron was getting hurt! You weren’t listening!”
“We made a decision that he would stick this out,” he said quietly. “We talked about it, and that was the decision—that he would stay in the program,” he said. “You made the decision to let him quit.”
“I’m his mother. I have
to protect him!”
“From me?”
“Kelvin, please!” she pleaded again. “You’re hurting me!”
He didn’t care. No, that wasn’t right. He was glad to hurt her. She had hurt him, embarrassed him. She deserved to hurt. Besides, it was just her arm. It wasn’t like he was striking her. It wasn’t like he was beating her with a fist. He had every right to be angry.
“You want me to marry you,” he said. “You want me to be your husband and be a father to your son—to another man’s son. You want to be the wife of the sheriff, yet you defy me and lie to me and tell me you have to protect that boy from me?”
“Kelvin, please don’t! I love you!”
Kelvin shoved her away in disgust. She stumbled and fell to the floor, banging a knee on the coffee table on the way down.
“You lie to me, you make me look a fool in front of an employee,” he said. “You teach your son to lie to me. What kind of family values is that, Sharon? Huh? Have you no respect for me? If you don’t respect me, if your son doesn’t respect me, why would I marry you, Sharon?”
“Kelvin, please!” she cried.
He leaned down over her and shouted, “I am a pillar of the goddamn community!”
She was sobbing now but trying to cover it up. Gathering herself into a ball, she cradled her arm against her body. Kelvin stared at her, disgusted with her, disgusted with himself. He was a man of impeccable self-control, and she had made him momentarily lose that control.
“Look what you made me do,” he said, shaking his head.
He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed and checked his watch.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you,” he said at last. “That wasn’t gentlemanly.”
She looked up at him, wary, as he reached out a hand to help her up.
“I stumbled,” she said as she took his hand and got to her feet. “I’m s-so s-sorry, Kelvin. I sh-should have told you about Cameron. It’s just that I—”
“You taught your son to lie to me,” Kelvin said calmly. “You conspired with your child to defy my wishes, and then covered it up.”
“I’m s-so s-sorry!”