by Tami Hoag
“It ain’t breaking and entering,” Perez argued. “I had a key, and I had permission from the landlord.”
“Mais yeah, try selling that story to a judge,” Nick said. “Your good friend Mr. Carville sent you in here for what purpose?”
Perez gave him a look of disgust. “I have got nothing to say to you.”
Nick ignored him, his attention on the small electronic device in his gloved hand, a black sphere about the size of a Ping-Pong ball. “So planting cameras in the bedrooms of female renters is Carville’s idea? And you’re just an accessory?”
“Stick it up your ass.”
“If it’s Carville’s idea, then you’d be off the hook for the felony,” Nick lied. “If we believed you. Me, I don’t see any reason to believe anything that comes out your mouth, Roddie.”
“Go fuck yourself, Fourcade. I don’t know nothing about these cameras. I got nothing to do with any of it.”
Cameras, plural. Any of it. Any of what? As if Nick couldn’t guess.
“You’re just the errand boy, you are?” he asked. “So when I get my search warrant for your house and seize your computer, I’m not gonna find video of Genevieve Gauthier dressing, undressing, having sex?”
Perez said nothing.
“I’m not gonna find you had a camera in her bathroom, too, recording her taking a shower, shaving her legs, sitting on the toilet?”
The con scowled harder.
“My, my, Roddie,” Stokes said, shaking his head as he walked back and forth, his arms crossed over his chest. “I never pegged you for the kind of perv that likes to watch people wipe their asses. You’ve slipped a notch in my esteem.”
“What else are we gonna see when we download these cameras?” Nick asked. “We gonna see you beating the shit out of this girl? Have we hit the jackpot here? ’Cause I would love nothing better than to wrap this all up tonight and put a big red bow right around your neck.”
“I never touched that girl!” Perez shouted.
“You better hope not, Roddie. ’Cause if there’s video of you doing harm here, if there’s evidence of you touching a hair on the head of that little boy, I will make it my personal crusade to see that the state of Louisiana dusts the cobwebs off ol’ Gruesome Gertie to light you up like a goddamn Christmas tree.”
“I never laid a hand on that brat!” Perez snapped. “Y’all can look right at that mother, you want to see who abused that child.”
“You saw that happen?” Nick asked.
Perez looked away, done talking.
“Get him out of here,” Nick said to Stokes. “I’m done looking at him for tonight. And get a judge out of bed. We need a search warrant for his house.”
“Let’s go, Roddie,” Stokes said, reaching out to take Perez by the arm.
Perez shrugged him off as he got to his feet. “I don’t need you touching me.”
“Consider it foreplay for your body cavity search.”
Nick followed them out of the room and down the hall. Kemp was coming in the front door as they reached the living room, a sour look twisting his mouth as he shook himself like a wet cat.
“Why am I out here in this shit hole again?” he asked, shrugging out of his rain slicker and dropping it on the floor, glaring at Stokes and Perez as they went out the door.
“Turns out you missed a few things,” Nick said, holding up the spy camera.
Kemp squinted at the device. “What is that? Is that a camera?”
“Yeah, genius, that’s a camera and you failed to find it.”
“Well, we didn’t go crawling through the air vents.”
“Then how do you know where it was?”
“Where else would it have been if it wasn’t in plain sight?”
“In a piece of furniture, in a lamp, in a clock, in the ceiling light, in the air conditioner that doesn’t fucking work.” Nick rattled off the possibilities.
“You didn’t find it, either,” Kemp pointed out.
“Would have been hard for me to see it from the yard,” Nick said. “I had been asked to leave, if you recall. To keep from upsetting your delicate sensibilities.”
“And you can leave again,” Kemp said, pulling on a pair of black latex gloves. “I don’t need your supervision.”
“You’re gonna get it whether you want it or not,” Nick said, standing just a little too close. “I want that room taken apart, and the bathroom, and the boy’s room, too. And this time I will stand there and watch you do it until I’m satisfied.”
“What-the-fuck-ever,” Kemp snarled as his underling came through the door. He barked at the kid, “Go get the tool kit! And evidence bags. And hurry the fuck up! Bring it to the back bedroom.”
“Yes, sir!” The kid spun around and went back out into the rain.
“So you gave up the badge so you could boss a pimply-faced kid around and dig through other people’s stuff in the middle of the night?” Nick asked.
Kemp gave him a look and stepped around him, heading for the hall.
Nick followed. “Interesting career choice.”
Kemp said nothing.
“You were in a uniform down in Houma. Why’d you give it up?”
They walked into the bedroom, and Kemp stopped in the middle of the floor, looking up at the gaping hole of the air vent above the dresser as if he expected something to come crawling out of it.
“There you were,” Nick said, “working side by side with your good buddy Dutrow, putting in the years toward a pension, and then . . . what? What happened?”
“I don’t see how my life choices are any of your business.”
Kemp went to the window, bent down, and peered at the ancient air conditioner, poking at the broken louvers of the front grille. Muttering, he pulled a Leatherman tool off his belt, sorted out the Phillips-head screwdriver, and went to work to loosen the front panel. He cut a sideways glance at Nick.
“How’d you find out about these cameras?”
“The landlord was a little too eager about getting the house back when I spoke with him. And there he was, sitting at the bar at Club Cayenne with Roddie Perez, career criminal and next-door neighbor of Ms. Gauthier. A curious choice of friends, I thought. So we set a little trap. Mr. Perez is not half as clever as the average rat.”
“Lucky.”
“How long have you known Dutrow?” Nick asked.
“What’s it to you?”
“Just curious,” Nick said, drifting closer. “The two of you must be tight. You followed him up here.”
Kemp heaved a sigh, irritated. “He offered me a job. I took it. Mystery solved. You should be a detective.”
“You already had a job. Did you have a problem with that one?”
“People change jobs, Fourcade.”
“Mm-hmm. Not without reasons. Did you have a beef with someone higher up the food chain?”
“No.”
“You were in a uniform, then you weren’t. You worked crime scenes down there for what—eight or nine years? Banking up the seniority, and then, boom, you up and leave . . .”
Kemp shot him a look as he pocketed the screws from the AC panel. “So what? Weren’t you some hotshot detective down in New Orleans before you cracked up? Now here you are.”
Nick didn’t turn a hair. Kemp’s jab wasn’t far from the truth. It was all ancient history now anyway, not that it had ever mattered much to him what people thought.
“Did you mean to imply you had some kind of breakdown?” he asked. “Maybe you had that badge taken away?”
“What? NO!” Kemp overreacted, surprised to have that particular table turned right back around on him.
“Do you know this woman?” Nick asked, changing subjects before Kemp could regain his mental balance. “The mother. Ms. Gauthier. Do you know her?”
“Why would I know her?”
Kemp returned defensively, working to pry the rusted front panel off the air conditioner.
“Why wouldn’t you?” Nick challenged. “She worked in Houma. You worked in Houma. You were a cop. She has a record. Maybe you arrested her, yeah?”
“Maybe I arrested the Queen of England. It was years ago. Who remembers shit like that? I’ve arrested more people than I can count.”
“No matter,” Nick said, stepping closer as the panel came free and Kemp stumbled backward. “Dutrow said he’d call Houma PD and get me the original arrest report. Dixon couldn’t find it the usual way. Odd, that.”
“You’re a regular goddamn Chatty Cathy, pulling your own string, Fourcade,” Kemp groused. “Why don’t you shut the hell up and let me do my job?”
“Right,” Nick said dryly as he leaned down and plucked another camera the size of a Ping-Pong ball from inside the shell of the air conditioner. It had been situated just behind the broken louvers, pointed at Genevieve Gauthier’s bed. “Because I’m sure you’re so much more efficient working in unsupervised silence.”
“Jesus, you’re an asshole.”
“I prefer to think I’m thorough,” Nick said as Kemp’s underling hustled into the room, dripping wet, out of breath. He dropped the toolbox on the floor. Nick dug into a pocket on the leg of his pants and pulled out an evidence bag to drop the camera in. He handed it to the kid.
“Mark that, and have a care,” he said. “I don’t want anything messing up what’s stored in the memory. God only knows who we’ll see on that video.”
The kid looked at him wide-eyed then glanced at Kemp, who nodded grudgingly.
“Might we see you in the movies, Keith?” Nick asked, looking at Kemp, shifting a little closer to him just to irritate him. “Reuniting with an old flame from Houma? Is that why you didn’t find these cameras the first time you processed this scene?”
“I told you, I don’t know this woman.”
“Actually, no, you didn’t. You said, ‘Why would I know her?’ That’s not the same thing.”
“Well, I’m telling you now. I don’t know her,” Kemp snapped, his hands fumbling as he tried to hook his Leatherman tool back on his utility belt. “Seriously, fuck the fuck off, Fourcade.”
“Maybe you met her teaching that self-defense class with Dutrow, yeah? The timing would have been about right.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Keith, don’t be modest,” Nick cajoled. “You were big news in Houma. You made the Houma Courier.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Kemp demanded. “Why would you know anything about that? Are you investigating me?”
“That is what I do.”
“Because I’m from Houma?” he said, his face turning a deeper shade of red. “Lots of people are from Houma, Fourcade. There’s thirty-four thousand people in Houma. Are you investigating all of them?”
“Now you’re just talking foolish, Keith,” Nick said calmly. “That would be a waste of my time. I’m only investigating the ones that recently moved to Bayou Breaux. Maybe Genevieve Gauthier is the reason you don’t have a badge anymore, yeah?”
He was just poking a stick at a snarling dog to irritate him, to aggravate him. Kemp rose to the bait like a champ and lunged toward him, fists balled, face contorted, ready to scream.
Unflinching, Nick raised a finger and wagged it in his face.
“Don’t you touch me, Keith,” he said quietly. “I warned you about that once already. Me, I don’t like to repeat myself.”
Kemp held himself rigid, just inches away. Small white bubbles of spittle gathered in one corner of his mouth. “I can’t wait for Dutrow to get rid of you, you coonass son of a bitch.”
Nick chuckled low in his throat and smiled like a predator. “You think that would save you from me if you did this thing, Keith? Clearly, you don’t know who I answer to, and it sure as hell ain’t Kelvin Dutrow.”
Kemp said nothing. Nick held his gaze steadily, letting what he’d said sink in, savoring the smell of anxiety.
“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes,” Stokes complained. Nick could see him from the corner of his eye, filling the doorway.
“I thought you went with Perez,” Nick said, not moving. Kemp took half a step back.
“A deputy can book him and show him to his accommodations,” Stokes said. “It’s past my bedtime.”
“Then let’s get this job done, Sleeping Beauty,” Nick said, walking away from Kemp at last. “This day’s been long enough.”
THIRTY-TWO
Annie woke from a fitful sleep to the sound of running water. Rain. No. The shower. Nick was home. She turned on the lamp on his nightstand, fluffed up the pillows, and sat back to wait for him. She was exhausted but too agitated to relax. The events of the evening played on a continuous loop in her mind. Jojean Florette sobbing on her knees. Dean watching in morbid fascination. The look in his eyes as he asked, “Do you really think she’s dead?” Dutrow.
That scene bothered her as much as any. The tableau in Dutrow’s living room: Dutrow standing like a drill sergeant as his fiancée begged on behalf of her sobbing child.
A sick sense of dread rolled in the pit of Annie’s stomach.
The sound of water ceased. Moments later, Nick emerged from the bathroom, naked, rippling muscle, wet hair slicked to his head. He frowned seeing she was up.
“Hey, bébé, I didn’t want to wake you,” he murmured, sliding into bed beside her, leaning back against the pillows.
“You didn’t,” Annie said, curling up against him, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder, her legs twining with his. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead, and she sighed as some small amount of the tension left her body. “Not really,” she added. “Did you get your guy?”
“Mm-hmm. Perez and the landlord had cameras stashed in her bedroom and bathroom. I haven’t looked at any of the recordings yet, but it’s not hard to imagine what’s on there. They were probably selling it on the Internet.”
“Gross.”
“It could be worse than that.”
“Oh, my God,” Annie murmured, looking up at him. “Do you think they recorded the murder?”
“No. There were no cameras in the boy’s room. But Perez suggested she abused her son. And he said it like he had firsthand knowledge of it.”
“I really hope that’s not true.”
Nick made no comment. They had already had this conversation. He was fully ready to accept that Genevieve might have killed her child, and he wouldn’t waste any emotional energy hoping otherwise. The truth would be the truth. No sense wishing for something else.
He breathed in the scent of her hair and sighed. “What time did you get home?”
“About half an hour ago.”
“Did you find the babysitter?”
“No. And I had to browbeat the mother until she broke down. She didn’t want to believe anything bad might have happened because then she would have to blame herself. She hadn’t seen her daughter for two days, but somehow that wasn’t her fault. That Jojean Florette is a piece of work, but still, I couldn’t help but feel mean as a snake for doing that to her.”
“Florette?”
“Yeah. The babysitter is Nora Florette. The twelve-year-old—”
“Where do they live?”
“On the south side of town. The last street in the PD’s jurisdiction. I had to bring them in. Technically, it’s their case, but I’ll work with them since I’ve got the jump on interviewing friends and family. Why?”
“The Theriots live on the other side of the line, in Blue Cypress.”
“Is Dean Florette on your list of suspects?” Annie asked, only half joking.
“Is that the father?”
“No. That’s the fourteen-year-old prospect for long-term incarceration,” she
said. “Did you talk to him? He’s a short, mean-eyed, mouthy little shit. Of course, that describes most of the Florettes, to be honest. The father keeps himself absent as much as possible. He works on a rig in the Gulf. His daughter is missing and he asked me was it really necessary for him to come back to help search for her.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t want to take this seriously, either. People are endlessly disappointing.”
“I recognize the last name,” Nick said. “Stokes and Dixon talked to the neighborhood kids at the time of the assault. They all run together, in and out of each other’s houses. Some are friends of the older Theriot girl. No one stood out, as I recall.”
“So, for sure the Florettes know the Theriots?” Annie asked. She sat up straighter, turning to face him, the anxiety stirring inside her anew.
“What?” Nick asked. “Do you seriously think this boy could be a suspect for the Theriot assault?”
“I hate to think that,” Annie said, “but he tried to put his hands on a girl in the park yesterday. She told me he does that kind of thing—tries to touch girls’ breasts. He already has a taste for pornography. He’s a bully. He has a tendency toward violence. No one told you any of this?”
“No.”
Annie sighed and ran her hands back through her hair. She had been wrapped up in dealing with Tante Fanchon’s stroke and recovery while Nick had been in the thick of the Theriot case. She would have been the one to interview the kids had she been there. Dixon had adequate interviewing skills, but it was too easy to imagine Stokes having no patience talking to kids, not taking them seriously.
She thought back to the scene in the Florette home just hours past. Dean asking, “Do you really think she’s dead?”
“And it’s this kid Dean Florette’s sister that’s missing?” Nick asked.
“She was in the park after school on the day of the murder. No one has seen or heard from her since. She wasn’t at the house when Genevieve picked up her son. Genevieve complained to Jojean about it. Jojean just blew it off. Dean first told me Nora was home in the evening, but she wasn’t.”