The Boy

by Tami Hoag

  Dutrow had called his cell three times, leaving curt messages for him to come into his office ASAP, each message sounding slightly angrier than the one before. Fuck him, Nick had thought as he drove past the main building, going instead to the Pizza Hut to check in with Dixon, hoping against hope that she had somehow managed to get her virtual hands on what he wanted.

  “And one call to his home phone,” she added.

  “To his home phone?” Nick asked, sitting down behind his desk.

  Dixon handed him the printed call log. The calls to Avery’s cell phone had varied in length from a minute or two to twelve minutes. It wasn’t hard to imagine the content if Avery had told him the truth. If he had indeed told Genevieve they couldn’t be together, that there was no future for them, then these would be the calls from her to beg, to bargain, to try to hang on to whatever slim chance there might have been of having a relationship with him.

  The final call, the one to the Avery home, had lasted nearly six minutes. A drunken, high Genevieve calling Janine Avery to confess all? Or calling just as a threat, to show Jeff what she might do if he didn’t treat her right. Or she had called with the intention of confessing and then chickened out?

  Probably one of the latter two, Nick thought. He couldn’t imagine Janine Avery being able to stomach knowingly going to visit her husband’s mistress in the hospital.

  He glanced at the calls listed for the several nights preceding the murder. Calls to Avery’s cell phone each night.

  Had the incessant calls been enough to anger Jeff Avery to the point of violence? He didn’t strike Nick as having the nerve to kill anyone, but if he was afraid of losing his family . . . ?

  Or had the evening of drinking, drugs, rejection, and her son’s temper tantrums driven Genevieve past the point of despair?

  “Where’s Stokes?” he asked.

  “Him and Quinlan went down to Dulac and Houma to interview her former employers.”

  His phone buzzed again, and he checked the screen, hoping against hope it would be Gus. It was not. Dutrow again. Time was ticking.

  “And . . . ,” Dixon said, holding out another printed page.

  Nick glanced up at her, seeing the excitement in her eyes despite her best efforts to look calm.

  “You got it.”

  “I got it.”

  The arrest report for Gauthier, Genevieve, from Houma PD.

  Nick looked it over, shaking his head at the name of the reporting officer: Keith Kemp.

  * * *

  * * *

  “YOU CAN HAVE a seat, Detective,” the secretary instructed in a chilly tone. “Sheriff Dutrow is tied up on a very important phone call.”

  Nick leveled a look at her. “I’ll stand, thank you, Ms. Comb.”

  Valerie Comb, Dutrow’s secretary, was a holdover from Gus Noblier’s reign. She had transferred her loyalty wholeheartedly to the new boss and had hung his framed, autographed campaign poster on the wall behind her desk in Dutrow’s outer office. The poster was a full-length shot of Dutrow in his tactical costume, jamming a forefinger at the face of all prospective voters, growling out his favorite tagline, We’ve got crime to fight!

  Attractive, blond by design, a few years ahead of Annie in school, Valerie Comb had never gotten over the fact that being head cheerleader did not translate into adult success. She wore her vague air of resentment like a signature perfume every day of her life.

  “I don’t know how long he’ll be,” she chattered, straightening stacks of fliers and handouts on the counter, trying to look essential and efficient. “He’s had a very hectic morning, what with this missing girl and all. And that murder the other night. But I suppose you know all about that.”

  Nick said nothing.

  “And now come to find out that woman murdered a baby years ago!” Valerie said with shock and outrage. “I imagine she’s your number one suspect.”

  “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  Her mouth fell too naturally into a pout. She was a notorious gossip and had reportedly slept her way through the department, from Patrol to Maintenance, not that it mattered to Nick in any way other than as a point of reference.

  “Well, it’s a shame if that’s the case,” she said. “Some women just shouldn’t be allowed to have children.”

  “It’s a tragedy,” Nick said, looking at the door to Dutrow’s inner sanctum.

  He doubted the story of the very important phone call. It was too easy to picture Dutrow in his office rehearsing what he would say and do, where he would stand, how he would present himself. The star of his own internal movie.

  As Nick paced past the ostentatious suggestion box Dutrow had installed beside the office door, the fleeting thought Don’t be such a self-absorbed dick flashed through his mind.

  His phone vibrated on his belt. He checked the screen. Gus.

  Valerie was droning on. “. . . and to think she applied for a job here!”

  “She what?” he asked, turning his full attention back to her.

  “She filled out an application several months ago. I remember thinking she seemed a bit desperate.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, you know. A young, single mother . . .”

  Which was exactly what Valerie had been when she had first started working for the SO—a divorced mother of three.

  “No,” Nick said flatly, “I don’t know. What does that mean?”

  “Well, with all the male deputies and detectives here . . .” She gave a weak laugh and rolled her eyes. “Some girls come looking for more than a job. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Nick stared at her in disapproving silence long enough that she felt the need to move away.

  “Did she have an interview?” he asked at last.

  “I wouldn’t know. I never saw her again.”

  “What became of her application?”

  “I imagine it’s on file in the personnel office. We weren’t hiring at the time.”

  Dutrow’s voice sounded over the intercom on the secretary’s desk. “Ms. Comb, please send Detective Fourcade in.”

  Showtime.

  Dutrow was standing behind his desk when Nick walked in, his hands resting above the tactical belt hung with gear he would never have to use. It was all for show, window dressing on a mannequin, a costume to impress people whose definition of a sheriff was formed from bullshit movies and YouTube videos.

  He didn’t tell Nick to sit down, having already learned that would be Nick’s first subtle act of defiance. But conceding that point automatically still gave Nick the first tiny advantage.

  “Detective Fourcade—”

  “Were you able to get that original arrest report on Genevieve Gauthier from her DUI in Houma?”

  Dutrow’s brows knitted. “I haven’t had the time or the interest—”

  “You’re not interested in evidence?” Nick asked. “What a curious position for you to take.”

  “This isn’t why I called you in here,” Dutrow said. “Don’t try to run me off into the weeds over some minor and undoubtedly irrelevant detail—”

  “There is no such thing as an irrelevant detail in a homicide investigation,” Nick said. “You should know that, but I guess maybe you never worked a murder in your capacity as Special Community Relations Officer.”

  He pronounced the job title with the barest hint of disdain. The color had already begun to creep up Dutrow’s throat.

  “Though I’m sure teaching some kind of half-assed karate to the housewives of Houma had its own rewards.”

  “The fucking balls on you!” Dutrow barked, not just angry, but offended enough to curse. A loss of control. Good.

  “So you didn’t even bother to request that report?” Nick pressed on.

  “How could it possibly be relevant?”

  “It
could be relevant if it turned out the arresting officer was Keith Kemp.”

  Dutrow seemed to freeze briefly, as if he’d received the news via an electrical shock.

  “You’re gonna tell me you didn’t know that?” Nick asked.

  “Why would I know that?” Dutrow scoffed. “It was years ago!”

  “Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, y’all seemed pretty tight back then. You must have been. You must still be. You brought him up here with you.”

  “This is ridiculous! And not why I brought you in here—”

  “Oh, I’m sure not,” Nick said, chuckling low in his throat.

  Dutrow’s scowl deepened. “You think this is funny?”

  “Not in the literal sense, mais non.”

  “Just where do you think you’re driving this train of thought? Are you going to tell me you think Kemp is a suspect in this murder now? When the mother is clearly—”

  “I’m not at a point to draw conclusions,” Nick said, deliberately talking over him, eroding any illusion of respect for the man’s thoughts or words. “But I don’t want him working this case. I sure as hell don’t want him handling evidence.”

  “Because he made a traffic stop on a DUI years ago?”

  “No,” Nick said. “Though that is an amazing coincidence, wouldn’t you agree? What are the odds a man would arrest a woman in one town and, years later, find himself collecting evidence from a murder scene at her home in another town, miles away? Me, I think that is such a coincidence that it can’t be a coincidence at all.”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at here, Fourcade.”

  “Why did Keith Kemp cease to be a police officer?”

  “Because he chose to.”

  “Really? Just like that? He built a career, worked toward a pension, then just up and said fuck it? You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t care what you believe, Fourcade,” Dutrow said curtly. “You don’t work here anymore. After your performance last night on the news, your manhandling of Bobby Theriot, your belligerent attitude toward myself and others—”

  Nick started to laugh, a deep, heartfelt belly laugh. He dropped himself down into the chair that sat opposite the sheriff’s desk, leaned back, and crossed his ankles, as relaxed as if he was in his own home.

  Dutrow watched him, his expression uncertain. “What the—”

  “You gonna fire me now, Sheriff?” Nick asked with a smile. “Really?”

  “Despite your high opinion of yourself, we will get along just fine without you,” Dutrow said. “You’re an arrogant, disrespectful ass, and I won’t have it. I know Gus let you run your own show, but I am not Gus Noblier.”

  “No, you are certainly not.”

  “I will personally take over the investigation—”

  “Will you?” Nick asked. “Well, that should be interesting, all things considered. Especially with the connection to your good friend Keith Kemp.”

  “There is no connection to Kemp.”

  “That’s how you’re gonna spin it? I wouldn’t recommend that. I won’t hesitate to contradict you.”

  “Your opinion is of no interest.”

  “Not to you,” Nick said. “But you’re gonna cut me loose so that I’m free to go wherever I want, and speak to whomever I choose, and say whatever I choose to say.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that would be good for your image. The press, they would want to speak to me. And as much as I despise them most of the time, they have their uses.”

  Dutrow stared at him, stunned at the idea. “Are you threatening to slander me?”

  “Mais non. Not at all! A slander is an untruth,” he pointed out happily then sobered in the blink of an eye. “I have plenty of true, unflattering things to say about you, starting with your penchant for threatening women.”

  It might have been a step too far, too soon, Nick reflected as he watched rage fill Kelvin Dutrow like a flash fire.

  “How dare you—”

  “How dare you, sir?” Nick challenged, on his feet in an instant, so quickly and with such aggressive intent that Dutrow stepped backward with fear in his eyes.

  “Don’t you ever threaten my wife again,” Nick warned. “Or any woman, for that matter. I won’t care that you have a badge on your chest or ten thousand fucking YouTube followers.”

  “Don’t you threaten me—” Dutrow started.

  “Oh, that’s not a threat,” Nick promised. “I guarantee I will ruin you every way there is. You threaten my family and I will scorch the ground you walk on and sweep the ash with your face.”

  “I should have you arrested right this minute,” Dutrow snarled.

  “Oh, you do that,” Nick said. “Bring it on. I’ll have the slimiest, sleaziest, most media-hungry defense attorney in south Louisiana on this so fast it’ll take your breath away.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Dutrow spat the words.

  “Interesting how you haven’t denied the charge.”

  “I have never abused a woman in my life.”

  Nick arched a brow. “You need to practice that in front of a mirror a few times before you take it to the big screen.”

  “You severely overestimate your powers of persuasion, Detective,” Dutrow said. His hands were trembling ever so slightly at his sides. “Your reputation is already as black as your heart. Who would believe anything you have to say?”

  Nick lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “People may doubt me, that’s true, but they all will come ’round to listen, just the same.”

  He smiled again, holding the other man’s gaze. “Me, I’m good TV. Maybe you oughta fire me on the air!” he suggested, feigning excitement. “Imagine the ratings!”

  “You crazy bastard,” Dutrow muttered.

  “So they say.”

  For a moment, Nick just watched him try to process the situation. Dutrow hadn’t gotten where he was being a fool or a hothead. He would consider his options like a chess move.

  “Fire me or don’t. It makes no matter to me,” Nick said quietly, backing toward the door. “Me, I work for that dead boy, not for you. And I will keep working until I find him justice, no matter what that takes or what that means.

  “Good day to you, Sheriff Dutrow,” he said, giving the slightest of bows. “You have a pleasant afternoon.”

  He closed the door behind him as he left and walked calmly through the outer office, Valerie Comb watching him with the wide eyes of an eavesdropper who had overheard more than she had bargained for. He looked at her and raised a forefinger to his lips in silent warning, just to fuck with her.

  As he left the main building for the Pizza Hut, he pulled his phone from his belt and touched Call Back.

  FORTY-TWO

  Dean Florette was nowhere to be found. Annie had gone back to the Florette house to find no sign of him amid the chaos of family and friends and search volunteers. No one knew where he was, and no one seemed to care. In her absence, Nora had become the much-loved golden child. Dean had been dismissed and forgotten. The irony was lost on them.

  With Jojean’s permission, Annie had gone through Dean’s room, a pigsty of dirty clothes and unmade bed and stinking, filthy sneakers. She found his stash of stolen pornography, some of it quite raunchy and disturbing, depicting bondage and sadism. It turned her stomach to think of a boy as young as Dean steeping his brain in this shit, forming his opinions of women and sex based on the fantasies of adult men—and sick ones at that.

  She found underwear he had no doubt stolen from his sisters and a half-full box of condoms he had probably stolen from the Quik Pik. The question put to the remaining Florette women—does Dean have a girlfriend?—was met with laughter and disgust. What girl would go out with Dean?

  Why, then, would he have a box of condoms?

  He probably used them for water balloons—or maybe to jerk off, though Nicole co
nfessed she’d caught him doing that with a pair of her panties.

  Where could he be?

  He’d probably gone off with one of the search parties. If not because he cared to find his sister, because he thought the search was exciting, with the drones and the dogs and the people shouting and beating the bushes.

  That seemed as good a theory as any, Annie thought as she drove toward the school. She didn’t think he’d run off. He hadn’t seemed at all bothered to see her at the house that morning. He didn’t act like he had something to hide. But then, maybe that was because, judging by the amount of stolen stuff in his bedroom, he was just that used to the feeling. If psychopathy was already baked into his brain, then he was already unburdened by the concept of guilt.

  “All this fuss for Dead Nora,” he’d said, looking up at the drones in the sky above his house. His lack of emotion had given her a chill.

  She thought of what Genevieve had said about KJ running around the house that night, chanting the same thing over and over—“I won’t tell. I won’t tell. I won’t tell.”

  Won’t tell what? What had he seen? What had he heard? Had it had everything to do with his death or nothing at all? Genevieve had said she didn’t like Dean being around her son. He got him wound up. “KJ always comes home upset if Dean was there.”

  She spotted Jaime Blynn sitting on the steps of the gazebo as she pulled around the circular drive.

  “Are you playing hooky?” Annie called as she walked toward her friend.

  “Just sitting here melting,” Jaime said. Her eyes went suddenly wide. “Oh, my stars! What happened to your face?”

  “I asked someone the wrong question and they took exception. It looks worse than it is. Aren’t you supposed to be inside shaping the lives of America’s youth? I thought I would have to somehow drag you out of the building.”

  “We combined our classes today so half the teachers could join the search parties. I just stayed out here after the search moved on so I could be morose in private.” She glanced at her watch and sighed. “School day’s almost over now, anyway. And I’ve got a meeting to organize a vigil for KJ in an hour.