The Boy

by Tami Hoag

  “Brunette,” she said, looking at Annie.

  Annie stepped closer to look. She would at least be able to relieve Sharon Spicer’s fears for the moment. The body did not belong to her son.

  Then whose son was this? And who had killed him? And why?

  “Detective Broussard?” Ulysse Wilson asked as he pulled something from the pocket of the boy’s sweatpants.

  A business card.

  Annie’s business card.

  Her heart sank as she took it from the coroner. It was bent and dirty, had been taken from one pocket and put into another.

  “Now here,” she had said as she handed him the card. “You take this card, because one of these days that mouth of yours is gonna get your butt in a world of hurt, and you’re gonna need someone on your side . . .”

  “Please excuse me,” she murmured. “I have to make a phone call.”

  She turned and left the room, going out into the hallway of the funeral home with its flocked wallpaper and brocade drapes. She went to the end of the hall and sat down in one of the delicate faux-antique French chairs grouped for mourners in front of the window.

  The storm was still flashing and booming outside, the rain pouring down. Tears pressed hard against the backs of Annie’s eyes, and her hands trembled as she pulled her phone off her belt and entered Sharon Spicer’s number.

  “It’s not Cameron,” she said.

  She staved off any questions with a promise to come to the house as soon as possible and assurances that law enforcement were already looking for her son.

  She ended the call and sat for a moment, trying to compose herself, trying to gather her thoughts and come up with a plan when all she wanted to do was drive to Remy’s and hold her son and read him a story and tell herself the lie that she would never be the mother waiting for a phone call in the middle of the night.

  Her phone pinged the arrival of a text message. She looked down at it, expecting it to be from Nick, but instead it was from Jojean Florette. Her stomach turned as she read it: We can’t find Dean.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Kelvin watched the replay of the shit show in the park on the computer in his office, frustrated and angry. He should have been notified immediately when the body was found. He could have coordinated the scene, gotten control of the situation before the media and the crowd had arrived.

  It wasn’t even their jurisdiction. Lafayette Park was city property. But Broussard had found the body and was already working with a detective from the PD on the disappearance of the Florette girl. The jurisdictional lines were already blurred, and she had proceeded to make a worse mess of the situation, failing to lock down the scene, failing to notify him. Things had already been out of control by the time Kelvin had arrived.

  Of course, Broussard wouldn’t call him, would she? She had called in her superior—her husband. And of course Fourcade hadn’t called him. Kelvin had picked up the call on the scanner.

  He watched the video, replaying the confrontation between Kemp and the detective, Kelvin wedged between them. It looked like he had no discipline within his own department, like his own men didn’t respect him. All those hours of carefully grooming and presenting his image, gone for nothing as he fought to referee the clash of egos between his underlings.

  He wanted to kick Kemp’s ass all the way back to Houma. The man had a temper and no self-control. That had always been his problem. He could be useful on a leash. Off it, he was trouble, a train wreck looking for a place to crash.

  And now Fourcade knew that.

  How he had found out, Kelvin didn’t know. He had invoked Chief Irvin’s name, but Irvin would never have told Fourcade, a stranger, and a stranger under Kelvin’s command at that.

  It had all been kept very quiet at the time. One woman had complained to Chief Irvin that Kemp had propositioned her during a traffic stop. She happened to be socially connected to people Irvin didn’t want to piss off. He had hauled Kemp in and given him the option of resigning, though to Irvin’s mind, what Kemp had done in that particular instance hadn’t seemed all that bad. He had no problem reassigning Kemp to the crime scene unit, salvaging a career for the man. Irvin didn’t know about the other times, the other women. He didn’t care to know. He was a man aging into the twilight of his career. The last thing he wanted was controversy.

  Kelvin got up and walked away from the computer, trying to be grateful that at least no microphone had picked up Fourcade’s voice as he had spoken. Kemp’s shouted vulgar threats had come through loud and clear, but those had been easily explained away. The detective was a controversial figure within the department. The media already had their own ideas about Fourcade being a rogue. Kelvin had readily played on that.

  And yet, Fourcade’s threat of talking to the media himself was a disturbing dark cloud on the horizon. All it would take was for one reporter to want to dig deeper . . .

  He walked to his wall of fame and looked at the photographs and commendations and awards. He had worked his whole life to get where he was. He wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it for him. Not Fourcade or Kemp or Sharon, for that matter.

  Her behavior at the scene had infuriated him. His private life had spilled out of its box, loud and messy and out of control in full view of the public. Sharon’s whole purpose in his life was to further his image, and she had done nothing but embarrass him tonight. He should have rejected her as soon as he had met the boy. Now Cameron was missing, no doubt hiding somewhere, unable to cope with Kelvin’s punishment for lying to him.

  The anger built inside him like a head of steam. Everything he wanted was within his grasp, and now it was all under threat from people not worthy of shining his shoes.

  * * *

  * * *

  “IMPRESSED WITH YOURSELF?” Nick asked.

  Standing before his ego wall, Dutrow spun around, startled and angry.

  “I don’t want you in here, Fourcade. You can leave now, or I can have you removed.”

  Nick walked into the room, seated himself, and squared an ankle over a knee.

  “Me, I’ll just sit here while you go try to find two men in this department willing to put their hands on me,” he said. “Your friend Keith might volunteer. Other than him . . . Good luck to you.”

  He was furious, Nick could see by the color in his face and the tension in his square jaw. He paced back and forth in front of his photographs and news clippings and plaques from the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotarians. Dutrow would have said the display was something for visitors to look at, but Nick suspected it was really for himself. This was his reminder of who he was supposed to be, the image he had spent his whole career building. The image Nick had every intention of unraveling with the tug of a single thread.

  “I will be rid of you,” Dutrow warned.

  “You will be,” Nick agreed, “but not the way you’re thinking. I had a long conversation with Genevieve Gauthier tonight. I asked her about your Mr. Kemp.”

  “I had nothing to do with Kemp’s schemes.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

  “I don’t care what you have to say.”

  “You made use of his particular . . . talent,” he said with distaste. “Which makes you no more innocent than he is.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dutrow said dismissively. He went behind his desk and set about shutting down his computer.

  “One could even say you’re worse,” Nick ventured, “considering Kemp is an animal of base instinctual needs, an impulsive and reactionary creature. You, on the other hand, are calculating and manipulative. You know right from wrong. You just believe yourself to be above the rules of the common man.”

  “I tire of your armchair psychoanalysis, Fourcade. Get to the point, if there is one.”

  “KJ Gauthier was your son.”

  “The hell he was.”

 
Nick ignored the denial. “You know, I thought on it and thought on it, and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why Genevieve would move here if Kemp was the father. What would he have to offer her besides the back of his hand? Of course, I understand you’re no slouch in that department yourself.”

  “I have never struck a woman in my life!” Dutrow barked, leaning over the desk.

  “Hang your hat on semantics if you want. Abuse isn’t always delivered with a fist. I know what you are.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you’re a small, entitled, angry man who thinks everyone in your life should bow down so you can step on their backs to elevate yourself,” Nick said. “I know you won’t hesitate now to throw Kemp under the bus for his misuse of power, but you were no better at all. You took advantage of a vulnerable young woman, and when she turned to you in need, you sicced your dog on her.”

  “That’s a fascinating story, and complete fiction.”

  “Is it?”

  “You’d believe the word of a troubled, mentally unstable drug addict who did time for killing her own baby when she was fourteen over me? You’re going to be in a very small minority there, Detective.”

  A bitter smile turned Nick’s lips, and he shook his head in disgust. “I wondered how the press had caught wind of that story—a sealed juvenile record.”

  “They didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Really? And where did you hear it from, Sheriff? You told me you didn’t know Genevieve Gauthier. How could you possibly know her story?”

  Dutrow’s color darkened as he realized his mistake.

  “I heard it on the news,” he said, far too late to be believed.

  “She’s a sad, broken little doll, Genevieve. From way back, I think,” Nick said. “I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter why. All she’s ever wanted in her whole life is to feel safe and loved. Unfortunate for her she can’t pick the right man to save her life. She always picks someone she can’t have. She always picks the man who thinks she’s good enough to fuck but not good enough to marry.

  “Pauvre bête. Poor thing, she thought she hit the jackpot with you—big strong pillar of the community. Single, even, at the time. But you didn’t want her any more than you wanted a child with her. She was just an easy bang in a back closet at City Hall.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Dutrow grumbled, slamming a desk drawer and locking it with a key.

  “You know what’s not ridiculous, Kelvin?” Nick asked. “DNA. DNA is sober as a damn judge.”

  The sheriff pushed to his feet and shut off his desk lamp. “I’m not staying here and listening to any more of this nonsense. Next you’ll be spinning a story of how I tried to kill her.”

  “Mais non!” Nick scoffed. “You wouldn’t get your hands dirty and ruin your manicure or mess up the crease in your trousers. You’d hire that out, just like you did before.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Dutrow said, going to the door. “But everyone knew that already. Sad to see such a talented detective deteriorate that way. Hopefully, you have some other marketable skills you might use to support your family, because you will never get another job in law enforcement again.”

  “Maybe you just hired him to scare her, and things got out of hand,” Nick said, slowly rising from his chair.

  “That’s what you did before,” he said, moving slowly and deliberately toward the sheriff as Dutrow opened the door to the outer office. “She wanted more from you than you cared to give. You had Kemp follow her home from a bar. He delivered the message—that her freedom could go away on the say-so of a man with a badge.

  “Did he tell you he made her kneel down in the gravel and give him a blow job right there where he pulled her over?” he asked, his temper stirring like white-hot coals inside him as he stalked Kelvin Dutrow into the dimly lit, empty outer office. “Or was that part of his payment? Did you even give a shit?”

  “All lies,” Dutrow said, angling toward the door to the hall. “None of that ever happened. She’s playing you.”

  “Then you won’t mind taking that DNA test, will you?”

  Nick stepped to his left, deftly cutting off the sheriff’s escape route.

  Dutrow stepped back and drew his weapon, leveling the Glock 9mm at Nick’s chest.

  “Oh, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it?” Nick asked. “Shoot me in a dark office. You thought I was an intruder.”

  “Or I knew that you were crazy,” Dutrow said. “I fired you. In a fit of rage, you attacked me, and I defended myself.”

  “That’s a good story,” Nick said, moving slowly to the left and slightly forward, one step and then another. “You’d better make sure you shoot me in the head, though, ’cause anywhere else you’re just gonna piss me off. And then the only story will be mine.

  “Do you think you can do that, Kelvin? Do you think your hand is steady enough?” he asked, his unblinking gaze on Dutrow’s eyes, reading the emotions—anger, fear, doubt. He took another step to the left and slightly forward, to the left and slightly forward, turning the sheriff in a small, tight circle.

  “Stand still!” Dutrow ordered.

  “So you can kill me? I think not. I’m not some target on the shooting range. When’s the last time you shot a man, Kelvin? A real man. Not counting some pop-up shooting gallery on a YouTube video.”

  “You disrespectful piece of shit,” Dutrow growled. “You don’t have any idea what it takes to be me.”

  Nick laughed low in his throat. “Oh, it’s hard to be you, Kelvin, that’s for true. All the time pretending to be someone you’re not. And it’s about to get harder.”

  “On the say-so of some trailer-trash dope addict?” Dutrow sneered. “I don’t think so.”

  “Your heart is beating fast now, isn’t it, Kelvin?” Nick murmured, his voice low and hypnotic. “You’re breathing a little too hard.”

  “Shut up!”

  Nick moved another small step, and another, closer and closer. “Am I making it hard for you, Kelvin? I’m not some paper bad guy hanging on a line. Real targets move and speak and will hurt you if you can’t make that first shot.”

  “I will shoot you,” Dutrow warned, adjusting his grip on the gun.

  “Your palms are sweating, aren’t they, Kelvin? You’re trying to get your story straight in your head, because once that gun goes off, everything is gonna move real fast, and you can’t make a mistake.”

  “I won’t have any trouble at all,” Dutrow said, backing himself up against the counter, raising the gun higher, taking aim.

  Nick moved as the gun came up, stepping in and to the left, grasping the barrel in his left hand and pushing it to the right as he chopped Dutrow’s wrist hard with his right hand. In the blink of an eye, Dutrow was unarmed and the gun was in Nick’s hands. Nick stepped back, out of range of contact, popped the magazine, and ejected the cartridge from the chamber.

  “You let me know if you want to make a video of that disarming move,” he said, dropping the sheriff’s weapon into the suggestion box by the office door. “You have a nice rest of your evening, Sheriff.”

  Dutrow didn’t follow him as he left the office. Doubtless he had yet another press conference to prepare for the ten o’clock news. He would compose himself, and no one watching would ever imagine he had nearly shot one of his own detectives in cold blood just moments earlier.

  That was one of the most disturbing qualities in men like Kelvin Dutrow—their ability to keep the mask in place, to project the public persona without revealing what lived behind the façade.

  That image was what had drawn a young Genevieve to Dutrow in the first place. She had managed to land a respectable—if menial—job at city hall, where she had regular occasion to see Kelvin Dutrow, Special Community Relations Officer.

  It had been tempting for her to believe she could ha
ve that life—that she could be a respectable girl and marry a dashing pillar of the community. The age difference hadn’t bothered her at all. Dutrow’s maturity had meant stability and wisdom to her, a girl with no father in her life, a girl who had gotten pregnant and been betrayed by a boy closer to her own age. She had bought the Dutrow image, hook, line, and sinker, only to learn an even crueler lesson in her second try at love.

  With two hours to go until change of shift, the building was as quiet as it ever was, the offices of day-shift personnel dark and closed. Nick checked his phone as he negotiated the hallways to the back door.

  Annie had texted that she believed the body she’d found in the park to be that of Dean Florette, brother of the missing babysitter. She would speak to the family then go on to see Dutrow’s fiancée, whose son had yet to turn up.

  He didn’t like that last part. The Spicer woman seemed unstable. The domestic situation had been tense the night before—before the woman had punched Annie in the face, before her son had gone missing, before she had shown up at Lafayette Park, hysterical, hurling accusations at Kelvin Dutrow.

  Don’t go there without me.

  Where are you now?

  He sent the texts and waited, standing under the overhang outside the back door. The storm had subsided, but the rain continued to fall, a steady shower punctuated by gusts of wind that might have been the leading edge of the bigger storm coming up from the Gulf.

  No answer.

  He checked the time of her last text to him. It had come while he had been in with Dutrow. Which meant she was probably at the Florette home, delivering the devastating news that their son had been murdered.

  What the hell? He didn’t believe in anything that smelled like coincidence, but what explanation could there be for this boy to be murdered when his sister was missing? And what connection did the girl’s disappearance have to the murder of the child she had looked after? Any? None?

  If the death of KJ Gauthier had some connection to Kemp and to Dutrow, if it was about the boy’s parentage and Genevieve’s reason for coming to Bayou Breaux, how could it be related to the Florette girl? Had she seen something—or more important, someone?