A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

  "Her husband had a far more compelling obsession than I." He eased back into his chair, picked up a paper napkin, and dabbed at the spittle that had collected in the corners of his wired mouth as he struggled with speech. "He didn't want to let her go. I think she was afraid of him. She told me she didn't dare see other men until the divorce was final."

  A convenient story to put off a man, Annie thought, though she couldn't dismiss the possibility it was true. It was common knowledge Donnie hadn't wanted the divorce. Lindsay Faulkner confessed to thinking Donnie had been the one harassing Pam. Rumors of a fight over Josie had been whispered around, though it seemed Donnie had no ground to stand on in that arena. He had been the cheat in the marriage. Pam had done nothing to threaten her standing as custodial parent.

  "But then," Renard murmured, staring down into his tea, "maybe that was just an excuse. I think she was seeing someone for a short time."

  "Why would you think that?"

  He couldn't answer her. The only way he would know was if he had watched her, followed her. He wouldn't admit to that, couldn't admit to it. The stalking was the basis for the whole case against him. If he admitted to stalking Pam Bichon, and if in that admission he revealed he had seen her with another man, that only added to his motive to kill her. Jealousy. She had spurned him for another.

  Annie got up from the table. "I've heard enough, thank you. Pam was tortured and murdered by her estranged husband, her secret lesbian partner, and/or a mystery lover you can't name or identify. Couldn't have been you that killed her. You're a victim of a malicious conspiracy. Never mind that you had motive, means, opportunity, and a crappy alibi. Never mind that the detectives found Pam's stolen ring in your house."

  Renard rose, too, and limped along beside her as she moved toward the door. "There is more than one kind of obsession," he said. "Fourcade is obsessed with this case. He planted that ring. He's done that kind of thing before. He has a history.

  "I have no history. I've never hurt anyone. I'd never been arrested before this."

  "Maybe that just means you're good at it," Annie said.

  "I didn't do it."

  "Why should I believe you? More to the point: Why are you so bent on convincing me? You're a free man. The DA's got nothing on you."

  "For now. How long before Fourcade or Stokes manufactures something else? I'm an innocent man. My reputation has been ruined. They won't be satisfied until they have my life one way or another. Someone has to find the truth, Annie, and so far, you're the only one looking."

  "I'm looking," she said in a cool voice. "I don't guarantee you're gonna like what I find."

  Marcus held the door for her and watched as she descended the stairs and walked out of the building. She moved in a way that seemed unselfconscious, fresh. Freer than Pam in her physicality, in her gestures. Pam's free-spirit soul sister. He found comfort in the thought. Continuity.

  He had pinned his heart on Pam, but Annie would set him free. He was sure of it.

  17

  The Bayou Realty office was closed and locked when Annie went around to the front of the building. Too bad. She wanted to see the look on Lindsay Faulkner's face when she told her Marcus Renard had her pegged for a lesbian.

  Of course, there was the chance that it was true. Annie knew little about her. No one had ever looked that closely at Faulkner, as far as Annie knew. There had been no reason. With the business set up as it was at the time of Pam's death, Faulkner had no financial motive to kill her, and no other motive would have been considered. Women didn't kill other women in the manner Pam Bichon had died.

  Annie crossed the street to the Jeep and glanced up at the building as she turned the key in the ignition. Renard was standing at a second-story window, looking out at her.

  He swore he was innocent, that he loved Pam. He wanted Annie to find the truth.

  Find the truth or muddy the waters? she wondered. She had just stepped into the investigation and already there were factors to consider she hadn't seen before. Fourcade had been down these twisted trails already. His offer hung in her mind like a seductive promise, something she should resist. Turning away from Renard, she put the Jeep in gear and headed across town.

  Donnie surveyed the scene from the seat of a backhoe, a bottle of Abita beer in hand. The Mardi Gras parade float taking shape before him was for Josie. She had talked him into it, those big brown eyes bright with excitement. Unable to deny her anything, he had organized a crew from the staff of Bichon Bayou Development and set them to work. He had envisioned Josie spending hours here with him as the flatbed became a crepe-paper, fairy-tale kingdom, but Belle Davidson had taken her to Lake Charles for the day "to get away from the atmosphere" in Bayou Breaux.

  "To get away from me, more like," he muttered.

  He tipped his bottle up only to find it empty. He scowled and tossed it down into the bucket of the backhoe, where it shattered against the remains of several other brown bottles. The sound pierced through the country music blaring from the radio. Several heads turned in his direction from the float, but no one said anything.

  People had grown wary of his moods since Pam's death. They walked around him on eggshells, hedging their bets in case the cops were wrong about Marcus Renard, in case Donnie was the resurrection of the Bayou Strangler. He was sick of it. He wanted it all behind him. It should have been behind him.

  "Goddamn cops," he grumbled.

  "Sounds like maybe I should come back."

  Annie had let herself in a side door of the big shed where the construction company stored some of its heavy equipment.

  Donnie glared down at her from his throne. "Do I know you?"

  "Annie Broussard, sheriff's office." This time she flashed the badge. Be bold.

  "Oh, Christ, now what? Did my check bounce? I don't care if it did. You can throw Fourcade back in the hoosegow, the ungrateful son of a bitch."

  "Why do you say that?"

  He opened his mouth to complain, then swallowed it back. Fourcade was on suspension, off the case. No sense dredging up old suspicions with a new cop.

  "The man is unstable, that's all," he said as he climbed down from the backhoe. "So, you're Fourcade's replacement. What happened to the other guy, that black guy— Stokes?"

  "Nothing. He's still on the case."

  "Not that I care," he said, bending to dig another bottle out of the old Coleman cooler that sat beside the backhoe's tire. "You want my opinion: That guy is lazy. He was on the case when Renard started hassling Pam, and all he wanted to do was make time with her. Always looked to me like Fourcade was the brains of the pair. It's too damn bad he's off the case, except of course that he's nuts."

  He twisted the top off the bottle and tossed it into the backhoe bucket with the rest of the trash. "Too damn bad he didn't get to close the case for good in that alley. You want a beer?"

  "No, thanks." Annie dipped her head a little, letting her bangs fall into her eyes, hoping recognition wouldn't dawn on Donnie as it had with Lindsay Faulkner.

  "On duty?" He laughed. "That never stopped any cop I ever knew—Gus Noblier included. What are you, new?"

  "I need to ask you a couple questions."

  "I swear, that's all you people do—ask questions. You got more answers now than you know what to do with."

  "I spoke with Lindsay Faulkner this morning."

  His face twisted in distaste. "Did she tell you I'm the Antichrist? The woman hates me. You would have thought she was Pam's big sister. They were that close. As close as women get without being lesbians."

  "She told me you're going to sell Pam's half of the business."

  "I've got my hands full with my own business. I have no desire to have Lindsay for a partner and she has no desire to have me."

  "She said you may have a buyer from New Orleans. Is that true?"

  He slanted her a sly look. "A good businessman doesn't tip his hand too far."

  "Are you telling me it's a bluff?" She smiled back, like a friend wanting in on
the secret. "Because a name came up and I could just make a couple phone calls..."

  "What name?" She could feel him drawing back from her, raising his shields.

  "Duval Marcotte."

  "It's a bluff," he declared flatly. "Make all the calls you want."

  He scratched at the stubble on the knob of his chin and gestured toward the float. "What do you think of the masterpiece?"

  Annie looked at the work in progress: a cheap pine framework covered with chicken wire. It could have been anything. Two women in cutoffs and tight T-shirts were stuffing chicken-wire holes with squares of blue crepe paper, talking, laughing, oblivious to the larger problems of the world.

  "It's a castle," Donnie explained. "My daughter's idea. She picked a scene from Much Ado About Nothing. Can you believe that? Nine years old and she's into Shakespeare."

  "She's a very bright girl."

  "She wanted to help build it, but her grandmother had other ideas. Another Davidson woman conspiring against me."

  "Will Belle and Hunter challenge you for custody?"

  He hunched his shoulders, still staring at the float. "I don't know. Probably. I suppose it'll depend on whether Hunter goes to prison. I've got that in my favor: I haven't tried to kill anybody recently—or ever," he amended, glancing down at Annie. "That was a joke."

  "You want Josie to live with you full-time?"

  "She's my daughter. I love her."

  As if it were as simple as that. As if he had managed to totally separate Donnie the Daddy from Donnie the Don Juan.

  "Rumor had it, you would have fought Pam for her."

  "Oh, Christ, that again?" Impatience pulled at his features, making him look petulant. "You've got your killer. Why don't you go hound him? I didn't do anything to Pam. I didn't kill her for the insurance or for the business or in a rage or anything else. I couldn't do anything to Pam. I was sure as hell in no condition that night to do anything to anybody. I drank too much, got a ride home from a friend, and passed out."

  "I know all that," Annie said. "I'm not looking at you as a suspect, Mr. Bichon." Though it had occurred to her more than once that drunkenness was easily faked and Donnie had as much motive as anyone—more than most.

  According to the news reports, he had shown up at the Voodoo Lounge that night between nine and ten, and had been dropped off at home by his friend around eleven-thirty. Pam had last been seen at eight-twenty and had died around midnight. There were windows of opportunity on both ends of Donnie's story.

  "I was just wondering what grounds you had to challenge Pam for custody."

  "Why? Pam is dead. What difference does it make now?"

  "If Pam was involved with someone—"

  "Renard killed her!" he roared suddenly. The cords in his neck stood out, as taut as guy wires. He spiked his bottle on the cement floor of the shed, shards of glass exploding outward, beer foaming like peroxide in a raw wound. "He killed her! Now do your fucking job and put him away for it!"

  He shoved past Annie and strode for the door. The float crew stared, mouths agape. Mary Chapin Carpenter shouted from the radio—"I Take My Chances."

  Annie hustled after him. The brilliance of the afternoon nearly blinded her as she emerged from the shed. Squinting, she shaded her eyes with her hand. Donnie stood at the chain-link fence that corralled the possessions of his company, staring at the train tracks that ran behind the property.

  "Look, I'm just trying to get at the whole truth," she said, stepping up beside him. "I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask questions."

  "It's just— It's dragged on and on." He swallowed and his Adam's apple bobbed like cork. His eyes stayed on the tracks. "Why can't it just be over? Pam's gone. ... I'm so tired of it...."

  He wanted the wounds to heal and disappear with no scars, no reminders. It was a good detective's job to keep picking and picking at those wounds. The trick was knowing when to dig and when to stand back. Annie had thought she would be able to read Donnie Bichon, know him for a liar if he was one. But the emotions that had caught him up were a tangled skein; she couldn't tell grief from remorse, fear from arrogance.

  "I could have been a better husband," he murmured. "She could have been a better wife. You can think what you want of me for saying it."

  In the distance a train whistle blew. Donnie seemed not to have heard it. He was lost in memories.

  "I just wanted what was mine," he whispered, blinking against the threat of tears. "I didn't want to lose her. I didn't want to lose Josie. I thought maybe if I scared her ... threatened custody..."

  If he scared her how? Was custody the only threat he'd made? Annie drew a breath to ask what he meant, but held it as he turned toward her.

  "You look like her, you know," he said, his voice strangely dreamy. "The shape of your face ... the hair ... the mouth..."

  He reached out as if to touch her cheek, but pulled back at the last instant. She wondered if it was sanity or the fear of breaking some inner spell that stopped him. Either way, it unnerved her. She didn't welcome comparison with a woman who had met such a brutal end.

  "I miss her," Donnie admitted. "Always want what I can't have. I used to think that was ambition, but it's just ... need."

  "What about Pam? What did she need?"

  The train whistle blew again, louder, nearer.

  "To be free of me," he said simply, his expression bleak. "And now she is."

  Annie watched him walk away, not back to the building but to a pearl white Lexus parked near the side gate. Behind her the Southern Pacific train whined past, wheels chattering over the connections in the track.

  She had been working the case a matter of hours, and she felt as if she had stepped into a maze that appeared deceptively simple from the outside but was in reality a complex labyrinth, dark corridor full of mirrors. A small part of her wanted to turn back. A larger part of her wanted to go deeper, learn more. The mystery pulled at her, beckoned her. Temptation, The word came to her like a whispered secret from a hidden coconspirator.

  Fourcade. He was the guardian at the gate, her selfappointed guide if she would accept his offer. He held the map of the maze and the knowledge of the players. The trick would be deciding if he was friend or foe, if his offer was genuine or a trap. There seemed only one way to find out.

  18

  Even on a bright day the house had a sinister look. The brilliant spring sun failed to remove the shawl of shadows that fell down from the newly leafed trees. Shrouded in murky light and gray with neglect, it squatted amid the sprouting growth like a toothless crone, ugly and abandoned.

  Nick stared at the house from the pirogue, fascinated by the possibility that evil could linger in a place like a scent. The house hadn't been bad off at the time of the murder. Recently vacated by renters at the time, and scheduled for some renovation work, the electricity had still been turned on. Since the murder, the place had been let go. Kids had thrown rocks through the windows. The stigma of death clung to it like grime.

  Nick would not go inside. Some people would have called him superstitious, but they would have been people who had never stepped close to the boundary between good and evil; they didn't know the power or the possibilities. Still, it was telling that on a day as fine as this one, when other parts of Pony Bayou were thick with weekend fishermen, there were none within a quarter mile of this place.

  He had set out in the pirogue intending to distance himself from thoughts of the case. But this place had drawn him like a magnet.

  Another battle lost, and so he would give himself over to the obsession until a conclusion could be reached.

  Would it be over now, he wondered, had I killed Renard that night?

  Pony Bayou here was narrow, even this time of year, when the brown water was high and spilling into the forest. The banks were crowded with hackberry saplings and tangles of dewberry and poison ivy. The limbs of the black willow and water locust reached out over the column of water from both sides, like bony fingers stretching to touch one ano
ther.

  The trees were alive with the sounds of birds excited by the early arrival of spring. The songs and shrieks and squawks blended into a cacophony that seemed to take on an especially discordant and unnerving quality. And on every available limb, log, and stump, water snakes had crawled out to sun themselves in an eerie ritual of spring. The forest along the banks seemed hung with reptiles, like dark, muscular ropes of live bunting.

  Taking up the push-pole, Nick rose at the back of the pirogue and sent it gliding north and west. The route was twisted, his passing witnessed by no one. Nature claimed the land here for several miles and no man in recent history had challenged Her. Then the channel widened slightly and the forest came to an abrupt halt on the western bank, marking the edge of the first piece of domesticated property away from the murder scene. Marcus Renard's home.

  The house stood a hundred yards or so away, elegant in its simplicity. Clean lines, plain columns. The modest home of a modest indigo planter in a past century. Tall French windows opened onto a brick veranda where Victor Renard sat at a patio table.

  Victor was slightly bigger than Marcus, thicker bodied. While he had the social awareness of a small child, he had the physical strength of a thirty-seven-year-old man and had once been turned out of a group home for destroying a bed in a fit of temper. Emotions—his own or those of others— were difficult for him to comprehend or process. The autistic mind seemed unable to decode feelings. For the most part, he expressed none, though odd things would sometimes trigger agitation and occasionally anger. At the same time, Victor was mathematically gifted, able to easily work equations that could stump college students, and he could name the genus and species of thousands of animals and plants and describe each in textbook detail.

  People around Bayou Breaux didn't understand Victor Renard's condition. They were frightened of him. They mistook him for being retarded or schizophrenic. He was neither.

  Nick had considered it his duty to discover these things about Victor and his autism. An arsenal of information was far more useful to a detective than any other kind of weapon. The smallest, seemingly insignificant fact or detail could prove to be the one piece that made the rest of the puzzle work.