by Tami Hoag
Annie raised her hands in surrender.
"I mean, I know you don't think I'm acceptable," he went on with an edge in his voice. "But hey, who's in plain clothes here and who's going around town in a goddamn dog suit?"
Myron looked up from the paperwork to glare at her, clearly unhappy with her for bringing the stigma of the dog suit into his realm.
Coming down the hall, Mullen let out a hound-dog howl. Annie tried not to grind her teeth.
"I always said you should be wearing a flea collar, Mullen," she said, moving down the counter away from Stokes and Myron.
"You're moving down in the world, Broussard," he said with glee as he set a plastic pee-cup on the counter, full to the lid with some drunk's donation to forensic science. "Take a bite outta crime lately? You can wash it down with this."
Annie yawned as she pulled out an evidence card and began to fill it out. "Wake me up when you have something original to say. Does this urine belong to someone, or did you bring me this to impress me with your aim?"
Thwarted again, he momentarily stuck to facts. "Ross Leighton. Another five-martini lunch at the Wisteria Club. But you got him beat, don't you, Broussard? Nipping Wild Turkey on the way to work."
The pen stilled on the form. Annie raised her head. "That's a lie and you know it."
Mullen shrugged. "I know what I saw in that Jeep Saturday morning."
"You know what you put in my Jeep Saturday morning."
"I know the sheriff pulled you off patrol and I'm still driving," he said smugly, flashing his ugly yellow teeth. He put his hands on the counter and leaned in, the gleam in his eye as mean as a weasel's. "Just what kind of witness are you gonna make against Fourcade?" he whispered. "I hear you were drinking that night too."
Annie held back her retort. She'd had a drink before dinner at Isabeau's that night. A glass of wine with the meal. The bartender at Laveau's could testify she had been in the bar. Maybe he wouldn't remember whether he'd served her or not. Maybe someone would make it worth his while to lose his memory. She had by no means been intoxicated that night, but Fourcade's lawyer would have a field day insinuating that she may have been. What that would do for his case would be dubious; what it would do for her reputation would be obvious.
She gave a humorless half-laugh. "I gotta say, Mullen, I wouldn't have given you credit for being that smart," she murmured. "I oughta shake your hand."
As she reached out, she backhanded the specimen cup, knocked the lid askew, and sent Ross Leighton's urine spewing down the front of Mullen's pants.
Mullen jumped back like a scalded dog. "You fuckin' bitch!"
"Oh, gee, look," Annie said loudly, snatching the cup off the counter. "Mullen wet his pants!"
Four people down the hall turned to stare. One of the secretaries from the business office stuck her head out the door. Mullen looked at them with horror. "She did it!" he said.
"Well, that'd be a hell of a trick," Annie said. "I'd need a hose attachment. They know what they're looking at, Mullen."
Fury contracted the muscles of his face. His thin lips tightened against his mouth, making his teeth look as big as a horse's. "You'll pay for this, Broussard."
"Yeah? What're you gonna do? Spill another bucket of pig guts down my steps?"
"What? I don't know what you're talking about. You done pickled your brain, Broussard."
Hooker bulled his way through the gawkers. "Mullen, what the fuck are you doing? You pissed yourself?"
"No!"
"Jesus Christ, clean up the mess and go change."
"Don't forget the Depends!" someone called from down the hall.
"Broussard made the mess," Mullen groused, bristling at the laughter. "She ought to clean it up."
Annie shook her head. "That's not my job. The mess is on your side of the counter, Mr. Patrol Deputy. I'm back here on my side of the counter, Myron's lowly assistant."
The clerk looked up from his paperwork with the dignity of a king. "Mr. Myron."
It became quickly apparent to Annie that there were few advantages to working in records and evidence. Her one perk of the day came in the form of a fax from the regional lab in New Iberia: the preliminary results on the tests of the entrails that had been draped down her steps Sunday night. No detective had been assigned to the case, which meant the fax came into the machine in records and evidence to be passed on to the case deputy. By being right there when the message rolled out of the machine, Annie bypassed any contact with Pitre.
She held her breath as she read the report, as if the words had the power to bring back the smell. The scene flashed through her mind: the blood dripping, the gory garland of intestines, the fear for Fanchon and Sos.
Preliminary findings reported the internal organs to be from a hog. The news brought only a small measure of relief. The lab couldn't tell her where the stuff had come from. Hogs got butchered every day in South Louisiana. Butcher shops sold every part of them to people who made their own sausage. No one kept records of such things. Nor could the lab tell her who had dumped the viscera down her steps. If it hadn't been Mullen, then who? Why? Did it have anything to do with her investigation of Pam's murder?
Did Pam's murder have anything to do with Lindsay Faulkner's attack? The questions led one into another, into another, with no end in sight.
By late afternoon Lindsay Faulkner's status was listed as critical but stable. Suffering from a skull fracture, fractures to a number of facial bones, multiple contusions, and shock, she had not regained consciousness. The doctors were arguing over whether or not she should be transferred from Our Lady of Mercy to Our Lady of Lourdes in Lafayette. Until they could decide which apparition of the Virgin would prove more miraculous, Faulkner remained in Our Lady of Mercy's ICU.
News of the attack had hit the civilian airwaves. The sheriff scheduled a press conference for five. Scuttlebutt around the department was that a task force would be set up to appease the panicking public. With few leads to go on, there would be little for them to concentrate on, but all the ground would be covered again and again until they churned it to dust. If Stokes, who would head the task force, hadn't already checked with the state for recent releases of sex offenders or with the National Crime Information Center to cross-reference MOs of known sex offenders, that would happen now. Acquaintances of the victims would all be questioned again, with the aim of finding a clue, a connection between the women who had been raped.
As Annie sat at her temporary desk in the records room, she felt a pang of envy toward the people who would be working on the task force. It was the kind of job she had set her sights on, but unless she reversed her fortunes in the department, hell would freeze over before Noblier promoted her to detective.
Closing the Bichon homicide would go a long way toward improving her status. But if anyone found out she was conducting her own investigation—and with whom she was conducting that investigation—her career would be toast.
She thought about that as Myron reluctantly left his post for his afternoon constitutional in the men's room. What was she supposed to do if she came up with evidence? Who was she supposed to tell about Renard's apparent fixation on her? If Lindsay Faulkner had given her useful information, where would she have gone with it? Stokes didn't want her near his case, and if she gave him anything useful, he would doubtless claim the credit for himself. If she went to A.J., she would be jumping the food chain in a way that wouldn't win her points with anyone outside the DA's office. Should she go to the sheriff with any findings and risk his wrath for overstepping her boundaries? Or would Fourcade take the opportunity to put his own career back on track and leave her in the dust?
Maybe that was what that kiss had been all about. The closer he pulled her to him, the easier it would be to shove her behind him when he had what he needed.
She doodled on her notepad as her brain ran the slalom of possibilities. She had taken advantage of Myron's absence to pull some of the Bichon homicide file: Renard's initial statement, wherein
he related the improbable story of his alibi, for which he had no corroborating witnesses. He had sent Fourcade on a wild-goose chase with his phantom Good Samaritan motorist, and he was trying to send her on the same pointless quest. A test of her loyalty, Annie supposed. Renard believed she was some kind of savior sent to deliver his life from the jaws of hell—or Angola penitentiary, not that there was a big difference between the two.
Mr. Renard states motorist was driving a dark-colored pickup of undetermined make. Louisiana plates possibly bearing the letters.
FJ-
FJ. Annie traced the letters on her scratch pad over and over. Fourcade had run this piddling information through the DMV, had checked the resulting list and come up with nothing. FJ. She worked the J into a fish hook and drew a bug-eyed fish below it with the word witness incorporated into the scales. Renard didn't believe Fourcade had done anything with the information, and turned a blind eye to the fact that his own attorney hadn't come up with an alibi witness for him either. What did he think she would do that no one else had done for him?
She exaggerated the serifs on the F and added one at the bottom. E. E. She sat up a little straighter. Renard had said that it was night and the truck had been muddy.
A phone call to the DMV was simple enough. It was a morsel she could give Renard to buy another measure of his trust. She could put the request in Fourcade's name, have the list faxed directly to the machine in records, and no one would be the wiser.
She thought about the scarf lying on her table at home and the man in the shadows Sunday night, and reminded herself who she was playing games with. An accused and probable murderer. Donnie Bichon may have had motive, and the three rapes may have borne a chilling resemblance to Pam's death; the waters surrounding the case had become muddied, but Renard's fixation on Pam Bichon was a fact.
Marcus Renard had been fixated on Pam, Pam had rejected him, and Pam was dead.
She placed the call to the DMV, hanging up just seconds before Myron returned from his porcelain pilgrimage with the latest issue of U.S. New & World Report.
By the end of the shift Annie had half a dozen paper cuts and a headache from eyestrain. She also had two flat tires on the Jeep. The valve stems had been cut clean off. No one had seen anything. Translation: No one had seen Mullen exact his revenge. She called Meyette's Garage and was told it would be an hour before anyone could get away to help.
The afternoon was warm and muggy with the breath of a storm building out over the Gulf. Annie walked along the footpath on the bank of the bayou. The mob would be gathering for Noblier's press conference, she knew, but she wanted no part of that. She had to think the sheriff would omit her name from the story of the Faulkner attack. He wouldn't want the press taking any more interest in her than they already had. He would do what he thought was best for his department and his people, and if that meant bending or omitting the truth, then to hell with the truth.
And who am I to criticize? Annie thought as she stopped across the street from Bayou Realty. The end justified the means—as long as the end was for the good of humankind, or yourself, or someone you loved, or some higher principle.
She had expected to see a closed sign in the window of the realty office, but she could see the receptionist at her desk. The woman looked up expectantly as Annie walked in and the bell jingled, announcing her.
"It's not bad news, is it?" the woman asked, her cheeks paling. "The hospital would have called. I just spoke with— Oh, mercy."
The last words squeezed out of her like the final breath of air leaving a balloon. She looked fiftysomething with a matron's helmet of sprayed-hard gray-blond hair. Well dressed, nails done, real gold jewelry. The placard on her desk said grace irvine.
"No," Annie said, realizing the uniform had spooked her. "I don't have any news. The last I heard, there hadn't been any change."
"No," Grace said with a measure of relief. "No change. That was what they just told me. Oh, my." She patted her chest. "You frightened me."
"I'm sorry," Annie said as she helped herself to the chair beside the desk. "I was surprised to see the office open."
"Well, I didn't find out what had happened until nearly noon. Of course, I was concerned when Lindsay didn't show up at her usual time, but I assumed she had made an impromptu meeting with a client. We do that, don't we? Rationalize. Even after Pam—"
She broke off and pressed a hand to her mouth as tears washed over her eyes. "I can't believe this is happening," she whispered. "I tried calling her on her cellular phone. I tried the house. Finally I went out there, and there were deputies and that yellow tape across the door."
She shook her head, at a loss for words. For an ordinary person, stumbling onto a crime scene had to be like stepping into an alternate reality.
"I kept the office open because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't bear the thought of sitting at home, waiting, or sitting in that horrible waiting room at the hospital. The phone was ringing and ringing. There were appointments to cancel, and I had to call Lindsay's family.... I just felt I should stay."
"You've known Lindsay a long time?"
"I knew Pam her whole life. Her mother is my second cousin once removed on the Chandler side. I've known Lindsay since the girls were in college. Dear, both of them, absolutely dear girls. They all but took me in after my husband passed away last year. They said I needed something to do with my time besides grieve, and they were right." She made a motion to the books spread open across her desk. "I'm studying to get my license. I've been thinking about trying to buy Pam's share of the business from Donnie."
She turned her face away and took a moment to compose herself, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a linen hankie.
"I'm sorry, Deputy," she apologized. "I'm rambling on. What can I do for you? Are you working on the case?"
"In a manner of speaking," Annie said. "I'm the one who found Lindsay this morning. She had left a message on my machine last night saying that she had something to tell me in relation to Pam's case. I was wondering if she might have told you what it was."
"Oh. Oh, no, I'm afraid not. It was hectic here yesterday. Lindsay had several appointments in the morning. Then Donnie showed up unannounced, and they had a bit of a row over the business dealings and all. They never did get along, you know. Then the new listings arrived. I had an obligation in the afternoon at my grandson's school. He's in second grade at Sacred Heart. It was law enforcement day, oddly enough. McGruff the Crime Dog came with an officer. The grandparents were invited to attend."
"I hear that's very popular," Annie said flatly.
"I found it rather strange, to be perfectly frank. Anyway, Lindsay and I never had a chance to talk. I know she had something on her mind, but I assumed she told the detective. You may want to ask him."
"The—" The words caught in Annie's throat. "Who? Which detective?"
"Detective Stokes," Grace Irvine said. "She saw him over the lunch hour."
29
Mouton's was the kind of place few men entered without a gun or a knife. Squatting on stilts on the bank of Bayou Noir south of Luck, it was the hangout of poachers and thieves and others living on the ragged hem of society. People looking for trouble looked at Mouton's, where just about anything could be had for the right price and no one asked any questions.
It was the latter truth that appealed to Nick on a Tuesday afternoon. He was in no mood for the Voodoo Lounge, wanted no one patting his back or expressing their useless sympathy for his situation. He wanted whiskey, settled for a beer, and waited for Stokes to show.
He had dragged himself out of bed at noon and forced himself through the Tai Chi forms, meditating on the movement of each aching muscle, trying to force the pain out with the power of his mind. The process had been excruciating and exhausting, but his sense of being was clearer for it.
His mind was sharp, his nerves coiled tight as springs, as he nursed his beer, his back to a corner.
A couple of bikers were playing pool acro
ss the room with a barfly hooker hovering around them in a short skirt and push-up bra. Nearer, a pair of swamp rats sat at a table, trading stories and drinking Jax. John Lee Hooker was moaning on the juke, black delta blues in a redneck bar. There was an illegal card game going on in the back room, and horse racing on the color television mounted over the bar. The bartender looked like Paul Prudhomme's evil twin. He watched Nick with suspicion.
Nick took a slow pull on his beer and wondered if the guy had made him for a cop or for trouble. He knew he looked like the kind of trouble no one wanted on his doorstep, his face cut and bruised, the butt of the Ruger peeking out of his open jacket. He had left his mirrored sunglasses on, despite the gloom of the bar.
One of the swampers scraped his chair back and rose, scratching at the giant middle finger screened on the front of his black T-shirt. A filthy red ball cap was stuck down on his head, the brim bent into an inverted U to frame a pair of eyes too small for a bony face. Nick watched him approach, sitting forward a little on his chair, ready to move. If nothing else, the beating at the hands of DiMonti's thugs had knocked the rust off his survival instincts.
"My buddy and me, we got a bet," the swamper said, weaving a little on his feet. "I say you're that cop what beat the shit outta that killer, Renard."
Nick said nothing, pulled a long drag on his cigarette, and exhaled through his nose.
"You are, ain't you? I seen you on TV. Let me shake your hand, man." He stepped in close and popped Nick on the arm with his fist like an old buddy, as if seeing him on the news had somehow forged a bond between them. "You're a fuckin' hero!"
"You're mistaken," Nick said calmly.
"No way. You're him. Come on, man, shake my hand. I got ten bucks on it." He cuffed Nick's arm again and flashed a bad set of teeth. "I say they shoulda let you put that asshole's lights out in a permanent way. Li'l bayou justice. Save the taxpayers some money, right?"