by Tami Hoag
"You are me," Pam said, and fired the rifle. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Annie hurled herself upright on the sofa, gasping for breath, feeling as if her heart had leapt out of her chest.
The banging came again. A fist on wood. Bleary-eyed, she grabbed for the Sig on the coffee table.
"'Toinette! It's me!" Fourcade called.
He stood at the French doors, scowling in at her.
Annie went to the doors and let him in. She didn't bother to ask the obvious question. Of course Fourcade wouldn't come to the front door. Her tormentor might have been watching from the woods, returning to the scene of his crimes. She asked the second—most obvious question instead.
"Where the hell were you?"
After slamming the door shut on the atrocity in her bedroom, she had gone back to the living room and sat down, trying to think what she should do. Call the SO? Bring Pitre back here and let him soak up the gory details to spread around the department at the shift change? What good would he do? None. She had called Fourcade instead, cursing him silently as his machine picked up again.
"Taking care of some business," he said.
He stared at her as she paced back and forth along the coffee table with her arms banded around her. He took in everything about her—the disheveled hair, the dirty jeans and T-shirt. Reaching out as she came toward him, he plucked the Sig from her fingers and set it aside.
"Are you all right?"
"No!" she snapped. "Someone tried to kill me. I think we've already established that I don't take that well. Then I find out someone came into my house, wrote on my wall in blood, and nailed a dead cat above my bed. I'm not okay with that either!"
From the corner of her eye she could see Fourcade watching her. He didn't seem to know what to do except fall back on the job, the routine. She was a victim—God, but she hated that label—and he was a detective.
"Tell me what happened from the time you parked the Jeep."
She went through the story point by point, fact by fact, the way she had been trained to testify. The process calmed her somewhat, distanced her from the violation. In her mind, she tried to separate the victim in her from the cop. For the first time she told him about the skinned muskrat that had been left in her locker room, though she didn't put the two incidents on the same plane. It was one thing to play a nasty joke at work; breaking and entering was another matter. And what had been done in her bedroom seemed more threatening, more vile, more personal. Then again, if a deputy had been behind that rifle tonight, why not this too?
Nick listened, then headed toward the bedroom. Annie followed, reluctant to face it again.
"Did you touch anything?" he asked out of habit.
"No. God, I couldn't even bring myself to go in."
He pushed the door open and stood there with his hands on his hips, a grimace twisting his lips. "Mon Dieu."
He left Annie at the door and went into the room, taking in the details with a clinical eye.
The blood had been brushed on the wall. No visible fingerprints. The word cunt had been chosen for what reason? As an opinion? To shock? Out of disrespect? Out of anger?
In his mind's eye he could see Keith Mullen, skinny and ugly, standing in his filthy kitchen just that morning. "She don't know nothing about loyalty, turning on one of us. Cunt's got no business being in a uniform."
Was the animal symbolic? An alley cat—sexually indiscriminate. Its guts spilled down onto the bed where Annie had made love with him just the night before.
And the positioning of its body, the nails through its forepaws, the evisceration—an obvious allusion to Pam Bichon. Meant to frighten or as a warning?
He thought of how close she had come to being shot and he wanted to hit something—someone—hard and repeatedly.
He worked to contain the rage even as he remembered Donnie Bichon's muddy boots. He set the thought aside for the moment.
"This cat—was she yours, Toinette?"
"No."
"You talked to your tante and uncle 'bout did they see anyone around today?"
"We had that conversation when we were talking about who might want to shoot me. They were busy today. Tourists coming in early for Mardi Gras. They had to call in extra tour guides. They didn't have time to notice anyone special."
"How'd anyone get in here? Were your doors locked when you came up?"
"Everything was locked up tight. You might be able to pick a lock to break in, but there's no locking these doors from the outside without a key."
"So how did this creep get in?"
"There's only one other way." She led him into the bathroom, to the door behind the old claw-foot tub. "The stairs go down into the stockroom of the store."
"Was it locked?"
"I don't know. I thought so. I usually keep it locked, but I went down this way Sunday night when the prowler was here. Maybe I forgot to lock it after."
Nick stood in the tub and examined the locking mechanism in the doorknob, frowning disapproval. "Ain't nothing but a button. Anybody could slip it with a credit card. How would anyone but family or employees know about these stairs?"
Annie shook her head. "By luck. By chance. The rest rooms are across the hall at the bottom of the stairs. Someone going to use them might look through the stockroom and notice."
He flicked on the light switch and descended the steep stairs, looking for any sign another person had been there—a footprint, a thread, a stray hair. There was nothing. The stockroom door stood open. Across the hall, he could see part of the door to the men's room.
"I'd say someone went out of their way to notice," he murmured.
He went back up the steps and followed Annie to the living room. She curled herself into one corner of the sofa and rubbed her bare foot slowly back and forth under the jaw of her gator table. She looked small and forlorn.
"What d' you think, 'Toinette? You think the shooter and the cat killer are the same person?"
"I don't know," Annie said. "And don't try to tell me I do. Are the shooter and the cat killer one and the same? Is Renard's shooter my shooter too, or is Renard the shooter? Who hates me more: half the people I work with or half the people I work for? And what do they hate me for more: trying to solve this murder or preventing you from committing one?
"I'm so tired I can't see straight. I'm scared. I'm sick that someone would do that to that poor animal—"
Somehow, that was the last straw. Bad enough to have violence directed at her, but to have an innocent little animal killed and mutilated for the sole purpose of frightening her was too much. She pressed her fingertips against her lips and tried to will the moment to pass. Then Fourcade was beside her and she was in his arms, her face against his chest. The tears she had fought so hard to choke back soaked into his shirt.
Nick held her close, whispering softly to her in French, brushing his lips against her forehead. For a few moments he allowed the feelings free inside him—the need to protect her, to comfort her, the blind rage against whoever had terrorized her. She had been so brave, such a fighter through all of this mess.
He pressed his cheek against the top of her head and held her tighter. It had been too long since he'd had anything of himself worth giving to another person. The idea that he wanted to was terrifying.
Annie held tight to him, knowing tenderness didn't come to him easily. This small gift from him meant more to her than she should have let it. As the tears passed, she wiped them from her cheeks with the back of her hand and studied his face as he met her stare, wondering ... and afraid to wonder.
Her gaze shifted to the gift box she had left on her coffee table. Inside the box lay a small, finely detailed antique cameo brooch. The note enclosed read: "To my guardian angel. Love, Marcus."
Revulsion shuddered down her back.
Fourcade picked up the box and card and studied the brooch.
"He gave Pam gifts," he said soberly. "And he slashed her tires and left a dead snake in her pencil drawer at work."
"Jekyll and Hyde," Annie murmured.
If Renard had indeed been Pam's stalker, as Pam had insisted, then he had alternated between secretly terrifying her and giving her presents; showing his concern for her, claiming to be her friend. The contrast in those actions had kept the cops from taking seriously Pam's charge that Renard was the one stalking her.
Across the room the phone rang. Automatically, Annie looked at the clock. Half past three in the morning. Fourcade said nothing as she let the machine pick up.
"Annie? It's Marcus. I wish you were there. Please call me when you can. Someone just threw a rock through one of our windows. Mother is beside herself. And Victor— And I—I wish you could come over, Annie. You're the only one who cares. I need you."
38
The flower woman was setting up at her station in the shade across the street from Our Lady, her pipe clenched between her teeth. The groundskeeper prowled the boulevard, a growling Weed Eater clutched in his hands.
"Here's the police gonna come arrest you, old witchy woman!" he screamed as Annie turned in the drive. He charged at the Jeep. "Police girl! You gonna get her dis time or what?"
"Not me!" Annie called, driving past.
She parked the Jeep and, with the scarf and brooch in her pocketbook, headed for the building. If Pam had shown Renard's gifts to anyone, it would have been Lindsay. Annie hoped she was improved enough to tell her whether or not the things Renard had given her were the same tokens of affection being recycled to a new object of fixation.
The hospital was bustling with morning rounds for meals and medications. The strange plastic smell of antiseptics commingled with toast and oatmeal. The clang of meal trays and bedpans accented the hushed conversations and occasional moans as Annie walked down the halls.
The long, sleepless night hung heavy on her shoulders. The day stretched out in front of her like eighty miles of bad road. She would have to face an interview with the detective assigned to her shooting incident, and had already concocted a worst-case scenario in which Chaz Stokes caught the case and she would have to go to the sheriff and ask Stokes to be removed because she not only believed he was a suspect, but she also thought he could be a rapist and a murderer. She wouldn't have to worry about Stokes or anyone else killing her. She'd never make it out of Gus Noblier's office alive.
For a second or two she tried again to imagine Stokes sneaking up to her apartment to nail a dead cat to her wall, but she couldn't see it. He might have had the temperament for it, but she couldn't believe he would take the risk. She couldn't imagine anyone in the SO would.
Who then? Who could have slipped into the store, found those stairs, made it up to her apartment and down again unnoticed?
Renard had been to the Corners to leave gifts for her— twice. Fanchon hadn't noticed him either time. If he had stalked Pam, he'd done so without detection.
Annie turned the corner to the ICU, and stepped directly into the path of Stokes.
His scowl was ferocious. He descended on her like a hawk, clamping a hand on her forearm and driving her away from the traffic flow in the hall.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Broussard?"
"Who put you in charge of visitors? I came to see my real estate agent."
"Oh, really?" he sneered. "Is she showing you something in a nice little two-bed room on the second floor?"
"She's an acquaintance and she's in the hospital. Why shouldn't I see her?" Annie challenged.
"Because I say so!" he barked. "Because I know you ain't nothing but trouble, Broussard. I told you to stay the hell away from my cases." His grip tightening on her arm, he pushed her another step toward the corner. "You think I just like to hear myself talk? You think I won't come down on you like a ton of bricks?"
"Don't threaten me, Stokes," Annie returned as she tried to wrench her arm free. "You're in no position to—"
Alarms sounded at the ICU desk.
"Oh, shit!" someone yelled. "She's seizing! Call Unser!"
Two nurses dashed for a room. Lindsay Faulkner's room.
Jerking free of Stokes, Annie rushed to the room and stared in horror at the scene. Faulkner's arms and legs were flailing, jerking like a marionette on the strings of a mad puppet master. A horrible, unearthly wail tore from her, accompanied by the shrieks of the monitors. Three nurses swarmed around her, trying to restrain her. One grabbed a padded tongue blade from the nurse server and worked to get it in Faulkner's mouth.
"Get an airway!"
"Got it!"
A doctor in blue scrubs burst past Annie into the room, calling, "Diazepam: 10-milligram IV push!"
"Jesus H.," Stokes breathed, pressing in close behind Annie. "Jesus Fucking Christ."
Annie glanced at him over her shoulder. His expression was likely no different from hers—shock, horror, anxious anticipation.
Another monitor began to bleat in warning and another round of expletives went up from the staff.
"She's in arrest!"
"Standard ACLS," Unser snapped, thumping the woman on the chest. "Phenytoin: 250 IV push. Phenobarbital: 55 IV push. I want a chem 7 and blood gases STAT! Tube and bag her!"
"She's in fine v-fib."
"Shit!"
"Charge it up!"
One of the nurses spun around, a tube of blood in her hands. "I'm sorry, we need you people out of here." She herded Annie and Stokes from the door. "Please go to the waiting area."
Stokes's face was chalky. He rubbed his goatee. "Jesus H.," he said again, pulling his porkpie hat off and crumpling it with his fingers.
Annie hit him in the chest with both hands. "What did you do to her?"
He looked as if she'd smacked him across the face with a dead carp. "What? Nothing!"
"You come out of her room and two minutes later this happens!"
"Keep your voice down!" he ordered, reaching for her arm.
She jerked away from him. What if Stokes was the rapist? What if he was something worse?
"I went in to talk to her," he said, as they entered the waiting area. "She wasn't awake. Ask the nurse."
"I win."
"Christ, Broussard, what's the matter with you? You think I'm a killer?" he demanded, a flush creeping up his neck. "Is that what you think? You think I'd walk into a hospital and kill a woman? You're out of your fucking mind!"
He sank down onto a chair and hung his long hands and the smashed hat between his knees.
"Maybe you oughta check yourself into this place," he said. "You need your damn head examined. First you go after Fourcade, now me. You're some kinda goddamn lunatic. You're like that crazy broad in Fatal Attraction. Obsessed —that's what you are."
"She was better yesterday," Annie insisted. "I talked to her. Why would this happen?"
Stokes gave a helpless shrug. "Do I look like George Fucking Clooney? I ain't no ER doc. It was some kind of seizure, that's all I know. Jesus, somebody bashed her head in with a telephone. What'd you expect?"
"If she dies, it's murder," Annie declared.
Stokes pushed to his feet. "I told you, Broussard—"
"It's murder," she repeated. "If she dies as a result of her injuries, the assault becomes a murder rap."
"Well, yeah." He dragged a jacket sleeve across his sweating forehead.
Annie stepped toward Faulkner's room again, trying to get a glimpse of her between the bodies of her rescue crew. The electric buzz and snap of the defibrillator was followed by another barrage of orders.
"Epinephrine and lidocaine! Dobutamine—run it wide open! Labs?"
"Not back."
"Charging!"
"Clear!"
Buzz. Snap!
"Flat line!"
"We're losing her!"
They repeated the process so many times it seemed as if time, and hope, had become snagged in a continuous loop. Annie held herself rigid, directing her will at Lindsay Faulkner. Live. Live. We need you. But the loop broke. Motion in the room slowed to a stop.
"She's gone."
&nbs
p; "Damn."
"Call it."
Annie looked at the wall clock. Time of death: 7:49 A.M. Just like that, it was all over. Lindsay Faulkner was dead. A dynamic, capable, intelligent woman was gone. The suddenness of it stunned her. She had believed Faulkner would pull through, put her life back together, help solve the mysteries that had marred her life and taken her partner. But she was gone.
The staff trailed out of the room looking defeated, disgusted, blank. Annie wondered if any of them had known Lindsay Faulkner outside the walls of the hospital. She might have sold them a house or known them from the Junior League. It was a small-enough town.
The doctor came toward the waiting area, a frown digging deep into his long face. He looked fifty, his hair thick and the color of gunmetal. The name on his badge was forbes unser. "Are either of you family?"
"No," Annie said. "We're with the sheriff's office. I'm Deputy Broussard. I—ah—I knew her."
"I'm sorry. She didn't make it," he said succinctly.
"What happened? I thought she was doing better."
"She was," Unser said. "The seizure was likely brought on by the trauma to her head. It led to cardiac arrest. These things happen. We did everything we could."
Stokes stuck his hand out. "Detective Stokes. I'm in charge of the Faulkner case."
"Well, I hope you get the animal who attacked her," Unser said. "I've got a wife and two teenage daughters. I barely let them out of my sight these days. Madeline wants me to keep a gun under my pillow at night."