A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

  Annie prowled the records office all day like a caged animal, wanting to be a part of the team of deputies and detectives going through Roache's trailer, running evidence to the regional lab in New Iberia, making calls to map out the rapist's background. Myron barely allowed her to help catalog the evidence that was brought into their own lockup for safekeeping.

  The frustration was almost unbearable. She wanted to see the proof for herself, go through the process of identifying the components of Roache's guilt, so that she could exorcise the last of the theory that had taken root in her own mind: that Chaz Stokes could have committed the crimes and that those crimes might have led them back to Pam's murder.

  A theory was all it had been. As Fourcade had pointed out to her, she had no evidence, nothing but hunches, conjecture, speculation. A detective's job was to find irrefutable proof, to build the case solid and airtight—which Stokes might have done with Willard Roache before he had the chance to attack Kay Eisner and Lindsay Faulkner and Kim Young, had Stokes been inclined to work a little harder after Jennifer Nolan's attack.

  Instead, Stokes did the research on Roache after the fact and readily accepted congratulations on his detective work. Because everyone was so happy to have the terror of this man stalking the parish over and done with, so far people were choosing to ignore the fact that Roache had lived in the same trailer park as Jennifer Nolan and had not been interviewed the day of her rape. He hadn't been home the morning the investigation had begun. Annie had knocked on his door herself and reported to Stokes that he wasn't home. Neither Stokes nor Mullen had bothered to go back. If they had, they might have recognized him later, when the state had faxed in descriptions and mug shots of sex offenders released from the system in the past year.

  With all the bad things that had happened in recent weeks, the department needed something to celebrate. The death of Willard Roache was treated as a triumph, even though neither the department nor the task force had had any hand in ending Roache's crime spree. If anything, Annie thought, they should have considered it an embarrassment. It had taken a 120-pound clerk from the Quik Pik with a sawed-off shotgun to stop the predator. They could have as easily been mourning Kim Young's own death if Roache had wrestled the gun from her. But no one else seemed to see it that way.

  At the end of the day the sheriff presented the conclusion of the case to the press like an elaborately wrapped present. Only Smith Pritchett seemed less than overjoyed, and only because the thunder was all Noblier's and there was no villain left to prosecute. Still, he took the opportunity to pontificate and state that the world was a better place without Willard Roache in it. No charges would be filed against Kim Young for protecting herself in her own home.

  Everybody's a winner, Annie thought, standing toward the edge of the pack watching the press conference on the break-room set. Everyone except Jennifer Nolan, and Kay Eisner, and Lindsay Faulkner, and Kim Young—who, despite saving herself from a worse fate, had blown a man's head off and would have to live with that for the rest of her life.

  Annie wandered back to records feeling at loose ends. Focus, Fourcade would say. The rape cases were closed, but the rapes were not her focus. Pam's murder was her focus. To that end she had Marcus Renard and Donnie Bichon to hold her attention.

  "You have got no respect for this office," Myron greeted her dourly. "There is work to be done, and you're off watching television."

  Annie rolled her eyes as she scooped the afternoon mail off the counter. "Oh, Jesus, Myron, go have a bowel movement, why don't you? This is the records office. We're not guarding the ark of the covenant, for crying out loud."

  The clerk's eyes bugged out. His nostrils flared and his wiry frame quivered with outrage. "That is it, Deputy Broussard! You are through in my office. I will not stand for any more."

  He stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him, and headed in the direction of Noblier's office. Annie leaned over the counter and shouted after him, "Hey, ask for my old job back while you're at it!"

  Guilt nipped her as he strode out of sight. She had always appreciated Myron for who he was—until she had to work with him. She had always had a respectful attitude toward her elders and her superiors, with few exceptions. Maybe Fourcade was a bad influence. Or maybe she just had more important things on her mind than kissing Myron's skinny ass.

  She sorted through the mail, knowing Myron would go ballistic if she opened anything he deemed important. Most of it looked like insurance stuff: requests for accident reports and so on. One envelope bore the Our Lady of Mercy letterhead and was addressed to her.

  Tearing the end open with her thumb, Annie extracted what looked to be a lab report. A copy of the chem 7 blood analysis on Lindsay Faulkner that Dr. Unser had requested during Faulkner's seizure. The test Annie had requested after Lindsay's death. The test the Our Lady lab had apparently lost.

  She looked down the row of indecipherable symbols and corresponding numbers, none of it meaning anything to her. K+: 4.6 mEq/L. C1-: 101 mEq/L. Na++: 139 mEq/L. BUN: 17 mg. Glucose: 120. It didn't matter much now. Willard Roache would likely be credited with both the attack and the death of Faulkner, unless the autopsy Stokes had requested turned up some anomaly.

  "I have left my message with Sheriff Noblier's secretary," Myron announced. "I expect your position here will be terminated by the end of the day."

  Annie didn't bother to correct him, though she figured she had at least until Monday to be reassigned or suspended, depending on Gus's mood. Less than an hour shy of five o'clock on Friday, with a big win under his belt, the sheriff was doubtless off toasting himself with the town fathers.

  "Then I might as well leave, hadn't I?" Annie said. "As my last official act as your assistant, I'll take this report over to the detectives. Just to be kind to you, Myron."

  Annie walked into the Pizza Hut without bothering to ring the bell. On the phone, Perez looked up at her, dark eyes snapping impatience. She waved the report at him and gestured back to the task force war room.

  The task force members had all been invited to the press conference so that Noblier could show them off and earn more praise for having the wisdom to select such a crack team. They had left their command center looking as if it had been ransacked by thieves. The radio on the file cabinet was blaring Wild Tchoupitoulas.

  Moving along the table, Annie scanned file tabs until she came across the one marked faulkner, lindsay. It seemed pitifully thin for representing a woman's violent death. Not much would be added to it before the case was closed and it went into the drawers in Myron's domain. The autopsy report, Stokes's final report, that would be it.

  She flipped the folder open and pulled the lab report Stokes had already collected, scanning the document to make certain it and the one she'd received were indeed the same item. K+: 4.6 mEq/L. C1-: 101 mEq/L. Na++: 139 mEq/L. BUN: 17 mg. Glucose: 120.

  "What the hell is with you, Broussard?" Stokes demanded, striding into the room. "Are you stalking me? Is that it? There's laws against that. You know what I'm saying?"

  "Yeah? Well, who'd have thought you knew anything about it after the way you blew off Pam Bichon last fall?"

  "I did not blow off Pam Bichon. Now why don't you tell me what you're doing in my face, then get out of it? I was having a damn fine day without you."

  "Our Lady sent over a dupe of the chem 7 blood test on Lindsay Faulkner. I thought it should be in the file, not that you care. Why bother following up when you barely did any work to begin with?"

  "Fuck you, Broussard," he said, snatching the report from her hand. "It was just a matter of time before I woulda nailed Roache."

  "I'm sure that's a comfort to all the women he attacked after Jennifer Nolan."

  "Don't you have some paper clips to count?"

  Mullen stepped into the doorway, cutting a glance from Annie to Stokes. "You coming, Chaz? They can't start the party without us."

  Stokes flashed the Dudley Do-Right. "I'm there, man. I am there."

  Anni
e shook her head. "A party to celebrate the fact that a civilian closed your case for you. You ought to be so proud."

  Stokes settled his porkpie hat back on his head and straightened his purple tie. "Yeah, Broussard, I am. My only regret is that Roache didn't get to you first."

  He herded her from the room and from the building.

  Annie went reluctantly on toward the law enforcement center, her eyes on Stokes and Mullen as they climbed into their respective vehicles and tore out of the parking lot, blasting their horns in celebration.

  A civilian had cleared their hottest case and Pam Bichon's killer was still roaming free. She couldn't see much to be happy about.

  "Or maybe I'm just a sore loser," she muttered.

  43

  "You're listening to KJUN. All talk all the time. Our topic: safety versus civil rights—should prospective employees be subjected to fingerprinting? Carl in Iota—"

  Nick switched the radio off and sat up behind the wheel of the truck as Donnie left his office and climbed into the Lexus. He looked as pale as the car. His hunch-shouldered walk had a little extra bend in it. The pressure was getting to him. He would make a move soon, maybe tonight, and Nick wanted to be there when he did. He crushed out his cigarette with the half dozen butts in the ashtray, put the truck in gear, and waited until the Lexus had turned the corner at Dumas.

  Patience was the key word here. Essential in surveillance. Essential in all aspects of life. A useful tool that was difficult to master. Men like Donnie never got the hang of it. He had moved too quickly to get rid of Pam's business. Haste attracted unwanted attention. But then had that been Donnie's doing or Marcotte's? Or mine? Nick wondered, the idea burning in his gut like an ulcer. He hadn't completely mastered patience himself.

  La Rue Dumas was busy, the curbs lined with cars, the sidewalk full of people. The Lexus was four cars ahead and waiting at the green light to make a left turn. Friday night always drew people into town. Nick had heard Bayou Breaux's Carnival celebration attracted folks from all over South Louisiana for the street dance and various parties and pageants that went on from tonight through Fat Tuesday. With the demise of the serial rapist, the atmosphere of revelry would be cranked up an extra notch, relief adding wild euphoria to the mix.

  All day the news had been full of "late-breaking information" on the shooting of Willard Roache, who had been subsequently unmasked, so to speak, as the Mardi Gras rapist. So much for Annie's theory on Stokes as a sexual predator, though Nick had to give her grudging admiration for going after the tough angle. She had a passion for the work she was only just beginning to tap. With the rapist out of the way, she would be better able to focus on tripping up Renard.

  Renard was still his number one bet. Donnie was up to no good, but it had the smell of dirty money rather than the smell of death. It was Renard who made Nick's hackles rise. Every time he went over the case in his mind, the trail, the logic, wound back to Renard. Every time. The story was there. He just hadn't managed to find the key to open the book. Until Annie.

  A mixed blessing, that, he mused. His initial intent had been to use her as bait to draw Renard out. But the better that plan worked, the less he liked it. In his mind's eye he could still see the gruesome tableau in her bedroom. He had made the same connection he knew she had, recalling the sight of Pam Bichon nailed to the floor of that house out on Pony Bayou.

  The idea of Renard terrorizing Annie that way, the idea of Renard thinking about Annie that way, the idea of Renard touching Annie in any way, brought a rush of emotion Nick wasn't quite sure how to handle. He knew it wasn't wise, but it was there and he was loath to walk away from it.

  She would testify against him in six days.

  He turned on Fifth as the Lexus took a right to drive south along the bayou road.

  The parking lot at the Voodoo Lounge was nearly full. Nick spotted the Lexus and parked the truck on the berm up on the road. Zydeco music was blowing through the walls of the joint. Colorful Chinese lanterns had been strung around the building. Costumed party-goers were dancing on the half-finished gallery. A curvy blonde in a green sequined mask opened her top and shook her naked breasts like a pair of water balloons at Nick as he mounted the steps. He walked past her without reaction.

  "Man, Nicky, you got ice water in those veins of yours! If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'," Stokes announced, clapping him on the back.

  Nick shot him a look, taking in the incongruity of a Zorro mask and a porkpie hat.

  Stokes shrugged. "Hey, cut me some slack, pard. It's a special occasion!"

  "So I hear."

  "Drinks are on the house for cops. You picked the right night to come out of your cave, Nicky."

  They wound their way through the throng toward the bar. The energy level was high, an almost palpable electricity that magnified the scents of fried shrimp, warm bodies, and cheap cologne. Chaz bulled his way to the bar and bellowed for shots. Nick moved toward the nearest corner, his gaze scanning the room for Donnie, who had found a spot midway down the long side of the bar. He didn't look like a man who had come to party. He sipped at his whiskey as if he were using it for medicinal purposes.

  Stokes held a shot glass out to Nick and raised his own. "To the timely end of another scumbag."

  "You can concentrate on Renard, now," Nick said, leaning close to be heard without shouting over the noise.

  "I intend to. There's nothing I want more than to put an end to that situation, believe me." He tossed back his drink, grimaced at the kick in his gut, and shook himself like a wet dog. "You ain't exactly a party animal, man. What you doing out and about on a crazy night like this?"

  "Keeping an eye on something," Nick said vaguely. "A developing situation. Gotta do something to occupy my time."

  Stokes snorted. "You need a hobby, man. I suggest Valerie out there on the veranda. That girl is a regular devil's playground for idle hands. You know what I'm saying?"

  "What's the matter? You bored with her?"

  He flashed a smile that was a little hard around the edges. "My attentions are needed elsewhere tonight."

  "So are mine," Nick said, as Donnie pushed himself back from the bar and headed for the door, a solitary ambassador of gloom among the sea of smiling faces.

  Nick turned his back as Bichon passed, setting his glass on the bar.

  "Have another," Stokes offered, always magnanimous with the money of others.

  "One's my limit tonight. Catch you later."

  He worked his way out onto the gallery and spotted the Lexus backing carefully out of the lineup of pickups and beaters. He waited until it was headed toward the southern exit of the lot, then jogged up onto the road at the north end, and jumped in the truck.

  Traffic was enough to keep Donnie distracted as they headed out of town. Still, Nick hung well back. Patience. He wanted to see how this would play out, give Donnie a little bit of rope to see if he would hang himself with it.

  Twilight had surrendered to evening. Fog hung over the water. The Lexus turned east, crossed the bayou, then went south again, and passed down the main street of Luck. At the edge of town it turned in at a supper club called Landry's.

  Nick cruised past the restaurant, his eye catching on the sleek silver Lincoln that sat apart from the other cars in the lot, the driver a hulking black shadow behind the wheel. He turned the corner two blocks down, doubled back, and drove in the service entrance at the back of the property.

  He entered the restaurant through the kitchen door that stood open, letting the rich aromas of beefsteak and good Cajun cooking roll out into the night. The kitchen help chose to ignore him as he moved through their domain.

  Landry's dining room was large and dimly lit. A freestanding fireplace with fake logs glowing orange for ambiance stood in the center. Perhaps two-thirds of the white-draped tables were taken, mostly by older middle class couples dressed up for their big night out. The low hum of conversation was constant, the chink of flatware against china like the sound of small bells ringing across
the room.

  Donnie and Marcotte sat in the wraparound banquette of a round corner table. To Marcotte's left, one of DiMonti's twin thugs sat hunched over a table for two, making it look like something from a child's tea set. DiMonti was nowhere in sight.

  Nick adjusted the lightweight jacket he wore to show just the butt of the Ruger in its shoulder rig, slipped his sunglasses on, and moved toward the table with casual ease. Donnie spotted him when he was still ten feet away, and his color washed from ashen to chalk.

  "Starting the party without me, Tulane?" Nick said, sliding onto the banquette beside him.

  Donnie bolted sideways, nearly spilling his drink. "What the hell are you doing here, Fourcade?" he demanded in a harsh whisper.

  Nick raised his eyebrows above the rims of his sunglasses. "Why, seeing for myself what a lying weasel you are, Donnie. I'd say I'm disappointed in you, but it's no less than I expected."

  He reached inside his jacket for cigarettes and Donnie's eyes widened at the sight of the Ruger.

  "This is a no-smoking table," he said stupidly.

  Nick stared straight at him through the mirrored lenses of the shades and lit up.

  Marcotte watched the exchange with mild amusement, relaxed, his forearms resting on the tabletop. He didn't look the least out of place in the setting. In a simple white shirt and conservative tie, he couldn't have been pegged for a business tycoon. In contrast, even the simplest bumpkin would recognize the muscle for what he was. The loan-a-thug turned in his seat for a better view, revealing a smashed nose, held to his face with adhesive tape. Brutus. Nick smiled at him and nodded.

  "This is a private meeting, Nick," Marcotte said pleasantly. He glanced at Donnie. "Nick here has a bit of a learning disability, Donnie. He needs to be taught all his lessons twice."