A Thin Dark Line

15

The call came at 12:31. Annie had double-checked the locks on her doors and gone to bed, but she wasn't sleeping. She picked up on the third ring because a call in the dead of night could have been something worse than a reporter. Sos and Fanchon could have been in an accident. One of their many relatives might have fallen ill. She answered with a simple hello. No one answered back.

"Ahhh… a breather, huh?" she said, leaning back against her pillows, instantly picturing Mullen on the other end of the line. "You know, I'm surprised you guys didn't start in with calls two nights ago. We're talking simple, no-brain harassment. Right up your alley. I have to say, I was actually expecting the 'you fucking bitch' variety. Big bad faceless man on the other end of the line. Oooh, how scary."

She waited for an epithet, a curse. Nothing. She pictured the dumbfounded look on Mullen's face, and smiled.

"I'm docking you points for lack of imagination. But I suppose I'm not the first woman to tell you that."

Nothing.

"Well, this is boring and I have to work tomorrow-but then, you already knew that, didn't you?"

Annie rolled her eyes as she hung up. A breather. Like that was supposed to scare her after what she'd been through tonight. She switched off the lamp, wishing she could turn off her brain as easily.

The pros and cons of Fourcade's offer were still bouncing in her head at five A.M. Exhaustion had pulled her under into sleep intermittently during the night, but there had been no rest in it, only dreams full of anxiety. She finally gave up and dragged herself out of bed, feeling worse than she had when she'd crawled between the sheets at midnight. She splashed cold water on her face, rinsed her mouth out, and pulled on her workout clothes.

Her brain refused to shut down as she went through her routine of stretching and warm-up. Maybe Fourcade's offer was all part of a revenge plot. If his compadres in the department hated her enough to get back at her, why wouldn't he?

"If you didn't sell me out, then you acted on your principles and damned the consequences. I can't hate you for that. For that, I would respect you."

Damned if she didn't believe he meant it. Did that make her an astute judge of character or a fool?

She hooked her feet into the straps on the incline board and started her sit-ups. Fifty every morning. She hated every one.

Fourcade's ravings about Duval Marcotte, the New Orleans business magnate, should have been enough to put her off for good. She had never heard any scandal attached to Marcotte-which should have made her suspicious. Nearly everyone in power in New Orleans had his good name smeared on a regular basis. Nasty politics was a major league sport in the Big Easy. How was it Marcotte stayed so clean?

Because he was as pure as Pat Boone… or as dark as the devil?

What difference did it make? What did she care about Duval Marcotte? He couldn't possibly have anything to do with the Bichon case… except there was that real estate connection.

Annie moved from the incline board to the chin-up bar. Twenty-five every morning. She hated them nearly as much as the sit-ups.

What if she went to Fourcade? He was on suspension, charged with multiple counts of assault. What kind of trouble could she get in with the sheriff or with Pritchett? She was a witness for the prosecution, for God's sake. Fourcade shouldn't have come within a mile of her and vice versa.

Maybe that was why he had made the offer. Maybe he thought he could win some points, get her to soften toward him. If he was helping her with the Bichon case, letting her investigate, maybe she wouldn't remember so clearly the events of that night outside Bowen amp; Briggs.

But Fourcade didn't seem the kind of man for subterfuge. He was blunt, tactless, straightforward. He was more complicated than French grammar, full of rules with irregularities and exceptions.

Annie let herself out of the apartment, jogged down the stairs and across the parking lot. A dirt path led up onto the levee and the restricted-use gravel levee road. She ran two miles every morning and despised every step. Her body wasn't built for speed, but if she listened to what her body wanted, she'd have a butt like a quarter horse. The workout was the price she paid for her candy bar habit. More than that, she knew that being in shape might one day save her life.

So what was the story with Stokes? Could someone have bought him or was Fourcade simply paranoid? If he was paranoid, that didn't mean someone wasn't out to get him. But a setup still didn't make sense to Annie. Stokes had taken Fourcade to Laveau's, true, but Stokes had left. How could he be certain Fourcade would find his way to Bowen amp; Briggs to confront Renard?

The phone call.

Fourcade had taken a call, then split. But if Stokes had meant to set up Fourcade, wouldn't he have had a witness lined up? Did she know he hadn't? Stokes himself could have been watching the whole thing play out with some civilian flunky by his side waiting to step into the role of witness for the prosecution. What sweet irony for him that Annie had stumbled into the scene. She and Fourcade could cancel each other out.

She dragged herself back up to her apartment, showered, and dressed in a fresh uniform, then dashed down to the store with a Milky Way in hand.

"Dat's no breakfast, you!" Tante Fanchon scolded. She straightened her slender frame from the task of wiping off the red checkered oilcloths that covered the tables in the cafe portion of the big room. "You come sit down. I make you some sausage and eggs, oui?"

"No time. Sorry, Tante." Annie filled her giant travel mug with coffee from the pot on the cafe counter. "I'm on duty today."

Fanchon waved her rag at her foster daughter. "Bah! You all the time workin' so much. What kinda job for a purty young thing is dat?"

"I meet lots of eligible men," Annie said with a grin. "Of course, I have to throw most of them in jail."

Fanchon shook her head and fought a smile. "T'es trop grand pour tes culottes!"

"I'm not too big for my pants," Annie retorted, backing toward the door. "That's why I run every morning."

"Running." Fanchon snorted, as if the word gave her a bad taste.

Annie turned the Jeep out of the lot onto the bayou road. She had the juggling act down-coffee mug clamped between her thighs, candy bar and steering wheel in her left hand while she shifted and turned on the radio with her right.

"You're on KJUN. All talk all the time. Home of the giant jackpot giveaway. Every caller's name is registered- including yours, Mary Margaret in Cade. What's on your mind?"

"I think gambling is a sin and your jackpot is gambling."

"How's that, ma'am? There's no fee."

"Yes, there is. There's the price of the long-distance call if a person don't live in Bayou Breaux. How can y'all sleep nights knowing people take the food out the mouths of their children so they can make those calls to sign up for your jackpot?"

Traffic picked up with every side-road intersection. People headed into Bayou Breaux to work or do their Saturday errands, or continued on up to Lafayette for a day in the city. Sports headed to the basin for a day of fishing. A big old boat of a Cadillac pulled out onto the blacktop ahead of her. Annie hit the clutch and the brake and reached for the shift, glancing down just enough for something odd to catch her eye. Her duffel bag, on the floor in front of the passenger seat, was moving, the near end rising up slightly.

She turned her head to look, and her heart vaulted into her throat. Slithering out from under the duffel, its body already edging past the gearshift toward her, was a mottled brown snake as thick as a garden hose. Copperhead.

"Jesus!"

She bolted sideways in her seat, jerking the wheel left. The Jeep swerved into the southbound lane, eliciting angry honks from oncoming traffic. Annie looked up and swore again as a ton truck bore down on her, horn blaring. A white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, she hit the gas and gunned for the ditch.

The Jeep was airborne for what seemed like an eternity. Then the world was a jarred blur in every window. The impact bounced her off the seat and bounced the snake off the floor. Its thick, muscular body hit her across her thighs and fell back down.

Annie was barely aware of killing the engine. Her only thought was escape. She threw her shoulder against the door, tumbled out of the Jeep, and slammed the door shut behind her. Her heart was thumping like a trip-hammer. Her breath came in ragged, irregular jerks. She hugged the front fender to steady herself.

"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod."

Up on the road, several cars had pulled to the shoulder. One driver had climbed out of his pickup.

"Please stay with your vehicles, folks! Move it along! I'll handle this."

Annie raised her head and peered through the strands of hair that had fallen in her face. A deputy was coming toward her, his cruiser parked on the shoulder with the lights rolling.

"Miss?" he called. "Are you all right, Miss? Should I call an ambulance?"

Annie straightened up so he could see her uniform. She recognized him instantly, even if he couldn't manage the same with her. York the Dork. He walked as if he had a permanent wedgie. A Hitler mustache perched above his prim little mouth. It twitched now as realization dawned.

"Deputy Broussard?"

"There's a copperhead in my Jeep. Somebody put a copperhead in my Jeep."

While she probably wouldn't have died from a bite, the possibility was there. She certainly could have been killed in the accident, and she may not have been the only casualty. She wondered if her harasser had considered that when he'd been planting his little reptile friend, then wondered which answer would have upset her more.

"A copperhead!" the Dork chirped with a sniff. He peered into the Jeep. "I don't see anything."

"Why don't you climb in and crawl around on the floor? When it bites your ass we'll know it's real."

"It was probably just a belt or something."

"I know the difference between a snake and a belt."

"Sure you weren't just looking in the mirror, putting your lipstick on, and lost control of the vehicle? You might as well tell the truth. It wouldn't be the first time I heard that story," he said with a chortle. "You gals and your makeup…"

Annie grabbed him by the shirtsleeve and hauled him around to face her. "Am I wearing lipstick? Do you see any lipstick on this mouth, you patronizing jerk? There's a snake in that Jeep and if you 'little lady' me again, I'll wrap it around your throat and choke you with it!"

"Hey, Broussard! You're assaulting an officer!"

The shout came from the road. Mullen. He had parked on the shoulder-a piece-of-crap Chevy truck with a bass boat dragging behind. Encased in tight jeans, his legs were skinny as an egret's. He compensated with a puffed-up green satin baseball jacket.

"She claims there's a copperhead in there," York said, hooking a thumb at the Jeep.

"Yeah, like he doesn't already know that," Annie snapped.

Mullen made a face at her. "There you go again. Hysterical. Paranoid. Maybe you need to get your hormones adjusted, Broussard."

"Fuck you."

"Oooh, verbal abuse, assaulting an officer, reckless driving…" He swaggered around to the passenger side to look in the window. "Maybe she's drunk, York. You better put her through the paces."

"The hell you will." Annie rounded the hood. "Keying me out on the radio was bad enough, and I can take the crap at the station, but somebody other than me could have gotten killed with this stunt. If I can find one scrap of evidence linking you to this-"

"Don't threaten me, Broussard."

"It's not a threat, it's a promise."

He sniffed the air. "I think I smell whiskey. You better run her in, York. The stress must be getting to you, Broussard. Drinking in the morning on your way to work. That's a shame."

York looked apprehensive. "I didn't smell anything."

"Well, Christ," Mullen snapped. "She's seeing snakes and driving off the damn road. Tag the vehicle and take her in!"

Annie planted her hands on her hips. "I'm not going anywhere until you get that snake out of my Jeep."

"Resisting," Mullen added to her list of sins.

"I think we'd better go in to the station to sort this out, Annie," York said, straining to look apologetic.

He reached for her arm and she yanked it away. There was no out. York couldn't let her get back into her vehicle if there was a question of her sobriety, and she'd be damned if she was going to go through the drunk drill for them like a trick poodle.

"Uh-I think you better sit in the back," he said as she reached for the passenger-side door on his cruiser.

Annie bit her tongue. At least she had driven Fourcade to the station in her own vehicle, calling as little attention to the situation as possible. No one was going to offer her the same courtesy.

"I need my duffel bag," she said. "My weapon is in it. And I want that Jeep locked up."

She watched as he went back into the ditch and said something to Mullen. York went around to the driver's side and pulled the keys, while Mullen opened the passenger's door, hauled her duffel out, then bent back into the vehicle. When he emerged again, he had hold of the writhing snake just behind its head. It looked nearly four feet in length, big enough, though copperheads in this part of the country regularly grew bigger. Mullen said something to York and they both laughed, then Mullen swung the snake around in a big loop and let it fly into a field of sugarcane.

"Just a king snake!" he shouted up at Annie as he came toward the car with her bag. "Copperhead! You must be drunk, Broussard. You don't know one snake from the next."

"I wouldn't say that," Annie shot back. "I know what kind of snake you are, Mullen."

And she stewed on it all the way in to Bayou Breaux.

Hooker was in no mood for dealing with the aftermath of a practical joke, malicious or otherwise. He ranted and swore from the moment York escorted her into the building, directing his wrath at Annie.

"Every time I turn around, you're in the middle of a shit pile, Broussard. I've about had it up to my gonads with you."

"Yes, sir."

"You got some kind of brain disorder or something? Deputies are supposed to be out arresting crooks, not each other."

"No, sir."

"We never had this kind of trouble when it was just men around here. Throw a female into the mix and suddenly everybody's got some kind of hard-on."

Annie refrained from pointing out that she'd been on the job here two years and had never had any trouble to speak of until now. They stood inside Hooker's office, which a maintenance person had painted chartreuse while Hooker was gone having angioplasty in January. The perpetrator of that joke had yet to come forward. The door stood wide open, allowing anyone within earshot to listen to the diatribe. Annie held on to the hope that this would be the last of the humiliation. She could weather the storm. Hooker would eventually run out of insults or have a stroke, and then she could go out on patrol.

"I've had it, Broussard. I'm tellin' you right now." From somewhere down the hall came another raised voice. "What do you mean, you can't find it?" Annie recognized Smith Pritchett's nasal whine. Dispatch was down the hall. What would Pritchett want from them? What would Pritchett want badly enough to come in on a Saturday?

"Y'all are telling me you keep these 911 tapes for-frigging-ever, but you don't have the one tape from the night of Fourcade's arrest?"

A pulsing vein zigzagged across Pritchett's broad forehead like a lightning bolt. He stood in the hall outside the dispatch center in a lime green Izod shirt, khakis, and golf spikes, a nine iron in hand.

The woman on the other side of the counter crossed her arms. "Yessir, that's what I'm tellin' you. Are you callin' me a liar?"

Pritchett stared at her, then wheeled on A.J. "Where the hell is Noblier? I told you to call him."

"He's on his way," A.J. promised. Bad enough that Pritchett had sent him on this quest on Saturday morning-a surprise attack, he called it-now they could all have a knock-down-drag-out brawl besides. He bet his money on the dispatch supervisor. Even though Pritchett was armed, she had to outweigh him by eighty pounds.

He would have saved the news that the tape was missing, but Pritchett was like an overeager five-year-old at Christmas. He had called in on his cellular phone from the third tee. While Fourcade's lawyer had yet to submit a written account of his client's version of events, Noblier had stated the detective had been responding to a call of a possible prowler in the vicinity of Bowen amp; Briggs. A bald-faced lie, certainly. The 911 tapes would confirm it as such, and the dispatch center in the sheriff's office handled all 911 calls in the parish. But the 911 tape from that fateful night was suddenly nowhere to be found.

The door to the sheriff's office swung open, and Gus came into the hall in jeans and cowboy boots and a denim shirt, the pungent aroma of horses hanging on him like bad cologne. "Don't get your shorts in a knot, Smith. We'll find the damn tape. This is a busy place. Things get mislaid."

"Mislaid, my ass." Pritchett shook the nine iron at the sheriff. "There's no tape because there's no damn call on the tape referring to a prowler in the vicinity of Bowen and Briggs."

"Are you calling me a liar? After all the years I've backed you? You are a small, ungrateful man, Smith Pritchett. You don't believe me, you talk to my deputies on patrol that night. Ask them if they heard the call."

Pritchett rolled his eyes and started down the hall toward the sheriff, his spikes thundering on the hard floor. "I'm sure they'd tell me they heard the archangels singing Dixieland jazz if they thought it would get Fourcade off," he shouted above the racket. "It's a damn shame this has to come between us, Gus. You've got a bad apple in your barrel. Cut him out and be done with it."

Gus squinted at him. "Maybe the reason we don't have that tape is that Wily Tallant came and got it already. As exculpatory evidence."

"What?" Pritchett squealed. "You would just blithely hand something like that over to a defense attorney?"

Gus shrugged. "I'm not saying it happened. I'm saying it might have."

A.J. stepped in between them. "If Tallant has it, he'll have to disclose it, Smith. And if the tape is gone, then they have nothing but biased hearsay that the call ever came in. It's no big deal."

Other than the fact that Pritchett had just been embarrassed again.

"I don't know, Gus," Pritchett lamented as they stepped out into the warm spring sunshine. "Maybe you've been at this too long. Your sense of objectivity has become warped. Just look at Johnny Earl: He's young, smart, untainted by the corruptions of time and familiarity. And he's black. A lot of people think it's time for a black sheriff in this parish-it's progressive."

Gus blew a booger onto the sidewalk. "You think I'm afraid of Johnny Earl? Might I remind you, I carried thirty-three percent of the black vote in the last election, and I was running against two blacks."

"Don't bring it up, Gus," Pritchett said. "It just calls to mind those ugly vote-hauling allegations made against you."

He started toward his Lincoln, where his caddy stood, waiting to drive him back to the country club. "Doucet!" he barked. "You come with me. We have charges to discuss. What all do you know about the statutes on conspiracy?"

Gus watched the lawyers climb into the Lincoln, then stomped back into the station, muttering, "Dickhead college-boy prick. Threaten me, you little-"

"Sheriff?"

The bark came from Hooker. Gus rubbed a hand against his belly. Hell of a Saturday this was turning out to be. He stopped in front of Hooker's open door and stared inside.

"My office, Deputy Broussard."

"You think someone put that snake in your Jeep."

"Yes, sir. It couldn't have gotten there any other way."

"And you think another deputy put it there?"

"Yes, sir, I-"

"Nobody else could have had access to the vehicle?"

"Well-"

"You keep it locked at home, do you?"

"No, sir, but-"

"You got proof another deputy did it? You got a witness?"

"No, sir, but-"

"You live over a goddamn convenience store, Deputy. You telling me no one stopped at the store last night? You telling me folks weren't in and out of that parking lot to do this deed or see it done?"

"The store closes at nine."

"And after that, damn near anybody could have put that snake in your Jeep. Isn't that right?"

Annie blew out a breath. Fourcade. Fourcade could have done it, had motive to do it, was disturbed enough to do it. But she said nothing. The snake seemed an adolescent prank, and Fourcade was no adolescent.

"Hell, I've seen the inside of your Jeep, girl. That snake coulda hatched there, for all I know."

"And you think it was a coincidence that York was patrolling that stretch of road this morning," Annie said. "And that Mullen just happened along."

Gus gave her a steady look. "I'm saying you got no proof otherwise. York was on patrol. You ran off the road. He did his job."

"And Mullen?"

"Mullen's off duty. What he does on his own time is no concern of mine."

"Including interfering in the duty of another officer?"

"You're a fine one to talk on that score, Deputy," he said. " York ran you in 'cause he thought you mighta been drinking."

"I wasn't drinking. They did it to humiliate me. And Mullen was the ringleader. York was just his stooge."

"They found a half-empty pint of Wild Turkey under your driver's seat."

Dread swirled in Annie's stomach. She could be suspended for this. "I don't drink Wild Turkey and I don't drink in my vehicle, Sheriff. Mullen must have put it there."

"You refused to go through the drill."

"I'll take a Breathalyzer." She realized she should have insisted on it at the scene. Now her career was crumbling beneath her feet because she'd been too proud and too stubborn. "I'll take a blood test if you want."

Noblier shook his head. "That was an hour ago or better, and you weren't but five miles from home when you had the accident. If you had anything in your system, it's probably gone by now."

"I wasn't drinking."

Gus swiveled his big chair back and forth. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He never shaved on Saturday until his evening toilet before taking the missus out for dinner. He did love his Saturdays. This one was going to hell on a sled.

"You been under a lotta strain recently, Annie," he said carefully.

"I wasn't drinking."

"And you was kicking up dirt yesterday, saying someone keyed you out on the radio?"

"Yes, sir, that's true." She decided to keep the muskrat incident to herself. She felt too much like a tattling child already.

A frown creased his mouth. "This is all because of that business with Fourcade. Your chickens are coming home to roost, Deputy."

"But I-" Annie cut herself off and waited, foreboding pressing down on her as the silence stretched.

"I don't like any of this," Gus said. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about the drinking. York should have given you the Breathalyzer and he didn't. But, as for the rest of the bullshit, I've had it. I'm pulling you off patrol, Annie."

The pronouncement hit her with the force of a physical blow, stunning her. "But, Sheriff-"

"It's the best decision I can make for all concerned. It's for your own good, Annie. You come off patrol until this all blows over and settles down. You're out of harm's way, out of sight of the many people you have managed to piss off."

"But I didn't do anything wrong!"

"Yeah, well, life's a bitch, ain't it?" he said sharply. "I got people telling me you're trouble. You're sitting here telling me everybody's out to get you. I ain't got time for this bullshit. Every puffed-up muck-a-muck in the parish is on my case on account of Renard and this rapist, and the Mardi Gras carnival isn't but a week off. I'm telling you, I'm sick of the whole goddamn mess. I'm pulling you off patrol until this situation blows over. End of story. Are you on tomorrow?"

"No."

"Fine, then take the rest of the day for yourself. Report to me Monday morning for your new assignment."

Annie said nothing. She stared at Gus Noblier, disappointment and betrayal humming inside her like a power line.

"It's for the best, Annie."

"But it's not what's right," she answered. And before he could reply, she got up and walked out of the room.