A Thin Dark Line

16

It cost $52.75 to get the Jeep out of the impound lot. Financial insult added to ego injury. Steaming, Annie made the lot attendant dig through all the junk on the floor and check every inch of the interior for unpleasant surprises. He found none.

She drove down the block to the park and sat in the lot under the shade of a sprawling, moss-hung live oak, staring at the bayou.

How simple it had been for Mullen and his moron cohorts to get what they wanted-her off the job-and she had been powerless to stop it. A thumb on a radio mike switch, a planted pint of Wild Turkey, and she was off the street. The hypocrisy made her mad enough to spit. Gus Noblier was well known for ordering a little after dinner libation to go, yet he pulled her off the job on the lame and unsubstantiated suggestion that maybe she'd had a little something to spike her morning coffee.

Her instinctive response was to fight back, but how? Put a bigger snake in Mullen's truck? As tempting as that idea was, it was a stupid one. Retribution only invited an escalation of the war. Evidence was what she needed, but there wouldn't be any. Nobody knew better than a cop how to cover tracks. The only witnesses would be accessories. No one would come forward. No one would rat out a brother cop to save a cop who had turned on one of their own.

"You're getting down and dirty with Dean Monroe on KJUN. The hot topic this morning is still the big decision that went down in the Partout Parish Courthouse on Wednesday. A murder suspect walks on a technicality, and now two men sit in jail for violating his rights. Lindsay on line one, what's on your mind?"

"Injustice. Pam Bichon was my friend and business partner, and it infuriates me that the focus on her case has shifted to the rights of the man who terrorized and killed her. The court system did nothing to protect her rights when she was alive. I mean, wake up, South Lou'siana. This is the nineties. Women deserve better than to be patronized and pushed aside, and to have our rights be considered below the rights of murderers."

"Amen to that," Annie murmured.

A wedding party had come into the park for photographs. The bride stood in the center of the Rotary Club gazebo looking impatient while the photographer's assistant fussed with the train of her white satin gown. Half a dozen bridesmaids in pale yellow organdy dotted the lawn around the gazebo like overgrown daffodils. The groomsmen had begun a game of catch near the tomb of the unknown Confederate war hero. Down on the bank of the bayou, two little boys in black tuxes busied themselves throwing stones as far as they could into the water.

Annie stared at the ripples radiating out from each splash. Cause and effect, a chain of events, one action the catalyst for another and another. The mess she found herself in hadn't begun with her arrest of Fourcade, or Fourcade's attack on Renard. It hadn't begun with Judge Monahan's dismissal of the evidence or the search that had uncovered that evidence. It had all begun with Marcus Renard and his obsession with Pam Bichon. Therein lay the dark heart of the matter: Marcus Renard and what the court system had inadvertently allowed him to do. Injustice.

Not allowing herself to consider the consequences, Annie started the Jeep and drove away from the park. She needed to take positive action rather than allow herself to be caught up in the wake of the actions of others.

She needed to do something-for Pam, for Josie, for herself. She needed to see this case closed, and who was going to do that, who was going to find the truth? A department that had turned on her? Chaz Stokes, whom Fourcade accused of betrayal? Fourcade, who had betrayed the law he was sworn to serve?

Turning north, she headed toward the building that housed Bayou Realty and the architectural firm of Bowen amp; Briggs.

The Bayou Realty offices were homey, catering to the tastes of women, offering an atmosphere that stirred the feminine instinct to nest. A pair of flowered chintz couches, plump with ruffled pillows, created a cozy L off to one side of the front room. Framed sales sheets with color photographs of homes being offered stood in groupings on the glass-topped wicker coffee table like family portraits. Potted ferns basked in the deep brick window wells. The scent of cinnamon rolls hung in the air.

The receptionist's station was unoccupied. A woman's voice could be heard coming from one of the offices down the hall. Annie waited. The bell on the front door had announced her entrance. Nerves rattled inside her.

"Be bold," Fourcade had told her.

Fourcade was a lunatic.

The door to the second office on the right opened and Lindsay Faulkner stepped into the hall. Pam Bichon's partner looked like the kind of woman who was elected homecoming queen in high school and college and went on to marry money and raise beautiful, well-behaved children with perfect teeth. She came down the hall with the solid, sunny smile of a Junior League hospitality chairwoman.

"Good mornin'! How are you today?" She said this with enough familiarity and warmth that Annie nearly turned around to see if someone had come in behind her. "I'm Lindsay Faulkner. How may I help you?"

"Annie Broussard. I'm with the sheriff's department." A fact no longer readily apparent. She had changed out of her coffee-stained uniform into jeans and a polo shirt. She had tucked her badge into her hip pocket but couldn't bring herself to pull it out. She'd be in trouble enough as it was if Noblier caught wind of what she was up to.

Lindsay Faulkner's enthusiasm faded fast. Irritation flickered in the big green eyes. She stopped just behind the receptionist's desk and crossed her arms over the front of her emerald silk blouse.

"You know, you people just make me see red. This has been hell on us-Pam's friends, her family-and what have you done? Nothing. You know who the killer is and he walks around scotfree. The incompetence astounds me. My God, if you'd done your jobs in the first place, Pam might still be alive today."

"I know it's been frustrating, Ms. Faulkner. It's been frustrating for us as well."

"You don't know what frustration is."

"With all due respect, yes, I do," Annie said plainly. "I was the one who found Pam. I would like nothing better than to have this case closed."

"Then go on upstairs and arrest him, and leave the rest of us alone."

She marched back down the hall. Annie followed.

"Renard is upstairs right now?"

"Your powers of deduction are amazing, Detective."

Annie didn't correct her presumption of rank. "It must be like salt in the wound-having to work in the same building with him."

"I hate it," she said flatly, going into her office. "Bayou Realty owns the building. If I could terminate their lease tomorrow, the whole lot of them would be out in the street, but once again the law is on his side.

"The gall of that man!" Her expression was a mix of horror and hatred. "To come here and work as if he's done nothing wrong at all, while every day I have to walk past that empty office, Pam's office-"

She sat for a moment with a hand to her mouth, staring out the window at the parking lot.

"I know you and Pam were very close," Annie said quietly, slipping into a chair in front of the desk. She extracted a small notebook and pen from her hip pocket and positioned the notebook on her thigh.

Lindsay Faulkner produced a small linen handkerchief seemingly from thin air and blotted delicately at the corners of her eyes. "We were best friends from the day we met at college. I was Pam's maid of honor. I'm Josie's godmother. Pam and I were like sisters. Do you have a sister?"

"No."

"Then you can't understand. When that animal murdered Pam, he murdered a part of me, a part that can't be buried in a tomb. I will carry that part inside me for the rest of my life. Deadweight, black with rot; something that used to be so bright, so full of joy. He has to be made to pay for that."

"If we can convict him, he'll get the death penalty."

A little smile twisted at Faulkner's lips. "We opposed capital punishment, Pam and I. Cruel and unusual, barbaric, we said. How naive we were. Renard doesn't deserve compassion. No punishment could be cruel enough. I've tortured that man to death in my imagination more times than I can count. I've lain awake nights wishing I had the courage…"

She stared at Annie, the light of challenge in her eyes. "Will you arrest me? The way they arrested Pam's father?"

"He did a sight more than imagine Renard dead."

"Pam was Hunter's only daughter. He loved her so, and now he carries that dead piece inside him too."

"Did you suspect Renard was the one harassing Pam?"

Guilt passed over the woman's face, and she looked down at her hands lying on the desktop. "Pam said it was him."

"And you thought…?"

"I've been over this with the others," she said. "Don't you people talk to one another?"

"I'm trying to get a fresh perspective. Male detectives have a male point of view. I may pick up on something they didn't." A good argument, Annie thought. She'd have to remember it when Noblier called her on the carpet for overstepping her bounds.

"He seemed so harmless," Lindsay Faulkner whispered. "You watch the movies, you think maniacs are supposed to look a certain way, act a certain way. You think a stalker is some lowlife with no job and a double-digit IQ. You never think, 'Oh, I bet that architect upstairs is a psychopath.' He's been here for years. I never- He hadn't…"

"We can't always see trouble coming," Annie offered gently. "If he'd given you no reason to suspect him-"

"Pam did, though. Not all along, but last summer, after she and Donnie split up. Renard started hanging around more, and it bothered her-the gifts he sent her, his manner around her. And when the harassment started, she didn't want to say anything at first, but she thought it was him."

"Who did you think-?"

"Donnie," she said without hesitation. "The harassment started not long after she told him she wanted the divorce. I thought he was trying to scare her. It seemed like the kind of thing he would think of. Donnie's emotional development arrested at about sixteen. I even called him on it, read him the riot act."

"How did he react?"

She rolled her eyes. "He accused me of poisoning Pam against him. I told him I'd tried that years ago, and she went and married him anyway. Pam always looked at Donnie and saw his potential. She couldn't believe he wouldn't live up to it."

"It must be very unpleasant for you now-trying to resolve the business issues."

"It's a mess. The divorce would have cut Donnie cleanly away from the realty company. Pam would have worded her new will so her half of the business went to Josie in a trust. I would have had the option of buying it out with the partner insurance we were planning to buy. We'd never gotten around to that before-the partner insurance. We just never thought about it. I mean, we were both young and healthy." She paused. "Anyway, none of those changes happened before…"

Annie decided she liked this woman, liked her strength and her anger on her friend's behalf. She hadn't expected this kind of caring and conviction from a former debutante. She had expected hanky-wringing passive grief. My prejudice, she thought.

"Now what happens?" she asked.

"Now I have to deal with Donnie, who has the business acumen of a tick. He's being extra obnoxious because months before the marriage split up, Donnie's company was in a financial bind and Pam agreed to hide some land for him in the realty so the bank wouldn't take it."

"Hide it?"

"Bichon Bayou Development 'sold' these properties to Bayou Realty on paper. In reality, we were just holding them out of harm's way."

"And you still have them?"

Her smile was slightly feral. "Yes. But now Donnie holds Pam's half of the business, so technically the properties are partly his. However, before he can do anything with them, he has to have my approval. We're currently at a standoff. He wants his property back and I want full ownership of the business. The latest wrinkle is that Donnie suddenly thinks Pam's half of this business is worth double what it is. He's trying to play hardball, threatening me with some nebulous other buyer from New Orleans."

Annie's pen went still on the paper. " New Orleans?"

New Orleans . Real estate. Duval Marcotte.

Lindsay shook her head at the ridiculousness of the idea. "What would anyone in New Orleans want with Bayou Breaux?"

"You think he's bluffing?"

"He thinks he's bluffing. I think he's an idiot."

"What would you do if he sold his half to this buyer?"

"I don't know. Pam and I started this business together. It's important to me for that reason, you know, as something we built and shared as friends. And it's a strong little business; we do well enough. I enjoy it. I will sell this building if I get the chance," she admitted, turning to look out at the parking lot. "There are too many bad memories now. And that bastard upstairs. I keep picturing Detective Fourcade beating him to death. I-"

She stopped. Annie sat very still. Out in the front room the door opened and the bell announcing potential clients tinkled pleasantly.

"Broussard," Faulkner murmured with accusation. "You're the one who stopped him. My God. I thought you said you wanted this resolved."

"I do."

She rose with the poise and grace of old Southern breeding. "Then why didn't you just walk away?"

"Because that would have been murder."

Lindsay Faulkner shook her head. "No, that would have been justice. Now, you'll excuse me," she said, moving to the door. "You will leave these offices. I have nothing further to say to you."

Annie let herself out the rear exit of the realty office and stood in the hall. To her right was the door to the parking area where Fourcade had attacked Renard. Before her rose the stairs to the second floor and the offices of Bowen amp; Briggs. Renard was up there.

She thought of going up the stairs. The cop in her wanted to study Marcus Renard, try to pick him apart, figure him out, see how he would fit into the range of stalkers she had studied in books. A deeper instinct held her in place. He had called her his heroine, had sent her roses. She didn't like it.

The decision was taken away from her when the door at the top of the stairs swung open and Renard stepped out. He looked grotesque, like a monster from one of the Grimms' grimmer fairy tales. The troll under the bridge. Moderate swelling distorted features dotted with bruises the hues of rotten fruit. For a second, he didn't see Annie, and she thought of stepping back into the Bayou Realty office. Then the second was lost.

"Annie!" he exclaimed as best he could with his jaw wired shut. "This is an unexpected pleasure!"

"It's not a social call," Annie said flatly.

"Following up on my attack?"

"No. I came to see Ms. Faulkner."

He put a hand on the stair railing and leaned against it. Beneath the bruises he was pale. "Lindsay is a hard, uncharitable woman."

"Gee, and she says such nice things about you."

"We used to be friends," he claimed. "In fact, we went out a time or two. Did she mention that?"

"No." Lie or not, she wanted to hear more. The cop in her shoved the cautious woman aside. "There's never been any mention of that anywhere."

"I never brought it up," he said. "It seemed both irrelevant and indelicate."

"How so?"

"It was years ago."

"She's very vocal in accusing you of murder. I'd think you'd want to discredit her. Why haven't you said something?"

"I'm saying it now," he said softly, his gaze beaming down on her. "To you."

It was an offer. He would give her things he wouldn't give anyone else. Because he thought she was his guardian angel.

"I was about to take my lunch break," Renard said, easing his way down the steps. "Would you join me?"

The offer struck her as so… ordinary. She believed this man to be a monster of the worst sort. The sight of Pam Bichon's body flashed in her mind. The brutality of the crime seemed bigger, stronger, more powerful than the man standing before her.

"I don't want to be seen with you," she said bluntly. "My life is difficult enough at the moment."

"I'm not going out. I can't," he admitted. "My life is difficult, as well."

The side door to the parking area opened, and a delivery boy stepped in with a white deli bag.

"Mr. Briggs?" He looked up at Renard, his eyes widening. "Man, that musta been some car wreck you was in."

Renard pulled out his wallet without comment.

"I'll share my gumbo," he offered Annie as the delivery boy left.

"I'm not hungry," Annie said, but she didn't turn away. Marcus Renard was at the heart of everything, the rock in the pond that had set wave after wave rippling through life in Bayou Breaux.

"I'm not a monster," Renard said. "I'd like the chance to convince you of that, Annie."

"You shouldn't talk to me without your lawyer."

"Why not?"

Why not indeed? Annie thought. She was alone. She had no wire, no tape recorder. Even if he confessed, it wouldn't matter. Kudrow was the attorney of record; without his presence nothing Renard said would be admissible in court. He could confess to a dozen murders and not hang for one of them.

She weighed her options. They were in a place of business. She could still hear muffled voices coming from Bayou Realty. She was a cop. He wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything here, and he was in no condition to try. She wanted to know what drove him. What was it about Pam Bichon that had caught hold of this otherwise seemingly ordinary man and pulled him over the edge?

"All right."

The offices of Bowen amp; Briggs encompassed a single, huge open space with a wood floor that had been sanded blond and varnished to a hard gloss. Gray upholstered modular walls set off various office and conference spaces on the west side. The east side was studded with half a dozen drafting tables and work centers. Renard took his bag to a table in the southeast corner, a space set aside for relaxing, drinking coffee, having lunch. A radio on the counter played classical music.

Annie followed him at a distance, taking her time to assess the place and wishing she had worn her backup weapon.

"You're in trouble."

She jerked around toward Renard. He was busy lifting his lunch from the deli bag.

"You said your life is difficult now," he prompted. "You're in trouble because of Fourcade?"

"I'm in trouble because of you."

"No." He motioned her to the chair across from him and took his own seat. Fragrant steam billowed up as he pried the lid off the cup of gumbo, dark roux and sassafras file. "You would be in trouble because of me if I were Pam's murderer. I'm not. I should think you'd be convinced of that after that poor Nolan woman was attacked."

"Unrelated cases. One thing has nothing to do with the other," Annie said.

"Unless they're both the work of the Bayou Strangler."

"Stephen Danjermond was the Bayou Strangler, and he's dead. The evidence against him was conclusive."

"So was the evidence Fourcade planted in my desk. That doesn't make me a killer."

Annie stared at him. She'd gone over the chronology of events. All the pieces fit. But he swore he was innocent. Was he just an accomplished liar or had he convinced himself of his innocence? She'd seen it happen. People embraced a persecution complex like a security blanket. Nothing was ever their fault. Someone else caused them to be selling dope. It was the fault of the rotten cops that they got busted. But she didn't think a persecution complex fit either Renard or Pam's murder. That was about something else entirely. Obsession.

"I want you to understand, Annie- May I call you Annie?" he asked politely. "Deputy Broussard is a bit difficult for me, all things considered."

"Yes," Annie said, though she didn't like the idea of his using her first name. She didn't like the idea of it in his mouth, rolling over his tongue. She didn't like the idea of giving him anything, of acquiescing to any wish of his, no matter how small.

"I want you to understand, Annie," he started again. "I loved Pam like-"

"Like a friend. I know. We've been over this."

"Are you working on her case now? Will you try to catch her killer?"

"I want her killer brought to justice," she said, evading the specifics of her involvement with the case. "You understand what that means, don't you?"

"Yes." He lifted a spoon of gumbo to his stitched lip. "I wonder if you do."

Annie ignored the ominous import and pressed on. "You said you went out with Lindsay Faulkner. Forgive me for saying so, but I have a hard time picturing that."

"I don't always look this way."

"You don't seem… compatible."

"We weren't, as it happened. I believe Lindsay may have- How shall I suggest this? Other preferences."

"You think she's a lesbian?"

He made a little shrug and looked down at his meal, seeming uncomfortable with the topic he had raised.

"Because she wouldn't sleep with you?" Annie said bluntly.

"Heavens, no. We had dinner. I never expected more. It was clear we wouldn't progress that far. It was her… her way with Pam. She was very protective. Jealous. She didn't like Pam's husband. She didn't like any man showing an interest in Pam."

He took another spoon of gumbo and sipped it between his teeth.

"Are you gonna try to tell me you think Pam's partner killed her? In a jealous lesbian rage?"

"No. I don't know who killed her. I wish I did."

"Then what's your point?"

"That Lindsay dislikes me. She wants to blame someone for Pam's death. She's chosen me. "

"Everyone has chosen you, Mr. Renard. You are the primary suspect."

"Convenient suspect," he corrected her. "Because I liked Pam. Because people think of me as a stranger here-they forget I was born here, lived here as a boy. They find it strange that I'm single and live with my mother and a brother who frightens people with his autism."

"Because Pam believed you were stalking her," Annie countered. "Because you hung around her even after she told you to get lost. Because you had motive, means, opportunity, and no viable alibi for the night of the murder."

"I was in Lafayette -"

"Going to a store that had already closed by the time you got to the Acadiana Mall. Bad luck, that. If the store had been open, you might have witnesses to corroborate your story."

He looked at her steadily, and his voice was even when he spoke. "I went there for supplies, not an alibi."

"You can spare me the story," Annie said. "I've memorized the time line. At five-forty Lindsay Faulkner left the office and noted that your car was still in the parking lot. Pam was meeting with clients to write up an offer on a house. At eight-ten you stopped at Hebert's Hobby Shop and purchased a number of items, among them blades for an X-Acto knife."

"A common tool for dollhouse builders."

"Pam's clients left her office at eight-twenty. They were the last people to see Pam alive-with the exception of her killer. Meanwhile, Hebert's didn't have everything you needed-"

"French doors for my current project."

"So you drove to Acadiana Mall in Lafayette, intending to visit the hobby store there, but it was closed," she pressed on. "And on your way back you claim you developed car trouble-origin unknown-and sat along a back road for two hours before you got going again with the aid of an anonymous Good Samaritan no one has been able to track down in the three months since. You say you got home around midnight, but you have no one to confirm that because your mother was gone to Bogalusa to visit her sister. That's your story."

"It's the truth."

"Meanwhile, the medical examiner in Lafayette puts Pam's death around midnight, give or take, just a few miles from your home."

"I didn't kill her."

"You were obsessed with her."

"I was infatuated," he admitted, rising slowly from his chair. He went to a small refrigerator tucked into the lower cupboards and withdrew two bottles of iced tea. "I wish she could have returned my feelings, but she didn't and I accepted that."

He set the bottles on the table, pushing one in Annie's direction.

"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.