A Thin Dark Line

22

He remembered a woman. Or he had dreamed about a woman. Reality and its opposite floated around in his brain like the stuff in a Lava lamp. He groaned and shifted positions, sprawling on his belly. The rustling of the sheets was magnified to the sound of newspaper crumpling right next to his ear. That was when he remembered the booze-lots of it. He needed to pee.

A hand settled low on his back and a warm breath, stale with the smell of cigarettes, caressed his ear.

"Rise and whine, Donnie. You got some explaining to do."

Fourcade.

Donnie bolted up and turned, twisting the sheet around his hips. He cracked his skull on the headboard and winced as pain bounced around inside his head.

"Jesus! Fuck! What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded. "How'd you get in my house?"

Nick moved away from the bed, taking in the state of Donnie's bachelor habitat. Coming through the kitchen and living room he had surmised that Donnie had a cleaning woman, but not a cook. The kitchen garbage was full of frozen dinner cartons. A decorator had coordinated the town house so that it felt more like a hotel suite than a home. This had been a model to entice prospective buyers into the Quail Court condo development-until the unfortunate demise of Donnie's marital state. He had commandeered the model when he separated from Pam.

"That's nasty language for a Sunday morning, Tulane," Nick said. "What's the matter with you? You got no respect for the Sabbath?"

Donnie gaped at him, bug-eyed. "You're a fucking lunatic! I'm calling the cops."

He snatched the receiver off the phone on the nightstand. Nick stepped over and pressed the plunger down with his forefinger.

"Don't try my patience, Donnie. It ain't what it used to be." He took the receiver away, recradled it, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Me, I wanna know what kind of game you're playing."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I'm talking about you jerking Lindsay Faulkner's chain, telling her you gonna sell the realty. Telling her you got some big catfish on the hook down in New Orleans. That where you got the money to bail me out, Donnie?"

"No."

" 'Cause that would have a very poetic irony about it: You kill your wife, collect the insurance, sell her business, use the money to bail out the cop that tried to kill the suspect."

Donnie pressed the heels of his hands to his aching eyes. "Jesus, I have told you and told you, I did not kill Pam. You know I didn't."

"You're not wasting any time making a buck off her. Why didn't you tell me Friday about this pending deal?"

"Because it's none of your business. I have to take a piss."

He threw back the covers and climbed out on the other side of the bed. He walked like a man who had fallen out of a moving car and rolled to a hard stop in the gutter. Black silk boxers hung low on his hips. He hadn't managed to take his socks off before succumbing to unconsciousness. They drooped around his ankles. The rest of his clothes lay where he'd dropped them as he'd peeled them off on his way to the bed.

Nick rose lazily and still beat him to the door of the master bath.

"You're dragging it low to the ground this morning, Tulane. Long night?"

"I had a few. I'm sure you can relate. Let me in the bathroom."

"When we're through."

"Fuck. Why'd I ever get hooked up with you?"

"That's what I wanna know," Nick said. "Who's your big money man, Donnie?"

He looked away and blew out a breath. He grimaced at the smell of himself as he inhaled-smoke, sweat, and sex. He wondered vaguely where the woman was. "No one. I bed. It was a bluff. I told that little Cajun gal."

"Uh-huh, and she's going over those phone records we pulled on you, Donnie," he lied. "She's gonna know ever'body you know by the time she's through."

"I thought you were out of this, Fourcade. You're off the case. You're suspended. What do you care who I called or why?"

"I got my reasons."

"You're insane."

"So I hear people say. But, you know, it doesn't matter much to me, true or not. My existence is my perception, my perception is my reality. See how that works, Tulane? So, when I ask are you trying to swing a deal with Duval Marcotte, you need to answer me, because you're right here in my reality right now."

Donnie closed his eyes again and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"We're gonna stand here 'til you wet yourself, Donnie. I want an answer."

"I need cash," he said with resignation. "Lindsay wants to buy out Pam's share of the business. But Lindsay's a ball buster and she'd love nothing more than to screw me out of what she can. I want back the property Pam hid for me and I want every dime I can get out of Lindsay. I made up a little leverage, that's all."

"You think she's stupid?" Nick said. "You think she won't call your bluff?"

"I think she's a bitch and I'm not above doing something just to aggravate her."

"You're just gonna piss her off, Donnie, same as you're pissing me off. You think I'm stupid? I'll find out if what you're telling me is a lie."

"I gotta see if I can withdraw that bail," Donnie muttered up to the ceiling.

Nick patted his cheek as he stepped away from the door. "Sorry, cher. That check's been cashed and the cat is outta the bag. Hope you don't live to regret it."

"I already have," Donnie said, ducking into the bathroom, penis in hand.

Annie turned the Jeep in at the drive to Marcus Renard's home. It was a pretty spot… and a secluded one. She didn't like the second part, but she had made it clear to Renard over the phone that other people knew she was visiting him-a little insurance in case he was toying with the idea of dismembering her. She didn't tell him the person who knew she was coming here was Fourcade.

While she had been with Fourcade last night, forming their uneasy alliance, Renard had been calling her at home, leaving the message that Fourcade had paid him a visit earlier in the day. In calling, Renard had saved her from the job of formulating an excuse to see him.

"I couldn't think who else to turn to, Annie," he'd said. "The deputies wouldn't help. They'd sooner see that brute kill me. You're the only one I feel I can turn to."

The idea, while it might have overjoyed Fourcade, gave Annie no comfort. She had told Fourcade she wouldn't play the role of bait, yet here she was. Assessing the suspect in his home environment, she told herself. She wanted to see Renard with his guard down. She wanted to see him interact with his family. But if Renard perceived this visit as a social call, then she was essentially bait whether she intended to be or not. Semantics. Perception was reality, Fourcade would say.

That son of a bitch. Why hadn't he told her he had come here? She didn't like the idea of him having a hidden agenda in all this.

The driveway broke free of the trees, and a lawn the size of a polo field stretched off to the left. The expanse was nothing fancy, just a close-cropped boundary meant to discourage wildlife from getting too near the house. She passed an old carriage shed that had been painted to match the house. Fifty yards farther into the property stood the home itself, graceful and simple, painted the color of old parchment with white trim and black shutters. She parked behind the Volvo and started toward the front gallery.

"Annie!"

Marcus came out, careful not to let the screen door slap shut behind him. More of the swelling had gone out of his face, but there was still no definition to his features. Most people would recoil from the sight of him, despite the fact that he was neatly dressed in crisp khakis and a green polo shirt.

"I'm so glad you've come." He enunciated his words more clearly today, though it took an effort. He held his hands out toward her as if she were a dear distant cousin and might actually take hold of them. "Of course, I was hoping you might have called me back last night. We were all so upset."

"I got in late," she said, noting the slight censure in his voice. "By the sound of it, there was nothing to be done by that point."

"I suppose not," he conceded. "The damage was done."

"What damage?"

"The upset-to me, to my mother, most especially to my brother. It took hours to calm him. But we don't have to stand out here and discuss it. Please come in. I wish you could have accepted the invitation to dinner. It's been so long since we've entertained."

"This isn't a social call, Mr. Renard," Annie reminded him, drawing the line clearly between them. She moved into the hall, took it in at a glance-forest green walls, a murky pastoral scene in a gilt frame, a brass umbrella stand. Victor Renard peered down at her between the white balusters of the second-floor landing, where he sat with his knees drawn up like a small child, as if he thought he could make himself invisible by compacting his frame.

Ignoring his brother, Marcus led the way through the dining room to the brick veranda that faced the bayou. "It's such a lovely afternoon, I thought we could sit out."

He pulled out a chair for her at the wrought iron table. Annie chose her own chair and settled herself, careful to adjust her jacket so that the tape recorder in the pocket didn't show. The recorder had been Fourcade's idea-order, actually. He wanted to know every word that was spoken between them, wanted to hear every nuance in Renard's voice. The tape would never be admissible in court, but if it gave them something to go on, it was worth the effort.

"So, you said Detective Fourcade violated the restraining order," she began, taking out her notebook and pen.

"Well, not exactly."

"Exactly what, then?"

"He was careful to stay back from the property line. But the fact that he came that near was upsetting to my family. We called the sheriff's office, but by the time the deputy arrived, Fourcade was gone and the man wouldn't so much as take a statement." He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a neatly folded handkerchief.

"If the detective didn't commit a crime, then there was no statement to take," Annie said. "Did Fourcade threaten you?"

"Not verbally."

"Did he threaten you physically? Did he show a weapon?"

"No. But his presence was a perceived threat. Isn't that a part of the stalking law-perceived threats?"

The fact that he, of all people, would try to make use of the statute against stalking turned her stomach. It was all she could do to school her features into something like neutrality.

"That particular law leaves a great deal of room for interpretation," she said. "As you must be well aware by now, Mr. Renard-"

"Marcus," he corrected her. "I'm aware that the authorities will bend any rule to suit them. These people have no respect for what's right. Except you, Annie. I was right about you, wasn't I? You're not like the others. You want the truth."

"Everyone involved in the case wants the truth."

"No. No, they don't," he said, leaning forward. "They had their minds made up from the first. Stokes and Fourcade came after me and no one else."

"That's not true, Mr. Renard. Other suspects were considered. You know they were. You were singled out by the process of elimination. We've been over this."

"Yes, we have," he said quietly, sitting back again. He studied her for a moment. His eyes were more visible today, like a pair of marbles set into dough. "And you did state you believe in my guilt. If that's so, then why are you here, Annie? To try to trip me up? I don't think so. I don't think you'd bother, knowing nothing I say to you could be used against me. You have doubts. That's why you're here."

"You claim you've been treated unfairly," Annie said. "If that's true, if the detectives have overlooked or ignored something that might exonerate you, why hasn't your own investigator-Mr. Kudrow's investigator-cleared up these details for you?"

Marcus looked away. "He's one man. My funds are limited."

"What is it you think we should be looking at?"

"The husband, for one."

"Mr. Bichon has been thoroughly investigated."

He changed tacks without argument. "No real effort has been made to find the man who helped me get my car going that night."

Annie consulted the notes she'd brought with her. "The man whose name you didn't ask?"

"I wasn't thinking."

"The man who was driving 'some kind of dark truck' with a license plate that 'may have' included the letters F and J?"

"It was night. The truck was dirty. I had no reason to take note of the tags, anyway."

"What little you gave us to go on was liberally put forth by the media, Mr. Renard. No one came forward."

"But did the sheriff's office try to find him? I don't think so. Fourcade never believed anything I told him. Can you imagine him wasting his time to check it out?"

"Detective Fourcade is a very thorough man," Annie said. Fourcade also had tunnel vision when it came to Renard. He had been thorough in his efforts to prove Renard's guilt. Had he been as thorough in trying to corroborate the man's claim of innocence? "I'll look into it, but there isn't much to go on."

Renard let out a sigh of relief that seemed out of proportion with her offer. "Thank you, Annie. I can't tell you how much it means to me to have you do this."

"I told you, I don't expect anything to come of it."

"That's not the point. Tea?" He reached for the pitcher that sat in the center of the table beside a pair of glasses and a small vase sprouting daffodils.

Annie accepted the drink, taking a moment between sips to look around the yard. Pony Bayou was a stone's throw away. Downstream it branched around a muddy island of willows and dewberry. Somewhere to the south, beyond the dense growth of woods where the spring birds were singing, was the house where Pam had died. Annie wondered if the burly fisherman sitting in his boat down by the fork realized that or if he might have come here because of it. People were strange that way.

Panic surged through her. Could the fisherman have been someone from the SO? What if Noblier had reinstated the surveillance? What if Sergeant Hooker had come to this spot on his day off in search of bass and sac-a-lait? If someone saw her with Renard, she was going to be way up shit creek.

"Got anything in that boathouse?" Nodding to a small, low shed of rusting corrugated metal that jutted out over the bayou, she shifted the position of her chair, turning her back more squarely to the fisherman.

"An old bass boat. My brother likes to explore the bayou. He's something of a nature buff. Aren't you, Victor?"

Victor stepped out from behind a swath of drapery inside the French door Marcus had left cracked open. There was no guilt on his face, no embarrassment at having been caught spying. He stared at Annie, turning his body sideways, as if that might somehow fool her into thinking he wasn't looking at her.

"Victor," Marcus said, rising gingerly, "this is Annie Broussard. Annie saved my life."

"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that," Annie muttered.

"Why? Because you're modest or because you wish you hadn't?"

"I was doing my job."

Victor sidled toward the table for a better look at her. He was dressed in pants an inch too short and a plaid sport shirt buttoned to the throat. He resembled Marcus in his normal, unremarkable state: plain features, fine brown hair neatly combed. Annie had seen him around town from time to time, always in the company of either Marcus or his mother. He held himself too carefully and stood too close to people in lines, as if his sense of space and the physical world were distorted.

"It's nice to meet you, Victor."

He squinted in suspicion. "Good day." He glanced at Marcus. "Mask, no mask. Sound and sound alike. Mimus polyglottos. Mockingbird. No. No." He shook his head. "Dumetella carolinensis. Suggest the songs of other birds."

"What does that mean?" Annie asked.

Marcus attempted a bland smile. "Probably that you remind him of someone. Or more precisely, that you resemble someone you aren't."

Victor rocked himself a little, muttering, "Red and white. Now and then."

"Victor, why don't you go get your binoculars?" Marcus suggested. "The woods are full of birds today."

Victor cast a nervous look over his shoulder at Annie. "Change, interchange, mutate. One and one. Red and white."

He held himself still for a moment, as if waiting for some silent signal, then hurried back into the house.

"I expect he sees a resemblance between you and Pam," Marcus said.

"Did he know her?"

"They met at the office once or twice. Victor periodically expresses a curiosity in my work. And of course he saw her picture in the papers after… He reads three newspapers every day, cover to cover, every word. Impressive until you realize he'll be held in thrall by the sight of a semicolon while the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City meant nothing whatsoever to him."

"It must be difficult to deal with his… condition," Annie said.

Marcus looked to the open door and the empty dining room beyond. "Our cross to bear, my mother says. Of course, she takes great satisfaction from having to shoulder the load." He turned back toward Annie with another wan smile. "Can't pick your relatives. Do you have family here, Annie?"

"In a manner of speaking," she said evasively. "It's a long story."

"Family stories always are. Look at Pam's daughter. What a family story she'll have, poor little thing. What will, become of her grandfather?"

"You'd have to ask the DA," she said, though she thought she could give an accurate guess as to what would become of Hunter Davidson: nothing much. The outcry against his arrest had been considerable. Pritchett would never risk the wrath of his constituents by pressing for a trial. A deal would likely be cut quickly and quietly-maybe already had been-and Hunter Davidson would be doing community service for his attempted sin.

"He tried to kill me," Renard said with indignation. "The media is treating him like a celebrity."

"Yeah. There's a lot of that going around. You're not a well-liked man, Mr. Renard."

"Marcus," he corrected her. "You're at least civil to me. I'd like to pretend we're friends, Annie."

The emotion in his eyes was soft and vulnerable. Annie tried to imagine what had been in those eyes that black November night when he had plunged a knife into Pam Bichon.

"Considering what happened to your last 'friend,' I don't think that's a very good idea, Mr. Renard."

He turned his head as quickly as if she had slapped him, and blinked away tears, pretending to focus on the fisherman down the bayou.

"I would never have hurt Pam," he said. "I've told you that, Annie. That remark was deliberately hurtful to me. I expected better from you."

He wanted her contrition. He wanted her to give him another inch of control, the way he had when he had asked to use her name. A little thing on the surface, but the psychological sleight of hand was smooth and sinister. Or she was blowing it out of proportion and giving this man more credit than he deserved.

"It's just healthy caution on my part," she said. "I don't know you."

"I couldn't hurt you, Annie." He looked at her once again with his watery hazel eyes. "You saved my life. In certain Eastern cultures I would give you my life in return."

"Yeah, well, this is South Lou'siana. A simple thanks is sufficient."

"Hardly. I know you've been suffering because of what you did. I know what it is to be persecuted, Annie. We have that in common."

"Can we move on?" Annie said. The intensity in his expression unnerved her, as if he had already determined that their lives would now be intertwined into eternity. Was this how a fixation began? As a misunderstanding of commitment? Had it been this way between him and Pam? Between him and his now-dead girlfriend from Baton Rouge?

"No offense," she prefaced, "but you have to admit you have a bad track record. You wanted to be involved with Pam, and now she's dead. You were involved with Elaine Ingram back in Baton Rouge, and she's dead."

"Elaine's death was a terrible accident."

"But you can see how it might give pause. There's a rumor that she was going to break off your relationship."

"That's not true," he insisted. "Elaine could never leave me. She loved me."

Could never, not would never. The choice of words was telling. Not: Elaine would never leave him of her own accord. But: Elaine could never leave him if he wouldn't allow it. Marcus Renard wouldn't have been the first man to use the "if I can't have her, no one will" rationale. It was common thinking among simple obsessionals.

Doll Renard chose that moment to come onto the terrace. She wore a dotted polyester dress twenty years out of date and an enormous kitchen apron. The ties wrapped around her twice. She was thin in the same way Richard Kudrow was thin-as if her body had burned away from within, leaving bone and tough sinew. She offered no smile of welcome. Her mouth was a thin slash in her narrow face.

Annie thought she saw Marcus wince. She rose and extended her hand.

"Annie Broussard, sheriff's office. Sorry to disturb your Sunday, Mrs. Renard."

Doll sniffed, grudgingly offering a limp hand that collapsed in Annie's like a pouch of twigs. "Our Sunday is the least of what you people have disturbed."

Marcus rolled his eyes. "Mother, please. Annie isn't like the others."

"Well, you wouldn't think so," Doll muttered.

"She's going to be looking into some things that could help prove my innocence. She saved my life, for heaven's sake. Twice."

"I was just doing my job," Annie pointed out. "I am just doing my job."

Doll arched a penciled-on brow and clucked her tongue. "You've managed to misread the situation yet again, Marcus."

He looked away from his mother, his color darkening, tension crackled in the air around him. Annie watched the exchange, thinking maybe she was better off not having any blood relatives. Her memories of her mother were soft and quiet. Better memories than a bitter reality.

"Well," Doll Renard went on, "it's about time the sheriff's office did something for us. Our lawyer will be filing suit, you know, for all the pain and anguish we've been caused."

"Mother, perhaps you could try not to alienate the one person willing to help us."

She looked at him as if he'd called her a filthy name. "I have every right to state my feelings. We've been treated worse than common trash through all of this, while that Bichon woman is held up like some kind of saint. And now her father-all the world's calling him a martyred hero for trying to murder you. He belongs in jail. I certainly hope the district attorney keeps him there."

"I really should be going," Annie said, gathering her file and notebook. "I'll see what I can find out on that truck."

"I'll walk you to your car." Marcus scraped his chair back and sent his mother a venomous look.

He waited until they were along the end of the house before he spoke again.

"I wish you could have stayed longer."

"Did you have something more to say pertinent to the case?"

"Well-ah-I don't know," he stammered. "I don't know what questions you might have asked."

"The truth isn't dependent on what questions I ask," Annie said. "The truth is what I'm after here, Mr. Renard. I'm not out to prove your innocence, and I certainly don't want you telling people that I am. In fact, I wish you wouldn't mention me at all. I've got trouble enough as it is."

He made a show of drawing a fingertip across his mouth. "My lips are sealed. It'll be our secret." He seemed to like that idea too well. "Thank you, Annie."

"There's no need. Really."

He opened the door of the Jeep, and she climbed in. As she backed up to turn around, he leaned against his Volvo. The successful young architect at leisure. He's a murderer, she thought, and he wants to be my friend.

A glint of reflected sunlight caught her eye and she looked up at the second story of the Renard home, where Victor stood in one window, looking down on her with binoculars.

"Man, y'all make the Addams family look like Ozzie and Harriet," she said under her breath.

She thought about that as she drove north and west through the flat sugarcane country. Behind the face of every killer was the accumulated by-product of his upbringing, his history, his experiences. All of those things went to shape the individual and guide him onto a path. It wasn't a stretch to add up those factors in Renard's life and get the psycho-pathology Fourcade had spoken about. The portrait of a serial killer.

Marcus Renard wanted to be her friend. A shiver ran down her back.

She flicked on the radio and turned it up over the static of the scanner.

"… and I just think all these crimes, these rapes and all, are a backlash against the women's lib."

"Are you saying women essentially ask to be raped by taking nontraditional roles?"

"I'm sayin' we should know our place. That's what I'm sayin'."

"Okay, Ruth in Youngsville. You're on KJUN, all talk all the time. In light of last night's reported rape of a Luck woman, our topic is violence against women."

Another rape. Since the Bichon murder and the resurrected tales of the Bayou Strangler, every woman in the parish was living in a heightened state of fear. Rich hunting grounds for a certain kind of sexual predator. That was the rush for a rapist-his victim's fear. He fed on it like a narcotic.

The questions came to Annie automatically. How old was the victim? Where and how was she attacked? Did she have anything in common with Jennifer Nolan? Had the rapist followed the same MO? Were they now looking at a serial rapist? Who had caught the case? Stokes, she supposed, because of the possible tie to the Nolan rape. That was what he needed-another hot case to distract him from the Bichon homicide investigation.

The countryside began to give way to small acreages interspersed with the odd dilapidated trailer house, then the new western developments outside of town. The only L. Faulkner listed in the phone book lived on Cheval Court in the Quail Run development. Annie slowed the Jeep to a crawl, checking numbers on mailboxes.

The neighborhood was maybe four years old, but had been strategically planned to include plenty of large trees that had stood on this land for a hundred years or more, giving the area a sense of tradition. Pam Bichon had lived just a stone's throw from here on Quail Drive. Faulkner's home was a neat redbrick Caribbean colonial with ivory trim and overflowing planters on the front step.

Annie pulled in the drive and parked alongside a red Miata convertible with expired tags. She hadn't called ahead, hadn't wanted to give Lindsay Faulkner the chance to say no. The woman had put her guard up. The best plan would be to duck under it.

No one answered the doorbell. A section of the home's interior was visible through the sidelights that flanked the door. The house looked open, airy, inviting. A huge fern squatted in a pot in the foyer. A cat tiptoed along the edge of the kitchen island. Beyond the island a sliding glass door offered access to a terrace.

The lingering aroma of grilled meat hooked Annie's nose before she turned the corner to the back side of the house. Whitney Houston's testimonial about all the man she'd ever need floated out the speakers of a boom box, punctuated by a woman's throaty laughter.

Lindsay Faulkner sat at a glass-topped patio table, her hair swept back in a ponytail. A striking redhead in tortoise-shell shades came out through the patio doors with a Diet Pepsi in each hand. The smile on Faulkner's face dropped as she caught sight of Annie.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Ms. Faulkner. I had a couple more questions, if you don't mind," Annie said, trying to resist the urge to smooth the wrinkles from her blazer. Faulkner and her companion looked crisp and sporty, the kind of people who never perspired.

"I do mind, Detective. I thought I made myself clear yesterday. I'd rather not deal with you."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, since we both want the same thing."

"Detective?" the redhead said. She set the sodas on the table and settled herself in her chair with casual grace, a wry smile pulling at one corner of a perfectly painted mouth. "What have you done now, Lindsay?"

"She's here about Pam," Faulkner said, never taking her eyes off Annie. "She's the one I was telling you about."

"Oh." The redhead frowned and gave Annie the onceover, a condescending glance intended to belittle.

"If I have to deal with you people at all," Faulkner said, "then I'd sooner deal with Detective Stokes. He's the one I've dealt with all along."

"We're on the same side, Ms. Faulkner," Annie said, undaunted. "I want to see Pam's murderer punished."

"You could have let that happen the other night."

"Within the system," Annie specified. "You can help make that happen."

Faulkner looked away and sighed sharply through her slim patrician nose.

Annie helped herself to a chair, wanting to give the impression she was comfortable and in no hurry to leave. "How well do you know Marcus Renard?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"Did you socialize?"

"Me, personally?"

"He claims you went out together a couple of times. Is that true?"

She gave a humorless laugh, obviously insulted. "I don't believe this. Are you asking if I dated that sick worm?"

Annie blinked innocently and waited.

"We went out in a group from time to time-people from his office, people from mine."

"But never one-on-one?"

Faulkner flicked a glance at the redhead. "He's not my type. What's the point of this, Detective?"

"It's Deputy," Annie clarified at last. "I just want a clear picture of y'all's relationship."

"I didn't have a 'relationship' with Renard," she said hotly. "In his sick mind, maybe. What-"

She stopped suddenly. Annie could all but see the thought strike her-that Renard could have fixed on her as easily as on Pam. Judging by the shade of guilt that passed across her face, it wasn't the first time she had considered her good fortune at her friend's expense. She passed a hand across her forehead as if trying to wipe the thought away.

"Pam was too sweet," she said softly. "She didn't know how to discourage men. She never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings."

"I'm curious about something else," Annie said. "Donnie was making noise about challenging Pam for custody of Josie, but I can't see that he had any grounds. Was there something? Another man, maybe?"

Faulkner looked down at her hands on the tabletop and picked at an imagined cuticle flaw. "No."

"She wasn't seeing anyone."

"No."

"Then why would Donnie think-"

"Donnie is a fool. If you haven't figured that out by now, then you must be one, too. He thought he could paint Pam as a bad mother because she sometimes worked nights and met with male clients for drinks and dinner, as if the realty was just a front for a personal dating service. The idiot. It was ridiculous. He was grasping at straws. He would have used the stalking against her if he could have."

"Did Pam take him seriously?"

"We're talking about custody of her child. Of course she took him seriously. I don't see what this has to do with Renard."

"He says Pam told him she didn't dare date until the divorce went through because she was afraid of what Donnie might do."

"Yes, well, it turned out it wasn't Donnie she needed to be afraid of, was it?"

"You said she had a hard time discouraging men who were interested in her. Were there many sniffing around?"

Faulkner pressed two fingers against her right temple. "I've been over all this with Detective Stokes. Pam had that girl-next-door quality. Men liked to flirt with her. It was reflexive. My God, even Stokes did it. It didn't mean anything."

Annie wanted to ask if it hadn't meant anything because Pam was no longer interested in men. If Pam and Lindsay Faulkner had become partners beyond the office and Donnie found out, he certainly would have tried to use it in the divorce. That kind of discovery-the ultimate insult to masculinity-could have pushed a man on the edge over the edge. A motive that applied to Renard as easily as to Donnie.

She wanted to ask. Fourcade would have asked. Blunt, straight out. Were you and Pam lovers? But Annie held her tongue. She couldn't afford to piss off Lindsay Faulkner any more than she already had. If Faulkner complained about her to the sheriff or to Stokes, she'd be pulling the graveyard shift in detox for the rest of her broken career.

She pushed her chair back and rose slowly, pulling a business card from the pocket of her jacket. She had scratched out the phone number for the sheriff's office and replaced it with her home phone. She slid the card across the table toward Faulkner. "If you think of anything else that might be helpful, I'd appreciate it if you'd call me. Thank you for your time."

She turned to the redhead. "I'd get those tags renewed on the Miata if I were you. It's a nasty fine."

Out in the Jeep, Annie sat for a moment, staring at the house and trying to glean something useful from the conversation. More what-ifs. More maybes. Stokes and Fourcade had been over this ground enough to wear it smooth. What did she think she was going to find?

The truth, the key, the missing piece that would tie everything together. It was here in the maze somewhere, half hidden beneath some rock they hadn't quite overturned, lurking amid the lies and dead ends. Someone had to find it, and if she worked hard enough, looked long enough, dug a little deeper, she would be that someone.