A Thin Dark Line

26

Annie blew out a sigh and dug through the stacks of paperwork, unearthing a packet of microcassette tapes labeled RENARD in Fourcade's bold caps. Interview tapes, no doubt made in his pocket. The official tapes would never have been allowed out of the sheriff's department, but Fourcade lived by his own set of rules-some of which she condoned, and others…

It made her uneasy thinking about it. Where would she draw the line? And where would he? She was breaking rules by involving herself in this case, but she felt it was justified, that she owed her allegiance to a higher authority. And was that what Fourcade had been thinking when he'd confronted Renard in that parking lot? That justice was a higher power than the law?

Where the hell was he? she wondered as she dug through her purse for her tape recorder. For a man who had been suspended and warned off the case, he certainly got around.

"Maybe he's out planting evidence for you to find, Annie," she muttered, then chided herself for it.

She didn't believe he had planted the ring just because he'd been accused of doing it before. No one had proven the allegations made during the Parmantel murder investigation. Fourcade had resigned from the NOPD before anyone got the chance. The hoopla had died down and the case had gone away.

That right there made Annie think something was hinky about the charges. The case had gone away and no civil suit had been filed. Anybody with half a beef against the cops these days filed a civil suit. Allan Zander, the man Fourcade had accused of killing the hooker, Candi Parmantel, had just faded back into anonymity.

She told herself none of that mattered as she loaded tape number one into the player. Fourcade wanted to keep his past to himself, and all she wanted was to close this homicide. The rest was just baggage.

She hit the play button and set the machine on the table.

Fourcade tided the interview with Marcus Renard. He stated the date, time, and case number; his own name, rank, and badge number. Stokes stated his name, rank, and badge number. Chairs scraped against the floor, papers were shuffled.

Fourcade: "What'd you think of that murder, Mr. Renard?"

Renard: "It's-it's horrible. I can't believe it. Pam… My God…"

Stokes: "Can't believe what? That you could butcher a woman that way? Surprised yourself, did you?"

Renard: "What? I don't know what-You can't think I could do that! Pam was-I would never-"

Stokes: "Come on, Marcus. This is your ol' buddy Chaz you're talking to. I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday. You and me, we been having this same conversation now for what-six, eight weeks? Only this time you did something more than just look. Am I right? You got sick of looking. You got sick of her turning you down."

Renard: "No. It wasn't-"

Stokes: "Come on, Marcus, get straight with this."

Fourcade: "Let's give him the benefit, Chaz. You tell us, Mr. Renard. Where were you last Friday night?"

Renard: "Am I being charged with something? Should I have a lawyer present?"

Fourcade: "Me, I dunno, Mr. Renard. Should you have a lawyer present? We just want you to set us straight, that's all."

Renard: "You have nothing to tie me to this. I'm an innocent man."

Stokes: "You wanted her, Marcus. I been here all along, remember? I know how you followed her around, sent her little notes, little presents. I know that was you calling her up, hanging around her house. I know what you did to that woman, and you might as well confess, Marcus, 'cause you can bet your ass we're gonna prove it, Nicky and me. If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'."

The rumble of an engine broke Annie's concentration. She clicked the cassette player off and listened for a car door slamming. When the sound didn't come, she rose from her chair, sliding the Sig out of her purse.

The small window on the end of the house afforded a view of nothing. The night was black as pitch. Fourcade's retreat was stuck in the hip pocket of civilization, readily accessible to the animals that prowled the swamp-a fair number on two legs. Poachers and thieves and worse. Society's ragged fringe.

Last night came back to her in a rush. Who would be her enemy here?

No one could have followed her without her knowing it, which eliminated anyone from the department. A random attack by the roving rapist seemed unlikely. That predator knew the lifestyles and habits of his victims. He hadn't chosen them by accident.

Something thumped hard against the floor of the gallery. Leading with the Sig, Annie let herself out onto the landing.

"Nick? That you?"

She waited, debating, knowing she had already tipped her hand. Then came a low groan, the unmistakable sound of pain.

"Fourcade?" she called, easing down the stairs. "Don't make me shoot you. I've got a big gun, you know."

He lay on the gallery floor, the light spilling out the window illuminating his battered face.

"Oh my Lord!" Annie stuck the gun in her waistband and dropped down beside him. "What happened? Who did this?"

Nick cracked open an eye and looked up at her. "Never announce yourself until you know the situation, Broussard."

"Man, even half dead you're bossy."

"Help me up."

"Help you up? I should call an ambulance! Or I suppose I could shoot you and put you out of your misery."

He winced as he tried to push himself up onto his hands and knees. "I'm fine."

Annie made a rude sound. "Oh, excuse me, I mistook you for someone who'd had the shit beat out of him."

"Mais yeah," he mumbled. "That'd be me. It ain't the first time, sugar."

"Why does that not surprise me?"

He straightened slowly, pain rippling through his body. "Come on, Broussard, quit gawking and help me. If we're partners, we're partners."

Annie moved around beside him and let him hook an arm around her shoulders. "I don't mind saying you're more than I bargained for, Nick."

He leaned heavily against her as she helped him into the house. They lurched past the front parlor like a pair of winos. Annie glanced at the blood that dyed the front of his T-shirt and muttered an expletive.

"Who did this?"

"Friend of a friend."

"I think you need somebody to redefine that term for you. Where are we going?"

"Bathroom."

She steered him down the hall and nearly fell into the tub as she lowered him to sit on the closed lid of the toilet.

"God, are you sure you're alive?" she said, squatting down in front of him.

"Looks worse than it is."

"I suppose you're gonna tell me I should see the other guy."

"They were ugly to start with."

"They? Plural?"

"Nothing's broke," Nick said, fighting off another groan as the muscles in his back seized up. "I'll be pissing blood tomorrow, that's all."

He leaned his forearms on his thighs and tried to concentrate on clearing away the dizziness. His head was banging like a ten-pound hammer on a cast-iron pot.

"Get me a whiskey," he grumbled.

"Don't boss me around, Fourcade," Annie said, digging through the small medicine cabinet. "I have it on good authority you should never piss off your medical personnel."

"Get me a whiskey, please, Nurse Ratched."

She peered over her shoulder with a look of amazement. "You must have a concussion. You just made a joke."

"It's in the kitchen," he ground out between his teeth, three of which felt loose. "Third cupboard on the right."

She went out and came back moments later with a tumbler of Jack Daniel's. She took the first shot herself.

"I want an explanation, Fourcade. And don't jerk me around. I've got a bottle of peroxide and I know how to use it."

She set the whiskey on the sink and started to help him out of his jacket.

"I can do it," he protested.

"Oh, God, don't be such a man. You can hardly move."

Nick gave in and let her remove his jacket and his shoulder rig with the Ruger.

He was disgusted with himself. He should have anticipated DiMonti's attack, should have known better than to go out the same way he'd come in. He should have been fighting off the knuckle hangover with greater success. He shouldn't have needed someone to take care of him, and he couldn't allow himself to get used to it. He wasn't the kind of man who could expect that kind of comfort. His was a solitary existence by necessity. He had pared away the need for companionship to better focus on building the broken pieces of himself into something whole.

But the job was far from finished, and he was tired and battered, and Annie Broussard's touch felt too welcome.

He started to pull the bloodstained T-shirt off himself, until the pain cracked across his back again, as if DiMonti were right there with that damned spade handle.

"I thank God daily that I don't have testicles," Annie grumbled. "They obviously impair common sense."

She began jerking the T-shirt up his back, but her hands stilled before she was halfway. Angry red welts lashed across the small of his back, blood pooling beneath them in bruises as dark as thunderheads.

"Jesus," she breathed. She had to have hurt him just putting her arm around him to help him into the house, and he hadn't made a sound. Damned stubborn man, she thought. He'd probably gotten exactly what he deserved.

"It's nothing," he snapped.

She didn't comment but moved more carefully as she peeled the T-shirt up. His skin was hot, the scent of him masculine with a feral undertone. Sweat and blood, she told herself. There was nothing sexual in it, nothing sexual in the act of undressing him.

Her knuckles grazed his collarbone. He was eye level with her breasts. The room suddenly seemed as small as a phone booth.

Fourcade leaned back as she stepped away, as if he may have felt it, too-the strange magnetic pull. He pulled the T-shirt off his arms and threw it on the tile floor. His chest was wide and hard-looking, covered with a mat of dark hair that trailed down the center of a six-pack of stomach muscles and disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.

Annie swallowed hard and moved to the sink.

"I'm waiting for that explanation," she said. She waited another few minutes while she filled the sink with warm water and soaked a washcloth.

"I went to see Marcotte. A friend of his took exception to my visit."

"Gosh, imagine that." She dabbed gingerly at the blood that had crusted along a cut on his cheekbone. "I'm sure you were your usual charming self-spouting paranoid delusions, accusing him of being the devil. What were you doing there in the first place? Did you find something in Donnie's phone records?"

"No, but I don't like Marcotte's smell hanging around this. I wanted to rattle his cage."

"And you got your bell rung, instead. Careless."

It was. He had said so himself countless times on the endless drive home. He was rusty, and beyond that, he didn't think straight when it came to Marcotte.

"So who were these 'friends'?"

"A couple of knee busters belonging to Vic DiMonti."

"Vic DiMonti. The wiseguy Vic DiMonti?"

"C'est vrai. You got it in one, angel. Didn't think a fine upstanding citizen like Marcotte would know anyone like that, did you? Well, you'll never see them on the society page together, that's for damn sure."

He took a sip of the whiskey while she rinsed the blood out of the washcloth. The liquor stung the inside of his mouth where his teeth had cut into the soft tissue. It hit his empty stomach with an acidic hiss that was followed closely by a warm, numbing glow. He took another drink.

"This should have stitches," Annie muttered, staring at the cut that sliced his left eyebrow.

She'd thought he was insane when he'd first brought up the subject of Marcotte. She'd thought Marcotte was just part of the baggage of his past that he dragged around behind him and wouldn't let anyone see inside of. But if Marcotte was Donnie's secret buyer, and if Marcotte consorted with mob types… maybe Fourcade wasn't so crazy after all.

"So what did Marcotte have to say?"

"Nothing. I didn't like the quality of his silence."

"But if Donnie wasn't in contact with him before the murder, then he's not a motive. What Donnie does with his half of the company now is his own business."

He took hold of her wrist and pulled her hand away from his split chin. "The devil comes knocking at your door, 'Toinette, don'tcha turn your back on him just 'cause he's late for the first dance."

Annie's breath caught at the leashed strength in his grip, at the dark fire in his eyes. This was what she had warned herself away from-his intensity, his obsessions.

"I'm in this to close the homicide," she said. "Marcotte is your demon, not mine. I don't even know what he did to win that exalted place in your heart."

She had just finished telling herself she didn't want to know, and yet she found herself holding her breath as she waited for the explanation.

"If we're partners…" she whispered.

The silence, the moment, took on a strange density, as clear and thick as water. The air of expectation: too heavy to breathe, charged with electricity. The weight of it was more than he wanted, the import beyond what he would have allowed himself to consider. He wondered if she felt it, if she could recognize it for what it was. Then he took a deep breath and stepped off that inner ledge.

"I went looking for justice," he said softly. "Marcotte bent it over my head like a tire iron. He showed me a side to the system as tangled and oily as the innards of a snake."

"You think Marcotte killed that hooker?"

"Oh, no." He shook his head slightly. "Allan Zander killed Candi Parmantel. Marcotte, he made it all go away- and my career along with it."

"Why would he do that?"

"Zander is married to a cousin of Marcotte. He's nobody, no social climber, just another jerk-off white-collar working stiff. Frustrated with his job, disappointed in his marriage, looking to take it all out on somebody. He left that girl, that fourteen-year-old runaway who was selling her body so she could eat, dead in a back-alley Dumpster like she was so much refuse. And Duval Marcotte covered it up."

"You know this?" Annie asked carefully. "Or you think it?"

"I know. I can't prove it. I tried, and everything I tried turned back around on me. I wasn't the one who tampered with the evidence or lost the lab work."

"Nobody else thought it was strange-all this stuff going wrong on one case?"

"Nobody cared. What's another dead hooker besides bad press? Besides, it didn't any of it look that big. A bad test here, a piece of evidence gone there. You know what they say: New Orleans is a marvelous place for coincidence."

"But you weren't the only detective on the case. What about your partner?"

"He had a kid with leukemia. Big-time medical bills. Who do you think he cared more about-his child or some dead prostitute? I was the only player in the game who gave a damn about that girl. I didn't want Marcotte's money, I wanted Marcotte, and most of all I wanted Zander. Marcotte snapped me like a twig, and I couldn't prove a goddamn thing. The more noise I made, the crazier I looked. The chief wanted my ass on a platter. The captain wanted me out on a psych charge. My lieutenant stuck his neck out and let me resign. I hear he's working security for some oil company in Houston now."

Wincing, he leaned over and dug his cigarettes and lighter out of his discarded jacket. He shook one out and lit up.

"Duval Marcotte, he does something like that for a little nothing/nobody turd like Zander, what you think he'd do for someone like Vic DiMonti?"

Annie sat down on the edge of the tub and stared at her hands. Fourcade wasn't telling her he had crashed and burned in a big way. The rumors that had filtered out of New Orleans on the blue grapevine had whispered words like crazy, paranoid, drunk, violent. She thought of what he had said that night at Laveau's.

"You afraid of me?… You don't listen to gossip?"

"I take it for what it's worth. Half-truths, if that."

"And how do you decide which half is true?"

"Do you believe me, 'Toinette?" he asked.

For a moment the only sound was the insect buzz of the fluorescent lights that flanked the medicine chest. It had been a long time since he'd cared if anyone believed him- not facts and evidence, him. He had put away that need, but now he felt the strange stirrings of hope in his chest, foreign fingers touching him in a way that was intrusive and seductive, and ultimately disturbing.

"It doesn't matter," he said, stubbing his cigarette out on the rim of the sink.

"Yes, it does," Annie corrected him. "Of course it does." She raked a hand back through her hair and exhaled. "It must have been hell. I can't- No, I can imagine… a little bit. I've been learning lately about standing on the wrong side of an issue."

"And I put you there, didn't I, chère?" He reached out to touch her chin. His smile was bitter and sad. "What a helluva team we make, huh?"

She tried a smile to match his. "Yeah. Who'd believe it?"

"No one. But it's right, you know. We want the same thing… need the same thing…"

His voice died to a whisper as he realized the conversation had shifted onto a new plane, that what was between them was attraction; that what he needed, what he wanted, was Annie. And she knew it. He could see it in her eyes- the surprise, apprehension, anticipation.

He slid his fingers into her hair, leaned forward, and touched his mouth to hers experimentally. A jolt went through him, a deep current that pulled at him, pulled him closer to her. He settled his mouth against hers and tasted her, whiskey warm and sweet with a kind of innocence he could barely remember. His hand cradled the back of her head and he kissed her deeply, without reserve, his tongue sliding against hers.

Annie sat frozen, paralyzed by the emotions and sensations unleashed by his kiss. Heat, fear, need, a dangerous excitement. It shocked her that she allowed him this intimacy, that she wanted it. That she wanted him. Her tongue moved against his and he groaned low in his throat.

The sense of power that rose within her, the passion that rose with it, terrified her. Fourcade was a man of dragons and deep secrets. If he wanted more than sex, he would want her soul.

She pulled away from the kiss, turned her face away, and felt his lips graze her cheek.

"I can't do this," she whispered. "You scare me, Nick."

"What scares you? You think I'm crazy? You think I'm dangerous?"

"I don't know what to think."

"Yes, you do," he murmured. "You're just afraid to admit it. I think, chère, you scare yourself."

He touched her chin. "Look at me. What do you see in me that scares you? You see in me what you're afraid to feel. You think if you go that deep you might drown, lose yourself… like me."

A fine chill threaded through her. She pushed herself past it, pushed to her feet, kicked awake what wits hadn't gone entirely numb.

"You should be in bed-and not with me," she said, letting the plug out of the sink. Her heart was beating too fast. She couldn't quite get her breath. She fumbled with the stopper and dropped it on the floor. "Take some aspirin. Take a cold shower. You probably shouldn't drink too much in case you've got a-"

He caught hold of her wrist as if holding her physically could stop her from prattling on. Annie looked at him with suspicion. She had let him cross a barrier, and suddenly he could touch her. If he could touch her, he could pull her toward him, literally and figuratively. She told herself she didn't want that. She couldn't handle him, didn't know if she could trust him. She'd stood on the edge of a dark parking lot and watched him beat a suspect senseless.

"I need to go," she said. "After last night, God knows what might be on the agenda tonight."

"What happened last night?" he asked, coming slowly to his feet.

Annie backed into the hall, trying to pass off a casual attitude she didn't feel. She told him in the briefest detail, the way she would write a report-without emotion. Nick propped himself up in the bathroom doorway, the near-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. He seemed to concentrate on every word she said.

"What did the lab say about the entrails?"

"Nothing yet. They'll call tomorrow. Pitre insisted it was pig intestines. It probably was. It was probably Mullen and his band of merry jerks just trying to rattle me, but…"

"But what?" Fourcade demanded. "You got a feeling, 'Toinette, let's hear it. Speak your mind. Don't be shy."

"Someone, presumably Renard, left a mutilated animal on Pam's doorstep back in October. Now I'm working the case and this happens."

"You think it could have been Renard."

"I don't know. Does that make sense? He didn't start harassing Pam until she'd rejected him. She rejected him, he punished her. He thinks I'm his champion. Why would he do something to jeopardize that?"

"Maybe punishment wasn't his goal with Pam," Nick suggested. "He was always quick enough to offer his concern after she had something bad happen."

Annie nodded, considering. "I know what it is to be persecuted," Renard had said to her just yesterday. "We have that in common."

"Whoever did it-I'd like to wring their neck," she muttered. "It scared me. I hate being scared. It pisses me off."

Nick almost smiled. She was working hard to be tough, to be a cop. But she'd never found herself involved in anything like this-not with the case, not with him. He'd seen the uncertainty in her eyes. He had to give her points for pushing past it.

"Call me when you get home," he ordered. "Partner."

Annie looked up at his battered face and felt that strange pull toward him. It scared her. And it pissed her off. In ten days she would have to testify against him.

"I have to…" She moved her hand in the direction of the door.

He nodded slightly. "I know."

As she walked out of his house, she had the distinct feeling that their parting words hadn't been about leaving at all.

All she wanted was to do the job, to find some closure for Josie, for Pam. She had never meant to fall into this… this-God, what could she even call this thing with Fourcade? Attraction. It wasn't a relationship. She didn't want a relationship. She didn't want… to go that deep.

Shit.

There was still a light on in the store when she pulled in at the Corners, though closing had come and gone an hour ago. Sos had probably been regaling his cronies with the tale of the past night's adventure. But if he had had company, they'd gone home. There were no other cars in the lot. Down the way, the light burned low in the Doucets' living room. Tante Fanchon would be settling in for the news, soaking her bunions in the minispa foot bath Annie had given her for Christmas two years ago.

Annie turned the Jeep off and sat looking up at the apartment, her thoughts drifting back in time to her mother. Lovely Marie, so unto herself, so complicated, so mysterious… so deep. So deep she had drowned in herself, swamped by the intensity of her emotions.

There was nothing wrong in not wanting that. There was nothing wrong in staying safe on the ledge above that abyss.

She took a cleansing breath, feeling silly for having overreacted. She barely knew Fourcade. He'd stolen a kiss. Big deal.

She wanted him. Big deal.

She locked the Jeep, slung her duffel bag over her shoulder, and started toward the building as Sos came out onto the porch.

"Hey, chère, what you doin', draggin' in dis hour?" he asked, grinning. "You on a hot date or what?"

"I could ask you the same," Annie retorted, shuffling toward the edge of the gallery. Sos had left, the security lights on, something he rarely did because he had a grudge against. the electric company.

"Mais non!" He laughed. "T'es en erreur. Your tante Fanchon, she'd take a stick after me, chère. You know it."

Annie managed a smile.

"You been out with Andre?"

"No."

"Why not? How you ever gonna marry dat boy, you never see him?"

"Uncle Sos…" She couldn't bring herself to go into the speech, partly because of fatigue and partly because of a vague sense of guilt she had no desire to explore.

Sos stepped down off the porch, his boots scuffing on the rock. "Hey, 'tite chatte," he said softly, his face creasing into lines of concern. He touched her cheek with callused fingers. "You and Andre have another fight?"

"You've got A.J. on the brain," Annie muttered. "I'm just tired, that's all."

He sniffed, indignant, and pulled her with him to the steps. "Come on. You sit your pretty self down here with your uncle Sos and tell all about it."

Annie sat down beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder, wishing she could just tell Uncle Sos and sort it all out, the way she had done when she was small. But life had grown so much more complicated than when she was ten and didn't have a mother to take her to the mother-daughter tea at school. Sos and Fanchon had been there for her then, always. She didn't want them touched by what was going on in her life now. She would protect them any way she could.

Sos clucked his tongue softly and hugged her against him. "Like pullin' hen's teeth with a pliers, gettin' a story outta you. You all the time like dat, you know, even when you was just a tiny li'l thing. You don' wanna bother no one. How many times I gotta tell you, chine, dat's what family is for, huh?"

Annie closed her eyes. "It's just the job, Uncle Sos. Things are hard for me right now."

"Because you stop that detective from killing that man what ever'one says is guilty?"

"Yeah."

He hummed a note. "Well, I'd like to see him dead, too, but that don' mean you did wrong. Somebody wanna say different, they can come to me.

"Dat horse's ass Noblier, he don' deserve you for a deputy, chère. You can always come work for your uncle Sos, you know. I'll give you a quarter you come seine the shiners out my bait tanks."

Annie found a chuckle for his teasing, then turned and hugged him fiercely. "I love you."

Sos patted her back and kissed the top of her head. "Je t'aime, chérie. You get some sleep tonight. Leave the rascals to me. I got fresh buckshot in the gun."

"Oh, that's a comfort," Annie muttered dryly.

She dragged herself up the stairs to the apartment. A small package waited for her on the landing, wrapped in paper sprigged with tiny violets and tied with a lavender bow. Automatically suspicious, she picked it up with care, listened to it, shook it a little, then carried it inside.

The light on the answering machine was blinking impatiently. She hit the message button and listened as she unwrapped the box.

"It's me," A.J. said. "Where you been? I thought maybe we could do that movie tonight, but… uh… I guess not, huh? Are you still pissed at me? Call me, will you?"

The confusion in his voice dragged at Annie's heart.

The machine beeped and a reporter came on asking for a few minutes of her time. He might as well have asked her to hit herself in the head with a hammer.

"This is Lindsay Faulkner."

Annie's hands stilled on the white gift box.

"I've been thinking about some of the questions you asked the other day. I'm sorry if I've seemed uncooperative. That wasn't my intent. This has just dragged on, and I- Please call me when you get a chance."

Annie looked at the cat clock on the kitchen wall. 10:27. Not too late. Abandoning the package on the table, she paged through the phone book, then dialed the number. The telephone on the other end rang four times before it picked up.

"Hello, Ms. Faulkner, this is-"

"This is Lindsay Faulkner. I can't take your call right now, but if you'll leave your name, number, and a brief message at the tone, I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Annie blew out a breath in frustration, waited for the tone, and left her name and number. The expectation that had shot upward at the sound of Lindsay Faulkner's voice dropped like a rock, and she was left with nothing but questions that couldn't be answered.

She had felt all along that the woman was holding back on her. But when she'd read over the statements from the file, they seemed very straightforward. Stokes had not included any notes regarding concerns about Faulkner's candor or anything else. He, rather than Fourcade, had dealt with her during the murder investigation because he had already established a relationship with her during the stalking investigation. Asking him for his opinion was out of the question.

Resigning herself to waiting for Lindsay's revelations, she hit the message button on the answering machine again.

The next one began to play-a snickering, sniveling stream of profanity and lewd suggestions. Annie raised her eyes heavenward and made a mental note never to appear in front of a television camera again.

She turned her attention to the box, lifting the lid carefully, braced for the possibility of unpleasant surprise. Another dead muskrat, perhaps. Another live snake. But nothing sprang out at her. No aroma of death assaulted her senses. Nestled in layers of tissue was a sheer silk scarf, ivory printed with tiny blue flowers.

Frowning, she took it out and ran it through her hands, the cool, sensuous feel of it having the opposite of its desired effect. The card read: "Something lovely for a lovely person. With thanks and gratitude-again. Marcus."

Among the gifts he had given Pam Bichon was a silk scarf.

It appeared he had taken the bait Annie had never intended to dangle.

She set the scarf aside and picked up the phone to call Fourcade.