A Thin Dark Line

40

The old Andrew Carnegie Library was open until nine on Thursdays. Annie hovered behind the three makeshift computer bays from about five-fifteen until the junior high geeks who used the machines to surf the Net for things they were too young to see had to go home for supper. Then she settled in at the computer farthest from prying eyes and went to work.

The computers had been a gift to the library from a well-known local author, Conroy Cooper. A new library would have been a better gift. The Carnegie had been old when Christ was in short pants. Dank and dimly lit, the place had always given Annie the creeps. The air was musty with the smell of moldering paper. Every wooden surface had either turned black with age or been worn pale from use. Even the librarian, Miss Stitch, seemed slightly mildewed.

But the computers were new and that was all that mattered. Annie was able to access the William Carey College Library, and once in that system, call up articles from the Hattiesburg American that related to the college rape cases in 1991 and 1992. She read them on the screen, scrutinizing for any similarities between those cases and the newly dubbed "Mardi Gras" cases.

The victims-seven of them-had all been college students or had worked at the college. Physical characteristics of the women varied; ages hung in the late teens, early twenties. The assaults had taken place in their bedrooms late at night. Each woman lived in a ground-floor apartment. The attacks took place during warm weather, the rapist gaining entry through open windows. He used cut-off lengths of panty hose, which he brought with him, to tie his victims up. He spoke very little throughout the course of the rapes, his voice described as "a harsh whisper." Though none of the women had gotten a clean look at her rapist because he had worn a ski mask, several speculated from his voice that "he may have been black." The rapist used a condom, which he disposed of away from the scene of the crime, and no semen or pubic hairs had been recovered for evidence. Before leaving the last of his victims, the attacker helped himself to cash and credit cards.

Evander Darnell Flood, the man arrested for the crimes, had given that victim's Visa card to his girlfriend. According to an acquaintance hauled in on unrelated drug charges, Flood had bragged to him about the rapes. While his record was not admissible in court, Evander had previously been a guest of the Mississippi correctional facility in Parchman for seven years on a rape charge. Two previous charges had been dropped due to lack of evidence.

The prosecution built a circumstantial case against Flood with evidence discovered by the Hattiesburg Police Department detectives. And, while Evander swore to the last that he was being framed, that the police had planted the evidence, the jury convicted him and the judge sent him back to Parchman for the rest of his natural life.

Annie sat back from the computer screen and rubbed her eyes. There were differences in the cases and similarities, but then the same could be said for the majority of rape cases. A certain methodology was common to the crime. The differences tended to be personal: One rapist was a talker, using foul sexual language to help get him off; the next one was silent. One might prefer to cover his victim's face to depersonalize her; another would threaten her at knifepoint to keep her eyes open so he might see her fear.

She found more similarities here than differences, but it was the circumstances surrounding Flood's arrest and conviction that made Annie uneasy. Flood swore he was innocent, like 99.9 percent of the scumbags in prison. But the case against him hadn't been that strong. The acquaintance could easily have lied as part of a deal for leniency in his own case. Witnesses who claimed to have seen a man matching Flood's description in the vicinity of several of the rapes told weak, conflicting stories. Flood claimed to have found the last victim's credit card in the hallway of his apartment building. He claimed the cops had railroaded him because he had a record and lived in the area where the crimes had taken place.

He would have been an easy target for a frame. Because of his record, the cops would have known all about Evander early on. He lived in the area, had a part-time janitorial job at the college. His live-in girlfriend worked nights, robbing him of an alibi witness.

Annie closed her eyes and saw Stokes. As a detective assigned to the cases, planting evidence would have been a simple matter for him. He had been there in Renard's home the night Fourcade had found Pam's ring. Everyone had jumped on Nick with the accusation of tampering because he had been accused before. No one had looked twice at Chaz Stokes.

She went through the steps of instructing the computer to print the articles, then turned around in her chair while the dot-matrix printer chattered away. At the far end of one row of reference books, a face stared at her, then darted back into the shadows. Victor Renard.

Annie's heart gave a jolt. The library was nearly deserted. What action there was, was on the first floor: a blue-haired ladies' reading group trying to find Satanic messages in The Celestine Prophecy. The second floor, where Annie was, was quiet as a church.

Victor peeked around the end of another bookcase, saw that she was looking right at him, and darted back.

"Victor?" Annie said. Abandoning the printer to its work, she eased out of her chair and moved carefully toward the bookcases. "Mr. Renard? You don't have to hide from me."

She made her way slowly down one row, muscles tensing, lungs aching against the held breath. The lighting back here was poor. Gooseflesh crawled down the back of her neck.

"It's Annie Broussard, Victor. Remember me? I'm trying to help Marcus," she said, her conscience pinching her for lying to a mentally challenged person. Would she get another day in purgatory if her ultimate goal was good? The end justifies the means.

She started to turn right at the end of the human sciences row and caught a glimpse of him cowering in the corner to her left.

"How are you, Victor?" she asked, trying to sound pleasant, conversational. She turned toward him slowly, not wanting to spook him.

He didn't seem comfortable with her proximity. She was no more than a yard from him. He made a small uncertain keening sound in his throat and began to rock himself from side to side.

"It's all been very hard on you, hasn't it?" Annie said, her sympathy for him genuine.

According to what little she'd read about autistics in trying to understand more about Marcus Renard's brother, routine was sacred. Yet, Victor's life had to have been an endless series of upsets since the death of Pam Bichon. The press, the cops, disgruntled citizens had all focused their scrutiny and their speculation on the Renard family. Plenty of rumors had run around town that perhaps Victor himself was dangerous. His condition baffled and frightened people. His behavior seemed odd at best, and often inappropriate.

"Mask, mask. No mask," he mumbled, looking at her out the corner of his eye.

Mask. Since Pam's death the word had taken on a menacing connotation that had only been compounded by the recent rapes. Coming from someone whose behavior was so strange, someone who happened to be the brother of a murder suspect, it added to the eeriness.

He raised the book in his hands, a collection of Audubon's prints, to cover his face and tapped a finger against the picture on the front, a finely detailed rendering of a mockingbird. "Mimus polyglottos. Mimus, mimic. Mask, no mask."

Slowly he lowered the book to peer over it at her. His eyes had a glasslike quality, hard and clear and unblinking. "Transformation, transmutation, alteration. Mask."

"Do you think I look like someone I'm not? Is that it? Do I remind you of Pam?" Annie asked gently. How much of what had happened could be locked inside Victor Renard's mind? What secret, what clue, might be trapped in the strange labyrinth that was his brain?

He covered his face again. "Red and white. Then and now."

"I don't understand, Victor."

"I think he's confused," Marcus said.

Annie swung toward him, startled. She hadn't heard his approach at all. They were back in the farthest, dimmest corner of the library. She had Victor on one side, Marcus on another, a wall to her back.

"That you resemble Pam, but that you aren't Pam,"

Marcus finished. "He can't decide if it's good or bad, past or present."

Victor rocked himself and bumped the Audubon book against his forehead over and over, muttering, "Red, red, enter out."

"How much of his language do you understand?" Annie asked.

"Some." He was still speaking through gritted teeth, his jaw being wired shut, but with less difficulty. The swelling was gone from his face. The bruises looked yellow and black in the poor light. "It's a code of sorts."

"Very red," Victor mumbled unhappily.

"Red is a watchword for things that upset him," Marcus explained. "It's all right, Victor. Annie is a friend."

"Very white, very red," Victor said, peering over the book at Annie. "Very white, very red."

"White is good, red is bad. Why he's putting the two together that way is beyond me. He's been very upset since the shooting the other night."

"I can relate to that," Annie said, turning her attention more squarely on Marcus. "Someone took a shot at me last night."

"My God." She couldn't tell if his shock was genuine or not. He took a step toward her. "Were you hurt?"

"No. I ducked, as it happened."

"Do you know who did it? Was it because of me?"

"I don't know." Was it you? she wondered.

"It's terrible someone would want to hurt you, Annie," Marcus said, his gaze a little too intent. He inched closer to her by just shifting his weight. "Especially when you know it was someone wanting to punish you for doing the right thing. That's the way of the world, I'm sad to say. Evil tries to eradicate good.

"Were you alone?" His voice softened. "You must have been frightened."

"That would be a mild understatement," she said, resisting the urge to step away from him. "I suppose I should be getting used to that kind of thing. I seem to be a favorite target all of a sudden."

"I can empathize. I know exactly what you went through, Annie," he said. "Having a stranger reach into your life and commit an act of violence. It's a violation. It's rape. You feel so vulnerable, so powerless. So alone. Don't you?"

A shudder vibrated just under Annie's skin. He said nothing threatening, nothing menacing. He offered her his understanding and concern… in a way that was just a little too intense. He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his handkerchief, as if the subject matter were making him salivate. Something about the light in his eyes seemed almost excitement, a secret. No one would have understood -except Pam Bichon. And possibly Elaine Ingram before her.

"I know what it's like," he said. "You know I do. You've been there for me so many times. I wish I could have been there for you. I feel so selfish now-calling you about someone throwing a rock through one of our parlor windows last night, wondering why you didn't call me back. And all the while you were in danger."

"You called the sheriff's office, didn't you? About the rock?"

"I shouldn't have bothered," he said bitterly. "They're probably using the rock for a paperweight today. I'm sure they threw the note away."

"What note?"

"The one bound to the rock with a rubber band. It said YOU DIE NEXT, KILLER."

Victor made his strange squealing sound again and covered his face with his book.

"It was terribly upsetting," Marcus went on. "Someone is terrorizing my family, and the sheriff's office has done nothing. I'm being stalked just as surely as Pam was stalked by some deranged person, and the sheriff's office would be just as happy if someone killed me. You're the only one who cares, Annie."

"Well, I'm afraid last night I was busy caring about not getting killed myself."

"I'm so sorry. The last thing I want is to see you hurt, Annie-especially on my account." He shifted closer, tilting his head down to an angle for sharing secrets. "I care a great deal about you, Annie," he murmured. "You know that."

"I hope you don't mean that in a personal way, Marcus," she said, testing him. There were people just one floor down and his brother standing ten feet away, watching them over the edge of his picture book. He wouldn't risk anything here. "I'm working on your case. That's all."

He looked stunned for a split second, then smiled in relief. "I understand. Conflict of interest. Your saving my life-twice-was merely in the line of duty."

"That's right."

"And your looking into my alibi and coming to the house the other night, even though it wasn't officially your case-that was just because you're a good cop."

"That's right," Annie said, another ripple of unease ribboning through her. Once again, he was reading something into her actions that simply wasn't true. And yet, his response was nothing she could even have related to someone else as being inappropriate.

"I'm just a deputy," she said. "That's all I can be to you, Marcus. Do you understand what I'm telling you? You shouldn't be sending me gifts."

"A simple show of my gratitude," he said.

"Your taxes pay my salary. That's all the gratitude I need."

"But you've gone above and beyond the call. You deserve more than you're getting."

Victor whimpered and rocked himself. "Then and now. Enter out. Time and time now, Marcus. Very red."

"It's not appropriate for you to give me gifts."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked, straightening, a fine thread of irritation tightening his voice. "Did it make him angry-me sending you things?"

"That would be none of your business," Annie said. She hardly dared blink for fear she would miss some small nuance of expression that would give him away.

"Very red!" Victor keened. He sounded on the verge of tears. "Enter out now!"

Marcus glanced at his watch and frowned. "Ah, we'd better go. It's getting on toward eight. Victor's bedtime. Can't disrupt the schedule, can we, Victor?"

Victor clutched his book to his chest and hurried toward the door to the hall.

Marcus made a stiff little bow to Annie, trying to be dashing. "May I walk you out, Annie? Obviously, you need to be careful."

She refrained from pointing out that having him escort her would hardly be considered a safe thing. He was either a killer or possibly the target of a killer. "I'm not leaving just yet. I've got some work to do."

He let it go as they started down the aisle toward the front of the room and better light. "Have you made any progress on finding that driver who helped me?"

"No. I've been very busy."

"But you're trying."

The DMV list was still under the blotter on her desk. "I'll do what I can."

"I know you will, Annie," he said as they reached the vacant desk area, where Victor stood in the doorway facing the hall, rocking himself from side to side. "I know you'll do your best for me, Annie. You're very special."

Before Annie could protest again, he said, "Will you be going to the street dance with anyone Friday?"

As if he meant to ask her, Annie thought, amazed. She took another step away from him. "I'll be going in uniform if they hold it at all. I'm scheduled to work."

Marcus sighed. "Too bad. You've been working so hard lately."

Because of you, Annie thought, but she wasn't going to be the one to bring on another round of cloying gratitude.

She watched the Renard brothers go, Victor hugging the wall of the stairwell, his bird book raised to hide his face. Mask.

He wanted to hide who he was behind another facade. His brother may well have been hiding an alter ego beneath his bland, ordinary face. Annie turned toward the printer and the stack of articles that involved Chaz Stokes, who used his badge as a mask to cover God knew what. Mask.

"Yeah, Victor," she murmured, collecting her things. "There seems to be a lot of that going around."

"It doesn't match," Doll harped. "I told you it wouldn't match. I had a premonition."

"It's wet, Mother," Marcus said, dabbing at the paint with a sponge in hopes of better blending it in with the rest of the wall. "Paint always appears lighter when dry than when wet."

Doll scrutinized the dining room wall, her thin face pinched tight with concentration. She crossed her arms and declared, "I don't believe it's the same color. What's it called? Is it called forest?"

"I don't know, Mother. The can has a number, not a name."

"Well, it had ought to say forest. I distinctly remember choosing the color forest. If it doesn't say forest, then how can you know it's the same shade?"

"Because I know that it is."

He could feel his patience fraying like an old rope, and he resented her for it. He had come home from the library with his head full of Annie, a pleasant warmth glowing just under his skin. Shutting out Victor's incessant noise, he had spent the drive home replaying the encounter in his mind, from Annie's look of surprise when she'd first turned to face him to the subtle messages in her tone of voice. She couldn't publicly accept his attentions until she had cleared him of Pam's murder. He understood. He would have to be discreet. It would be like a game between them, another secret only they shared.

"It's not forest," Doll muttered, moving to examine the spot from another angle. "It's just as I saw it in my premonition. The color won't match no matter what we do, and every time I look at that wall I'll be taken with the fear of that night. Fear and shame-that's all my life has become. I can barely bring myself to leave the house these days."

Marcus bit back the words that sprang instantly to his tongue. She had hounded him all morning to take her into town because she needed to go to the drugstore and the supermarket. She didn't trust him to get the brands she liked and she refused to write them down because she didn't necessarily go by names, but by the colors and graphics on the packages. And of course she couldn't take her own car and go herself on account of her nerves and the mysterious undiagnosed palsy mat had been coming on her lately- because of him and the unwanted attention he'd drawn to the family.

"All because of your infatuation with that woman," she said now, as if she was simply jumping back into the conversation they'd had nine hours ago. "I don't know why you can't content yourself, Marcus."

Content myself with what? With you? He looked at her out the corner of his eye as he climbed down from the step stool and began the process of cleaning up. He envisioned forcing her head into the paint can and drowning her in her damned forest paint, but of course he wouldn't do that any more than he would cram the paint-soaked sponge into her mouth and suffocate her, or stab her in the base of her throat with the screwdriver he'd used to open the can.

"Look what happened. Look what it's done to our lives."

"What happened was not my fault, Mother," he said, tapping the lid of the can down with a rubber mallet. If wielded with enough fury, would it do the same damage as a hammer?

"Of course it is," Doll insisted. "You were infatuated with that woman, and now she's dead and everyone naturally believes you did it. You should have left her alone."

"It was a misunderstanding," he said, gathering up his tools and the can. The spot would need a second application, but the paint couldn't be left out. Victor enjoyed the texture and viscosity of paint, and would put his hands into it and spill it out to watch it pool on the floor. "Annie will clear it up for us. She's working on the case day and night."

"Annie." Doll shook her head, following him into the kitchen. "She's no better than the rest of them, Marcus. You mark my words, she's not your friend."

He stopped at the back door and stared at his mother, defiant. "She saved my life. She's going out of her way to help me. I believe that would define the word friend."

He pushed the door open with his elbow and went out to the small, locked shed where he kept things like paint and power tools. A single bulb illuminated the rough cypress walls. He put the paint and tools away and shut the light off. If he waited long enough, he knew his mother would go to bed and he wouldn't have to speak to her again until morning. It was nearly ten o'clock. She had to be in her room for the start of the news, though he could never imagine why. The news never failed to agitate and disgust her for one reason or another. Ritual. She was as bound to it as Victor.

She couldn't understand about Annie, he told himself as he waited for the kitchen light to go out. What did his mother know of friends? She'd never had one that he'd ever been aware of. He doubted even his father had been a friend to her. She would never understand about Annie.

The lights went out in the kitchen, then the dining room. Cutting across the terrace, Marcus went to his workroom and let himself in through one of the French doors with the key he kept under a flowerpot. He went first into his bedroom for a Percodan, to calm both his pains and his nerves, then came back into his studio and gathered his things from his private cupboard.

The drug began to work quickly, relaxing him, giving him a vaguely floaty feeling, insulating him from both physical pain and emotional unpleasantness. Staring at his sketch, he drove everything from his mind except Annie.

Of course he was taken with her. She was pretty. She was intelligent. She was fair-minded. She was his angel. That was what he called her when he imagined the two of them together-Angel. It would be his secret name for her, another little something they would share only with each other. He drew a finger across his lips like closing a zipper, then smiled to himself. That had already become a pet signal between them. They had to be careful. They had to be discreet. She was risking so much by helping him.

He lifted the small keepsake from the drafting table and let it swing from his fingertips, smiling at the whimsy of it. It was a silly thing, hardly appropriate for a grown woman with a serious profession, and yet it suited her. She was still a girl in many respects-fresh, unspoiled, fun, uncertain. He recalled in perfect detail the uncertainty on her face as she turned and saw him tonight in the library. It made him want to hold her. Instead, he held the comical little plastic alligator with the sunglasses and red beret that he had taken down from the rearview mirror in Annie's Jeep.

She wouldn't mind that he had taken it, he reasoned. It was just another small secret between them. He pressed a phantom kiss to the alligator's snout and smiled. The Percodan felt like warm wine flowing through his veins. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt as if his body were going to drift up out of the chair.

He had brought out several of his treasures. Setting the alligator down on the ledge of the drawing table, he picked up the small, ornate photo frame and ran a fingertip along the filigreed edge, smiling sadly at the woman in the picture. Pam. Pam and her darling daughter. The things that might have been if Stokes and Donnie Bichon hadn't poisoned her against him…

Regretfully, he set the photograph aside and picked up the locket. There would be a certain symbolism in passing it to Annie. A thread of continuity.

Holding the locket in one hand, he took up his pencil in the other and touched it to the paper.

"I knew it."

Three words could not have held more accusation. Despite the melting effect of the drug, Marcus straightened his spine at the sound of the voice. His mother stood directly behind him. He hadn't heard her come in through the bedroom, he'd been so engrossed in his fantasies.

"Mother-"

"I knew it," Doll said again. She stared past him at the drawing on the tilt-top table. Tears rose in her eyes and she began to tremble. "Oh, Marcus, not again."

"You don't understand, Mother," he said, sliding from his chair, the locket still dangling from his fist.

"I understand that you're pathetic," she spat. "You think that woman wants you? She wants you in jail! Do you belong there, Marcus?"

"No! Mama!"

Lunging past him, she grabbed the framed photograph from his table and held it so tightly in her hand that the metal cut into her fingers. She stared hard at the picture of Pam, her whole body trembling, then, sobbing, she threw the frame across the room.

"Why?" she cried. "How could you do this?"

"I'm not a killer!" Marcus cried, his own tears burning his eyes. "How can you think that, Mama?"

"Liar!" She slapped him hard on his chest with her open palm, staining his shirt with her blood. "You're killing me now!"

Screaming, she turned and swept everything off the drawing table with a wild gesture.

"Mama, no!" Marcus cried, grabbing her arm as she reached for the portrait.

"Oh, Marcus!" Doll dragged her hand down her cheek, smearing her face with blood. "I don't understand you."

"No, you don't!" he shouted, pain tearing through his face as he strained against the wires in his jaw. "I love Annie. You couldn't understand love. You don't know what love is. You know possession. You know manipulation. You don't know love. Get out. Get out of my room. I never asked you here. It's the one place I can be free of you. Get out! Get out!"

He screamed the words over and over while he staggered around the room, hitting things, smashing things blindly, knocking a dollhouse to the floor, where it splintered into kindling. Every blow he imagined landing on his mother's face, shattering the sour mask; striking her body and snapping bones.

Finally, he fell across his worktable, sobbing, pounding his fists, the fury running out of him. He lay there for a long time, his gaze blurry and unfocused, staring at nothing. After a while he realized his mother had gone. He straightened slowly and looked around the room. The destruction stunned him. His special things, his secrets, lay broken all around him. This was his sanctuary, and now it had been violated and ruined.

Without so much as righting the fallen chair, Marcus picked up his keys and walked out.

Victor sat among ruins and rocked himself, mewing. The house was dark and silent, which meant everyone else was asleep, which meant they had ceased to exist. Marcus forbade him to come into his Own Space, but Marcus was asleep and therefore his wishes were Off like television. Victor usually liked to come in here and sit among the small houses. Also, he knew where Marcus kept his Secret Things, and sometimes Victor would open the Secret Door and take them out just to touch them. It made him feel strong to know about the Secret Door and to touch the Secret Things without anyone else knowing. It gave him a feeling of red and white intensity, and that was very exciting.

Tonight all Victor felt was very red. He hadn't been able to shut down his own mind at all-not even during his regular time. The red colors swirled around and around, cutting and poking at his brain. And his Controllers-the little faces he pictured inside his mind, the arbiters of emotion and etiquette-only watched, their expressions disapproving. The Controllers were always angry when he couldn't stop the red colors. Red, red, red. Dark and light. Around and around. Cutting and cutting.

He had tried to soothe himself with the Audubon book, but the birds had looked at him angrily, as if they knew what was in his mind. As if they had heard the voices. Emotion filled him up like water, drowning him in intensity. He felt he couldn't breathe.

He had heard the voices earlier. They had come up through the floor into his room. Very red. Victor didn't like voices with no faces, especially red voices. He heard them from time to time, and what they said was never white, always red. He'd sat on his bed, keeping his feet off the floor, because he was afraid the voices might go up his pajama legs and get into his body through his rectum.

Victor waited for the voices to go away. Then he waited some more. He counted to the Magic Number three times by sixteenths before he left his room. He had come down to Marcus's Own Space, drawn by the need to see the face, even though it upset him. Sometimes he was like that.

Sometimes he couldn't stop from hitting his fist against the wall, even though he knew it hurt him.

The disorder of the room upset him. He couldn't abide broken things. It hurt him in his brain to see broken glass or splintered wood. He felt he could see every torn molecule, and feel the pain of them. And yet he stayed in the room because of the face.

He closed his eyes and saw the face, opened them and saw the face again-the same, the same, the same, but different. Mask, no mask. The feeling it gave him was very red. He closed his eyes again and counted by fractions to the Magic Number.

Annie. She was The Other but not The Other. Pam, but not Pam. Elaine, but not Elaine. Mask, no mask. It was like before, and that was very red.

Victor rocked himself and whimpered inside his being, not outside. The intensity was building. His senses were too acute. Every part of him was hard with tension, even his penis. He worried that panic would strike and freeze him, trapping the red intensity inside where it would go on and on, and no one would be able to make it stop.

He lifted his hands and touched his favorite mask and rocked himself, tears running down his cheeks as he stared at his brother's pencil drawing of Annie Broussard, and the jagged, bloody tear that ran down the center of it.