A Thin Dark Line

46

He'd been right from the start. The trail, the logic, led back to Renard. And if he had maintained his focus, if he hadn't allowed his past to leach into his present, Marcotte would have remained a bad distant memory.

Nick lit a cigarette and drew hard on it, trying to burn the bitter taste of the truth from his mouth. The damage was done. He would deal with the repercussions if and when they arose. His focus now had to be on the matter at hand: Renard.

Annie had apparently yanked his chain a little too hard. She needed backup, which was what Nick now felt he should have been doing all along instead of running off half-cocked at shadows. Focus. Control. He had let himself become distracted when he should have stayed true to his gut. The trail, the logic, led back to Renard.

He parked on a side street and entered the Carnival crowd, eyes scanning the mob for Broussard. If she had pushed Renard over the edge, then she could be in trouble, and he had no intention of waiting until morning or even waiting until she was off duty to find out. Whatever confrontation had taken place had been while she was working. That meant Renard was here, watching her.

The crowd was rowdy and drunk, the music loud. The street was filled with costumes and color and movement. Nick looked only for the slate blue uniforms of the SO deputies. He worked systematically down one side of La Rue France and up the other, barely pausing to accept the inane well wishes of his colleagues for the upcoming hearing. He saw no sign of Annie.

She could have been at the jail, booking in some drunk. He could have missed her in the crowd, she was so little. Or she could be in trouble. In the past ten days, she'd spent more time in trouble than out of it. And tonight she'd called to tell him she might have pushed a killer too far.

He could see Hooker loitering near a vendor selling fried shrimp, the fat sergeant scowling but tapping his toe to the music. Hooker would know where Annie was, but Nick doubted Hooker would give the information to him. He'd see too much potential for disaster.

"Nicky! My brother, my man. Where y'at?"

Stokes swayed toward him, his porkpie hat tipped rakishly over one masked eye. Each arm was occupied around a woman in a cut-to-the-ass miniskirt-a bottle blonde in leather and a brunette in denim. They appeared to be holding one another upright.

"This is my man, Nick," Stokes said to the women. "He don't no more know what to do with a party than he'd know what to do with a two-headed goat. You want one of these fine ladies to be your spirit guide into the party world, Nicky? We can go somewhere and have us a party of our own. You know what I mean?"

Nick scowled at him. "You seen Broussard?"

"Broussard? What the hell you want with her?"

"Have you seen her?"

"No, and thank God for it. That chick ain't nothin' but grief, man. You oughta know. She- Oooohhh!" he cooed, as the possibilities dawned in his booze bumbled mind. "Turnabout is fair play, huh? You wanna give her a little scare or somethin'?"

"Or something."

"That's cool. I'm cool with that. Yeah. The bitch has it coming to her."

"So go over there and ask Hooker where she's at. Make up a good excuse."

The Dudley Do-Right flashed bright across Stokes's face. "Mind my lady friends, Nicky. Girls, you be nice to Nicky. He's a monk."

The blonde looked up at Nick as Stokes walked away. "You're not really a monk, are you?"

Nick slipped his shades on, shutting the bimbo out, and said nothing, watching as Stokes approached the sergeant. The two exchanged words, then Stokes bought himself an order of shrimp and came back chewing.

"You're outta luck, friend. She done packed up her tight little ass and gone home."

"What?"

"Hooker says she called in sick a while ago. He thinks maybe she was drinking."

"Why would he think that?"

Stokes shrugged. "I don't know, man. These rumors get around. You know what I mean? Anyhow, she ain't here."

The anxiety in Nick's gut wound tighter. "What's her unit number?"

"What's the difference? She's not in it."

"I came past the station. Her Jeep's in the lot. What the hell is her unit number?" Nick demanded.

Stokes's confusion gave way to concern. He stopped chewing and swallowed. "What're you planning, man?"

Nick's patience snapped. He grabbed Stokes by both shoulders and shook him, sending fried shrimp scattering on the sidewalk. "What the hell is her unit number!"

"One Able Charlie!"

He wheeled and bolted through the crowd, Stokes's voice carrying after him.

"Hey! Don't do nothin' I wouldn't do!"

Nick barreled through the partyers, bouncing people out of his way with a lowered shoulder and a stiff forearm. Masks flashed by in his peripheral vision, giving the scene a surreal quality. When he finally reached his truck, his breath was sawing hot in and out of his lungs. The muscles in his ribs and back, still sore from DiMonti's beating, grabbed at him like talons.

He pulled the radio mike free of its holder, called dispatch, and, identifying himself as Stokes, asked to be patched through to One Able Charlie. The seconds ticked past, each one seeming longer than the last.

"Detective?" the dispatcher came back. "One Able Charlie is not responding. According to the log that unit is off duty."

Nick hung up the mike and started the truck. If Annie was off duty and her Jeep was still in the lot at the station, then where the hell was she?

And where the hell was Renard?

Leaning her head against the side window, Annie tried to fight off a wave of nausea as Doll put the Cadillac in gear and it lurched forward. As they passed the vacant lot adjacent to Po' Richard's, Annie thought she caught a glimpse of Marcus's smiling white mask in the darkness, laughing at her.

They crossed France a block above the party. The color and lights glared in the distance, then vanished. Annie groaned a little as the car turned right, the change of direction exacerbating her dizziness. She wondered what the poison was, wondered if there was an antidote, wondered if the blundering morons in the Our Lady lab would be able to figure any of it out before she died a horrible, agonizing death.

She told herself not to panic. Marcus couldn't have foreseen the events of the evening. He wouldn't have planned for her absolute rejection of him. If he followed his own pattern, he had probably intended only to make her ill so that he could then later offer her comfort. That was his pattern.

The business district gave way to residences. Blocks of small, neat ranch-style houses, many with a homemade shrine to the Virgin Mary in the front yard. Old claw-foot bathtubs had been cut in half and planted on end in the ground to form grottos for totems of Mary. The totems were mass-produced in a town not far from Bayou Breaux, and lay stacked like cordwood in the manufacturing yard beside the railroad tracks. Having seen that took away some of the mystique, Annie thought, her brain waves fracturing.

They should be at the hospital soon. The old grounds-keeper would be scrubbing the toes of the giant Virgin Mary statue with a toothbrush.

"I appreciate this, Mizzuz Renard," she said. "I'll call the sheriff from the hospital. He'll come and pick yyyou up. Youuu did the right thing co-ming to mmme."

"I know. I had to. I couldn't let it go on," Doll said. "I could see it happening all over again. Marcus becoming infatuated with you. You-a woman who would never have him. A woman who wants only to take my son from me and put him into prison-or worse. I can't let that happen. My boys are all I have."

She turned and looked straight at Annie as they passed the turnoff for Our Lady of Mercy. The hate in her eyes seemed to glow red in the light of the dashboard.

"No one takes my boys away from me."