A Thin Dark Line

47

I'm on my way to hell.

Civilization passed behind them. The bayou country, ink black, vast and unwelcoming, stretched before them, a wilderness where violent death was the harsh reality of the day. Predator claimed prey here in an endless, bloody cycle, and no survivor mourned the demise of the less fortunate. Only the strong survived.

Annie had never felt weaker in her life. The nausea came in waves. The dizziness wouldn't abate. Her perceptions were beginning to distort. Sound seemed to come to her down a long tunnel. The world around her looked liquid and animated. Had to have been something in the coffee, she decided, something strong.

She tried to focus her eyes on the woman across the width of the big car. Doll Renard appeared elongated and so thin she could have been made of sticks. She didn't look as if she could have possessed the physical strength for violent rage. But Annie reminded herself that Doll Renard was younger than she looked, stronger than she looked. She was also a murderer. The frail, frumpy facade was as much a mask as the sequined domino that lay on the seat between them.

"Yyyou killed Pam? You diiid those things to Pam?" Annie said in disbelief, the gruesome images of the crime scene photos flashing through her mind, bright and bloody. She had dismissed the possibility of a woman perpetrator almost out of hand. Women didn't kill that way-with brutality, with cruelty, with hatred for their own gender.

"She got what she deserved, the whore," Doll said bitterly. "Men panting after her like dogs after a bitch in heat."

"My God," Annie breathed. "But yyyou had to know Mmmarcus would be a sssuspect."

"But Marcus didn't kill her," Doll reasoned. "He's innocent-of murder, at least. I watched him become obsessed with her," she said with disgust. "Just like with that Ingram woman. It didn't matter to him that she didn't want him. He gets these things in his head, and there's no getting them out. I tried. I tried to make her stop him, but he couldn't believe she would try to have him arrested. Her fear only seemed to draw him toward her."

"Yyyou were the one… behiind the stalking?"

"She would have taken him away from me-one way or the other."

And so Doll had stabbed to death, crucified, and mutilated Pam Bichon. To end the obsession that had taken her son's attention away from her.

"I knew the police would question him, of course," she went on. "That was his punishment for trying to betray me. I thought it would teach him a lesson."

Annie tried to swallow. Her reflexes had gone dull. Slowly she inched her right hand along the armrest, fingertips feeling for the butt of the Sig. The gun was gone. Doll had to have lifted it when she had been "helping" Annie into the car, buckling her safely into the passenger's seat.

She glanced in the rearview, hoping against hope to see lights on their tail, but the night closed in behind them, and the swamp stretched out in front of them. Plenty of places to dump a body in the swamp.

The drug pulled at her, dragging her toward unconsciousness.

"Hhhow did yyou get Pam… to the house?" she asked, forcing her brain to stay engaged. She couldn't save herself if she wasn't conscious, and no one else was going to do it for her. Shifting her weight, she brought her right arm across her stomach and groaned, surreptitiously moving her fingertips onto the release button of her seat belt.

"It was pathetically easy. I called her under a false name and asked her to show the property to me," Doll said, smiling at her own cleverness. "Greedy little bitch. She wanted everything-money, beauty, men. She would have taken my son away from me, and she didn't even want him."

It had been as simple as a phone call. Pam wouldn't have thought twice about meeting an older woman to show a rural property, even at night. Her problems had all been with men-or so she had thought. So they all had thought. Fourcade had been right all along: The trail, the logic, led back to Renard. He just hadn't realized which Renard. No one had given a second thought to Marcus Renard's flighty, strident mother.

And now that woman is going to kill me. The thought swept around inside Annie's mind like a cyclone. She thought she could see the letters of the sentence floating in the air. She had to do something. Soon. Before the drug pulled her all the way under.

"You're no better," Doll said. "Marcus wants you. He can't see you're an enemy. His desire for you takes him away from me. I tried to make you stop him from wanting you. Just like I did with that Bichon woman."

"Youuu were in the carrr that night. You came tooo my house," Annie said, the puzzle pieces floating up to the surface of her brain. She envisioned them rising up through the goo, sticky and wet with blood. "How did youuu… get in? Hooow did you know… about the ssstairs?"

A smirk tugged at Renard's thin lips. "I knew your mother. She did some piecework for me one season, sewing on my costumes. That was before Claude betrayed me, before I had to take the boys away from here. Everyone wanted my costumes then."

Doll Renard had known her mother. The admission brought another wave of dizziness crashing through Annie. Doll Renard had been in her home when she was a child. She tried to search through her mind for some memory of her and Marcus coming face-to-face as children. Could that have been possible? Could either of them have had any inkling that their paths would cross this way in adulthood? That an acquaintance begun with an innocent encounter so long ago, then forgotten, would end in murder?

"She was a whore, just like you," Doll said. "Blood will tell."

Blood will tell. Annie saw the phrase flow from Doll's mouth in the form of a thick red snake.

She swallowed hard as the nausea came again, then pitched forward toward the dash and vomited on the floor. Doll made a sound of disgust. Annie hung there, free now of the seat belt, trying to get her breath, one hand braced against the dash. She had to do something. The drug was pulling her deeper into its embrace, the velvet blackness of unconsciousness seducing her.

Gathering what strength she could, she lunged across the width of the car, grabbing for the steering wheel. The Cadillac swerved hard to the right, tires screeching. Annie used the wheel to pull herself across the seat, one hand lying hard on the horn.

Doll screamed in outrage, slapping at Annie's face with one hand while she attempted to wrestle the wheel back to the left. The car dropped one front wheel off the shoulder of the road and bounced back, careening across the center line. The headlights shone on the glossy surface of black water.

Annie ducked her head to avoid the blows and clawed at the wheel again. She used her body to crowd Doll against the door, reaching across blindly with her left hand for the door handle. If she could get the door open, maybe she could push Doll out. She could see it happen in her mind's eye: Doll's brittle body hitting the asphalt like a crash-test dummy, bouncing, her head breaking open, her brain spilling out. She snagged the handle with the tips of two fingers.

The car went into a sudden, screeching skid as Doll jammed on the brakes. Annie flew into the dash, her head bouncing off the windshield, her shoulder slamming into the dashboard. The noise, the motion, the pain, the vertigo tumbled through her in an avalanche. She tried to push herself up from the floor as the car jolted onto the shoulder and stopped. She tried to get hold of something for support and orientation, tried to focus her eyes on something out in front of her-the barrel of a gun.

Her gun. In Doll Renard's hand. Three inches from her face.

Swinging wildly, she knocked the gun sideways, and the Sig went off with a deafening pop!, shattering a window somewhere in the car.

"Bitch!" Doll shrieked.

She grabbed Annie by the hair with her left hand and brought the gun down hard, slamming it against her temple and cheekbone once, twice.

Starbursts of color shot through Annie's head like a meteor shower. Surrendering for the moment, she dropped to the floor, crumpled and limp, blood trickling in thin fingers down across her cheek. She could feel consciousness sliding away. She thought she could feel the world sliding beneath her, but it was only the car. They were moving again, off the main road. She could hear the soft swish of grass brushing against the sides of the Cadillac, the popping sound of tires crunching over rock.

She lay still on the floor, energy spent, knowing she had to find more, had to scrape together another burst or die. Weapons. The thought was a dim light in her mind. Doll has the Sig. Doll has the Sig. Doll has the Sig. She knew there had to be something more, another answer, stupid simple, but she couldn't think.

So tired.

Her limbs were as heavy as the branches of a live oak. Her hands felt the size of catcher's mitts. She tried to swallow around a tongue as thick as a copperhead. Maybe the red snake she had seen come out of Doll's mouth had gone into her own to choke her. A taste as bitter as acid filled her mouth.

Acid. That would be a weapon, she thought. She imagined throwing it in Doll Renard's face, imagined the face burning down to the skull bones while the rest of her body danced a mad jig of death.

Add.

The car rolled to a stop. Doll popped the lock on the trunk, got out of the car, and slammed the door. Annie reached slowly down her right side to her duty belt, feeling back from her empty holster to the slim nylon case just behind it. She pried up the Velcro tab and slipped the small cylinder free with clumsy fingers.

Behind her, the car door opened. Annie's head snapped back as Doll grabbed her by the hair and pulled her backward.

"Get up! Get up!"

Annie fell onto the ground, wincing as Doll kicked her in the back and cursed her. Curling into a ball, she tried to protect her head. The fingers of her right hand wrapped tightly around the cylinder in her palm.

The door of the Cadillac swung shut, just missing Annie's head, then Doll had her by the hair again, dragging her into a sitting position. Annie opened her eyes, reaching out to steady herself against the side of the car as the dizziness spun her brain around and around. The car's headlights provided the only illumination, but it was enough. Tipping and spinning in front of her vision was a house, run-down, with broken windows gaping like toothless spots in an old crone's smile.

They were on Pony Bayou. This was the house where Pam Bichon had had her life cut out of her.

"I didn't kill Pam," Marcus said softly.

Hunter Davidson's broad face twisted with disgust. "Don't stand there and lie to me. There's no judge here but God. There's no technicalities, no loopholes for you and your damn lawyer to jump through."

"I loved her," Marcus whispered, tears coming again to stream down his cheeks.

"Loved her?" Davidson's big body quivered with rage. Sweat ringed the underarms of his shirt. His thin hair was dark and shiny-wet. "You don't know what love is. I made her! My wife bore her! She was our child! You don't know a damn thing about that kind of love. She was our baby, and you took her away from us!"

The irony, Marcus thought, was that he knew all about that kind of love. He had been caught in a sick mutation of it his whole life. Tonight he would have ended it. Now Pam's father would end it for him.

"You can't know how many times I've killed you," Davidson said softly, moving forward. His eyes were glassy with the fever of hate. "I dreamed of nailing you down and putting you through the hell my baby went through."

"No," Marcus whispered, crying harder now with fear. Spittle bubbled between his lips and dribbled down his chin. Against his will, his gaze darted to the big wooden table where his utility and X-Acto knives were laid out like surgical instruments. He shook his head. "Please, no."

"I wanted to hear you beg me for your life, the way Pam must have begged. Did she call for me when she was dying?" Davidson asked in a tortured voice. Tears as big as raindrops spilled down his ruddy cheeks. "Did she call for her mama?"

"I don't know," Marcus murmured.

"I hear her. Every night. I hear her calling for us, calling for me to save her, and there's not a damn thing I can do! She's gone. She's gone forever!"

He stood no more than two feet away now. The hand that held the gun was as big as a bear's paw, white-knuckled, trembling.

"You should die like that," he whispered bitterly. "But I didn't come here for revenge. I came for justice."

The gun barked twice. Marcus's eyes widened in surprise as the force of the bullets knocked him backward. He felt nothing. Even as he fell into his drawing table, then to the floor, the back of his head bouncing off the hardwood, he felt nothing. His body jumped again and again as Davidson fired into him. Marcus felt as if he were watching the scene on a movie screen.

He was dying. Another irony. He would have taken his own life tonight. He would have ended his mother's quiet, twisted tyranny. He would have spared Victor a future without protection. Instead, he would die here on the floor, killed for a crime he didn't commit, a failure even in death.

"They'll think Mmmmarrcus did it," Annie said.

"No, they won't," Doll corrected her. "They'll know exactly who did it: you. Get up."

Bracing herself against the Cadillac, Annie rose slowly, awkwardly.

Think. Try to think. Need a plan.

Thinking was as tiring and difficult as swimming upstream against a strong current. Thinking and walking simultaneously was nearly impossible. The ground rose and fell erratically beneath her feet. The house shimmered like a mirage in the glare of the headlights. Her breathing was becoming labored. She could feel her heartbeat slowing like the ticking of a clock winding down to a stop. It would be only a matter of time before the drugs pulled her under entirely, then Doll would stick the Sig in her mouth and pull the trigger. Suicide.

Her career had been in trouble. She'd been having difficulties with her co-workers. A number of people had reported she had recently developed a drinking problem. Would it be a stretch to believe she'd gone out to the house where she had found Pam Bichon's mutilated remains, taken a handful of downers, and blown her brains out with her service weapon?

"But hooow did I… get here?" she asked, pausing at the foot of the porch steps.

"Shut up!" Doll snapped, jabbing her in the back with the Sig. "Get inside."

The vehicle was just a minor snag, Annie supposed, as she staggered up the steps onto the porch. Doll Renard was an old hand at murder. She'd gotten away with it twice already.

The door stood open, as if someone had been expecting them. Annie stepped into the entry, her footfalls echoing in the empty hall. The beam of a portable lantern cut through the gloom, lighting the way to her death. The floor was thick with dust. Cobwebs festooned the doorways. The nose of the Sig jabbed into her back. Annie moved down the hall, her left hand against the wall, feeling her way like a blind person.

"How many… will youuu kill?" she mumbled. "Hoow long before Marcus… knows? He'll hate you."

"He's my son. My sons love me. My sons need me. No one will ever take them from me." The vehemence in Doll's tone sounded practiced, as if she'd chanted those words over and over and over for years and years and years.

"Who tried to take them?" Annie asked. Her legs felt like rubber. Her body wanted to sink to the floor and succumb.

She stepped through a doorway and found herself in the dining room. The beam of the lantern swept across the floor as Doll set it down, illuminating the hasty retreat of a long black indigo snake across the dirty old cypress planks. For an instant she saw Pam lying there, arms outstretched, her body savaged. The head lifted and the decaying face turned toward her, mouth moving.

"You are me. Help me. Help me. Help me!" The words turned to a shriek that pierced through Annie's brain from ear to ear.

Help me, she thought, knowing no one would, knowing help was too much to hope for. Time was running out.

She bent over at the waist, leaning her right shoulder against the wall, trying to marshal what strength she had left. Doll stood two feet in front of her. The doorway to the hall was immediately to the right of Doll, with the stairs to the second floor right there, leading up into darkness. She needed a plan. She needed a weapon.

Doll has the Sig. Doll has the Sig.

Her baton was gone. Her fingers tightened on the slim canister in her palm. She tried to breathe, tried to think, stared at her black cop shoes.

Stupid simple.

"Claude would have," Doll said. "He betrayed us. He would have taken my boys away from me, I couldn't let that happen."

"Your… husband?"

"He forced me to it. He betrayed us. He got what he deserved. I told him so," she said. "Right before. I killed him."

Doll came forward a step. "It's time for you to lie down, Deputy."

"Why the… mask on Pam?" Annie asked, ignoring the dictate. "It led strraight… to youuu."

"I don't know anything about that mask," she said impatiently, gesturing with the gun for Annie to move. "Over there, Deputy. Where that other cunt died."

"I don't think I… can move," Annie said, watching Doll's feet as the sensible matron shoes came another step closer.

"I told you to move," she said with authority. "Move!"

Annie took the command as her signal, calling on the last of her reserves. With her left hand, she batted the Sig to one side. The gun barked, spitting a shot into the ceiling. At the same time, Annie brought up her right hand with the can of Mace and sprayed.

Doll screamed as the pepper spray caught her in the right eye. She stumbled back, clawing at her face with her free hand, swinging the gun back into position with the other. The Sig cracked off another round, the bullet hitting Annie low in the chest, knocking her into the wall. The impact of the slug against her ballistic vest knocked the breath from her lungs, but there was no time to recover. She had to move. Now.

Doubled over, she rushed for the stairs and threw herself up into the darkness as the gun fired again. Arms and legs flailing clumsily, she scrambled for the second floor, slipping, falling, hitting her knee, cracking her elbow. The drug had destroyed her sense of equilibrium. She couldn't tell up from down from flat. When she hit the landing on the second floor, she sprawled on her face. The sound of her chin hitting the wood was almost as sharp as the sound of the shot Doll fired at her from below-but not nearly as sharp as the searing pain of the bullet tearing through the front of her left thigh and exiting through the back.

Scuttling on her belly like a gator, Annie propelled herself through the nearest doorway. Coughing at the dust she'd raised, fighting the sobs of pain, she tipped herself upright with her back against the wall behind the door. She felt for the entrance and exit wounds, her hand coming away wet with blood, but there was no arterial bleeding-a small favor. It would take her longer to die. The dizziness wobbled her like a top. The blackness added to the sense of vertigo. The only light in the room came through a single window, faint and gray.

Time was running out. She tore at the cuff of her uniform trousers. Her fingers felt as huge and unwieldy as sausages. She thought she could hear Doll coming up the steps, the sound of footfalls alternating with the pounding of her puke in her ears.

She pushed herself to her feet with her back against the wall for balance and waited. Her left leg was deadweight, unable to support her at all. The rush of adrenaline and the drag of narcotics fought a tug-of-war within her. Her chest felt as if someone had hit her with a forty-pound hammer. She wondered if the force of the first bullet had cracked a rib and knew it wouldn't matter if she were dead.

The Sig reported a fraction of a second before the shot splintered through the door, six inches in front of Annie's face. Biting back the cry of surprise, she flattened herself against the wall and held her breath. Her hands were sweating, her grip unsure. She said a quick prayer and promised to go to confession more often. The inevitable bargain with God. But if God hadn't listened to Pam Bichon's cries while Doll Renard had tortured and killed her, then why would He listen now?

Somewhere across the hall she could hear the scratching of rats or coons or some other animal squatters. The Sig cracked off another round in that direction, away from the room where Annie stood. She held her position, hidden by the partially opened door, the window across the room giving her enough light to make out shapes, at least.

She would have one solid chance. She could hold herself together long enough for one chance. And if she didn't make good on it, she'd be dead.

Nick put his foot to the floor and ran the truck wide open down the straight sections of road. Woods and swamp flashed past in a blur. He was outrunning the reach of his headlights but not of his imagination.

Annie wasn't in her unit. Her Jeep sat in the parking lot behind the station. Her stuff was in her locker. She'd called in sick, Hooker had said. What the hell did that mean? Had Renard grabbed her and forced her to call in with a gun to her head? Had she wanted to get free of duty to check something out? Nick had no way of knowing. He knew only that he had a fist of apprehension in his gut and another one had him by the throat.

He hit the brakes and skidded past Renard's driveway, slammed the transmission into reverse and roared backward. Without a thought to the restraining order against him, he turned in the Renard drive and gunned it.

Lights glowed on the first floor toward the back of the house. Only one upstairs window was lit. Renard's Volvo sat at a cockeyed angle near the front veranda, the dome light on. It struck Nick as odd. Renard was as anal retentive as they came. To leave anything crooked or ajar was out of character.

He killed the truck's lights and engine, and climbed out. He had thought finding Renard at home would lessen his fears for Annie. Surely Renard would never bring her here. But the night air hung thick and heavy with tension around the old house. The quiet was the unnatural quiet of a world holding its breath.

And then came the shots.

The footsteps came nearer. Annie gulped a breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. Dizzy. Sick. Weaker and weaker. Her vision was blurring. Time was running out.

"You'll die tonight one way or another." Doll's voice sounded in the hall.

She was crying, cursing. The Mace had to be burning like a hot poker in her eye.

"You'll die, you'll die," she promised over and over.

The footsteps shuffled nearer.

Annie could feel her on the other side of the door. And before her Pam suddenly appeared, her rotting corpse standing upright, glowing like a holy vision. Her mouth fell open and a single word spilled out on a tide of blood-justice.

Doll passed the door and turned, stepping into the vision. In that moment it seemed to Annie as if she had a spotlight turned on her. Doll's eyes bugged wide. Her mouth tore open. She raised the gun in slow motion.

And Annie pulled the trigger.

The nine-millimeter Kurz Back-Up bucked in her hands and Doll Renard's face shattered like glass. The force knocked her backward across the room. She was dead before she hit the floor.

Annie went limp against the wall, her head swimming, her vision fuzzing out. She blinked hard and watched as the apparition of Pam shot straight up through the ceiling and was gone.

Justice. She'd come into this looking for justice-for Pam, for Josie.

Let justice be done.

Too weak to return the Kurz to her ankle holster, she stuck the gun in the waistband of her pants, then tried to find within herself the strength to keep from dying.