A Thin Dark Line

49

The edge of death was a place of darkness and light, sound and silence. She hovered there, slipping from one world into the next and back again.

The ambulance, the urgency of the EMTs, the lights, the sirens.

Utter stillness, a sense of calm and resignation.

The noise and motion of the ER.

The eerie peace of nonexistence.

Annie saw the landscape as bleak and still, a battlefield in the aftermath, bodies scattered across the ground, the sky hanging heavy and leaden, everything cast in the twilight colors of nightmares. Pam was there. And Doll Renard. And Marcus. Their souls rose from them like smoke from a dying fire and drifted just above the bloody ground. She stood on the sidelines and watched.

"It's cold here, no?" Fourcade whispered.

"Where?"

He raised his left hand, fingers spread, and reached out, not quite touching her. Slowly he passed his hand before her eyes, skimmed it around the side of her head, just brushing his fingertips against her hair.

"In Shadowland."

He spoke as if he lived in this place. And yet, Annie felt herself being pulled away from him, deeper into the blackness.

"Don't leave me here, 'Toinette," he murmured, his dark eyes filled with sadness. "Me, I've been alone too long."

She stretched out her hand toward his, but couldn't quite reach. Then panic seized her as she felt herself being drawn backward, across the line between life and death. She didn't think she had the strength to break free. She was so tired, so weak. But she didn't want to die. She wasn't ready to die.

The darkness, as thick and liquid as oil, began to suck her under. Tapping into a reserve of strength she didn't know she possessed, Annie focused on the surface and tried to kick free.

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Fourcade. He sat beside the bed, staring at her as if looking away would break her tenuous tie to the living world. She was aware of monitors beside her bed and the night beyond her window.

"Hi," she whispered.

He leaned closer, still staring. "I thought I lost you there, chère," he said softly.

"Where?"

"In Shadowland."

His eyes never leaving hers, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. "You scared me, 'Toinette. Me, I don't like to be scared. It pisses me off." The corners of his mouth turned up a fraction of an inch.

Annie smiled dreamily. "Well, we've got that in common."

He leaned closer and touched his lips to hers, and Annie drifted off to sleep with a sigh of deep relief. When she woke again he was gone.

"You're tuned to KJUN. All talk all the time. Our top story at the top of the hour: Local planter Hunter Davidson, father of murder victim Pamela Bichon will be arraigned this afternoon in the Partout Parish Courthouse for the murder of Bayou Breaux architect Marcus Renard.

"Davidson's new attorney, Revon Tallant, has suggested an insanity defense will be employed, and expects that an alleged confession made by Davidson early Sunday morning will be ruled inadmissible by the court.

"Davidson had recently been released from Partout Parish Jail following a plea agreement on charges of attempted assault against Marcus Renard. District Attorney Smith Pritchett has been unavailable for comment. A formal statement is expected later this morning."

Annie turned the radio off. During the two days she lay in the hospital bed, her senses had been bombarded with the story. On television, on the radio, in the newspapers. Accurate, inaccurate, twisted, and sensationalized-she'd heard every version of Hunter Davidson's drama and her own. She had been besieged with requests for interviews, all of which she had declined. It was over. Time for everyone to try to repair the damage that had been done and move on.

Dr. Van Allen had reluctantly agreed to let her go home. The drug Doll Renard had dosed her with had been effectively counteracted. The blood she had lost had been replaced. The pain in her thigh was constant, but tolerable. The bullet had passed through and through, missing both the bone and the vital femoral artery. She would limp for a while, but all things considered, she was damn lucky.

Lucky to be alive. Whether or not she would be lucky enough to have a job to go back to remained to be seen.

Gus had come to her bedside on Sunday to personally take her statement regarding Doll Renard. He listened without comment while Annie related the events of the last ten days, his face lined with a tense emotion she was afraid to name.

She thought about it now as she sat down on the edge of the bed to rest a moment from the effort of getting dressed. What had been gained and what had been lost in all of this? A murderer had been unmasked and stopped. Annie had gained insights into her own strengths and abilities. But the losses seemed disproportionately heavy. She'd seen an ugly side to men she had to work with and rely upon. Lives had been altered, some damaged beyond repair.

She limped out of the hospital into a day that was cool and gray with the promise of rain, and eased herself awkwardly into the shotgun seat of the cruiser Noblier had sent for her. The deputy was Phil Prejean. He squirmed in the driver's seat like a five-year-old with a full bladder.

"I-ah-I'm sorry for what all that happened, Annie," he said. "I hope you can accept my apology."

"Yeah, sure," she said without conviction, and fixed her gaze out the window.

They drove out of the lot with an itchy silence thick in the air between them.

News vans from television stations all over Louisiana crowded the curbs out in front of the courthouse, even though the arraignment was still more than an hour away. The parking lot was clogged with cars. Annie wondered what those same reporters who had called Hunter Davidson a folk hero ten days ago would call him now that he'd killed an innocent man.

The story of a crime went so much deeper than what people read in the papers or saw on the nightly news. No reporter could cram into a column inch or a sixty-second sound bite how the repercussions rolled outward from a single violent epicenter to shake the lives of so many people- the victim's family and the perpetrator's, the cops and the community.

Josie Bichon had been left without a mother. Her grandfather would go to trial for murder. Belle Davidson had lost a daughter and stood to lose a husband. Victor Renard had lost the only people who could understand any part of the workings of his damaged mind. The people of Bayou Breaux had suffered irreparable damage to their sense of trust and safety.

Prejean pulled into a visitor's slot near the back entrance to the law enforcement center. Annie hoped it wasn't prophetic. Hooker scowled at her with suspicion as she limped past his desk, as if she had been revealed as an undercover spy on his shift. She received a variation on that same look from Myron as she passed the records counter. Valerie Comb in Noblier's outer office still looked at her as if she were a bad piece of meat.

The sheriff had put on his funeral suit for the day's media attentions, a charcoal pinstripe that didn't hang quite right on his big-boned frame. He'd already jerked his tie loose at the throat. He looked older than Annie remembered him a week ago.

"How you doing, Annie? You okay for this?"

Alarm struck a low, vibrating note in her gut. "That depends on what this is, sir."

"Have a seat," he offered, pointing to one of his visitor's chairs. "The doctor released you?"

"Yes, sir."

"He signed a release? You'll forgive my skepticism, but you've developed a bad habit of defying orders recently."

"They didn't give me a copy of it," Annie said, sucking a breath in through clenched teeth as she settled herself down on the edge of the chair. "They gave me a bill."

His point about her insubordination made, Noblier didn't press for the documentation. He settled into his own chair and looked at her hard for a moment. Annie returned his stare evenly.

"We executed a search warrant on the Renard home over the weekend," he began at last, opening the pencil drawer of his desk. "Among possessions found in Marcus Renard's workroom were items known to belong to Pam Bichon. We also found this."

He tossed the plastic dancing alligator across the desk. Annie picked it up, feeling a vague embarrassment at the silliness of the thing with its leering grin and red beret. Then feeling a creepy sense of violation. Renard had taken this innocent trinket from her as a token. He'd fondled it, held it, and thinking of her, tainted it.

"Deputy Prejean recognized it. Thought you might want it back."

"Thank you, sir." She slipped it into her jacket pocket, knowing she would throw it away the minute she left the room.

"Found in Doll Renard's bedroom was a nine-inch boning knife. Found it between her mattress and box spring," he went on. "Never found it before because the warrants never extended to Mrs. Renard's bedroom. The knife's been sent to the lab."

"Was it clean?"

Noblier weighed his answer for a moment, then decided she'd earned it. "No. It wasn't."

The idea turned Annie's stomach. Doll Renard had kept a bloody knife beneath her mattress so that she could take it out and remind herself of the atrocities she had committed in the name of motherhood. But she appreciated the evidence for what it would provide. Closure-for Pam, for her family, for the cops who had worked the case. "They'll be able to match blood and tissue."

"I expect so."

"Good."

The sheriff went silent again, watching her, frowning. A bad sign, she thought.

"I been giving a lot of thought to this over the last couple of days, Annie," he began. "I can't condone my deputies going off on their own, investigating cases they ain't assigned to."

"No, sir," Annie murmured.

"You always have been one to stick your nose in where it don't belong."

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing but trouble. Creates dissension. Undermines command."

Annie said nothing. She had a perverse need to relish the feel of her career slipping away.

"On the other hand, it shows initiative, guts, ambition," he said, taking the pendulum back to the high side. "Tell me this, Annie: Why'd you go after Fourcade that night?"

"Because it was the right thing to do."

"And why'd you go after Renard on your own?"

It was Annie's turn to weigh her answer. She could have said she hadn't trusted Stokes to do the job, but that wasn't it, not really. Not on a gut level. Not in her soul, where it counted most.

"Because I felt I owed it to Pam. I was the first person to see what her killer had done to her. There was something very… personal about that. I felt like I owed her. I found her body, I wanted to find her justice too."

Gus nodded his head, pursing his lips. "You haven't talked to the press."

"No, sir."

"At the press conference this afternoon I'll be telling them how you were working undercover to help crack this case. Your next paycheck will reflect your overtime."

Annie's eyes widened at what sounded for all intents and purposes to be a bribe.

Noblier read her face like a clock and narrowed his small eyes. "I won't have my authority undermined, Annie. My deputies work for me, not around me. The OT is a bonus- consider it hazard pay. Understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"You got a hell of a lot to learn about how the world works, Broussard." He had already begun his dismissal of her, his attention going to the notes he had scribbled for the press conference. "Report back to me when you come in off sick leave. We'll do the paperwork on your reassignment… Detective."

Detective Broussard. Annie tried the sound of it in her mind as she hobbled back down the hall. It sounded good. She pulled the plastic alligator from her pocket and tossed it in the trash as she passed the sergeant's desk.

Fourcade was waiting for her outside the door. He stood leaning against the building, his ankles crossed, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, concern in his eyes.

"Noblier made me a detective," she announced, hearing the ring of disbelief in her own voice.

"I know. I recommended you."

"Oh."

"It's where you belong, 'Toinette," he said. "You do good work. You dig hard. You believe in the job. You seek the truth, fight for justice-that's what it oughta be about."

Annie made a little shrug and glanced away, uncomfortable with his praise. "Yeah, well, I lose the cool uniform and the hot car."

He didn't smile. Big surprise. He straightened away from the wall and touched her cheek with a gentle hand. "How you doing, 'Toinette? You okay?"

The weight of it all pressed a sigh from her. "Not exactly."

She wanted to say she wasn't the same person she had been ten days ago, but she had the distinct feeling Nick would disagree with her. He would tell her she simply hadn't looked that deep inside before. She wondered what he saw when he looked that deeply within himself.

"Walk with me," she said. "Down to the bayou?"

Frowning, he looked across the parking lot to the strip of green boulevard fifty yards away. "You sure?"

"I've been in bed for two days. I need to move. Slowly, but I need to move."

She started without him. He fell in step beside her. Neither of them spoke as they crossed the distance. When they reached the bank, a small group of mallards started, then settled back onto the chocolate brown water, bobbing at the edge of the reeds like corks. Across the bayou, an old man was walking a dachshund.

Annie sat down gingerly on one end of a park bench, stretching her left leg carefully in front of her. Fourcade took the other end of the bench. The space between them was occupied by Marcus Renard.

"He was innocent, Nick," she said softly.

He could have argued. Marcus Renard's obsession with Pam had acted as the catalyst for his mother's violence. But that wasn't the point here, and he knew it. He had followed the trail back to Marcus, stopped there, and meted out his own punishment.

"Would it have made a difference if he'd been guilty?"

Annie thought about it for a moment. "It would have made it easier to rationalize, at least."

"C'est vrai," he murmured. "True enough. But he wasn't guilty. I screwed up. I lost perspective. I lost control. Wrong is wrong, and a man is dead because of it. Because of me. I'll have to carry that the rest of my life."

"You didn't pull the trigger."

"But me, I loaded the gun, didn't I? Davidson believed so strongly that Marcus Renard killed his daughter in part because I believed so strongly that Marcus Renard killed his daughter. My focus became his focus. You should know how that works-I tried to force it on you too."

"Only because it made sense. No one can fault your logic, Nick."

He flashed the sudden smile, the edges of it hard with an inner bitterness. "Mais no. My faults lie deeper. I believe it's better to err on the side of passion rather than apathy."

He cared too much, tried too hard. The job was his life, his mission. Everything else was secondary. Submerged in that obsession, he found it too easy to lose his perspective and his humanity. He needed an anchor, an alter ego, a voice to question his motives, a counterbalance to his singlemindedness.

He needed Annie.

"I hear Pritchett will drop the charges against you," she said.

He leaned his forearms against his thighs and watched the dachshund man. "Oui. So, I not only indirectly caused Renard's death, I benefited from it."

"So did I. I'm off the hook for testifying. That's no small relief," she said, willing him to meet her eyes. He turned his head and looked at her. "I didn't want to, Nick, but I would have."

"I know. You're a woman of convictions, 'Toinette," he said, offering her a smile that was softer, fond, almost sad. "So where does that leave me?"

"I don't know."

"Sure you do."

Annie didn't bother to argue. He was right. He was a complex and difficult man. He would push her. He would test her. It would have been so much easier for her to turn to A.J., take what he wanted to give her, live a simple life. A nice simple life, just short of fulfillment. Maybe in time the restlessness would fade into contentment. Or maybe it was better to err on the side of passion.

"You're not an easy man, Nick."

"No, I'm not," he admitted, never taking his eyes off hers. "So, you gonna help me with that, chère, or what? You gonna take a chance? Be bold?"

He held his breath and waited, stared at her and willed her to take the challenge.

"I don't know what I have in me to offer you, 'Toinette," he confessed softly. "But I'd like the chance to find out."

Annie looked past his determination to his need. She looked at the hard face, the dark eyes burning on hers. He was too intense, too driven, too alone. But she had the distinct feeling he was what she had been waiting for. Her strongest instinct was to reach out to him.

"Me too," she murmured, reaching across the space between them to lay her hand on his. "If we're partners…"

He turned his hand over and twined his fingers with hers, the contact warm and right. "…we're partners."