A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

  "I think we'd better go in to the station to sort this out, Annie," York said, straining to look apologetic.

  He reached for her arm and she yanked it away. There was no out. York couldn't let her get back into her vehicle if there was a question of her sobriety, and she'd be damned if she was going to go through the drunk drill for them like a trick poodle.

  "Uh—I think you better sit in the back," he said as she reached for the passenger-side door on his cruiser.

  Annie bit her tongue. At least she had driven Fourcade to the station in her own vehicle, calling as little attention to the situation as possible. No one was going to offer her the same courtesy.

  "I need my duffel bag," she said. "My weapon is in it. And I want that Jeep locked up."

  She watched as he went back into the ditch and said something to Mullen. York went around to the driver's side and pulled the keys, while Mullen opened the passenger's door, hauled her duffel out, then bent back into the vehicle. When he emerged again, he had hold of the writhing snake just behind its head. It looked nearly four feet in length, big enough, though copperheads in this part of the country regularly grew bigger. Mullen said something to York and they both laughed, then Mullen swung the snake around in a big loop and let it fly into a field of sugarcane.

  "Just a king snake!" he shouted up at Annie as he came toward the car with her bag. "Copperhead! You must be drunk, Broussard. You don't know one snake from the next."

  "I wouldn't say that," Annie shot back. "I know what kind of snake you are, Mullen."

  And she stewed on it all the way in to Bayou Breaux.

  Hooker was in no mood for dealing with the aftermath of a practical joke, malicious or otherwise. He ranted and swore from the moment York escorted her into the building, directing his wrath at Annie.

  "Every time I turn around, you're in the middle of a shit pile, Broussard. I've about had it up to my gonads with you."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You got some kind of brain disorder or something? Deputies are supposed to be out arresting crooks, not each other."

  "No, sir."

  "We never had this kind of trouble when it was just men around here. Throw a female into the mix and suddenly everybody's got some kind of hard-on."

  Annie refrained from pointing out that she'd been on the job here two years and had never had any trouble to speak of until now. They stood inside Hooker's office, which a maintenance person had painted chartreuse while Hooker was gone having angioplasty in January. The perpetrator of that joke had yet to come forward. The door stood wide open, allowing anyone within earshot to listen to the diatribe. Annie held on to the hope that this would be the last of the humiliation. She could weather the storm. Hooker would eventually run out of insults or have a stroke, and then she could go out on patrol.

  "I've had it, Broussard. I'm tellin' you right now." From somewhere down the hall came another raised voice. "What do you mean, you can't find it?" Annie recognized Smith Pritchett's nasal whine. Dispatch was down the hall. What would Pritchett want from them? What would Pritchett want badly enough to come in on a Saturday?

  "Y'all are telling me you keep these 911 tapes for-frigging-ever, but you don't have the one tape from the night of Fourcade's arrest?"

  A pulsing vein zigzagged across Pritchett's broad forehead like a lightning bolt. He stood in the hall outside the dispatch center in a lime green Izod shirt, khakis, and golf spikes, a nine iron in hand.

  The woman on the other side of the counter crossed her arms. "Yessir, that's what I'm tellin' you. Are you callin' me a liar?"

  Pritchett stared at her, then wheeled on A.J. "Where the hell is Noblier? I told you to call him."

  "He's on his way," A.J. promised. Bad enough that Pritchett had sent him on this quest on Saturday morning—a surprise attack, he called it—now they could all have a knock-down-drag-out brawl besides. He bet his money on the dispatch supervisor. Even though Pritchett was armed, she had to outweigh him by eighty pounds.

  He would have saved the news that the tape was missing, but Pritchett was like an overeager five-year-old at Christmas. He had called in on his cellular phone from the third tee. While Fourcade's lawyer had yet to submit a written account of his client's version of events, Noblier had stated the detective had been responding to a call of a possible prowler in the vicinity of Bowen & Briggs. A bald-faced lie, certainly. The 911 tapes would confirm it as such, and the dispatch center in the sheriff's office handled all 911 calls in the parish. But the 911 tape from that fateful night was suddenly nowhere to be found.

  The door to the sheriff's office swung open, and Gus came into the hall in jeans and cowboy boots and a denim shirt, the pungent aroma of horses hanging on him like bad cologne. "Don't get your shorts in a knot, Smith. We'll find the damn tape. This is a busy place. Things get mislaid."

  "Mislaid, my ass." Pritchett shook the nine iron at the sheriff. "There's no tape because there's no damn call on the tape referring to a prowler in the vicinity of Bowen and Briggs."

  "Are you calling me a liar? After all the years I've backed you? You are a small, ungrateful man, Smith Pritchett. You don't believe me, you talk to my deputies on patrol that night. Ask them if they heard the call."

  Pritchett rolled his eyes and started down the hall toward the sheriff, his spikes thundering on the hard floor. "I'm sure they'd tell me they heard the archangels singing Dixieland jazz if they thought it would get Fourcade off," he shouted above the racket. "It's a damn shame this has to come between us, Gus. You've got a bad apple in your barrel. Cut him out and be done with it."

  Gus squinted at him. "Maybe the reason we don't have that tape is that Wily Tallant came and got it already. As exculpatory evidence."

  "What?" Pritchett squealed. "You would just blithely hand something like that over to a defense attorney?"

  Gus shrugged. "I'm not saying it happened. I'm saying it might have."

  A.J. stepped in between them. "If Tallant has it, he'll have to disclose it, Smith. And if the tape is gone, then they have nothing but biased hearsay that the call ever came in. It's no big deal."

  Other than the fact that Pritchett had just been embarrassed again.

  "I don't know, Gus," Pritchett lamented as they stepped out into the warm spring sunshine. "Maybe you've been at this too long. Your sense of objectivity has become warped. Just look at Johnny Earl: He's young, smart, untainted by the corruptions of time and familiarity. And he's black. A lot of people think it's time for a black sheriff in this parish—it's progressive."

  Gus blew a booger onto the sidewalk. "You think I'm afraid of Johnny Earl? Might I remind you, I carried thirty-three percent of the black vote in the last election, and I was running against two blacks."

  "Don't bring it up, Gus," Pritchett said. "It just calls to mind those ugly vote-hauling allegations made against you."

  He started toward his Lincoln, where his caddy stood, waiting to drive him back to the country club. "Doucet!" he barked. "You come with me. We have charges to discuss. What all do you know about the statutes on conspiracy?"

  Gus watched the lawyers climb into the Lincoln, then stomped back into the station, muttering, "Dickhead college-boy prick. Threaten me, you little—"

  "Sheriff?"

  The bark came from Hooker. Gus rubbed a hand against his belly. Hell of a Saturday this was turning out to be. He stopped in front of Hooker's open door and stared inside.

  "My office, Deputy Broussard."

  "You think someone put that snake in your Jeep."

  "Yes, sir. It couldn't have gotten there any other way."

  "And you think another deputy put it there?"

  "Yes, sir, I—"

  "Nobody else could have had access to the vehicle?"

  "Well—"

  "You keep it locked at home, do you?"

  "No, sir, but—"

  "You got proof another deputy did it? You got a witness?"

  "No, sir, but—"

  "You live over a goddamn conveni
ence store, Deputy. You telling me no one stopped at the store last night? You telling me folks weren't in and out of that parking lot to do this deed or see it done?"

  "The store closes at nine."

  "And after that, damn near anybody could have put that snake in your Jeep. Isn't that right?"

  Annie blew out a breath. Fourcade. Fourcade could have done it, had motive to do it, was disturbed enough to do it. But she said nothing. The snake seemed an adolescent prank, and Fourcade was no adolescent.

  "Hell, I've seen the inside of your Jeep, girl. That snake coulda hatched there, for all I know."

  "And you think it was a coincidence that York was patrolling that stretch of road this morning," Annie said. "And that Mullen just happened along."

  Gus gave her a steady look. "I'm saying you got no proof otherwise. York was on patrol. You ran off the road. He did his job."

  "And Mullen?"

  "Mullen's off duty. What he does on his own time is no concern of mine."

  "Including interfering in the duty of another officer?"

  "You're a fine one to talk on that score, Deputy," he said. "York ran you in 'cause he thought you mighta been drinking."

  "I wasn't drinking. They did it to humiliate me. And Mullen was the ringleader. York was just his stooge."

  "They found a half-empty pint of Wild Turkey under your driver's seat."

  Dread swirled in Annie's stomach. She could be suspended for this. "I don't drink Wild Turkey and I don't drink in my vehicle, Sheriff. Mullen must have put it there."

  "You refused to go through the drill."

  "I'll take a Breathalyzer." She realized she should have insisted on it at the scene. Now her career was crumbling beneath her feet because she'd been too proud and too stubborn. "I'll take a blood test if you want."

  Noblier shook his head. "That was an hour ago or better, and you weren't but five miles from home when you had the accident. If you had anything in your system, it's probably gone by now."

  "I wasn't drinking."

  Gus swiveled his big chair back and forth. He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. He never shaved on Saturday until his evening toilet before taking the missus out for dinner. He did love his Saturdays. This one was going to hell on a sled.

  "You been under a lotta strain recently, Annie," he said carefully.

  "I wasn't drinking."

  "And you was kicking up dirt yesterday, saying someone keyed you out on the radio?"

  "Yes, sir, that's true." She decided to keep the muskrat incident to herself. She felt too much like a tattling child already.

  A frown creased his mouth. "This is all because of that business with Fourcade. Your chickens are coming home to roost, Deputy."

  "But I—" Annie cut herself off and waited, foreboding pressing down on her as the silence stretched.

  "I don't like any of this," Gus said. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about the drinking. York should have given you the Breathalyzer and he didn't. But, as for the rest of the bullshit, I've had it. I'm pulling you off patrol, Annie."

  The pronouncement hit her with the force of a physical blow, stunning her. "But, Sheriff—"

  "It's the best decision I can make for all concerned. It's for your own good, Annie. You come off patrol until this all blows over and settles down. You're out of harm's way, out of sight of the many people you have managed to piss off."

  "But I didn't do anything wrong!"

  "Yeah, well, life's a bitch, ain't it?" he said sharply. "I got people telling me you're trouble. You're sitting here telling me everybody's out to get you. I ain't got time for this bullshit. Every puffed-up muck-a-muck in the parish is on my case on account of Renard and this rapist, and the Mardi Gras carnival isn't but a week off. I'm telling you, I'm sick of the whole goddamn mess. I'm pulling you off patrol until this situation blows over. End of story. Are you on tomorrow?"

  "No."

  "Fine, then take the rest of the day for yourself. Report to me Monday morning for your new assignment."

  Annie said nothing. She stared at Gus Noblier, disappointment and betrayal humming inside her like a power line.

  "It's for the best, Annie."

  "But it's not what's right," she answered. And before he could reply, she got up and walked out of the room.

  16

  It cost $52.75 to get the Jeep out of the impound lot. Financial insult added to ego injury. Steaming, Annie made the lot attendant dig through all the junk on the floor and check every inch of the interior for unpleasant surprises. He found none.

  She drove down the block to the park and sat in the lot under the shade of a sprawling, moss-hung live oak, staring at the bayou.

  How simple it had been for Mullen and his moron cohorts to get what they wanted—her off the job—and she had been powerless to stop it. A thumb on a radio mike switch, a planted pint of Wild Turkey, and she was off the street. The hypocrisy made her mad enough to spit. Gus Noblier was well known for ordering a little after dinner libation to go, yet he pulled her off the job on the lame and unsubstantiated suggestion that maybe she'd had a little something to spike her morning coffee.

  Her instinctive response was to fight back, but how? Put a bigger snake in Mullen's truck? As tempting as that idea was, it was a stupid one. Retribution only invited an escalation of the war. Evidence was what she needed, but there wouldn't be any. Nobody knew better than a cop how to cover tracks. The only witnesses would be accessories. No one would come forward. No one would rat out a brother cop to save a cop who had turned on one of their own.

  "You're getting down and dirty with Dean Monroe on KJUN. The hot topic this morning is still the big decision that went down in the Partout Parish Courthouse on Wednesday. A murder suspect walks on a technicality, and now two men sit in jail for violating his rights. Lindsay on line one, what's on your mind?"

  "Injustice. Pam Bichon was my friend and business partner, and it infuriates me that the focus on her case has shifted to the rights of the man who terrorized and killed her. The court system did nothing to protect her rights when she was alive. I mean, wake up, South Lou'siana. This is the nineties. Women deserve better than to be patronized and pushed aside, and to have our rights be considered below the rights of murderers."

  "Amen to that," Annie murmured.

  A wedding party had come into the park for photographs. The bride stood in the center of the Rotary Club gazebo looking impatient while the photographer's assistant fussed with the train of her white satin gown. Half a dozen bridesmaids in pale yellow organdy dotted the lawn around the gazebo like overgrown daffodils. The groomsmen had begun a game of catch near the tomb of the unknown Confederate war hero. Down on the bank of the bayou, two little boys in black tuxes busied themselves throwing stones as far as they could into the water.

  Annie stared at the ripples radiating out from each splash. Cause and effect, a chain of events, one action the catalyst for another and another. The mess she found herself in hadn't begun with her arrest of Fourcade, or Fourcade's attack on Renard. It hadn't begun with Judge Monahan's dismissal of the evidence or the search that had uncovered that evidence. It had all begun with Marcus Renard and his obsession with Pam Bichon. Therein lay the dark heart of the matter: Marcus Renard and what the court system had inadvertently allowed him to do. Injustice.

  Not allowing herself to consider the consequences, Annie started the Jeep and drove away from the park. She needed to take positive action rather than allow herself to be caught up in the wake of the actions of others.

  She needed to do something—for Pam, for Josie, for herself. She needed to see this case closed, and who was going to do that, who was going to find the truth? A department that had turned on her? Chaz Stokes, whom Fourcade accused of betrayal? Fourcade, who had betrayed the law he was sworn to serve?

  Turning north, she headed toward the building that housed Bayou Realty and the architectural firm of Bowen & Briggs.

  The Bayou Realty offices were homey, catering to the tastes of
women, offering an atmosphere that stirred the feminine instinct to nest. A pair of flowered chintz couches, plump with ruffled pillows, created a cozy L off to one side of the front room. Framed sales sheets with color photographs of homes being offered stood in groupings on the glass-topped wicker coffee table like family portraits. Potted ferns basked in the deep brick window wells. The scent of cinnamon rolls hung in the air.

  The receptionist's station was unoccupied. A woman's voice could be heard coming from one of the offices down the hall. Annie waited. The bell on the front door had announced her entrance. Nerves rattled inside her.

  "Be bold," Fourcade had told her.

  Fourcade was a lunatic.

  The door to the second office on the right opened and Lindsay Faulkner stepped into the hall. Pam Bichon's partner looked like the kind of woman who was elected homecoming queen in high school and college and went on to marry money and raise beautiful, well-behaved children with perfect teeth. She came down the hall with the solid, sunny smile of a Junior League hospitality chairwoman.

  "Good mornin'! How are you today?" She said this with enough familiarity and warmth that Annie nearly turned around to see if someone had come in behind her. "I'm Lindsay Faulkner. How may I help you?"

  "Annie Broussard. I'm with the sheriff's department." A fact no longer readily apparent. She had changed out of her coffee-stained uniform into jeans and a polo shirt. She had tucked her badge into her hip pocket but couldn't bring herself to pull it out. She'd be in trouble enough as it was if Noblier caught wind of what she was up to.

  Lindsay Faulkner's enthusiasm faded fast. Irritation flickered in the big green eyes. She stopped just behind the receptionist's desk and crossed her arms over the front of her emerald silk blouse.

  "You know, you people just make me see red. This has been hell on us—Pam's friends, her family—and what have you done? Nothing. You know who the killer is and he walks around scotfree. The incompetence astounds me. My God, if you'd done your jobs in the first place, Pam might still be alive today."