A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

  He caught hold of her wrist as if holding her physically could stop her from prattling on. Annie looked at him with suspicion. She had let him cross a barrier, and suddenly he could touch her. If he could touch her, he could pull her toward him, literally and figuratively. She told herself she didn't want that. She couldn't handle him, didn't know if she could trust him. She'd stood on the edge of a dark parking lot and watched him beat a suspect senseless.

  "I need to go," she said. "After last night, God knows what might be on the agenda tonight."

  "What happened last night?" he asked, coming slowly to his feet.

  Annie backed into the hall, trying to pass off a casual attitude she didn't feel. She told him in the briefest detail, the way she would write a report—without emotion. Nick propped himself up in the bathroom doorway, the near-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. He seemed to concentrate on every word she said.

  "What did the lab say about the entrails?"

  "Nothing yet. They'll call tomorrow. Pitre insisted it was pig intestines. It probably was. It was probably Mullen and his band of merry jerks just trying to rattle me, but..."

  "But what?" Fourcade demanded. "You got a feeling, 'Toinette, let's hear it. Speak your mind. Don't be shy."

  "Someone, presumably Renard, left a mutilated animal on Pam's doorstep back in October. Now I'm working the case and this happens."

  "You think it could have been Renard."

  "I don't know. Does that make sense? He didn't start harassing Pam until she'd rejected him. She rejected him, he punished her. He thinks I'm his champion. Why would he do something to jeopardize that?"

  "Maybe punishment wasn't his goal with Pam," Nick suggested. "He was always quick enough to offer his concern after she had something bad happen."

  Annie nodded, considering. "I know what it is to be persecuted," Renard had said to her just yesterday. "We have that in common."

  "Whoever did it—I'd like to wring their neck," she muttered. "It scared me. I hate being scared. It pisses me off."

  Nick almost smiled. She was working hard to be tough, to be a cop. But she'd never found herself involved in anything like this—not with the case, not with him. He'd seen the uncertainty in her eyes. He had to give her points for pushing past it.

  "Call me when you get home," he ordered. "Partner."

  Annie looked up at his battered face and felt that strange pull toward him. It scared her. And it pissed her off. In ten days she would have to testify against him.

  "I have to..." She moved her hand in the direction of the door.

  He nodded slightly. "I know."

  As she walked out of his house, she had the distinct feeling that their parting words hadn't been about leaving at all.

  All she wanted was to do the job, to find some closure for Josie, for Pam. She had never meant to fall into this ... this—God, what could she even call this thing with Fourcade? Attraction. It wasn't a relationship. She didn't want a relationship. She didn't want ... to go that deep.

  Shit.

  There was still a light on in the store when she pulled in at the Corners, though closing had come and gone an hour ago. Sos had probably been regaling his cronies with the tale of the past night's adventure. But if he had had company, they'd gone home. There were no other cars in the lot. Down the way, the light burned low in the Doucets' living room. Tante Fanchon would be settling in for the news, soaking her bunions in the minispa foot bath Annie had given her for Christmas two years ago.

  Annie turned the Jeep off and sat looking up at the apartment, her thoughts drifting back in time to her mother. Lovely Marie, so unto herself, so complicated, so mysterious ... so deep. So deep she had drowned in herself, swamped by the intensity of her emotions.

  There was nothing wrong in not wanting that. There was nothing wrong in staying safe on the ledge above that abyss.

  She took a cleansing breath, feeling silly for having overreacted. She barely knew Fourcade. He'd stolen a kiss. Big deal.

  She wanted him. Big deal.

  She locked the Jeep, slung her duffel bag over her shoulder, and started toward the building as Sos came out onto the porch.

  "Hey, chère, what you doin', draggin' in dis hour?" he asked, grinning. "You on a hot date or what?"

  "I could ask you the same," Annie retorted, shuffling toward the edge of the gallery. Sos had left, the security lights on, something he rarely did because he had a grudge against. the electric company.

  "Mais non!" He laughed. "T'es en erreur. Your tante Fanchon, she'd take a stick after me, chère. You know it."

  Annie managed a smile.

  "You been out with Andre?"

  "No."

  "Why not? How you ever gonna marry dat boy, you never see him?"

  "Uncle Sos..." She couldn't bring herself to go into the speech, partly because of fatigue and partly because of a vague sense of guilt she had no desire to explore.

  Sos stepped down off the porch, his boots scuffing on the rock. "Hey, 'tite chatte," he said softly, his face creasing into lines of concern. He touched her cheek with callused fingers. "You and Andre have another fight?"

  "You've got A.J. on the brain," Annie muttered. "I'm just tired, that's all."

  He sniffed, indignant, and pulled her with him to the steps. "Come on. You sit your pretty self down here with your uncle Sos and tell all about it."

  Annie sat down beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder, wishing she could just tell Uncle Sos and sort it all out, the way she had done when she was small. But life had grown so much more complicated than when she was ten and didn't have a mother to take her to the mother-daughter tea at school. Sos and Fanchon had been there for her then, always. She didn't want them touched by what was going on in her life now. She would protect them any way she could.

  Sos clucked his tongue softly and hugged her against him. "Like pullin' hen's teeth with a pliers, gettin' a story outta you. You all the time like dat, you know, even when you was just a tiny li'l thing. You don' wanna bother no one. How many times I gotta tell you, chine, dat's what family is for, huh?"

  Annie closed her eyes. "It's just the job, Uncle Sos. Things are hard for me right now."

  "Because you stop that detective from killing that man what ever'one says is guilty?"

  "Yeah."

  He hummed a note. "Well, I'd like to see him dead, too, but that don' mean you did wrong. Somebody wanna say different, they can come to me.

  "Dat horse's ass Noblier, he don' deserve you for a deputy, chère. You can always come work for your uncle Sos, you know. I'll give you a quarter you come seine the shiners out my bait tanks."

  Annie found a chuckle for his teasing, then turned and hugged him fiercely. "I love you."

  Sos patted her back and kissed the top of her head. "Je t'aime, chérie. You get some sleep tonight. Leave the rascals to me. I got fresh buckshot in the gun."

  "Oh, that's a comfort," Annie muttered dryly.

  She dragged herself up the stairs to the apartment. A small package waited for her on the landing, wrapped in paper sprigged with tiny violets and tied with a lavender bow. Automatically suspicious, she picked it up with care, listened to it, shook it a little, then carried it inside.

  The light on the answering machine was blinking impatiently. She hit the message button and listened as she unwrapped the box.

  "It's me," A.J. said. "Where you been? I thought maybe we could do that movie tonight, but ... uh ... I guess not, huh? Are you still pissed at me? Call me, will you?"

  The confusion in his voice dragged at Annie's heart.

  The machine beeped and a reporter came on asking for a few minutes of her time. He might as well have asked her to hit herself in the head with a hammer.

  "This is Lindsay Faulkner."

  Annie's hands stilled on the white gift box.

  "I've been thinking about some of the questions you asked the other day. I'm sorry if I've seemed uncooperative. That wasn't my intent. This has just dragged on, and I—
Please call me when you get a chance."

  Annie looked at the cat clock on the kitchen wall. 10:27. Not too late. Abandoning the package on the table, she paged through the phone book, then dialed the number. The telephone on the other end rang four times before it picked up.

  "Hello, Ms. Faulkner, this is—"

  "This is Lindsay Faulkner. I can't take your call right now, but if you'll leave your name, number, and a brief message at the tone, I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

  Annie blew out a breath in frustration, waited for the tone, and left her name and number. The expectation that had shot upward at the sound of Lindsay Faulkner's voice dropped like a rock, and she was left with nothing but questions that couldn't be answered.

  She had felt all along that the woman was holding back on her. But when she'd read over the statements from the file, they seemed very straightforward. Stokes had not included any notes regarding concerns about Faulkner's candor or anything else. He, rather than Fourcade, had dealt with her during the murder investigation because he had already established a relationship with her during the stalking investigation. Asking him for his opinion was out of the question.

  Resigning herself to waiting for Lindsay's revelations, she hit the message button on the answering machine again.

  The next one began to play—a snickering, sniveling stream of profanity and lewd suggestions. Annie raised her eyes heavenward and made a mental note never to appear in front of a television camera again.

  She turned her attention to the box, lifting the lid carefully, braced for the possibility of unpleasant surprise. Another dead muskrat, perhaps. Another live snake. But nothing sprang out at her. No aroma of death assaulted her senses. Nestled in layers of tissue was a sheer silk scarf, ivory printed with tiny blue flowers.

  Frowning, she took it out and ran it through her hands, the cool, sensuous feel of it having the opposite of its desired effect. The card read: "Something lovely for a lovely person. With thanks and gratitude—again. Marcus."

  Among the gifts he had given Pam Bichon was a silk scarf.

  It appeared he had taken the bait Annie had never intended to dangle.

  She set the scarf aside and picked up the phone to call Fourcade.

  27

  "Our topic tonight: double standards in the justice system. You're tuned to KJUN, home of the giant jackpot giveaway. This is your Devil's Advocate, Owen Onofrio. We've learned today that Hunter Davidson of rural Partout Parish, the father of murder victim Pamela Bichon, was released from jail this weekend after an unprecedented private bond hearing. Sources in the DA's office say a deal was struck late today that will likely sentence Davidson to little more than community service for the attempted assault of murder suspect Marcus Renard.

  "What do you think out there? Everyone with a TV saw it on the news last week: Mr. Davidson charging down the courthouse steps with a gun in his hand as the man accused of killing his daughter walked away on a technicality. Curtis from St. Martinville, speak your mind."

  "Is it a double standard? I mean, they let Renard go. Why shouldn't they let Davidson go too?"

  "But the court has yet to prove Renard guilty of a crime. Davidson committed his crime in front of a crowd of witnesses. Doesn't Davidson's obvious intent to kill deserve worse than a slap on the wrist and community service? Instead, we've been touting this man as a hero and turning him into a celebrity. He's reportedly had offers from Maury Povich, Larry King, and Sally Jessy to appear on their shows."

  Lindsay listened with disgust as she drove toward Bayou Breaux. She detested Owen Onofrio. The man's sole purpose in life seemed to be irritating people to the point of outburst. She disliked his devil's advocate game. She had no time for people without solid convictions, and yet she listened to the program more often than not on her drive home from the Association of Women Realtors meetings in Lafayette. The elevation in her blood pressure kept her from falling asleep at the wheel.

  Without Pam for company, she had come to dread the monthly trip. They had always used the drive back for girl talk—True Confessions Time, Pam had called it—the kind of talks best held in the dimly lit interior of a car on a dark stretch of road. Soul-searching, souls-bared kinds of talks about life, love, motherhood, sisterhood.

  She glanced at the empty passenger seat and felt a bottomless ache in her soul. She couldn't look at the night out here where houses were scarce and the only laws were nature's without thinking of Pam, alone with her killer where no one could see, no one could hear her cries for help.

  Needing anger to fight off the despair, she hit the speed dial button on the car phone. As much as she hated Owen Onofrio, he had become a part of her self-therapy.

  "You're on KJUN. All talk all the time."

  "This is Lindsay from Bayou Breaux."

  "Hey, Lindsay, it's Willy," the assistant said, his voice a little too oily and intimate for her liking. "If you don't win that jackpot soon, it won't be for lack of trying."

  "I'll donate it to Pam's daughter. Consider it payment for KJUN throwing her family into the public arena like the Christians to the lions."

  "Hey, you're on the line, aren't you?"

  "Let me talk to Owen."

  "You're up next, Lindsay. That's just because I love the sound of your voice."

  Lindsay heaved a sigh into the receiver.

  Onofrio's voice came on the line. "Lindsay in Bayou Breaux, what's your opinion tonight?"

  "I'd like to point out that there's a tremendous difference between a psychopath committing a brutal, sexual murder to satisfy some depraved personal appetite and a law-abiding, productive member of the human race being driven by the inadequacies of our justice system to commit a desperate act."

  "So you're condoning vigilante justice?"

  "Of course not. I'm simply saying the crimes involved here are not interchangeable. It would be ridiculous, to say nothing of cruel, to send Hunter Davidson to jail. He did not, in fact, kill Marcus Renard. And hasn't he suffered enough? He's already been sentenced to the memory of his daughter's hideous death."

  "A thought-provoking point. Thank you, Lindsay."

  After confirming her address for the jackpot, Lindsay hung up and changed the station. She'd had her say, made her daily defense for Pam. She wondered when it would stop —the pain, the anger, the need to fight back.

  The pain wasn't as intense as it had been at first. She couldn't maintain that level of fury and keep her own sanity. So it had found a more manageable level. She wondered how long she could get by calling it healthy, wondered how long she would be able to hold on to it. Her fear was that without the pain, without the outrage, there would be only emptiness. The prospect terrified her.

  Maybe she should sell the business, move to New Orleans. Start fresh. Meet new people, renew old acquaintances from college. God knew Bayou Breaux offered little in the way of culture or a glitzy social life. What kept her there besides memories and spite?

  Memories and friends. A simple way of life. Social obligations that meant hands-on involvement with the community. She loved it here. And then there was Josie, her goddaughter. She couldn't leave Josie.

  The dashboard clock glowed 12:24 as she neared the turnoff to her home. She shouldn't have stayed so late after the meeting. She'd been in no mood for cheery chitchat and social niceties, and yet she had lingered, putting off the long, lonely drive home. Now it was too late to call Detective Broussard back. There was no real hurry. She could do it tomorrow. What she had was nothing, really. Just a thought, and one she didn't want to give credence to. Still, she felt guilty keeping it to herself.

  She hit the garage door opener and parked the BMW beside the new bike she'd bought to force herself into a hobby. She dropped her briefcase on the dining room table and went straight to her bedroom, ignoring the blinking light on the answering machine. It was too late. She was too tired. Even the routine of washing her face and moisturizing her skin seemed too much effort, but she forced herself because, as her mother reminded
her at regular intervals, she wasn't getting any younger. The strain of the past few months was showing beneath her eyes and in the lines around her mouth.

  Exhausted, she climbed into bed, turned out the lights, and lay there, eyes open, a dull throb pounding in her temples. A weight hit the mattress beside her, curled into the crook behind her knees, and began purring. Taffy, the cat she had adopted from the Davidsons the year she and Pam had set up the business. The cat was asleep instantly, snoring softly.

  Lindsay knew from too many nights of experience she wouldn't be so lucky. The headache wouldn't just go away, she wouldn't just go to sleep. She had tried meditation, relaxation tapes, reading a dull book. The only thing that worked was the sleeping pill her doctor had prescribed after Pam's murder. She was on her third refill, and he had made it clear there would be no more. She hated to think what she would do then.

  The cat complained loudly as she threw the covers back.

  "Yeah, well, be glad I never taught you how to fetch," Lindsay mumbled.

  She kept all her medications in a kitchen cupboard because she had read in Cosmo that the humidity in the bathroom was bad for the quality of pills and capsules. She didn't bother turning lights on as she went down the short hall to the kitchen. She had left the light in the range hood on, and it was plenty bright enough to see by. Bright enough, in fact, so that, as she turned the corner into the kitchen/dining area, she clearly saw the man coming in through the patio door.

  He looked straight at her, and she saw the feathered mask. Time held fast for an instant as they recognized one another as predator and prey. Then the hold snapped, and the world was suddenly a blur of sound and motion.

  Lindsay grabbed the first thing she could put her hands on and hurled it at him. He batted the pewter candlestick to the side and charged her, toppling a chair from its place at the table. She turned to run. If she could make it to the front door and onto the lawn— What? Who would look out and see her? It was after one in the morning. Her neighbors were tucked in bed, their houses were tucked back on the exclusive little properties she had sold them. If she screamed, would they even hear her?