A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

  "What a news flash." He narrowed his eyes and stroked a finger across one side of his bushy mustache. "I figured you'd point the finger at Fourcade. He's gotta hate you more than anyone else. We all know how you feel about him."

  "You don't know shit about me. It wasn't Fourcade."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because Fourcade would be man enough to show his face, and if he wanted me dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation," she said, rising from her chair. "Are we finished, Detective? We both know this is pointless and I've got work to do."

  Perez shrugged. "Yeah. I know where to find you ... 'til somebody wises up and boots your tight little ass outta here."

  Annie left the interview room, glad she hadn't bothered to tell him about the crucified cat. Back in records, Myron seemed in danger of spontaneous combustion.

  "Look at the time!" he ranted, scurrying around the office like a windup toy gone mad. "Look at the time! You been gone half the day!"

  Annie rolled her eyes. "Well, excuse me for being the victim of a crime. You know, Myron, you are an extremely unsympathetic individual. I practically witnessed someone dying this morning. Someone took a shot at me last night. My life is basically in the toilet here, and all you do is rag on me."

  "Sympathy? Sympathy?" He chirped the word as if it were a questionable noun from another language. "Why should I show you sympathy? You are my assistant. I'm the one needs sympathy."

  "Your wife has all my sympathy," Annie said, pulling her chair back from her desk. "You must have about ruined all the upholstery on her furniture by now with that stick up your ass."

  Myron gave an indignant sniff. Annie ignored him. She was past currying his favor. With everything that was happening or about to happen, she figured she would be either dead or fired inside a week. Where she wouldn't be was working in this clerical hell for the rest of her life.

  Two minutes later she received the summons to Noblier's office.

  Valerie Comb was not at her post when Annie arrived at the sheriff's office. The room was empty, the file cabinets with the personnel records unguarded. The door to Gus's inner office was closed. Annie went to it and pressed her ear against the blond wood. No conversation sounds. No chair creaks. Nothing.

  She glanced longingly at the file cabinets again. It wouldn't take more than a minute—open the S drawer, find Stokes, one glance and she'd be done. There might not be another chance.

  Swallowing at the hard lump of fear wedged in her throat like a chicken bone, she crossed the room to the cabinets, reached for the handle on the S drawer.

  "May I help you?"

  Annie swung around at the sound of the sharp voice, hastily crossing her arms over her chest. Valerie Comb stood with one hand on the doorknob, the other holding a steaming cup of coffee. Her overdone eyes were narrowed in suspicion, her mouth pressed into a thin painted line.

  "I'm here to see the sheriff," Annie said, beaming innocence.

  Without comment, Valerie went to her desk, set the coffee down, and settled her fanny in her chair. Eyes on Annie, she pulled a pencil from her rat's nest of bleached hair and punched the intercom button with the eraser end of the pencil so as not to chip her slut red nails. Rumor had it she'd done half the guys in the department. She'd probably done Stokes.

  "Sheriff, Deputy Broussard is here to see you."

  "Send her in!" Gus bellowed, his voice too big for the plastic box to contain.

  Heart beating three steps too fast, Annie let herself into Noblier's inner sanctum. The shades were drawn. He sat back in his chair rubbing his eyes as if he might just have awakened from an afternoon nap.

  "You must be out for some kind of record, Deputy," he said, shaking his head.

  "Sir?"

  He waved at the chair across the desk from him. "Sit down, Annie. Myron's been bending my ear. He says you're unreliable and you might be drinking on the job."

  "That's not true, sir."

  "That's the second time in a week I've heard your name and alcohol mentioned in the same breath."

  "I haven't been drinking, sir. I'll gladly take any test you want me to."

  "What I want is to know why two weeks ago I barely knew more than your name, now suddenly you're the burr up everybody's ass." He leaned against his forearms on the desktop. To his right, paperwork was stacked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. To his left lay a giant ceremonial ribbon-cutting scissors like something out of Gulliver's Travels.

  "An unfortunate coincidence?" Annie suggested.

  "Deputy, there are three things I do not believe in: UFOs, moderate Republicans, and coincidence. What the hell is going on with you? Every time I turn around you're in the middle of something you shouldn't be. You're working in records, for Christ's sake. How the hell can you get in trouble working in records?"

  "Bad luck."

  "You're tripping over bodies, fighting with other deputies. Stokes was in here this morning telling me you were at the hospital when that Faulkner woman died. Why is that?"

  Annie explained her absences from records as best she could, painting a picture of innocence that had been misinterpreted by Myron. She managed to depict herself as an unfortunate bystander regarding Lindsay Faulkner's attack and demise—in the wrong place at the wrong time. Noblier listened, his skepticism plain on his face.

  "And this business about you getting shot at last night? What was that about?"

  "I don't know, sir."

  "I sincerely doubt that," Gus said, rising from his chair. He rubbed at a kink in his lower back as he walked away from the desk. "Has Detective Fourcade made any effort to contact you since his release on bail?"

  "Sir?"

  "He's got a big ax to grind with you, Annie. As much as I respect Nick's abilities as a detective, you and I both know he's wrapped a little too tight."

  "With all due respect, sir, the harassment I've experienced since Detective Fourcade's arrest has come from other sources."

  "Yeah, you've managed to bring out the worst in a lot of people."

  Annie refrained from pointing out that blaming the victim was politically incorrect these days. The less she drew the sheriff into this mess at this time, the better. She had no proof of anything against anybody. He had already decided she was probably more trouble than she was worth. If she started making accusations against Stokes, it might just push him beyond tolerance.

  "Maybe you should take some personal time, Annie," he suggested, coming back to the desk. He pulled a file from the top of the stack and flipped it open. "According to your record, you carried over all your sick days from last year. You could take yourself a little vacation."

  "I'd rather not, sir," Annie said, holding herself stiff in her chair. "I don't think that would send a very good message. It might look to the press like you're trying to force me out because of the Fourcade thing. Punishing your only female patrol officer for stopping a bad cop from killing a suspect—that's a pretty volatile story."

  Gus's head came up and he regarded her with a piercing stare. "Are you threatening me, Deputy Broussard?"

  She did her best to look doe-eyed. "No, sir. Never. I'm just saying how it might look to some people."

  "People after my hide," he muttered, talking aloud to himself. He scratched at his afternoon beard stubble. "Smith Pritchett would love that, the ungrateful swine. He'll call me corrupt, a racist, and a sexist. Small-minded, that's what he is. Doesn't see the big picture. All he really wants is revenge on Fourcade for screwing that search at Renard's. He wanted to prosecute the big slam-dunk, media-circus case. Mr. Big Headlines."

  He snatched a folded newspaper off his blotter and snapped a big finger against a photograph of Pritchett at the Tuesday press conference, looking stern and authoritative. The headline read: "Task Force Named in Mardi Gras Rapist Cases."

  "Look at that," Gus complained. "Like it was Pritchett's task force. Like he had squat to do with trying to solve these cases. You think you know a man..."

  Annie tuned out the lament.
She took the paper from the sheriff's hands as he walked away. The task force was page two news in the Wednesday Daily Advertiser from Lafayette. The article gave a brief encapsulation of the news conference and details of the three attacks that had taken place in Partout Parish over the last week's time. But it was the small sidebar that drew Annie's attention. Just two paragraphs with the headline "Task Force Leader Experienced."

  Heading the Partout Parish task force in the investigation of what has come to be called the "Mardi Gras Rapist" cases will be Detective Charles Stokes. Stokes, 32, has been with the Partout Parish Sheriff's Office since 1993 and is described by Sheriff August F. Noblier as "a diligent and thorough investigator."

  Prior to joining the force in Partout Parish, Stokes served with the Hattiesburg (Mississippi) Police Department, where he also worked as a detective, and was part of the team credited with solving a series of sexual assaults against female students on the campus of William Carey College.

  Chaz Stokes knew all about rape cases. He'd been there before. The question was: Had he solved the William Carey College rapes cases or had he committed them?

  40

  The old Andrew Carnegie Library was open until nine on Thursdays. Annie hovered behind the three makeshift computer bays from about five-fifteen until the junior high geeks who used the machines to surf the Net for things they were too young to see had to go home for supper. Then she settled in at the computer farthest from prying eyes and went to work.

  The computers had been a gift to the library from a well-known local author, Conroy Cooper. A new library would have been a better gift. The Carnegie had been old when Christ was in short pants. Dank and dimly lit, the place had always given Annie the creeps. The air was musty with the smell of moldering paper. Every wooden surface had either turned black with age or been worn pale from use. Even the librarian, Miss Stitch, seemed slightly mildewed.

  But the computers were new and that was all that mattered. Annie was able to access the William Carey College Library, and once in that system, call up articles from the Hattiesburg American that related to the college rape cases in 1991 and 1992. She read them on the screen, scrutinizing for any similarities between those cases and the newly dubbed "Mardi Gras" cases.

  The victims—seven of them—had all been college students or had worked at the college. Physical characteristics of the women varied; ages hung in the late teens, early twenties. The assaults had taken place in their bedrooms late at night. Each woman lived in a ground-floor apartment. The attacks took place during warm weather, the rapist gaining entry through open windows. He used cut-off lengths of panty hose, which he brought with him, to tie his victims up. He spoke very little throughout the course of the rapes, his voice described as "a harsh whisper." Though none of the women had gotten a clean look at her rapist because he had worn a ski mask, several speculated from his voice that "he may have been black." The rapist used a condom, which he disposed of away from the scene of the crime, and no semen or pubic hairs had been recovered for evidence. Before leaving the last of his victims, the attacker helped himself to cash and credit cards.

  Evander Darnell Flood, the man arrested for the crimes, had given that victim's Visa card to his girlfriend. According to an acquaintance hauled in on unrelated drug charges, Flood had bragged to him about the rapes. While his record was not admissible in court, Evander had previously been a guest of the Mississippi correctional facility in Parchman for seven years on a rape charge. Two previous charges had been dropped due to lack of evidence.

  The prosecution built a circumstantial case against Flood with evidence discovered by the Hattiesburg Police Department detectives. And, while Evander swore to the last that he was being framed, that the police had planted the evidence, the jury convicted him and the judge sent him back to Parchman for the rest of his natural life.

  Annie sat back from the computer screen and rubbed her eyes. There were differences in the cases and similarities, but then the same could be said for the majority of rape cases. A certain methodology was common to the crime. The differences tended to be personal: One rapist was a talker, using foul sexual language to help get him off; the next one was silent. One might prefer to cover his victim's face to depersonalize her; another would threaten her at knifepoint to keep her eyes open so he might see her fear.

  She found more similarities here than differences, but it was the circumstances surrounding Flood's arrest and conviction that made Annie uneasy. Flood swore he was innocent, like 99.9 percent of the scumbags in prison. But the case against him hadn't been that strong. The acquaintance could easily have lied as part of a deal for leniency in his own case. Witnesses who claimed to have seen a man matching Flood's description in the vicinity of several of the rapes told weak, conflicting stories. Flood claimed to have found the last victim's credit card in the hallway of his apartment building. He claimed the cops had railroaded him because he had a record and lived in the area where the crimes had taken place.

  He would have been an easy target for a frame. Because of his record, the cops would have known all about Evander early on. He lived in the area, had a part-time janitorial job at the college. His live-in girlfriend worked nights, robbing him of an alibi witness.

  Annie closed her eyes and saw Stokes. As a detective assigned to the cases, planting evidence would have been a simple matter for him. He had been there in Renard's home the night Fourcade had found Pam's ring. Everyone had jumped on Nick with the accusation of tampering because he had been accused before. No one had looked twice at Chaz Stokes.

  She went through the steps of instructing the computer to print the articles, then turned around in her chair while the dot-matrix printer chattered away. At the far end of one row of reference books, a face stared at her, then darted back into the shadows. Victor Renard.

  Annie's heart gave a jolt. The library was nearly deserted. What action there was, was on the first floor: a blue-haired ladies' reading group trying to find Satanic messages in The Celestine Prophecy. The second floor, where Annie was, was quiet as a church.

  Victor peeked around the end of another bookcase, saw that she was looking right at him, and darted back.

  "Victor?" Annie said. Abandoning the printer to its work, she eased out of her chair and moved carefully toward the bookcases. "Mr. Renard? You don't have to hide from me."

  She made her way slowly down one row, muscles tensing, lungs aching against the held breath. The lighting back here was poor. Gooseflesh crawled down the back of her neck.

  "It's Annie Broussard, Victor. Remember me? I'm trying to help Marcus," she said, her conscience pinching her for lying to a mentally challenged person. Would she get another day in purgatory if her ultimate goal was good? The end justifies the means.

  She started to turn right at the end of the human sciences row and caught a glimpse of him cowering in the corner to her left.

  "How are you, Victor?" she asked, trying to sound pleasant, conversational. She turned toward him slowly, not wanting to spook him.

  He didn't seem comfortable with her proximity. She was no more than a yard from him. He made a small uncertain keening sound in his throat and began to rock himself from side to side.

  "It's all been very hard on you, hasn't it?" Annie said, her sympathy for him genuine.

  According to what little she'd read about autistics in trying to understand more about Marcus Renard's brother, routine was sacred. Yet, Victor's life had to have been an endless series of upsets since the death of Pam Bichon. The press, the cops, disgruntled citizens had all focused their scrutiny and their speculation on the Renard family. Plenty of rumors had run around town that perhaps Victor himself was dangerous. His condition baffled and frightened people. His behavior seemed odd at best, and often inappropriate.

  "Mask, mask. No mask," he mumbled, looking at her out the corner of his eye.

  Mask. Since Pam's death the word had taken on a menacing connotation that had only been compounded by the recent rapes. Coming from some
one whose behavior was so strange, someone who happened to be the brother of a murder suspect, it added to the eeriness.

  He raised the book in his hands, a collection of Audubon's prints, to cover his face and tapped a finger against the picture on the front, a finely detailed rendering of a mockingbird. "Mimus polyglottos. Mimus, mimic. Mask, no mask."

  Slowly he lowered the book to peer over it at her. His eyes had a glasslike quality, hard and clear and unblinking. "Transformation, transmutation, alteration. Mask."

  "Do you think I look like someone I'm not? Is that it? Do I remind you of Pam?" Annie asked gently. How much of what had happened could be locked inside Victor Renard's mind? What secret, what clue, might be trapped in the strange labyrinth that was his brain?

  He covered his face again. "Red and white. Then and now."

  "I don't understand, Victor."

  "I think he's confused," Marcus said.

  Annie swung toward him, startled. She hadn't heard his approach at all. They were back in the farthest, dimmest corner of the library. She had Victor on one side, Marcus on another, a wall to her back.

  "That you resemble Pam, but that you aren't Pam,"

  Marcus finished. "He can't decide if it's good or bad, past or present."

  Victor rocked himself and bumped the Audubon book against his forehead over and over, muttering, "Red, red, enter out."

  "How much of his language do you understand?" Annie asked.

  "Some." He was still speaking through gritted teeth, his jaw being wired shut, but with less difficulty. The swelling was gone from his face. The bruises looked yellow and black in the poor light. "It's a code of sorts."

  "Very red," Victor mumbled unhappily.

  "Red is a watchword for things that upset him," Marcus explained. "It's all right, Victor. Annie is a friend."

  "Very white, very red," Victor said, peering over the book at Annie. "Very white, very red."

  "White is good, red is bad. Why he's putting the two together that way is beyond me. He's been very upset since the shooting the other night."