Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

She put the Jeep in gear and crept forward. She could see the building that housed Bayou Realty and Bowen amp; Briggs. There were no lights. There were no cars parked on the street. The sheriff had pulled the surveillance on Renard after the hearing, hoping the press would back off. Renard had been working evenings for the same reason. Fourcade was parked two blocks away.

" 'One man's justice is another man's injustice… one man's wisdom another's folly.' "

Annie pulled to the curb in front of Robichaux Electric, cut the engine, and grabbed her big black flashlight from the debris on the floor behind the passenger's seat. Maybe Fourcade was taking it upon himself to continue the surveillance. But if that were the case, he wouldn't park two blocks away or leave his vehicle.

She pulled her Sig P-225 out of her duffel bag and stuck the gun in the waistband of her skirt, then climbed out of the Jeep. Keeping the flashlight off, she made her way down the sidewalk, her sneakers silent on the damp pavement.

"There is no justice in this world. How's that for a truth, Deputy Broussard?"

"Shit, shit, shit," she chanted under her breath, her step quickening at the first sound from the direction of Bowen amp; Briggs. A scrape. A shoe on asphalt. A thump. A muffled cry.

"Shit!" Pulling the gun and flicking the switch on the flashlight, she broke into a run.

She could hear the sound of flesh striking flesh even before she entered the narrow parking lot. Instinct rushed her forward, overriding procedure. She should have called it in. She didn't have any backup. Her badge was in her pocketbook in the Jeep. Not one of those facts slowed her step.

"Sheriff's office, freeze!" she yelled, sweeping the bright halogen beam across the parking area.

Fourcade had Renard up against the side of a car, swinging at him with the rhythm of a boxer at a punching bag. A hard left turned Renard's face toward Annie, and she gasped at the blood that obscured his features. He lunged toward her, arms outstretched, blood and spittle spraying from his mouth in a froth as a wild animal sound tore from his throat and his eyes rolled white. Fourcade caught him in the stomach and knocked him back into the Volvo.

"Fourcade! Stop it!" Annie shouted, hurling herself against him, trying to knock him away from Renard. "Stop it! You're killing him! Arrete! C'est assez!"

He shrugged her off like a mosquito and cracked Renard's jaw with a right.

"Stop it!"

Using the big flashlight like a baton, she swung it as hard as she could into his kidneys, once, twice. As she drew back for a third blow, Fourcade spun toward her, poised to strike.

Annie scuttled backward. She turned the full beam of the flashlight in Fourcade's face. "Hold it!" she ordered. "I've got a gun!"

"Get away!" he roared. His expression was feral, his eyes glazed, wild. One corner of his mouth curled in a snarl.

"It's Broussard," she said. "Deputy Broussard. Step back, Fourcade! I mean it!"

He didn't move, but the look on his face slipped toward uncertainty. He glanced around with the kind of hesitancy that suggested he had just come to and didn't know where he was or how he had gotten there. Behind him, Renard dropped to his hands and knees on the blacktop, vomited, then collapsed.

"Jesus," Annie muttered. "Stay where you are."

Squatting beside Renard, she stuck her gun back in her waistband and felt for the carotid artery in his neck, her fingers coming away sticky with blood. His pulse was strong. He was alive but unconscious, and probably glad for it. His face looked like raw hamburger, his nose was an indistinct mass. She wiped the blood from her hand on his shoulder, pulled the Sig again, and stood, her knees shaking.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she asked, turning toward Fourcade.

Nick stared down at Renard lying in his own puke as if seeing him for the first time. Thinking? He couldn't remember thinking. What he did remember didn't make sense. Echoes of voices from another place… taunts… The red haze was slowly dissipating, leaving him with a sick feeling.

"What were you gonna do?" Annie Broussard demanded. "Kill him and dump him in the swamp? Did you think nobody would notice? Did you think nobody would suspect? My God, you're a cop! You're supposed to uphold the law, not take it into your own hands!"

She hissed a breath through her teeth. "Looks like I believed the wrong half of those rumors about you, after all, Fourcade."

"I-I came here to talk to him," he muttered.

"Yeah? Well, you're a helluva conversationalist."

Renard groaned, shifted positions, and settled back into oblivion. Nick closed his eyes, turned away, and rubbed his gloved hands over his face. The smell of Renard's blood in the leather gagged him.

"C'est ein affaire a pus finir," he whispered. It is a thing that has no end.

"What are you talking about?" Broussard demanded.

Shadows and darkness, and the kind of rage that could swallow a man whole. But she knew of none of these things, and he didn't try to tell her.

"Go call an ambulance," he said with resignation.

She looked to Renard and back, weighing the options.

"It's all right, 'Toinette. I promise not to kill him while you're gone."

"Under the circumstances, you'll forgive me if I don't believe a word you say." Annie glanced at Renard again. "He's not going anywhere. You can come with me. And by the way," she added, gesturing him toward the street with her gun, "you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…"

You can't arrest Fourcade. He's a detective, for Christ's sake!" Gus ranted, pacing behind his desk.

The desk sergeant had called him in from a Rotary Club dinner where he had been ingesting calories in the liquid form, trying to dull the barbed comments of Rotarians unhappy with the day's court ruling. The civic leaders of Bayou Breaux had wanted Renard's indictment as something extra to celebrate for Mardi Gras. Even with half a pint of Amaretto in him, Gus felt as if his blood pressure just might cause his head to explode.

"What the hell were you thinking, Broussard?" he demanded.

Annie's jaw dropped. "I was thinking he committed assault! I saw him with my own eyes!"

"Well, there's got to be more to this story than what you know."

"I saw what I saw. Ask him yourself, Sheriff. He won't deny it. Renard looks like he put his face in a Waring blender."

"Fuck a duck," Gus muttered. "I told him, I told him! Where's he at now?"

"Interview B."

It had been a fight getting him in there. Not that Fourcade had resisted in any way. It was Rodrigue, the desk sergeant, and Degas and Pitre-deputies just hanging around. "Arresting Fourcade? Naw. Must be some mistake. Quit screwing around, Broussard. What'd he do - pinch your ass? We don't arrest our own. Nick, he's part of the Brotherhood. Whatsa matter with you, Broussard - you on the rag or somethin'? He beat up Renard? Christ, we oughta get him a medal! Is Renard dead? Can we throw a party?"

In the end, Fourcade had pushed past them through the doorway and let himself into Interview B.

The sheriff stalked past Annie and out the door. She hustled after him, a choke hold on her temper. If she'd hauled in a civilian, no one would have questioned her judgment or her perception of facts.

The door to the interview room was wide open. Rodrigue stood with one hand on the frame and one eye on his abandoned desk, grinning as he traded comments with someone inside the room, his mustache wriggling like a woolly caterpillar on his upper lip.

"Hey, Sheriff, we're thinking maybe Nick oughta get a ticker-tape parade."

"Shut up," Gus barked as he bulled his way past the desk sergeant and into the room where Degas and Pitre had sprawled into chairs. Coffee cups sat steaming on the small table. Fourcade sat on the far side, smoking a cigarette and looking detached.