Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

Nick had exactly three thousand two hundred dollars in the bank.

"Don't piss off His Honor, Nick, my boy," Wily Tallant murmured, leaning toward Nick. "I do believe he's got an Irish headache today. Don't meet his eyes. If you can't look contrite, look contemplative."

Nick looked away. Tallant was a sly, scheming bastard- good qualities in a defense attorney, but that didn't mean he had to like the man. He only had to listen to him.

The lawyer was nearly a head shorter than Nick, with a lean, European elegance about him. His thin, dark hair was slicked back neatly, accentuating the distinguished lines of his face. He wore black suits year-round and a Rolex that cost more than Nick made in four months. Wily's clients may have been scumbags, but they tended to be scumbags with money.

Nick scanned the crowd again. A number of cops had found their way into the balcony that had been the gallery for black spectators in the days of open segregation. He spotted a couple of sheriff's deputies, a couple of Bayou Breaux uniforms. Broussard was not among them. He thought she might have come. This was what she wanted: him facing the music.

In the balcony front row, Stokes touched the brim of the ball cap he wore low over a pair of Ray-Bans. Quinlan, another of the SO detectives, sat beside him, along with Z-Top McGee, a detective from the city squad they had worked with a time or two.

It struck Nick as odd that anyone other than Stokes had come. He had spent no time cultivating friendships here. More likely their attachment to him was through the job. The Brotherhood. He was one of them, and here but for the grace of God… Ultimately, their concern was for themselves, he decided. A comforting cynical thought.

He dropped his gaze to the main gallery seating, skimming the faces of the reporters who had hounded him from the outset of the Bichon case, and one who had hounded him longer than that-a face familiar from New Orleans. New Orleanians generally cared little what went on beyond the boundaries of the Big Easy. The Cajun parishes were a separate world. But this one had smelled Nick's blood in the water and had come hungry. Unexpected, but not surprising.

The surprises sat ahead of the New Orleans hack. Belle Davidson and, two rows in front of her, her erstwhile son-in-law, Donnie Bichon. What were they doing here? Hunter Davidson was not among the unfortunate waiting their turn before the judge. Pritchett would want to downplay that bail hearing. Pressing charges against a grieving father would be unpopular with his constituents. Pressing charges against "a rogue cop" for the same crime was an altogether different matter.

"State of Lou'siana versus Nick Fourcade!"

Nick followed Tallant through the gate to the defense table. Pritchett had remained silent through the previous proceedings, letting ADA Doucet deal with the petty stuff, saving himself for the feature attraction. He rose from his chair and buttoned his suit coat, twitching his shoulders back and smoothing a hand over his silk tie. He looked like a little gamecock preening his feathers and scratching the dirt before a fight.

"Your Honor," he intoned loudly. "The charges here are extremely egregious: aggravated assault and attempted murder perpetrated by a member of the law enforcement community. We're dealing not only with a felony, but with a gross abuse of power and a betrayal of the public trust. It's an absolute disgrace. I-"

"Save your preaching for another pulpit, Mr. Pritchett," Judge Monahan barked as he snapped the cap off a bottle of Excedrin and dumped a pair of pills into his hand.

The judge glared at Nick, black eyebrows creeping down over piercing blue eyes.

"Detective Fourcade, I cannot begin to express my disgust at having you before my bench on this matter. You have managed to turn an ugly situation hideous, and I am not inclined to be forgiving. Could you possibly have anything to say for yourself?"

Wily leaned forward, his fingertips just resting on the defense table. "Revon Tallant for the defense. Your Honor, my client wishes to enter a plea of not guilty at this time." He enunciated each word as precisely as a poet. "As usual, Mr. Pritchett has jumped to all manner of extreme conclusions without having heard the facts of the situation. Detective Fourcade was simply going about the business of his job-"

"Beating the snot out of people?" Pritchett said.

"Apprehending a suspected burglar, who chose to resist arrest and fight."

"Resist and fight? The man had to be hospitalized!" Pritchett shouted. "He looks like he ran headlong into a steel beam!"

"I never said he was good at it."

Laughter rippled through the gallery. Monahan banged his gavel. "This is not a humorous matter!"

"I quite agree, Your Honor," Pritchett said. "We had ought to take a dim view of law enforcement officers crossing the line into vigilantism. A sheriff's deputy caught Detective Fourcade red-handed-in the literal sense. She will testify-"

"This isn't the trial, Mr. Pritchett," Monahan cut in. "I am in no mood to listen to lawyers go on and on for the benefit of the press and the sheer love of the sound of their own voices. Get on with it!"

"Yes, Your Honor." Pritchett swallowed his pride, his cheeks tinting pink. "In view of the seriousness of the charges and the brutality of the crime, the state requests bail in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars."

The words hit Nick like a ball bat.

Wily tossed his head back and rolled his big sloe eyes. "Your Honor, Mr. Pritchett's predilection for drama aside-"

"Your client is a law enforcement officer who stands accused of beating a man senseless, Mr. Tallant," Monahan said sharply. "That's all the drama I need." He consulted his clerk for his schedule, shaking the Excedrin tablets in his hand like a pair of dice. "Preliminary hearing set for two weeks from yesterday. Bail in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, cash or bond. Pay the clerk if you can. Next case!"

Nick and Tallant moved away from the defense table as the next defendant and his attorney came in. Nick stared at Pritchett across the room. The DA's small mouth was screwed into a self-satisfied smirk.

"I'll have Monahan recused from the case before the hearing," Wily murmured, moving with Nick toward the side door, where a city cop waited to escort him back to jail. "He's obviously too biased to hear the case. However, there's nothing I can do about Pritchett. That man wants your head on a pike, my boy. You made him look bad with that unfortunate evidentiary matter the other day. That's a felony in Smith Pritchett's book. Can you make bail?"

"Hell, Wily, I can barely pay you. I might get ten thousand if I hock everything I own," Nick said absently, his attention suddenly on the gallery.

Donnie Bichon had risen from his seat and came forward, lifting a hand tentatively, like an uncertain schoolboy trying to attract the teacher's attention. He was a handsome kid-thirty-six going on twenty-with a short nose and ears that stuck out just enough to make him perpetually boyish. He had played third-string forward at Tulane and had a tendency to walk with his shoulders slightly hunched, as if he were ready to drive to the basket at any second. Everyone on the business side of the bar stopped what they were doing to look at him.

"Your Honor? May I approach the bench?" Monahan glared at him. "Who are you, sir?" "Donnie Bichon, Your Honor. I'd like to pay Detective Fourcade's bail."

Construction business must be doing better than I thought," Nick said, moving around Donnie Bichon's office, rolling a toothpick between his teeth.

He had allowed the drama in the courtroom to unfold, not because he wanted Bichon's money, but because he wanted to know the motive behind the magnanimous gesture.

The press had gone wild. Headline frenzy. Monahan had ordered the courtroom cleared. Smith Pritchett had stormed from the room in a fit of temper at having his thunder stolen. After Donnie paid the clerk, they had all run the media gauntlet out of the courthouse and down the steps. Deja vu all over again.