Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

Nick had jumped into Wily's money green Infiniti and they had driven clear to New Iberia to shake the tail of reporters behind them. By the time they doubled back to Bayou Breaux on country roads, the press had gone off to write their stories. Nick had Wily drop him off at the house, where he grabbed the keys to his truck and left, skipping the shower and change of clothes he needed badly. He needed other things more. Answers.

The office gave the impression that Bichon Bayou Development was a solid company-sturdy oak furnishings, masculine colors, a small fortune in wildlife prints on the walls. Nick's investigation had told a different tale. Donnie had built the company on the back of Bayou Realty, Pam's business, and pissed away his opportunities to put it on solid financial ground. According to one source, the divorce would have cleanly severed the attachment between BBD and Pam's company, and Donnie would have been left to get business sense or die.

Nick traced a fingertip over the graceful line of a hand-carved wooden mallard coming in for a landing on the credenza. "When I checked your company out, looked to me like you were in hock up to your ass, Donnie. You nearly went belly-up eighteen months ago. You hid land in Pam's company to keep from losing it. How is it you can write a check for a hundred thousand dollars?"

Donnie laughed as he dropped into the oxblood leather chair behind his desk. He had opened his collar and rolled up the sleeves of his pin-striped shirt. The young businessman at work.

"You're an ungrateful bastard, Fourcade," he said, caught somewhere between amusement and irritation. "I just bailed your ass out of jail and you don't like the smell of my money? Fuck you."

"I believe I thanked you already. You paid for my release, Donnie, you didn't buy me."

Donnie broke eye contact and straightened a stack of papers on his desk. "The company's worth a lot on paper. Assets, you know. Land, equipment, houses built on spec. Bankers love assets more than cash. I have a nice line of credit."

"Why'd you do it?"

"You're kidding, right? After what Renard did to Pam? And ol' Hunter and you are sitting in jail and he's out walking around? That's crazy. The courts are a goddamn circus nowadays. It's time somebody did the right thing."

"Like kill Renard?"

"In my dreams. Perverted little prick. He's the criminal, not you. That was my statement. That deputy that hauled you in should have just minded her own damn business, let nature take its own course and finish this thing. Besides, I'm told I'm not out anything, unless you decide to skip town."

"Why cash?" Nick asked. "You pay a bail bondsman only ten percent for the bond."

And get a fraction of the publicity, he thought. Donnie crossing the bar to write out a huge check had been a climactic moment. It hadn't been Donnie's first taste of the spotlight.

He had been right there soaking it up from the day Pam's body had been discovered. He had immediately offered a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest. He had cried like a baby at the funeral. Every newspaper in Louisiana had printed the close-up of Donnie with his face in his hands.

In the outer office, the telephone was ringing off the hook. Reporters looking for comments and interviews most likely. Every story that ran was free advertising for Bichon Bayou Development.

Donnie glanced away again. "I wouldn't know anything about that. I never bailed anybody out of jail before. Christ, will you sit down? You're making me nervous."

Nick ignored the request. He needed to move, and having Donnie nervous wasn't an altogether bad thing.

"Will you be able to go back to work on the case?"

"When hell freezes over. I'm on suspension. My involvement would taint the case because of my obvious bias against the chief suspect. At least, that's what a judge would say. I'm out, officially."

"Then I'd better hope you have something else to keep you in Partout Parish, hadn't I? I sure as hell can't afford to lose a hundred grand."

"Some folks would say you can afford to lose it now more than you could have when your wife was alive," Nick said.

Donnie's face went tight. "We've been down that road before, Detective, and I mightily resent you going down it again."

"You know it's been a two-pronged investigation all along, Donnie. That's standard op. You bailing me outta jail won't change that."

"You know where you can stick your two prongs, Fourcade."

Shrugging, Nick went on. "Me, I've had a lotta time on my hands in the last twenty-four hours. Time to let my mind wander, let it all turn over and over. It just seems… fortuitous… that Pam was killed before the divorce went through. Once the insurance company coughs up and you sell off Pam's half of the real estate company, you won't need that line of credit."

Donnie surged to his feet. "That's it, Fourcade! Get outta my office! I did you a good turn, and you come in here and abuse me! I should have left you to rot in jail! I didn't kill Pam. I couldn't possibly. I loved her."

Nick made no move to leave. He pulled the toothpick from his mouth and held it like a cigarette. "You had a funny way of showing it, Tulane: chasing anything in a skirt."

"I've made mistakes," Donnie admitted angrily. "Maturity was never my strong suit. But I did love Pam, and I do love my daughter. I could never do anything to hurt Josie."

The very thought seemed to distress him. He turned away from the school portrait of his daughter that sat on a corner of his desk.

"Is she living with you yet?" Nick asked quietly.

There had been rumors of a custody battle brewing within the divorce war. Something that seemed more like petty meanness on Donnie's part than genuine concern for his daughter's well-being. As in countless divorce cases, the child became a tool, a possession to be bickered over. Donnie liked his freedom too well for full-time fatherhood. Visitation would suit his lifestyle better than custody.

Nick had long ago discounted Josie as a motive for murder. It was the money angle that bothered him, and the land Donnie had hidden in Bayou Realty's assets. Even when he swore up and down Renard was their boy, the money issue kept tugging at him. It was a loose thread and he couldn't simply let a loose thread dangle. He would worry at it until it could be tied off one way or another. If it meant looking his gift horse in the mouth, then so be it. Donnie had decided on his own to bail him out. Nick felt no obligation.

"She's with Belle and Hunter," Donnie said. "Belle thought they could provide a more stable environment for the time being. Then Hunter goes off with a gun and tries to commit murder in broad daylight. Some stability. Of course, the press is making him out to be a celebrity. If he doesn't go to prison, they'll probably make a movie about him."

The fight had run out of him. His shoulders slumped and he suddenly seemed older.

"Why are you dredging all this up again? You still believe Renard did it. I mean, I know some people are saying things after that rape the other night-all that Bayou Strangler bullshit and whatnot. But that's got nothing to do with this. You're the one found Pam's ring in Renard's house. You're the one put him in the hospital. Why are you dogging my ass? I'm the best friend you had today."

"Habit," Nick replied. "Me, I tend to be suspicious by nature."

"No shit. Well, I'm not guilty."

"Ever'body's guilty of something."

Donnie shook his head. "You need help, Fourcade. You're clinically paranoid."

A sardonic smile curved Nick's mouth as he tossed his toothpick in the trash and turned for the door. "C'est vrai . That's true enough. Lucky for me, I'm one of the few people who can make a living off it."

Nick left Bichon Bayou Development through the back door, made his way down two alleys, and cut across the backyard of a house where a teenage girl in a yellow bikini was stretched out on a shiny metallic blanket trying to absorb ultraviolet rays. With headphones and sun goggles, she was oblivious to his passing.