Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

He had taken a hard left turn on her once again. From raving maniac to philosopher in a span of moments.

"You pled not guilty," she said. "But you admit that you are."

"Nothing is simple, chérie. I go down for a felony, I'm off the job forever. That's not an option."

"The resistance of a being against interference to its natural state."

He smiled unexpectedly, fleetingly, and for a heartbeat was extraordinarily handsome. "You're a good student, chère."

"Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Call me chère, like you're a hundred years old."

The smile this time was sad, wry. He came to her slowly and lifted her chin with his hand. "Because I am, jeune fille, in ways that you will never be."

He was too close, bending down so that she could see every year, every burden in those eyes. His thumb brushed across her lower lip. Unnerved, she turned her face away.

"So what's your beef with Duval Marcotte?" she asked, sliding out of the chair, walking toward the other end of the table.

"It's personal," he said, taking her seat.

"You were quick enough to throw it out a while ago."

"When I thought you might be involved."

"So I've been absolved of guilt?"

"For the moment." His attention caught on the papers spread out across the table. "What's all this?"

"My notes on the Bichon homicide." Slowly, she moved back toward him. "Why do you think Marcotte might be involved? Is there some kind of connection to Bayou Real Estate?"

"There hasn't been to this point. It all seemed very straightforward," Nick said as he took a quick inventory of what she had compiled. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I care about what happens. I want to see her killer punished, legally. I believed he would be-until Wednesday. As much as it pains me to admit this at the moment, I had faith in your abilities. Now, with Stokes in charge of the investigation, and attention being diverted elsewhere, I'm not so sure Pam will get justice."

"You don't trust Stokes?"

"He likes things to be easy. I don't know if he has the talent to clear this case. I don't know if he would apply it if he did have it. Now you're telling me you think he set you up. Why would he do that?"

"Money. The great motivator."

"And who involved with the case would want to see you go down besides Renard and Kudrow?"

He didn't answer, but the name had taken root in his mind like a noxious weed. Duval Marcotte. The man who had ruined him.

Annie moved toward the counter. "I need some coffee," she said, as calmly as if this man hadn't burst into her home and held a gun to her head. But her hands were trembling as she turned on the faucet. Breath held deep in her lungs, she reached for the tin coffee canister on the counter and carefully peeled the lid off. She flinched when Fourcade spoke again.

"So what you gonna do, 'Toinette?"

"What do you mean?"

"You want to see justice done, but you don't trust Stokes to do it. I go within spitting distance of Renard, I get tossed back in the can. So what you gonna do? You gonna see 'bout getting some justice?"

"What can I do?" she asked. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple. "I'm just a deputy. They don't even let me talk on the radio these days."

"You already been working the case on your own."

"Following the case."

"You wanted in on it. Bad enough to ask me. You wanna be a detective, chère. Show some initiative. You already got a knack for sticking your pretty nose in where it don't belong. Be bold."

"Is this bold enough for you?" She turned with a five-inch-long, nine-millimeter Kurz Back-Up in hand, chambered a round with quick precision, and pointed it dead at Fourcade's chest.

"I keep this little sweetheart in the coffee tin. A trick I learned from The Rockford Files. Call my bluff if you want, Fourcade. No one will be too surprised to hear I shot you dead when you broke into my house."

She expected anger, annoyance at the very least. She didn't expect him to laugh out loud.

"Way to go, 'Toinette! Good girl! This is just the kinda thing I'm talking 'bout. Initiative. Creativity. Nerve." He rose from his chair and moved toward her. "You got a lotta sass."

"Yeah, and I'm about to hit you in the chest with a load of it. Stand right there."

For once, he listened, assuming a casual stance two feet in front of the gun barrel, one leg cocked, hands settled at the waist of his faded jeans. "You're pissed at me. "

"That would be an understatement. Everybody in the department is treating me like a leper because of you. You broke the law and I'm getting punished for it. Then you come into my house and-and terrorize me. Pissed doesn't begin to cover it."

"You're gonna have to get over it if you're gonna work with me," he said bluntly.

"Work with you? I don't even want to be in the same room with you!"

"Ah, that…"

He moved quickly, knocking her gun hand to the side and up. The Kurz spat a round into the ceiling, and plaster dust rained down. In seconds Fourcade had the gun out of her hand and had her drawn up hard against him with one arm pulled up behind her back.

"… that would be untrue," he finished.

He let her go abruptly and went back to the table, scanning her papers on the case. "I can help you, 'Toinette. We want the same end, you and I. "

"Ten minutes ago you thought I was part of a conspiracy against you."

He still didn't know that she wasn't, he reminded himself. But she wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of building a casebook on Pam Bichon's murder if she wasn't truly interested in seeing it solved.

"I want the case cleared," he said. "Marcus Renard belongs in hell. If you want to make that happen, if you want justice for Pam Bichon and her daughter, you'll come to me. I've got ten times what you've got lying here on this table- statements, complaints, photographs, lab reports, duplicates of everything that's on file at the sheriff's department."

This was what she had wanted, Annie thought: To work with Fourcade, to have access to the case, to try-for Josie's sake and to silence the phantom screams in her own mind. But Fourcade was too volatile, too wired, too unpredictable. He was a criminal, and she was the one who had run him in.

"Why me?" she asked. "You should hate me more than the rest of them do."

"Only if you sold me out."

"I didn't, but-"

"Then I can't hate you," he said simply. "If you didn't sell me out, then you acted on your principles and damned the consequences. I can't hate you for that. For that, I would respect you."

"You're a very strange man, Fourcade."

He touched a hand to his chest. "Me, I'm one of a kind, 'Toinette. Ain'tcha glad?"

Annie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Fourcade laid her weapon on the table and came toward her, serious again.

"I don't wanna let go of this case," he said. "I want Renard to go down for what he did. If I can't trust Stokes, then I can't work through him. That leaves you. You said you felt an obligation to Pam Bichon. You want to meet that obligation, you'll come to me. Until then…"

He started to lower his head. Annie's breath caught. Anticipation tightened her muscles. Her lips parted slightly, as if she meant to tell him no. Then he touched two fingers to his forehead in salute, turned, and walked out of her apartment and into the night.

"Holy shit," she whispered.

She stood there as the minutes ticked past. Finally she went out onto the landing, but Fourcade was gone. No tail lights, no fading purr of a truck engine. The only sounds were the night sounds of the swamp: the occasional call of nocturnal prey and predator, the slap of something that broke the surface of the water and dived beneath once more.