Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

He took another spoon of gumbo and sipped it between his teeth.

"Are you gonna try to tell me you think Pam's partner killed her? In a jealous lesbian rage?"

"No. I don't know who killed her. I wish I did."

"Then what's your point?"

"That Lindsay dislikes me. She wants to blame someone for Pam's death. She's chosen me. "

"Everyone has chosen you, Mr. Renard. You are the primary suspect."

"Convenient suspect," he corrected her. "Because I liked Pam. Because people think of me as a stranger here-they forget I was born here, lived here as a boy. They find it strange that I'm single and live with my mother and a brother who frightens people with his autism."

"Because Pam believed you were stalking her," Annie countered. "Because you hung around her even after she told you to get lost. Because you had motive, means, opportunity, and no viable alibi for the night of the murder."

"I was in Lafayette -"

"Going to a store that had already closed by the time you got to the Acadiana Mall. Bad luck, that. If the store had been open, you might have witnesses to corroborate your story."

He looked at her steadily, and his voice was even when he spoke. "I went there for supplies, not an alibi."

"You can spare me the story," Annie said. "I've memorized the time line. At five-forty Lindsay Faulkner left the office and noted that your car was still in the parking lot. Pam was meeting with clients to write up an offer on a house. At eight-ten you stopped at Hebert's Hobby Shop and purchased a number of items, among them blades for an X-Acto knife."

"A common tool for dollhouse builders."

"Pam's clients left her office at eight-twenty. They were the last people to see Pam alive-with the exception of her killer. Meanwhile, Hebert's didn't have everything you needed-"

"French doors for my current project."

"So you drove to Acadiana Mall in Lafayette, intending to visit the hobby store there, but it was closed," she pressed on. "And on your way back you claim you developed car trouble-origin unknown-and sat along a back road for two hours before you got going again with the aid of an anonymous Good Samaritan no one has been able to track down in the three months since. You say you got home around midnight, but you have no one to confirm that because your mother was gone to Bogalusa to visit her sister. That's your story."

"It's the truth."

"Meanwhile, the medical examiner in Lafayette puts Pam's death around midnight, give or take, just a few miles from your home."

"I didn't kill her."

"You were obsessed with her."

"I was infatuated," he admitted, rising slowly from his chair. He went to a small refrigerator tucked into the lower cupboards and withdrew two bottles of iced tea. "I wish she could have returned my feelings, but she didn't and I accepted that."

He set the bottles on the table, pushing one in Annie's direction.

"Her husband had a far more compelling obsession than I." He eased back into his chair, picked up a paper napkin, and dabbed at the spittle that had collected in the corners of his wired mouth as he struggled with speech. "He didn't want to let her go. I think she was afraid of him. She told me she didn't dare see other men until the divorce was final."

A convenient story to put off a man, Annie thought, though she couldn't dismiss the possibility it was true. It was common knowledge Donnie hadn't wanted the divorce. Lindsay Faulkner confessed to thinking Donnie had been the one harassing Pam. Rumors of a fight over Josie had been whispered around, though it seemed Donnie had no ground to stand on in that arena. He had been the cheat in the marriage. Pam had done nothing to threaten her standing as custodial parent.

"But then," Renard murmured, staring down into his tea, "maybe that was just an excuse. I think she was seeing someone for a short time."

"Why would you think that?"

He couldn't answer her. The only way he would know was if he had watched her, followed her. He wouldn't admit to that, couldn't admit to it. The stalking was the basis for the whole case against him. If he admitted to stalking Pam Bichon, and if in that admission he revealed he had seen her with another man, that only added to his motive to kill her. Jealousy. She had spurned him for another.

Annie got up from the table. "I've heard enough, thank you. Pam was tortured and murdered by her estranged husband, her secret lesbian partner, and/or a mystery lover you can't name or identify. Couldn't have been you that killed her. You're a victim of a malicious conspiracy. Never mind that you had motive, means, opportunity, and a crappy alibi. Never mind that the detectives found Pam's stolen ring in your house."

Renard rose, too, and limped along beside her as she moved toward the door. "There is more than one kind of obsession," he said. "Fourcade is obsessed with this case. He planted that ring. He's done that kind of thing before. He has a history.

"I have no history. I've never hurt anyone. I'd never been arrested before this."

"Maybe that just means you're good at it," Annie said.

"I didn't do it."

"Why should I believe you? More to the point: Why are you so bent on convincing me? You're a free man. The DA's got nothing on you."

"For now. How long before Fourcade or Stokes manufactures something else? I'm an innocent man. My reputation has been ruined. They won't be satisfied until they have my life one way or another. Someone has to find the truth, Annie, and so far, you're the only one looking."

"I'm looking," she said in a cool voice. "I don't guarantee you're gonna like what I find."

Marcus held the door for her and watched as she descended the stairs and walked out of the building. She moved in a way that seemed unselfconscious, fresh. Freer than Pam in her physicality, in her gestures. Pam's free-spirit soul sister. He found comfort in the thought. Continuity.

He had pinned his heart on Pam, but Annie would set him free. He was sure of it.

The Bayou Realty office was closed and locked when Annie went around to the front of the building. Too bad. She wanted to see the look on Lindsay Faulkner's face when she told her Marcus Renard had her pegged for a lesbian.

Of course, there was the chance that it was true. Annie knew little about her. No one had ever looked that closely at Faulkner, as far as Annie knew. There had been no reason. With the business set up as it was at the time of Pam's death, Faulkner had no financial motive to kill her, and no other motive would have been considered. Women didn't kill other women in the manner Pam Bichon had died.

Annie crossed the street to the Jeep and glanced up at the building as she turned the key in the ignition. Renard was standing at a second-story window, looking out at her.

He swore he was innocent, that he loved Pam. He wanted Annie to find the truth.

Find the truth or muddy the waters? she wondered. She had just stepped into the investigation and already there were factors to consider she hadn't seen before. Fourcade had been down these twisted trails already. His offer hung in her mind like a seductive promise, something she should resist. Turning away from Renard, she put the Jeep in gear and headed across town.

Donnie surveyed the scene from the seat of a backhoe, a bottle of Abita beer in hand. The Mardi Gras parade float taking shape before him was for Josie. She had talked him into it, those big brown eyes bright with excitement. Unable to deny her anything, he had organized a crew from the staff of Bichon Bayou Development and set them to work. He had envisioned Josie spending hours here with him as the flatbed became a crepe-paper, fairy-tale kingdom, but Belle Davidson had taken her to Lake Charles for the day "to get away from the atmosphere" in Bayou Breaux.