Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

Kay had worked the Saturday second shift, thinking all the while that the overtime pay would bring her that much closer to her dream of going into business for herself. She wanted to sell collectible dolls by mail order, and deal with as few men face-to-face as she could.

She double-checked the locks on her doors-front and back-before going into the bathroom. Her work clothes went immediately into a diaper bucket with water, detergent, and bleach to combat the stink of fish. She turned the shower as hot as she could stand it and scrubbed her skin with Yardley lavender soap. The room was thick with steam by the time the hot water ran out.

Kay cracked open the window to cool things off. She dried her curly hair with a threadbare towel, never looking at herself in the mirror above the sink. She couldn't stand looking at the body that had betrayed her time and again throughout her life by attracting the attention of men.

Men were the scourge of the earth. She thought so no less than ten times a day. Thinking it now, she pulled on a shapeless nightshirt, went out of the bathroom and down the hall to her bedroom. She remembered the open bathroom window just as she lay down to sleep, her body aching with fatigue. She couldn't leave it. A rapist was prowling around the parish.

As if Kay had conjured him up from her nightmares, he emerged from the darkness of her closet as she started to rise. A demon in black, faceless, soundless. Terror cut through her like a spear. She screamed once before he struck her hard across the face and knocked her backward onto the bed. Twisting onto her stomach, she tried to pull herself across the mattress. But even as her instincts pushed her to escape, a fatalistic sense of inevitability filled her. The tears that came as he grabbed her by the hair were as much from hatred as from pain. Hate for the man about to rape her, and hate for herself. She wouldn't get away. She never had.

He remembered a woman. Or he had dreamed about a woman. Reality and its opposite floated around in his brain like the stuff in a Lava lamp. He groaned and shifted positions, sprawling on his belly. The rustling of the sheets was magnified to the sound of newspaper crumpling right next to his ear. That was when he remembered the booze-lots of it. He needed to pee.

A hand settled low on his back and a warm breath, stale with the smell of cigarettes, caressed his ear.

"Rise and whine, Donnie. You got some explaining to do."

Fourcade.

Donnie bolted up and turned, twisting the sheet around his hips. He cracked his skull on the headboard and winced as pain bounced around inside his head.

"Jesus! Fuck! What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded. "How'd you get in my house?"

Nick moved away from the bed, taking in the state of Donnie's bachelor habitat. Coming through the kitchen and living room he had surmised that Donnie had a cleaning woman, but not a cook. The kitchen garbage was full of frozen dinner cartons. A decorator had coordinated the town house so that it felt more like a hotel suite than a home. This had been a model to entice prospective buyers into the Quail Court condo development-until the unfortunate demise of Donnie's marital state. He had commandeered the model when he separated from Pam.

"That's nasty language for a Sunday morning, Tulane," Nick said. "What's the matter with you? You got no respect for the Sabbath?"

Donnie gaped at him, bug-eyed. "You're a fucking lunatic! I'm calling the cops."

He snatched the receiver off the phone on the nightstand. Nick stepped over and pressed the plunger down with his forefinger.

"Don't try my patience, Donnie. It ain't what it used to be." He took the receiver away, recradled it, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Me, I wanna know what kind of game you're playing."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"I'm talking about you jerking Lindsay Faulkner's chain, telling her you gonna sell the realty. Telling her you got some big catfish on the hook down in New Orleans. That where you got the money to bail me out, Donnie?"

"No."

" 'Cause that would have a very poetic irony about it: You kill your wife, collect the insurance, sell her business, use the money to bail out the cop that tried to kill the suspect."

Donnie pressed the heels of his hands to his aching eyes. "Jesus, I have told you and told you, I did not kill Pam. You know I didn't."

"You're not wasting any time making a buck off her. Why didn't you tell me Friday about this pending deal?"

"Because it's none of your business. I have to take a piss."

He threw back the covers and climbed out on the other side of the bed. He walked like a man who had fallen out of a moving car and rolled to a hard stop in the gutter. Black silk boxers hung low on his hips. He hadn't managed to take his socks off before succumbing to unconsciousness. They drooped around his ankles. The rest of his clothes lay where he'd dropped them as he'd peeled them off on his way to the bed.

Nick rose lazily and still beat him to the door of the master bath.

"You're dragging it low to the ground this morning, Tulane. Long night?"

"I had a few. I'm sure you can relate. Let me in the bathroom."

"When we're through."

"Fuck. Why'd I ever get hooked up with you?"

"That's what I wanna know," Nick said. "Who's your big money man, Donnie?"

He looked away and blew out a breath. He grimaced at the smell of himself as he inhaled-smoke, sweat, and sex. He wondered vaguely where the woman was. "No one. I bed. It was a bluff. I told that little Cajun gal."

"Uh-huh, and she's going over those phone records we pulled on you, Donnie," he lied. "She's gonna know ever'body you know by the time she's through."

"I thought you were out of this, Fourcade. You're off the case. You're suspended. What do you care who I called or why?"

"I got my reasons."

"You're insane."

"So I hear people say. But, you know, it doesn't matter much to me, true or not. My existence is my perception, my perception is my reality. See how that works, Tulane? So, when I ask are you trying to swing a deal with Duval Marcotte, you need to answer me, because you're right here in my reality right now."

Donnie closed his eyes again and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"We're gonna stand here 'til you wet yourself, Donnie. I want an answer."

"I need cash," he said with resignation. "Lindsay wants to buy out Pam's share of the business. But Lindsay's a ball buster and she'd love nothing more than to screw me out of what she can. I want back the property Pam hid for me and I want every dime I can get out of Lindsay. I made up a little leverage, that's all."

"You think she's stupid?" Nick said. "You think she won't call your bluff?"

"I think she's a bitch and I'm not above doing something just to aggravate her."

"You're just gonna piss her off, Donnie, same as you're pissing me off. You think I'm stupid? I'll find out if what you're telling me is a lie."

"I gotta see if I can withdraw that bail," Donnie muttered up to the ceiling.

Nick patted his cheek as he stepped away from the door. "Sorry, cher. That check's been cashed and the cat is outta the bag. Hope you don't live to regret it."

"I already have," Donnie said, ducking into the bathroom, penis in hand.

Annie turned the Jeep in at the drive to Marcus Renard's home. It was a pretty spot… and a secluded one. She didn't like the second part, but she had made it clear to Renard over the phone that other people knew she was visiting him-a little insurance in case he was toying with the idea of dismembering her. She didn't tell him the person who knew she was coming here was Fourcade.

While she had been with Fourcade last night, forming their uneasy alliance, Renard had been calling her at home, leaving the message that Fourcade had paid him a visit earlier in the day. In calling, Renard had saved her from the job of formulating an excuse to see him.