Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

The expression on Stokes's face softened and he laughed to himself. He looked out toward the bayou and beyond, where the storm was an eerie glow inside black clouds.

"Man, Nicky," he whispered, shaking his head. "You are one crazy motherfucker. Who the hell is Duval Marcotte?"

"Truth, Chaz," Nick said. "Truth, or this time I walk away with your cock in my pocket."

"Never heard of him," Stokes murmured. "If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'."

Annie's eyes crossed and her head bobbed. The autopsy report blurred and came back into focus. She rubbed a hand over her face, swept the straggling tendrils of hair behind her ears, and consulted her watch. Fourcade had no clocks. Fourcade was one with time, she supposed-or he didn't believe in the concept of time, or God knew what philosophy he embraced regarding the subject. It was after midnight.

She had been sitting at the big table in his study four hours. Fourcade had not made an appearance. He had entrusted her with a key to the house and ordered her to study everything he had on the case. She asked if there would be a quiz. He wasn't amused.

Where he was, was anyone's guess. Annie told herself she was grateful for his absence. And still she kind of missed his blunt interrogation, his complex insights, and odd mystic philosophies.

"My Lord, you must be getting desperate for friends, girl," she muttered at the thought.

It was probably true. She'd been shut out at work, cut off from A.J. by necessity. People she didn't even know were insulting her on her answering machine. She was a social creature-by necessity, she sometimes thought. There was a small sense of aloneness in her that dated back to childhood, a feeling she had always feared reflected her mother's detachment, and so she sought out the company of others in an attempt to keep the aloneness from growing and swallowing her whole.

She wondered if maybe that was what had happened to Fourcade.

Needing to move, Annie forced herself up from the chair and stretched. She made a circuit of the loft, checking out the bookcases, looking out the dormer windows, wandering into the small corner Fourcade had set aside for sleeping and changing clothes. There were no personal items on the dresser, not even the cast-off miscellany from pockets. Though the temptation was certainly there, she made no move to open a drawer. She would never have invaded someone's privacy without a warrant. Besides, she knew without looking that every sock, every T-shirt, would be folded neatly and arranged in an orderly manner. The bed was made military-style, the covers tight enough to bounce quarters on.

She wondered what he looked like sleeping. Did he attack sleep with the same ferocious focus as he attacked everything else in his life? Or did unconsciousness soften the hard edges?

"Thinking of spending the night, chère?"

Annie spun around at the sound of his voice. Fourcade stood well inside the room, hands on his hips, one leg cocked. She hadn't heard so much as the creak of a hinge or a step on the stairs.

"Don't you know better than to sneak up on a woman when there's a rapist out running around loose?" she demanded. "I could have shot you."

He discounted the possibility without comment.

"I was just stretching my legs," she said, walking away from the bed, not wanting him to imagine she had been thinking about him in it. "Where've you been? Renard's?"

"Why would I go there?" he said, his tone flat.

"Let's put that past tense," Annie suggested. "Why did you go there? My God, what were you thinking? He could have had you thrown back in jail."

"How's that? You weren't on duty."

Annie shook her head. "Don't pull that attitude with me, thinking I'll back off You already know I'm not repentant for running you in, other than that it's made my life a living hell. You must have come here straight from his house last night and you didn't say a word to me."

"There was nothing to say. I was out in the boat. I ended up in the neighborhood. I didn't cross the property line. I didn't touch him. I didn't threaten him. In fact, he approached me."

"And you didn't think any of this would be of interest to me, partner?"

"The encounter was irrelevant," he said, moving away, dismissing Annie and her argument. She wanted to kick him.

"It's relevant in that you didn't share it with me." She pursued him to the long table where she had been studying. "If we're partners, we're partners. There's an expectation of trust, and you've already managed to break it."

He sighed heavily. "All right. Point taken. I should have told you. Can we move on?"

It was on the tip of Annie's tongue to demand an apology, but she knew Fourcade would somehow make her feel like a fool in the end.

He had turned his attention to the papers on the table. He picked up the discarded wrapper of a Butterfinger from among the files, frowned at it, and tossed it in the trash. "What'd you learn tonight, 'Toinette?"

"That I probably need reading glasses, but I'm too vain to go to the eye doctor," Annie said dryly.

He looked at her sideways.

"Joke," she stated. "A wry remark intended to lighten the moment."

He turned back to the statements and lab reports.

She sighed and rubbed the small of her back with both hands. "I learned that no fewer than a dozen people swore to Donnie's level of intoxication the night of the murder- some of them friends of his, some not. Doesn't necessarily let him off the hook.

"I learned there was no semen found during the autopsy. The mutilation made it difficult to find out if she'd been raped, but then again, it just may not have been there. That makes me nervous."

"Why is that?"

"This jerk running around out there now. I responded to the first call-Jennifer Nolan. No semen and the guy was wearing a Mardi Gras mask. Pam Bichon: no semen and a Mardi Gras mask left behind."

"Copycat," Fourcade said. "The mask was common knowledge."

"And he also knew not to come?"

"There's a certain rate of dysfunction among rapists. Maybe he couldn't come. Maybe he used a rubber. The cases are unrelated."

"That's what I like about you, Nick," Annie said sarcastically. "You're so open-minded."

"Don't become distracted by irrelevant external incidents."

"Irrelevant? How is a serial rapist not relevant?"

"From what I've heard, there are more differences than similarities in the cases. One's a killer, one's a rapist. The rape victims were tied up. Pam was nailed down-thank Christ we managed to keep that out of the papers. The rape victims were attacked in their homes, Pam was not. Pam Bichon was stalked, harassed. Were the others? It's simple, sugar: Marcus Renard killed Pam Bichon, and someone else raped these women. You better make up your mind 'bout which is your focus."

"My focus is the truth," Annie said. "It's not my job to draw conclusions-or yours, Detective."

"You saw Renard today," he said, dismissing her argument and her point once again.

Annie gritted her teeth in frustration. "Yes. He left a message on my answering machine last night, asking for my assistance in dealing with your little chance encounter. It seems the deputy who answered the call yesterday was unsympathetic."

"Where's the tape?"

She dug the cassette recorder out of her purse, turned the volume up, and set the machine on the table. Fourcade stared down at the plastic rectangle as if he could see Renard in it. He seemed to listen without breathing or blinking. When it was done, he nodded and turned toward her.

"Impressions?"

"He's convinced himself he's innocent."

"Persecution complex. Nothing is his fault. Everybody's picking on him."

"He's also convinced himself I'm his friend."

"Good. That's what we want."

"That's what you want," she muttered behind his back. "As a family they'd make great characters on The Twilight Zone."