Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

Myron gave her the skunk eye and went back to his desk.

Annie let his presence fade from mind as she concentrated on the facts of Lindsay Faulkner's attack. She was tempted to think this attacker was a copycat of their rapist, who was a copycat of sorts of Pam Bichon's killer, someone who had taken advantage of the first two rapes to silence Faulkner for his own reasons. Perhaps it had been his intent to murder her. He may well have believed she was dead when he left her.

But if that was the case, then who was this copycat? Renard would seem to be free from suspicion. Debilitated by the pounding Fourcade had given him, he couldn't have had the strength or the mobility to attack a strong, healthy woman like Lindsay. If not Renard, then who? Donnie? It was no secret he disliked Lindsay. If she was standing in the way of a deal for the real estate company…

Could he kill her? Make it look like rape? If it was Donnie, then did that mean he was involved in Pam's murder? If he had murdered Pam, killing Lindsay would have been easy by comparison.

The fragment of black feather was the sticking point for the copycat theory. That feather had been no plant left to implicate someone else. It appeared to be just the opposite, in fact. Something left behind by accident, hidden by his victim's unconscious body. Their boy had certainly left nothing else behind to incriminate himself.

Then again, the feather may not have come from a mask. It could have been part of a cat toy. It could have been tracked in by a visitor. They wouldn't know whether or not they had a match to the feather in the Nolan case until they heard back from the lab in New Iberia.

"Hey, Myron, what'd you do to deserve this, man?" Stokes asked, snickering as he set the rape kit on the counter. "Who sicced the crime dog after you?"

Annie gladly abandoned her filing and went to the counter. "Yeah, Chaz, we all got that joke the first ten times you made it. Is this Faulkner's? It took you long enough."

"Hey, it takes how long it takes, you know what I'm sayin'. The doctors had to get her stabilized. Don't matter nohow. We got nothing from it. There was nothing under her nails. There's not gonna be anything on the swabs, and pubic hair all looks alike to me. This joker's good."

"He sure seems to know what we'll look for," Annie said. "I'll bet he's got a record. Have you checked with the state for known offenders? Run the MO past NCIC?"

Stokes switched his attitude up a notch. "I don't need you to tell me how to run an investigation, Broussard."

"I believe my remark was in the form of a question, Detective," she said with stinging sweetness. "I know how swamped you are dealing with these rapes and the Bichon homicide, and what all. I might have offered to make those calls for you."

Myron moved his head like an outraged banty rooster. "That ain't your job!"

Annie shrugged. "Just trying to be helpful."

"Just trying to stick your nose in where it don't belong," Stokes muttered. "I told you before, Broussard, I don't need your kind of help. You stay the hell away from my cases."

He turned to Myron. "I need to get this stuff logged in and back out again. I'm taking it down to New Iberia myself, personally, so they can rush it through the lab and tell me I ain't got squat, just like I ain't got squat on those two other rapes."

"Who's working them besides you?" Annie asked.

He glanced at her from under the brim of his fedora. "I don't need this shit from you. These are my cases. Quinlan's helping with the background checks on the other two women-who they worked with and like that. Is that acceptable to you, Deputy?"

Annie raised her hands in surrender.

"I mean, I know you don't think I'm acceptable," he went on with an edge in his voice. "But hey, who's in plain clothes here and who's going around town in a goddamn dog suit?"

Myron looked up from the paperwork to glare at her, clearly unhappy with her for bringing the stigma of the dog suit into his realm.

Coming down the hall, Mullen let out a hound-dog howl. Annie tried not to grind her teeth.

"I always said you should be wearing a flea collar, Mullen," she said, moving down the counter away from Stokes and Myron.

"You're moving down in the world, Broussard," he said with glee as he set a plastic pee-cup on the counter, full to the lid with some drunk's donation to forensic science. "Take a bite outta crime lately? You can wash it down with this."

Annie yawned as she pulled out an evidence card and began to fill it out. "Wake me up when you have something original to say. Does this urine belong to someone, or did you bring me this to impress me with your aim?"

Thwarted again, he momentarily stuck to facts. "Ross Leighton. Another five-martini lunch at the Wisteria Club. But you got him beat, don't you, Broussard? Nipping Wild Turkey on the way to work."

The pen stilled on the form. Annie raised her head. "That's a lie and you know it."

Mullen shrugged. "I know what I saw in that Jeep Saturday morning."

"You know what you put in my Jeep Saturday morning."

"I know the sheriff pulled you off patrol and I'm still driving," he said smugly, flashing his ugly yellow teeth. He put his hands on the counter and leaned in, the gleam in his eye as mean as a weasel's. "Just what kind of witness are you gonna make against Fourcade?" he whispered. "I hear you were drinking that night too."

Annie held back her retort. She'd had a drink before dinner at Isabeau's that night. A glass of wine with the meal. The bartender at Laveau's could testify she had been in the bar. Maybe he wouldn't remember whether he'd served her or not. Maybe someone would make it worth his while to lose his memory. She had by no means been intoxicated that night, but Fourcade's lawyer would have a field day insinuating that she may have been. What that would do for his case would be dubious; what it would do for her reputation would be obvious.

She gave a humorless half-laugh. "I gotta say, Mullen, I wouldn't have given you credit for being that smart," she murmured. "I oughta shake your hand."

As she reached out, she backhanded the specimen cup, knocked the lid askew, and sent Ross Leighton's urine spewing down the front of Mullen's pants.

Mullen jumped back like a scalded dog. "You fuckin' bitch!"

"Oh, gee, look," Annie said loudly, snatching the cup off the counter. "Mullen wet his pants!"

Four people down the hall turned to stare. One of the secretaries from the business office stuck her head out the door. Mullen looked at them with horror. "She did it!" he said.

"Well, that'd be a hell of a trick," Annie said. "I'd need a hose attachment. They know what they're looking at, Mullen."

Fury contracted the muscles of his face. His thin lips tightened against his mouth, making his teeth look as big as a horse's. "You'll pay for this, Broussard."

"Yeah? What're you gonna do? Spill another bucket of pig guts down my steps?"

"What? I don't know what you're talking about. You done pickled your brain, Broussard."

Hooker bulled his way through the gawkers. "Mullen, what the fuck are you doing? You pissed yourself?"

"No!"

"Jesus Christ, clean up the mess and go change."

"Don't forget the Depends!" someone called from down the hall.

"Broussard made the mess," Mullen groused, bristling at the laughter. "She ought to clean it up."

Annie shook her head. "That's not my job. The mess is on your side of the counter, Mr. Patrol Deputy. I'm back here on my side of the counter, Myron's lowly assistant."

The clerk looked up from his paperwork with the dignity of a king. "Mr. Myron."

It became quickly apparent to Annie that there were few advantages to working in records and evidence. Her one perk of the day came in the form of a fax from the regional lab in New Iberia: the preliminary results on the tests of the entrails that had been draped down her steps Sunday night. No detective had been assigned to the case, which meant the fax came into the machine in records and evidence to be passed on to the case deputy. By being right there when the message rolled out of the machine, Annie bypassed any contact with Pitre.