Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

"No," Grace said with a measure of relief. "No change. That was what they just told me. Oh, my." She patted her chest. "You frightened me."

"I'm sorry," Annie said as she helped herself to the chair beside the desk. "I was surprised to see the office open."

"Well, I didn't find out what had happened until nearly noon. Of course, I was concerned when Lindsay didn't show up at her usual time, but I assumed she had made an impromptu meeting with a client. We do that, don't we? Rationalize. Even after Pam-"

She broke off and pressed a hand to her mouth as tears washed over her eyes. "I can't believe this is happening," she whispered. "I tried calling her on her cellular phone. I tried the house. Finally I went out there, and there were deputies and that yellow tape across the door."

She shook her head, at a loss for words. For an ordinary person, stumbling onto a crime scene had to be like stepping into an alternate reality.

"I kept the office open because I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't bear the thought of sitting at home, waiting, or sitting in that horrible waiting room at the hospital. The phone was ringing and ringing. There were appointments to cancel, and I had to call Lindsay's family… I just felt I should stay."

"You've known Lindsay a long time?"

"I knew Pam her whole life. Her mother is my second cousin once removed on the Chandler side. I've known Lindsay since the girls were in college. Dear, both of them, absolutely dear girls. They all but took me in after my husband passed away last year. They said I needed something to do with my time besides grieve, and they were right." She made a motion to the books spread open across her desk. "I'm studying to get my license. I've been thinking about trying to buy Pam's share of the business from Donnie."

She turned her face away and took a moment to compose herself, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a linen hankie.

"I'm sorry, Deputy," she apologized. "I'm rambling on. What can I do for you? Are you working on the case?"

"In a manner of speaking," Annie said. "I'm the one who found Lindsay this morning. She had left a message on my machine last night saying that she had something to tell me in relation to Pam's case. I was wondering if she might have told you what it was."

"Oh. Oh, no, I'm afraid not. It was hectic here yesterday. Lindsay had several appointments in the morning. Then Donnie showed up unannounced, and they had a bit of a row over the business dealings and all. They never did get along, you know. Then the new listings arrived. I had an obligation in the afternoon at my grandson's school. He's in second grade at Sacred Heart. It was law enforcement day, oddly enough. McGruff the Crime Dog came with an officer. The grandparents were invited to attend."

"I hear that's very popular," Annie said flatly.

"I found it rather strange, to be perfectly frank. Anyway, Lindsay and I never had a chance to talk. I know she had something on her mind, but I assumed she told the detective. You may want to ask him."

"The-" The words caught in Annie's throat. "Who? Which detective?"

"Detective Stokes," Grace Irvine said. "She saw him over the lunch hour."

Mouton's was the kind of place few men entered without a gun or a knife. Squatting on stilts on the bank of Bayou Noir south of Luck, it was the hangout of poachers and thieves and others living on the ragged hem of society. People looking for trouble looked at Mouton's, where just about anything could be had for the right price and no one asked any questions.

It was the latter truth that appealed to Nick on a Tuesday afternoon. He was in no mood for the Voodoo Lounge, wanted no one patting his back or expressing their useless sympathy for his situation. He wanted whiskey, settled for a beer, and waited for Stokes to show.

He had dragged himself out of bed at noon and forced himself through the Tai Chi forms, meditating on the movement of each aching muscle, trying to force the pain out with the power of his mind. The process had been excruciating and exhausting, but his sense of being was clearer for it.

His mind was sharp, his nerves coiled tight as springs, as he nursed his beer, his back to a corner.

A couple of bikers were playing pool across the room with a barfly hooker hovering around them in a short skirt and push-up bra. Nearer, a pair of swamp rats sat at a table, trading stories and drinking Jax. John Lee Hooker was moaning on the juke, black delta blues in a redneck bar. There was an illegal card game going on in the back room, and horse racing on the color television mounted over the bar. The bartender looked like Paul Prudhomme's evil twin. He watched Nick with suspicion.

Nick took a slow pull on his beer and wondered if the guy had made him for a cop or for trouble. He knew he looked like the kind of trouble no one wanted on his doorstep, his face cut and bruised, the butt of the Ruger peeking out of his open jacket. He had left his mirrored sunglasses on, despite the gloom of the bar.

One of the swampers scraped his chair back and rose, scratching at the giant middle finger screened on the front of his black T-shirt. A filthy red ball cap was stuck down on his head, the brim bent into an inverted U to frame a pair of eyes too small for a bony face. Nick watched him approach, sitting forward a little on his chair, ready to move. If nothing else, the beating at the hands of DiMonti's thugs had knocked the rust off his survival instincts.

"My buddy and me, we got a bet," the swamper said, weaving a little on his feet. "I say you're that cop what beat the shit outta that killer, Renard."

Nick said nothing, pulled a long drag on his cigarette, and exhaled through his nose.

"You are, ain't you? I seen you on TV. Let me shake your hand, man." He stepped in close and popped Nick on the arm with his fist like an old buddy, as if seeing him on the news had somehow forged a bond between them. "You're a fuckin' hero!"

"You're mistaken," Nick said calmly.

"No way. You're him. Come on, man, shake my hand. I got ten bucks on it." He cuffed Nick's arm again and flashed a bad set of teeth. "I say they shoulda let you put that asshole's lights out in a permanent way. Li'l bayou justice. Save the taxpayers some money, right?"

He moved to make another friendly punch. Nick caught his fist and came up out of the chair, twisting the man's arm in a way that turned the swamper's face into the rough plank wall.

"I don't like people touching me," he said softly, his mouth inches from his erstwhile friend's ear. "Me, I don't believe in casual intimacy between strangers, and that's what we are-strangers. I am not your friend and I sure as hell am nobody's hero. See the mistake you've made here?"

The swamp rat tried to nod, rubbing his mashed cheek against the wall. "Hey-hey, I'm sorry, all right? No offense," he mumbled out the side of his mouth, spittle running down his chin.

"But you see, I've already taken offense, which is why I've always found apologies to be ineffectual and the products of false logic."

Out of the corner of his eye Nick could see the bartender watching, one hand reaching down under the bar. The screen door slammed, the sound as sharp as gunfire. The swamp rat's buddy shot up from his chair, but he made no move to come any closer.

"Now you have to ask yourself," Nick murmured, "do you want your friend's ten dollars only to put it toward your doctor bills, or would you rather walk away a poorer but wiser man?"

"Jesus H., Nicky." Stokes's voice came across the room, punctuated by the sound of his footfalls on the plank floor. "I can't leave you alone ten minutes. You keep this up, you're gonna need a license to walk around in public."

He came up alongside Nick, shaking his head. "What'd he do? Touch you? Did you touch him?" he asked the swamp rat. "Man, what were you thinking? Don't cross that line. The last guy that touched him is sucking his dinner through a straw."