Tami Hoag - A Thin Dark Line

"You're learning, 'tite fille," he said, wagging a finger at her as he came to stand beside her.

He pulled open one of the doors and breathed deeply of the cool air.

"I went to the house where Pam died," he said, sobering. "And then I went to see how her killer was living.

"Outrage is a voracious beast, you know. It needs to be fueled on a regular basis or eventually it dies out. I don't want it to die out. I want to hold it in my fist like a beating heart. I want to hate him. I want him punished."

"What if he didn't do it?"

"He did. You know he did. I know he did."

"I know he's guilty of something," Annie said. "I know he was obsessed with her. I believe he stalked her. His thought process frightens me-the way he justifies, rationalizes, turns things around. So subtle, so smooth most people would never even notice. I believe he could have killed her. I believe he probably killed her.

"On the other hand, someone tried to kill Lindsay Faulkner the very night she called to tell me something that might be pertinent to the case. And now someone's tried to kill me, and it wasn't Renard."

"Keep the threads separate or you end up with a knot, 'Toinette," Nick said sharply. "One: You got a rapist running around loose. He chose Faulkner because she fit his pattern. Two: You've got a personal enemy in Mullen. He wants to scare you, maybe hurt you a little. Say he follows you over to Renard's and this gets him crazy-you not only turned on one of your own, you're consorting with the enemy. It pushed him over the line."

"Maybe," Annie conceded. "Or maybe I'm making somebody nervous, poking around this case. Maybe Lindsay remembered something about Donnie and those land deals. You're the one who drew the possible connection between Donnie and Marcotte," she reminded him. "You're willing to look at that, but only in how it relates after the murder. Leave yourself open to possibilities, Detective, or you might shut the door on a killer."

"I've considered the possibilities. I still believe Renard killed her."

"Of course you do, because if Renard isn't the killer, then what does that make you? An avenging angel without motive is just a thug. Justice dispensed on an innocent man is injustice. If Renard isn't a criminal, then you are."

The same line of thinking had drawn through Nick's mind as he drove back from New Orleans, aching from the beating DiMonti's goons had given him. What if the focus he had directed at Renard prevented him from seeing other possibilities? What did that make him, indeed?

"Is that what you think of me, Toinette? You think I'm a criminal?"

Annie sighed. "I believe what you did to Renard was wrong. I've always wanted to believe in the rules, but I see them getting bent every day, and sometimes I think it's bad and sometimes I think it's fine-as long as I like the outcome. So what does that make me?"

"Human," he said, staring out at the night. "The rain's stopped."

He went out onto the balcony. Annie followed, bare feet on the cool wet planks. To the north the sky was opaque with storm clouds. To the south, starlight studded the Gulf sky like diamonds.

"What are you gonna do about the Cadillac Man?" Nick asked. "You didn't call it in."

"I have a feeling I'd be wasting my time." Annie swept water off the railing, pushed up the sleeves of her robe, and rested her forearms on the damp wood. "No one in the department wants to rush to my aid these days. I'm not saying they're all against me, but I'd get apathy at best. Besides, I don't have a tag number on the car. I'm not sure about the make. I can't describe the driver.

"I'll file a report in the morning and call around to the body shops myself, see if I can find a big car with half my paint job on the side. I could probably get better odds on the Saints winning the Super Bowl."

"I'll check out Mullen's alibi," Nick offered. "It's time I had a little chat with him, anyhow."

"Thanks."

"I saw Stokes tonight. He says the Faulkner woman is stable but still unconscious."

Annie nodded. "She saw him over lunch yesterday. Did he say anything about that?"

"No."

"Did he say anything about me?"

"That you're a pain in the ass. Same old, same old. Do you think she might have said something to him about you digging around?"

"I don't see why she wouldn't have. When I saw her Sunday, she told me she'd sooner deal with Stokes. She wasn't happy about me saving Renard's hide. So she sees Stokes over lunch, presumably to tell him something about Pam. Then she calls me that night: apologetic, wants to get together."

"Why the change of heart?"

"I don't know. Maybe Stokes didn't think what she had to say was important. But if she did mention me, why didn't he call me on it?" she asked. "I don't get that. This afternoon he told me to stay away from his cases, but why wouldn't he go to the sheriff? He knows I'm already in trouble. He might have a chance of getting me suspended. Why wouldn't he go for it?"

"But if he tells Noblier, that opens a can of worms for him too, sugar," Nick said. "If it looks like he's not working the case hard enough, maybe Gus takes it away from him- especially now that Stokes has the rape task force. He doesn't want to give up the Bichon homicide any more than I did."

"Yeah… I guess that makes sense." She tried to shrug off her uneasiness. "Maybe Lindsay didn't say anything. I guess I won't know 'til she comes around. If she comes around. I hope she comes around. I wish I knew what she wanted to tell me."

The sounds of the night settled around them-wind in the trees, a splash in the water, the staccato quock of a black-crowned night heron out on one of the willow islands. The air was ripe with the smell of green growth and fish and mud.

Odd, Annie thought as she watched Fourcade watch the night, these brief stretches of calm quiet that sometimes lay between them, as if they were old partners, old friends. Other moments the air around them crackled with electricity, sexuality, temper, suspicion. Volatile, unstable, like the atmosphere in a newly forming world. The description fit both Fourcade and whatever was growing between them.

"This is where you grew up," he said.

"Yeah. Once, when I was eight, I tied a rope to that corner post and tried to rappel down to the ground. I kicked in a screen down below and landed smack in the middle of a table of tourists from France."

He chuckled. "Destined for trouble from an early age."

His words brought an unexpected image of her mother, coming here alone and pregnant, never revealing to anyone the father of her child. She had been trouble from conception, apparently. Every once in a while she felt a pinch of guilt for that, even though she'd had no say in the matter. The pain bloomed quick and bright, like a drop of blood from the prick of a thorn.

Nick watched as melancholy came over her like a veil and wondered at its source, wondered if that source was the reason she preferred the surface to the depths of life. He felt a sadness at the sudden absence of her usual spark. Was it that surface light in her that attracted him or the reserves of strength she had yet to tap?

"Me, I grew up out that way," he said, pointing off to the southeast. "The middle of nowhere was the center of my world. At least until I was twelve."

Annie was surprised that he had offered the information. She tried to picture him as a carefree swamp kid, but couldn't.

"How did you go from there to here?" she asked.

The expression in his eyes turned remote and reflective. His voice sounded road-weary. "The long way."

"I actually thought you might have died last night," she admitted belatedly.

"Disappointed?"

"No."

"Some folks would be. Marcotte, Renard, Smith Pritchett." He thought back to the comment Stokes had made that afternoon. "What about Mr. Doucet with the DA's office?"