A Thin Dark Line by Tami Hoag Page B

ranted, pacing behind his desk.
    The desk sergeant had called him in from a Rotary Club dinner where he had been ingesting calories in the liquid form, trying to dull the barbed comments of Rotarians unhappy with the day’s court ruling. The civic leaders of Bayou Breaux had wanted Renard’s indictment as something extra to celebrate for Mardi Gras. Even with half a pint of Amaretto in him, Gus felt as if his blood pressure just might cause his head to explode.
    “What the hell were you thinking, Broussard?” he demanded.
    Annie’s jaw dropped. “I was thinking he committed assault! I saw him with my own eyes!”
    “Well, there’s got to be more to this story than what
you
know.”
    “I saw what I saw. Ask him yourself, Sheriff. He won’t deny it. Renard looks like he put his face in a Waring blender.”
    “Fuck a duck,” Gus muttered. “I told him, I
told
him! Where’s he at now?”
    “Interview B.”
    It had been a fight getting him in there. Not that Fourcade had resisted in any way. It was Rodrigue, the desk sergeant, and Degas and Pitre—deputies just hanging around.
“Arresting Fourcade? Naw. Must be some mistake. Quit screwing around, Broussard. What’d he do—pinch your ass? We don’t arrest our own. Nick, he’s part of the Brotherhood. Whatsa matter with you, Broussard—you on the rag or somethin’? He beat up Renard? Christ, we oughta get him a medal! Is Renard dead? Can we throw a party?”
    In the end, Fourcade had pushed past them through the doorway and let himself into Interview B.
    The sheriff stalked past Annie and out the door. She hustled after him, a choke hold on her temper. If she’d hauled in a civilian, no one would have questioned her judgment or her perception of facts.
    The door to the interview room was wide open. Rodrigue stood with one hand on the frame and one eye on his abandoned desk, grinning as he traded comments with someone inside the room, his mustache wriggling like a woolly caterpillar on his upper lip.
    “Hey, Sheriff, we’re thinking maybe Nick oughta get a ticker-tape parade.”
    “Shut up,” Gus barked as he bulled his way past the desk sergeant and into the room where Degas and Pitre had sprawled into chairs. Coffee cups sat steaming on the small table. Fourcade sat on the far side, smoking a cigarette and looking detached.
    Gus cut a scathing look at his deputies. “Y’all don’t have nothing better to do, then why are you on my payroll? Get outta here! You too!” he snapped at Annie. “Go home.”
    “Go home? But—but, Sheriff,” she stammered, “I was there. I’m the—”
    “So was he.” He pointed at Fourcade. “I talked to you, now I’m gonna talk to him. You got a problem with that, Deputy?”
    “No, sir,” Annie said tightly. She looked at Fourcade, wanting him to meet her eyes, wanting to see . . . what? Innocence? She knew he wasn’t innocent. Apology? He didn’t owe her anything. He took a drag on his cigarette and focused on the stream of smoke.
    Gus planted his hands on the back of a vacant chair and leaned on it, waiting to hear the door close behind him. And when the door closed, he waited some more, wishing he would come to in his own cozy bed with his plump, snoring wife and realize this day had all been a bad dream and nothing more.
    “What do you have to say for yourself, Detective?” he asked at last.
    Nick stubbed out the butt in the ashtray Pitre had obligingly fetched him. What was he supposed to say? He had no explanation, only excuses.
    “Nothing,” he said.
    “Nothing. Nothing?” Noblier repeated, as if the word were foreign to his tongue. “Look at me, Nick.”
    He did so and wondered which was the better choice: to allow himself an emotional response to the disappointment he saw or to block it. Emotion was what unfailingly landed him in trouble. He had spent the last year of his life learning to hold it in an iron fist deep within him. Tonight it had broken free, and here he sat.
    “I took a big chance