He certainly hadn't kissed like a man on the brink of death.
No, he had kissed her like a blind man sensing light, like a man who needed to make a connection with another soul and wasn't quite sure how.
"Don't be stupid," she muttered, turning her attention to the papers she had brought home with her from Nick's place the night before-the reports of the harassment Pam Bichon had endured before her murder, copies of reports from the Bayou Breaux PD on incidents that had occurred at her office.
Pam had feared for her safety and for Josie's. But her level of fear had seemed out of proportion to the officers who had taken the calls. While they had drawn no conclusions in the reports, it wasn't hard for another cop to read between the lines. They thought she was overreacting, being unreasonable, wasting their time. Why would she be afraid of Marcus Renard? He seemed so normal, so harmless. Why should she think he was the one making the breather calls? What proof did she have he was stalking the shadows of her Quail Run property? How could it possibly frighten her to receive a silk scarf from an anonymous admirer?
Gooseflesh swept down Annie's arms. She knew Renard had given Pam a number of small gifts, but the only gift ever mentioned in detail in any of the paperwork or news reports had been a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. He tried to give it to her on her birthday, shortly before her death.
Annie pulled her binder of news clippings and paged through the pockets, hunting for the one burning in her memory. It was a piece from the Lafayette Daily Advertiser that had run shortly after Renard's arrest, and it spoke specifically of Pam's birthday, when she had gone into the Bowen amp; Briggs office with a cardboard box containing the gifts he had given her during the preceding weeks. She had reportedly hurled the box at Renard, shouting angrily for him to leave her alone, that she wanted nothing to do with him.
She had given back to him everything he had ever given her, and among those gifts was a silk scarf. Annie could find no detailed description of it. The detectives had looked for the rejected gifts during a search of Renard's home but had never found them, and didn't consider them important. How would anyone consider a lovely silk scarf proof of harassment?
Nausea swirled through Annie as an idea hit. She reached across the table for the box, lifted the scarf and ran it through her fingers, her mind racing.
"You look like her, you know," Donnie said, his voice strangely dreamy. "The shape of your face… the hair… the mouth…"
"You fit the victim profile," Fourcade said. "… you came into his life, chère. Like it was meant to be… He could fall in love with you."
Had Pam Bichon held this very scarf in her hands, feeling the same strange sense of disquiet Annie felt right now?
The phone rang, sending her half a foot off her chair. She tossed the scarf aside and went into the living room.
The machine picked up on the fourth ring and she listened to herself advise the caller.
"If you're someone I'll actually want to talk to, leave a message after the tone. If you're a reporter, a salesman, a heavy breather, a crank, or someone with an opinion of me I don't want to hear, just don't bother. I'll only erase you."
The warning hadn't seemed to deter anyone. The tape had been full by the time she'd gotten home. Word of her involvement in the Faulkner case had leaked out of the department like oil through a bad gasket. Three reporters had been lying in wait for her on the store gallery when she got home. But it wasn't a reporter who waited for the tone.
"Annie, this is Marcus." His voice was tight. "Could you please call me back? Someone took a shot at me tonight."
Annie grabbed the receiver. "I'm here. What happened?"
"Just what I said. Someone took a shot at me through a window."
"Why are you calling me? Call 911."
"We did. The deputies who came said it was a pity the guy was such a poor shot. They dug the bullet out of the wall and left. I'd like someone to look around, investigate."
"And you'd like that someone to be me?"
"You're the only one who cares, Annie. You're the only one in that whole damn department who cares about justice being done. If it were up to the rest of them, I'd have been alligator bait weeks ago."
He was silent for a moment. Annie waited, apprehension coiling around her stomach like a python.
"Please, Annie, say you'll come. I need you."
Out over the Atchafalaya, thunder rumbled like distant cannon fire. He wanted her. He needed her. He was probably a killer. She had immersed herself in this case up to her chin. She took a breath and went deeper.
"I'll be right there."
30
"We were sitting here having coffee like civilized people," Doll Renard said, gesturing to her dining room table like a tour guide, "when suddenly the glass in that door shattered. I nearly had a heart attack! We're not the kind of people who have guns or know about guns! To think that someone would shoot into our home! What kind of world are we living in? To think I used to believe in the good of people!"
"Where were y'all sitting? Which chairs?"
Doll sniffed. "The other officers didn't even bother to ask. I was right here, in my usual place," she said, going to the chair at the end of the table.
"Victor was here in his usual seat." Marcus claimed a chair that put his brother's back to the French doors.
At the mention of his name, Victor shook his head and slapped the palm of one hand on the table. He now sat at the head of the table, rocking himself, muttering incessantly. "Not now. Not now. Very red. Enter out. Enter out now!"
"He'll be ranting for days," Doll said bitterly.
Marcus cut her a look. "Mother, please. We're all upset. Victor has as much reason as the rest of us. More than you- he could have been killed."
Doll's jaw dropped as if he'd struck her. "I never said he shouldn't be upset! How dare you talk to me that way in front of a guest!"
"I'm sorry, Mother. Forgive my short temper. My manners aren't what they should be. Someone meant to kill me earlier."
Annie cleared her throat to draw his attention. "Where were you sitting?"
He glanced toward the shattered door. Dozens of insects had flocked in through the hole and now swarmed around the light fixture. Gnats dotted the ceiling like flecks of black ink. "I was out of the room."
"You weren't sitting here when the shot was fired?"
"No. I had left the room several moments prior."
"Why?"
"To use the bathroom. We'd been sitting here drinking coffee."
"Do you own a handgun or a rifle?"
"Of course not," he said, a flush creeping up his neck.
"I wouldn't have a gun in this house," Doll said with great affront. "I wouldn't even let Marcus have a BB gun as a boy. They're filthy instruments of violence and nothing more. His father had guns," she said with accusation. "I got rid of every one of them. Temptations to violence."
"You can't think I staged this," Marcus said, looking hard at Annie.
"Staged it?" Doll shrilled. "What do you mean- 'staged' it?"
Annie turned her back on them and went to the wall where the slug had buried itself in the thick horsehair plaster. It looked as if the call deputies had dug the thing out with a pickax. Plaster littered the floor in crumbled chunks and fine dust. The bullet had struck a good foot above the heads of anyone seated at the table. One of the things any marksman had to consider when aiming was the drop of the bullet as it traveled away from the barrel of the gun. To hit where this shot had hit, the triggerman had to have been aiming still higher.
"Either he was a piss-poor shot or he never meant to hit anyone," she said.
"What do you mean?" Doll asked. "Someone shot at us! We were sitting right here!"
"Had you noticed anyone hanging around earlier in the day?" Annie asked. "Today or any other day recently?"