"Fishermen go past on the bayou," she said, fluttering one bony hand in the direction of the waterway as she clutched the bodice of her baggy housedress with the other. "And those horrible reporters come and go, though we have nothing to say to them. They do as they will. I've never seen such an ill-mannered lot in all my life. There was a time in this country when etiquette meant something-"
Marcus squeezed his eyes shut. "Mother, could we please stick to the subject? Annie isn't interested in a discussion of the decline of formal manners and mores."
Doll's complexion mottled pink and white. Her face went tight, pulling skin against bone and tendon. "Well, excuse me if my views aren't important to you, Marcus," she said tightly. "Pardon me if you believe Annie doesn't want to hear what I think."
"This has been traumatic for all of you, I'm sure," Annie said diplomatically.
"Don't patronize me!" Doll snapped. Her entire body was trembling with anger. "You think we're either criminals or fools. You're no better than any of the others."
"Mother-"
"Red! Red! No!" Victor shrieked, rocking so hard the chair legs came up off the floor. He slapped the tabletop over and over.
"If you believe she cares about us, Marcus, you are a fool." Doll turned away from him to her other son. "Come along, Victor. You're going to bed. No one here needs our presence."
"Not now! Not now! Very red!" Victor's voice screeched upward like metal rending. He curled himself into a ball as his mother clamped a white-knuckled hand on his shoulder.
"Come along, Victor!"
Sobbing, Victor Renard unfolded his body from the chair and allowed his mother to tow him from the room.
Marcus hung his head and stared at the floor, embarrassment and anger coloring his battered face. "Well, wasn't that lovely? Another night in the life of the happy Renard family. I'm sorry, Annie. Sometimes I think my mother doesn't any more know what to do with her emotions than does Victor."
Annie made no comment. It was more useful for her to see the Renards coming apart at the seams than to see them wrapped tightly in control. She moved toward the French doors, stepping around the broken glass. "I'd like to look around outside."
"Of course."
Out on the terrace she filled her lungs with air that tasted of copper. Clouds appeared to sag to the treetops, bloated with rain that had yet to fall.
"Just to set things straight," Marcus said, "my mother has never believed in the good in people. She's been waiting for a lynch mob to show up on the front lawn, and never misses the opportunity to point out that it's all my fault. I'm sure she's secretly pleased by this in her own twisted way."
"I didn't come here to discuss your mother, Mr. Renard."
"Please call me Marcus." He turned toward her. The light that filtered out from the house softened and shadowed his bruises and stitches. With the swelling gone he was no longer grotesque, merely homely. He didn't look dangerous, he looked pathetic. "Please, Annie. I need to at least pretend I have a friend in all this."
"Your lawyer is your friend. I'm a cop."
"But you're here and you don't have to be. You came for me."
She wanted to tell him differently, had tried to set him straight, but either he didn't listen or he twisted the truth to suit himself.
It was the kind of thinking that applied to stalkers and other obsessive personalities. The unwillingness or inability to accept the truth. There was nothing overt in Renard's attitude. Nothing that could have been deemed crazy, and yet this subtle insistence to bend reality to his wishes was disturbing.
She wanted to distance herself from him. But the truth was the closer she got to him, the more likely she was to see something the detectives had missed. He might let down his guard, make a mistake. "He could fall in love with you…" and she'd be there to nail him.
"All right… Marcus," she said, his name sticking in her mouth like a gob of peanut butter.
He let out a breath, as if in relief, and slid his hands into his pants pockets. "Fourcade," he said. "You asked if anyone had come by recently. Fourcade was here on Saturday. On the bayou."
"Do you have any reason to believe Detective Fourcade is the one who took that shot tonight?"
He made a choking laugh, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. "He tried to kill me last week, why not this week?"
"He wasn't himself that night. He'd lost a tough decision in court. He'd been drinking. He-"
"You're not going to make excuses for him at the hearing next week, are you?" he asked, looking at her with shock. "You were there. You saw what he was doing to me. You said it yourself: He was trying to kill me."
"We're not talking about last week. We're talking about tonight. Did you see him tonight? Have you seen him since Saturday? Has he called you? Has he threatened you?"
"No."
"And of course you didn't see the shooter because you happened to be in the bathroom at the precise moment-"
"You don't believe me," he said flatly.
"I believe if Detective Fourcade wanted you dead, you'd be meeting your maker right now," Annie said. "Nick Fourcade isn't going to mistake your brother for you or put a shot in the wall a foot above your head. He'd blow your skull apart like a rotten melon, and I don't doubt but that he could do it in the dark at a hundred yards."
"He came here in a boat Saturday. He could have been on the bayou-"
"Everybody in this parish owns a boat, and about ninety percent of them think you should be drawn and quartered in public. Fourcade is hardly the only possibility here," Annie argued. "To be perfectly frank with you, Marcus, I do think you're a more likely candidate than Fourcade."
He turned away from her then, staring out at the darkness. "I didn't do this. Why would I?"
"To get attention. To get me over here. To sic the press on Fourcade."
"You can test my hands for gunpowder residue, search the premises for the gun. I didn't do it." He shook his head in disgust. "That seems to be my motto these last months: I didn't do it. And while y'all are busy trying to prove me a liar, killers and would-be killers are running around loose."
He blotted at his mouth again. Annie watched him, tried to read him, wondered how much of what he was letting her see was an act and how much of it he bought into himself.
"You know the worst part of all this?" he asked, his voice so soft Annie had to step closer to hear him. "I never got to mourn Pam. I've not been allowed to express my grief, my outrage, my hurt, my loss. She was such a lovely person. So pretty."
He looked down at Annie as lightning flashed and his expression was gilded in silver-a strange, glassy, dreamy look, as if he were looking at a memory that wasn't quite true.
"I miss her," he whispered. "I wish…"
What? That he hadn't killed her? That she had returned his affection instead of his gifts? Annie held her breath, waiting.
"I wish you believed me," he murmured.
"It's not my job to believe you, Marcus," she said. "It's my job to find the truth."
"I want you to know the truth," he whispered.
The intimacy in his tone unnerved her, and she stepped back from him as the wind came in a great exhalation from the heavens, rattling the trees like giant pompons.
"I'll keep on top of this," she said. "See if the deputies come up with anything. But mat's all I can do. I'm in enough hot water as it is. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone I'd been here."
He drew his thumb and forefinger across his lips. "Our secret. That makes two." The idea seemed to please him.
Annie frowned. "I'm checking on that truck-your Good Samaritan the night Pam died. I'm not making promises anything will come of it, but I want you to know I'm looking."
He tried to smile. "I knew you would. You wouldn't want to think you saved my life for no good reason."