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"Because Fourcade would be man enough to show his face, and if he wanted me dead, we wouldn't be having this conversation," she said, rising from her chair. "Are we finished, Detective? We both know this is pointless and I've got work to do."
Perez shrugged. "Yeah. I know where to find you… 'til somebody wises up and boots your tight little ass outta here."
A
"Look at the time!" he ranted, scurrying around the office like a windup toy gone mad. "Look at the time! You been gone half the day!"
A
"Sympathy? Sympathy?" He chirped the word as if it were a questionable noun from another language. "Why should I show you sympathy? You are my assistant. I'm the one needs sympathy."
"Your wife has all my sympathy," A
Myron gave an indignant sniff. A
Two minutes later she received the summons to Noblier's office.
Valerie Comb was not at her post when A
She glanced longingly at the file cabinets again. It wouldn't take more than a minute-open the S drawer, find Stokes, one glance and she'd be done. There might not be another chance.
Swallowing at the hard lump of fear wedged in her throat like a chicken bone, she crossed the room to the cabinets, reached for the handle on the S drawer.
"May I help you?"
A
"I'm here to see the sheriff," A
Without comment, Valerie went to her desk, set the coffee down, and settled her fa
"Sheriff, Deputy Broussard is here to see you."
"Send her in!" Gus bellowed, his voice too big for the plastic box to contain.
Heart beating three steps too fast, A
"You must be out for some kind of record, Deputy," he said, shaking his head.
"Sir?"
He waved at the chair across the desk from him. "Sit down, A
"That's not true, sir."
"That's the second time in a week I've heard your name and alcohol mentioned in the same breath."
"I haven't been drinking, sir. I'll gladly take any test you want me to."
"What I want is to know why two weeks ago I barely knew more than your name, now suddenly you're the burr up everybody's ass." He leaned against his forearms on the desktop. To his right, paperwork was stacked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. To his left lay a giant ceremonial ribbon-cutting scissors like something out of Gulliver's Travels.
"An unfortunate coincidence?" A
"Deputy, there are three things I do not believe in: UFOs, moderate Republicans, and coincidence. What the hell is going on with you? Every time I turn around you're in the middle of something you shouldn't be. You're working in records, for Christ's sake. How the hell can you get in trouble working in records?"
"Bad luck."
"You're tripping over bodies, fighting with other deputies. Stokes was in here this morning telling me you were at the hospital when that Faulkner woman died. Why is that?"
A
"And this business about you getting shot at last night? What was that about?"
"I don't know, sir."
"I sincerely doubt that," Gus said, rising from his chair. He rubbed at a kink in his lower back as he walked away from the desk. "Has Detective Fourcade made any effort to contact you since his release on bail?"
"Sir?"
"He's got a big ax to grind with you, A
"With all due respect, sir, the harassment I've experienced since Detective Fourcade's arrest has come from other sources."
"Yeah, you've managed to bring out the worst in a lot of people."
A
"Maybe you should take some personal time, A
"I'd rather not, sir," A
Gus's head came up and he regarded her with a piercing stare. "Are you threatening me, Deputy Broussard?"
She did her best to look doe-eyed. "No, sir. Never. I'm just saying how it might look to some people."
"People after my hide," he muttered, talking aloud to himself. He scratched at his afternoon beard stubble. "Smith Pritchett would love that, the ungrateful swine. He'll call me corrupt, a racist, and a sexist. Small-minded, that's what he is. Doesn't see the big picture. All he really wants is revenge on Fourcade for screwing that search at Renard's. He wanted to prosecute the big slam-dunk, media-circus case. Mr. Big Headlines."
He snatched a folded newspaper off his blotter and snapped a big finger against a photograph of Pritchett at the Tuesday press conference, looking stern and authoritative. The headline read: "Task Force Named in Mardi Gras Rapist Cases."
"Look at that," Gus complained. "Like it was Pritchett's task force. Like he had squat to do with trying to solve these cases. You think you know a man…"