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Or it might have looked like they were ignoring the victim of a brutal beating, turning their heads the other way because the perpetrator was a cop. It might have looked like they were stalling for time until they could come up with a story.
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"You did what you did, and we'll deal with it, Deputy," he said, as if she was the one who had broken the law. A
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"I don't want you talking to the press," Noblier said, going around behind his desk to settle himself into his big leather executive's chair. "And I don't want you talking to Richard Kudrow under any circumstances. You understand me?"
"Yes, sir."
" 'No comment.' Can you manage that?"
"Yes, sir."
"And, most of all, I don't want you talking to Marcus Renard. You got that?"
"Yes, sir."
"You were off duty, which is why you didn't hear that 10-70 call that went out. You stumbled into a situation and contained it. Is that what happened?"
"Yes, sir," she whispered, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach swelling like bread dough.
Noblier stared at her in silence for a moment. "How did Kudrow know you tried to arrest Fourcade? Has he already talked to you?"
"He left a message on my answering machine this morning while I was out ru
"But you didn't talk to him?"
"No."
"Did you tell Renard you arrested Fourcade?"
"No."
"Did you Mirandize Fourcade in front of him?"
"Renard was unconscious."
"Then Kudrow was bluffing, that ugly son of a bitch," Gus muttered to himself. "I hate that man. I don't care that he's dying. I wish he'd hurry up and get it over with. Have you filed an arrest report?"
"Not yet."
"Nor will you. If you've started that paperwork, I want it shredded. Not thrown away. Shredded."
"But Renard is going to press charges-"
"That doesn't mean we have to make it easy for him. Go ahead and write up his complaint, write up your preliminary report, but you did not arrest Fourcade. Get your sergeant's initials on the paperwork, then bring the file straight to me.
"I'm personally taking charge of the case," he said, as if he were trying out the phrase for a future official statement. "It's an unusual situation-allegations being made against one of my men. Requires my undivided attention to see to it justice is served.
"And don't look at me like that, Deputy," he said, pointing an accusatory finger. "We're not doing anything Richard Kudrow hasn't done time and again for the scum he represents."
"Then we're no better than they are," A
"The hell we're not," Noblier growled, reaching for the telephone. "We're the good guys, A
The women's locker room in the Partout Parish Sheriff's Department had originally been a janitor's closet. There had been no women on the job when the building was designed in the late sixties, and the blissful chauvinists on the pla
The only light was a bare bulb in the ceiling. Four battered metal lockers had been salvaged out of the old junior high school and transplanted along one wall. A cheap frame-less mirror hung on the opposite wall above a tiny porcelain sink. When A
She was the only female deputy who used the room with any regularity, and currently the only female patrol officer. There were two women who worked in the jail, and one female plainclothes juvenile officer, all of whom had come on before the broom closet had been converted and had adjusted to life without it. A
A
She looked at the file folder on her lap. She had gone so far as to type out the arrest report on Fourcade last night. It had given her a small sense of control to sit at her typewriter at home and put down in black and white what she had seen, what she had done. She had felt a sense of validation for just a little while there in the dead of night. Sheriff Noblier had smashed it flat beneath the weight of his authority this morning.
He wanted her to file a false report. She was supposed to lie, justify brutality, violate God knew how many laws.
"And no one sees anything wrong with that picture but me," she muttered.
Anxiety simmered like acid in her stomach as she left the locker room and headed down the hall.
Hooker rolled an eye at her as she passed the sergeant's desk. "See if you can't contain yourself to arresting criminals today, Broussard."
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"Oh really? You testifying for us or against us?"
"Hypolite Grangnon-burglary," she said flatly.
Hooker narrowed his little pig eyes at her. "Sheriff wants those reports on his desk by noon."
"Yes, sir."
She should have gone straight to the report room and gotten it over with, but she needed air and space, some time on the road to clear her head, and a cup of coffee that didn't taste like boiled sweat socks. She let herself out of the building and sucked in air that smelled of damp earth and green grass.
The rain had subsided around five A.M. A
As she worked her aching muscles, she watched for dawn to break over the Atchafalaya basin. There were mornings when the sunrise boiled up over the swamp like a ball of flame and the sky turned shades of orange and pink so intense they seemed liquid. This morning had come in with rolling, angry slate-colored clouds that carried the threat of a storm with a bully's arrogance.