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Prejean looked at his shoes. A
She headed for her locker room. But she knew before she even set foot inside that her sanctuary had been breached.
The smell hit her as she turned the doorknob-sickening, rotten. She flipped the light switch and barely managed to clamp her hand over her mouth before the scream could escape.
Hanging from a length of brown twine tied to the single bulb in the ceiling, the cord knotted together with its long, ski
The muskrat had been ski
Aware that her tormentor could have been watching through a fresh hole in the wall, A
The note read: Turncoat bitch.
10
"Broussard ratted you out," Stokes said, curling his fingers through the wire mesh of the holding cell. "Man, I can't believe she did this to you. I mean, it's one thing that she won't sleep with me. Some women are just masochists that way. But ratting out another cop… man, that's low."
Stokes shouldn't have been allowed into the city jail holding cells. At least not as a visitor. Prisoners in holding had the right to see their attorneys, and that was all. But, as always, Stokes had known somebody and talked his way in.
"Goddamn, you think maybe she's a lesbian?" he asked, as the idea struck him.
An image of A
"I don't care," he said.
"Maybe you don't, but she's just taken on a whole new role in my fantasy life," Stokes admitted. "Damn, but I've always had a thing for lesbians. Pretty ones," he qualified. "Not the butch dykes. Don't you ever picture beautiful women naked together? Man, that gets my dick twitching."
"She arrested me," Nick stated flatly, impatient with Stokes. The man had no focus.
"Well, yeah, she'll be a bad lesbian in my fantasies. A black leather bitch with a whip. Man hater."
"How'd she happen to be there?" Nick asked.
"Damn bad luck, that's for sure."
Nick had mixed feelings about that. If A
"She thinks I should be held accountable."
Maybe it was as simple as that. Maybe she was that idealistic. Having never been an idealist himself, he had a hard time accepting the prospect. In his experience, people were usually motivated by one thing: self-gain. They could couch their intentions in a million different guises, give no end of excuses, but most everything came down to one thought: What's in it for me? What was in it for A
"She's a pain in the ass," Stokes said. "Little Miss By-the-Book. I caught a rape case this morning out in that white-trash trailer park going toward Luck. She's out there butting into every damn thing. 'You go
"What made her think it was tied to Bichon?"
Chaz rolled his eyes. "The guy wore a mask. Like that's an original idea. Christ," he muttered. "Whoever thought they should let broads on the job?"
He glanced over his shoulder, checking the door. The city jail was about a thousand years old and had no surveillance cameras in its holding cell areas. City cops had to listen in on conversations the old-fashioned way.
"Well, she's damn near the only one who thinks you should pay for this, man," he muttered. "Not even God himself would call you on it. An eye for an eye, you know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean. I'm supposed to be an avenging angel."
"Hell, you should have been the Invisible Man. No one would have been the wiser if Broussard hadn't stuck her nose in it. Renard would be roasting in hell, case closed."
"That's what you thought?" Nick said softly, stepping toward the chain-link that caged him in. "When you called me at Laveau's-you thought I'd go over to Bowen and Briggs and kill him?"
"Jesus!" Stokes hissed. "Keep your voice down!"
Nick leaned close to the wire mesh, slipping his fingers through just above Stokes's. "Whatsa matter, pard?" he whispered. "You worried about a conspiracy beef?"
Stokes jerked back, looking shocked, offended, hurt even. "Conspiracy? Shit, man, we were drunk and talking trash. Even when I called you and told you he was over there, I never thought you'd really do it! I'm just saying I wouldn't blame you if you had. I mean, good riddance-am I right or am I right?"
"You're the one wanted to go to that particular bar."
" 'Cause no one else hangs there, man! You can't think I was setting you up! Jesus, Nicky! We're brothers of the badge, man. I'm the closest thing to a friend you got. I don't know how you can even think it. It wounds me, Nicky. Truly."
"I'll wound you, Chaz. I find out you fucked me over, you'll wish your mama and daddy never got past first base."
Stokes stepped away from the cell. "I don't believe what I'm hearing. Man oh man! Stop being so fuckin' paranoid. I'm not your enemy here." He tapped his breastbone with one long forefinger. "Hell, I called you a lawyer. The guys are go
"I pay my own way."
"You didn't do anything the rest of us hadn't had wet dreams about for the last three months."
"What lawyer?"
"Wily Tallant from St. Martinville."
"That bastard-"
"-is slick as snot," Stokes finished. "Don't think of him as being on the other side of the fence. Think of him as the man who's go
He leaned toward the mesh again, slipping a hand inside his jacket and pulling out a cigarette like a magician. "That's all I want, pard," he said, passing the cigarette through the wire. "I want everybody to get what they deserve."
A
There was no way of knowing where it had come from or who had hung it, not without questioning people, looking for witnesses, making a fuss. Mullen was a sound bet, but she knew a half dozen deputies who did some trapping for extra income. Still, ski
Turncoat bitch.
Holding her breath against the sweet-putrid scent of decaying rodent, she cut the thing down with her pocketknife and grimaced as it hit the floor with a soft thud. She tore up the note, then pilfered a cardboard box from the garbage in the office supply room and used it for a coffin. She had no intention of taking the thing to Noblier and making a bad situation worse. And there was no leaving it. After she rewrote her final report on the cemetery vandalism and filed it, she grabbed the box and her duffel bag and left. She could toss the corpse in the woods after she got home, and Mother Nature would give it a proper disposal.