A Thin Dark Line

She weighed her options. They were in a place of business. She could still hear muffled voices coming from Bayou Realty. She was a cop. He wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything here, and he was in no condition to try. She wanted to know what drove him. What was it about Pam Bichon that had caught hold of this otherwise seemingly ordinary man and pulled him over the edge?

"All right."

The offices of Bowen amp; Briggs encompassed a single, huge open space with a wood floor that had been sanded blond and varnished to a hard gloss. Gray upholstered modular walls set off various office and conference spaces on the west side. The east side was studded with half a dozen drafting tables and work centers. Renard took his bag to a table in the southeast corner, a space set aside for relaxing, drinking coffee, having lunch. A radio on the counter played classical music.

A

"You're in trouble."

She jerked around toward Renard. He was busy lifting his lunch from the deli bag.

"You said your life is difficult now," he prompted. "You're in trouble because of Fourcade?"

"I'm in trouble because of you."

"No." He motioned her to the chair across from him and took his own seat. Fragrant steam billowed up as he pried the lid off the cup of gumbo, dark roux and sassafras file. "You would be in trouble because of me if I were Pam's murderer. I'm not. I should think you'd be convinced of that after that poor Nolan woman was attacked."

"Unrelated cases. One thing has nothing to do with the other," A

"Unless they're both the work of the Bayou Strangler."

"Stephen Danjermond was the Bayou Strangler, and he's dead. The evidence against him was conclusive."

"So was the evidence Fourcade planted in my desk. That doesn't make me a killer."

A

"I want you to understand, A

"Yes," A

"I want you to understand, A

"Like a friend. I know. We've been over this."

"Are you working on her case now? Will you try to catch her killer?"

"I want her killer brought to justice," she said, evading the specifics of her involvement with the case. "You understand what that means, don't you?"

"Yes." He lifted a spoon of gumbo to his stitched lip. "I wonder if you do."

A

"I don't always look this way."

"You don't seem… compatible."

"We weren't, as it happened. I believe Lindsay may have- How shall I suggest this? Other preferences."

"You think she's a lesbian?"

He made a little shrug and looked down at his meal, seeming uncomfortable with the topic he had raised.

"Because she wouldn't sleep with you?" A

"Heavens, no. We had di

He took another spoon of gumbo and sipped it between his teeth.

"Are you go

"No. I don't know who killed her. I wish I did."

"Then what's your point?"

"That Lindsay dislikes me. She wants to blame someone for Pam's death. She's chosen me. "

"Everyone has chosen you, Mr. Renard. You are the primary suspect."

"Convenient suspect," he corrected her. "Because I liked Pam. Because people think of me as a stranger here-they forget I was born here, lived here as a boy. They find it strange that I'm single and live with my mother and a brother who frightens people with his autism."

"Because Pam believed you were stalking her," A

"I was in Lafayette -"

"Going to a store that had already closed by the time you got to the Acadiana Mall. Bad luck, that. If the store had been open, you might have witnesses to corroborate your story."

He looked at her steadily, and his voice was even when he spoke. "I went there for supplies, not an alibi."

"You can spare me the story," A

"A common tool for dollhouse builders."

"Pam's clients left her office at eight-twenty. They were the last people to see Pam alive-with the exception of her killer. Meanwhile, Hebert's didn't have everything you needed-"

"French doors for my current project."

"So you drove to Acadiana Mall in Lafayette, intending to visit the hobby store there, but it was closed," she pressed on. "And on your way back you claim you developed car trouble-origin unknown-and sat along a back road for two hours before you got going again with the aid of an anonymous Good Samaritan no one has been able to track down in the three months since. You say you got home around midnight, but you have no one to confirm that because your mother was gone to Bogalusa to visit her sister. That's your story."

"It's the truth."

"Meanwhile, the medical examiner in Lafayette puts Pam's death around midnight, give or take, just a few miles from your home."

"I didn't kill her."

"You were obsessed with her."

"I was infatuated," he admitted, rising slowly from his chair. He went to a small refrigerator tucked into the lower cupboards and withdrew two bottles of iced tea. "I wish she could have returned my feelings, but she didn't and I accepted that."

He set the bottles on the table, pushing one in A

"Her husband had a far more compelling obsession than I." He eased back into his chair, picked up a paper napkin, and dabbed at the spittle that had collected in the corners of his wired mouth as he struggled with speech. "He didn't want to let her go. I think she was afraid of him. She told me she didn't dare see other men until the divorce was final."

A convenient story to put off a man, A