Страница 83 из 124
33
Do
It wasn't difficult to envision Stokes flirting with Pam. In fact, it would have been impossible not to. That was what Stokes did: spent his every spare moment honing his seduction skills. He considered it his duty to flirt with women. And, according to what Lindsay Faulkner had said Sunday, Pam brought out those qualities in men without even trying. Men were attracted to Pam, found her charming and sweet. Chaz Stokes would never be the exception to that rule.
With the stalking an ongoing thing, he would have had ample cause to see Pam on a fairly regular basis. Had Do
If Stokes knew Do
Was it?
"Stupid," Lindsay Faulkner had said. "It wasn't anything."
But Do
No one had ever accused Do
He had said something derogatory about Stokes when she'd spoken with him Saturday, hadn't he? Something about Stokes being lazy. The remark had seemed almost racist, an attitude that would have yanked Stokes's chain, and rightly so. He would have been on Do
She was giving herself an u
"There is no time for dawdling, Deputy Broussard!" Myron pronounced, marching to his post with all the starch of a palace guard. "We have our orders for the morning. Detective Stokes needs the arrest records for every man accused of a violent sexual crime in this parish dating back ten years. I will call up the list on the computer, you will then pull the files. I will log them out, you will deliver them to the task force in the detectives' building."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Myron," A
They worked quickly, but interruptions of usual records division business dragged the task out-calls from the courthouse, calls from insurance companies, filling out the intake form on a newly arrested burglar, checking in evidence against the same burglar, checking out evidence for the trial of a suspected drug dealer.
All of it was tedious and A
Lunch was ten minutes with a Snickers bar and a telephone pressed to her ear, checking the local garages for any big sedans with passenger-side damage. She found none. Her adversary either had stashed the car or had taken it out of the parish for repairs. She checked the log sheet for recently stolen vehicles and found nothing to match. Expanding the parameters of her search, she started in on the list of garages in St. Martin Parish.
"Hey, Broussard," Mullen barked, leaning over the counter. "Knock off the hen party and do your job, why don't you."
A
"This task force is priority one," Mullen said, puffing his bony chest out.
"Yeah? Well, how'd you get on it? You got pictures of the sheriff naked with a goat?"
He smirked, much too pleased with himself. "I guess on account of my work on the Nolan rape."
"Your work," A
"Yeah, well, you win some, you lose some."
"You know, Mullen," she muttered, "I'd tell you to eat shit and die, but by the smell of your breath I guess it's already a staple of your diet."
She expected him to snap at the bait, but he leaned back from her instead. "Look, can I get the rest of those files now? As for our little feud, let's just let that go. No hard feelings."
"No hard feelings?" A
"You son of a bitch. Hard feelings are the only kind I've got right now. You'd better believe I find so much as a paint chip co
"Cadillac?" Mullen looked confused. "I don't know what you're talking about, Broussard. I don't know nothing about no Cadillac!"
"Yeah, right."
"I didn't do nothing to you!"
"Oh, save the act," A
She gave the folders a shove and sent them over the edge of the counter, raining arrest reports all over the floor.
"Goddammit!" Mullen yelled, drawing Hooker out of his office.
"Jesus H., Mullen!" he shouted. "You got a nerve condition or something? You got something wrong with your motor skills?"
"No, sir," he said tightly, glaring at A
"South Lou'siana is traditionally a place of folk justice," Smith Pritchett preached, strolling along the credenza in his office, his hands planted at his thick waist. "The Cajuns had their own code here before organized law enforcement and judicial agencies provided a mitigating influence. The common mind here still makes a distinction between the law and justice. I am well aware that a great many people in this parish feel that Detective Fourcade's attack on Marcus Renard was an acceptable way to cure a particular social problem. However, they would be mistaken."
A
"People can't be allowed to take the law into their own hands," Pritchett continued. "We'd end up with chaos, anarchy, lawlessness."