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“Robbie Fontenot’s car,” Annie said, feeling sick.
“Couldn’t see the driver or if there was a passenger,” Nick said. “Is there any reason to think the two of them would be holed up together somewhere?”
Annie thought of the conversation she’d had with Eli McVay about the accident he didn’t believe had been an accident, about the rift that had come between the friends after.
“No,” she said, a terrible sense of dread filling her. “Eli McVay saw Robbie talking to Dozer Cormier Halloween night, walking away from downtown, like they were leaving the party. That’s the last anyone saw Robbie. He also told me he never believed what happened to Robbie was an accident. He knew Marc needed that opportunity to quarterback the team, to get noticed, to have a chance at a scholarship, and that Dozer was always loyal to Marc.”
“Jesus,” Stokes said. “He wrecked that kid’s life to get a scholarship?”
“And Dozer became an alcoholic after that,” Nick said. “And he’s been drinking again. Heavy. Like he’s trying to drown something.”
“He’s the weakest link, for sure,” Stokes said.
“I pressured him hard today,” Nick said. “I’ve got a deputy sitting on his place tonight. If he knows where Marc is at, I reckon he’ll go there soon. There’s a bunch of camps out on the far edge of that wildlife management area past Cypress Island.”
“Where Danny Perry ran off the road,” Annie said.
Nick nodded. “He had to be headed that way for a reason, yeah?”
“But if you go far enough down that road, eventually you hit that east-west state highway and end up anywhere,” Stokes pointed out.
“That’s true, but I’m thinking if that was Marc in that car, he’s parked his truck and boat somewhere out of the way. Somewhere no one would bother to notice. I alerted the Wildlife agents to keep an eye out in that area, be on the lookout for those vehicles, but not to get too close if they see something. I don’t want him spooked, and I don’t want him trying to run in the dead of night. If he’s holed up there, let him sit and think he’s safe. Either Dozer leads us to him, or we send the marine unit out there tomorrow and see what we can see.”
“If it’s Marc, why is he riding around in Robbie Fontenot’s car?” Stokes asked.
“The simple answer is he doesn’t want to be seen in his,” Nick said. “No one in his neighborhood would recognize that Toyota.Maybe he wanted to have a look and see for himself if his wife is having an affair.”
“And if he has Robbie’s car,” Annie said, “does he have Robbie’s cell phone as well? If we eliminate the murder-for-hire plotline, there’s no reason Robbie would have called Marc’s wife in the middle of the night.”
And if he had Robbie’s car and Robbie’s phone, then where was Robbie? She hated to voice the question, but she had to. “Why does he have that car at all?”
“No good reason,” Stokes said. “If you ain’t been seen in a week or more, but someone’s driving your car around, it’s probably because you don’t need it no more.”
“Eli told me when he ran into Robbie this summer that he made a joke about him being an investigative reporter, because that’s what Robbie used to say he wanted to be back when they were in school,” Annie said. “And Robbie said, yeah, that he was deep undercover investigating police corruption in Bayou Breaux.”
“But he’s not a reporter,” Stokes said. “He’s an unemployed drug addict.”
“I know,” Annie said. “But why would he say that? Even as a joke, why would he say that? I sent that cash I found to the lab to get dusted for prints. Dewey Rivette admitted some of it came from him, paying Robbie as a CI. Fifty here, a hundred there, he said. Where’d the rest of it come from?
“What if Danny Perry chased that car last night because he believed it was Robbie driving?” she asked, hating to say it out loud. “It looked like he tried to roll that car into the swamp. Why would he do that?”
“We’ll ask him if he ever wakes up,” Nick said. “Rivette said Fontenot had a line on copper thieves. Could Perry have been mixed up in that? If the Mercier brothers and Dozer Cormier are involved, if Danny Perry was involved in theft and fencing stolen goods, that’s a big motive for any of them to get rid of Robbie Fontenot.”
Annie thought of B’Lynn, sitting home hoping against hope herson was still alive. After all she’d been through, after she’d fought with him and for him and put all her strength into pulling him through his addiction and out the other side…After all of that, to find out he’d been murdered for knowing the wrong thing about the wrong people…
She pulled in a big breath and blew out a sigh, the last of her energy going with it as she swept her hair back from her face. “Man, this day just gets better and better.”
“You want happy endings, you’re in the wrong business, Broussard,” Stokes said.
“Yeah. I used to be happy to settle for justice,” Annie said. “This time, that’s not gonna feel like enough. Not by a long shot.”
—
“Don’t tell me not to make it personal,” Annie warned as she walked with Nick toward their respective vehicles.
“When have I ever told you that, ’Toinette?” he asked. “It’s all personal if you care. And if you don’t care, you shouldn’t be on this job. It’s too hard, and it means too much to just go through the motions for a paycheck. Best you can do is learn how to put it in a box and close the lid at the end of the day.” He gathered her close and pressed a kiss to her lips. “Let’s go home and do that,bébé. Try to get some rest. I have a feeling tomorrow is gonna be a day.”
“You go ahead. I’ll catch up,” she said. “I’m gonna swing by B’Lynn Fontenot’s and give her an update, such as it will be.
