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“Who killed Robbie, Dozer?” Nick asked again. “If you die on me now, you’ll take the rap for it. Marc’ll dump it all on you. You know it.”
“Robbie punched him. Marc hit him back,” he said, the words coming out in short bursts with his breath as he hyperventilated. “He fell and hit his head. Oh, my God, I’m dying! I can feel it!”
From a distance came the faint wail of an ambulance siren.
“Hang on, Dozer!” Nick barked. “The ambulance is almost here. You hang on!”
Dozer was sobbing now in the face of his own mortality. But that was between him and his God. Nick had other concerns.
“Where’s his body, Dozer?” he asked. “Where’s Robbie’s body?”
“I dunno,” Dozer mumbled. “Ask Luc.”
43
Annie climbedthe stairs withher heart in her throat and her hand resting on the butt of her weapon in her belt holster. She could see the open door to Robbie’s room as she gained the second-floor landing. She could see B’Lynn standing a few feet into the room, near Robbie’s desk. B’Lynn turned and looked at her, eyes wide.
“Annie,” she said. “Detective Rivette has stopped by.”
Annie approached the room, her feet as heavy as lead boots. She couldn’t see Dewey, couldn’t see if he was armed.
“He’s brought a warrant for Robbie’s computer.”
“Really?” Annie said. “Why is that, Dewey? This isn’t your case anymore.”
“My investigation is ongoing,” he said.
She got her first look at him as she came to the open doorway. His clothes were more disheveled than usual. He looked like he’d slept in them, if he’d slept at all. His limp brown hair was greasy and uncombed.
“You look like you had a hard night, Dewey,” she said. Sheremained in the hall, with her right side—her gun side—hidden from his view by the doorframe. “I heard the news about Danny. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” he asked. “Because he’s not around for you to arrest him?”
“Because it’s sad,” Annie said. “How’d that go so wrong with him? I guess it’s hard to see all that drug money floating around and not want some of it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dewey said. “Danny was a good cop.”
“I just watched a security video of him letting Rayanne Tillis into Robbie Fontenot’s house Monday morning, Dewey,” Annie said calmly. “So, no, he wasn’t a good cop. So if you’ve got some kind of misguided idea of trying to protect his reputation, you need to let go of that. Danny’s gone, and whatever he was into is all gonna come to light. You need to get out of the way for your own sake.”
He didn’t react. He just stood there staring at her, his dark eyes a little glassy. She wondered if he’d heard her. For the first time, she wondered if he might be on something.
“We’re getting a warrant for his house,” Annie said.
Dewey laughed, an unexpected and jarring sound that couldn’t have been more inappropriate. The hairs stood up on the back of Annie’s neck.
“Why is that funny?”
The smell registered in her brain even as she asked the question: gasoline. She’d smelled it outside because of the gardeners next door, but this smell was in the house, in this room.
“What have you done, Dewey?” she asked, feeling sick.
“I’m just here to get this computer,” he said. “I have a warrant.”
“Let me see it,” Annie said. He surely hadn’t gone from setting Danny Perry’s house on fire to the courthouse to get a warrant.
“It doesn’t concern you,” he said. “This is my case.”
“It won’t matter, Dewey,” Annie said. “Whatever you’ve done,whatever you’re trying to hide, you can’t get rid of it. Everything on this computer is backed up to the cloud. My tech person is accessing that content as we speak,” she lied.
