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Annie wanted him to stop her there, to tell her his victim was a short guy with a potbelly, but he didn’t. Her heart sank a little lower as she began to imagine breaking the news to B’Lynn.
“He has a surgical scar on his left knee,” she added. “And his prints are on file. He’s been in and out of jail.”
“We’ll know quick enough if he has that scar or doesn’t,” Nick said, rising. “Let’s go find out.
“I’ve got a potential missing person myself,” he said as they walked down the hall.
“Connected to this dead guy?”
“Don’t know. We were following a lead—a business card from a junkyard found in the dead man’s pocket—and come to find out someone from that business is missing since Saturday night.”
“So he could be your dead guy?”
“I don’t know,” he said, opening the front door and holding it for Annie to pass. “Marc Mercier. Right age, right size, right coloring. No prints on file, no tattoos, distinguishing marks—not sure. But I don’t want to bring the family in to look without good reason. If hecan be eliminated from consideration some other way and spare them the trauma, better for all concerned.”
“Marc Mercier. That name sounds familiar.”
“He was in the local paper a few weeks ago. Maybe you saw him there,” he said as they headed to his SUV. “The savior of youth football in Bayou Breaux, much to the surprise of his wife.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Marital strife. It’s a long story, but the short version is the marriage is in trouble. They had a fight Saturday night. He stormed off. He was supposed to meet his brother out at the Corners early Sunday morning. They were headed out west to some hunting land. The brother was late. There was no sign of Marc when he got there. Hasn’t been seen or heard from since,” he said, pulling open the passenger door for her.
“If he was at the Corners,” Annie said, climbing into the vehicle, “he should show up on Uncle Sos’s security video.”
The Corners was a local institution. A combination convenience store, café, bait shop, landing for swamp tours, and boat launch for sport fishermen, it had been run for decades by Sos and Fanchon Doucet, the people who had raised Annie after her mother’s death when Annie was just nine years old—and before that, truth be told. Sos and Fanchon had taken in Marie Broussard when she had been lost and pregnant and prone to long bouts of depression. Annie had been raised calling them uncle andtante, her family by love rather than by blood.
“We could run out there tonight for supper,” Annie suggested as Nick got behind the wheel. “They’d love to see Justin, and Uncle Sos will be in his glory to help with an investigation.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of Nick’s mouth. “C’est vrai. I can hear him now, telling his cronies how he helped solve the case.”
With his own parents long deceased, Nick had grown to love Sos and Fanchon almost as much as Annie did, spending time on the water fishing with Sos when he could, helping him with his boatsand with repairs around the place. Sos considered him as much a son as he considered Annie a daughter.
Sos and Fanchon had never been blessed with children of their own, but that hadn’t stopped them from making a family of nieces and nephews and strays. The love they had for that family was fierce and unconditional. There was nothing they wouldn’t do to protect or save one of their own, and their love never wavered, even in the hardest of times.
A wave of emotion rolled over Annie as she thought of them. Tears welled in her eyes. She cursed herself for forgetting her sunglasses. Sudden strong emotions had been a side effect of her head injury. Her doctor told her that would eventually subside, but while it lasted, she hated it. Nick watched her like a hawk for any sign of an issue, any reason he could add to his arsenal of why she shouldn’t be going back to work, and there she was on her first day back, ready to burst into tears in front of him.
He glanced over at her then as they sat at a red light.
“You all right,bébé?” he asked, reaching a hand over to touch her shoulder.
“Just thinking I’m awfully lucky,” she said, blinking back the tears as she checked her phone for any sign of a callback from Robert Fontenot II. “Not everyone has family that loves them.”
“Mais non,” he agreed, stroking a hand over the back of her head. “We’re lucky, that’s for true.”
“That’s why I want to help B’Lynn Fontenot. She’s fighting tooth and nail for her boy when no one else will. His father can’t even be bothered to return my phone calls.”
“That’s a hard road, dealing with an addict,” Nick said. “People do what they have to do to survive it.”
“I know, but can you imagine any circumstances where you’d just give up on Justin? Just cut him out of your life like he never existed?”
“No, but you should know not to pick sides before you even meet the man, no? That’s your mama bear claws coming out.”
“I suppose you’re right about that.”
“I imagine you left a few marks on Dewey Rivette,” he teased.
“Maybe one or two,” Annie admitted, finding a weary smile.
