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“Maisyeah, and she could be right,” Nick said. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for him. And, given the shit show this office has been in recent months, stepping up in a public way to take over a case the BBPD fumbled could be a good PR move, no?”
Gus laughed, a big, loud belly laugh. “How unlike you to consider the public image of this office! Since when do you give a rat’s patoot about appearances?”
“I don’t,” Nick admitted. “You know that all too well. I only care about the work. That’s why I have my job and why you have yours.”
Gus pursed his lips and nodded. “I can’t deny this office could use some good publicity. I don’t like having to get there via a minor crime wave, but showing people we have control of the situation surely can’t hurt us.”
And if that show of strength came at the expense of his rival, all the better, Annie thought, but she kept that thought to herself.
The sheriff turned his eagle eye on her. “I’m gonna hope for everyone’s sake this case has a positive outcome, but I’m gonna tell you what, Annie, you’ve cut a big hog in the ass here. Robbie Fontenot was nothing but trouble and disappointment back when, and there’s no reason to expect something better now.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s not always nuns and schoolteachers who need us.”
“No. That’s true,” he said on a sigh. He raised a big hand as if to give a benediction. “Give my regards to Mrs. Fontenot,” he said by way of dismissal. “I’ll deal with Johnny Earl.”
—
“Thanks for having my back, boss,” Annie said as she and Nick walked across from the main building toward the Pizza Hut.
The sun was puddling against the western horizon like molten gold, casting the world in a burnished glow as the last of the afternoon slipped away. The pleasant warmth of the day had gone with the light. She wished for the jacket she’d left in her vehicle.
Nick glanced down at her. “I didn’t do you any favors,chère. This is the best way to proceed.”
“I’m glad you’re a control freak, then. It sometimes works to my advantage.”
“Why do you think Dewey Rivette is so bent out of shape about this that he would go to his chief?” he asked. “He could have just stepped back and saved himself the headache. Or he could have welcomed our help and kept his hand in. Why make such a fuss?
“If he’s made no progress and had no real interest in the case, then he had to expose himself to Johnny Earl as being incompetent,” he said. “Why do that? Why wouldn’t he be just as happy to let it go?”
“I don’t know,” Annie admitted. “I looked at Robbie Fontenot’s arrest record. Dewey collared him a couple of times back when he was still in a uniform. Not for anything much, mind you, and it was years ago.”
“Could Rivette be running him as a CI?”
“I wonder that, too. But if Robbie Fontenot is his informant, wouldn’t that be all the more reason for him to take a genuine interest in finding him?”
“Maybe he doesn’t need to find him because he already knows where he’s at.”
“Then why make himself look like an incompetent fool?” Annie asked. “It’d be one thing if nobody cared this kid is missing, but Dewey’s had B’Lynn Fontenot calling him on a daily basis. Why wouldn’t he try to at least make it look like he’s doing everything he can?”
“Well, I doubt Dewey’s ever won any prizes for his intellect,” Nick said, pulling open the outer door and holding it for her. “But this is curious nonetheless.”
“Yeah. Stay tuned,” Annie said as she walked through into the bullpen. “I have a feeling the shit has only begun to hit the fan where Dewey and the BBPD are concerned.”
“There he is!” Chaz Stokes announced. He stood leaning a hip against the counter next to the coffeepot, his porkpie hat tipped back on his head. “Our own star of the afternoon news himself!”
Nick scowled. “What are you doing watching afternoon television? You have a murder to investigate.”
“I happened to be investigating in a place with a television,” Stokes said, “and there you were, nose to nose with that Mercier woman. She needs her own show:Crazy Housewives of Asscrack, Louisiana.That’s some must-see TV right there!”
“How like you, Chaz,” Annie said, irritated, “making fun of a woman in an emotional crisis. She thought her son was dead in the morgue. Put a laugh track to that, why don’t you? Hilarity ensues as a man gets his face shot off and his mother loses her mind with grief. Belly laughs all around!”
“You’re in the wrong building, Broussard,” Stokes said. “The Fun Police meet two doors down. Or you could get a sense of humor.”
“I have a great sense of humor,” Annie countered. “You’re just not funny.”
He made a face at her like he was ten years old. Annie rolled her eyes like an annoyed little sister.
Their mutual dislike went way back. He was the kind of manwho believed his looks entitled him to the adoration of all women everywhere. If a woman didn’t agree, she went immediately from potential date to enemy in his eyes. He had dogged Annie pretty hard when he had been new to Bayou Breaux and Annie had been a green deputy and the only woman driving a patrol car in the parish, before she and Nick had become an item. When she had turned down his advances, Stokes had become her bully, spurring on co-workers in their campaign of sexual harassment against her. It had been a miserable time in her life.
