Chapter 23

23

“The fight at Outlaw took place around eleven thirty Saturday night,” Stokes said, snagging the last cold piece of sausage pizza from the box. “They both got thrown out of the bar. They both went somewhere else. The wife went home. She says Cody got home around two, two thirty. Plenty of time in that window to get up to all kinds of mischief.”

Nick poured himself a cup of coffee and took a long pull on it. He’d sent Annie on to pick up Justin from her cousin Remy and get him tucked into bed at a reasonable hour. She’d gone without argument, emotionally drained from the day. Nick had stayed to make some notes and get the debriefing from Stokes on the Parcelles. It was just the two of them now in the conference room.

“I tried calling Cody Parcelle,” Stokes said. “The call went straight to voicemail and the mailbox was full. I tried calling the uncle in Houston, same thing. Tried calling the sales office for the auction, and they were closed for the night.”

“If you can’t get him or the uncle first thing in the morning,” Nick said, “call the local sheriff’s office there. They can send a deputy to the sales barn.”

“You really think he’d kill a man for dancing with his wife?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know what the history there might be. Maybe that wasn’t the first time. We know they did business together as well. Maybe he already had a beef with him. I know we need to talk to him.”

“What about that business card on the corpse?” Stokes asked. “If that was an estimate Mercier gave—”

“I’ve thought about that,” Nick said. “That could just as easily have been a price someone gave to Marc about something they wanted to sell to him as it was a price Marc offered someone else.”

“But if Parcelle killed Mercier, do you think he just went on to Houston?” Stokes asked. “Just going on with his life like nothing ever happened?”

“People do. All the time,” Nick said. “Murder is an anomaly. Some people would rather pretend it never happened than deal with the fact that they did something so terrible. Get rid of the body and go on with their lives. Hope nobody figures it out. After a while, they convince themselves it never happened, like it was just a bad dream.”

“I’d get the hell out of Dodge and never come back,” Stokes said. “I’m thinking I’d be long gone to Mexico.”

“He might have done that, too.”

“The place we found the body,” Stokes said, “that’s not but a few miles from the Parcelle place. On their way home from Luck. Still seems a careless place to dump a corpse.”

“It’s not a bad place to put a boat in the water,” Nick pointed out. “If you wanted to take that body out and dump it, you can get to the middle of nowhere pretty quick from there by boat. Does Cody Parcelle have a boat?”

“I don’t know. But we know Marc has a boat. Where’s that at?”

“That’s a good question. He went out with Dozer that night, and then he went on his own to Outlaw. He wasn’t dragging that boat around with him all night, was he? Who would do that? Is there video from the parking lot?”

“Not beyond the immediate vicinity of the front porch. The place is made to look like one of those Old West saloons in the movies. It’s got that wide front porch with an overhang that fucks up the camera angle. Can’t see the comings and goings from the parking lot at all. Where was he at with this Dozer character?”

“Mr. Cormier is being coy about that, which makes me wonder why. There was an LSU football game Saturday night, so wherever those boys went, it’s safe to say there were big-screen TVs. I’ll start with sports bars tomorrow. I’m more interested in where he went after he left Outlaw.

“If that body is Marc Mercier, where did he get shot? Why was he only half dressed? He leaves Outlaw at eleven thirty. If we’re saying Cody Parcelle shot him, and Cody got home a little after two…that’s not that much time, really.”

“So he leaves Outlaw,” Stokes said, “goes to another lady, Cody shows up, BOOM!”

“And where is this other lady?” Nick asked, skeptical. “She sees her lover get his head blown off right in front of her, and she doesn’t call the cops?”

“Maybe she’s too scared to talk. Or maybe she’s dead, too.”

“ Mais, c’est fou .” He shook his head, dismissing the idea. “That’s some kind of crazy Hollywood movie shit. I don’t buy it. You punch a guy in the mouth for flirting with your wife. You don’t blow his head off with a shotgun. You don’t track him down in the middle of the night and shoot him in the face. That can’t be it.”

Nick took another long drink of his coffee and sighed. “We don’t even know if this body is Marc Mercier.”

“When are we getting DNA results? They just gotta match the samples. How hard can it be?”

“With that lab in New Iberia? God knows,” Nick said, disgusted. “I got a text tonight that they lost the goddamn sample. Bunch of couillons running that place.”

“Somebody there was smart enough not to contact you during business hours,” Stokes pointed out.

“If they think I’ll be less angry tomorrow, they are mistaken,” Nick said. “I hope Gus gets us out of that contract before he leaves office again.”

“If this body isn’t Marc Mercier,” Stokes said, “then where is he? Why would he just disappear? He’s running a business, big man around town, got a new baby. Why would he just up and leave?”

“He’s fighting with his brother about the business; his marriage is a shambles. Is that baby even his?” Nick asked, thinking about Will Faulkner bouncing little Madeline on his arm as he walked her around the living room, so easy and natural with her. “If Luc has them in the stolen copper business, they could be mixed up with some unsavory people. Maybe Marc wanted out. Robbie Fontenot claimed he had a line on some copper thieves. That’s our connection between them.

“I want a witness,” he declared. “I want somebody saw someone dumping that body. Have you talked to any of those potential poachers?”

Stokes gave him a look. “Like I’ve had time to go track down swamp rat thieves today.”

“Mr. Arceneaux gave you a list of names. Delegate. Sergeant Rodrigue would love nothing better than to track those miscreants down and haul them in here for questioning. Put it on him.”

“ Ma?ana , man,” Stokes said, getting to his feet. “It’s late. I’m outta here.”

“I’ll call him,” Nick said. “He’ll be out there and have it done before you get out of bed in the morning.”

Stokes scowled.

“Don’t pout,” Nick said. “You had your chance. Now you can have your beauty sleep.”

“Do I at least get to have my moment for making the Cody Parcelle connection?”

“ Mais yeah,” Nick said. “You had it, well done, and now the moment is over. Move on. We’ve got cases to solve.”

“You’re a heartless bastard, you know that?”

“Whatever.”

“All right,” Stokes said, giving up. “I’m outta here.”

“Hot date?”

“With my own bed,” he said, stretching his arms up over his head and twisting at a kink in his back. “I’m still seeing that body when I close my eyes. That’s enough to make a man celibate. For a minute, anyway. You heading home?”

“I’ll swing by the Mercier house first. Make sure those town boys are on duty, then go home to my wife and son. Try to be normal for a few hours.”

“Nicky, you weren’t ever normal, man,” Stokes pointed out.

“ C’est vrai ,” Nick said, turning out the lights as they left the conference room. “True enough.”

—

It was after ten when Nick drove into the Quail Run neighborhood. The streets were quiet, residents tucked into their lovely homes, watching the late news on TV. The lights were on in the Mercier family room. Will Faulkner’s BMW sedan sat in the driveway. He wasn’t going to abandon Melissa Mercier just for the sake of appearances. If Marc Mercier was still alive somewhere, he was losing ground on his marriage.

Nick thought again about the scene in the Mercier living room, the picture of Melissa Mercier and her baby with Will Faulkner sitting on the arm of the love seat. It was difficult to imagine either of them killing someone, but it wouldn’t have been the first time Nick had put handcuffs on the least likely suspect. People found all kinds of excuses to do the most terrible things.

The call to Melissa from Robbie Fontenot’s phone…She claimed not to know him. Dozer Cormier claimed Marc and Robbie weren’t friends. How would Fontenot have had Melissa Mercier’s number…unless she gave it to him or Marc gave it to him? And why would Marc give his wife’s phone number to a man he didn’t associate with? Could Robbie Fontenot have a different role in this than anyone had considered? A longtime addict, out of work, needing money…$2,450 Annie had found in a box in his bedroom at his mother’s house…What had he done to earn that money?

Murders had been committed for a lot less. And while Melissa Mercier had no reason to know Robbie Fontenot, Will Faulkner was a native to Bayou Breaux who admitted to knowing Robbie’s mother. It wasn’t a stretch to think he might know Robbie as well.

Nick turned these thoughts over in his mind as he circled the block of the Mercier house, looking for anything out of place, spotting the police department patrol car sitting down the side street from Quail Trace. The officer had a good vantage point to see any cars that might come prowling around. He wouldn’t be able to see anyone approaching the house on foot from the rear, but he was just seconds away in the event of a 911 call.

Nick still would have rather had one of his own sitting on the house, but this would have to do. He drove past the patrol car on his way out of the development, briefly making eye contact with the officer at the wheel. At least he wasn’t sitting there looking at his phone.

The fifteen-minute drive out of Bayou Breaux was usually decompression time, time to put the day’s work in its compartment in his brain and shut the door for a few hours. But there was no escaping the endless questions in his head that night. The tangle of facts and theories spun around and around, moving like an elaborate three-dimensional shell game.

He tried to turn it off as he drove down the gravel road to his little piece of heaven on the bayou. The place had been a forgotten shambles when he’d bought it, an old-style Acadian house with rotting porches, all but swallowed up by weeds and vines. All he had cared about at the time was the peace of mind it gave him to be apart from civilization and a part of the natural wild beauty of this place. Reclaiming the house had been an exercise in catharsis. Then Annie had come into his life, and in the years since, with her as his partner, they had remodeled and added on, and turned the house into a home, and turned the surrounding property into a sanctuary. His blood pressure dropped every time he turned down the driveway.

Annie had fallen asleep reading to Justin and lay curled around him in his bed, the light from the bedside lamp glowing softly on her skin. Nick reached out to pick up the book, hoping not to wake her, but her eyes fluttered open. She blinked to focus and looked up at him with a soft smile turning her lips.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

“No,” she said softly.

She disentangled herself from their son, and Nick helped her up, taking the opportunity to hold her for a minute before bending down to kiss his son good night.

“Did I miss anything?” she asked as they closed the door and headed down the hall to their room.

“The lab lost Marc Mercier’s DNA sample.”

“No.”

“I get to explain that to his family tomorrow. Two days and we still don’t have an ID on that body. That’s unacceptable.”

Annie slipped an arm around his waist and leaned into him. “You don’t control the lab.”

“Clearly not. I feel like I’m not controlling much of anything right now,” he said. “We’ve got a three-ring circus going on. That lab provides all the clowns.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I do find the idea of you in britches and boots, cracking a whip, kind of a turn-on,” she said, giving him a sassy look.

“Careful what you wish for, ’Toinette,” he warned, pinching her bottom through the baggy plaid boxer shorts she liked to lounge in.

She scooted away, laughing as she went into their room. Nick darted after her, caught her, and wrapped her in a hug.

“How you doing, bébé ?” he asked. “I know you had a rough day.”

“There’s an understatement,” she said, looking up at him. “One dead witness, one battered wife, and my missing guy might turn out to be involved in something criminal.”

“Past performance being the best predictor of future behavior, will that be a surprise?” he asked.

“No, but it will be a disappointment for his mom. I’m rooting for her in this. She’s been through the wars for him. I can’t help but want a good outcome for her.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high, chère ,” Nick cautioned, stepping back.

“I know.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, looking a little forlorn, then concerned as she watched him. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“No,” he said, stripping his shirt off and dropping it in the laundry basket. “But I have a question: Is there any history of violence in his record?”

“Violence? No. Why?”

“Just trying to make some sense of that phone call to Melissa Mercier and that pile of money you found. Add a missing husband into that equation…”

“You can’t think she hired Robbie Fontenot to kill her husband,” Annie said.

“I’m just trying to put puzzle pieces together to see what fits.”

“What about Cody Parcelle?”

“One puzzle at a time.”

“I thought you said the wife doesn’t know Robbie.”

“I’d say I didn’t know him either if I’d hired him to kill my husband, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t hire anyone to kill my husband,” she said.

“Glad to hear it.”

“I’d kill him myself and dump his body parts in the swamp.”

Nick chuckled. “Well, you are a Cajun girl after all, yeah? She’s not.”

“Do you get that vibe from her, though? That she’d want her husband dead and see it done?”

“No, but people are full of surprises, no?” he said, sitting down on the bed beside her to take off his socks. “I’m not sure what to make of that situation—her and Will Faulkner. They say they’re not sleeping together, but they act like a couple. If they’re having an affair, they’re not doing anything at all to hide it, which makes me think maybe they’re not. They’re either absolutely genuine or they’re the best liars I’ve come across in a while.”

“I thought he was gay,” Annie said.

Nick shrugged. “You’re not the first to say it, but I think if he was, he’d be up front about it. He doesn’t seem to care what people think at all. He knows tongues are wagging about him spending the night at the Mercier house, but he’s there again tonight because he’s not about to leave her home alone when she doesn’t feel safe. She says he’s her only friend here.”

“He sounds like a good friend to have.”

“Yeah. Like he’d do anything for her. Or would he do anything to have her?”

“I don’t know,” Annie said, getting up to turn down the bed, “but I can’t think about it anymore tonight. This day’s been sad enough. Take your shower and come to bed, Mr. Fourcade. I need your arms around me. The world will be just as messed up tomorrow.”

“That’s a fact,” Nick said. “Trouble is a thing that has no end.”