Chapter 42

42

“Fucking hell!” Stokes muttered, staring at the scene in front of them: Sergeant Rodrigue straddling the prone body of Dozer Cormier, red-faced as he applied pressure to the massive wound in Cormier’s shoulder.

“Go in with Mercier,” Nick ordered. “Book him. Put him in an interview room and leave him alone, but don’t take your eyes off him on the video.”

“Aye, aye, boss,” Stokes said, hustling off toward the marked SUV a deputy had already put Marc Mercier in.

Nick dismissed him, his attention on Dozer, who had turned an unhealthy shade of gray and lay wide-eyed with fear, gasping for air like a fish out of water.

“Dozer, can you hear me?” he asked as he knelt down beside him.

“I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!” Dozer mumbled, terrified.

“The ambulance is on the way,” Nick said calmly. “You gotta hang in there for us, yeah? You don’t want Marc being the only one telling this story.”

“He tried to kill me! He killed me!”

“You ain’t dead yet,” Nick said. “We’re gonna get you to the hospital.”

Rodrigue’s pressure on the wound had stemmed the arterial bleeding for the moment, but the big man was drenched in red and he had begun trembling uncontrollably as his body reacted to the trauma. There was no guarantee he would make it to Our Lady.

“Dozer, look at me,” Nick ordered, tapping his fingers on the man’s cheek to try to keep him focused. “You need to stay with me here. Tell me what happened to Robbie Fontenot.”

“He’s dead,” Dozer said, panting. “I wanted to make amends. Now he’s dead.”

He began to cry, for himself, for Robbie Fontenot. It was hard to say.

“Oh, God, I’m going to hell!” he wailed.

“No, you’re not,” Nick assured him. “You still have time, Dozer. You’ve got good in you. I know that. Who killed Robbie?”

Dozer moaned and writhed. Nick glanced up at Rodrigue, who was whispering the Rosary in French under his breath.

“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.”