Chapter 43

43

Annie climbed the stairs with her 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. She remained 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.

Dewey didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t thinking straight. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back, anxious, agitated.

“You need to leave,” he said, raising his sidearm and pointing it at her, his expression stony.

Annie swallowed hard, her pulse racing. She didn’t know what he was on or how volatile he might become. He was clearly desperate, cornered like an animal. Cornered animals lashed out.

“Why don’t we let Mrs. Fontenot leave first?” she suggested, amazed she could sound so calm when she felt on the verge of panic. Her mouth was dry, her throat was tight. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. She glanced at B’Lynn, who had placed herself between Dewey and the desk, protecting Robbie’s old computer as she would have protected her son.

How had Dewey Rivette known this computer even existed? Annie wondered. If he’d been in this room before, how had he not found the box of money? Or had he just not thought to come there until she’d told him about finding the cash? And if Robbie had stashed the cash there, had Dewey wondered what else he might have hidden?

“No,” Dewey said. “She’ll call for help.”

“Help is already here,” Annie said. “Look out the window, Dewey. There’s deputies waiting down below. I called for backup before I ever came in the house.

“You need to put the gun down,” she said. “This is over. Whatever you’ve done, you’re just making it worse.”

He glanced over his shoulder toward the big bay window, and B’Lynn seized the chance to dash out the door.

Annie slipped her sidearm from the holster.

“What did Robbie have on you, Dewey? What’d he have on Danny? Was Danny dealing? Were you?”

He was breathing hard. His arm had begun to tremble from holding the gun up. Tears rose in his eyes.

“Just put the gun down and tell me what happened,” Annie said quietly. “You look so tired, Dewey. Don’t you just want this to be over?”

He let his arm bend and pulled his elbow against his side, the gun still pointed in her direction.

“Robbie was your CI,” Annie prompted. “He found out about Danny. Why didn’t you do anything about it? Because you were in on it? Or because you were a customer? Are you high right now, Dewey?”

Two big tears spilled down his cheeks. “I can’t lose my job,” he said, as if there was a snowball’s chance in hell he was going to have a job after that morning.

“Was he blackmailing you?”

“He said he had video of Danny, and Danny was supplying me…He had us both. Jesus God,” he muttered, shaking his head. “What a nightmare! I can’t go to prison!”

“Did you kill him?” Annie asked, feeling sick at the thought.

“No!”

“Did Danny?”

“No! He—he gave him some pills. We thought he’d OD. We thought he probably had. And then Danny was chasing his car…”

He hadn’t bothered looking for Robbie from the start of this because he not only thought Robbie was dead, he was betting on it.

“I can’t go to prison,” he said again. “I can’t.”

“Maybe you don’t have to,” Annie lied. “Put the gun down. You haven’t hurt anyone. You’re having a mental health crisis. You need help, Dewey. We can get you help.”

He shook his head and spoke to himself. “My life is over.”

Dewey had been caught in a trap of his own making, and there was a part of her that didn’t want to have sympathy for him. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to let him kill himself in Robbie Fontenot’s bedroom in his mother’s ancestral home. B’Lynn had suffered enough. Dewey Rivette could live to deal with the consequences of his actions.

He started to lift his arm again, to turn the gun toward his own head. He was crying so hard, he probably couldn’t see her. His gun hand was shaking, waving his service weapon like a flag. Then his legs gave way, and he sank to the floor and curled into a sobbing ball, the weapon falling from his useless fingers, finished in every way.