A Thin Dark Line

that related to the college rape cases in 1991 and 1992. She read them on the screen, scrutinizing for any similarities between those cases and the newly dubbed 'Mardi Gras' cases.

The victims-seven of them-had all been college students or had worked at the college. Physical characteristics of the women varied; ages hung in the late teens, early twenties. The assaults had taken place in their bedrooms late at night. Each woman lived in a ground-floor apartment. The attacks took place during warm weather, the rapist gaining entry through open windows. He used cut-off lengths of panty hose, which he brought with him, to tie his victims up. He spoke very little throughout the course of the rapes, his voice described as 'a harsh whisper.' Though none of the women had gotten a clean look at her rapist because he had worn a ski mask, several speculated from his voice that 'he may have been black.' The rapist used a condom, which he disposed of away from the scene of the crime, and no semen or pubic hairs had been recovered for evidence. Before leaving the last of his victims, the attacker helped himself to cash and credit cards.

Evander Darnell Flood, the man arrested for the crimes, had given that victim's Visa card to his girlfriend. According to an acquaintance hauled in on unrelated drug charges, Flood had bragged to him about the rapes. While his record was not admissible in court, Evander had previously been a guest of the Mississippi correctional facility in Parchman for seven years on a rape charge. Two previous charges had been dropped due to lack of evidence.

The prosecution built a circumstantial case against Flood with evidence discovered by the Hattiesburg Police Department detectives. And, while Evander swore to the last that he was being framed, that the police had planted the evidence, the jury convicted him and the judge sent him back to Parchman for the rest of his natural life.

Annie sat back from the computer screen and rubbed her eyes. There were differences in the cases and similarities, but then the same could be said for the majority of rape cases. A certain methodology was common to the crime. The differences tended to be personal: One rapist was a talker, using foul sexual language to help get him off; the next one was silent. One might prefer to cover his victim's face to depersonalize her; another would threaten her at knifepoint to keep her eyes open so he might see her fear.

She found more similarities here than differences, but it was the circumstances surrounding Flood's arrest and conviction that made Annie uneasy. Flood swore he was innocent, like 99.9 percent of the scumbags in prison. But the case against him hadn't been that strong. The acquaintance could easily have lied as part of a deal for leniency in his own case. Witnesses who claimed to have seen a man matching Flood's description in the vicinity of several of the rapes told weak, conflicting stories. Flood claimed to have found the last victim's credit card in the hallway of his apartment building. He claimed the cops had railroaded him because he had a record and lived in the area where the crimes had taken place.

He would have been an easy target for a frame. Because of his record, the cops would have known all about Evander early on. He lived in the area, had a part-time janitorial job at the college. His live-in girlfriend worked nights, robbing him of an alibi witness.

Annie closed her eyes and saw Stokes. As a detective assigned to the cases, planting evidence would have been a simple matter for him. He had been there in Renard's home the night Fourcade had found Pam's ring. Everyone had jumped on Nick with the accusation of tampering because he had been accused before. No one had looked twice at Chaz Stokes.

She went through the steps of instructing the computer to print the articles, then turned around in her chair while the dot-matrix printer chattered away. At the far end of one row of reference books, a face stared at her, then darted back into the shadows. Victor Renard.

Annie's heart gave a jolt. The library was nearly deserted. What action there was, was on the first floor: a blue-haired ladies' reading group trying to find Satanic messages in The Celestine Prophecy. The second floor, where Annie was, was quiet as a church.

Victor peeked around the end of another bookcase, saw that she was looking right at him, and darted back.

'Victor?' Annie said. Abandoning the printer to its work, she eased out of her chair and moved carefully toward the bookcases. 'Mr. Renard? You don't have to hide from me.'

She made her way slowly down one row, muscles tensing, lungs aching against the held breath. The lighting back here was poor. Gooseflesh crawled down the back of her neck.

'It's Annie Broussard, Victor. Remember me? I'm trying to help Marcus,' she said, her conscience pinching her for lying to a mentally challenged person. Would she get another day in purgatory if her ultimate goal was good? The end justifies the means.

She started to turn right at the end of the human sciences row and caught a glimpse of him cowering in the corner to her left.

'How are you, Victor?' she asked, trying to sound pleasant, conversational. She turned toward him slowly, not wanting to spook him.

He didn't seem comfortable with her proximity. She was no more than a yard from him. He made a small uncertain keening sound in his throat and began to rock himself from side to side.

'It's all been very hard on you, hasn't it?' Annie said, her sympathy for him genuine.

According to what little she'd read about autistics in trying to understand more about Marcus Renard's brother, routine was sacred. Yet, Victor's life had to have been an endless series of upsets since the death of Pam Bichon. The press, the cops, disgruntled citizens had all focused their scrutiny and their speculation on the Renard family. Plenty of rumors had run around town that perhaps Victor himself was dangerous. His condition baffled and frightened people. His behavior seemed odd at best, and often inappropriate.

'Mask, mask. No mask,' he mumbled, looking at her out the corner of his eye.

Mask. Since Pam's death the word had taken on a menacing connotation that had only been compounded by the recent rapes. Coming from someone whose behavior was so strange, someone who happened to be the brother of a murder suspect, it added to the eeriness.

He raised the book in his hands, a collection of Audubon's prints, to cover his face and tapped a finger against the picture on the front, a finely detailed rendering of a mockingbird. 'Mimus polyglottos. Mimus, mimic. Mask, no mask.'

Slowly he lowered the book to peer over it at her. His eyes had a glasslike quality, hard and clear and unblinking. 'Transformation, transmutation, alteration. Mask.'

'Do you think I look like someone I'm not? Is that it? Do I remind you of Pam?' Annie asked gently. How much of what had happened could be locked inside Victor Renard's mind? What secret, what clue, might be trapped in the strange labyrinth that was his brain?

He covered his face again. 'Red and white. Then and now.'

'I don't understand, Victor.'

'I think he's confused,' Marcus said.

Annie swung toward him, startled. She hadn't heard his approach at all. They were back in the farthest, dimmest corner of the library. She had Victor on one side, Marcus on another, a wall to her back.

'That you resemble Pam, but that you aren't Pam,'

Marcus finished. 'He can't decide if it's good or bad, past or present.'

Victor rocked himself and bumped the Audubon book against his forehead over and over, muttering, 'Red, red, enter out.'

'How much of his language do you understand?' Annie asked.

'Some.' He was still speaking through gritted teeth, his jaw being wired shut, but with less difficulty. The swelling was gone from his face. The bruises looked yellow and black in the poor light. 'It's a code of sorts.'

'Very red,' Victor mumbled unhappily.

'Red is a watchword for things that upset him,' Marcus explained. 'It's all right, Victor. Annie is a friend.'

'Very white, very red,' Victor said, peering over the book at Annie. 'Very white, very red.'

'White is good, red is bad. Why he's putting the two together that way is beyond me. He's been very upset since the shooting the other night.'

'I can relate to that,' Annie said, turning her attention more squarely on Marcus. 'Someone took a shot at me