Richard Kudrow was dying. The Crohn's disease that had besieged his intestinal tract for the last five years of his life had been joined in the last few months by a voracious cancer. Despite the efforts of medical science, his body was virtually devouring itself.

He had been told to quit his practice and devote his time to the hopeless task of treatment, but he didn't see the point. He knew his demise was inevitable. Work was all that kept him going. Anger and adrenaline fueled his weakened system. The focus on justice-an attainable goal-gave him a greater sense of purpose than the pursuit of a cure-an unattainable goal. In defying his doctors and his disease, he had already managed to live past all expectations.

His enemies said he was too damned mean to die. He figured the beating of Marcus Renard was going to give him another six or eight months' worth of fury to live on.

"My client was beat to within an inch of his life by your detective, Noblier. What kind of bullshit will you attempt to spread over that plain truth?"

Gus pressed his lips together. His eyes narrowed to the size of beads as he glared at Kudrow sitting across from him, gray and withering like a rotting pecan husk in his wrinkled brown suit.

"You're the bullshit expert, Kudrow. I'm supposed to swallow the rantings of your sociopathic homicidal pervert client?"

"He didn't break his own nose. He didn't break his own jaw. He did not break his own teeth out of his head. Ask your Deputy Broussard. Better yet, I'll ask your Deputy Broussard," Kudrow said, pressing up out of the chair. "I sure as hell don't trust you any farther than I could throw a grown hog."

Gus rose with energy and thrust a finger at the lawyer. "You stay the hell away from my people, Kudrow."

Kudrow waved him off. "Broussard is a material witness and Fourcade is a thug. He was a thug on the NOPD and you knew it when you hired him. That makes you culpable in the civil suit, Noblier, and, by virtue of the fact that you did not suspend Fourcade from the Bichon case after his obvious attempt to plant and manipulate evidence, you may well be guilty of collusion on the assault."

Gus snorted. "Collusion! You give yourself a hernia trying to drag that dead horse into court, you old goat. And you file as many goddamn civil suits as you want. You'll die poor before you get a dime out of my office. As for the rest, I don't remember anybody electing you district attorney."

"Smith Pritchett will bring charges before you can digest the grease you ate for breakfast. He'll be all too happy to see Fourcade's ass in jail."

"We'll see about that," Gus grumbled. "You don't know shit about what happened last night, and I am not obliged to talk with you about it."

"It'll all be a matter of record." Kudrow picked up his old briefcase, and the weight of it tilted him slightly sideways. "It had damn well better be. Your deputy made an arrest last night. She took a statement from my client, asked if he wanted to press charges. If there isn't paperwork to go with those facts, there will be hell to pay, Noblier."

Gus's features twisted as if he had just caught wind of day-old roadkill. "Your client is delusional and a liar, and those are some of his better qualities," he said, cutting past the lawyer to the front door of his office. "Get out of here, Kudrow. I've got better things to do with my time than listen to you pass gas through your mouth all morning."

Kudrow bared the teeth the toxins in his body had turned amber. Energy burned in his veins like rocket fuel and he envisioned it searing the cancer out of him. "It's been a pleasure, as always, Sheriff. But not so much a pleasure as ruining you and your rogue, Fourcade, will be."

"Why don't you just do the world a favor and drop dead," Gus suggested.

"I'd never be that nice to you, Noblier. I plan to outlive your days in this office, if for no other reason than spite."

"God should live that long, but you sure as hell won't, I'm glad to say."

"We'll see who gets the last word."

Gus slammed the door on Kudrow's back. "Me, you rotting old turd," he grumbled. He swung toward the side door to his secretary's office and bellowed, "Get in here, Broussard!"

Annie's heart sank as she rose from the chair she'd been waiting in. She had listened with rapt attention to the angry voices that could be quite plainly heard through the door. The heat of the argument seemed to have physically enveloped her. She could feel sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades and moistening the armpits of her uniform.

Valerie Comb, Noblier's secretary, cut her a sideways look. A bottle blonde, she had been four years ahead of Annie in school, head basketball cheerleader and voted most likely to get pregnant on purpose, which she had done. Now divorced with three kids to feed, she placed her loyalties solidly in Noblier's corner.

Pulling in a deep breath, Annie let herself into the inner sanctum, and closed the door behind her. The sheriff stomped toward her with a bulldog glare and hands jammed at his belt line. Annie braced her feet slightly apart and locked her hands together behind her back.

"You took a statement from Marcus Renard last night?" he said in a tight voice.

"Yes, sir."

"I told you to go home, didn't I, Broussard? Am I getting Alzheimer's or something? Did I just imagine I told you to go home?"

"No, sir."

"Then what the hell were you doing down to Our Lady, taking a statement from Marcus Renard?"

"It had to be done, Sheriff," she said. "I was the officer on the scene. I knew Renard would be only too happy to charge the department with negligence, and-"

"Don't you preach procedure to me, Deputy," he snapped. "You don't think I know procedure? You think I don't know what I'm doing?"

"No, sir- I mean, yes, sir- I-"

"When I tell you to do something, I have a reason for it, Deputy Broussard." He leaned toward her, his whole head as red as a radish out to the tips of his ears. "Sometimes a situation needs to be sorted through before we proceed in the usual way. Do you understand what I'm saying here, Deputy?"

Annie held every muscle in her body stiff, too afraid that she knew exactly what he was saying. "I saw Nick Fourcade beating the shit out of Marcus Renard, Sheriff."

"I'm not saying you didn't. I'm saying you don't know the circumstances. I'm saying you didn't hear the call about a prowler in that part of town. I'm saying you weren't there when the offender resisted arrest."

Annie stared at him for a long moment. "You're saying I wasn't in the room last night when everyone was getting their story straight," she said at last, knowing she was inviting Noblier's wrath. "What Fourcade did last night was illegal. It was wrong."

"And what Renard did to that Bichon girl wasn't?"

"Of course it was, but-"

"Let me tell you something here, Annie," he said, suddenly quieter, gentler. He stepped back and sat on the edge of his desk. His expression was serious, frank, absent of the bluster he regularly blew at the world.

"The world isn't black and white, Annie. It's shades of gray. The world don't follow no procedure handbook. The law and justice are not always the same thing. I'm not saying I condone what Fourcade did. I'm saying I understand what Fourcade did. I'm saying we take care of our own in this department. That means you don't go off half-cocked and try to arrest a detective. That means you don't run and take a statement when I tell you to go home."

"I can't change the fact that I was there, Sheriff, or that Renard knows I was there. How would it look if I hadn't taken his statement?"

"It might look like he was confused about the chain of events. It might look like we were giving him the night to recover before we troubled him further. It might look like we were sorting out the jurisdictional questions here."