Thicker Than Water

Chapter Thirteen

It shouldn’t have bothered him. It was just a normal wound chart-the simple line drawing of a generic female body that pathologists used to record injuries to the deceased. Louis stared at the sketch. The body portion of the drawing was oddly neutered with no nipples or pubic area. The pathologist had dutifully drawn in the twelve stab marks on the torso.

But something about it was bothering him.

Then he saw it. The drawing’s face. Unlike the body, it was detailed, with eyes, hair-shit, and a smile.

Jesus. He had heard about these old wound charts, but he had never seen one before. They had been phased out years ago when someone finally realized how grotesque they were.

He tossed the diagram aside, hoisted himself off the bed and went to the kitchen. He returned with a Dr Pepper and it was several minutes and half a can later before he returned to Kitty Jagger’s autopsy report.

The pages of the twenty-year-old report were yellowed, some even mildewed from lying in the damp bowels of the municipal filing system. A musty odor rose up to him as he carefully turned the pages.

Katherine Lynn Jagger. DOB: 2-29-51. Height: 5 ft. 5. Weight: 122 lbs.

Cause of death: cerebral hemorrhage.

Manner of death: blunt trauma to the skull.

Mode of death: homicide.

Issy jumped up on the bed. The cat stared at him for a moment, then laid down on one of the open folders.

He was looking for something that might provide a clue about where she had been killed before being dumped. But so far there was nothing.

Contents of stomach: partially digested beef, potatoes, bread, unidentified sugar liquid, alcohol.

Louis shifted his weight and the bed creaked. He was trying to see her now, trying to imagine where she had been, what she looked like, what she had done the night she died. She had worked that night at Hamburger Heaven. She had probably eaten a hamburger, fries and a Coke sometime during her shift.

Tissue analysis: nothing unusual.

Lung analysis: nicotine, potassium monopersulfate.

Okay, she was a smoker. And she had at least one drink about an hour before she was killed.

Mobley had said she was a “greaser,” the wilder crowd, the kids who smoked, drank, dropped out, got pregnant.

Louis flipped the page back to the internal organ analysis. She hadn’t been pregnant.

But she definitely had been raped. Semen had been found in her vagina and on her thighs. Coupled with the extensive bruising on her inner thighs, everything pointed to rape, not consentual sex.

He started to set the report aside but paused, something registering that had not struck him before. He flipped back to the lung analysis. Potassium monopersulfate. What the hell was that?

He pulled his notebook closer and made a note to call Vince Carissimi, the medical examiner, in the morning.

The low rumble of thunder pulled Louis’s attention to the window. A cool breeze, smelling of rain, wafted in through the jalousies. He glanced up at the wet stain in the ceiling above his bed. It had rained almost every night in the last week and he knew he was living on borrowed time before the whole damn roof gave way.

He set the autopsy report aside and scanned the bed, looking for the police report. Issy was sleeping on it. He tried to ease it out from under her.

“Off, cat,” he said.

With a quick move, he jerked it out. The cat didn’t even look up at him.

He opened the folder. He was looking for the lead investigator on the case and finally zeroed in on a Detective Robert Ahnert. His signature appeared on all the reports. Ahnert’s own accounts, including his initial call to the dumpsite, were written in a concise, unemotional style. Even his report of going to the Jagger home to deliver the news that Kitty’s body had been found was handled in the same detached manner.

Louis started to gather it all up but then paused. Something in his memory was nagging him. He went to his dresser and got the file that held the newspaper clips about Kitty’s murder. He found the interview with her father, Willard Jagger.

Damn. There it was. Willard Jagger said he had reported his daughter missing on April 9th. Two days before her body was discovered in the dump.

So where was the missing person’s report? He knew that cops usually let twenty-four or even forty-eight hours go by before they acted on a missing person’s report. But this wasn’t a big city where teenagers normally went missing. This was a small town where the disappearance of a fifteen-year-old girl would probably send up a red flag. Why hadn’t Ahnert acted when Willard Jagger reported his daughter missing?

Bernhardt and Candace Duvall would have to wait, no matter what Susan thought. He needed to talk to Ahnert. If the guy was still alive.

Louis leafed through the rest of the material, but there was nothing unusual. It was all there, complete, professional-and as impersonal as the wound chart.

Kitty Jagger. . reduced to the ultimate generic.

It had started to rain. He could hear it beating on the roof. A moment later, he felt a splatter on his head and his eyes darted up.

“Shit,” he muttered.

The stain was starting to drip. Louis jumped up and dragged the bed a foot to the left. He went to the kitchen and returned with a pot, setting it under the drip. Issy had retreated to a mound of dirty clothes on the floor.

Louis stared at the mess of papers and folders on his bed. The blowup copy of the black and white yearbook picture of Kitty Jagger was lying on top.

He hadn’t noticed it the first time, but he realized now that she looked vaguely like a girl who used to babysit him. Amy. . that was her name. She lived three doors down from the Lawrence house and she used to bring a little blue case of 45s with her. He remembered she came over one night with a burn mark on her forehead from ironing her hair. All the white girls had wanted stick-straight hair in those days, like the Beatles’ girlfriends.

Amy was fifteen. He was ten. She taught him to do the Boogaloo. She called him “little soul brother.”

He paused, then went to his bureau. He opened a drawer, pulling the worn envelope out from under his underwear.

He sifted slowly through the pictures, pausing at the portrait of his sister Yolanda. Hand on hip, cocky tilt to her head, flirtatious smile. He wished he could remember her that way. Not the way she had looked the last time he saw her. She had been standing on the porch, screaming, crying, as the social services woman put him in the big green car.

His sister. . he could still remember her touch when she washed him, her voice when she rocked him to sleep. His sister had been there for him.

Louis picked up another faded photo. It was of his mother Lila, the one taken when she was eighteen and still beautiful. Where had she been that day? He remembered she was sleeping. Or had she been passed out?

He picked up the faded snapshot of the white man in the straw hat.

And where were you, you sonofabitch?

Louis lifted his eyes to his reflection in the dresser mirror.

I don’t even know what you really look like. Or if I have any part of you in my face.

Louis dropped the photo to the dresser and turned away from the mirror. He rubbed his face and glanced at his watch. It was after midnight and he needed some sleep.

He moved back to the bed and started to gather up the files. Finally, he gave up and just shoved them aside, crawling up against the pillows and leaning his head back against the headboard.

The rain was beating a steady rhythm on the roof, and he tried to relax, but there was too much junk swimming in his head. Too many pictures of girls’ bruised faces and shadowy men in straw hats.

He heard a noise and sat up.

The creak of his screen door. He moved quickly off the bed, to the bedroom door and peered out into the dark living room. There was someone there.

Louis reached around the doorjamb and flipped on the light.

Jack Cade squinted at him, his black hair matted to his head, rain streaking his face.

“What the fuck?” Louis said. “What are you doing here?”

Cade brushed his hair off his forehead. “Ronnie sold some land. I got bail.”

“I don’t care. Get the fuck out.”

Cade slowly peeled off his windbreaker, water puddling at his feet.

Louis took a step toward him. “Hey, man, I said get out.”

Cade eyed Louis through thick-lidded slits. He tossed the sodden jacket on a chair.

“When I’m ready.”

Louis grabbed the jacket, opened the screen door and tossed it to the porch.

“Leave,” he said, holding open the door.

“You’re starting to annoy me, Louie.”

“Look, you don’t just walk in someone’s house in the middle of the damn night.”

“You afraid of me?”

“Fuck no.”

“Good. We need to talk.”

“Not here. You want to talk, call me at Susan Outlaw’s office.”

Cade didn’t move. Louis stared at him, debating whether he should try to throw him out. But Cade probably had at least twenty pounds on him.

“I’m dripping on your floor here, Louie,” Cade said. His eyes were traveling around the small living room, finally focusing on the bedroom door. He moved quickly to it.

“Hey!” Louis yelled. He followed Cade, letting the screen door slam.

Cade didn’t stop or look back. He went through the bedroom and disappeared into the bathroom. He emerged with a towel. He vigorously rubbed his face and hair dry then tossed the towel on the floor.

“Get out of here,” Louis said evenly.

But Cade just looked at him, his face shadowed by the dim light. “I could sure use a beer or something.”

Louis shook his head. “I’m out. You got thirty seconds.”

Cade gave a small shrug. His eyes were moving slowly over the bedroom now. Louis felt himself tense, unnerved by the intimacy of Cade’s gaze as it moved across his clothes, his books, his bed. Cade’s eyes came to rest on Issy. The cat was lying in the pile of clothes on the floor, its ears flattened back as it stared up at Cade.

“That your kitty?” Cade asked.

Louis didn’t answer. The thunder rolled overhead, fading away. Cade was looking at the files on the bed now. He cocked his head to try to read the top one.

“Don’t touch anything,” Louis said.

Cade’s eyes zeroed in on the blurry blowup of Kitty Jagger. He looked back at Louis. “That’s my old file, ain’t it?”

Cade bent and gently opened the file. Louis took a step toward him and Cade drew back, letting the folder close.

“I’d like to read it.”

“Not tonight.”

“I always wondered what Ahnert’s take on me was.”

Louis hid his surprise. “Detective Ahnert?”

“Yeah. Good old Bob.”

“Forget Ahnert. You need to leave,” Louis said sharply. He moved to the bed and started gathering up the files.

Cade picked up the picture of Kitty and held it out. “Forgot something,” he said.

Louis grabbed the picture and stuffed it in a folder. “Look, Cade,” he said. “We’re going to get something straight. You don’t come here unannounced and not at night. You don’t ever just drop in on Miss Outlaw, either. You-”

Cade had moved away. Louis spun around.

Cade had stepped to the dresser. He picked up the old snapshot.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

Louis started to grab it, but Cade was too quick. He pulled away, taking a few steps back as he looked at the picture, then back up at Louis.

“This your old man?” he asked.

“None of your fucking business.”

“He still alive?”

Suddenly Louis didn’t care what his chances were. He didn’t want Cade touching that picture. He tensed, ready to lunge, but before he could, Cade tossed the snapshot back on the dresser. He was staring at Louis now, and Louis had a sickening feeling Cade could read his mind.

“I didn’t know my old man either,” Cade said. “I had my mom, but the old man, well, he was in Raiford and some bastard stuck a fork in his belly.”

Cade pointed to his own chest. “Leaves a hole, you know, a hole right here.”

Cade’s eyes were moving slowly over the bedroom again. “Yup, fathers are important, Louie, no matter what they are. You can’t separate from them, even if you want to. It’s important for a man to know where he comes from, what kind of blood runs through his veins.”

Louis moved quickly, grabbing Cade’s arm and shoving him toward the living room. Cade jerked away, backing up.

“Let me say what I came here to say,” Cade said.

“Make it quick.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day, about that girl. I’ve decided I don’t want you digging around in it. There’s nothing there. Leave that girl dead and buried.”

Louis knew Cade could probably break his neck, but he didn’t care. He just wanted him out. He shoved Cade and he stumbled toward the screen door.

“Get out,” Louis hissed. “You ever come here again, I’ll have your ass arrested. After I kick the shit out of you.”

Cade looked back at Louis, amused. He scooped his windbreaker off the porch and took a quick step toward Louis. He poked his finger in Louis’s chest.

“A hole,” he said. Then he smiled. “You hang onto that picture, Louie.”

Cade turned and hit the screen door. It slapped closed behind him. Louis watched him disappear into the shadows of the trees.