Thicker Than Water

Chapter Two

There was so much red. It streamed out from the center in slender little arteries, bleeding across the purple backdrop.

He had been standing here for ten minutes now, waiting for just the right moment to do what he had come here to do. He didn’t know much about taking photographs. But he knew that he had to wait until just the right moment.

The red was deepening, spreading.

Finally, he brought the camera up to his eye, aimed and took a picture of the sunset.

A smile tipped the corners of Louis Kincaid’s mouth. Finally. He had finally done it. He didn’t even need to wait for the film to come back this time. He knew this time the picture wouldn’t be blurry, the colors pale or the damn horizon crooked. This time he had finally nailed it.

He looked back out over the gulf. The sun hovered just above the horizon for a second. Then, as if pricked by a pin, the red ball suddenly deflated and melted into the water.

He heard someone applauding and turned to see a couple standing about a hundred yards or so down the beach. They were applauding the sunset. He always thought it was funny that people did that. It was the tourists mainly, who came down to the beach at dusk, wine glasses in hand, to pay homage to Mother Nature or God or whatever deity they thought was behind the light show.

The sunset. He used to notice it. No matter where he was-in his cottage or his car, sitting at a bar or buying groceries. Every day without fail, right around five, his eyes wandered to the west and he would wonder what it was going to be like that night.

But things were different now. He had been here six months and sunsets were now just a scientific phenomenon to be taken for granted, like rain or snow. Nothing but slanting sunlight shooting through a prism of dirt, gas molecules and water vapors.

But he wouldn’t tell Frances that.

He would just send her and Phillip the photograph and tell them that this was what he saw when he stepped out of his cottage and that, yes, he was very happy and no, they didn’t need to worry about him.

The colors were fading and the couple had disappeared. He watched the dark green waves crash and foam. The storm last night had left the water still churning and the tide line was rimmed with rotting kelp, broken shells and dead fish. He turned and started back toward the cottage.

He paused at the crest of the low dune. The sun had turned the weather-beaten gray boards of the cottage to umber, making it look like some rustic hideaway on Cape Cod. He stared at the cottage-his cottage- for a minute then brought the camera up to his eye and took a picture.

The photograph wouldn’t show the torn screening on the porch or the mildew in the shower stall, but, hey, Frances wouldn’t know that. His foster mother would just be happy that he finally had settled into such a nice place.

At the door, he paused to knock the sand off his flip-flops, then went in. His eyes wandered over the old rattan furniture with its faded blue cushions, up over the terrazzo floor to the pale green walls decorated with matching prints of two crazed-looking pink cockatoos.

Settled. . was he settled? He liked his cottage. He liked taking his cup of coffee out to the beach in the morning and getting surprised by the sight of a dolphin’s fin breaking the glass-smooth water. He liked Captiva Island. More than he thought he could have.

But settled?

That wasn’t the right word. Not with that little something that kept gnawing at him inside, that voice that kept telling him twenty-six-year-old men didn’t settle into sleepy little beach towns where the only things keeping a person connected to the real world were cable television and a causeway bridge.

Twenty-seven. Today was his birthday. He had almost forgotten.

Louis set the camera on the bar and went to the refrigerator to get a Dr Pepper. As he closed the door, his eye caught the card that hung there under the seashell magnet. It was a birthday card with a picture of a golden retriever wearing a big red bow. He took it down and opened it, reading the short note again from Frances and Phillip. They had never forgotten his birthday, not once since he had first come to live with them when he was eight. Every November, a week before his birthday on the eighteenth, no matter where he was, the card would find him-always with the twenty-dollar bill tucked inside.

He put the card back under the magnet. Leaning back against the counter, he took a drink of the Dr Pepper, watching the shadows growing in the corners of the kitchen.

Shit, his birthday. Maybe he would go over to the Dodies’. He had just been to see them over the weekend, but hadn’t thought to mention his birthday was coming up. He glanced at his watch. After six. They’d already have had supper, but Margaret would surely fix him a plate.

No, he had been sponging off Sam and Margaret too much lately. He couldn’t afford to wear out his welcome. Even on his birthday.

A cricket started to sing somewhere in the cottage. His stomach rumbled, and he knew without looking there was nothing but a couple cans of Beefaroni in the cupboard. He finished the Dr Pepper and tossed the can in the trash. He’d walk down to Timmy’s and grab an early dinner, maybe a few beers.

He threw on a clean T-shirt and left the cottage. Next door, at number four, a family was dragging their suitcases out of their car and stopped to look at him. Louis gave them a smile and mumbled a good evening. The two teenaged boys stared at him sullenly. Louis hoped they weren’t like the last ones who had rented number four. Those kids had blasted their boombox into the night and he finally had to go over and tell them to stop.

He hadn’t really cared about the loud music. But the other guests did and it was his job to do something about it.

Louis shook his head as he headed out to the road. Security for Bransons on the Beach cottages. An ex-cop couldn’t get much lower than that. Even if it did mean he paid next to nothing for a gulf view others paid three hundred a day for.

The lot of Timmy’s Nook was nearly empty. It was too early for the locals and Timmy’s was too rustic looking for most of the tourists.

Bev looked up from behind the bar and gave him a smile. “You’re early. You hungry or just bored?”

“Both,” he said, taking a seat at one of wood tables covered with red checkered vinyl.

Bev was up to her thin elbows in soapy water. “It’ll be a minute or two. Carlo’s just fired up the fryers.” She cocked a head toward the cooler. “You know where it is.”

Louis got up, went behind the bar and got a Heineken, taking it back to the table. He watched Bev as she finished washing the bar glasses. He came into Timmy’s a couple times a week and Bev was always there to serve him his fried grouper sandwich with fries and slaw, but they had never gotten beyond friendly banter. Outside of what he saw of her here, he didn’t know much about her, and she sure as hell knew nothing about him, other than his tastes in food and that he lived down the road. And what had been in the newspapers.

Bev dried her bony hands. She looked maybe sixty, a spindly Lucille Ball with her upswept dark-rooted blond hair, bright red dime-store lipstick, always dressed in the same black capri pants and black tops. He liked her. She was like his cottage. Old-fashioned, a little musty, but homey.

She came over to lean against the wall near his table and eyed his Miami Dolphins T-shirt.

“Nice shirt,” she said.

“What’s wrong with it?” Louis asked.

“The Bucs ain’t good enough for you?”

“The Bucs aren’t good enough for much of anything.”

“All we need is a couple of good draft picks.”

“Shit, Bev, even Bo wouldn’t come to Tampa for seven million. The Bucs stink. They will always stink.”

She started to sulk, but Louis knew it was fake. They had been having this same argument since the first day he walked in. She was a die-hard Bucs fan and hated the Dolphins just on general principle. It was what passed for personal talk between them.

“Fucking Fish,” she muttered. “What kind of colors is that for a football team? Pool colors. You don’t look good in aqua, you know. No man looks good in aqua.”

Louis smiled, shaking his head.

“You want your usual?”

“Yeah. Extra tartar.”

Bev went back to the kitchen. Louis took a swig of beer. She was right about the aqua T-shirt. Six months ago, he wouldn’t have been caught dead in one. Hell, he never used to wear T-shirts out in public. Same with the khaki shorts and the flip-flops he was now wearing. He took another drink of beer. Was it because of Florida, like Dodie switching from flannel to those guayabera shirts? Or was it because he wasn’t a cop anymore? Even when a cop was off-duty, he usually dressed like he wasn’t. The humidity had probably just melted the starch out of him.

Bev wandered back, bringing silverware wrapped in a paper napkin. “Haven’t seen you in two days,” she said. “Where you been?”

“I had a job down in Bonita Springs,” Louis said.

“Another cheating, dirt-bag husband?”

“Cheating, dirt-bag wife this time.”

“How’d you nail her?”

“Photos. Coming out of the Days Inn.”

“Cheap bastard. He couldn’t spring for the Marriott?”

Louis knew Bev liked hearing the details whenever he had a surveillance case. But he didn’t really want to give them.

“Boring case, Bev,” he said. “Nothing juicy this time.”

“Damn.” She retreated to the kitchen. Louis took another drink of beer, his eyes wandering out the window. It was too dark now to see much further than the dock, but out in the black channel he could make out the red and green running lights of a boat making its way south.

His thoughts drifted to the husband of the woman he had busted in Bonita Springs. The poor guy had looked at the photographs, taken out his checkbook, slid the check across the table to Louis and left. All without saying a word.

Louis stared out at the black water. God, he hated it. He hated that woman, he hated that man, he hated sitting in a hot car waiting for people to prove they were human. He hated being a PI. He hated not being a cop.

“Excuse me.”

Louis looked up. A man was standing at his table. Tall, thin, wearing jeans and a faded green T-shirt.

“Are you Louis Kincaid?” he asked.

Louis nodded warily. It had been months since anyone had recognized him and he had begun to hope the notoriety was finally wearing off. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life answering questions from strangers who got off hearing about serial killers. The press had dubbed it the “Paint It Black” killings, after the Rolling Stones song. Once, when he was sitting at a bar, a drunk came up and even started singing it. Louis had almost punched the guy out. He just wanted to forget it, wanted his fifteen minutes to be up.

He looked up now into this man’s eyes. What was the question going to be this time?

“I’m Ronnie Cade. I heard about you.”

Louis saw Bev looking at them. She had come to be a little protective of him.

“I went to your house,” the man said. “Some weird French guy said you were probably here.”

Great. Leave it to Pierre. .

“Can I sit down?” the man asked.

“Look, man, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m getting ready to eat,” Louis began.

“I want to hire you.”

Louis blinked in surprise.

“I know you caught that paint guy and that you’re doing private investigation stuff now.” The man looked around at another couple taking a nearby table. “Can I sit down?”

Louis hesitated. He needed the work. There wasn’t a helluva lot of cases for a PI to take on here. But this guy looked like he was a little too desperate.

He caught Bev’s eye again. And Carlo, the sumo-sized cook, had come out. Louis gave them a small wave to signal he was okay. His eyes moved back to the man standing in front of him.

His dark hair was pulled into a ponytail and he had an eagerness in his expression that at first made him seem young, but from the fine web of lines around the eyes and the leathery skin of his arms, Louis guessed him to be in his late thirties.

Cade was bouncing lightly on his toes, his lips moving back and forth between a smile and grimace, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be tough or friendly.

“All right. Sit down,” Louis said.

Ronnie Cade dropped into a chair, started to extend a hand, then drew it back. He crossed his arms and leaned forward on the table.

“I know you must get real good money for what you do,” Cade said, “but I was hoping maybe you would take what I got and let me make payments on the rest.”

Louis stared at him. Good money? He rubbed the condensation off his beer bottle. “First things first. What kind of investigation do you want me to do?”

“My father’s been arrested. They’ve charged him with murder.”

Louis took a drink of his beer and waited just long enough to not look eager. “You want a beer?” he asked.

Cade nodded quickly. “Bud.”

Louis called over to Bev, trying to sound casual, but inside his heart was quickening. This was promising.

“Who did your father allegedly kill?” Louis asked.

“That lawyer Spencer Duvall.”

Louis straightened slightly.

“I thought that would get your attention,” Cade muttered.

Bev brought the beers. Louis ignored the questions in her eyes. After she left, he asked, “How much can you pay to start?”

“Five-hundred dollars,” Cade said.

“Shit, man. .”

Cade’s hand shot out and he grabbed Louis’s wrist. Louis jerked his hand back and Cade threw his hands in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“Does your father have the same temper, Mr. Cade?”

“I said I was sorry,” he said, his eyes low, his voice strained.

Louis shook his head slowly. “Five-hundred dollars is a day’s work in a homicide investigation, Mr. Cade. Doesn’t your father have a lawyer?”

“Yeah, court-appointed. Everyone knows how hard they work for people like us.”

“People like who?” Louis asked.

Cade paused to take a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his calloused hand. “Look, I do lawn maintenance for a living. My kid and me live in a double-wide over on Sereno. I ain’t had many breaks in my life and I don’t blame anybody for that. But the law don’t work the same for everybody.” He paused again. “Do I have to start singing a sad song for you here?”

Louis glanced around the restaurant. He had seen the news about Spencer Duvall on TV. A big-shot lawyer getting gunned down in his own office late at night would be news anywhere, let alone Fort Myers. He had seen the film of a man being hauled away in handcuffs, the talking head saying the suspect had been recently released from prison. Louis had just chalked it up to a revenge thing gone bad. Now here was the guy’s kid, begging for someone to believe his dad didn’t do it. Interesting. But not interesting enough that he could afford to work for near free.

“Look, Mr. Cade, I don’t think I-”

Cade leaned forward. “He’s my father,” he said. “I’ll give you anything I have.” He reached in a pocket and slapped a business card on the table. “Look, I’ve got my own business, I got a truck-”

Louis shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

Cade stared at Louis for a long time, then grabbed his beer and quickly drained it. He stood up slowly, digging for money in the pocket of his jeans.

“Forget it,” Louis said. “It’s on me.”

Cade didn’t move. His eyes flitted around the restaurant, then came back to Louis. “I lost him,” he said tightly.

“What?” Louis said.

“My father. He went to prison. I lost my father for twenty years.” Ronnie Cade’s eyes glittered in the florescent lights. “My father wasn’t there when I graduated high school, when I got married or when I had my boy. Twenty years, man. He just got out and now this.”

Louis didn’t reply, the sounds of the restaurant suddenly dull and thick.

Cade shook his head slowly. “Fuck, you haven’t got the faintest idea what the hell I’m talking about, do you?”

He started away.

“Hey, Cade,” Louis called out.

The man turned.

“I’m not making any promises, okay? But I’ll look into it.”

Cade stared at him for a moment, then nodded briskly. He left, the screen door banging behind him. Louis picked up the business card. J.C. LANDSCAPING. It was dirt-smudged and the phone number was inked out and a new one scribbled in. He slipped it in his shorts pocket.

Bev came over, setting the grouper sandwich down in front of him. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“A job offer,” Louis said, picking a fry out of the basket.

“For what?”

“The guy’s father was arrested for murdering a lawyer.”

Bev’s eyes darted to the door where Ronnie Cade had disappeared. “That was Jack Cade’s kid?”

“I guess. He didn’t say what his father’s name was.”

“Jack Cade. He just got out of prison and now they’re saying he killed Spencer Duvall,” Bev said, excitement creeping into her voice. “What, you don’t watch the news?”

“I saw it.” Louis took a bite of the sandwich.

“Don’t you think it’s kind of weird?” Bev pressed.

“Bev, I think all cons dream of killing the guy who put them away. Maybe this one made his dream come true.”

“But why would Jack Cade kill his own lawyer?”

Louis looked up at her, wiping his chin with a paper napkin. “Duvall was Cade’s defense lawyer?”

She nodded. “Twenty years ago. When Cade was on trial for murder.”

Louis set his sandwich back in its plastic basket. “Who did Cade murder?”

“A girl.” Bev’s brow furrowed. “Kathy something, I think. No, Kitty, her name was Kitty. She lived over in Fort Myers. It was big news around here at the time. I was working at the HoJo’s on Cleveland and the cook had this TV in the back and we followed it on the news. It was pretty bad stuff. That girl. . he raped her, too, and left her body in a dump.” She paused. “So you gonna take the case?”

Louis looked up at Bev. “I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“He can only pay me five hundred.”

Bev shook her head slowly. “You should have taken it.”

“Why?”

“End of the month. I gotta collect on your tab, hon. Five hundred bucks can buy a lot of grouper sandwiches.”

“I’ll settle up at the end of the week, I promise.”

Bev picked up his empty Heineken bottle. “I’ll bring you another.” She stopped. “Kitty Jagger, that was her name.” She shook her head absently. “Wow. Twenty years. I can’t believe that was twenty years ago. Where’s the time go?”

She went back to the kitchen. Louis picked up his sandwich, took another bite and set it aside. He looked out the window, out at the black moonless night and the inky water of the channel lapping against the dock.

Twenty years was a long time. But not long for rape and murder. Spencer Duvall apparently had done a good enough job to have kept his client out of the chair. Why would Jack Cade turn around and kill the guy who had saved his neck?

He fished out the business card Cade had left. J.C. LANDSCAPING. Louis guessed the J.C. stood for Jack Cade. Twenty years ago, Ronnie Cade would have been, what? — fifteen maybe? What goes through a kid’s head when he finds out his father is a rapist and murderer? How the hell do you forgive that?

He’s my father. I lost him. .

A green bottle appeared in front of him. Louis looked up at Bev.

“Today’s my birthday,” he said.

“No shit?” Bev said.

Louis took a quick swig of beer. “Yeah, no shit.”