Thicker Than Water

Chapter Five

He walked the four blocks to O’Sullivan’s. The old bar was a stone’s throw from the police station and walking distance from the sheriff ’s office, an easy stop for deputies after shifts.

Louis eased inside, blinking to adjust to the darkness. He had been in the bar a few times before, when he first arrived in Fort Myers. He had come hoping to find some conversation and a sense of camaraderie. And at first, when he was riding the wave of the serial killer case, he had found acceptance among the cops.

But his stature had faded quickly when the News-Press had run a follow-up profile on him. In the article, the whole Michigan thing had come out and suddenly conversation in O’Sullivan’s wasn’t so friendly. Zach back at the sheriff’s office was the exception; most the cops were like Deputy Lovett in the elevator, treating him like he didn’t exist.

Louis scanned the crowd for Mobley. He spotted him leaning over the jukebox. Mobley’s blond hair was wind-blown, his tan face glowing blue in the jukebox lights. He was off-duty, wearing a white polo shirt and creased black trousers that looked like they had been req’d from the uniform room at the sheriff’s office.

Louis moved through the crowd toward him. Mobley glanced at him, then looked away.

“I expected you a half-hour ago,” Mobley said.

“Got tied up.”

Mobley fed a dollar bill into the jukebox and started punching numbers.

“What’s your interest in Cade?” he asked without looking up.

“His kid, Ronnie, wants to hire me.”

Mobley’s finger paused over a button, then he poked at it hard. “Didn’t think the Cades had any money.”

Louis didn’t reply. Mobley picked up his beer off the top of the jukebox and started back to his table, nodding at Louis to follow. The table in the back was cluttered with empty beer bottles, crumpled napkins and ashtrays brimming with butts. The two cops sitting there looked up at Louis, then their eyes slid to Mobley.

“Since when did this table go civilian, Sheriff?” one asked.

“Since I said so. Take a piss break, guys.”

The men ambled off toward the pool table. Mobley motioned for Louis to sit down.

“What do you drink?” Mobley asked.

“Heineken.”

Mobley went to the bar and returned with two beers. He slid in the booth across from Louis and finished off his first beer in one long drink then reached for the fresh one.

“What’s this about, Sheriff?” Louis asked. “You going to bust my chops just because I saw Cade?”

“There’s a lot of interest in this case, from Tallahassee on down. Sandusky wants to know who the players are, that’s all.” Mobley eyed him over the lip of the bottle. “Are you a player?”

Louis hesitated. He didn’t like Lance Mobley. Worse, he didn’t respect him. The guy was a political animal who ran his department like a personal fiefdom. Louis was tempted to use this Cade thing just to piss him off.

“It sounds like you’re circling the wagons, Sheriff.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You don’t know if you’re working for Cade?”

Louis took a drink of beer.

Mobley sat back, laying his arm across the back of the booth. “Have you done any homework on this yet, Kincaid?”

“Not much.”

“Well, let me give you a quick history lesson then,” Mobley said. “Jack Cade raped and murdered a girl named Kitty Jagger back in 1966. They had him dead to rights. His slimeball lawyer, the late Spencer Duvall, managed to finagle a plea bargain for him for manslaughter.”

Louis remained silent.

Mobley shook his head. “The asshole should’ve fried to a crisp for what he did to that girl. Instead, he gets a lousy twenty years. A fucking gift. Then what does he do? Gets out and one week later shoots the goddamn lawyer who saved his ass in the first place.”

“He says he didn’t do it.”

“Yeah, he said that twenty years ago, too, but he took the plea quick enough.”

“What do you have on him?”

“His lawyer has all that. Talk to her,” Mobley said.

“I’d rather hear it from you.”

A slow grin came over Mobley’s face. “So you’ve met Susan Outlaw.”

“Yeah, this afternoon.”

“We don’t like her much around here, you know.”

“She’s just doing her job,” Louis said.

Mobley’s smile faded. “Yeah, I suppose. But no one’s going to plead Cade down this time. Not even by a day. He’s going to fry this time.”

Louis leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “What do you have?”

“Why should I give you anything?”

“Professional courtesy?”

“You’re not a professional. You don’t have a badge. You don’t even have that PI license yet.”

“Look, I know you don’t like me-”

“Most the guys in here don’t like you.”

“That shouldn’t change how you do your job, Sheriff,” Louis said.

Mobley leaned back in the booth again, considering him carefully. Louis took advantage of the pause.

“All right, just tell me what I’m up against,” he said.

Mobley glanced around the bar, then he let out a long, beer-scented sigh. “We got witnesses who heard him threaten Duvall the morning of the murder. We got a witness who says he saw Cade that night hanging around the building. We got his prints on Duvall’s desk.”

“He doesn’t deny being in the office. He had an appointment.”

“We also found his prints on the credenza behind Duvall’s desk.”

“What about other prints?”

“Hundreds. Other lawyers, the secretary and the partner, the wife. But no one suspicious.”

Louis picked up his beer.

“Plus,” Mobley added, “we got one of his Raiford buddies telling us Cade bragged about how he was going to get back at Duvall when he got out.”

“Did Cade offer an alibi?” Louis asked.

“Yeah, a real dandy. He and his kid were home watching TV.”

Louis took a drink, averting his eyes.

Mobley leaned forward. “You know what you’re really up against, Kincaid? The dirtbag factor. Jack Cade was, is, and always will be a dirtbag. He killed once and he did it again. People can’t get beyond that. And our esteemed prosecutor, Vern Sandusky, knows it. He’s on his white horse, making up for the shitty system that let Cade off so light twenty years ago.”

Louis picked up the napkin and wiped the condensation off the side of the Heineken bottle. “Sounds like a slam-dunk.”

“That’s for sure.”

Louis stood up slowly. “Thanks for the info.”

“Don’t get yourself dirty with this, Kincaid.”

Louis paused, looking down at Mobley. He could see the Busch logo in his pupils.

“You looking for more clippings for your scrapbook, Kincaid, is that it?” Mobley said. “Well, you might get some more headlines working this case, but you’re not going to win any popularity contests defending that asshole.”

“I’m not out to win anything, Sheriff.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, picking up his beer.

Louis started away.

“Get your fucking PI license, Kincaid,” Mobley called out, loud enough for the whole bar to hear.

The rain was moving in. Louis could see it, advancing across the gulf like a pale gray scrim falling across a stage. When it reached shore, it brought a cool breeze that wafted through the screens and set the auger shell wind chimes clicking like old bones.

Louis had been watching a small brown lizard do pushups on the screen, and as the rain hit, it sent the lizard scurrying for cover. Issy launched herself at the screen after it.

“Hey, knock it off,” Louis yelled at the cat. But both creatures had disappeared.

Louis stared dismally at the sagging screen. It had torn free of the wood frame in the corner. He debated whether to go in and get a knife and try to poke it back in, but he knew Issy would just tear it up again.

Damn Pierre. The little weasel landlord expected him to act as a security guard for a break in the rent, but the damn cottage was falling apart and he wouldn’t repair a friggin’ thing.

The rain was picking up force, pounding on the roof now. Louis’s eyes drifted upward. If this kept up, he would have to move the bed again.

With a sigh, he put on his glasses and turned his attention back to the newspaper clippings he had just started reading.

After leaving Mobley, he had gone to the public library and pulled copies of everything to do with the Duvall murder case. It wasn’t much, but he needed to get the basic facts and there was no way he was going to get his hands on any police files. Neither Mobley or Susan Outlaw were going to help that account.

He turned his attention back to the News-Press articles. Spencer Duvall’s body had been found by his secretary, Eleanor Silvestri, when she came to work at eight A.M. the next morning. According to the medical examiner, Duvall had been shot once in the head, the time of death estimated around nine-thirty P.M. Duvall and his secretary had been alone in the office, working late, but she left at about nine. Jack Cade had visited Duvall’s office earlier in the day and been overheard making threats to the attorney.

Louis moved on to the most recent article about Cade’s arraignment. He paused, seeing Susan Outlaw’s name. She said she would not seek a change of venue, even given Cade’s history. “What happened twenty years ago has no bearing whatsoever on my client’s current legal situation,” she was quoted as saying.

Man, was this woman naive or just plain dumb?

There were other older articles about Spencer Duvall, including a feature that detailed his rise to one of the state’s highest-profile criminal lawyers, with an estimated net worth of 5.3 million. His professional style had earned him the nickname The Tortoise. He was plodding and thorough-and he never lost.

Finally, there was an old copy of Gulfshore Life. It was a heavy glossy that advertised itself as “The Magazine of Southwest Florida” but was more a bible of the good life, stuffed with ads for art galleries, plastic surgeons and financial advisers.

The magazine had an article about a renovation at the Thomas Edison House, led by the historical society. The Duvalls were mentioned as the project’s leading contributor, coughing up a cool quarter mil.

The librarian had also marked another page in the back. It was a society column called The Circuit, and it took Louis a minute to find the Duvalls in one of the color group photographs. It was one of those typical society snaps, a line-em-up-shoot-em-down, with the subjects posed, champagne glasses in hand, faces frozen in smiles.

It was a Christmas party of some kind, and there were eight people in the photograph, all in gowns and tuxes. He picked out Candace Duvall in the front-small, tanned and attractive with blond hair sleekly upswept, a big toothy smile, dressed in strapless red with diamonds at her neck and ears. Spencer Duvall towered at her side, a good-looking man of about forty-five, with thinning sandy hair over a wide forehead and intelligent dark eyes behind stylish wire-rimmed glasses. In contrast to his wife, he was somber, unsmiling. He looked more like a befuddled physics professor than a dogged defense attorney.

Louis set the articles aside and looked out to the gulf. The rain was letting up, the afternoon sun slanting low through a slit in the gray clouds. The odor of low tide hung in the air, that familiar brew of kelp, brine and rotting things.

Why was he doing this? He didn’t want this case. Why was he even reading these damn articles?

He felt something touch his bare ankles and looked down to see Issy staring up at him.

“What?” he said.

The cat didn’t move.

“Food? Is that it?” He pushed himself out of the chair and the cat followed him into the kitchen. He shook some Tender Vittles into a bowl on the floor. He leaned against the sink, thinking of Ronnie Cade, about what he had said about losing his father for twenty years.

Shit, at least Jack Cade was still alive.

The dampness was creeping through the cabin. Louis rubbed his hands over the thin cotton of his T-shirt. He went into the bedroom to get a sweatshirt.

At the dresser, he rummaged through the drawers until he found an old University of Michigan sweatshirt. He pulled it on. He was about to close the drawer when he paused.

The manila envelope was tucked under some old shirts. He had forgotten that he had put it there.

He pulled it out and undid the clasp. He upended the contents onto the top of the dresser. There were only a handful of photographs, a couple from college, a few of Phillip and Frances Lawrence, one of Bessie, the old woman who had rented him a room in Black Pool, Mississippi. A faded portrait of his mother when she was eighteen, a snapshot of his sister, Yolanda, and another of his brother, Robert.

Then, he found it. A small square in black and white, its edges pinked in the old style of the fifties. A white man, standing on a porch, wearing overalls and a straw hat that shielded his face. The image was blurred slightly, like the man had been moving just as the picture was snapped.

He hadn’t looked at the photograph in a long time, so long in fact that he half-expected the man in the picture to age. But he never did. He was always exactly the same.

Louis stared at his father, his thumb rubbing the slick surface.

Then he gathered up the photos and put them away. Going back to the kitchen, he scanned the counter and spotted the business card laying next to the phone.

He picked up the phone and dialed Ronnie Cade’s number.