Thicker Than Water

by P J Parrish

  Emily Farentino had been the Miami FBI agent who had worked the Paint It Black case with them. Louis had promised to keep in touch, but he hadn’t.

  “No,” Louis said. “Have you?”

  “Yeah, I called her awhile back. She’s doing okay. She asked how you were.”

  The conversation stalled again. Louis ran a hand over his eyes. What the hell was the matter with him? Why was he always pushing people away? Farentino, Wainwright, even the Dodies. Why was he afraid to let anyone get close?

  He glanced at Wainwright, who was gazing out over the bar. Shit, he knew why he hadn’t called Wainwright in the last six months. It was because he had never worked up the guts to tell him the truth about what had happened up in Michigan. He had been too damn afraid of another cop’s censure. Especially a cop he liked and respected.

  “Dan,” Louis said.

  Wainwright looked back at him.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” Louis drew in a deep breath, shaking his head. “Man, this is hard,” he said softly.

  Wainwright just waited.

  “I never told you what I did when I was working up in Michigan,” Louis said.

  “I already know, Louis,” Wainwright said. “We all do.”

  Louis sat back in the booth. “You don’t condemn me?”

  “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Even cops.”

  Louis saw something pass over Wainwright’s eyes. He remembered the case that had caused Wainwright to crack when he was with the FBI—the Raisin River serial child killer, Harlan Skeen. Wainwright had cornered Skeen in a bathroom and shot him to death.

  “You talking about Skeen?” Louis asked.

  “Yeah. I took things into my own hands that day. It was the only way there was going to be any justice.” He took a drink of beer. “I don’t regret it.”

  Louis was quiet. He couldn’t tell Wainwright what he was thinking. Wainwright had done more than take justice into his own hands; he had broken the law. It wasn’t the same as what he himself had done in Michigan; he had killed another cop to save a kid nobody cared about. But he hadn’t broken the law.

  Louis studied Wainwright’s creased face. Even through the brandy haze, he could see that something had changed since he had last seen Wainwright. The Paint It Black case had stirred up a lot of hard memories for Wainwright. But he looked better now, almost peaceful.

  “How things going for you lately, Dan?” he asked.

  Wainwright looked at him surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “I haven’t seen you in a while, that’s all. Just wanted to know how things have been.”

  Wainwright shrugged. “Same old shit. Job’s good. Things are real quiet.” He took a drink of his beer and set the bottle down. He was tapping his fingers lightly on the table.

  “I went back to Michigan and saw my son over Thanksgiving,” Wainwright added suddenly.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I called him, and he seemed open to a visit. So I went up there.”

  Louis nodded. He remembered that Wainwright had not seen his grown son in years, not since the death of Wainwright’s wife. He could only imagine how hard it had been for an emotionally constipated guy like Wainwright to make an overture toward an estranged son.

  “So, it went okay?” Louis asked.

  “Yeah,” Wainwright said. “It was . . . good.”

  Louis picked at the label on the Heineken bottle. “What made you do it?” he asked.

  Wainwright just looked at him.

  “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “What made me call my son?”

  “Yeah.”

  Wainwright put his arm across the back of the booth, making a poor attempt to look cool.

  Louis raised his beer bottle. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

  “No, I want to answer you, I’m just trying to figure out how.”

  Wainwright drew his arm off the booth. “I don’t know why the fuck I finally did it,” he said. “I think it was because deep down I knew I had been a lousy father, that I hadn’t been there for my kid.”

  Louis blinked slowly, trying to clear his mind. It was weird hearing personal stuff come out of Wainwright’s mouth.

  “I mean, I knew I couldn’t change the past,” Wainwright went on, “but I wanted to try to do something about the future. My son has his own son now. I didn’t want him not knowing me, not knowing who he came from.”

  A man should know what kind of blood flows through his veins.

  The beer and the brandy were making his stomach churn. Louis leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes to steady things. For a moment, he just sat as still as possible, trying to let the room catch up. When he finally opened his eyes, Wainwright was gone. Louis saw him at the bar getting two more shots. He sat down, setting one shot in front of Louis.

  “I was a foster child,” Louis said suddenly.

  Wainwright seemed to go stiff and his eyes wavered. Then he dropped his gaze to the table, his fingers drawing the cocktail napkin into his fist.

  Louis could feel his heart pounding. He wanted the words back. It was like admitting he was a fucking leper or something. Shit, talk about emotionally constipated.

  “Did you know your father?” Wainwright asked.

  “No.”

  Louis started to reach for the shot, but drew his hand back, wiping his mouth. He didn’t need any more. His belly burned and he wanted to move, get up, go home, but he wasn’t sure he could stand.

  “What’s his name?” Wainwright asked.

  “Jordan Kincaid.”

  “You ever try to find him?”

  Louis shook his head slowly. The jukebox sounds seemed dull and distorted. The neon lights above the bar began to quiver and the palm fronds were flapping against the window.

  “You want me to try?” Wainwright asked.

  Louis didn’t trust himself to look at Wainwright. He just shook his head and stared at the palm fronds beating against the dark glass.

  He heard Wainwright let out a heavy sigh, then ease himself up out of the booth. He could feel Wainwright’s eyes on him.

  “You ready?”

  Louis looked up.

  Wainwright picked up his shot, took one last swig and set it down. “Come on. I’ll drive you.”

  “I can get home.”

  “You’ll put that Mustang of yours in the bay, if you try. Let’s go.”

  Louis struggled to his feet, reaching back for the shotglass, but Wainwright put a hand on his arm.

  “Let it go, Louis.”

  Louis stumbled, catching the back of the booth for balance. A ripple of embarrassment moved through him. God, he hated getting sloppy.

  “I’m sorry, Dan,” Louis whispered, hoping no one could hear him. “I didn’t mean to get this drunk.”

  “Yes, you did,” Wainwright said, taking his arm.

  Louis closed the door on Wainwright’s cruiser and stumbled into the darkness toward his cottage, hearing Wainwright holler out a goodbye.

  He brushed aside a palm and tripped over the rocks that lined the path. He squinted, trying to pick his way in the dim light thrown off by the Branson’s On The Beach sign.

  His stomach was starting to churn. He needed a bed. Now.

  Something snapped behind him. He jumped and spun.

  “Where ya been, Louie?”

  Louis stared into the shadows of the swaying palms. “Cade?”

  He heard the rustle of the wind in the sea oats but still couldn’t see anyone. He staggered, almost falling, but pulled himself up.

  “Goddammit, Cade. Come out where I can see you!” he shouted.

  “I ain’t hiding.”

  Louis scanned the dunes and dark trees, but all it did was make him nauseous. Finally, he picked out Cade’s silhouette.

  “I told you not to come here again,” Louis said.

  “You told me not go in your house. I didn’t.”

  Louis closed his eyes. He couldn’t
fight it anymore. He turned and threw up in the bushes, grabbing onto the palm.

  “You done?” Cade asked.

  Louis wiped his mouth and looked back at Cade, using those few seconds of clarity that come immediately after vomiting up half a bottle of brandy. His heart kicked an extra beat.

  Cade was holding something small and dark in his arms. It was Issy.

  “Let her go,” Louis said slowly.

  Cade had the cat clamped under his elbow, holding its front paws tightly with his left hand. He was stroking the cat’s fur with his other hand.

  “Let her go!” Louis said.

  Cade’s hand hesitated at the cat’s neck. Then, suddenly, he let go. Issy sprang away and ran into the shadows.

  “I wasn’t gonna hurt her, Louie,” Cade said.

  Louis struggled to focus on Cade’s face. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Cade was silent. Louis waved a dismissive hand at him and started toward the porch. Cade moved quickly, catching Louis’s arm. When Louis pulled away, he stumbled.

  “You fucked me and my family,” Cade said.

  Louis pointed at him. “Tell it to someone else. You fired me. You’re crazy. Your kid is crazy.”

  “I told you to leave it alone and you didn’t.”

  Cade came closer and Louis thought he saw a flash of silver. A knife? Louis felt his heart quicken and he tried to stand up straight and focus. It was dark, they were away from the street, no one in the other cottages would hear or see a thing.

  Make a move and you’re dead. Think . . . bluff.

  “What?” Louis said. “You come here to put a hole in me? Like . . . fuck, what’s his name, that Haitian guy?”

  Cade took a step closer.

  “What are you going to do, Cade? Kill me and jump bail?”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “You gonna take Ronnie with you? What about Eric? You wanna trash his life too?”

  Cade had stopped moving at least. Louis couldn’t see the knife anymore. Maybe he had imagined it.

  “I found out something,” Louis said. “Something about Kitty that could help you.”

  Cade didn’t move.

  “There’s a lab report that’s missing.”

  “So what?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Louis said. “It should be there and it isn’t.”

  “You’re talking like a drunk, Louie.”

  “Listen to me, Cade,” Louis said. “The report could prove you didn’t rape her, that someone else did it.”

  Cade was silent. “How?” he asked finally.

  Louis knew there was no way to explain it right now so Cade could understand it. “Blood, Cade,” he said. “They can tell by your blood.”

  “What if it has Ronnie’s blood?”

  “Fuck, Cade, what if it doesn’t?” Louis asked.

  Louis couldn’t make out Cade’s face, but he had heard something change in Cade’s voice. Louis tried to see Cade’s right hand, tried to make out the glint of the knife. He wanted to be ready if Cade made a move.

  “What about it, Cade?” Louis said.

  “You’re asking me to put my kid’s balls up on the block and hope no one chops them off. You’re asking me to trust you.”

  “I’m asking you to trust your own fucking son.”

  Cade said nothing, but Louis could hear the rustle of his clothing. Suddenly, there was another glint of silver and Louis heard something hit the sand at his feet.

  He looked down.

  The butt of a knife was sticking out of the sand, only an inch from his foot. He looked up.

  Jack Cade was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The small reception area outside Mobley’s office was crowded. Louis guessed that the young woman and the disheveled man were reporters, but he didn’t recognize the two blue-suited black men who stood solemn-faced near the Amazon’s desk. The Amazon herself was on the phone, scribbling on a pink message slip to add to the pile at her elbow. She gave Louis a harried look as he wedged himself in near her desk.

  The room was stuffy. Louis massaged his temples, hoping the aspirin would kick in soon. He knew he should have just stayed in bed this morning, but the nagging voice in his head had drowned out the hangover.

  Let it go, Louis.

  He was tired of hearing that. Okay, maybe he was obsessed, but damn it, someone had to be. He was on his own now, fired, dismissed with a knife at his feet.

  He looked at Mobley’s closed door. But he was still in need of an ally.

  The Amazon hung up the phone. She looked at Louis and cocked her head toward Mobley’s door. Louis didn’t even look to see if the others were pissed that he was going in ahead of them.

  He closed the door, shutting out the ringing phones.

  “You’ve got two minutes, Kincaid.”

  Mobley shoved aside a stack of papers and began rifling through his messages, obviously irritated.

  “I need something from you, Sheriff.”

  “What?”

  “After Jack Cade visited Duvall threatening to sue him, Duvall asked his secretary to pull Cade’s 1967 trial file. The secretary says it was still on his desk when she left just before Duvall was shot. Your guys picked it up as part of the crime scene.”

  “And you want to look at it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Mobley shook his head. “No way. It would raise all kinds of questions that I don’t need right now.”

  “Sheriff—”

  “Forget it. I don’t want to piss Sandusky off, Kincaid. Especially for you and some moldy old case.” Mobley leaned back in his chair. “Besides, I heard Outlaw fired you, that true?”

  Louis ignored the question. He rubbed his brow, catching sight of the evidence box from Kitty Jagger’s homicide on Mobley’s credenza. Vince had said the old sample was either destroyed—or returned.

  Louis motioned toward the white box. “Can I look through that box again?”

  “Look, Kincaid. I’ve already got my ass in a sling because you’re out asking questions about Kitty. From her father, her high school friends—”

  “That’s what I do—ask questions,” Louis said. “Just let me take a look, okay?”

  Mobley raked a hand through his hair. “Make it quick.”

  Louis put the box on Mobley’s desk and began taking out the evidence bags. When he got to the Clot Buster, he carefully set it aside.

  Mobley’s phone rang and he picked it up. “I told you no calls.” He slammed it down and looked back at the Louis.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A slide.”

  “What, like a lab slide?”

  Louis nodded. Mobley stood just as Louis pulled out a large yellow envelope with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement seal, postmarked 1977. Just as Vince had said, the samples had been returned to the police ten years after Cade’s trial. He turned it over. It had been opened once.

  Mobley was reading over his shoulder as Louis pulled out a letter from the lab. The phone on his desk started to ring again, but Mobley ignored it.

  TO: The Lee County Sheriff’s Office. As per our policy, we are returning the following items to you for your case file #4532, Homicide, LCSO, Florida, May, 1966, Jagger, K.

  Please be advised that we will no longer be able store items for cases that have a final disposition. Please let us know if we can be of service to you in the future.

  Louis emptied the envelope’s contents onto the desk: a half-dozen slides, some fingerprint cards, and a small heart-shaped locket, everything still sealed in plastic.

  He glanced at the locket, thinking of Bob Ahnert, then began sorting through the slides. He stopped at the one labeled R-24, Vaginal. It had Ahnert’s initials on the seal.

  “This is it,” Louis said.

  “What is it?” Mobley asked.

  Louis turned to him. “There were two semen samples taken from this crime. One off the panties, which the cops assumed came from Cade, and one from her bod
y.”

  Mobley looked down at the slide. “They match, right?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to see Duvall’s old case file because the report on the second one is missing from what you gave me.”

  Mobley turned away, looking at his ringing phone with venom. “I gave you everything, Kincaid. I wouldn’t hold anything back.”

  “You never had the report. I think someone removed it from the case file twenty years ago.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it didn’t match Cade’s O-positive and someone wanted to keep the prosecution’s case simple.”

  “Who? The prosecutors themselves?”

  “It’s missing from your files, Sheriff. I think maybe it was Dinkle. I think he did it after the trial so no one would ever ask questions again.”

  The phone started again, and Mobley walked to it, knocking the receiver off its cradle.

  “You sure like to sling mud on the uniform, don’t you, Kincaid?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “The hell you don’t.”

  Louis tightened, the pounding in his head growing stronger. He knew he didn’t owe Mobley an explanation. But he was tired of the looks from the deputies, tired of groveling for their assistance when he needed it on something as simple as tracking down a deadbeat dad. He was tired of being looked at like a leper when he walked into O’Sullivan’s, for chrissake.

  “I’ve shown you and your department every respect in this case,” Louis said.

  “Respect? Don’t talk to me about respect,” Mobley said, his voice rising. “What about last March? You and Dan Wainwright butt-fucked me in front of the whole city. Shut me out of the biggest case this county ever had.”

  Mobley went back behind his desk and sank into his chair. Louis resisted the urge to put his hands on his temples.

  “Leaving you out wasn’t my call,” Louis said. “It was Dan’s.”

  “They laughed at me, dammit.”

  Louis knew he needed to say something else, but an apology wasn’t it. Mobley had blown it on the Paint It Black case. They had laughed.

  Louis picked up the slide. “Maybe we can turn it around with this,” he said. “Let me have this typed again. Discreetly. I’ll take it to Vince myself.”