Thicker Than Water Read online

  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 C
ade’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.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It wasn’t hard finding Ahnert. He was still with the Sheriff’s Department, working out of a substation in a place called Corkscrew Bend. But when Louis phoned, he was told Ahnert was off for the Thanksgiving weekend. In the phone book, Louis found a Robert Ahnert living down in San Carlos Park. When he called, a cheerful woman named Brenda told him her father-in-law loved visitors and that Louis should come on by.

  When Louis pulled up to the pink house, a young man came out the front door, the sun glinting off something silver on his chest. He was just a silhouette in the brightness, but Louis recognized the crisp blue sleeves, the bulge of a holster and the swing of the baton at his hip.

  “Can I help you?”

  Louis walked to the porch, stepping into the shade of a palm tree so he could see the officer’s face. He was definitely Fort Myers police, and his face still had that eager look that went with being new. He wasn’t a detective, so why was he here? As far as Louis knew, no one at the department cared about Kitty Jagger.

  “My name’s Kincaid. I’m here to see Bob Ahnert.”

  The officer grinned. “Oh yeah, Dad’s been waiting on you. He’s been excited all morning, thinking someone wanted to come ask about some old case.”

  “You work for Chief Horton?” Louis asked.

  “Yeah, just passed my six-month mark. You know Horton?”

  Louis nodded. “Met him last March.”

  Suddenly, the officer’s face changed. “You’re that Kincaid.” He recovered enough to stick out his hand. “Dave Ahnert, pleasure to meet you.”

  Louis shook his hand, wondering what Dave Ahnert had heard about him.

  Dave Ahnert turned to the open front door. “Dad! You got company!” He turned back to Louis. “I gotta get going. Let yourself in.”

  Louis watched him trot to the curb, where a blue and white cruiser was pulling up. When Louis turned back to the house, Bob Ahnert was standing on the porch.

  He was a big guy, pushing sixty, with a silver brush-cut atop a fleshy sunburned face. Black-rimmed glasses circled piercing blue eyes.

  “Mr. Ahnert?”

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “I’m Louis Kincaid, I called earlier.”

  Ahnert stared at him through the glasses, his lips drawn in a line.

  “I called Sheriff Mobley,” Ahnert said. “Asked him if he knew what you might want with me. He said you were looking into the Kitty Jagger case. That true?”

  Louis nodded, feeling the sun on his back.

  “Why?” Ahnert asked.

  “I think the Spencer Duvall case and Kitty’s murder might be related.”

  “Jack Cade was convicted of killing Kitty. That isn’t good enough for you?”

  Louis shook his head. “No, it isn’t.”

  Ahnert stared at him a long time. Louis squinted at Ahnert, trying to read his face. “You going to talk to me or not?” Louis asked finally.

  Ahnert nodded toward the house. “Come on in,” he said.

  Louis followed Ahnert through the living room and into a dimly lit den. Louis paused at the doorway, struck by the smell of stale cigar smoke. The blinds were drawn and the television was on, tuned to a rerun of Barney Miller.

  The walls were covered with framed pictures, lots of family portraits that showed a young Ahnert with his brunette wife and two kids, and then a succession of portraits capturing the kids as they grew. A second wall was given over to photographs of cops in various color uniforms and group photos of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. There was a portrait of a very young Ahnert in his uniform. He looked remarkably like his son Dave, the same eagerness there in the eyes.

  Ahnert settled into a frayed green chair stained at the headrest. He picked up the remote and muted the sound but didn’t turn it off.

  “Take a seat,” Ahnert said. “I don’t like looking up at people.”

  Louis took the chair next to him. On the small table between them was the remains of a turkey sandwich and an ashtray that held a dead cigar and a book of matches from O’Sullivan’s Bar.

  “Did you read my case file?” Ahnert asked.

  Louis nodded. “Once through.”

  “Then you see what I saw.”

  “There’s more to a case than ink and paper. You were there. You spoke with people. You saw the crime scene. You must have gotten a sense of Kitty’s case.”

  Ahnert snorted softly, looking toward the television. “A sense? What good are senses? It’s evidence that convicts, not ESP.”

  Louis leaned forward. “Jack Cade asked about you.”

  Ahnert’s eyes shot to Louis’s face. “Why would he do that?”

  “You tell me,” Louis said. “He wondered what your ‘take’ on him was. Why would he care? What kind of relationship did you have?”

  Ahnert picked up the matchbook. Louis hoped he wasn’t going to light the cigar.

  “I didn’t care about him, and the relationship as you call it was non-existent,” Ahnert said. “I was a cop, he was a suspect. I never gave him any reason to think I wanted anything but the truth.”

  “Did you get it?”

  Ahnert looked back at the television again. “I’ve worked thirty-five years for this department, Mr. Kincaid. It was and is a good department, with good officers. We did everything right on that case. We did it by the book. We had everything we needed to charge Jack Cade and get him convicted.”

  “I know. I saw the evidence. But I still have questions.”

  Ahnert nodded, flipping the matchbook open and closed with his fingers as he stared blankly at the TV screen. “All right then. Go ahead and ask.”

  “I read that Kitty’s father reported her missing around midnight the night she didn’t come home. There’s no missing person’s report in the file. Did you take one?”

  Ahnert didn’t look at him. “Procedure was twenty-four hours.”

  “Small town in the sixties, a minor girl?” Louis paused a beat. “So why didn’t you take a report?”

  Ahnert didn’t answer. Louis was about to ask again when suddenly Ahnert pushed himself out of the chair and went to the far wall. He took down one of the framed pictures and held it out to Louis.

  “This is why,” Ahnert said.

  Louis took it. It was a color portrait of a teenaged girl with long dark hair, aged seventeen or eighteen. It was probably a class portrait, but the girl wasn’t wearing the usual prim blouse or sweater. She was dressed in a rainbow tie-dyed dress, a bright green headband tied across her forehead. She was wearing a collar of white beads. He’d seen the beads before. Amy, his baby-sitter, used to wear them, along with those big hoop earrings and heavy mascara that made her look like a very young Cher. What did they call those damn beads? Peace beads? Puka beads, that was it.

  “That’s my daughter, Lou Ann,” Ahnert said. “She ran away from home on Thanksgiving night. Ran off to San Francisco to be a goddamn hippie. ‘Make love, not war,’ they said. Called me—her own father—a pig the
night she left.”

  Louis handed the photo back.

  “Her mother died a couple years later,” Ahnert said, hanging the photo back up. “Lou Ann didn’t even send a card.”

  “Kids can be self-centered.”

  Ahnert didn’t answer. He came back and sat down in the chair, his eyes going back to the television. Louis waited, watching Detectives Fish and Dietrich mouth an argument.

  “You thought Kitty Jagger was a runaway?” Louis said finally.

  Ahnert gave a small nod. “When that call came in, I didn’t see much sense in pulling overtime to chase down an ungrateful teenager who was probably out smoking dope.”

  Louis could feel his anger welling up inside. Willard Jagger reported Kitty missing one hour after she left work. If she had been abducted—or even gone willingly with someone—there was a good chance she was still alive when Ahnert got the call.

  “You made a mistake, Detective,” Louis said. “She might have still been alive at midnight.”

  Ahnert’s shoulders visibly tightened. “I don’t believe she was.”

  It’s easier to believe that, Louis thought. But he said nothing. He should have known Ahnert would protect his procedure. And his case. Anything less would make him look incompetent. There was nothing left to try but a little fishing.

  “Did you know Kitty?” Louis asked.

  Ahnert’s fingers paused on the matchbook. “I knew of her.”

  “Enough to believe she was a runaway,” Louis said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  Ahnert didn’t look at him. “I knew she was Willard’s daughter. I had seen her around town.” He paused. “I found out more about her when we got into the investigation.”

  “Like what?”

  Ahnert’s eyes came back to Louis’s face and rested there for several seconds before going back to the matchbook.

  “She lived with her old man, took care of him, just the two of them in that house over in Edgewood Heights.” Ahnert was staring at the TV again. “Edgewood was a part of town that no one paid attention to, kind of low class. I think because of that people maybe thought Kitty was too. There wasn’t the outrage that would have come with the murder of, let’s say, the prom queen or a big-shot’s daughter.”