P. Parrish - Thicker Than Water

He set the article aside and turned to the next one dated a week later.

It said Kitty Jagger had last been seen on April 9th, the day of her death, by her boss at Hamburger Heaven, a drive-in where she was a carhop. She had worked her usual five-to-eleven night shift and had left to walk to the bus stop as she always did. There was an interview with Kitty’s widowed father, Willard Jagger, an unemployed roofer on disability who said that when his daughter did not come home, he called the police to file a missing person’s report.

The article was illustrated with a small black and white picture of Kitty Jagger. It looked to be a yearbook photo, a blow-up from a group shot, probably Kitty’s freshman class. In it, Kitty Jagger was staring straight ahead, a small smile tipping her lips. From what Louis could tell, she looked like your average pretty high school girl, with long blond hair parted in the middle and hanging straight around her round face.

Louis moved on to the next article, heavy with a black headline: SUSPECT ARRESTED IN JAGGER MURDER.

This was the first mention of Jack Cade. There was a photo of Cade being led into the Lee County Courthouse. He was wearing a jumpsuit like the one Louis had seen him in yesterday, but his face was that of a very different and younger man.

Cade’s hair was flat and black, combed straight back away from a striking face. He was thinner, sinewy, the muscles in his upper arms tight against the grip of the deputy’s hands. The difference was the eyes. Cade’s eyes in this picture registered anger and bewilderment; they were nothing like the hard, flat eyes that stared back at him from behind the plexiglass.

Louis moved to the story. A bloody garden tool, recovered with the body, had been traced to Cade, who, like all lawn maintenance workers, regularly dumped his trash at the site where Kitty Jagger’s body had been found. The article also revealed that a pair of semen-stained panties had been found in Cade’s truck, and that the O blood-type, derived from the semen stain, matched Jack Cade’s type.

Louis sighed. Ronnie Cade hadn’t mentioned that.

The article finished up with a description of the damage done to Kitty’s body: blunt trauma to her head and twelve stab wounds to the chest and shoulders. Louis set the clip aside and looked down at his arm.

About halfway up his forearm was a long thin scar. He ran his fingertips over it, feeling the faint ridge. Then he turned his hand over and looked at the knife scar that marked the fatty part of his palm, cutting sideways to the center. His little finger was still numb at the tip, and sometimes when it was cold and wet, he could feel the muscles in his hand tightening beneath the skin.

He finished the Coke and took off his glasses. If he was going to start digging into this, he would be facing some tough opponents. Mobley and the prosecutor, Vern Sandusky, were sure to fight it.

And Susan. God, he wasn’t looking forward to telling her what he was thinking.

The bartender ambled over. “You want another one?”

“No thanks. Where’s your phone?”

“By the john. But it’s out of order.

Louis gathered up the clips. It was just as well. This was something he was going to have to do in person.

Louis pulled the Mustang to a stop in front of the yellow bungalow, double-checking the address he had written on a scrap of paper. It was a neat little house, tucked in the shadows of some swaying banana trees on Sereno Key. Susan Outlaw’s car, an old silver Mercedes sedan, was in the drive and a bicycle lay in the yard.

At the front door, he knocked and waited. The door opened and a small brown face with black-rimmed glasses appeared behind the screen.

“Hello,” the boy said.

Louis smiled down at him, but the boy did not smile back.

“Hi, is your mother home?”

“Benjamin, who is it?”

“Just some guy, Ma!” he hollered over his shoulder.

“I told you never to open the door-” Susan stopped, coming up behind him. Her face registered first surprise, then irritation.

“How’d you get my address?” she asked.

“I’m a PI.”

“He probably looked it up in the phone book, Ma,” Benjamin said.

“You should’ve called,” she said.

“Sorry. I took a chance. We need to talk.”

She nudged Benjamin aside and stepped to the screen. Her hair was pulled back in a tight knot and there was a white powder sprayed across the front of her red T-shirt. The front of the shirt read: A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle.

“Is this a bad time?” Louis asked.

Susan pushed open the screen. “Come on in. But don’t look at the house. It’s a mess. I’m baking.”

Louis stepped inside, expecting to see a messy house, but the living room was neat, furnished with a trim blue sofa and a wooden rocking chair with a quilted seat pad. The pale yellow walls were bare except for a large, black-framed poster of the Eiffel Tower. There was a scattering of magazines on the coffee table along with a Clue board game. A small entertainment center with a TV took up one wall, flanked by bookcases overflowing with novels, law books, and a set of Encyclopedia Britannica. As Louis followed Susan through the small dining room, his eyes traveled over the table. It was covered with stacks of folders, yellow legal pads, books and an open briefcase-except for one end where an arithmetic book lay open next to a Star Wars looseleaf binder.

Nice house. Tidy, attractive, but all business. Just like the lady herself, Louis thought as he followed her into the kitchen.

The kitchen was painted a bright green in an attempt to match the ugly ’50s tile. There was a Winn-Dixie bag on the floor with some groceries still stacked on the counter-a box of Stove Top stuffing, a can of cranberries, some potatoes. Louis could see a frozen turkey sitting in one side of the double sink.

“You shouldn’t let that sit out,” he said.

Susan was standing at the counter and turned.

“What?”

“The turkey,” he said, nodding.

“It needs to defrost by tomorrow and it won’t fit in the refrigerator,” she said.

“Put it in some cold water.”

“What, you working for the Butterball hotline now?”

Louis shrugged.

She went back to ripping away at something sticky in a big bowl. The stuff vaguely resembled cookie dough.

“Looks too dry,” Louis said.

She threw him a look as she struggled to work the wooden spoon through the dough. “I followed the recipe,” she said.

“Recipes don’t always work,” Louis said. “Add some water.”

Susan grabbed a measuring cup, turning to the sink to fill it. She leaned down, watching the water carefully as it rose to the line.

“How much are you going to add?”

“Enough to make it look normal.”

“Then you don’t know how much you’re going to add?”

“No.”

“Then why bother to measure it?” Louis asked.

She turned. “Look, you came to talk, not cook. So talk.”

Louis watched her pour the water into the dough. She began to work it in, her hips swaying in sync with the rotations her hand made around the bowl.

“I went and saw Cade,” Louis said. “He knows now that we’re a package deal.”

She nodded slowly. “I talked to my boss. He said I can add you to the payroll as an investigator. You are now an agent of the PD’s office.”

Louis looked up at her, not comfortable with the title, especially with the name Jack Cade attached to it.

“Hold on,” Susan said. She left and returned a minute later. She held out a beeper.

“I’m not wearing that,” Louis said.

“Don’t be crazy. I have to be able to get ahold of you.” She slapped it down on the table and returned to the sink.