P. Parrish - Thicker Than Water

He picked up the beeper, turning it over in his hands. “Does this mean we’re going steady?”

She threw him a look and went back to the cookie dough. Louis saw something out of the corner of his eye and turned. Benjamin was leaning against the door jamb, watching them. He was a skinny little thing, huge brown eyes behind the big glasses, twig-brown arms poking out of a Star Wars T-shirt.

“You really a PI?” he asked.

“Kind of.”

“You track down murderers and stuff?”

Louis looked at Susan for help, but she was busy.

“What kind of gun you got?”

“I don’t carry a gun right now,” Louis said.

The boy made a face. “What kind of car you got? Sonny Crockett has a Ferrari Spider but it’s not really his-”

“Ben, go do your homework,” Susan said.

“I did it already.”

“Then go watch TV.”

The boy made a suffering face. “Oh man, I wanna stay in here.”

“No. Get.”

“Can I lick the bowl first?”

“I told you before it’s not good for you.”

Louis suddenly recalled something his foster mother Frances used to say to him, and he turned to Benjamin.

“It’ll give you worms,” he whispered.

Benjamin trudged off and fell to the floor in front of the television. Seconds later the Jeopardy theme song came on. Louis watched as Susan opened the oven door. The sweet scent of chocolate chip cookies filled the kitchen. He knew he needed to tread carefully. This was her case, after all, and he had to respect that. He had to find out what her plan was before he tried to force one of his own on her.

Susan started cleaning up the mess on the counter.

“Can I have the bowl?” Louis asked.

She turned. “What?”

“The bowl.”

She gave him a weird look, then brought the bowl over to the table, sitting across from him. He scraped the spoon around the rim and began to eat the dough.

“That junk’s not good for you,” she said.

“Yeah, I know, it gives you worms. I need to know what your trial strategy is going to be,” Louis said.

She swiped a finger in the bowl and nibbled at the dough, like she was afraid to experience it all at once. “My strategy is that Jack Cade didn’t shoot Duvall. Someone else did. A powerful man like Duvall had lots of enemies. My staff, such as it is, is working on his financials now to see if there was anything hinky there.”

“What about that witness who saw Cade at Duvall’s office?”

“A bum named Quince,” Susan said. “He hangs out at the bus stop across the street and he said he saw a man leave Duvall’s office just after nine-thirty. Never saw Cade’s face, just said he looked out of place. He described a black leather jacket. They never found a similar jacket when they searched Cade’s house. Quince doesn’t know what he saw. He’s a homeless drunk who served time.”

“Being an homeless ex-con makes him blind?” Louis asked.

“There you go, thinking like a cop again.”

“Okay, what about the fingerprints? Mobley said Cade’s prints were on the credenza, like he was looking for something.”

“Cade was in the office that morning. Says he leaned against things.”

“They find the weapon?”

“No, and Cade doesn’t own a gun. He can’t.”

“Not legally anyway.”

“Well, they don’t have anyone stepping forward to say they sold him one illegally either.”

“What caliber was the gun used on Duvall?”

Susan thought for a minute. “A seven-point-six-two by twenty-five.”

“A what?”

She chuckled at the puzzled look on his face. “It’s a Tokarev. It’s Chinese, an old semi-automatic. It shoots a 30-caliber bullet from a nine millimeter cartridge. It’s probably a collector’s gun.”

“Doesn’t sound like something Cade would have,” Louis said.

“My thought exactly. He’d be lucky to snare something off the street.”

“Alibi?”

“His son Ronnie. Says he was home watching Star Trek, the New Generation.”

“Next,” Louis said.

“What?”

“It’s called Next Generation, not New.”

She shrugged and took another swipe at the cookie dough.

“I take it the cops don’t believe Ronnie,” Louis said.

“They can’t disprove it. And even though Ronnie is the son, he’s pretty credible.”

“Did they find anything when they searched Cade’s trailer?”

“No.”

Louis put the spoon back in the bowl. He was silent, staring at the squiggles in the Formica surface of the table. He didn’t realize he was shaking his head. But Susan saw it and bristled.

“What?” she demanded.

He looked up. “What?”

“That look. If you’ve got something to say about how I’m handling this, say it.” She crossed her arms across her red T-shirt.

Louis drew in a slow breath. “I think you’ve got to reconsider the Jagger case as a motive in Duvall’s murder.”

Susan’s expression was stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, listen to me,” Louis said. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought since talking to Cade. He told me the only reason he wanted to sue Duvall was to get big money so he could put his life back together. Ronnie is broke. He owes money all over the place. The nursery business is about to go under. Cade was looking for money, that’s all.”

“So?” Susan said.

“So, he had everything to gain if the Jagger case was examined in the context of a civil suit.”

“He couldn’t have sued him anyway. The statute of-”

“Cade didn’t know that. His intent was to sue, not kill.”

“How do you know Cade didn’t know?”

“He told me.”

Susan gave a derisive laugh.

“You believe him when he said he didn’t shoot Duvall. Why can’t I believe him?”

“I never said I believed him. It’s just the story I have to proceed with.”

Louis shook his head. “He wanted money, not revenge.”

“I don’t like it,” she said. “You’d have to be able to prove Cade really intended to file the suit and that he didn’t know it was futile.”

Louis nodded.

“And you’d have to be able to show someone else could have had something to lose if the Jagger case was reopened.”

“Well,” Louis said, “There’s always Bernhardt. If Cade brought suit, the practice would be liable to any claim.”

Susan said nothing.

“And there’s Candace,” Louis said. “She was the starter wife, remember. Maybe Duvall was looking to upgrade and she knew it.” He paused. “Spencer had a place in town. Maybe he had something going on the side, like Candace. And maybe Candace knew.” He took another lick of the cookie dough. “Even if Candace had a lover, she still had something to lose if Spencer divorced her.”

Susan was quiet. He thought she was probably angry. But maybe she was just tired. It occurred to him that her prickliness probably came from the stress of the case, not from any real part of her personality. He had asked around, trying to find out more about her and had been told by a source at the courthouse that she was just a couple years out of law school and was trying real hard to make an impression. She had landed a big case with Cade, but now she was treading water and she knew it. He took a breath. He had one more point to press.

“And of course, there’s the person who really killed Kitty Jagger.”

Susan shook her head. “Do you have any idea how long it would take to solve a twenty-year-old murder?”

“Yes, I do, in fact,” Louis said.

Susan held his gaze for a moment, then a sudden frown creased her face.

“Shit!” she blurted out. She spun to the oven and jerked open the door. Smoke filled the kitchen. Louis didn’t have to look to know the cookies were black. He knew the smell. Frances could never get the hang of cookies either.