P. Parrish - Thicker Than Water

Susan pulled out the cookie sheet and tossed it into the sink. “Dammit!”

“You burn ’em again, Ma?”

Susan and Louis both turned to see Benjamin standing at the door. She didn’t say anything. Benjamin came in and looked down into the sink. He gingerly picked out a cookie and bit into it. He was trying hard not to grimace and Susan was trying hard not to look upset.

“How was Jeopardy?” Louis asked, to break the silence.

Benjamin glanced at him suspiciously. “I missed Final Jeopardy.”

“What was the question?”

He shrugged. “It was dumb. Something about a shot heard around the world. The category was baseball. I don’t know a lot of sports stuff.”

“Ralph Branca,” Louis said.

Benjamin’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that was it! That was the answer! How’d you know that?”

Benjamin looked up at Susan, who was standing, hands on hips, staring at Louis. She still looked angry, maybe about the cookies, but more likely about what he had suggested about the Jagger case.

“I’m going to go see Mobley tomorrow. I need to see the Jagger file,” Louis said.

“You’re on my payroll now, Kincaid,” she said. “Don’t waste the taxpayers’ money digging up the past.”

“If I work for you, I work my way,” Louis said evenly.

Susan was silent. Benjamin looked up at her, over at Louis, then back at his mother. He grabbed another burnt cookie out of the sink and bit into it.

“Mom, these are okay, see?” he said quickly. “The outside is bad, but the inside is still okay. We can use some of them. Ma? Look. .”

Susan’s hand went out to cup Benjamin’s head, pulling him to her waist. She was still staring daggers at Louis.

“This isn’t going to work,” Louis said, rising.

“Take the pager,” Susan said.

He looked at her in surprise.

“I want to win this,” she said. “Bring me something I can use.”

“We striking another bargain here, counselor?”

“Call it what you want,” she said. “Just bring me something I can use.”

Louis set the Sports Illustrated aside and stood up, glancing at his watch. Mobley had kept him waiting over thirty minutes. He went to the reception desk. A bronzed blonde in a sleeveless mint green dress looked up.

“Can you buzz him again?” Louis asked her.

“I told you. He gets mad if I do that,” she said.

“Buzz him. I’ll protect you.”

The blonde gave him a smirk. She didn’t need protecting; her biceps rivaled his own. If he remembered correctly, Mobley kept a bench press in his office. He wondered if she worked out with him.

While he waited, Louis scanned the portraits on the far wall. It was a gallery of all the Lee County Sheriffs from the last two decades, all tight-lipped old white guys. A parade of pale stale males. . until you got to Lance Mobley with his windsurfer hair and Robert Redford jaw. Louis’s eyes went to the middle portrait. It was larger than the others with a fancier gilt frame. The gold plaque beneath read HOWARD DINKLE, SHERIFF 1962–1970.

Dinkle looked to be in his late fifties. He had been sheriff during the Kitty Jagger case. Probably dead by now.

“The sheriff will see you now.”

Louis went down the hall and tapped on the door. Mobley hollered back and he went inside.

Mobley’s leonine head was bent over his desk, a file spread in front of him. Louis glanced at the weight bench and he had a sudden image of the secretary laying flat on her back, dressed in hot pink spandex, sweating to the oldies. He had a second vision of Mobley on top of her.

He turned back to Mobley. On the wall behind him were the standard community recognition certificates and plaques, plus something that looked like a college degree. Louis squinted and could read the name of the school. Florida State University School of Law.

Mobley sat back, swinging gently in his chair. “This is interesting reading.”

“Is that the Jagger case file?”

Mobley nodded. “Had a damn hard time finding it after you called. Locating something in that shack they call a warehouse is like digging through an outhouse for used toilet paper.”

“Nice analogy,” Louis said.

“Why did you ask me to pull it?”

Louis pulled up a chair. He wasn’t sure how much to tell Mobley. He was no expert at legal maneuvering and wondered if he could hurt Susan’s case. “Cade claims Duvall gave him a lousy defense,” Louis said. “I just wanted to take a look.”

“You don’t believe him, do you?”

Louis shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Mobley closed the file and stacked it on top of two others. He pushed the folders toward Louis.

“Okay, here’s the copies you wanted. Take a look-a quiet look, if you get my drift-but I doubt you’ll be able to tell whether Duvall did a good job or not. Takes a legal mind to be able to do that.”

Louis glanced at the diploma on the wall. Massage the ego.

“How about some help?” Louis asked.

Mobley caught the look at the diploma. “I’m not the person to ask, Kincaid. I’m on the other side here, remember?”

“Your part is done, Sheriff. It’s up to the lawyers now.”

“The lawyers,” Mobley said quietly. “Ever wonder what the world would be like if we didn’t have any lawyers?”

Louis ignored the comment.

“Okay, then let me ask you this,” Mobley went on. “Did you ever stop to think about what happens if you find out Duvall did fuck up the Jagger case? That gives your client more motive to kill him, doesn’t it?”

“Not if somebody else had a better reason.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

“What if he didn’t do it?”

“He’s out now anyway, so who cares?”

“I do,” Louis said. “And you should.”

Mobley’s jaw twitched, but he just leaned back in the chair and leveled his eyes at Louis. “I don’t question any conviction without evidence to the contrary. Especially a case that happened when I was too young to care about anything other than getting laid.”

Louis had a thought. “You were here then?”

Mobley rose and went to the bench. “Yeah, I grew up here.” His eyes snapped to Louis’s face. “I didn’t know her, Kincaid.”

“This is a small town,” Louis said. “It was even smaller then. Why didn’t you know her?”

“I was a senior, she was a freshmen. Big gap in those days, even at a small school like Fort Myers High. Plus we just ran in different crowds. You know how cliques can be.”

Mobley was rolling his hand gently over the circular weights.

“You don’t remember anything about her?”

Mobley drew a breath, letting it out slowly. “I remember she was pretty. We never got it on with the greasers.”

“Greasers?” Louis said.

“Frats and greasers. That’s what the world was divided into in my salad days, Kincaid.”

“Greaser? You mean like John Travolta?” Louis asked.

Mobley was smiling slightly, enjoying his trip back in time. “Yeah. Guys in black leather who took shop, dropped out or got drafted.”

“What about the girls?”

“They got pregnant.”

Louis was silent. Somehow that didn’t jive with the picture he was building in his brain of Kitty Jagger.

“But you remember the murder?” Louis asked.

Mobley’s hand dropped from the weight bench.

“Yeah. They made an announcement over the PA system. Some of the girls were crying.” He shook his head. “I remembering thinking what phoneys they were because none of them ever looked twice at Kitty Jagger.”

Mobley looked at Louis. “He killed her, Kincaid. We all know it.”

“I still want to take a look. At everything.”