P. Parrish - Thicker Than Water

Louis made his way to the bar, the newspaper under his arm. He scanned the smoky room for Susan but didn’t see her. He hoped she hurried.

The football game broke for half-time and Louis looked up as a news update came on the screen. A small picture of a Haitian man came on the screen and the bar went silent.

“Sheriff’s officials are remaining silent on the death of a Haitian inmate Friday night in the Lee County jail. In a statement released this morning, the sheriff’s department said Lucien Faure was found dead in the inmates’ shower facilities. Officials stated Faure bled to death, but no weapon has been found. Officials have not named any suspects.”

“Who the fuck cares?” someone hollered from the back.

The man next to Louis shook his head. “The lawyers will be all over this. I heard the Haitian Liberty League is already beating down Mobley’s door.”

Louis didn’t comment. He pulled the newspaper from under his arm and stared at the face of the dead Haitian.

Someone touched his shoulder. He turned to see Susan. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater, her face icy in the flat light given off by the bar. He motioned for her to follow him into a dim hallway back by the restrooms. He handed her the newspaper folded to the article.

She looked at it, then back at him. “So?”

“I think Jack Cade killed him.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Last time I saw Cade at the jail, this same guy was next to us, talking to someone,” Louis said. “Cade got pissed at them, wanted them to shut up, said they were annoying him.”

Louis waited while a man pushed between them, headed for the john. “Then last night, Cade showed up at my house.”

“He came to your house? Why?”

“He gave me this bullshit story about wanting to talk about Kitty Jagger, but while he was there, he told me his old man was killed by a fork to the belly. Leaves a hole, he said.”

She looked at him blankly.

He poked a finger at her chest. “A hole, he said.”

“Cade’s been out since. . what? Saturday afternoon?”

“The guy was stabbed Friday night.”

Susan frowned. “That doesn’t mean Cade killed-”

Louis raised a hand to silence her until another man moved past them.

“All right, we know he’s despicable, Louis,” she said, her voice lower. “But there’s nothing we need to do about this. There’s no evidence, and Cade’s not a suspect or I would have been the first to know.” She held out the paper. “I’d say it’s not our problem.”

He took the paper back. “We have to tell Mobley.”

“The hell we do. Besides, you can’t even if you wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“Excuse me,” someone said.

Susan stepped aside to let a man pass, then leaned close to him. “You’re an official agent of the public defender’s office. You’re bound by confidentiality. Anything Cade says to you is privileged.”

“Bullshit. Not if he was planning to commit another crime. Even I know that.”

“Did Cade threaten the Haitian man? Did he make any move toward him?”

“No.”

“When he came to your place, did he tell you he did it?”

Louis was getting pissed. “No.”

“Then we have no legal obligation,” she said.

“What about a moral one?” Louis snapped.

“Morality doesn’t come in to play here. Besides, do you know what an accusation like that would do to our case at this point? We have a big enough problem with Cade’s image as it is.”

Louis tightened, turning away. “I don’t believe this.”

Susan gave him a minute, then touched his arm. “It’s just your cop brain kicking in, Kincaid. It’ll pass.”

“It’s wrong.”

“It’s the law.”

“Aren’t you the least bit worried Cade will get pissed at me or you and put a hole in one of us?”

Susan was trying to keep a steady gaze, but it wavered slightly as she spoke. “I’ve been threatened before. Goes with the territory.”

He leaned back against the wall.

“Look, forget this,” Susan said. “What else have you got? Did you hunt down Candace’s girlfriend yet?”

“No,” Louis said, folding the newspaper slowly.

“What about Bernhardt? Or the divorce? Anything new?”

He was silent.

“Damn it, Kincaid, what the hell have you been doing all day? I paged you four or five times.”

“I went to see Bob Ahnert and Willard Jagger.”

Susan’s mouth drew into a line. “Who is Bob Ahnert?”

“The detective who worked Kitty’s murder.”

She was silent. Louis could almost see her counting to ten. Or thinking of a way to take his head off while twenty cops watched.

“Well, that’s just great,” she said finally. “I’m grasping at straws and you’re out chasing irrelevant shit.”

Louis glared at her. “Ahnert is important.”

“For what?”

“Background. It’s important to show Duvall may have manipulated Cade’s case. It’s important to Cade’s motive.”

“Cade doesn’t have a motive because we’re trying to show he didn’t do it!”

Another man tried to push past them and Susan turned on him. “Can’t you wait?”

“Screw you, lady,” the man mumbled.

Louis took her by the shoulders and moved her aside. When the man passed, she shook her head.

“Reasonable doubt, Kincaid, reasonable doubt. That’s all I need to show. I’m not Perry Mason, for God’s sake. Real lawyers don’t prove who else did it, only that someone else could have. We can’t waste time-”

Louis heard Mobley’s name and looked over Susan’s head toward the front door. Mobley had come in and was chatting with some of his deputies at the bar.

Susan was still talking. “. . and Bernhardt and the wife are certainly more believable as suspects-”

“Excuse me,” Louis said.

Susan spotted Mobley and grabbed Louis’s arm. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t tell Mobley anything, please. You could take both of us down.”

He pulled away from her and walked to the bar, edging up to Mobley.

“We need to talk, Sheriff.”

“Well, it’s the Lone Ranger,” Mobley said. “Where’s Tonto?” He saw Susan approaching and raised a hand. “How,” he said solemnly.

She didn’t even look at either of them as she swept by.

“That woman could use a charm course,” Mobley said.

Louis saw Susan pause at the door and look back at him before she left. Louis looked back at Mobley.

Damn it. She was right. What was the point? The Haitian wasn’t going to get any deader. But Mobley could make life miserable for Susan, and Cade’s case could end up in the toilet. Okay, it could wait for now. God help them, though, if Cade got a burr up his ass because someone else pissed him off.

“What do you want, Kincaid?” Mobley asked.

“Never mind.”

“Good. It’s assholes and elbows at work and I don’t need any shit from you.”

Louis motioned to the bartender to bring both Mobley and himself a beer. When it arrived, Mobley looked at him.

“If that’s a bribe, I don’t come that cheap.”

“Not a bribe. Just incentive.”

“For what?”

Louis leaned on the bar, moving closer to Mobley. “I saw Bob Ahnert today.”

“I heard.”

“He indicated he wasn’t allowed to ask all the questions he needed to ask in the Kitty Jagger case. Said Dinkle stopped him.”

“Look, Kincaid, Howard Dinkle is like God in this town. And as much as I hate hearing about the golden days of Dinkle, I’m not going to let you pin a misconduct medal on a fellow cop, even though I hear you’re pretty good at that kind of thing.”

Louis let the comment pass. “Ahnert also said there is something in the file that can get those questions answered.”