P. Parrish - Thicker Than Water

Brian was crying.

Mobley started toward them, but Scott waved him off. Scott knelt in front of Brian, leaned close and said something to him. After a moment, Brian shuddered and gently placed his forehead against his brother’s.

Mobley gave them a few seconds, then walked over.

“Stand up, Brian. You’re under arrest.”

Brian didn’t move. Finally, Scott helped his brother to his feet. Brian stood there, wavering, his face streaked, his eyes panicked. Scott took his brother’s face in his hands, looking him in the eyes.

“Brian, listen to me,” Scott said. “Don’t say a word, not one damn word. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Do you hear me?”

Brian closed his eyes.

Scott shook him. “Brian! Do you hear me?”

Brian nodded weakly. Scott let go.

Louis watched as a deputy led Brian away, Scott following. Mobley was giving orders to the deputies. Louis turned and walked back into the cabana.

He went back to the hole in the wall. He stared at the skeleton. The tilt of the skull made it look almost like it was in mourning.

He moved closer. He could see it was a female.

The red fabric was a skirt, deep brown stains of dried blood running down the front of it. The yellowed cloth was streaked with brown splotches. There was a pink band around the skull and a necklace of some kind hung between the clavicle and sternum.

Louis squatted down so he could see the necklace.

Dear God.

He heard the crunch of Mobley’s boots on the broken tile behind him.

Mobley let out a slow breath. “Who the hell is that?” he said softly.

Louis couldn’t take his eyes off the necklace. “I know who she is.”

The bones were laid out on the steel table.

She had been tall, Louis thought, as he stared at them. Just like her father, Bob Ahnert.

Louis sipped his coffee, his eyes going to the items that Vince had carefully laid out on a table nearby. A ragged red skirt, the yellowed blouse stained with brown blood. A beaded pink headband they had taken from the skull. The small white puka beads taken from around her vertebrae.

Louis stared at the skull, at the crack, high on the cheekbone. Vince had told him someone had hit Lou Ann Ahnert hard, hard enough to crack her face open.

Shit. He threw the empty styrofoam cup in the trash.

He thought he had it all figured out.

He had spent hours at the house, watching the techs dismantle the wall, carefully sorting the bones and scraping the hard dried blood off the plywood behind them. He had stayed as they went back through the house, searching for anything that might have been missed. They were working two homicides now-Kitty Jagger’s and Lou Ann Ahnert’s. They still had found no evidence that Kitty had been killed there. And they didn’t know who had killed Lou Ann Ahnert. But at least they knew now that Brian Brenner had something to hide.

A sound behind him made Louis turn. Christ, it was Bob Ahnert.

He was standing at the door, his beefy face drawn, his eyes red. Louis knew that Mobley had already told him that remains had been found and that it was suspected the puka beads belonged to Lou Ann. It could all be confirmed through dental records later. But Louis had not expected Ahnert to show up here.

Damn. Mobley had gone down the hall for a cup of coffee. Louis started toward Ahnert.

“Is that her?”

Ahnert’s words stopped Louis in his tracks. Something told him to just step aside. Bob Ahnert’s eyes were fixed on the table. He came forward slowly.

He stared at the bones for a long time, his face slack, his eyes empty. There was nothing there, nothing in his expression.

“Detective-” Louis said.

Ahnert was shaking his head slowly. “That’s not Lou Ann, it’s just bones,” he said. “Just bones.”

Then, his eyes skittered to the table where the clothes lay.

He went to the table. Louis moved to his side. Ahnert was looking at the clothing. Something in his expression changed, shifted slightly, like he was focusing in on one small thing.

“Oh, Jesus,” he whispered.

He started to reach for the puka beads, but Louis grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t,” he said gently. “It’s evidence.”

Ahnert looked at Louis. His eyes teared and he moved away. Louis let him go.

Louis stood there, looking down at the clothing. He heard weeping. He turned and went to Bob Ahnert, putting a hand on the detective’s shoulders. Ahnert continued to sob softly until they both heard the snap of Mobley’s boots in the tiled hall way.

Ahnert turned, wiping at his face, drawing quick breaths.

The door opened and Mobley stopped, seeing Ahnert. He sized things up immediately and cleared his throat.

“Bob, I’m sorry-”

Head bowed, Ahnert brushed past him and was gone.

Mobley watched him go, then turned to Louis. “How’d he take it?”

“Hard.”

Mobley walked to the table, looking down at the bones. Louis came up next to him.

“Hard to believe it about Brian,” Mobley said. “You think you know people.”

Mobley moved away. When Louis turned to look, Mobley had sagged into a chair, hands on his knees. Louis went to sit down next to him, leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. For a long time, neither spoke.

“The heir and the spare,” Mobley murmured.

Louis looked over at him.

“I keep thinking of that, what you called them,” Mobley said. “It was true. Brian was always kind of. . an afterthought.” He let out a tired sigh. “I remember he used to come and watch us at football practice, this chubby zit-faced kid standing out by the chain-link fence by himself, watching his brother. He always wanted to hang with us afterward. We didn’t want him around. But Scott, he’d drag him along anyway.”

Louis was thinking of Kitty and what Brian had done to her. And what he might have done to Lou Ann Ahnert. He didn’t want to hear anything about how tough Brian had it.

“It must have been hard,” Mobley went on. “Your mom’s dead, your father’s gone all the time. And your only role model is a brother who’s smarter, more popular, better looking, than you ever had a prayer of being. Shit, do you love him or hate him?”

Louis closed his eyes, fatigue beginning to take over his body. Mobley nudged him.

“You okay?”

“I just want to go home.”

“Brian will be home before we are.”

“He made bail already?”

Mobley shrugged. “He will in a few hours, you watch. Come on. I’ll drive you back to your car.”

Louis followed Mobley outside and they headed toward his cruiser. It was past three in the morning and the air was wet and still, enveloping him like a warm blanket.

Louis settled back in the seat and closed his eyes, lulled by the squawks and chattering from Mobley’s radio. But even that did not stop the snapping in his brain.

The images were fast-forwarding like a high-speed slide show, propelled by Mobley’s talk of Brian Brenner. He saw Kitty’s empty grave. Willard Jagger’s worn face. A pink dress on a lifeless body. Bones in a cabana wall. And the tortured look on Brian’s face when he saw them.

The car stopped and Louis sat up. They were in the parking lot in front of the Brenner law offices. Mobley mumbled something about getting some sleep and Louis got out. As Mobley drove off, Louis stopped in the street, looking up at the top floor of the granite building in front of him.

I put her in the dump.

Why the hell did Brian say that? Had he been so terrified and confused that he simply mixed up his victims?

Louis unlocked the Mustang and got in. And why had Brian shown up at the mansion during the search? He wasn’t the type of man who hid his feelings easily. He hadn’t even seemed nervous at the cabana-until they had found Lou Ann’s bones.