Thicker Than Water

by P J Parrish

  Louis had the feeling Ahnert was including himself in that damnation.

  “But there was a quick arrest,” Louis said.

  “Folks were afraid Cade might start hunting in better neighborhoods.”

  Louis sensed a softening in Ahnert’s voice. “Do you believe Jack Cade killed her?”

  “Sheriff Dinkle felt we had our man,” he said.

  “What about you?”

  Ahnert hesitated. “I believe every piece of evidence should be examined and explained. Things that aren’t explained leave doubts. Doubts that don’t go away.”

  Louis let Ahnert’s words hang in the air as they both stared at the television. A clock ticked somewhere in the room.

  “Detective, what were the doubts?” Louis finally asked.

  Ahnert seemed frozen in the chair, but his fist closed slowly around the O’Sullivan’s matchbook.

  “Dinkle was a good sheriff. He just liked to keep things simple for the lawyers.”

  Louis leaned forward. “Are you saying you withheld evidence?”

  Ahnert shook his head. “Of course not. The lawyers had every piece of paper I collected.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Ahnert unwrapped his fist and looked down at the matchbook, taking a deep breath. “I just had a few more questions to ask and I wasn’t allowed to ask them.”

  “Dinkle stopped you?”

  Ahnert shrugged. “It was probably nothing. Nothing that would prove Jack Cade innocent. Just a few loose ends.”

  Louis clenched his jaw. Excuses from a cowardly old cop.

  “If you couldn’t ask the questions twenty years ago, let me ask them now,” Louis said. “What’s the harm? Dinkle’s dead. You’re about to retire—”

  Louis heard a car pull into the drive. Ahnert stood up and went to the window, bending a slat in the blinds.

  “My daughter-in-law is home.”

  “Detective,” Louis said, “I think you want to tell me something.”

  “You’d better leave now, Mr. Kincaid.”

  Louis stood up. “Okay, I get it. You got a lot of uniforms looking up to you. Maybe you don’t want your name brought up in this mess. I can understand that. But don’t leave me hanging on this. Jack Cade was convicted of killing Kitty Jagger. And this whole damn town is about to convict him for another murder.”

  Ahnert looked suddenly very tired. Louis drew in a breath, angry at himself for getting angry.

  “Detective, please,” Louis said.

  Ahnert pursed his lips, then nodded. “There are two things in the file you should look at.”

  “I don’t have the time to keep going through a file looking—”

  Ahnert’s hard blue eyes silenced him. “You have more time than I had, Kincaid.”

  Louis took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. “Okay, what about the file?”

  Ahnert hesitated. “There is something in there that should make you ask why is this here? And the other is something that should be there, but isn’t.”

  Louis felt his anger rising again. “Come on, man, don’t pull this Deep Throat act with me.”

  The front door opened. A moment later, a woman appeared at the door of the den, her arms filled with grocery bags. Her eyes went from Louis to Ahnert and she smiled.

  “Hey Dad, I see you got a visitor,” she said.

  “Yeah, but he’s just leaving,” Ahnert said. “Let me help you with those, Brenda.”

  “There’s more in the car,” she said, heading off to the kitchen.

  Ahnert went out the front door. Louis followed him out to the station wagon in the driveway. As Ahnert was about to reach in for a bag, Louis grabbed his arm.

  “Give me something real, someone to talk to,” Louis said.

  “Talk to Kitty,” Ahnert said.

  “Come on, Detective.”

  “That’s all I’m saying,” Ahnert said. “Talk to Kitty.”

  Louis let go of Ahnert’s arm. He thought of the sign outside Vince Carissimi’s autopsy room: Mortui Vivos Docent. The dead teach the living.

  “What, the autopsy report?” he asked.

  “Talk to Kitty,” Ahnert repeated. “But be careful.”

  “Of what?”

  Ahnert hoisted a bag of groceries up into his arms. “That you don’t start hearing Kitty talking back to you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The beeper went off. Louis grabbed it off his belt and tossed it on the passenger seat. He knew without looking that it was Susan again. He would eventually have to break down and call her. But not now.

  Now he wanted to calm the demons that had been swirling around in his brain since leaving Bob Ahnert’s house, and he didn’t want Susan yanking on his chain trying to reel him back to the Duvall case, deal or no deal.

  Talk to Kitty. Okay, he would go back and look at the autopsy report again. But he knew Ahnert meant more than that. Ahnert knew what every detective knew: Walk in the dead person’s shoes and you’ll find the killer.

  So now he was on his way to find Kitty Jagger’s home. And her father—if he was still alive.

  It didn’t take Louis long to find Edgewood Heights. It was north of downtown, an old neighborhood of small homes with the cookie-cutter, slapdash look of the Levittown boxes that had sprung up in the ’50s. It might have been a nice neighborhood in its day, populated by young couples just starting out. But now most of the homes needed work and had iron bars on the windows and rusted trucks in the drives. Louis suspected it had probably looked much the same when Kitty lived here.

  Louis pulled up in front of 5446 Balboa. The house was a small rectangle, a faded gray that had probably been blue once. There were empty flower boxes under the plain windows. As he went up the cracked sidewalk, Louis noticed the overgrown shrubs and bare flowerbeds, the brick edgers scattered in the dirt. A sun-bleached plastic flamingo lay by the front door.

  He knocked. He was about to give up when he heard the lock turn. The door opened and an old man squinted in the sunlight.

  “Yeah?”

  Louis knew from the police reports that Willard Jagger had been only forty-five when Kitty was murdered. This guy looked at least eighty.

  “Mr. Jagger?” Louis asked.

  The man retreated behind the door. “What you want?”

  “My name is Louis Kincaid. I’m an investigator and I’d like to talk to you about your daughter.”

  “Daughter? Ain’t got no daughter.”

  “You’re Willard Jagger, Kitty Jagger’s father?” Louis asked.

  Something passed over the man’s face. “Kitty?” he said. “You’re here about Kitty? Something happened to Kitty?”

  Louis hesitated. The guy was really confused, or sick maybe.

  “Mr. Jagger, may I come in?” Louis asked gently.

  Willard Jagger’s milky blue eyes were searching Louis’s face, like he was desperately trying to recognize him. He started to close the door. But Louis realized he was just unhooking a chain. The door swung open. Louis went in.

  Willard Jagger was standing in the middle of a small living room, looking back at Louis. He was wearing old baggy pants, a short-sleeved sports shirt and beat-up slippers.

  “I’m sorry. I get mixed up sometimes,” he said. He rubbed his stringy gray hair vigorously, his eyes moving around the room and coming back to Louis.

  “Who’d you say you were again?”

  “Louis Kincaid. I’m a private investigator.”

  “Like Mannix? Don’t care for that show too much. Too much violence . . .”

  Louis wasn’t sure how to handle this. It was clear Williard Jagger wasn’t well.

  “Can I get you an apple juice?” Willard said suddenly.

  Before Louis could say no, Willard shuffled off to the kitchen. Louis sat down on the worn sofa, letting his gaze travel around the living room while he waited for Willard to come back.

  The furniture was old Danish modern, the cushions a threadbare turquoise, the drapes a pattern of orange and t
urquoise squiggles. The carpet was worn orange shag, and a turquoise vinyl Barcalounger sat in one corner, guarded by a goosenecked floor lamp that looked like something out of The Jetsons. Over the sofa hung a large fake oil painting of Venice and every surface was covered with little ceramic dogs. There was an old blond Zenith console TV, a stack of albums resting against its side. Off in one corner, a large rotating fan sent the stale air swirling around Louis’s ankles.

  The room wasn’t dirty. But it felt like it was, like it hadn’t been opened to sunlight in years.

  Willard returned empty-handed. “I’m out,” he said.

  “That’s okay,” Louis said.

  Willard looked upset, but he settled into the Barcalounger across from Louis.

  “Could we talk about your daughter, Mr. Jagger?”

  “My daughter?”

  “Kitty . . . can we talk about Kitty?”

  Willard’s eyes were wandering around the room. “The home care lady comes once a week. On Fridays. I’ll have to tell her to get apple juice. The fella who brings me the box food, he never remembers the apple juice.” He was sitting rod-straight in the lounger, eyes on the dead TV, hands tapping lightly on the armrests.

  The fan whirred, stirring the fetid air.

  Louis hung his head. He wasn’t going to get anything out of this. He was about to get up when Willard spoke again.

  “Kitty . . .”

  Louis looked up at Willard.

  “She didn’t call,” he said. “She always called when she was going to be late. But she didn’t call.”

  Louis leaned forward. “She was working at the drive-in that night,” he said gently.

  Willard nodded. “Took the bus. She gets it right at the corner of McGregor and Linhart. Leaves her off at Evans Street. Only three block walk from there. She always took the bus. The number five down MacGregor. Only three blocks . . .”

  “Maybe she went out with friends that night after work?” Louis prodded.

  Willard shook his head. “She always called.”

  “What about boyfriends?”

  Willard shook his head harder. “No dating ’til she’s sixteen . . . we agreed on that.”

  Louis slid his notebook out of his jeans. “You and your daughter were close, Mr. Jagger?”

  He looked at Louis, a slight frown on his waxy face. “Huh?”

  “You cared about each other?”

  A small smile tipped Willard’s lips and he nodded. “Kitty took care of me,” he said. His eyes wandered back to the blank TV. “After Rosalie died, Kitty took care of me. Washed my shirts, made me grilled cheese sandwiches, took care of Rosalie’s flowers.”

  Rosalie was Kitty’s mother, Louis recalled from the police reports. She had died when Kitty was twelve.

  “What was Kitty like, Mr. Jagger?” Louis asked.

  Willard looked at Louis. “Like? Like her mother, I guess.” He smiled, his eyes brightening for a moment. “Pretty. God, Rosalie was pretty.”

  Louis shut his notebook with a sigh. He rose, his eyes traveling one last time around the room. This was such a lonely house, filled with shadows, memories and ghosts.

  He had a thought. “Mr. Jagger? Could you show me Kitty’s room?” he asked.

  Willard looked over at him, like he was seeing him for the first time. Then, he hoisted himself out of the lounger and started off down a hallway. Louis followed.

  They stopped at a closed door. There were some bright green and orange flower decals on the cheap wood. Louis waited, but Willard was just standing there, staring at the decals.

  “Close the door when you’re done,” he said, leaving Louis alone.

  The door stuck; Louis had to put a shoulder against it to open it. The air wafted out, musty but strangely sweet.

  The curtains were shut, casting the room in a pink glow. Louis reached inside and flipped on the light.

  Small, maybe ten-by-ten. Pale pink everywhere. A single bed, a tiny night stand and dresser. A small wire stand in the corner holding a record player.

  Louis went in. The bed was unmade, a nightgown left in the tangle of pink chenille and flowered sheets. A tattered sock monkey and a stuffed pink cat lay at the foot of the bed. A pile of clothes lay on the floor, mixed in with some scuffed white tennis shoes, a geography textbook and a blue looseleaf binder.

  His eyes swept over the walls. A poster of the Beatles in Gay 90s bathing suits, another from the surfing movie The Endless Summer, a garish psychedelic poster for Moby Grape at the Fillmore, and one from the movie Goldfinger.

  He went to the night stand. A tiny white lamp, a cheap transistor radio, two bottles of pink nail polish and a magazine. Louis picked it up. It was the February, 1966 issue of 16 Magazine: BEATLES 66 WOW-EE PIX! DC5 ON THE LOOSE! PETER & GORDON’S UNTOLD SECRETS!

  Louis put the magazine back in its place. He turned to the record player. It was an old model that played only 45s. Louis craned his neck to read the top one on the spindle. Leslie Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me.”

  The sweet smell was getting to him.

  He turned to the dresser. The top was a mess of brushes, rollers, makeup, perfume bottles and plastic jewelry. Spilled white dusting powder covered everything like a fine layer of snow.

  He slowly opened the top drawer. Maybe there would be a diary; girls wrote secrets in diaries. He picked carefully through the tangle of jewelry and junk. Nothing. He went on to the second drawer, gingerly moving aside the underclothes. The third drawer was just more clothes. Nothing . . .

  He turned his attention back to the mess on the top of the dresser. There was something touching about it, like all the paraphernalia was the stuff of some grand experiment. Girl metamorphosing to woman.

  Louis picked up a tube of lipstick. Yardley’s Peppermint Kiss. He slowly twirled it open. Frosty pink, like the inside of a shell.

  He set it down and picked up one of the half a dozen perfume bottles. It was called Heaven Scent. He brought it up to his nose and drew back.

  It was cloying sweet. It was the smell that still clung to the room after twenty years.

  He set the perfume down, letting out a long breath.

  Jesus...

  Time had stopped. He could almost see her, jumping out of bed, late for school, coming back and dumping her books, changing into her uniform before hurrying off to work.

  His eyes traveled slowly around the tiny room again. They had just left everything. Why hadn’t anyone packed her things away? And that old man sitting out in his lounge chair, like he was still waiting for her to walk in the door and make grilled cheese. It would be sick if it weren’t so damn sad.

  What about you, Kincaid? What are you doing in here, lurking around like some vulture picking at the bones?

  The sweet smell was making him sick. He wanted to get this over with and get out.

  But get what over with? He didn’t even know what he was looking for. He rummaged through the mess on the top of the dresser again. There was a small jewelry box. It was one of those boxes with the little twirling plastic ballerina inside, but the figure didn’t move when he opened it.

  More junk. Buttons. Flower Power. Don’t Trust Anyone Over Thirty. I Am a Human Being: Do Not Bend, Spindle or Mutilate.

  Snapshots at the bottom. Louis pulled them out. There were five, mostly shots of another girl, a plump redhead, taken at a beach. Louis briefly considered keeping them and trying to track down the girlfriend, but discarded the idea as futile.

  He stopped and pulled in a slow breath.

  It was a color snapshot of Kitty Jagger. She was laying on her side on a towel in the sand. Her skin was tan and she was wearing a two-piece bathing suit, pink checks with a band of ruffles across the bra top. Large brown eyes, full lips. Her hair hung in long yellow ribbons over the pink ruffles. She was smiling up at whoever had snapped the picture, her head propped up by one hand, her other hand draped over the deep curve of her bare brown waist.

  Louis eased himself down onto the edge of the bed, staring at the pi
cture.

  Fifteen . . .

  This was the first real picture he had seen of her. The blurry copy from the old newspaper article, that had shown a pretty girl in a sweater smiling obediently for a class photo.

  But this . . . this was not a girl.

  Louis squeezed his eyes shut. His head was starting to hurt from the smell. He opened his eyes.

  It would have been a seductive pose. If she had known. But Kitty Jagger didn’t know. He was sure; he could see it there in the guileless smile. She had absolutely no concept of her power.

  He rose slowly from the bed. He started to put the photo back with the others in the jewelry box. He hesitated, then slipped it in his back pocket.

  The bedroom door would not close. He had to give it a hard shove. When he went back out in the living room, Willard Jagger was still sitting in the turquoise lounger. The television was on to a soap opera, the sound turned low.

  Willard looked up at him blankly. Louis was afraid he wasn’t going to remember him.

  “You still here?” Willard said.

  Louis nodded. “Mr. Jagger, do you remember Kitty’s friends?”

  Willard just looked at him blankly.

  “Kitty had a girlfriend with red hair?” Louis prompted.

  Willard blinked several times, like something had suddenly registered. “Joyce,” he said.

  “You remember Joyce’s last name?”

  Willard just stared at him. “Joyce,” he said softly. The light went out in his eyes.

  Louis look a last look around the small living room. “I’m leaving now, Mr. Jagger,” he said. “Thank you for talking to me. And for letting me in her room.”

  “Did you close the door?”

  “Yes.”

  Willard nodded, his eyes locked on the television.

  Louis quickly let himself out the front door.

  His head was pounding as he got in the Mustang and headed back downtown. He couldn’t get that sickly sweet smell or the picture of Kitty out of his head. Or the idea that had just started to build. Did Kitty have another side to her that others didn’t see? Could she have elicited her killer somehow? A boyfriend, an unknown admirer? Shit . . . or Cade?